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From: cda@ucbentropy.berkeley.edu
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Subject: Re: New Chernobyl figures
Message-ID: <949@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Tue, 8-Jul-86 11:48:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: jade.949
Posted: Tue Jul  8 11:48:37 1986
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In article <884@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

<I didn't say "all" hunter-gatherer societies.  But just about all American
<Indian cultures fit into this category of sexual oppression.  (And that's
<the example you were citing.)

Please tell me what you've read that indicates American Indian cultures
were predominately patriarchial and patrilineal prior to the arrival of
the French, English, and Spanish in the New World.  

<As for what kind of health they enjoyed:  You are incredibly ignorant
<if you think the health problems were a function of how well they could
<support a hunter-gatherer economy.  I'm really disturbed at how incredibly
<ignorant the "Let's all live with nature" sorts are about the health
<advances made just in the last two centuries.  C-sections are a RECENT
<development.  There are NO primitive cultures that had a solution to this
<problem.  Breech delivery?  Mother dies.  Frequently the child dies.  
<C-section is just ONE example, one near and dear to me because my wife
<had to have a C-section for our daughter.  In a primitive culture, she
<would have died, slowly and in agony.

In spite of the fact that the use of C-sections has increased rapidly in
this country in the past ten years, we have a higher mortality rate for
births than many countries in Europe where home deliveries
are the norm.  I don't consider myself especially ignorant about medical
advances, I just don't consider all of modern medicine an advance.
For instance, in spite of the enormous sums of money that have been
poured into cancer research and the wide variety of expensive treatments
that have been promoted for cancer in the past ten years, the cancer
survival rate remains unchanged. And when you balance the few advances 
that have been made against the tremendous deterioration of our environment,
and the very brief and unhealthy lives of many people in third world countries,
I have to wonder if the human race as a whole is any healthier (it's certainly
not happier) than it was in a "primitive" state.

<< <The Indians also didn't pay taxes.
<< 
<< One more argument in favor of abandoning our present lifestyle...
<< 
<No, one more argument in favor of abandoning government.

An excess of government IS our present lifestyle....

Charlotte Allen