"La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid"

(Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderios de LaClos - 1782)

Imperialism And Slavery
By Herbert Spencer


"You shall submit! We are masters and we will make you acknowledge it!" These words express the sentiment which sways the British nation in its dealings with the Boer republics; and this sentiment it is which, definitely displayed in this case, pervades indefinitely the political feeling now manifesting itself as Imperialism. Supremacy, where not clearly imagined, is vaguely present in the background of consciousness. Not the derivation of the word only, but all its uses and associations, imply the thought of predominance - imply a correlative subordination. Actual or potential coercion of others, individuals or communities, is necessarily involved in the conception.

There are those, and unhappily they form the great majority, who think there is something noble (morally as well as historically) in the exercise of command - in the forcing of others to abandon their own wills and fulfil the will of the commander. I am not about to contest this sentiment. I merely say that there are others, unhappily but few, who think it ignoble to bring their fellow creatures into subjection, and who think the noble thing is not only to respect their freedom but also to defend it. Leaving this matter undiscussed, my present purpose is to show those who lean towards Imperialism, that the exercise of mastery inevitably entails on the master himself some form of slavery, more or less pronounced. The uncultured masses, and even the greater part of the cultured, will regard this statement as absurd; and though many who have read history with an eye to essentials rather than trivialities know that this is a paradox in the right sense - that is, true in fact though not seeming true - even they are not fully conscious of the mass of evidence establishing it, and will be all the better for having illustrations recalled. Let me begin with the earliest and simplest, which well serves to symbolize the whole.

Here is a prisoner with hands tied and a cord round his neck (as suggested by figures in Assyrian bas-reliefs) being led home by his savage conqueror, who intends to make him a slave. The one, you say, is captive and the other free? Are you quite sure the other is free? He holds one end of the cord, and unless he means to let his captive escape, he must continue to be fastened by keeping hold of the cord in such way that it cannot easily be detached. He must be himself tied to the captive while the captive is tied to him. In other ways his activities are impeded and certain burdens are imposed on him. A wild animal crosses the track, and he cannot pursue. If he wishes to drink of the adjacent stream, he must tie up his captive lest advantage be taken of his defenceless position. Moreover he has to provide food for both. In various ways, then, he is no longer completely at liberty; and these ways adumbrate in a simple manner the universal truth that the instrumentalities by which the subordination of others is effected, themselves subordinate the victor, the master, or the ruler.

The coincidence in time between the South African war and the recent outburst of Imperialism, illustrates the general truth that militancy and Imperialism are closely allied - are, in fact, different manifestations of the same social condition. It could not, indeed, be otherwise. Subject races or subject societies, do not voluntarily submit themselves to a ruling race or a ruling society: their subjection is nearly always the effect of coercion. An army is the agency which achieved it, and an army must be kept ever ready to maintain it. Unless the supremacy has actual or potential force behind it there is only federation, not Imperialism. Here, however, as above implied, the purpose is not so much to show that an imperial society is necessarily a militant society, as to show that in proportion as liberty is diminished in the societies over which it rules, liberty is diminished within its own organization.

The earliest records furnish an illustration. Whether in the times of the pyramid-builders the power of the Egyptian autocrat, which effected such astounding results, was qualified by an elaborate system of restraints, we have no evidence; but there is proof that in later days he was the slave of the governmental organization.

"The laws subjected every action of his private life to as severe a scrutiny as his behaviour in the administration of affairs. The hours of washing, walking, and all the amusements and occupations of the day, were settled with precision, and the quantity as well as the quality of his food were regulated by law." (Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, Birch's ed. of Wilkinson, vol. I, 166.)
Moreover the relation between enslavement of foreign peoples and enslavement of the nation which conquered them, is shown by an inscription at Karnak, which describes "how bitterly the country was paying the price of its foreign conquests, in its oppression by it standing army." (Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt, ii. 252.)

Turn we now to a society of widely different type but exhibiting the same general truths - that of Sparta. The conquering race, or Spartans proper, who had beneath them the Perici and the Helots, descendants of two subject races, were not only supreme over these but twice became the supreme race of the Peleponnesus [sic - RTL]. What was the price they paid for their "imperial" position? The individual Spartan, master as he was over slaves and semi-slaves, was himself in bondage to the incorporated society of Spartans. Each led the life not which he himself chose but the life dictated by the aggregate of which he formed one unit. And this life was a life of strenuous discipline, leaving no space for culture, or art, or poetry, or other source of pleasure. He exemplified in an extreme degree the Grecian doctrine that the citizen does not belong to himself or to his family but to his city.

If instead of the small and simple community of Sparta we take the vast and complex empire of Rome, we find this essential connexion between imperialism and slavery even more conspicuous. I do not refer to the fact that three-fourths of those who peopled Italy in imperial days were slaves, chained in the fields when at work, chained at night in their dormitories, and those who were porters chained to the doorways - conditions horrible to contemplate - but I refer to the fact that the nominally free part of the community consisted of grades of bondmen. Not only did citizens stand in that bondage implied by military service, complete or partial, under subjection so rigid that an officer was to be dreaded more than an enemy, but those occupied in civil or semi-civil life, were compelled to work for the public. "Everyone was treated in fact as a servant of the State ... the nature of each man's labour was permanently fixed for him." The society was formed of fighting serfs, working serfs, cultivating serfs, official serfs. And then what of the supreme head of this gigantic bureaucracy into which Roman society had grown - the Emperor? He became a puppet of the Pretorian guard, which while a means of safety was a cause of danger. Moreover he was in daily bondage to routine. As Gibbon says, "the emperor was the first slave of the ceremonies he imposed." Thus in a conspicuous manner Rome shows how, as in other cases, a society which enslaves other societies enslaves itself.

The same lesson is taught by those ages of seething confusion - of violence and bloodshed - which the collapse of the Roman empire left: an empire which dwells in the minds of many as something to be admired and emulated - the many who forgive any horrors if only their brute love of mastery is gratified, sympathetically when not actually. Passing over those sanguinary times in which the crimes of Clovis and Fredegonde and Brunehaut were typical, we come in the slow course of things to the emergence of the feudal régime - a régime briefly expressed by the four words, suzerains, vassals, serfs, slaves - a régime which, along with the perpetual struggles for supremacy among local rulers, and consequent chronic militancy, was characterized by the unqualified power of each chief or ruler, count or duke, within his own territory - a graduated bondage of all below him. The established form - "I am your man," uttered by the vassal on his knees with apposed hands, expressed the relation of one grade to another throughout the society; and then, as usual, the master of slaves was himself enslaved by his appliances for maintaining life and power. He had the perpetual burden of arms and coat of mail, and the precautions to be taken now against assassination now against death by poison. And then when we come to the ultimate state in which the subordination of minor rulers by a chief ruler had become complete, and all counts and dukes were vassals of the king, we have not only the bondage entailed on the king by State-business with its unceasing anxieties, but the bondage of ceremonial with its dreary round. Speaking of this in France in the time of Louis le Grand, Madame de Maintenon remarks - "Save those only who fill the highest stations, I know of none more unfortunate than those who envy them. If you could only form an idea of what it is?"
Merely referring to the extreme subjection of the ruler to his appliances for ruling which was reached in Japan, where the god-descended Mikado, imprisoned by the requirements of his sacred state, was debarred from ordinary freedoms, and in whose recluse life there were at one time such penalties as sitting for three hours daily on the throne - passing over, too, the case of China, where, as Prof. Douglas [Online editor's note: probably Robert K. Douglas, turn-of-the-century author of a number of works on China. - RTL] tells us of the emperor "his whole life is one continual round of ceremonial observances," and "from the day in which he ascends the throne to the time when he is carried to his tomb in the Eastern Hills, his hours and almost minutes have special duties appointed to them by the Board of Rites"; we may turn now to the conspicuous example furnished by Russia. Along with that unceasing subjugation of minor nationalities by which its imperialism is displayed, what do we see within its own organization? We have its vast army, to service in which every one is actually or potentially liable; we have an enormous bureaucracy ramifying everywhere and rigidly controlling individual lives; we have an expenditure ever outrunning resources and calling for loans. As a result of the pressure felt personally and pecuniarily, we have secret revolutionary societies, perpetual plots, chronic dread of social explosions; and while everyone is in danger of Siberia, we have the all-powerful head of this enslaved nation in constant fear for his life. Even when he goes to review his troops, rigorous precautions have to be taken by a supplementary army of soldiers, policemen, and spies, some forming an accompanying guard, some lying in wait here and there to prevent possible attacks; while similar precautions, which from time to time fail, have ever to be taken against assassination by explosion, during drives and railway-journeys. What portion of life is not absorbed in government-business and religious observances is taken up in self-preservation.

And now what is the lesson? Is it that in our own case imperialism and slavery, everywhere else and at all times united, are not to be united? Most will say Yes. Nay they will join, as our Poet Laureate [Online editor's note: Alfred Austin. - RTL] lately did in the title to some rhymes, the words "Imperialism and Liberty"; mistaking names for things as of old. Gibbon writes: -
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom." (Decline and Fall, i. 68.)
"Free!" thinks the Englishman. "How can I be other than free if by my vote I share in electing a representative who helps to determine the national transactions, home and foreign?" Delivering a ballot-paper he identifies with the possession of those unrestrained activities which liberty implies; though, to take but one instance, a threatened penalty every day reminds him that his children must be stamped with the State-pattern, not as he wills but as others will.

But let us note how, along with the nominal extension of constitutional freedom, there has been going on actual diminution of it. There is first the fact that the legislative functions of Parliament have been decreasing while the Ministry has been usurping them. Important measures are not now brought forward and carried by private members, but appeal is made to the government to take them up: the making of laws is gradually lapsing into the hands of the executive. And then within the executive itself the tendency is towards placing power in fewer hands. Just as in past times the Cabinet grew out of the Privy Council by a process of restriction, so now a smaller group of ministers is coming to exercise some of the functions of the whole group. Add to which we have subordinate executive bodies, like the Home Office, the Board of Trade, the Board of Education, and the Local Government Board, to which there have been deputed the powers both of making certain kinds of laws and enforcing them: government by administrative order. In like manner by taking for government-purposes more and more of the time which was once available for private members; by the cutting down of debates by the closure; and now by requiring the vote for an entire department to be passed en bloc, without criticism of details; we are shown that while extension of the franchise has been seeming to increase the liberties of citizens, their liberties have been decreased by restricting the spheres of action of their representatives. All these are stages in that concentration of power which is the concomitant of Imperialism.*. And how this tendency works out where militancy becomes active, we are shown by the measures taken in South Africa - the proclamation of martial law by a governor, who thereby becomes in so far a despot, and the temporary suspension of constitutional government: a suspension which many so-called loyalists would make complete.

Passing by this, however, let us note the extent to which the citizen is the servant of the community in disguised ways. Certain ancient usages will best make this clear. During times when complete slavery was mingled with serfdom, the serf, tied to his plot, rendered to his lord or seigneur many dues and services. These services, or corvées, varied, according to the period and the place, from one day's labour to six days' labour in the week - from partial slavery to complete slavery. Labours and exactions of these kinds were most of them in course of time commuted for money: the equivalence between so much tax paid to the lord and so much work done for him, being thus distinctly recognized. Now in so far as the burden is concerned, it comes to the same thing if for the feudal lord we substitute the central government, and for local money-payments we substitute general taxes. The essential question for the citizen is what part of his work goes to the power which rules over him, and what part remains available for satisfying his own wants. Labour demanded by the State is just as much corvée to the State as labour demanded by the feudal lord was corvée to him, though it may not be called so, and though it may be given in money instead of in kind; and to the extent of this corvée each citizen is a serf to the community. Some five years ago M. Guyot [Online editor's note: Yves Guyot, of the French Liberal School. - RTL] calculated that in France, the civil and military expenditure absorbs some 30 per cent. of the national produce, or, in other words, that 90 days annually of the average citizen's labour is given to the State under compulsion.

Though to a smaller extent, what holds in France holds here. Not forgetting the heavy burden of State-corvées which the Imperialism of past days bequeathed to us - the 150 millions of debt incurred for the American war and the 50 millions we took over with the East India Company's possessions, the interest on both of which entails on citizens extra labour annually, let us limit ourselves to the burdens Imperialism now commits us to. >From a statistical authority second to none, I learn that 100 millions of annual expenditure requires from the average citizen the labour of one day in every seventeen, that is to say, nearly eighteen days in the year. As the present permanent expenditure on army and navy plus the interest on the debt recently contracted amounts to about 76 millions, it results that 13 days' labour per annum is thus imposed on the average citizen as corvée. And then there comes the £153,000,000 spent, and to be spent, on the south African and Chinese wars, to which may be added, for all subsequent costs of pensions, repairs, compensations, and re-instatements, a sum which will raise the total to more than £200,000,000. What is the taxation which direct expenditure and interest on loans will entail, the reader may calculate. He has before him the data for an estimate of the extra number of days annually, during which Imperialism will require him to work for the Government - extra number, I say, because to meet the ordinary State-expenditure, there must always be a large number of days spent by him as a State-labourer. Doubtless one who is satisfied by names instead of things, as the Romans were, will think this statement absurd; but he who understands by freedom the ability to use his powers for his own ends, with no greater hindrance than is implied by the like ability of each other citizen, will see that in whatever disguised ways he is obliged to use his powers for State-purposes, he is to that extent a serf of the State; and that as fast as our growing Imperialism augments the amount of such compulsory service, he is to that extent more and more a serf of the State.

And then beyond the roundabout services given by the citizen under the form of direct taxes and under the form of indirect taxes, severally equivalent to so many days' work that would else have elevated the lives of himself and his belongings, there will presently come the actual or potential service as a soldier, demanded by the State to carry out an imperialist policy - a service which, as those in South Africa can tell us, often inflicts under the guise of fine names a slavery harder than that which the negro bears, with the added risk of death.

Even were it possible to bring home to men the extent to which their lives are, and presently will be still more, subordinated to State-requirements, so as to leave them less and less owned by themselves, little effect would be produced. So long as the passion for mastery overrides all others the slavery that goes along with Imperialism will be tolerated. Among men who do not pride themselves on the possession of purely human traits, but on the possession of traits which they have in common withy brutes, and in whose mouths "bull-dog courage" is equivalent to manhood - among people who take their point of honour from the prize-ring, in which the combatant submits to pain, injury, and risk of death, in the determination to prove himself "the better man," no deterrent considerations like the above will have any weight. So long as they continue to conquer other peoples and to hold them in subjection, they will readily merge their personal liberties in the power of the State, and hereafter as heretofore accept the slavery that goes along with Imperialism.

From Facts and Comments (1902) by Herbert Spencer (1820 -1903)

"Socially and psychologically repressed, people are drawn to spectacles ofviolent conflict that allow their accumulated frustrations to explode insocially condoned orgasms of collective pride and hate. Deprived of significantaccomplishments in their own work and leisure, they participate vicariously inmilitary enterprises that have real and undeniable effects. Lacking genuinecommunity, they thrill to the sense of sharing in a common purpose, if only thatof fighting some common enemy, and react angrily against anyone who contradictsthe image of patriotic unanimity."

~ Ken Knabb (Bureau of Public Secrets)

Don't cry because it's over.
Smile because it happened.

(Dr. Seuss)

I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for all of us to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do any more. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my co-workers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world.

-Rachel Corrie

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours,
and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese,
harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

ｩ Mary Oliver.

Brave New World Revisited Huxley said:

"'...The older dictators failed because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. Nor did they possess a really effective system of mind-manipulation. Under a scientific dictator education will really work--with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.'"

Brave New World Revisited Huxley said:

"'...The older dictators failed because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. Nor did they possess a really effective system of mind-manipulation. Under a scientific dictator education will really work--with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.'"

Contrast [the USA 9/11 reaction, when 19 Arabs with boxcutters, directed by an Afghan caveman, penetrate the multi-billion-dollar U.S. national air defense system and strike deadly blows at the heart of the defense establishment in Washington and the financial center in New York] with the Soviet reaction when a German teenager, Mathias Rust (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_Rust), landed on a bridge close to Red Square in 1987. Gorbachev fired the defense minister, anti-air defense commander, and more than 2,000 other officers.

This Iraq war idea has been a winner all around. We remove one of Iran's most bitter enemies and replace him with a nascent Muslim theocracy wedded to Tehran. We give radical Islamist groups a once-in-a-lifetime recruitment tool and a training area for their terrorists. We give already violent American street gangs the training they need to turn city streets into free-fire zones. And we spend ourselves into the poorhouse doing it.

Steven Hart

We are almost totally illeterate, milked like cows and sheared like sheep

It is a commonplace that "you can't keep secrets in Washington" or "in a democracy," that "no matter how sensitive the secret, you're likely to read it the next day in the New York Times." These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn't in a fully totalitarian society. ... But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public. This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy. The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.

Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Did the military people that ran Able Danger really say that their pre 911 investigation of 911 was thwarted by their bosses? There are news reports that say it was. Why isn’t this a big story. Shouldn’t any reasonable person be suspicious about this? This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a reasonable question.

Are there really some of the 19 terrorists still alive. There are news reports that say yes. Even if it’s not true, why has the main stream media completely ignored these foreign news stories? Shouldn’t any reasonable person be suspicious about this? This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a reasonable question.

Is there a ISA CIA connection on funding of Atta? News reports say there is. That’s suspicious. Even if there is not any connection, why doesn’t anybody look into it? Shouldn’t any reasonable person be suspicious? Some kids in Florida have discovered more by talking to taxicab drivers than the investigators did. Why? The investigators didn’t ask the questions. “I would have told them, but they didn’t ask me about it.” Where have you heard that before? That is suspicious. It is not a conspiracy theory, it is a reasonable question.

Did the 911 commission really say that the people that funding 911 were irrelevant? That’s suspicious. It can’t possibly be true. But it is. Why won’t they track the money? Shouldn’t any reasonable person be suspicious about this? Do they want to find out who did it or not? This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a reasonable question.

Why don’t they release the tapes of the pentagon? That’s suspicious. Even if the tapes show everything exactly as they say, why don’t they release the tapes? Shouldn’t any reasonable person be suspicious? This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s a reasonable question.

Did the people that ran the 911 commission really say that they considered referring NORAD and the FCC to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution for lying to the commission? News reports say they did. That’s suspicious. Keen said that they did an internal investigation instead. Isn’t it reasonable to want to know what they lied about? Shouldn’t that make any reasonable person suspicious? This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s a reasonable question.

Are they really saying that they couldn’t track airplanes if the US was attacked by Russia, China and Cuba, because they airplanes could turn their transponders off? Shouldn’t that make any reasonable person suspicious? This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s a reasonable question.

Could an inexperienced pilot do the maneuver to hit the Pentagon like he did? Some pilots say that he couldn’t. That’s suspicious. Did the G-forces really exceed the limits of the airplane’s software? Some people say it did. This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s a reasonable question.

The Law of Allowing
Stuart Wilde
September 11th, 2006

In a world where everyone likes to insist they are right and people judge and interfere all the time, the law of allowing stands apart as a spiritual idea.

In essence, it says that we ought to live and let live and allow others whatever perspective they wish, even if one thinks that perspective is very wrong. The way to practice the law of allowing is to agree with people you don’t agree with

Watching the news in the US one can see how they pump their views relentlessly. Fox News for example is a crass propaganda show, it has very little to do with the impartial disseminating of the days’ events. The power of a TV show to influence people to accept evil war-like ideas is a great shame. It is a global fault of the western ego to think others have to be like us, and it is a part of your maturity to allow others to be different.

When you watch the ludicrous nature of Blair and Bush with his Redneck Reich insisting on democracy, it looks so much like the southern preachers on TV that offer hell and damnation to all that don’t agree. Democracy never did anything for workers in the west, it has been a terrible disappointment for the most part; all it ever gave us was crippling laws and various political shades of the Fat Controllers. Why does anyone think it might help the Iraqis? Daft…such silliness.

Wouldn’t it be great if the law of allowing was installed and people didn’t have to be ruled by democracy’s endless stream of psychopaths, and people could be allowed to rule themselves. That is a novel idea. Imagine being able to think of your own accord without some redneck bovver boy from Fox News telling you what’s what and what is permissible and what is not.

I have always seen spirituality and individuality as the same thing, the act of developing a new consciousness, one that is original, and then the law of allowing follows naturally, whereby you allow the same individuality and freedom to others. Allowing is benevolent and warm, while insisting is ugly and nasty. And when people have to conform to some silly politician, or to a religious idea then that is usually someone’s ego in the act of empire building, corralling sheep.

And while it may pleasure the ego of those involved in these power trips it’s not a spiritual idea, as the truly spiritual man or woman is not keen on entrapment and empire building, they want to see people as creative and free.

To become that way yourself you have to offer it to others, that is why the law of allowing is a sophisticated idea. Of course, the first beneficiary of your law of allowing must be yourself because, if you are controlling and vindictive towards yourself, you become your own Fat Controller with supreme power over your life.

In letting others free you allow yourself to become more free. Nice

©Stuart Wilde 2006

"Wild chimps reveal the natural contexts of territoriality, war, male
cooperation, solidarity and sharing, nepotism, sexism, xenophobia,
infanticide, murder, cannibalism, polygyny, and mating competition
between kin groups of males -- behaviors that have evolved through
sexual selection. Also significant is the fact that none of these apes
learned these violent behaviors by watching TV or by being victims of
socioeconomic handicaps -- poor schools, broken homes, bad fathers,
illegal drugs, easy weapons, or any other sociological condition. Nor
were these apes spurred to war by any political, religious, or
economic ideology or by the rhetoric of an insane demagogue. They also
were not seeking an 'identity' or buckling under peer pressure.
Instead, they were obeying instincts, coded in the male psyche,
dictating that they must win against other males."


THE DARK SIDE OF MAN: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence,
by Michael P. Ghiglieri; Perseus, 1999; p. 176

"Once I even told Mr. Asahara how I felt. 'Don't you think a lot of the people here are weird?' I asked. 'That's not true," he replied."

- Harumi Iwakura (on her experiences as a young woman renunciate in the Aum Shinrikyou cult)

"Willing too is merely an experience. It comes when it comes, and I cannot bring it about."

- Wittgenstein

The Torah specified that landowners could not harvest the corners of their fields, nor pick up the dropped grain, so that it could be used by the poor and the travelers.

'Let Every Breath ... Secrets of the Russian Breath Masters'
by Vladimir Vasiliev

Product Details

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HEALTH - Want to keep your natural teeth into your golden years?

---

I've known this for years, but my family dentist backs it up with his hearty support. Use a homemade tooth powder made from a 50/50 mix of baking soda and table salt. I use sea salt but any granulated salt will do. Never used tooth powder before? It's easy. Just put a pinch on your palm and wet your toothbrush and push it down into the powder in your palm. Hold it there till the powder gets wet and then turn the toothbrush sideways so you can scrape all the wet powder onto the toothbrush bristles from your palm. It kind of makes a pile of wet powder on top of the bristles. Rinse your mouth and brush as usual.

My dentist tells me that you can brush much harder when using this 50/50 mix of baking soda and salt. In fact, he goes so far as to say that if you're not getting a bit of blood from your gums at each brushing, you're doing something wrong. Some of you might like to disagree with me and my dentist. But I'll be 47 years old this month and I still have all of my original teeth. I've been brushing with baking soda and salt powder for over 20 years now. The baking soda neutralizes the acids that eat away the protective layers of enamel from your teeth. And the salt acts as a soother and anti-bacterial rinse. Try it, you'll like it. And it's WAAAAY cheaper than commercial toothpaste and doesn't have that killer flouride in it. Just food for thought.

Edited to add:

Why use homemade tooth powder instead of colgate or some other commercial toothpaste? Well, commercial toothpastes do their cleaning with abrasives that actually wear away the enamel of your teeth over time. To be fair, some do and some don't. But why take the chance? Make your own tooth powder and don't give it another thought. Keep your natural smile for the rest of your natural life. Ever read the ingredient label on a commercial toothpaste?

__________________
Take only what you need from this world. Not everything you can get your hands on.