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                AFRICA FEST 2007 - AUGUST 11, 2007 at WARNER PARK

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Socialism is dead. It provides no long-term incentive for economic progress and growth of countries or people. How many Socialist world powers are there today? You see, the evil in men's hearts will always cause some of us to want to have more than others. In Socialist governments, the people at the top who have everything are truly stealing from everyone else. In Capitalist societies, if you can find an untapped niche and get someone to pay you for what you do, what you gain is yours. Knowledge and ideas can be translated into capital in such societies. 

Does this author read the reports from the Trilateral Commission? Western Europe, Pacific Asia and North America have already decided what they're going to do with the rest of the world...and they did not consult with South America nor Africa when making their decisions. 

I find it interesting that Mexico and all those little Asian countries have thrown their lot in with W. Europe and Canada & the U.S. Members of other countries have been invited to the meetings, but they are not members. There's a reason for that. 

From the article: "The strategic objective of the American regime, the armed imposer of global neoliberalism is "not to tolerate the existence of any power capable of resisting the injunctions of Washington". Spare me. This intellectual  "thrashing around" is only so much 'busywork'. What is it accomplishing? 

Let us assume the Trilateral Commission really is running the world behind the scenes. Is this essay going to stop them? No. Even if this essay were true, would it cause them to change the nature of their mission? No. Is this essay going to create stable governments and viable democracies in any country? No. 

Let us now assume that if enough people got together united under a common cause they could effect change in a country, a continent, or a region. What would the common cause have to be? It would have to be something viable, that will endure outside of and apart from the people who are starting it. It also has to be something real and positive, that will affect change in people's lives and make a difference. That's the problem. You can't cause change in a nation, a continent, or a region by "hating Bush" or "hating American hegemony." That won't cut it. Those are emotionally driven sentiments and you can't create change based on sentiment. Not gonna happen. These sentiments also will not create unity in the people they are attracting. How far did the Dems get in having a unified platform with their "anyone but Bush" slogan? What does that mean? Where's the unity in that? 

You can't change the world by relying on the phrase, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." You'll get stabbed in the back that way. 

There are a lot of people writing, all over the world, expressing their displeasure with the way 'America' is running the 'world.' How effective are their protests as long as they remain separated? If they truly want to make changes, they need to unite, under a common cause, with some real objectives and a real agenda. Then they need to leverage the strength and power in their numbers and  in their ideas and begin to act as one in an opposing force. They will also have to have the fortitude to stand and to withstand and their ideas have to be put into play; they have to know what they are going to do and decide how they are going to do it. Start one country at a time. If you don't like how things are being done, then go in and do it better. 

Africa is in danger right now from China. China truly could care less about any human's rights, not even her own people and the environment means nothing. Will the world step in and halt China's march through Africa? Nope. It won't. 

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"In the days before volcanoes were invented, lava had to be hand carried down from the mountains and poured on the sleeping villagers.
This took a great deal of time." 

----- Original Message -----
From: Sam Jimba <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 10:45 pm
Subject: There are alternatives (2)
To: [log in to unmask]


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>  
>                  AFRICA FEST 2007 - AUGUST 11, 2007 at WARNER PARK
>  
>  *****************************************************************
>  
>  There are alternatives (2)
>  By Edwin Madunagu IN 2004, the New York-based Monthly Review Press 
> put out a 130-page book titled: The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and 
> the Americanisation of the World. The author of the book is Samir 
> Amin, a veteran intellectual activist of African origin, but of global 
> influence. Three years later, in July 200I, the Monthly Review 
> magazine devoted its July/August double-issue to the "revolt in Latin 
> America". The two publications are complementary. They deal with the 
> same question, namely, how the poor and weak peoples and nations of 
> the world can liberate themselves from the present extremely unequal 
> and brutal global order; or, rather, alternative ways of organising 
> society and ordering the world-for the benefits of the poor, the weak, 
> the exploited and the dehumanised. While the 2004 book deals with this 
> question globally, the 2007 publication focuses on Latin America where 
> a revolt in the direction of liberation had, in fact, started. I shall 
> draw heavily from these books in the remaining installments of this 
> series. On page 85 of his book Amin regretted: "If Europeans had 
> reacted in 1935 or 1937, they would have succeeded in stopping the 
> Hitlerian madness. By reaching only in September 1939 they allowed 
> dozens of millions of victims to have that madness inflicted on them". 
> He then warned: "We must act sooner rather than later to face the 
> challenge of Washington's neo-Nazis". Earlier he had lamented: "That a 
> regime (American regime) governed by the political mechanisms of 
> democracy again takes up, to its advantage, the principle (of 'might 
> is right') proudly held by the Nazis is not an attenuating 
> circumstance, but, on the contrary, makes it even more heinous". But, 
> why this "America-bashing"? A one-line answer can be given: The 
> present world order has been imposed by the American regime, leading 
> the European Union and Japan - the other two members of the 
> "imperialist triad". And what is this "world order"? Its full name is 
> neoliberal capitalist globalisation. But it is not just globalisation. 
> What is wrong with that? The globalisation is capitalist and 
> neoliberal. We know what capitalism is - its grossly unequal relations 
> between social classes and groups within nations and between nations. 
> What of neoliberalism? We shall come to precise working definitions. 
> But, for now, look at Nigeria to see neoliberalism at work. 
> Neoliberalism is privatisation, or rather, the legal theft, by means 
> of state power, of all assets and means of production collectively 
> owned by the people; massive retrenchment of workers, officially 
> explained as "public service reforms", deregulation, or complete 
> surrender of the material life of the people to the dictates of 
> almighty market; commercialisation, which means you pay for 
> everything, or you enjoy nothing as of right as a citizen - not 
> health, not education, not housing, not safe water. The effects of 
> these policies include: ever - rising prices of essential commodities 
> and services, rising unemployment, poverty, misery, criminal 
> marginalisation and insecurity. And, of course, high profile 
> corruption or state robbery; and ever widening gap between the rich 
> and the poor. All the neoliberal policies have been imposed on Nigeria 
> and other poor and weak nations by the "imperalislist triad". How? 
> First, through the logic of age-long unequal relations; secondly, 
> through the enforcer-role of the World Bank, International Monetary 
> Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - all of which are 
> controlled by the "triad", and thirdly through military violence 
> employed by the American regime - directly or through the North 
> Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). We hasten to add that these 
> policies, and their consequences, are accepted (sometimes 
> enthusiastically) and implemented by the rulers of most of the poor 
> and weak nations, including Nigeria. There is a coincidence of 
> interests between the rulers of the imperialist "triad" and the rulers 
> of the primary victims. Neoliberal capitalist globalisation is of 
> course, an economic reality. Yes, but it is also an ideology which 
> promotes globalisation - with its capitalist and neoliberal features - 
> as reality to which thee is no alternative, or no viable alternative. 
> The ideologues do not even accept that the ways globalisation affects 
> a poor nation can be negotiated. No. You must accept it, arms folded, 
> in the exact way it is presented and interpreted by the leaders of the 
> imperialist "triad" and their enforcers: the World Bank, the IMF and 
> WTO. But in Latin America, the "original base of American 
> imperialism", the terms of globalisation are now being vigorously 
> negotiated, and re-designed. We may now go to definitions. Writing in 
> the Monthly Review of April 1999, Robert W. Mcchesney defined 
> neoliberalism as "the defining economic paradigm of our time - it 
> refers to the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of 
> private interests are permitted to control of much as possible of 
> social life in order to maximize their personal profit". Neoliberal 
> democracy he defined as "trivial debate over minor issues by parties 
> that basically pursue the same pro-business policies regardless of 
> formal differences and campaign debate". And globalisation refers 
> essentially to "the explosive growth of huge multinational 
> corporations and vast pools that have crossed national borders and 
> penetrated everywhere". This process, that is globalisation, is "in 
> turn seen as largely the result of a parallel technological explosion 
> in computerisation, telecommunications, and rapid transportation". 
> Now, if we bear in mind that what we have is not just globalisation, 
> but capitalist globalisation, we shall see that this is a process that 
> has been going on since the appearance of capitalism several centuries 
> ago. What is new is the technological explosion which has made 
> possible the movement of capital and labour with a rapidity that we 
> could not have thought possible just a few decades ago. Capitalism 
> develops by conquering new territories internally and externally. The 
> ultimate result of this dual process - that is, what would happen when 
> thee are no more new territories to conquer - was not seriously 
> considered by classical anti-capitalist thinkers. The reason for this, 
> was that it was largely expected that capitalism would be overthrown 
> "and replaced by another system long before its spatial limits had 
> been reached". Well, this had not happened. It almost happened, but 
> for a series of monumental errors committed by opponents of capitalism 
> - coupled with the internal degeneracy of segments of the socialist 
> movement. Whether capitalism has reached its "spatial limit" or not, 
> it is false, to say the least, to claim there is now no alternative to 
> it. There are alternatives - several of them - as the current revolts 
> in Latin America and several parts of the world are indicating. If you 
> care to analyse the content and character of global anti-globalist 
> campaigns which have been going on since the mid-1990s, and the 
> violent upsurge in the Middle East which is dismissed wholesale as 
> "Islamist extremism", your "there is no alternative", or TINA, chant 
> will be tempered. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was re-elected president in 
> 2006 on the explicit platform of constructing an alternative to 
> neoliberal capitalist globalisaiton - an alternative they call 
> "socialism for he 21st century". Samir Amin lists five objectives of 
> American regime's global hegemonist strategy. They are: "To neutralise 
> and subdue the other partners in the Triad (Europe; USA; Japan) and 
> minimise their capacity to act outside of American control; to 
> establish military control of NATO and "Latin Americanise" the former 
> parts of the Soviet World; to establish undivided control of the 
> Middle East and Central Asia and their petroleum resources: to 
> dismantle China, ensure the subordination of the other large states 
> (India, Brazil) and prevent the formation of regional blocs which 
> would be able to negotiate the terms of globalisation; and to 
> marginalise the regions of the South and that have no strategic 
> interest for the United States". The strategic objective of the 
> American regime, the armed imposer of global neoliberalism is "not to 
> tolerate the existence of any power capable of resisting the 
> injunctions of Washington". To carry out that objective, the regime 
> "seeks to dismantle every country that is deemed to be 'too large', so 
> as to create the maximum number of failed states, easy prey for the 
> establishment of American bases ensuring their 'protection'. Only one 
> state has the right to be 'great', the United States threatens 
> everyone. 'It arises", he says, "from the same logic as Hitler's: to 
> change economic and social relations through military violence". 
> Furthermore, "the United States is the pre-eminent rough state. It has 
> openly repudiated all respect for legality and for the rights of 
> others". The conclusion of this installment is that the road to 
> alternative social organisation passes through confrontation with 
> American regime's hegemonist strategy. It can be confronted, and it 
> can be defeated. But, according to Amin, "the fight will take many 
> forms. It requires diplomatic aspects (the defence of international 
> law), military aspects (the re-armament of every country in the world 
> in order to meet any aggression contemplated by Washington is 
> imperative); and political aspects (notably in reference to building a 
> European presence and reconstructing a non-aligned front)". But the 
> success of the struggle "will depend on the ability of people to 
> liberate themselves from liberal illusions". There will never be an 
> 'authentically liberal globalised economy', Samir Amin concludes. For 
> the World Bank, the main enforcer of neoliberal policies across the 
> globe, is a mere propagandist, issuing cynical homilies on 
> "democracy", "good governance" and "reduction of poverty" on behalf of 
> Washington.The Guardian (Nigeria), August 16 2007.
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