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                AFRICA FEST 2007 - AUGUST 11, 2007 at WARNER PARK

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:)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "VERA R CROWELL" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 12:06 AM
Subject: Re: There are alternatives (2)


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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.
>
> ******************************
> "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
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>>
>>  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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