Monday 30 May 2011

Culture and Evolution

Races do not create cultures, ethnic groups create and sustain cultures.

Change the nature of the ethnic group, via population replacement such as immigration, and you weaken and destroy the indigenous culture of that ethnic group.

Once a ethnic group is no longer the demographic majority in its own territory, then its culture will collapse and colonists impose their own.

But no ethnic group, race or individual is genetically superior to any other.

Each individual and race and ethnic group is comprised of individuals who are the inheritors of genetic defects that can cause thousands of inherited defects.

There is no racial or individual superiority - only equal genetic inferiority.

No human being alive today is free of all inherited genetic defects - but they all could be in the future once the technology of genetic engineering is developed and grows.

There is though Cultural superiority.

Some Cultures are self evidently culturally superior than others - in terms of art, technology, morality, values and living standards.

This is because the ethnic group or nation that creates a superior culture has a higher collective IQ than other ethnic groups or nations.


The strength of nations should not be measured in terms of their economy or military power, but in terms of their collective IQ count.

The higher the collective IQ of a nation - the more advanced culturally it will be.

Whilst all races, individuals and ethnic groups are equally inferior in terms of genetics, ethnic groups can and do produce superior cultures due to their collective higher IQ's.

This is not due to a superiority of race, but a superiority of intellect.

That culture at some point in its history had imposed population policies that raised its internal collective IQ, thereby a higher culture arose.

All racial and ethnic groups must therefore adopt the same policy of IQ quality of population over quantity of population.

The challenge for us is to create a society that does so in a democratic context


This means such things as ;

1) before being allowed to marry each person undergoes a genetic screening to discover possible genetic problems for their children. If discovered then gene line therapy is offered BY THE STATE to ensure those children do not suffer those problems.

2) cousin marriage is outlawed

3) taxation polices based on ensuring the citizens with the highest IQ's have more children

4) that government research into genetic engineering is increased to investigate cutting preventable inherited diseases like cancer and other conditions

5) that people who refuse pre-screening and treatment and who produce children with inherited preventable diseases are prevented by law from having further children. It is not the role of society to facilitate selfish individuals producing children who suffer -it is the role of society to ensure such children are not born to suffer in the first place.

6) That society recognises the right of all children to be born without suffering a serious preventable genetic condition, and that the role of the state is to secure them those rights even when the parents refuse to recognise their reproductive responsibilities and take treatments to prevent those conditions occurring in their chldren.

7) That the state must protect the rights of the disabled by acting to ensure such preventable disabilities are not inherited by children due to a failure of the state to educate and inform the parents prior to conception of a possible problem.

8) That whilst the right of abortion is retained, foetal screening of all children must be offered to all parents at the earliest stage of pregnancy so that they can be informed of any possible problems and be offered a right to terminate that pregnancy.

9) That the state takes an active role in raising IQ levels by creating an education system predicated on ensuring children get a fully and healthy breakfast, dinner and evening meal as part of an optimum nutrition plan, plenty of excercise to improve physical health and also an education system based on developing both health and intelligence.


The Cultures that place priorities on ;


1) raising the IQ of the nation state and measuring the strength of the state not on GDP but on the total IQ level of the national community

2) raising the health level of individuals whilst eradicating disease and inherited genetic defects within society

3) ensuring the ethnic group that created that indigenous culture remains in perpetuity the dominant demographic in that society

4) That an ethnic group must live in accord with the carrying capacity of its own territory and at the same time ensure its population and state reproduction polices are predicated on environmental sustainability, energy and agricultural autarchy, raising the IQ level of the nation, improving the genetic health of the population and imposing policies of collective population responsibility, will continue to evolve and progress.

Will be a culture that continues to evolve and develop in strength.












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Cousin Marriage and Homo Celestial






Any religion that allows children to suffer due to adherence to its dogma - is not a religion, it is a cult of evil.

Any religion that demands the sexual mutilation of young men by circumscision or that regards female genital mutilation as acceptable, is a religion of sin and sickness - not of the Spirit.

No child should suffer mutilation due to the sick cult beliefs of their insane parents in the name of an insane god.

Any person who would deliberatly ignore science and marry their cousin due to cultural, economic or religious reasons, should be forced to be sterilised before they are allowed to do so.

To bring children into this world corrupted and crippled with the genetic legacy of incest is the actions of madmen and women.

I believe that human beings were given by God / Nature our intelligence to enable us to self evolve - to use our intelligence and creative self evolution to cleanse the human genome of all inherited diseases and defects via genetic engineering so that no more children have to be born into this world crippled and suffering due to inherited birth defects.

With Creative Self Evolution mankind can cure all diseases, heal the sick and perhaps even conquer death itself so that one day in the future, mankind can leave Earth and head out into the stars as a new species - not as Homo Sapiens but as Homo Celestial - and colonise the universe.

Homo Celestial would be a mankind whose genome has been fixed via genetic engineering so that no sickness, diseases of cancers occur due to DNA defects. Homo Celestial would be engineered for enhanced intelligence and for extended life spans, with the ability of the body to self repair in the event of injury.

Homo Celestial would be a human species engineered to spread life throughout the universe and to allow mankind to colonise the exo-planets we find amidst the vastness of space.

Humanity is at a transition point, for at the same time aswe have developed nuclear weapons of mass destruction which can destroy the whole planet in minutes we have also developed the technology of genetic engineering to liberate all mankind from sickness and disease.

Instead of focusing our technologies and resources on waging war against each other - mankind should be waging a war on disease and sickness via genetic engineering - but instead of thinking of the future we are squandering our resources on developing weapons of war.

Death reigns instead of Life.

The animal in man, conquers the Divine in Man.

Man must turn his attention inwards and direct his intelligence and technologies to conquering death and sickness within himself and in creative self evolution.

Instead of waging war on others, we must wage war on the sickess and diseases that resides within us all human beings - and this is a war against the inherited genetic defects of a defective species of animal.

That defective animal is man.

Must transcend his animal nature and transcend the inherited genetic defects of an animal.

Only when mankind have removed all those genetic defects - do we transcend the level of the animal and become masters of our evolution and destiny - The Star Man.

Mankind must evolve as a species so that we can leave Earth and colonise the stars.

Failure to do that will result in the eventual destruction of the planet and the extinction of all humanity, either by a nuclear war or by the slow suicide of human over population and new diseases as Nature strikes back against the human plague that will threaten the ecology of the planet.

Mans destiny is to allow man to evolve to a higher post-human species.

Laws that allow people to marry their cousins are laws that disgrace humanity and deny us our path to the stars.







'Bradford is very inbred': Muslim outrage as professor warns first-cousin marriages increase risk of birth defects
By Tom Kelly

Last updated at 11:06 AM on 30th May 2011

Comments (89) Add to My Stories Share

Professor Steve Jones, from University College London, said the common practice in Islamic communities for cousins to marry each other increased the risk of birth defects
Inbreeding among British Muslims is threatening the health of their children, a leading geneticist warned yesterday.

Professor Steve Jones, from University College London, said the common practice in Islamic communities for cousins to marry each other increased the risk of birth defects.
‘There may be some evidence that cousins marrying one another can be harmful,’ he told an audience at the Hay Festival.

‘We should be concerned about that as there can be a lot of hidden genetic damage. Children are much more likely to get two copies of a damaged gene.

‘Bradford is very inbred. There is a huge amount of cousins marrying each other there.’
Studies have shown that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins – and in Bradford, this rises to 75 per cent.

Other research has found that children of first cousins are ten times more likely to have recessive genetic disorders and face deafness, blindness and infant mortality.

But Prof Jones’s comments provoked anger among some Muslim groups yesterday.
Bradford city centre. Studies have shown that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins - and in Bradford, this rises to 75 per cent

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, which promotes the image o Muslims in Britain, said: ‘I know many Muslims who have married their cousins and none of them have had a problem with their children.

‘Obviously, we don’t want any children to be born disabled who don’t need to be born disabled, so I would advise genetic screening before first cousins marry.

'But I find Steve Jones’s comments unworthy of a professor. Using language like “inbreeding” to describe cousins marrying is completely inappropriate and further demonises Muslims.’

Concern about the risks to children from first-cousin marriage has been described as the last great taboo.

Former environment minister Phil Woolas was rebuked by Downing Street in 2008 for saying British Pakistanis are fuelling rates of birth defects by marrying their cousins, with the spokesman for then prime minister Gordon Brown saying the issue was not one for ministers to comment on.

Mohammed Saleem Khan, chief executive of the Bradford Council for Mosques, said: ‘It is important to discuss these issues, but I just do not know of any firm evidence backing up Professor Jones’s claims. I think we need more conclusive studies so we can know for certain if there is any genuine risk.

'Marriages between cousins is certainly common within south Asia, but it is becoming less so in Britain and also in Bradford. Islam allows you to marry anyone you want, so in many ways Islam promotes diversity.’

In his talk, Prof Jones said inbreeding was not confined to Muslims, and historically had occurred in every part of society, including the royal family.

He said: ‘We are all more incestuous than we realise. In Northern Ireland lots of people share the same surname, which suggests a high level of inbreeding.

‘There’s a lot of surname diversity in London but if you look at the Outer Hebrides there are rather fewer surnames in relation to the number of people.’
















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A Glimpse of the Future

If you want a glimpse of the future - then here it is.

The more diverse our nation becomes, the less cohesive our society becomes.

The more immigration - the more division.

This is the dialectic of racial and religious politics that has been unleashed by mass immigration into our country.

The Sikhs are merely copying the radicalism of other groups in Britain.

The Community Security Trust is the state sanctioned para-military militia of Zionism in Britain.

The Islamist groups have their own terror cells and street militias.

Therefore other communities will copy the models that empower other groups in society.

The white community is therefore faced with a fundamental choice - we can only save the indigenous people and culture of Britain by two actions ;


1) Start deporting immigrants and colonists to protect our demographic majority and national culture


2) Start copying what other communities are doing in order to defend our communities and protect our people.


Failure to do so will mean social collapse and our destruction as community within our country.

The choice is yours.




Sikhs lay siege to their OWN community centre after private party sold meat and alcohol
By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 7:09 AM on 30th May 2011

Comments (7) Add to My Stories Share Two hundred militant Sikhs trashed their own community centre in a violent protest after meat and alcohol were sold there at a private party.

Officers were drafted in from across the West Midlands to the Sikh Cultural centre in Dudley after it was besieged by protesters thought to be from the UK Sangat, which protests against code breaking temples.

They claimed that the temple had been selling at a private party meat and alcohol - both are which are shunned by devout followers of the religion.

Violent scenes flared when members of the mob clashed with police who were trying to defend the centre.
Religious movement: Militant Sikhs stage a mass protest outside the temple in Dudley, West Midlands, which allowed meat and alcohol to be sold for a private party
One officer was left with head injuries after the protesters began pelting officers with bricks, bottles and other missiles.

Forcing their way into the centre, protesters barricaded themselves inside and trashed the interior - causing 'significant' damage. Food was strewn across the floor and windows were smashed.

The tense five hour stand-off left two demonstrators nursing head injuries and another policeman with dental injuries.

Protest organisers said last night: 'All Sikhs should be aware of the basic Sikh tenets that meat and alcohol are not permissible in the Sikh faith.
'The centre owners have insulted the Sikh faith and violated Sikh Maryada by allowing a party to take place at the Sikh Cultural Centre.'

The demonstration was called after managers at the centre agreed to serve alcohol and meat at a private party set to take place that night.
Smashed: Jasbir Singh, of Dudley's Gurunanak, sits inside the Sikh Cultural Centre which was subjected to the demonstration by the large group of devout Sikhs

Trashed: Piles of food lie strewn across the ground after protesters rushed past police defending the centre and barricaded themselves inside, causing 'significant' damage
After hardliners within the Sikh community caught wind of the plans, a group gathered outside the centre around 12.45pm on Saturday.

The mob's numbers quickly spiralled, and as tensions rose some protesters picked up missiles and hurled them at police.

Specialist officers rushed to the scene to help negotiations between the militant Sikhs and under-siege management staff.

At one point a coach had to be given a police escort into the area - which had been cordoned-off - just to allow innocent centre users caught up in the stand-off to escape.

The violent clashes only ended at around 6pm when managers at the centre caved in to the mob's demands and agreed to ban the sale of meat and alcohol.
More...How a night in a police cell costs more than 5-star hotel
Artistic off-licence: Pyramid of beer devoured by Germans all in the name of art

Last night police said 'significant' damage had been caused to the inside of the community centre, which remained cordoned off to allow forensic teams to examine the area.

Over five hours of CCTV footage has been seized and will be trawled through in a bid to identify the protest ring leaders.

Chief Inspector Deb Doyle, who led the police response to the disorder, said: 'What started as a peaceful protest soon turned to violence when a minority of people started throwing missiles at officers and then forced their way inside the centre.

'Once inside they have vandalised the building and refused to leave until the centre managers agreed to ban the supply of meat and alcohol on the premises.

'I would urge those responsible for the violence to hand themselves in to their local police station immediately or face officers arresting them at home in the very near future.'

A 28-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of violent disorder but was released on police bail pending further enquiries.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1392108/Militant-Sikhs-trash-OWN-community-centre-bid-ban-sale-meat-alcohol-private-party.html#ixzz1NpS2vJy8










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Saturday 28 May 2011

Tower Hamlets and the Truth





http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8543014/The-East-End-villains-who-thrive-behind-a-veil-of-multiculturalism.html



I am glad that Tower Hamlets has become an Islamic colony - as by doing so it has exposed the lie of multi-culturalism and immigration as 'enriching' soceity

I am glad that the foot soldiers of Islamism are enforcing their will on the streets through terror and violence - as by doing so they are exposing to everyone their real agenda and what the future holds for us all once they become a majority in our country and communities.

The irony being that the white victims of multi-culturalism and Islamist terror and violence , are usually the same idiots that supported multi-culturalism and voted for the parties that also supported multi-culturalism.

You reap what you sow.

The more Tower Hamlets becomes an Islamist colony, the more the idiot voters and the idiot politicians have to face the facts that they are the truly guilty ones.

You idiots voted for the idiot politicians that let them all into our country.

You want to know who is responsible - you are.

All you gutless liberal journalists that scream about racism and attack anyone who wants to keep Britain British, as opposed to an Islamic colony.

All you idiot voters who voted labour / Tory / Liberal and all the other 'lets import in cheap workers and cheap votes' pro-immigration and pro-multi-culturalism supporting political parties.

You are responsible.


















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Default the Debt

http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/ME28Dj03.html

Japan shows how to defuse debt time-bomb
By Ellen Brown

Threatening to default should not be a partisan issue. In view of all the hazards it entails, one wonders why any responsible person would even flirt with the idea.
Alan S Blinder, Princeton professor of economics, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.

A game of Russian roulette is being played with the national debt ceiling. Fire the wrong chamber of the gun, and the result could be the second Great Depression.

The first Great Depression led to totalitarian dictatorships, war to consolidate power, and concentrations of capital in the hands of a financial elite. The trigger was a default on the global reserve currency, in that case the pound sterling. The US dollar is now


the global reserve currency. The concern is that default could create the same sort of global panic today. Dark visions are evoked of the president declaring a national emergency, Federal Emergency Management Agency plans locking into place, camps being readied for protesters, and the secret government taking over ...

This may all just be political theater, but do we really want to get close enough to the economic precipice to find out? The conservative ideologues toying with the debt ceiling are doing it to force cuts in the budget, a budget that was already approved by congress. Congress is being held hostage by a radical minority pushing a risky agenda, one that is based on an economic model that is obsolete.

High-stakes Gambling
On May 16, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece titled ''The Armageddon Lobby,'' which claimed that a ''technical default'' on the federal debt was just ''political melodrama'' and not really a big deal:
[B]ond markets can figure out the difference between a genuine default when a country can't pay its bills and a technical default of a few days if it serves the purpose of fixing America's fiscal mess.
Not so, said Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in a May 20 interview on CNBC. ''That's gambling. This is the United States. You're leading the whole world. You cannot play games with that.''

It is not just that the government could be brought to a standstill, with a third of its bills now being paid by borrowing; or that interest rates would shoot up, forcing thousands of homeowners into foreclosure. Failure to pay on the national debt could trigger a default on the global reserve currency. As one commentator described what could go wrong:
[T]he consequences of a US default could spark yet another global financial crisis. The US could lose its triple-A rating, which could cause a sell-off in Treasury notes by institutional and foreign investors. This sell-off could lead to higher interest rates, and banks' balance sheets might be decimated by the decline in their bond portfolios. Thus, global banking and financial market liquidity could dry up. Lending between institutions and people or businesses could possibly cease altogether or become cost prohibitive.
A rerun of 1931?
The sort of chaos that could ensue was seen when Great Britain reneged on its deal to redeem pound sterling banknotes in gold in 1931. The result was the worst global depression in history. When the pound went off the gold standard, markets panicked. People rushed to exchange their paper money for gold, in any currencies in which that was still possible. The gold wound up hidden under mattresses and in safety deposit boxes, unspent; and the banks from which it was pulled, having no reserves to back their loans, quit lending or closed their doors. Credit froze; business ground to a halt.

As other countries ran short of gold, they too were forced to take their currencies off the gold standard. The last holdouts suffered the most, including the United States, which kept its gold window open until 1933.

The 19th century had been plagued by bank runs, caused by banks having too little gold to back their outstanding loans. The Federal Reserve was instituted in 1913 ostensibly to prevent those runs, but its levee did not hold back the run of the 1930s. In 1933, the country suffered a massive banking collapse, forcing President Franklin D Roosevelt to declare a banking holiday and take the US dollar, too, off the gold standard.

Freed from the 'Cross of Gold' The transition off the gold standard was a painful one; but according to Beardsley Ruml, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the country was the better for it. In a paper read before the American Bar Association in 1946, he said that going off the gold standard had finally allowed the country to be economically sovereign:
Final freedom from the domestic money market exists for every sovereign national state where there exists an institution which functions in the manner of a modern central bank, and whose currency is not convertible into gold or into some other commodity.
Freed from the strictures of gold, Roosevelt was able to jump-start the economy with deficit spending. As Marshall Auerback details, the next four years constituted the biggest cyclical boom in US economic history. Real GDP grew at a 12% rate and nominal GDP grew at a 14% rate.

Then in 1937, Roosevelt listened to the deficit hawks of his day and slashed the deficit. The result was a surge in unemployment, and the economy slipped back into depression.

What lifted the country out of the doldrums was again deficit spending, liberally engaged in to fund World War II. In wartime, few people worry about the national debt. The debt grew to 120% of GDP - twice what it is today - and wound up sustaining another very productive period in US history, one that set the country up to lead the world in manufacturing for the next half century.

On inflation and taxes
Ruml said federal taxes were no longer needed to fund the budget, which could be financed by issuing bonds. The principal purpose of taxes, he said, was ''the maintenance of a dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years. Sometimes this purpose is stated as 'the avoidance of inflation'.''

The government could spend as needed to meet its budget, drawing on credit issued by its own central bank. It could do this until price inflation indicated a weakened purchasing power of the currency. Then, and only then, would the money supply need to be contracted with taxes.

''The dollars the government spends become purchasing power in the hands of the people who have received them,'' Ruml said. ''The dollars the government takes by taxes cannot be spent by the people,'' so the money supply can be contracted with taxes as needed.

When the economy is in a recession, however - as it is now - the government needs to spend in order to get purchasing power into the hands of the people. Businesses cannot hire more workers until they have more customers demanding their products, and the customers won't come until they have money to spend. The money (''demand'') must come first. Adding money will not drive up prices until the economy is at full employment. Before that, increasing ''demand'' will drive up ''supply'' by setting the engines of production in motion. When supply and demand rise together, prices remain stable.

We now know that a government can go quite far into debt without a dangerous level of price inflation occurring - much farther than the US has gone today. Besides World War II, when US debt was 120% of GDP, there is the remarkable example of Japan. Japan has retained its status as the world's third largest economy, although it has a debt to GDP ratio of 226% - and it is still fighting deflation.

Critics of the deflationary theory point to commodity prices, which are soaring today. But if those prices were due to the economy being awash with ''too much money chasing too few goods,'' real estate prices would be soaring too. Instead, the real estate market has collapsed. What has actually happened is that the housing bubble has transmuted into the commodity bubble, as ''hot money'' has fled from one to the other. The overall money supply is still in decline.

The deficit hawks have been predicting for years that the federal debt would sink the dollar and the economy, and it hasn't happened yet. In fact the federal debt has not been paid off since 1835, and no disaster has resulted. The debt has not only been carried on the government's books but has continued to grow, and the economy has grown and flourished along with it.

This is not an economic anomaly. The economy has flourished because of the national debt. Nothing backs the currency today but ''the full faith and credit of the United States.'' Money is no longer a metal; it is an inflow and outflow, credits and debits. The liabilities of the government are the assets of the private economy. The national debt is what backs the money supply.

Dealing with rising debt servicing costs
There is a potential time bomb in a growing federal debt, but it is one that can be defused. The debt has risen from $10 trillion to $14 trillion just since the banking crisis of 2008, not from ''entitlements'' but due to the Wall Street collapse and bailout. Just the interest on this growing debt could cripple the tax base if interest rates were at normal levels, so they have had to be pushed almost to zero. The result has been to create a dollar carry trade. This has facilitated speculation in commodities, a major cause of today's commodity bubbles.

There is, however, a solution to this problem, and it was discovered by Japan. The government can spend, not by issuing bonds at interest to the public, but simply by creating an overdraft at the central bank, as Ruml recommended. The Bank of Japan now holds an amount of public debt equal to the country's GDP! As noted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research:
Interest on [Japanese] debt held by the central bank is refunded back to the treasury, leaving no net cost to the government on this debt. . . . Japan continues to experience deflation, in spite of the fact that its central bank holds an amount of debt that is roughly equal to its GDP. This would be equivalent to the Fed holding $15 trillion in debt.
Like the Bank of Japan, the Federal Reserve now returns the interest it receives to the government. With a rising interest tab on the federal debt no longer a problem, private interest rates could be allowed to rise to normal levels.

Today the Fed is not permitted to buy bonds directly from the Treasury but must go through middleman bond dealers. But that problem too could be fixed. In a supporting statement in 1947, Federal Reserve Chairman Marriner Eccles discussed a bill to eliminate the unnecessary cost of these middlemen. He said the Federal Reserve had been allowed to purchase securities directly from the government from its inception in 1914 until the Banking Act of 1935. Then:
A provision was inserted in that act requiring all purchases of government securities by Federal Reserve banks to be made in the open market, which means purchased chiefly from dealers in Government bonds. Those who inserted this proviso were motivated by the mistaken theory that it would help to prevent deficit financing....

Nothing constructive would be accomplished by the proviso that the Reserve System must purchase Government securities exclusively in the open market. About all such a ban means is that in making such purchases a commission has to be paid to Government bond dealers.
The interest cost and the bond dealers' cut could both be eliminated by allowing the Treasury to borrow directly from its own central bank, interest free.

Nothing to fear but fear itself
We have been frightened into believing that government debt is a bad thing, but nearly all money today originates as debt. As Marriner Eccles observed in the 1930s, ''That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money.''

The public debt is the people's money, and today the people are coming up short. Shrinking the public debt means shrinking more than just the services the government is expected to provide. It means shrinking the money supply itself, along with the ability to provide the jobs, wages and purchasing power necessary for a thriving economy.

Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how the power to create money has been usurped from the people, and how we can get it back. Her websites are http://webofdebt.com and http://ellenbrown.com.

(Copyright Ellen Brown 2011)

















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Friday 27 May 2011

Aid and Dependency

Whilst Cameron talks about getting people off benefits in the UK, he wants tkeep Africans on benefits.

Benefit cuts for British people - billions in benefits for Africa.





Mandela aide: Lavish handouts are making Africa the 'spoilt child of the planet'
By Jason Groves

Last updated at 11:34 PM on 27th May 2011

Comments (0) Add to My Stories Share Lavish aid to Africa is turning the continent into a ‘spoilt child’, according to the head of a charity backed by Nelson Mandela.

Mike Kendrick, founder of the respected Mineseeker Foundation, warned that aid often increased the hardship faced by the world’s poorest people.

In a devastating verdict, he told the Daily Mail last night: ‘I sometimes use the analogy of a spoilt child. We have all seen rich parents give their child everything they need, without earning it.
Well connected: Nelson Mandela, left, supporter of Mike Kendrick, right, whose charity Mineseeker Foundation, warns Africa is turning into a 'spoilt child'
‘Africa is a spoilt child of the planet. It is not their fault. It is ours.

‘It is completely pointless and totally detrimental to spend endless billions on projects that are well intentioned but badly thought out and poorly implemented.

‘The current government is apparently determined to repeat the mistakes of the former one.’

Mr Kendrick decided to speak out as David Cameron defended of his controversial pledge to increase spending on international aid by 34 per cent while cutting budgets at home.

He is now seeking a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss his experiences of the impact of aid on developing countries.

The Mineseeker Foundation was established ten years ago with the backing of Sir Richard Branson to help the victims of landmines in former conflict zones, including many parts of Africa.

Mr Kendrick said he had witnessed the failure of international aid at first hand and his views were ‘shared’ by Mr Mandela.

Generous support: Richard Branson helped set up The Mineseeker Foundation in 2001 to support victims of landlines
He said that as well as making people dependent on handouts, aid money often undercut local businesses and initiatives.

‘International financial aid, unless specifically targeted toward practical and ongoing projects, is of little use and should be stopped immediately to prevent yet more suffering,’ he added.

‘We need to change lives permanently, not just whilst funds last, and develop sustainable sturdy economies that will transform lives on a long-term basis.
‘The problem is that aid, when badly directed, actually kills people and this is a matter of fact – not opinion. In the past few decades the West has provided several trillion dollars in aid, yet the average African is now twice as poor as he was before all that started.’

Mr Kendrick said that even well-meaning initiatives, such as Gordon Brown’s project to supply £100million of mosquito nets to Africa, could have damaging unintended consequences.

‘I doubt he realised that in doing so he was committing many hundreds of people into a poverty trap that would possibly reduce them to starvation.

‘Making and repairing mosquito nets is one of the few remaining cottage industries in Africa and by dumping millions of dollars worth of nets in various areas it simply shut all of those local businesses down.’

Mr Kendrick is pioneering a series of ‘aid-free zones’ in Mozambique to attract investors to directly support local businesses. The first project, to create a major coconut plantation, could eventually sustain 50,000 people and is being set up without a penny of aid.

Mr Kendrick said similar projects could transform Africa in the long term, while aid would never be more than a quick fix.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1391714/Mandela-aide-Handouts-making-Africa-spoilt-child.html#ixzz1NcvfNCUm



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Visegrad and the Fall of New Rome

Visegrad: A New European Military Force

STRATFOR

May 17, 2011 | 0859 GMT

By George Friedman

With the Palestinians demonstrating and the International Monetary Fund in turmoil, it would seem odd to focus this week on something called the Visegrad Group. But this is not a frivolous choice. What the Visegrad Group decided to do last week will, I think, resonate for years, long after the alleged attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is forgotten and long before the Israeli-Palestinian issue is resolved. The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance.

The region is Europe — more precisely, the states that had been dominated by the Soviet Union. The Visegrad Group, or V4, consists of four countries — Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary — and is named after two 14th century meetings held in Visegrad Castle in present-day Hungary of leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The group was reconstituted in 1991 in post-Cold War Europe as the Visegrad Three (at that time, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one). The goal was to create a regional framework after the fall of communism. This week the group took an interesting new turn.

On May 12, the Visegrad Group announced the formation of a “battlegroup” under the command of Poland. The battlegroup would be in place by 2016 as an independent force and would not be part of NATO command. In addition, starting in 2013, the four countries would begin military exercises together under the auspices of the NATO Response Force.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the primary focus of all of the Visegrad nations had been membership in the European Union and NATO. Their evaluation of their strategic position was threefold. First, they felt that the Russian threat had declined if not dissipated following the fall of the Soviet Union. Second, they felt that their economic future was with the European Union. Third, they believed that membership in NATO, with strong U.S. involvement, would protect their strategic interests. Of late, their analysis has clearly been shifting.

First, Russia has changed dramatically since the Yeltsin years. It has increased its power in the former Soviet sphere of influence substantially, and in 2008 it carried out an effective campaign against Georgia. Since then it has also extended its influence in other former Soviet states. The Visegrad members’ underlying fear of Russia, built on powerful historical recollection, has become more intense. They are both the front line to the former Soviet Union and the countries that have the least confidence that the Cold War is simply an old memory.

Second, the infatuation with Europe, while not gone, has frayed. The ongoing economic crisis, now focused again on Greece, has raised two questions: whether Europe as an entity is viable and whether the reforms proposed to stabilize Europe represent a solution for them or primarily for the Germans. It is not, by any means, that they have given up the desire to be Europeans, nor that they have completely lost faith in the European Union as an institution and an idea. Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to expect that these countries would not be uneasy about the direction that Europe was taking. If one wants evidence, look no further than the unease with which Warsaw and Prague are deflecting questions about the eventual date of their entry into the eurozone. Both are the strongest economies in Central Europe, and neither is enthusiastic about the euro.

Finally, there are severe questions as to whether NATO provides a genuine umbrella of security to the region and its members. The NATO Strategic Concept, which was drawn up in November 2010, generated substantial concern on two scores. First, there was the question of the degree of American commitment to the region, considering that the document sought to expand the alliance’s role in non-European theaters of operation. For example, the Americans pledged a total of one brigade to the defense of Poland in the event of a conflict, far below what Poland thought necessary to protect the North European Plain. Second, the general weakness of European militaries meant that, willingness aside, the ability of the Europeans to participate in defending the region was questionable. Certainly, events in Libya, where NATO had neither a singular political will nor the military participation of most of its members, had to raise doubts. It was not so much the wisdom of going to war but the inability to create a coherent strategy and deploy adequate resources that raised questions of whether NATO would be any more effective in protecting the Visegrad nations.

There is another consideration. Germany’s commitment to both NATO and the EU has been fraying. The Germans and the French split on the Libya question, with Germany finally conceding politically but unwilling to send forces. Libya might well be remembered less for the fate of Moammar Gadhafi than for the fact that this was the first significant strategic break between Germany and France in decades. German national strategy has been to remain closely aligned with France in order to create European solidarity and to avoid Franco-German tensions that had roiled Europe since 1871. This had been a centerpiece of German foreign policy, and it was suspended, at least temporarily.

The Germans obviously are struggling to shore up the European Union and questioning precisely how far they are prepared to go in doing so. There are strong political forces in Germany questioning the value of the EU to Germany, and with every new wave of financial crises requiring German money, that sentiment becomes stronger. In the meantime, German relations with Russia have become more important to Germany. Apart from German dependence on Russian energy, Germany has investment opportunities in Russia. The relationship with Russia is becoming more attractive to Germany at the same time that the relationship to NATO and the EU has become more problematic.

For all of the Visegrad countries, any sense of a growing German alienation from Europe and of a growing German-Russian economic relationship generates warning bells. Before the Belarusian elections there was hope in Poland that pro-Western elements would defeat the least unreformed regime in the former Soviet Union. This didn’t happen. Moreover, pro-Western elements have done nothing to solidify in Moldova or break the now pro-Russian government in Ukraine. Uncertainty about European institutions and NATO, coupled with uncertainty about Germany’s attention, has caused a strategic reconsideration — not to abandon NATO or the EU, of course, nor to confront the Russians, but to prepare for all eventualities.

It is in this context that the decision to form a Visegradian battlegroup must be viewed. Such an independent force, a concept generated by the European Union as a European defense plan, has not generated much enthusiasm or been widely implemented. The only truly robust example of an effective battlegroup is the Nordic Battlegroup, but then that is not surprising. The Nordic countries share the same concerns as the Visegrad countries — the future course of Russian power, the cohesiveness of Europe and the commitment of the United States.

In the past, the Visegrad countries would have been loath to undertake anything that felt like a unilateral defense policy. Therefore, the decision to do this is significant in and of itself. It represents a sense of how these countries evaluate the status of NATO, the U.S. attention span, European coherence and Russian power. It is not the battlegroup itself that is significant but the strategic decision of these powers to form a sub-alliance, if you will, and begin taking responsibility for their own national security. It is not what they expected or wanted to do, but it is significant that they felt compelled to begin moving in this direction.

Just as significant is the willingness of Poland to lead this military formation and to take the lead in the grouping as a whole. Poland is the largest of these countries by far and in the least advantageous geographical position. The Poles are trapped between the Germans and the Russians. Historically, when Germany gets close to Russia, Poland tends to suffer. It is not at that extreme point yet, but the Poles do understand the possibilities. In July, the Poles will be assuming the EU presidency in one of the union’s six-month rotations. The Poles have made clear that one of their main priorities will be Europe’s military power. Obviously, little can happen in Europe in six months, but this clearly indicates where Poland’s focus is.

The militarization of the V4 runs counter to its original intent but is in keeping with the geopolitical trends in the region. Some will say this is over-reading on my part or an overreaction on the part of the V4, but it is neither. For the V4, the battlegroup is a modest response to emerging patterns in the region, which STRATFOR had outlined in its 2011 Annual Forecast. As for my reading, I regard the new patterns not as a minor diversion from the main pattern but as a definitive break in the patterns of the post-Cold War world. In my view, the post-Cold War world ended in 2008, with the financial crisis and the Russo-Georgian war. We are in a new era, as yet unnamed, and we are seeing the first breaks in the post-Cold War pattern.

I have argued in previous articles and books that there is a divergent interest between the European countries on the periphery of Russia and those farther west, particularly Germany. For the countries on the periphery, there is a perpetual sense of insecurity, generated not only by Russian power compared to their own but also by uncertainty as to whether the rest of Europe would be prepared to defend them in the event of Russian actions. The V4 and the other countries south of them are not as sanguine about Russian intentions as others farther away are. Perhaps they should be, but geopolitical realities drive consciousness and insecurity and distrust defines this region.

I had also argued that an alliance only of the four northernmost countries is insufficient. I used the concept “Intermarium,” which had first been raised after World War I by a Polish leader, Joseph Pilsudski, who understood that Germany and the Soviet Union would not be permanently weak and that Poland and the countries liberated from the Hapsburg Empire would have to be able to defend themselves and not have to rely on France or Britain.

Pilsudski proposed an alliance stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and encompassing the countries to the west of the Carpathians — Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In some formulations, this would include Yugoslavia, Finland and the Baltics. The point was that Poland had to have allies, that no one could predict German and Soviet strength and intentions, and that the French and English were too far away to help. The only help Poland could have would be an alliance of geography — countries with no choice.

It follows from this that the logical evolution here is the extension of the Visegrad coalition. At the May 12 defense ministers’ meeting, there was discussion of inviting Ukraine to join in. Twenty or even 10 years ago, that would have been a viable option. Ukraine had room to maneuver. But the very thing that makes the V4 battlegroup necessary — Russian power — limits what Ukraine can do. The Russians are prepared to give Ukraine substantial freedom to maneuver, but that does not include a military alliance with the Visegrad countries.

An alliance with Ukraine would provide significant strategic depth. It is unlikely to happen. That means that the alliance must stretch south, to include Romania and Bulgaria. The low-level tension between Hungary and Romania over the status of Hungarians in Romania makes that difficult, but if the Hungarians can live with the Slovaks, they can live with the Romanians. Ultimately, the interesting question is whether Turkey can be persuaded to participate in this, but that is a question far removed from Turkish thinking now. History will have to evolve quite a bit for this to take place. For now, the question is Romania and Bulgaria.

But the decision of the V4 to even propose a battlegroup commanded by Poles is one of those small events that I think will be regarded as a significant turning point. However we might try to trivialize it and place it in a familiar context, it doesn’t fit. It represents a new level of concern over an evolving reality — the power of Russia, the weakness of Europe and the fragmentation of NATO. This is the last thing the Visegrad countries wanted to do, but they have now done the last thing they wanted to do. That is what is significant.

Events in the Middle East and Europe’s economy are significant and of immediate importance. However, sometimes it is necessary to recognize things that are not significant yet but will be in 10 years. I believe this is one of those events. It is a punctuation mark in European history.







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Wednesday 25 May 2011

The Kingfisher and the Gnosis




The Kingfisher of the Gnosis.


Wide awake in a dream, I witnessed,
The Fisher of Kings, swift awing,
Flitting from fiery sky to stream,
Fast as arrows of forked lightning,
Flashing forth from cloud to earth,
Piercing the meniscus of mystery,
Of the rushing river of wet souls,
Entering with a splash and sigh of bliss,
Into its cool and sacred waters,
Then rising forth upon rainbow wings,
Carrying little fishes as its catch,
Into the light and glory of the Pleroma.











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Default and Revolt !

The Problem ;


1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEPob3kQ-6g&feature=player_embedded


2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX7M3w02Bfw&feature=player_embedded



The Solution ;



The Seven Loose Pieces of the Global Jigsaw Puzzle:
Neoliberalism as a puzzle: the useless global unity which fragments and destroys nations


by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Zapatista Army of National Liberation

June 1997


“War is a matter of vital importance for the state;
it is the province of life and death, the road which
leads to survival or elimination. It is essential
to study it in depth”.
Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”


1. First piece: The concentration of wealth and the distribution of poverty
2. Second piece: The globalization of exploitation
3. Third piece: Migration, the errant nightmare
4. Fourth Piece; Financial globalization and the globalization of corruption and crime
5. Fifth piece; Legitimate violence on behalf of an illegitimate power?
6. Sixth piece: megapolitics and the dwarfs
7. Seventh piece: The pockets of resistance


As a world system, neoliberalism is a new war for the conquest of territory. The ending of the third world war - meaning the cold war - in no sense means that the world has gone beyond the bipolar and found stability under the domination of a single victor. Because, while there was certainly a defeat (of the socialist camp), it is hard to say who won. The United States? The European Union? Japan? All three?

The defeat of the "evil empire" has opened up new markets, and the struggle over them is leading to a new world war - the fourth.

Like all major conflicts, this war is forcing national states to redefine their identity. The world order seems to have reverted to the earlier epochs of the conquests of America, Africa and Oceania - a strange modernity, this, which progresses by going backwards. The twilight years of the 20th century bear more of a resemblance to the previous centuries of barbarism than to the rational futures described in science fiction novels.

Vast territories, wealth and, above all, a huge and available workforce lie waiting for the world’s new master but, while there is only one position as master on offer, there are many aspiring candidates. And that explains the new war between those who see themselves as part of the "empire of good".

Unlike the third world war, in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism took place over a variety of terrains and with varying degrees of intensity, the fourth world war is being conducted between major financial centres in theatres of war that are global in scale and with a level of intensity that is fierce and constant.

The ineptly-named cold war actually reached very high temperatures: from underground workings of international espionage to the interstellar space of Ronald Reagan’s famous "Star Wars"; from the sands of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam; from the frenzy of the nuclear arms race to the vicious coups d’Ă©tat in Latin America; from the menacing manoeuvres of NATO armies to the machinations of the CIA agents in Bolivia, where Che Guevara was murdered. The combination of all this led to the socialist camp being undermined as a world system, and to its dissolution as a social alternative.

The third world war showed the benefits of "total war" for its victor, which was capitalism. In the post-cold war period we see the emergence of a new planetary scenario in which the principal conflictual elements are the growing importance of no-man’s-lands (arising out of the collapse of the Eastern bloc countries), the expansion of a number of major powers (the United States, the European Union and Japan), a world economic crisis and a new technical revolution based on information technology.

Thanks to computers and the technological revolution, the financial markets, operating from their offices and answerable to nobody but themselves, have been imposing their laws and world-view on the planet as a whole. Globalisation is merely the totalitarian extension of the logic of the finance markets to all aspects of life. Where they were once in command of their economies, the nation states (and their governments) are commanded - or rather telecommanded - by the same basic logic of financial power, commercial free trade. And in addition, this logic has profited from a new permeability created by the development of telecommunications to appropriate all aspects of social activity. At last, a world war which is totally total!

One of its first victims has been the national market. Rather like a bullet fired inside a concrete room, the war unleashed by neoliberalism ricochets and ends by wounding the person who fired it. One of the fundamental bases of the power of the modern capitalist state, the national market, is wiped out by the heavy artillery of the global finance economy. The new international capitalism renders national capitalism obsolete and effectively starves their public powers into extinction. The blow has been so brutal that sovereign states have lost the strength to defend their citizens’ interests.

The fine showcase inherited from the ending of the cold war - the new world order - has shattered into fragments as a result of the neoliberal explosion. It takes no more than a few minutes for companies and states to be sunk - but they are sunk not by winds of proletarian revolution, but by the violence of the hurricanes of world finance.

The son (neoliberalism) is devouring the father (national capital) and, in the process, is destroying the lies of capitalist ideology: in the new world order there is neither democracy nor freedom, neither equality nor fraternity. The planetary stage is transformed into a new battlefield, in which chaos reigns.

Towards the end of the cold war, capitalism created a new military horror: the neutron bomb, a weapon which destroys life while sparing buildings. But a new wonder has been discovered as the fourth world war unfolds: the finance bomb. Unlike the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this new bomb does not simply destroy the polis (in this case, the nation) and bring death, terror and misery to those who live there; it also transforms its target into a piece in the jigsaw puzzle of the process of economic globalisation. The result of the explosion is not a pile of smoking ruins, or thousands of dead bodies, but a neighbourhood added to one of the commercial megalopolis of the new planetary hypermarket, and a labour force which is reshaped to fit in with the new planetary job market.

The European Union is a result of this fourth world war. In Europe globalisation has succeeded in eliminating the frontiers between rival states that had been enemies for centuries, and has forced them to converge towards political union. On the way from the nation state to the European Federation the road will be paved with destruction and ruin, and one of these ruins will be that of European civilisation.

Megalopolises are reproducing themselves right across the planet. Their favourite spawning ground is in the world’s free trade areas. In North America, the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico is a prelude to the accomplishment of an old dream of US conquest: "America for the Americans".

Are megalopolises replacing nations? No, or rather not merely that. They are assigning them new functions, new limits and new perspectives. Entire countries are becoming departments of the neoliberal mega-enterprise. Neoliberalism thus produces, on the one hand, destruction and depopulation, and, on the other, the reconstruction and reorganisation of regions and nations.

Unlike nuclear bombs, which had a dissuasive, intimidating and coercive character in the third world war, the financial hyperbombs of the fourth world war are different in nature. They serve to attack territories (national states) by the destruction of the material bases of their sovereignty and by producing a qualitative depopulation of those territories. This depopulation involves the exclusion of all persons who are of no use to the new economy (indigenous peoples, for instance). But at the same time the financial centres are working on a reconstruction of nation states and are reorganising them within a new logic: the economic has the upper hand over the social.

The indigenous world is full of examples illustrating this strategy: Ian Chambers, director of the Central America section of the International Labour Organisation, has stated that the worldwide populations of indigenous peoples (300 million people) lives in zones which house 60 % of the planet’s natural resources. It is therefore "not surprising that there are multiple conflicts over the use and future of their lands in relation to the interests of business and governments (...). The exploitation of natural resources (oil and minerals) and tourism are the principal industries threatening indigenous territories in America (1)." And then come pollution, prostitution and drugs.

In this new war, politics, as the organiser of the nation state, no longer exists. Now politics serves solely in order to manage the economy, and politicians are now merely company managers.

The world’s new masters have no need to govern directly. National governments take on the role of running things on their behalf. This is what the new order means - unification of the world into one single market. States are simply enterprises with managers in the guise of governments, and the new regional alliances bear more of a resemblance to shopping malls than political federations. The unification produced by neoliberalism is economic: in the giant planetary hypermarket it is only commodities that circulate freely, not people.

This economic globalisation is also accompanied by a general way of thinking. The "American way of life" which followed American troops into Europe during the second world war, then to Vietnam in the 1960s, and more recently into the Gulf war, is now extending itself to the planet as a whole, via computers. What we have here is a destruction of the material bases of nation states, but we also have a destruction of history and culture.

All the cultures which nations have forged - the noble past of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the brilliance of European civilisation, the cultured history of the Asian nations and the ancestral wealth of Africa and Oceania - all these are under attack from the American way of life. Neoliberalism thus imposes the destruction of nations and of groups of nations in order to fuse them into one single model. The war which neoliberalism is conducting against humanity is thus a planetary war, and is the worst and most cruel ever seen.

What we have here is a puzzle. When we attempt to put its pieces together in order to arrive at an understanding of today’s world, we find that a lot of the pieces are missing. Still, we can make a start with seven of them, in the hope that this conflict will not end with the destruction of humanity. Seven pieces to draw, colour in, cut out and put together with others, in order to try to solve this global puzzle.

The first of these pieces is the two-fold accumulation of wealth and of poverty at the two poles of planetary society. The second is the total exploitation of the totality of the world. The third is the nightmare of that part of humanity condemned to a life of wandering. The fourth is the sickening relationship between crime and state power. The fifth is state violence. The sixth is the mystery of megapolitics. The seventh is the multiple forms of resistance which humanity is deploying against neoliberalism.

Piece no. 1: The concentration of wealth and the distribution of poverty

Figure 1 is constructed by drawing a sign for money.

In the history of humanity, a variety of models have fought it out over the erection of absurdities as the distinguishing features of world order. Neoliberalism will have pride of place when it comes to the prize-giving, because in its "distribution" of wealth all it achieves is a two-fold absurdity of accumulation: an accumulation of wealth for the few, and an accumulation of poverty for millions of others. Injustice and inequality are the distinguishing traits of today’s world. The earth has five billion human inhabitants: of these, only 500 million live comfortably; the remaining 4.5 billion endure lives of poverty. The rich make up for their numerical minority by their ownership of billions of dollars. The total wealth owned by the 358 richest people in the world, the dollar billionaires, is greater than the annual income of almost half the world’s poorest inhabitants, in other words about 2.6 billion people.

The progress of the major transnational companies does not necessarily involve the advance of the countries of the developed world. On the contrary, the richer these giant companies become, the more poverty there is in the so-called "wealthy" countries. The gap between rich and poor is enormous: far from decreasing, social inequalities are growing.

This monetary sign that you have drawn represents the symbol of world economic power. Now colour it dollar-green. Ignore the sickening stench; this smell of dung, mire and blood are the smells of its birthing...

Piece no. 2: The globalisation of exploitation

Figure 2 is constructed by drawing a triangle.

One of the lies of neoliberalism is that the economic growth of companies produces employment and a better distribution of wealth. This is untrue. In the same way that the increasing power of a king does not lead to an increase in the power of his subjects (far from it), the absolutism of finance capital does not improve the distribution of wealth, and does not create jobs. In fact its structural consequences are poverty, unemployment and precariousness.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the number of poor people in the world (defined by the World Bank as having an income of less than one dollar per day) rose to some 200 million. By the start of the 1990s, their numbers stood at two billion.

Hence, increasing numbers of people who are poor or have been made poor. Fewer and fewer people who are rich or have become rich. These are the lessons of Piece 1 of our puzzle. In order to obtain this absurd result, the world capitalist system is "modernising" the production, circulation and consumption of commodities. The new technological revolution (information technology) and the new revolution in politics (the megalopolises emerging from the ruins of the nation state) produce a new social "revolution". This social revolution consists of a rearrangement, a reorganisation of social forces and, principally, of the workforce.

The world’s economically active population (EAP) went from 1.38 billion in 1960 to 2.37 billion in 1990. A large increase in the number of human beings capable of working and generating wealth. But the new world order arranges this workforce within specific geographical and productive areas, and reassigns their functions (or non-functions, in the case of unemployed and precarious workers) within the plan of world globalisation. The world’s economically active population by sector (EAPS) has undergone radical changes during the past 20 years. Agriculture and fishing fell from 22 % in 1970 to 12 % in 1990; manufacture from 25 % to 22 %; but the tertiary sector (commercial, transport, banking and services) has risen from 42 % to 56 %. In developing countries, the tertiary sector has grown from 40 % in 1970 to 57 % in 1990, while agriculture and fishing have fallen from 30 % to 15 % (2). This means that increasing numbers of workers are channelled into the kind of activities necessary for increasing productivity or speeding up the creation of commodities. The neoliberal system thus functions as a kind of mega-boss for whom the world market is viewed as a single, unified enterprise, to be managed by "modernising" criteria.

But neoliberalism’s "modernity" seems closer to the bestial birth of capitalism as a world system than to utopian "rationality", because this "modern" capitalist production continues to rely on child labour. Out of 1.15 billion children in the world, at least 100 million live on the streets and 200 million work - and according to forecasts this figure will rise to 400 million by the year 2000. In Asia alone, 146 million children work in manufacturing. And in the North too, hundreds of thousands of children have to work in order to supplement family incomes, or merely to survive. There are also many children employed in the "pleasure industries": according to the United Nations, every year a million children are driven into the sex trade.

The unemployment and precarious labour of millions of workers throughout the world is a reality which does not look set to disappear. In the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), unemployment went from 3.8 % in 1966 to 6.3 % in 1990; in Europe it went from 2.2 % to 6.4 %. The globalised market is destroying small and medium- sized companies. With the disappearance of local and regional markets, small and medium producers have no protection and are unable to compete with the giant transnationals. Millions of workers thus find themselves unemployed. One of the absurdities of neoliberalism is that far from creating jobs, the growth of production actually destroys them. The UN speaks of "growth without jobs".

But the nightmare does not end there. Workers are also being forced to accept precarious conditions. Less job security, longer working hours and lower wages: these are the consequences of globalisation in general and the explosion in the service sector in particular.

All this combines to create a specific surplus: an excess of human beings who are useless in terms of the new world order because they do not produce, do not consume, and do not borrow from banks. In short, human beings who are disposable. Each day the big finance centres impose their laws on countries and groups of countries all around the world. They re-arrange and re-order the inhabitants of those countries. And at the end of the operation they find there is still an "excess" of people.

What you have now is a figure resembling a triangle: this depicts the pyramid of worldwide exploitation.

Piece no. 3: Migration, a nightmare of wandering

Figure 3 is constructed by drawing a circle.

We have already spoken of the existence, at the end of the third world war, of new territories waiting to be conquered (the former socialist countries) and others to be re-conquered for the "new world order". This situation involves the financial centres in a threefold strategy: there is a proliferation of "regional wars" and "internal conflicts"; capital follows paths of atypical accumulation; and large masses of workers are mobilised. Result: a huge rolling wheel of millions of migrants moving across the planet. As "foreigners" in that "world without frontiers" which had been promised by the victors of the cold war, they are forced to endure racist persecution, precarious employment, the loss of their cultural identity, police repression, hunger, imprisonment and murder.

The nightmare of emigration, whatever its cause, continues to grow. The number of those coming within the ambit of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has grown disproportionately from 2 million in 1975 to more than 27 million in 1995.

The objective of neoliberalism’s migration policy is more to destabilise the world labour market than to put a brake on immigration. The fourth world war - with its mechanisms of destruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganisation - involves the displacement of millions of people. Their destiny is to wander the world, carrying the burden of their nightmare with them, so as to constitute a threat to workers who have a job, a scapegoat designed to make people forget their bosses, and to provide a basis for the racism that neoliberalism provokes.

Piece no. 4: Financial globalisation and the generalisation of crime

Figure 4 is constructed by drawing a rectangle.

If you think that the world of crime has to be shady and underhand, you are wrong. In the period of the so-called cold war, organised crime acquired a more respectable image. Not only did it begin to function in the same way as any other modern enterprise, but it also penetrated deeply into the political and economic systems of nation states.

With the beginning of the fourth world war, organised crime has globalised its activities. The criminal organisations of five continents have taken on board the "spirit of world cooperation" and have joined together in order to participate in the conquest of new markets. They are investing in legal businesses, not only in order to launder dirty money, but in order to acquire capital for illegal operations. Their preferred activities are luxury property investment, the leisure industry, the media - and banking.

Ali Baba and the Forty Bankers? Worse than that. Commercial banks are using the dirty money of organised crime for their legal activities. According to a UN report, the involvement of crime syndicates has been facilitated by the programmes of structural adjustment which debtor countries have been forced to accept in order to gain access to International Monetary Fund loans (3).

Organised crime also relies on the existence of tax havens: there are some 55 of these. One of them, the Cayman Islands, ranks fifth in the world as a banking centre, and has more banks and registered companies than inhabitants. As well as laundering money, these tax paradises make it possible to escape taxation. They are places for contact between governments, businessmen and Mafia bosses.

So here we have the rectangular mirror within which legality and illegality exchange reflections. On which side of the mirror is the criminal? And on which side is the person who pursues him?

Piece no. 5: Legitimate violence of illegitimate powers

Figure 5 is constructed by drawing a pentagon.

In the cabaret of globalisation, the state performs a striptease, at the end of which it is left wearing the minimum necessary: its powers of repression. With its material base destroyed, its sovereignty and independence abolished, and its political class eradicated, the nation state increasingly becomes a mere security apparatus in the service of the mega-enterprises which neoliberalism is constructing. Instead of orienting public investment towards social spending, it prefers to improve the equipment which enables it to control society more effectively.

What is to be done when the violence derives from the laws of the market? Where is legitimate violence then? And where the illegitimate? What monopoly of violence can the hapless nation states demand when the free interplay of supply and demand defies any such monopoly? Have we not shown, in Piece 4, that organised crime, government and finance centres are intimately interlinked? Is it not obvious that organised crime has veritable armies on which it can count? The monopoly of violence no longer belongs to nation states: the market has put it up for auction.

However, when the monopoly of violence is contested not on the basis of the laws of the market, but in the interests of "those from below", then world power sees it as "aggression". This is one of the (least studied and most condemned) aspects of the challenges launched by the indigenous peoples in arms and in rebellion of the Zapatista National Liberation Army against neoliberalism and for humanity.

The symbol of American military power is the pentagon. The new world police wants national armies and police to be simple security bodies guaranteeing order and progress within the megalopolises of neoliberalism.

Piece no. 6: Megapolitics and its dwarfs

Figure 6 is constructed by scribbling a doodle.

We said earlier that nation states are attacked by the finance markets and forced to dissolve themselves within megalopolises. But neoliberalism does not conduct its war solely by "unifying" nations and regions. Its strategy of destruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganisation also produces a fracture or fractures within the nation state. This is the paradox of this fourth world war: while ostensibly working to eliminate frontiers and "unite" nations, it actually leads to a multiplication of frontiers and the smashing apart of nations.

If anyone still doubts that this globalisation is a world war, let them look at the conflicts that arose out of the collapse of the USSR, of Czechoslovakia and of Yugoslavia, and the deep crises which have shattered not only the political and economic foundations of nation states, but also their social cohesion.

Both the construction of megalopolises and the fragmentation of states are founded on the destruction of the nation state. Are these two independent and parallel events? Are they symptoms of a mega-crisis about to occur? Or are they simply separate and isolated facts?

We think that they represent a contradiction inherent in the process of globalisation, and one of the core realities of the neoliberal model. The elimination of trade frontiers, the explosion of telecommunications, information superhighways, the omnipresence of financial markets, international free trade agreements - all this contributes to destroying nation states and internal markets. Paradoxically, globalisation produces a fragmented world of isolated pieces, a world full of watertight compartments which may at best be linked by fragile economic gangways. A world of broken mirrors which reflect the useless world unity of the neoliberal puzzle.

But neoliberalism does not merely fragment the world which it claims to be unifying; it also produces the political and economic centre which directs this war. It is urgent that we embark on a discussion of this mega-politics. Mega-politics globalises national politics - in other words it ties them to a centre which has world interests and which operates on the logic of the market. It is in the name of the market that wars, credits, buying and selling of commodities, diplomatic recognition, trade blocs, political support, laws on immigration, breakdowns of relationships between countries and investment - in short, the survival of entire nations - are decided.

The world-wide power of the financial markets is such that they are not concerned about the political complexion of the leaders of individual countries: what counts in their eyes is a country’s respect for the economic programme. Financial disciplines are imposed on all alike. These masters of the world can even tolerate the existence of left-wing governments, on condition that they adopt no measure likely to harm the interests of the market. However, they will never accept policies that tend to break with the dominant model.

In the eyes of mega-politics, national politics are conducted by dwarfs who are expected to comply with the dictates of the financial giant. And this is the way it will always be - until the dwarfs revolt.

Here, then, you have the figure which represents mega-politics. Impossible to find the slightest rationality in it.

Piece no. 7: Pockets of resistance

Figure 7 is constructed by drawing a pocket.

"To begin with, I beg you not to confuse Resistance with political opposition. The opposition does not oppose power but a government, and its achieved and complete form is that of a party of opposition: while resistance, by definition (now useful) cannot be a party: it is not made to govern at its time, but to...resist."
Tomas Segovia. "Allegations". Mexico, 1996.


The apparent infallibility of globalization clashes with the stubborn disobedience to reality. At the same time as neoliberalism carries out its world war, all over the world groups of those who will not conform take shape, nuclei of rebels. The empire of financial pockets confront the rebellion of the pockets of resistance.

Yes, pockets. Of all sizes, of all colors, of the most varied forms. Their only similarity is their resistance to the "new world order" and the crime against humanity that the neoliberal war carries out.

Upon its attempt to impose its economic, political, social and cultural model, neoliberalism pretends to subjugate millions of human beings, and do away with all those who do not have a place in its new distribution of the world. But as it turns out these "disposible" ones rebel and they resist against the power who wants to eliminate them. Women, children, the elderly, the indigenous, the ecologists, homosexuals,lesbians, HIV positives, workers and all those men and women who are not only "left over" but who"bother" the established order and world progress rebel, and organize and struggle. Knowing they are equal yet different, the excluded ones from "modernity" begin to weave their resistance against the process of destruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganization which is carried out as a world war, by neoliberalism.

In Mexico, for example, the so-called "Program of Integrated Development for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec" pretends to construct a modern international center of distributio and assembly for products. The development zone covered an industrial complex which would refine the third part of Mexican crude oil and elaborate 88% of petrochemical products. The routes of interoceanic transit will consist of highways, a water route following the natural curve of the zone (the river Coatzacoalcos) and as an articulating center, the trans-isthmus railroad line (in the hands of 5 companies, 4 from the United States and one from Canada). The project would be an assembly zone under the regime of twin plants.

Two million residents of the place will become stevedores, assembly line workers, or railway guards (Ana Esther Cecena. "El Istmo de Tehuantepec: frontera de la soberania nacional". "La Jornada del Campo", May 28, 1997.) In Southeast Mexico as well, in the Lacandon Jungle the "Program for Sustainable Regional Development for the Lacandon Jungle" begins operations. Its final objective is to place at the feet of capital the indigenous lands which, in addition to beig rich in dignity and history, are also rich in oil and uranium.

The visible results of all these projects will be, among others, the fragmentation of mexico (separating the southeast from the rest of the country). In addition to this, and now we speak of war, the projects have counterinsurgency implications. They make up a part of a pincer to liquidate the antineoliberal rebellio which exploded in 1994. In the middle stand the idigenous rebels of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

(A parenthesis is now convenient int he theme of indigenous rebels: the Zapatistas think that, in Mexico (attention: in Mexico) the recuperation and defense of national sovereignty is part of an antineoliberal revolution. Paradoxically, the EZLN is accused of pretendeing to fragment the Mexican nation. The reality is that the only ones who have spoke of separatism are the businessmen of the state of Tabasco (rich in oil) and the federal deputies of Chiapas who belong to the PRI. The Zapatistas think that the defense of the national state is necessary I view of globalization, and that the attempts to slice Mexico to pieces comes from the governing group and not from the just demands for autonomy for the Indian Peoples. The EZLN, and the best of the national indigenous movement, does not want the Indian peoples to separate from Mexico, but to be recognized as part of the country with their differences.

Not only that, they want a Mexico with democracy, liberty and justice. The paradoxes continue because while the EZLN struggle for the defense of national sovereignty, the Mexican Federal Army struggles against that defense and defends a governmet who has destroyed the material bases of national sovereignty and given the country, not just to powerful foreign capital, but to the drug traffickers).

But resistance does not only exist in the mountains of Southeast Mexico against neoliberalism. In other parts of mexico, in latin America, in the United States and Canada, in the Europe which belogs to the Treaty of Masstrich, in Africa, in Asia, in Oceania, the pockets of resistance multiply. Each one of them has its own histoyr its differences, its equalities, its demands, its strugles, its accomplishments.

If humanity still has hope of survival, of being better, that hope is in the pockets formed by the excluded ones, the left-overs, the ones who are disposible.

This is a model for a pocket of resistance, but don't pay too much attention to it. There are as many models as there are resistances, and as many worlds as in the world. So draw the model you prefer. As far as this things about the pockets is concerned, they are rich in diversity, as are the resistances.

There are, no doubt, more pieces of the neoliberal jigsaw puzzle. For example: the mass media, culture, pollution, pandemias. We only wanted to show you here the profiles of 7 of them.

These 7 are enough so that you, after you draw, color and cut them out, can see that it is impossible to put them together. And this is the problem of the world which globalization pretends to construct:
the pieces don't fit.

For this and other reasons which do not fit into the space of this text, it is necessary to make a new world.
A world where many worlds fit, where all worlds fit...


From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Zapatista Army of National Liberation Mexico,
June of 1997.


P.S. Which tells of dreams that nest in love. The sea rests at my side. It shares with me since some time ago anguish, doubts and many dreams, but now it sleeps with me in the hot night of the jungle. I look at its agitated wheat in sleep and I marvel once again at how I have found her as always; lukewarm, fresh and at my side. The asphyxia makes me get out of bed and takes my hand and the pen to bring back Old Man Antonio as was years ago...

I have asked that Old Man Antonio accompany me in an exploration to the river below. We have no more than a little bit of cornmeal to eat. For hours we follow those capricious channels and the hunger and the heat press on us. All afternoon we spend after a drove of wild boar. It is almost nightfall when we catch up with them, but a huge mountain pig breaks away from the group and attacks us. I quickly take out all my military knowledge by dropping my weapon and climbing up the nearest tree. Old Man Antonio remains defenseless before the attack, but instead of running, goes behind a grove of reeds. The giant pig runs frontally and with all its strength against the reeds, and becomes entangled in the thorns and the vines. Before it is able to free itself, Old Man Antonio picks up his old musket and shoots it in the head, settling supper for that day.

At dawn, after I have finished cleaning my modern automatic weapon ( an M-16, 5.56 mm. Caliber, with cadence selector and effective reach of 460 meters, in addition to telescopic site, tripod and a 60 shot drum clip), I wrote in my military journal, omitting the above: "Ran into a pig and A. killed one. 350 m. above sea level. It didn't rain."

While we waited for the meat to cook I told Old Man Antonio that the part which I would get, would serve for the parties being prepared back at the camp. "Parties?" he asked as he tended the fire. "Yes" I said "No matter the month, there's always something to celebrate." Afterwards I continue with what I supposed would be a brilliant dissertation about the historic calendar and the Zapatista celebrations. In silence I listened to Old Man Antonio, and assuming it did not interest him, I settled in to sleep.

Between dreams I saw Old Man Antonio take my notebook and write something. I the morning, we gagve out the meat after breakfast and each one took to the road. In our camp, I report to my superior and show him the logbook so he'll know what happened. "That's not your writing" I'm told as he shows me a page from the notebook. There, at the end of what I had written that day, Old Man Antonio had written in large letters:
"If you cannot have both reason and strength, always choose to have reason and let the enemy have all the strength. In many battles strength can obtain the victory, but in all the struggle only reason can win. The powerful can never extract reason from his strength, but we can always obtain strength from reason".

And below in smaller letters "Happy parties."

It's obvious, I wasn't hungry anymore. The parties, as always, were very joyful. "The one with the red ribbon" was still, happily, very far from the hit parade of the Zapatistas..


* * * * *

(1) Interview with Martha GarcĂ­a, La Jornada, 28 May 1997.

(2) Ochoa Chi and Juanita del Pilar, “Mercado mundial de fuerza de trabajo en el capitalismo contemporáneo”, UNAM, Economia, Mexico City, 1997.

(3) The Globalisation of Crime, United Nations, New York, 1995.











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Tuesday 24 May 2011

Endangered Species (1982) Soundtrack Brilliance






I was just watching an old film from the 1980's called Endangered Species (1982) about secret government germ warfare tests on American citizens and cattle mutilations.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_(1982_film)


Okay film, some good scenes especially the silent black helicopter.

But I noticed that I was listening to the soundtrack more than I was watching the movie.

The soundtrack to the film is brilliant.

If you like the soundtracks of the films below - then get this film and listen to the soundtrack, recorded by a guy called Gary Wright - it is brilliant.


1) Hanna by The Chemical Brothers

2) Zabriski Point - Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones

3) The Keep - Tangerine Dream

4) Bladerunner - Vangelis




Then you will love the soundtrack on Endangered Species.

It is one of those rare films where the soundtrack is so good, that you want to watch the film atgain to listen to the soundtrack.

As a fan of bands like Boards of Canada, Orbital, The Prodigy and Basement Jaxx who produce soundscapes - the soundtrack reminded me of a cross between The Chemical Brothers album soundtrack from Hannah (2011) and The Keep soundtrack by Tamgerine Dream.

If you like the soundtracks of those two films, then you will love the soundtrack of Endangered Species (1982.
















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Zionism in the USA

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110521/ts_nm/us_usa_campaign_mideast_1#mwpphu-container


CHICAGO (Reuters) – Some prominent Jewish Americans are rethinking their support for President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election bid after he effectively called on Israel to give back territory it has occupied since 1967 to Palestinians.

The backlash after Obama's keynote speech on the Middle East has Democratic Party operatives scrambling to mollify the Jewish community as the president prepares to seek a second term in the White House.

Obama on Thursday called for any new Palestinian state to respect the borders as they were in 1967, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tell him bluntly that his vision of how to achieve Middle East peace was unrealistic.

"He has in effect sought to reduce Israel's negotiation power and I condemn him for that," former New York Mayor Ed Koch told Reuters.

Koch said he might not campaign or vote for Obama if Republicans nominate a pro-Israel candidate who offers an alternative to recent austere budgetary measures backed by Republicans in Congress.

Koch donated $2,300 to Obama's campaign in 2008, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

"I believed that then-Senator Obama would be as good as John McCain based on his statements at the time and based on his support of Israel. It turns out I was wrong," he said.

Despite the stormy reaction to Obama's remarks, some commentators noted talk of the 1967 borders was nothing new.

"This has been the basic idea for at least 12 years. This is what Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were talking about at Camp David, and later, at Taba," Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on The Atlantic website.

"This is what George W. Bush was talking about with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. So what's the huge deal here?"

Exit polls from the 2008 election showed 78 percent of Jewish voters chose Obama over his Republican rival Senator McCain.

"I have spoken to a lot of people in the last couple of days -- former supporters -- who are very upset and feel alienated," billionaire real estate developer and publisher Mortimer Zuckerman said.

"He'll get less political support, fewer activists for his campaign, and I am sure that will extend to financial support as well."

Zuckerman backed Obama during his 2008 presidential run and the newspaper he owns, the New York Daily News, endorsed the president.

Obama's Chicago-based re-election campaign sought to play down reaction to the shift in the U.S. stance toward Israel.

"There's no question that we've reached out to the Jewish donor community, as we have to many other communities that strongly supported the president in 2008," a campaign spokeswoman said on Friday.

"The continued grassroots organizing and fundraising efforts of many prominent leaders in the Jewish community makes it clear this will remain a strong base of support in 2012."

Texas-based real estate developer Kirk Rudy, who is a deputy finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee, said he exchanged phone calls and e-mails with a large network of supporters since the president's speech "trying to take people's pulse" and has not seen a strong backlash.

"I have seen very emphatic and robust support -- and financial support -- from the Jewish community," Rudy said, adding Obama received "significant financial participation from the Jewish community" at two fund-raisers in Austin, before the Middle East speech, that brought in roughly $2 million.

Since the speech, Rudy has received e-mails from angry voters but the overwhelming majority of his network will continue to donate and not cross party lines, he said.

But Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, wrote an open letter to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, calling on it to cancel a scheduled address by Obama to the lobby group on Sunday.






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