Monday, October 20, 2014

the systemic roots of a global pandemic


collapseofindustrialcivilization |  Over the ages, a number of empires have exploited and looted the resource-rich lands of Africa. At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland in the northern hemisphere to the deserts of Africa in the south. The Romans stripped their North African territory of its trees, making it their breadbasket of grain production. Originating in central Africa, malaria was likely spread to the center of the Roman Empire on their cargo ships. Passengers on their boats could have carried malaria in their bloodstream before becoming symptomatic, and water barrels on board could have harbored mosquito larvae. In fact, the DNA work of Dr. Robert Sallares has proven that the most lethal form of malaria helped topple ancient Rome. Fast forwarding to today, the blow-back from industrial agriculture and transnational corporate land grabs in Africa has now reached the shores of the hegemonic American Empire in the form of a deadly tropical disease called Ebola.

The Roman Empire seized fertile African land by brute force, but in modern times capitalist industrial civilization takes over Third World countries with the stroke of a pen. Structural adjustment loans by such tools of western power as the IMF and World Bank are signed requiring privatization of the economy and government cuts in social spending. Vast tracks of forests are cleared for mining or monoculture crop production such as palm oil. Subsistence farmers are dispossessed of their ancestral lands and forced to migrate to cities in search of work. Deprived of adequate healthcare and the opportunity to earn a livable wage, these urban poor live in squalor and are driven to hunt in the surrounding forests for a cheap source of protein known as bushmeat. Fruit bats, a keystone environmental species, have been identified as an Ebola virus host that has spread the disease through bushmeat consumption, habitat destruction, and human encroachment. Thus the neoliberal agenda of ‘developed’ nations has acted to create the atmosphere from which this pandemic arose.

Due to the long history of exploitation by outside powers, native Africans are justifiably wary and prone to conspiracy theories involving intervention by Western institutions as well as their own governments which have been, to a great degree, corrupted by the resource curse. These unpleasant facts are, of course, never mentioned by the MSM because it might spark a flicker of moral compunction in the ‘developed’ world which has ended up with so much of Africa’s wealth in the form of rare earth minerals used inside electronic devices, gold and diamonds in jewelry, or petrol pumped into vehicles. The horrific realities behind conflict minerals are always kept out of sight and out of mind by the next consumer diversion.

15 comments:

makheru bradley said...

This validates what Pam Martens wrote in 2008: http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/05/05/obama-s-money-cartel/

[According to a comprehensive report from the nonprofit group, United for a Fair Economy, over the past eight years the total loss of wealth for people of color is between $164 billion and $213 billion for subprime loans which is the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern history:

“According to federal data, people of color are more than three times more likely to have subprime loans: high-cost loans account for 55 per cent of loans to blacks, but only 17 per cent of loans to whites”.

If there had been equitable distribution of subprime loans, losses for white people would be 44.5 per cent higher and losses for people of color would be about 24 per cent lower. “This is evidence of systemic prejudice and institutional racism”.] Up to $213 billion in wealth lost prior to 9/15. Those losses are easily over $1 trillion now.

The average price for a house in Ferguson last year was $35,000.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/riot-or-not-homes-are-selling-in-ferguson/article_f129e91d-87b8-5b6d-953a-83b347ae10c2.html
.

umbrarchist said...

Doesn't it make so much sense that 4 years of English Literature is required in high school but ONE YEAR of double-entry accounting is not? But if you check the history double-entry accounting is 700 years old. 200 years before Columbus discovered the land for this Capitalist country.

So why haven't we created a reading list for Black kids instead of letting palefaces who hide information from each other tell us what "Education" is?

The Tyranny of Words (1938) by Stuart Chase
http://www.anxietyculture.com/tyranny.htm
http://archive.org/details/tyrannyofwords00chas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9H1StY1nU8

The Screwing of the Average Man (1974) by David Hapgood
http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/rape10.shtml
http://www.amazon.com/screwing-average-man-David-Hapgood/dp/B0006W84KK

The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh From the Lemonade Stand
http://www.exceltip.com/book-1570713960.html
http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2006/10/18/foolish-book-review-quotthe-accounting-gamequot.aspx

Radically Simple Accounting by Madeline Bailey
http://qccomputing.com/radical-accounting-book.htm

umbrarchist said...

Doesn't it make so much sense that 4 years of English Literature is required in high school but ONE YEAR of double-entry accounting is not? But if you check the history double-entry accounting is 700 years old. 200 years before Columbus discovered the land for this Capitalist country.

So why haven't we created a reading list for Black kids instead of letting palefaces who hide information from each other tell us what "Education" is?

The Tyranny of Words (1938) by Stuart Chase
http://www.anxietyculture.com/tyranny.htm
http://archive.org/details/tyrannyofwords00chas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9H1StY1nU8

The Screwing of the Average Man (1974) by David Hapgood
http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/rape10.shtml
http://www.amazon.com/screwing-average-man-David-Hapgood/dp/B0006W84KK

The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh From the Lemonade Stand
http://www.exceltip.com/book-1570713960.html
http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2006/10/18/foolish-book-review-quotthe-accounting-gamequot.aspx

Radically Simple Accounting by Madeline Bailey
http://qccomputing.com/radical-accounting-book.htm

CNu said...

Why all the absences - attendance is $$$ to the district?

CNu said...

While the parents sound like a lost cause, does the role you model leave a lasting impression on the kids, and, have you graduated multiple "classes" of these young men(women) from the UBJ Life Skills Academy?

Ed Dunn said...

I already provided not only the solution but source code on creating a personal product system to leverage the circular economy to stop this kind of problem.

http://dreamandhustle.com/2014/08/case-study-creating-microsoft-c-class-libraries-to-power-a-collaborative-consumption-solution-for-the-hood/

BigDonOne said...

Lack of FTO stems from lack of IQ. FTO/IQ is hard-wired in the DNA, deferred gratification cannot be taught....

Phx said...

Sure the district loses money, and its schools are on the state's sanction list. But what are you going to do with a "why" question in a situation like this.

No doubt there are a number of good answers to that question, you and your readers can probably tick them off immediately, even without ever having been here. The real question is wtf do we do about it?

CNu said...

First you focus on what precisely differentiates these two locations from the underperforming locations:Only two schools — World of Inquiry School No. 58 and School of the Arts — hit 95 percent.And without actually bothering to drill down to any location-specific details, I'll make a wild guarantee that these are both magnets with a heavy emphasis on cultural enrichment, i.e., they emphasize subjects and take an approach the students are genuinely interested in.Vargas has been working to return engaging arts and music classes and
sports to schools — to “make the school more exciting than the streets,”
as he is wont to stay.

The top three parental priorities for high-performing public school districts:
1. The children are safe
2. The children have fun
3. The children are fed good food that they enjoy

A school district effectively executing on the above three performance points has no trouble hitting its marks on academic achievement and college preparation. Why? Because school is a place that the kids want to be. Comes now the moronic conservatard canard about valuesBut the missing puzzle piece in many cases is parents that value education. Only an unselfconscious moron could imagine that even the poorest parents don't value education,. THAT's not the issue. The issue is that there are now three generations of profoundly alienated parents/grandparents whose experience of these school districts was so personally unpalatable that they want no part of the institution. Has nothing to do with "not valuing education" has everything to do with "despising the school system which sucked donkey dick" when they were subjected to its compulsory incompetence, it has everything to do with a flaccid colonial occupation force consisting of 80% morbidly obese white women from the exurbs and clinging for dear life to jobs they don't want to do serving constituents they don't actually relate to or like.

Urban public school districts are as phukked up as urban pseudo-military police forces, and for many of the exact same reasons. The only people in these districts are those who cannot afford any of the alternatives. Sad...,

BigDonOne said...

Defense is Number_One.
If you can't defend your Good Stuff, then you won't have it for long.
Africans, with a 100,000-year head start, lacked the FTO to grasp that concept, resulting in continuous advantage-being-taken-of....


The Military-Industrial Complex is essential to survival.
So is a Commander-in-Chief who doesn't have his head up his ass....

BigDonOne said...

Pearl Harbor aside, the reason your kids aren't speaking German, Japanese, Russian, or your ashes residing in a latter-day Auschwitz, is because, until 9-1-1 aggressors knew we were too strong and were afraid to attack us on our own turf --- Now you got First Fuzzy giving it all away by default....

rohan said...

Dawn's long overdue for that sicilian surprise party

http://youtu.be/Wit1vpOXftg

BigDonOne said...

...Hey, it was only Business - Can you get me off the hook...for old times' sake...??

CNu said...

lol, always all about the blog murder...,

maaaan shooooot...., if BDO didn't exist, how in the world could we make him up? Seriously dood.

I'm out doing walk-throughs these past few weeks, and so listen to a little NPR and a little Alex Jones en route from one location to another. This morning, my ears were treated to this delightful little vignette - which made me think about Big Don.. http://www.npr.org/2014/10/21/357576237/six-words-must-we-forget-our-confederate-ancestors The flag that they get so upset over, was actually not a flag. It was a
battle flag. It was what you formed off of to know you were on the right
side" in battle.No matter how much or how overwhelming the evidence you present to the contrary, Big Don is unshakeable in his utterly irrational convictions that he is "formed off on the right side" of everything!!!

You simply cannot make that isht up....,

CNu said...

http://youtu.be/d30Y0n1nDH4?t=54s

What Is France To Do With The Thousands Of Soldiers Expelled From Africa?

SCF  |    Russian President Vladimir Putin was spot-on this week in his observation about why France’s Emmanuel Macron is strutting around ...