© Raimond Spekking / CC-BY-SA-3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Barbadians celebrate National Heroes Day today. A time to celebrate those who significantly contributed to the foundation for advancing Barbados. The following article (reproduced) is meant to provoke thought and awareness given the new challenges which have emerged in our new world.

“Mahatma Gandhi, with no weapon but truth, brought England’s Indian Empire crashing down. Another man of peace, from a small island off the coast of India, is now committed to an even more ambitious task. He would restore what he sees as the equilibrium upset by Western Europe when it set out 500 years ago to conquer the planet.

As if that were not enough, he wants the Christian churches to recognize that as legitimators and beneficiaries of those wars of conquest, they are obligated in justice to return the unjustly acquired benefits. Wait a minute. Didn’t the colonial era end shortly after World War II? Hasn’t the number of sovereign nations more than doubled in 50 years to 185?”

Read full article

37 responses to “Restitution For Colonial Era Is Due”


  1. Tremendous article. However, goes against the OWG and OCED, WTO departments of the OWG.

    So, nice awareness, maybe worthy of being on the agenda for the first meeting of a revised Non-Aligned Nations.

    Other than that, it will be given short shift by the OWG nations.


  2. [b]Manufacturing Poor People[/b]

    by Vi Ransel
    Globalresearch.ca

    In just the past 50 years, the Rich People of the “First”, or Western World have invested heavily, through their banks, industries and other corporations, in the poorest regions of the “Third” World in Africa, Asia and Latin America, home to the majority of the world’s poor. Transnational corporations are attracted by the richness of these people’s natural resources, the richness of profits off cheap labor, the near total lack of environmental and worker safety regulations and the non-existent benefits for said labor.

    U.S. transnationals were given a push toward this pregnant profit source, this attractive and waiting richness, by the U.S. government, which subsidizes (read gives taxpayers’ money to) corporations in the form of tax breaks on foreign investment and even helping them to pay their relocation expenses at the expense of not only the taxpayers, but those taxpayers whose jobs are outsourced by this support for global U.S. economic dominance.

    Local businesses in the “Third” World are destroyed as U.S. transnationals penetrate and overwhelm their markets like species imported to get rid of pests which turn out to be even bigger pests themselves. Taxpayer-subsidized cartels of transnationals dump their cheap, surplus goods in these countries at below their own cost to undersell local producers, thus forcing them out of business and allowing the U.S. corporations to take over the market. (This is also Wal-Mart’s favorite technique for killing the competition in local markets right here in America.)

    In the case of Big Agriculture they also take over/expropriate the best pieces of land, monocrop them with products for export, and douse them with oil-based, chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides, destroying the soil. Think Dust Bowl. This leaves less land for use for those run-out-of-business farmers and their families to produce the food to feed the local population, who, along with the displaced farmers, are forced to go to work – for next to nothing – on those monocropped plantations to grow food that will be shipped out of the country or to work in American sub-contracted sweat shop factories. This also forces them to buy what food they can afford from these same Big Ag corporations. This is exactly the same scenario as in the U.S., since the bulk of the U.S. population consists of dependent consumers, unable to feed themselves, who must go to a supermarket to feed off the tit of Big Ag.

    Robbing local people of self-sufficiency creates a perfect profit-making mechanism based on a labor market flooded with desperate people who can be herded into a neat, ready-to-use package, labor in a box, in slums and shanty towns which they will leave to slave for token, poverty wages – if they can find work – which are most often in violation of their own countries’ minimum wage laws. This is thanks to the overarching authority of Western-created “Free” Trade Agreements enforced by the World Trade Organization in its private, unaccountable courts.

    Since the U.S. is one of the few pariah nations which refuses to sign the international convention for the abolishment of child labor and forced labor, Wal-Mart, Disney and J.C. Penny were able to pay eleven cents – 11 cents – an hour in Haiti in 2007. This allows these transnational corporations, not only in the “Third” World, but here in America, to have workers as young as 12 – twelve – sustain high rates of fatalities and injuries while working for less than the minimum wage. Talk about your right to work!

    The savings these transnationals – and their shareholders – are able to rack up by exploiting and further impoverishing the people of the “Third” World do not translate into lower prices for the consumers, e.g. people, of the “First”, or Western World. Oh no, my pretty! Transnationals don’t outsource to save their customers money. They do it to increase their profits and their payouts to shareholders. For instance, children in Indonesia in 1990 made shoes for thirteen cents an hour working a 12-hour day. The shoes cost $2.60 to make. They sold in the United States for $100.

    In addition to this slick trick, any U.S. “aid” to these transnationals-impoverished countries comes with stainless steel strings attached. Besides the “aid” money being used to create an infrastructure – ports, railroads, airports, highways, refineries, utilities, etc. – which facilitates the transnationals’ ability to make money at the expense of local economies, this “aid” must most often be spent on U.S. goods, thus enriching even more U.S. corporations.

    The country receiving “aid” must also give investment preference to even more U.S. corporations. This causes a shift away from products produced locally and toward those imported from the West, creating more debt, dependency and hunger. Further, a lot of this “aid” slips silently into the silken pockets of the local ruling class to buy their complicity and even enlist them in the enforcement of the ongoing heist.

    http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24525


  3. hi GM,

    Following the line from your post, note that we are alrerady heariug that Libya will be given ‘help’ to rebuild!!!

    Now, does a country that had billions in foreign reserves and investments and oil reserves need ‘help’ rebuilding?

    Or is it a case of select groups ‘helping themselves’ to Libya’s riches???

    Financial gang-rape.


  4. While I agree that the “church ” was complicit in the opression of colonised lands the subject of restitution from the “church” and more importantly from the Govts of the former colonisers is very complicated matter.

    These Govts are mainly BANKRUPT so paying up is NOT going to happen. Most of these countries have a massive bulge in their population demographically speaking and are going to be in deep trouble just delivering on their promises to local seniors. I can assure you no one will vote for the massive tax increases involved, not even to solve todays financial concerns farless the injustices of hundreds of years ago.

    The author suggests that the US pay Ghana and Nigeria for the slaves. However, how does he know that these slaves were not paid for when they were purchased from black chiefs hundreds of years ago? What would the price per head be? What percentage of the US’s current wealth would be enough 10%? 50%?
    Personally what would I have to pay? Why? I was born more than 100 yrs after Emancipation, my grand parents, parents nor myself received any inheritances that could be remotely attributed to slavery. I will agree that in the time of slavery my forefathers were victimised and sent down into coal mines at the age of 8 and died of lung disease by 25. Some were beaten by “press gangs” on a Sat night and awoke on Sun morning on a ship way out to sea, having been kidnapped for the purpose rendering service for months or years. Some were sentenced to servitude in Bim because they rebelled against oppression in England. I promise that when I receive my money for these injustices i will gladly endorse the cheque to the RESTITUTION Fund.

    Now let us assume that US$ 1 Trillion is paid into the Restitution Fund. how much is apportioned to each oppressed person in the New World? Even if it was a meaningful sum like $1mn would it lead to massive improvement in Afro Am/ Cbean peoples? The history of large payouts to people of all races who did not earn it over many years by their own work/ intelligence has a very poor result, just analyse the recipients from Lotteries, Pools, Inheritances, Native Cnds/ Americans. These recipients have very high rates of bankruptcy, early death, divorce, drug/ alcohol abuse etc.

    I would not advice young Cbean peoples to sit at home waiting for a large cheque to be delivered. I would advise working cleverly and hard to position themselves to get ahead because this formulae does tend to produce positive results. Yes acquaint one self with history’s lessons and internalise these facts to motivate yourself to success.


  5. @Crusoe

    In reference to Libya and the real (but unexplored and unacknowledged in mainstream media) reasons why Gaddafi might have found himself in NATO/US bomb sights, John Perkin (author of the book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”) has this to say:

    Libya: It’s Not About Oil, It’s About Currency and Loans

    We listen to U.S. spokespeople try to explain why we’re suddenly now entangled in another Middle East war. Many of us find ourselves questioning the official justifications. We are aware that the true causes of our engagement are rarely discussed in the media or by our government.

    While many of the rationalizations describe resources, especially oil, as the reasons why we should be in that country, there are also an increasing number of dissenting voices. For the most part, these revolve around Libya’s financial relationship with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and multinational corporations.

    According to the IMF, Libya’s Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the rest of the world only for gold dinars.

    The US, the other G-8 countries, the World Bank, IMF, BIS, and multinational corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. Saddam Hussein had advocated policies similar to those expressed by Qaddafi shortly before the US sent troops into Iraq.

    Continued at:
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27967.htm


  6. @GM
    Yes the US et al exploits people of many Nations.
    However, the example of Indonesia raises questions. While I personally abhor the idea of employing 12 yr olds, the reality is that in poor countries that have virtually no birth control you are going to have many families with far too many children who have to be fed. My father went to work at 12 in the 1920s exactly because they were 12 mouths to feed, there was no alternative but to leave school. So when a company exploits this situation are they evil or are they helping a family avoid malnutrition? Theoretically, these kids should be at school BUT what is the short term solution?
    What are the politicians in Indonesia doing to solve the problem? What are families doing to have less children?

    In Canada, we cant hire Phillipino maids below minimum wage BUt in Singapore, mid -East etc they pay US $400/mth. So Canadians are highering 10,000+ LESS maids as a result. How does this help the unemployment situation in The Phillipines? There are at least 1 mn unemployed girls in that country earning NOTHING. Sad but true, there families would gladly accept US$ 100-200/ mth rather than another mouth to feed, thanks to the Catholic church and poor family planning.


  7. @moneybrain

    We always comeback to the position where the economic argument trumps the moral in the view of some. How can this be right.


  8. @ David
    LIFE IS NOT FAIR! If it was fair Bim would have had more top soil like other islands. We have to make the best of what we have. I certainly agree that ideally morals and ethics should prevail BUT in the real world it does not work so. In Bdos has the leadership in the last 40yrs shared the wealth gains equally? Several pols became far richer in a short period, illegally. There are a number of very well off customs folk, HOW? Is it right that they take an unfair share of Bim’s gains? Leaders take bigger shares, exploit peeps the world over and many people accept the role of following sheep. I brought up my children to always ask themselves whether they prefer to be RAM or Sheep. Sheep always walking behind in ram shit.

    There is limited room near the top in any aspect of life whether business, politics, sports etc so while I dont advocate total ruthelessness, immoral behaviour,or dearth of ethics it seems that you always have to work hard.


  9. Big companies exploting people for profit is the equivalent to modern slavery. There is no excuse for it and it is unjustifable. Everyperson deserves alivingwage wether it be man woman or child . These companies are well aware of the countries child labour laws which are practically nonexistence so the rationale being use is another way of blaming the victim while their companies reaphuge profitswhile these poor people are being
    prostituted by coperategreed. there is no getting around it the moral of the story greed!

  10. The man wiv no name!! Avatar
    The man wiv no name!!

    Dave, what restitution would you like exactly? Financial?


  11. @AC
    So which is better STARVATION or EXPLOITED BUT NOURISHED? This is the short term REALITY. This is simple ECONOMICS, OVERSUPPLY of PEOPLE = LOW WAGES!

    You can be assured that those in power globally have a solution…. CULLING the global POPULATION! That it is what we really need to worry about.

    In the West everyone is allowed to “exploit” their market for their services. Properly planned incentive system is the basis for “nourishing the consuming spirit of people”. Socialism/ communism FAILED because some people dont have ambition and MUSt never be encouraged in their laziness/ addictions etc.
    How can a Doctor be paid the same as a bus driver? People are NOT all equal to each other and so what is critical is that the OPPURTUNITY to progress be open to all. I went to HC with very poor people who vastly improved their starting position in life by hard work. What is unfortunate is the cases where very intelligent youngsters HAD to leave school to support their family. This should never be allowed to happen, bright hard workers must be encouraged, supported, financed etc.

    One major point that Western peeps miss is that in Indonesia et al people are so poor that a living wage is MUCH LOWEER than in Bdos or the WEST. I have travelled extensively in that part of the World and had excellent meals for 20% or less than in Bdos. Red Snapper dinner with rice and veg.

    I have a choice like everyone else, should I pay $300 for NBA tickets to watch multi-millionaires play Bball ( should I choose to be EXPLOITED) OR watch from home. There are alot of self-slavery choices in many aspects of life. People make very questionable choices like poor peeps who buy the latest way over priced Bball shoes, where I as a multi-millionaire would never ever do that. Do the poor peeps making such decisions ever think that the shoes were made in Indonesia, exploiting workers, paying Kobe $20MN etc NO!


  12. @ money brain where is the logic in exploiting people and i making a choice to buy a pair of reeboks. The only exploitation i see here is one in which the coperations underpaid its workers to make the product and twomarketing the product which cost them nickles and dimes to produce and then selling it at a ridiculously high market price. I know you might say the consumer has a choice but does big co-operation have no conscienious. Again it is all about greed. Have you ever heard any of these big coperation speak out against child labour in any country. They couldn’t careless look how many of them like pirah fold up shop and run to china just because labour is cheap . Do you think that is fair . As for the victim what are they supposed to do? Does the end really justify the means.?


  13. AC
    You are purposely evading my point which is that stupid politicians fail to develop their countries, stupid people will buy high priced junk without caring about who or in what conditions made the product while they themselves cant afford what they are buying.

    You keep harping about exploitation BUT if these poor people dont have jobs then somebody is going to STARVE!

    There is another solution, let the UN tax everyone like YOU who pretends to be so concerned, the UN being a stinking bureaucracy will overpay thousands to mismanage the program and a small part of the money will make it to these countries where the local politicians “who care deeply” will steal what is left.


  14. @ moneybrain. the politicians and the coperations are in bed together and the poor people becomes pawns One hand washes the other the bottomline is the two major players that is the politician and corporations have one thing in common and that is to get rich quick no matter who they hurt or devour in doing so. you mean to tell me that a person rights must be trampled on in order for them to eat . is that justifiable. just take a look at Haiti and the Carribbean in general the laws are more favourable to the coperate giants than it is to them doing right by the people. People in these regions have very little to say about labour laws out of fear and reprisal and the corporate giants take full advantage of the workers. You mean to tell me because im am starving i should be more than grateful that some one hires me and takes advantage . Now i am being victimised twice . The practice would only stop when corporate giants speak out against such practices. But you know what it will never happening because they are the enablers and beneficiares of it all.


  15. @ David

    Over two years ago I told a good doctor friend of mine that I thought the sentiment of the Barbadian people seem riped for some kind of social unrest. Naturally I was laughed at and told not to be silly, bajans too convervative and easy going to spring for social unrest.

    Today, I notice the Commissioner of Police saying that Barbados is ripe for some kind of social unrest, I must confess I did not see this revelation coming this soon. The political system in Barbados is broken and does not serve the people. Bajans are expected to limit their electoral choice to purely and simply which set of vagabonds should be voting into government next.

    These new age, media savy bajans ain’t going for that non-sense for much longer. Idealogically both the DLP and BLP are virtually the same, the only diference is which set are allowed to rob the people.


  16. Today, I notice the Commissioner of Police saying that Barbados is ripe for some kind of social unrest, I must confess I did not see this revelation coming this soon.
    ———————————–
    With the bunch of lying thugs he has at his disposal he aint gonna have no problem.

  17. The man wiv no name!! Avatar
    The man wiv no name!!

    Is the COMMISSIONER OF POLICE trying to foment civil unrest in Barbados? WTF!!


  18. The social unrest has already come to pass…

    Bertie Hinds thinks he can unseat his boss…because he is DLP…

    Meanwhile we watch as criminals exploit this situation.


  19. I too would like to claim restitution….

    For the countless man hours lost to the cCaribbean because Afro- Caribbeans prople do not feel they should ever work again…..

    Because 150 years ago their ancestors were slaves…. meanwhile their politicians enslave then daily and impoverish the nations they set out to serve….

    Africa is a mess…do we need to follow because of race politic?


  20. @moneybrain

    No one can fault the ‘economics’ of your argument but does it mean that as a people we can afford to relinquish an aspirational position rooted in good values i.e. what is right?


  21. How can one make an agrument in which a person’s right to liberty and to pursue thr right of happines is trampled on in the name of “stravation” . A hungry person rights is not automatically deny because they are hungry. corporations have they own rule books and manuals “We don’t they them ‘”They need us”. Corporations know that a person would rather work than starve and it makes it easier for them to place te blame on the victim rather than themselves in regard to the person rights. knowing that these big companies get away with murder at taking full advantage of the poor.


  22. person rights to the pursuit of liberty and happines is a must and it trumps every motive any corporations might have in taking advantage of the poor . These companies are master of the arts of deception and manipulation and those in need always believe the lies and becomes trap .In the end the rich keeps getting richer while the poor continues to be poor it is an endless vicious cycle perfectly mapped out and orchestrated by those with wealth money and power.


  23. When restitution for exploitation based race/colour is being considered we should stop for a moment and think of what it would mean if restitution based on gender instead were to be considered.

    How many baby girls are murdered every year because it is more desirable to have a boy?

    And we say the world has progressed.

    What would happen if the world had to make restitution to females for the exploitation other females have endured over the centuries?

    For example, until 1918, women could not vote in the UK and did not have equal rights under the law until 1928.

    Hunger strikes, protests and even the blowing up of the house of the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, were tools used by women to gain the right to vote in the UK.

    Hard to believe but it happened.

    http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/suffragettes.htm

    Today it is unthinkable that women would not be accorded the same rights as men by law and yet it was not until almost a century after the law emancipating slaves that what we accept today as normal actually came to pass.

    A black man could vote in Barbados decades before a woman of any colour was accorded that right.

    There are lessons to be learnt from the strides women have made since then …. and yet they remain an exploited class.

    I guess what I am trying to say is that more important than restitution for exploitation is the prevention of exploitation.

    Slightly over 50% of the population is female in many countries.

    A democratic (majority rules) decision on restitution for exploitation based on gender could be dangerous!!!


  24. @AC
    It seems that I bring out the best of your writing….eventually.
    I certainly agree that Govts, businesses, unwitting consumers are all complict. My point is that there is the obvious objective in the medium to long term to improve these poor peoples lives BUT in the interim they need, the what seems to be poorly paid work, and jobs for 12 yr olds.
    What needs to be very clear is that the standard of living in Bim is very high relative to the vast majority of people in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. The fact is that when China and India decided to give up the communist/ socialist lifestyle and persue an incentive based system the oversupply of people went critical. Take the US Corps and Govt policy of free trade, naturally this will lead to high unemployment in the US. continued later


  25. @moneybrain. “”
    “There is the obvious object in the medium of long term to improve these poor people lives” . My question to you and who do we expect to help change these poor people lives.
    Anything that starts out wrong eventually ends up wrong . The idea that these people lives would be changed is only a perception bantered about with wishful thinking. The idea thatif you give a person a fishing rod he will learn to fishis a good one. However after that person learns to fish and becomes very good at it along comes the big shark and drag him out to sea .Then that person is told now you mustlearn to swim. If the bar keeps getting higher for the poor person how much of an improvement can they make, Yes only a tiny amount might make it out of the quadmire while the majority would succumb to the unyeilding scavengers that control their economic lives.


  26. There is an interesting article in today nation in which Sir Roy Trotman states in relating to private sector responsibilty to society .
    “The drive for riches, for profit must be tempered with social responsibilty and building a society rather than onlytobuilding a profit. ”


  27. @AC
    I certainly agree with Sir Roy that business must not take things too far eg in the US the average S&P 500 CEO makes about 350X the average worker. Now that is ridiculous, especially considering that in Japan it is only 20X. On the other hand sometimes it is the unions that are exploiting the company eg auto mfts in the US where total cost/ hr was $80, when in Japan it was $50.
    Lets say we decide to pile up all the wealth on Earth and then divide it equally amongst every person, that would give about $8000 per adult. What would happen? The hard working, clever entrepreneurs will within 15-20 yrs end up rich again and the previously poor who refuse to learn basic concepts of success will be poor again. The lazy, drunks, druggies will lick it out!

    The solution is to create the right Govt policies on education, tax etc that gives equal opps to all BUT that encourages people to progress through incentives and punishes the bad actors. Carrot and stick still works because the human psychology has changed little in 1000 yrs.
    All public companies should encourage ALL workers to have shares!

    Surely it is the politicians jobs to ensure their peeps are not being overly exploited! But as you know in many countries the pols are CORRUPT or make policy mistakes eg CLICO or when Bdos Govt refused to give Intel a longer tax Holiday and they went to PR costing 1100 jobs back in 1980.

    However you cut it, people must continually develop and just handing them fat cheques and CREATING DEPENDENCY just simply can NOT work as proved by China, Soviets and India changing direction. Why should we continually pay for abled body people to stay home swilling alcohol or scratching their pooch?

    I and my family have had to adapt to life’s challenges, there are few easy routes to success. It takes DETERMINATION to succeed, even Univ Degrees may not get you too far these days.


  28. @moneybrain
    yes education is a key to sucess However not everybody is going to an entrenpreur. Therefore the working stiff needs a voice to speak on their behalf like it or not Unions have been the driving force in making change for workers beause private sector refuesed to acknowledge that workers are people too with needs and wants just like them and unions became a useful and powerful tool in engineering such changes as working conditions and health care programs and vaction pays. Those kind of changes were seen as irrelevant to big busines as they only responsibilty as they thought was to pay the worker whatever they preceived as being fair. Comparing the worker inChina to that in america is a bit overstated but having said that when the Chinese people get more organised and more insistant they took would challenge the way they are being treated by big business and Unions would form to protect their interest. It is only a matter of time. Most big companies have chosen to outsource because it does not have to meet the neccessary recomended standards in the USA. which is another way of exploiting the foreign worker.
    There are always going to be lackies in ever society. but you know what they are not gong to be expolited since the not going to work for no one,but you know what they use the same technique that big big business use in exploiting their workers. In this case they rely on government to pay their bills while at the same time exploiting public sector , private sector and government.


  29. Banner at the top is SCARY !!!!!!!!

    Move it please !!!!


  30. @AC
    I never stated that Corporations were perfect or that Unions were bad, my point was illustrating that there was wrong on both sides. Unions were critically necessary when they were formed. Unions are a little less relevant today because we are moving into tech from manufacturing and good managements realise that they have to encourage everyone in the organisation that they belong on the team.

    Education of the population does not refer to University only.In the World of today and the future education will be continous as Tech will move very quickly eg NANOTECH. Indeed Univ ED is already of low utility and many graduates 30%+ are going on to more practical courses at Colleges offering trades, policing etc.

    One of the massive problems we will face is that with high tech less people will be needed for production. In many industries in China they are purposely NOT utilising high tech in order to employ more people. The Earth has an excess of humans and people in power will start Wars and maybe other activities to CULL the population eg Certain Vaccines. Was the H1N1 for other purposes???

  31. Myturn2speak Avatar

    @ Green Monkey | April 28, 2011 at 9:59 AM |
    Salutations

    Well Said!
    The day I discovered that the US was in fact a Corporation made more sense to the observed madness I’ve seen them perpetrating around the world. What we need is the RULE OF LAW to be applied in the world once again. And by galley, we desperately need it.

    I was salivating with optimism on reading that fine first article. Because it showed me that there are still a FEW GOOD APPLES amongst the religious catholic bunch. Then I acknowledged that it was written in yr 2000 this is yr 2011. Change is coming -but albeit very slow!!

    The second article made my heart sunk. It goes back to my painful reckoning with DEMOCRACY. Where is the WORLD’S democratic outcry towards the third world economic genocide? I am like Galileo proclaiming the earth’s roundness in great deadly opposition from the norm -well here I am, I tell you democracy has been the Trojan horse of world freedom and equality -because FREEDOM IS THE LAW. And without THE RULE OF LAW they can be no FREEDOM. Perhaps some of you want to call me a heretic for such utterance?

    I say again Democracy is rule by the people with all its experimented imperfections -evidently most of the time in name only -seldom in practice.

    The fundamental problem with Democracy is that decisions are made every time with horrific consequences by a few people who assume they have the democratic Authority to do so. Yet the balance and checks for averting the abusing of that assumed authority can only be enforced at the ballot box -which is a four year cycle in most countries. By then the irreversible deed has been done. Additionally the mechanisms to object in a democracy are also very poor and labour intensive. Standing on a picket line in protest or writing letters or organising a petition doesn’t necessary lead to a guarantee -even when the plight is JUST & LEGITIMATE.

    Here are some modern day question:
    How many of the population in the UK, USA, and France has sanctioned the invading and bombing of Sovereign Libya? How can we know this? By what means? A gallop poll perhaps? And if those populations are in unanimous outrage, then what? Will that stop the atrocities from happening? Should that not be enough? Of course but sadly not. We see on these blogs the hidden agenda of these politicians (Oligarchs); some of us said oil now others say money -which doesn’t justify the destruction of a Sovereign state and innocents lives –Does it?

    We are all agreeing that it is an outrage, are we not? We can see a wrong deed is being done in our name can we not? So where is the worldly democratic disapproval in plain view? There isn’t one. What about Fr. Tissa: Balasuriya’s monumentous proposal? With Moneybrain (Salutations) being the exception, how many of you see this being worthy of cause?

    The countries being pursue are proclaimed democratic states. So where is the democratic will in those states to do that which was commanded by the CHRIST himself (biblical assertion) –The Jubilee of restitution? It has been 10+ yrs now.

    But let us be clear here, it is the church that is being pursued not governments as Moneybrain led us to focus upon. And if there is one thing I know is that there are few broke churches –and definitely not THE CHRISTIAN or CATHOLIC CHURCH! The other groups were COMPANIES. And just so we’re in focus, here is it is clearly stipulated (from the article in question) below.

    “The principal cause of the present world disequilibrium, they say, was the expansion of Western Europe that started in 1492, an expansion based on “violence, theft, seizure of land, murder, slavery, genocide and untruth.” The Christian churches have to recognize their role in this process. They legitimized it. They benefited from it.
    Political decolonization has not halted the process. The West, by its military, economic, social and cultural power, continues to siphon off the wealth of the Third World. Globalization, defined as the transnationalization of capital and production, and the standardization and homogenization of consumer tastes, is the method. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization are the main weapons.
    `Imperialism by computer’
    Assisting them are Most Favored Nation (MFN) clauses, Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This, Balasuriya insists, is “imperialism by computer.”
    The Colombo Statement identified financial capital, today “dangerously separated from the real world,” as an integral part of this process. In consequence, the statement supports the principle of the Tobin tax (named for Yale professor James Tobin), a proposed international tax of 0.5 percent on international currency transactions. Currency speculation, which is blamed for recent crises in East Asia, amounts to about $600 trillion annually. The $3 trillion revenue such a tax would produce, the equivalent of some 60 percent of the gross national product of all the countries of the Third World, would suffice not only to write off the debt of these countries, but to compensate former colonies for the losses they have suffered and create a fund for social investment in poor countries”.
    IMPERIALISM BY COMPUTER. Now there is a dose of realism for Moneybrain in his stocks and shares office to chew on?

    Most of who value morals and ethics in the world would agree that this restitution is the right thing. So why is it not been accomplished? Because there is no empowered or enforcing mechanism to do so. We all feel powerless to change anything so we tuck our children in bed safe –for the moment and tacitly go along with the injustices of our distant brothers and sisters –let the bombs fall, my children are safe. Let the starving hungry and impoverished get off their backside and find a job –My children are safe being encourage working hard and aiming for the top. But I thought we were talking about exploitation. What does that mean? I thought it means being put at a disadvantage? Has the definition changed to oh I want a hand out? Come on people don’t be distracted by Moneybrain’s rhetoric? I don’t mean to pick on him really I don’t. But all of the elements that is at the core of the complexity of madness we endure on planet earth -is his feeding ground –and though like myself he does have a bias. Mine is about a paradigm change for the better. His is for let’s keep these parasitic constructs, leave the status quo alone.

    The world is too old to continue with such madness. It alienates me from this planet to observe the psychopathology of man’s global intent to distinguish him superior to himself –seeing his very same composition, flesh, blood, living soul in another, yet looking down upon one another as being different and less deserving of equality of life. what madness of self destruction.

    And this Planet, tell me, did you provide the sun to bless the earth? Or did you provide the rain to bless the soil? Or did you provide soil to bless the seeds? And if one of those were taken away could you survive? Would the FIAT money which is so entrenched in our lives protect us? Then what right do you have to make more claimed to it than anyone else because by some happen-stance you arrived in a less deprived circumstance. What right have you got to bind it in currency as declaring ownership of that which you did not created. You robber, you imposter of sorts. What right are you to the benefit of it to the expense of others?

    Man is psychologically damaged I tell you. He can look upon another entity of equal proportions and declare I am superior to you. Now bow down and provide sustenance for my needs and be the crumbs for you. Sounds a bit over the top –does it really? Maybe, but that is the psychology of the world today. There are many working really hard to their detriment to sustain others. And anyone that can justify that is psychologically damaged. And yes I am qualified to say that.

    But let me give you a better vision for those people.
    How about better infrastructure?
    How about better sanitation + Health?
    How about better education?
    How about land cultivation with home grown control and interest?
    How about better recreation; arts and music just like the Greeks?
    How about the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
    How about freedom?

    Furthermore, the proposal as I understood was not about restitution of individuals it was about restitutions of the country. By saving the country you’ll be saving the individuals. The article did not suggest aid from the US. It is the aid nonsense that got some of those countries in some of the mess there are in right now. Please again; what is being proposed is restitution –No strings attached!

    @ Green Monkey April 28. 2011 at 1.22 AM
    Yes I concur with your findings. Iran was said to be also being in the process of moving their oil out of US $. It sent George: Bush propaganda machine in a frenzy calling for the attack on Iran but the world did not swallow the dumb-ing down pill on that one.

    I humbly tell you it should not be like this. Our inner being should tell us there ought to be something better. And indeed there is –It’s called the RULE OF LAW. However,

    The authority of man is always assumed never qualified post elections. That is because the RULE OF LAW is never applied and they know this. They don’t have to abide by the RULE OF LAW when they have interred a contract with you.

    A Contract is CONTRACT –Becomes the Law. Stay with me now. Simply put, a CONTRACT is the binding of the created LAWS between those that have entered the CONTRACT. haven’t you heard this before? Why not -it’s TRUE!

    Hence you CONTRACT with politicians (whom in my humble opinion are OLIGARCHS in suites) for four years to do whatever he likes. Which they do by constantly amending those CONTRACTS throughout those four years –which is a violation of CONTRACTS -But you tacitly go along with it because you are unaware of the nature of CONTRACTS.

    You might at this point like to ask what CONTRACT did you signed to give them the authority to bomb the Hell out of Libya or robe a country to destitution. If you didn’t agree to such a CONTRACT then should you not be ripping that CONTRACT up as Void Ab-Initio, void from the beginning?

    Sorry you’ll have to wait four more years. Now there is democracy at its best!

    It is time we have a worldly system that is governed by THE RULE OF LAW and let the scales of justice be balanced again. There is no real law in the world today. How can REAL LAW be awaken and allow these inhuman and unlawfulness persist? I charge democracy with the contempt it deserves –and so should you!

    “Let us not allow this empire (Libya) to collapse and be replaced by another. Instead, let us all vow to create a new consciousness. Let the grass-roots movements in the Middle East – fostered by the young who must live with the future and are fuelled through social networks – inspire us to demand that our country, our financial institutions and the corporations that depend on us to buy their goods and services commit themselves to fashioning a world that is sustainable, just, peaceful, and prosperous for all.

    We stand at the threshold. It is time for you and me to step across that threshold, away from the rules of man towards the RULE OF LAW; to move out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed into the light of compassion and cooperation”. (John: Perkins, emphasis added)

    Take care of yourselves and each other!

  32. The man wiv no name!! Avatar
    The man wiv no name!!

    ‘My Turn’, r u serious?!!! and, you MUST b a Bajan!


  33. @Bimbrosbro, What has my turn said that is so outrageous?

    Really, it is all a game, in the same way that the US has ‘gotten’ Bin Laden, why are they not stepping back from Nato’s invasion of a sovereign nation per Libya and killing of innocent children, which, if done by any other, would be labelled terrorism?

    Why has Nato not condemned the Syrian Govewrnment for butchering its citizens over the past few weeks, whay have they not bombed Syrian Government compounds too and helped the rebels there? Unusual no?

    Double-standards only explain it so far, the real issue is power, both political and economic.

    Libya is rich in oil, gold bullion, foreign reserves but Syria not. Most of all, their leader, Gaddafi does not ‘play ball’ according to their rules, and carries significant influence in that area of the world.

    The OWG, through its Nato arm, is flexing its muscle.

    As I said previously, we in Barbados are also under a different form of attack from the OWG, via its OECD sub-department dictums on international financial centres and attacks on the tax policies of sovereign nation, trying to tell sovereign nations how to manage their tax regimes.

    It is all connected, to neglect the obvious is foolhardy.

    The irony is, wait till Americans realise that their economic and political actions will also ‘eventually’ also be ruled by the OWG, out of Brussels….

    Who won the war????

  34. The man wiv no name!! Avatar
    The man wiv no name!!

    Crus, how many wars do Nato have to be actively engaged in at any particular time, to convince you of their bona fides, and where are they to get their unlimitiles funds? R u going to finance them? Talk is cheap me bro, but sound thinking a little more difficult.

    The Sun were probably referring to the incongruity of Osama being so near to the Pakistani military and their ‘not knowing’!

  35. The man wiv no name!! Avatar
    The man wiv no name!!

    One thing at a time Cru, my Barbadian mother used to always say.

  36. Myturn2speak Avatar

    @ The man wiv no name!! | May 3, 2011 at 1:01 AM |
    Salutations
    TRUTH never needs defending but is cursed or edified in our words and actions!
    Ignorance is a lazy occupation!!

    “Crus, how many wars do Nato have to be actively engaged in at any particular time, to convince you of their bona fides, and where are they to get their unlimitiles funds? R u going to finance them? Talk is cheap me bro, but sound thinking a little more difficult”

    Hmmmm
    NATO and all the other military acronyms (I know they are your forte) that keep growing by the day are like GPs (general practitioners). Keep practising on people’s bodies but never addresses the route cause. And like GPs death and pain is often the outcome.

    You think you’re qualify to challenge what I have stated well, but I know your type with your undeclared special interest. But if I give your approach the optimism and objectivity it is yet to deserve. let me say this. we’re asked to trust and believe these institutions will provide a safe and better way of life on this planet. However, a belief is a contract that has an expiration date -it must either mature as TRUE or FALSE. The world is old in the teeth, and has injured that belief long enough to know that that belief is FALSE.

    Here is what I know. There is an agenda and there are only two sides -World DOMINATION or FREEDOM. There is no picket fence to sit on, sorry, the line was drawn before you or I was born. All what you see are the symptoms of the WHAT but intelligent maturity demands the exposition of the WHO and the WHY.
    You cannot solve the worldly problems (with the same) MINDSET (rhetoric) that we as indoctrinated repeaters keep spewing like wind-up dummies.
    The rabbit hole is deep and not for the faint hearted. It is time to jump in or cover it with anther bucket of ignorance.

    So you object to restitution of stolen civilisations among other things?
    Then how about the restitution of the TRUTH? that seem to be lacking in all facets of our lives!

    http://www.republicfortheunitedstates.org/

    The Three Stages Of Truth:
    1. First, it is ridicule
    2. Second, it is viciously opposed
    3. Third, it is accepted as self-evident

    I might add “The man wiv no name!!” that you are displaying symptoms of stage one.
    Love and light to you always.

    Take care of yourselves and each other!

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