The Breakdown of Globalization

Special thanks to Mo for sending the link to this incredible lecture

“The Poverty of Philosophy”; Immortal Technique on Latin America

Most of my Latino and black people who are struggling to get food, clothes and shelter in the hood are so concerned with that, that philosophising about freedom and socialist democracy is usually unfortunately beyond their rationale. They don’t realize that America can’t exist without separating them from their identity, because if we had some sense of who we really are, there’s no way in hell we’d allow this country to push it’s genocidal consensus on our homelands. This ignorance exists, but it can be destroyed.

N’s talk about change and working within the system to achieve that. The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it’s not you who changes the system; it’s the system that will eventually change you. There is usually nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely, and I have seen this happen long enough in the few years that I’ve been alive to know that it’s a serious problem. Latino America is a huge colony of countries whose presidents are cowards in the face of economic imperialism. You see, third world countries are rich places, abundant in resources, and many of these countries have the capacity to feed their starving people and the children we always see digging for food in trash on commercials. But plutocracies, in other words a government run by the rich such as this one and traditionally oppressive European states, force the third world into buying overpriced, unnecessary goods while exporting huge portions of their natural resources.

I’m quite sure that people will look upon my attitude and sentiments and look for hypocrisy and hatred in my words. My revolution is born out of love for my people, not hatred for others.

You see, most of Latinos are here because of the great inflation that was caused by American companies in Latin America. Aside from that, many are seeking a life away from the puppet democracies that were funded by the United States; places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Republica Dominicana, and not just Spanish-speaking countries either, but Haiti and Jamaica as well.

As different as we have been taught to look at each other by colonial society, we are in the same struggle and until we realize that, we’ll be fighting for scraps from the table of a system that has kept us subservient instead of being self-determined. And that’s why we have no control over when the embargo will stop in Cuba, or when the bombs will stop dropping in Vieques.

But you see, here in America the attitude that is fed to us is that outside of America there live lesser people. “Fuck them, let them fend for themselves.” No, Fuck you, they are you. No matter how much you want to dye your hair blonde and put fake eyelashes in, or follow an anorexic standard of beauty, or no matter how many diamonds you buy from people who exploit your own brutally to get them, no matter what kind of car you drive or what kind of fancy clothes you put on, you will never be them. They’re always gonna look at you as nothing but a little monkey. I’d rather be proud of what I am, rather than desperately trying to be something I’m really not, just to fit in. And whether we want to accept it or not, that’s what this culture or lack of culture is feeding us.

I want a better life for my family and for my children, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of millions of lives in my homeland. We’re given the idea that if we didn’t have these people to exploit then America wouldn’t be rich enough to let us have these little petty material things in our lives and basic standards of living. No, that’s wrong. It’s the business giants and the government officials who make all the real money. We have whatever they kick down to us. My enemy is not the average white man, it’s not the kid down the block or the kids I see on the street; my enemy is the white man I don’t see: the people in the white house, the corporate monopoly owners, fake liberal politicians those are my enemies. The generals of the armies that are mostly conservatives those are the real Mother-Fuckers that I need to bring it to, not the poor, broke country-ass soldier that’s too stupid to know shit about the way things are set up.

In fact, I have more in common with most working and middle-class white people than I do with most rich black and Latino people. As much as racism bleeds America, we need to understand that classism is the real issue. Many of us are in the same boat and it’s sinking, while these bougie Mother-Fuckers ride on a luxury liner, and as long as we keep fighting over kicking people out of the little boat we’re all in, we’re gonna miss an opportunity to gain a better standard of living as a whole.

In other words, I don’t want to escape the plantation, I want to come back, free all my people, hang the Mother-Fucker that kept me there and burn his house to the god damn ground. I want to take over the encomienda and give it back to the people who work the land.

You cannot change the past but you can make the future, and anyone who tells you different is a Fucking lethargic devil. I don’t look at a few token Latinos and black people in the public eye as some type of achievement for my people as a whole. Most of those successful individuals are sell-outs.

But, I don’t consider brothers a sell-out if they move out of the ghetto. Poverty has nothing to do with our people. It’s not in our culture to be poor. That’s only been the last 500 years of our history; look at the last 2000 years of our existence and what we brought to the world in terms of science, mathematics, agriculture and forms of government. You know the idea of a confederation of provinces where one federal government controls the states? The Europeans who came to this country stole that idea from the Iroquois lead. The idea of impeaching a ruler comes from an Aztec tradition. That’s why Montezuma was stoned to death by his own people ’cause he represented the agenda of white Spaniards once he was captured, not the Aztec people who would become Mexicans.

So in conclusion, I’m not gonna vote for anybody just ’cause they black or Latino, they have to truly represent the community and represent what’s good for all of us proletariat.

Porque sino entonces te mando por el carajo cabron gusano hijo de puta, seramos libre pronto, viva la revolucion, VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

“No End In Sight” – another great, disturbing documentary

No End in Sight is a documentary film that concentrates on alleged mistakes made by the Bush administration in the two-to-three-month period following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The film portrays these errors as the cause of ensuing problems in Iraq, such as the rise of the insurgency, a lack of security and basic utilities for many Iraqis, sectarian violence and the risk of complete civil war.
To a large extent the film consists of interviews with the people who were involved in the initial Iraqi occupation authority and the ORHA (the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, later replaced by the CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority). 35 people are interviewed, many of them former Bush loyalists who have since become disillusioned by what they experienced at the time. In particular, many of those interviewed claim that the inexperience of the core members of the Bush administration—and their refusal to seek, acknowledge or accept input from more experienced outsiders—was at the root of the disastrous occupation effort.
Among those interviewed are
▪ General Jay Garner, who briefly ran the reconstruction before being replaced by L. Paul Bremer
▪ Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was placed in charge of the Baghdad embassy
▪ Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of the State Department
▪ Robert Hutchings, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council
▪ Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff
▪ Col. Paul Hughes, who worked in the ORHA and then the CPA
According to No End in Sight, there were three especially grave mistakes made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA:
▪ A move toward “De-Ba’thification” in the early stages of the occupation. Saddam Hussein’s ruling Ba’th Party counted as its members a huge majority of Iraq’s governmental employees, including educational officials and some teachers. By order of the CPA, these skilled and ultimately apolitical individuals were banned from holding any positions in Iraq’s new government.
▪ Not providing enough troops to maintain order. The looting of Iraqi museums sent chilling signals to the average Iraqi, telling them that the American forces did not intend to maintain law and order. And arms depots were available for pillaging by anyone who wanted weapons and explosives.
▪ The disbanding of the Iraqi Army, which made 500,000 young men with weapons and training unemployed and bitter. Many of them decided that their best chance for a future was to join or, together with the rest of their unit, become a militia force.
The film cites these three mistakes, as well as many others, as the cause of the rapid deterioration of occupied Iraq into chaos.

Immortal Technique – Failla

BIO:

Felipe Coronel (born February 19, 1978), better known as Immortal Technique, is a hip hop MC and political activist. He is of Afro-Peruvian descent and was raised in Harlem, New York. Most of his lyrics focus on socio-political issues. The views expressed in his lyrics are largely a mixture of commentary on issues such as poverty, religion, and racism. He also focuses on the harsh resulting realities of criminality in the housing projects of New York City’s slums.

Although he has been offered a deal with at least one major record label,^[1][2] he has never signed to any. Immortal Technique has voiced a desire to keep control over his production, and has made statements in his music that he is very aware that it is record companies, not the artists themselves, who profit the most from mass production and marketing of music.

He releases his music through, and is also the president of, Viper Records. However, to reach wider audiences, Immortal Technique’s next projects will be distributed by Babygrande Records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Technique

10 steps to fascism… PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE watch (45mins.)

A lecture by Naomie Wolf, author of “End of America, A letter of Warning for a Young Patriot” at the University of Washington. She has carefully studied the political and social environments that led to the ‘installment’ of totalitarian regimes in the 20th Century (Stalin, Mussollini, Polpot, Hitler and numerous other ’smaller’ dictators) and concludes that there is a blue print of 10 characteristics that each of these regimes has followed. All 10 of these characteristics were present in the lead up to all of the totalitarian regimes, and all 10 are currently present in America right now… YOU are NEEDED to save democracy in America. Action needs to be taken immediately.

Wayne on the spiritual perspectives of America’s role as sole superpower

Hear the brotha speak….

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/ram/wv/wv_030512b.ram

Imperialism’s impact on ‘the other’? When $2000 Holt Renfrew high heels take on a new meaning…

” PULITZER PRIZE ” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine.
The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.
The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken.
Three months later he committed suicide due to depression.

Does imperialism have any moral fibre whatsoever?

Cecil Rhodes: the man who financed the Cape-Cairo railway project, founded the De Beers Mining Company, and owned the British South Africa Company which established Rhodesia for itself. He wanted to “paint the map British Red” and declared “…all of these stars … these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets”.

Wise Words

ZNet | Activism

Confronting Empire

by Arundhati Roy; January 28, 2003

 

 

I’ve been asked to speak about “How to confront Empire?” It’s a huge question, and I have no easy answers.

When we speak of confronting “Empire,” we need to identify what “Empire” means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?

In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts — nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization.

Let me illustrate what I mean. India — the world’s biggest democracy — is currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project. Its “market” of one billion people is being prized open by the WTO. Corporatization and Privatization are being welcomed by the Government and the Indian elite.