afellowkid

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Cake day: March 24th, 2022

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  • afellowkidtoAfricaHOW THE IMF KEEPS AFRICANS POOR
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    5 months ago

    Former IMF economist Davison Budhoo:

    Once we set ourselves up as part of the State Machinery that would deny benefaction to certain groups while promoting the welfare of others - and we necessarily do this when we force the government to bite our bullet - we become, by definition, a domestic political force in the job of redistributing national wealth among social groups in a particular way that can enhance the effectiveness of our “program”. We may say that we are merely out to ensure that adequate adjustment occurs in the economy - ie, that “economic and financial balance” is restored - but that’s only a fancy way of saying that we are taking a direct hand in reallocating the national cake to suit our own purpose and that we are punishing certain groups and rewarding others so as to further our own cause.

    You know, not so long ago, the colonial power, in circumstances where the colony concerned was perceived to be errant, would just go ahead and suspend the constitution and take over power directly and brazenly and unceremoniously. We don’t operate that way today; internationally that is unacceptable, and logistically it is impossible, but we get the same results through other means. And unlike the colonial power of yesteryear, we can fine-tune our intervention so that we take away today only those rights and constitutional guarantees that it is necessary to take away in order to achieve our immediate ends (which of course may change from time to time). In other words, we undermine constitutional rights gradually, and in a non-visible sort of way. And before we know it (if our relationship with the country concerned is intensive and sustained enough, and if we perceive that Great Things are at stake for us) we render the government naked and defenseless and on its knees before us, and we go about our business of doing absolutely as we please. And nobody, in retrospect, would seem to know how on earth we could have managed to subjugate both government and peoples thus, and how such a state of affairs could ever have been made to exist in the first instance.

    More under spoiler tags:

    Fund and other members of the creditors' cartel have always managed to repress, immediately and completely, any attempt to organize what can remotely be perceived as a 'debtors' cartel'...

    We have drawn the teeth of all countries, or groups of countries, that harboured thoughts of going, or actually attempted to go, against existing orthodoxy, as defined to mean the methods and expectations of the established order, represented by the conclusions of the G7 on Third World debt, and by the creditor’s cartel that we have established, and that we so effectively chair. Indeed, our punishment for erring countries have been immediate and withering. To see this one just has to look at the Peruvian abortive experiment to contain its debt crisis, or the fate of countries like Brazil and Argentina and Nigeria that tried to flirt with ‘national’ debt solutions, or the outcome of attempts at ‘regional solutions’. Concomitantly, the Fund and other members of the creditors’ cartel have always managed to repress, immediately and completely, any attempt to organize what can remotely be perceived as a ‘debtors’ cartel’. We did manage to get this obedience in the South, and to bring protesting debtors to their knees, by unscrupulously declaring miscreants ineligible for use of our resources, irrespective of circumstance - eg; whether external factors beyond their control were responsible for their inability to repay, or whether they deliberately took a decision to defy us thus. By mid-1988 several countries were so declared and others were on the verge of being blacklisted. Our declaration of ineligibility constitutes the kiss of death for all these countries. They immediately became international lepers, with no hope of making operational any other alternative to the Fund’s iron fist.



    President Reagan effectively told us to go out and make the Third World a new bastion of free wheeling capitalism...

    President Reagan effectively told us to go out and make the Third World a new bastion of free wheeling capitalism, and how we responded with joy, and with a sense of mission! Of course the entire strategy for propagating Third World economic rebirth into unfettered free enterprise was finalized and explicitly stated in the Baker Plan of 1985 and in the eligibility criteria to Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility to the 62 ‘poorest’ countries of the world. Thus everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south ‘privatised’ or die; towards this end we ignominiously created bedlam in Latin America and Africa in 1983-88.



    When we talk of structural adjustment we have nothing else in mind but an irresistible motivation to implement, in every country of the South, the following political agenda: to call an immediate and complete stop to economic policies that can be interpreted as being in the slightest degree 'socialist' or 'populist' or 'people- oriented'...

    When we use the term “structural adjustment,” we wish to convey to those who are being “structurally adjusted” the idea of economic and financial policies to get the economy out of an economic hole and place it on a path of sustainable growth and social transformation within a context of indigenously-determined economic and social priorities and trade-offs among desirable objectives, and within a time-frame defined by our ‘program.’ But there is a big difference what we want others to believe, and what we know to be true. For us the term “structural adjustment” conveys a politically inspired ploy, as against an economic concept that can be measured and evaluated in relation to some criterion of economic efficiency and optimal resource use by the recipient. More specifically, when we talk of “structural adjustment” we have nothing else in mind but an irresistible motivation to implement, in every country of the South, the following political agenda: to call an immediate and complete stop to economic policies that can be interpreted as being in the slightest degree ‘socialist’ or ‘populist’ or ‘people- oriented’, or weighted, however slightly, in favour of the poor and economically underprivileged, or based on the collective, social consensus of the population concerned. All such policies, if they exist, must be summarily scratched, and substituted forthwith with the type of Reaganite free-wheeling capitalism that is so comprehensively built into our 12 to 18 month stand-by arrangements, and our 3 year SAF and ESAF. Now as we implement, in each country of the South, t his agenda for political transformation, we have no expectation whatsoever that our policies would lead to economic development or enhancement of the social welfare function of our Third World clients; in no instance do we aspire to have our program set the stage for sustained economic and social transformation - a goal that we hoodwink others to believe that we are out to achieve, Yes, yes, Sir. We hide behind the mask of ‘structural adjustment’ - a concept with great respectability in economics, to do political things in Third World nations that make all known precepts of economics to look like old hat. You know, sooner or later someone will have to start rewriting the economics of developing countries in terms of the basic precept of IMF political imperatives that relate directly to the on-going debt strategy of creditor nations and institutions.




  • Remember there is c/documentaries! You might find something good there too.

    Taken for a Ride - The U.S. History of the Assault on Public Transport in the Last Century - This documentary takes a look at the old public transport system of Los Angeles and follows the step-by-step process by which it was dismantled by General Motors. IMO it’s a good one for seeing a concrete example of the actual steps that privatization can take – GM bought the streetcars after a campaign calling them inefficient/run down etc., then after buying them, let them degrade in quality and service, then replaced them with a supposedly superior bus system. Then they allowed the buses to give poor service, ultimately promoting individual cars over buses and highway expansions as the solution to traffic congestion.

    Former CIA Agent John Stockwell Talks about How the CIA Worked in Vietnam and Elsewhere - This interview clip is only 15 minutes long but gives a very concise and specific example of how the CIA manipulates the media by having contacts with reporters and passing them a mixture of true and false stories, basically coming up with bullshit and fake photos that will go viral and spread CIA talking points while the “source” of the information becomes more and more obscured as the story is passed around different news agencies, as well as how the CIA have funded the production of countless books, whose authors were allowed to write whatever they wished as long as they included this or that specific point, and that these authors have gone on to have solid and respected careers in academia.

    Cybersocialism: Project Cybersyn & The CIA Coup in Chile - From what I recall it gives a good overview of what happened in Chile. In my opinion, due to Chile’s case being so well-documented, it’s a case which people without a lot of background knowledge can start to learn about the process of CIA coups from and how it relates to protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie. A viewer of this documentary can then start applying that knowledge to many other cases where a similar pattern comes up (country tries to nationalize industries/resources which are in foreign imperialist hands => economic loan denial/asset freezes/sanctions are implemented by the imperialists & opposition groups and terrorists in the country are funded & coups are orchestrated by the imperialist power.)

    The Human Face of Russia - Simply, lots of footage of everyday life in 1980s USSR. As I recall, it was a foreign group going there to film and fact-check about the living standards and learn about various political and social activities of the people. IIRC it was a pretty calm and positive documentary, a good one if you need some time away from more heavy and upsetting topics.

    The Weight of Chains - About the breakup of Yugoslavia.

    The U.S. School That Trains Dictators & Death Squads - About the School of the Americas.

    Gaza Fights For Freedom - About the Great March of Return.

    The Lobby - Four-part undercover investigation into Israel’s covert influence campaign in the United States.




  • Man I hate this dude

    The history of the Middle East since 1948 shows Israel constantly striving for peace, only to be rebuffed time and again by the Arabs.

    – Antony J. Blinken, “Lebanon and the Facts”, 1982

    Israel is not, has never been, nor will ever be the irreproachable, perfectly moral state some of its supporters would like to see. Israelis are, after all, only human. Still, one pedestal the Jewish state can stand on–and stand on alone in the Middle East–is that of a democracy. Yes, there are tragic excesses in the occupied territories. True, the invasion of Lebanon claimed many innocent lives. The fact remains, though, that Israelis question themselves and their government openly and honestly. Eventually, as in other democracies, those responsible for wrongdoing are held accountable.

    – Antony J. Blinken, “Israel’s Saving Grace”, 1982

    The summer of 1982 may be remembered in history as the time Israel passed from adolescence to adulthood. The illusions of a child are left behind. But the Jewish state remains special, an oasis in a desert. Its citizens have built a working democracy from scratch in a region that has no others. Israelis must treasure that democracy, protect it with all their will. For if they don’t, the growing pains that are Lebanon, Shatila and Sabra, the repression of Arabs and the feud between Ashkenazim and Sephardim could turn into a plague.

    – Antony J. Blinken, “The Danger Within”, 1983








  • Any of the following from Discourse on Colonialism:

    First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and “interrogated,” all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been distilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery.

    – Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

    People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind—it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.

    – Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

    Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, in the end, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not the crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the “coolies” of India, and the “n—s” of Africa.

    – Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism



  • afellowkidtoAsk LemmygradWhat does it mean to organize?
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    8 months ago

    Ultimately it means meet/talk with other people and engage in planning and work to accomplish something together, whether that thing is big or small.

    Easiest thing to do is look around for people who are already organized, e.g., a party or other org focused on a particular issue. IMO if someone has no experience with organizing whatsoever, then they can benefit from joining almost anything, even something run by liberals, anarchists, etc., just simply to see what kind of dynamics are at play when people are trying to work together to accomplish something. A lot of orgs and such are not easy to find online. It’s better to just go to protests and demonstrations or to community projects and start meeting people and learning about what they are doing by word of mouth. People who are involved in organizing are typically going to be open to teaching/involving new people. A demonstration is the kind of place where people are purposely trying to educate and involve the public. Just don’t come across as a cop and be wary that some people trying to involve you in things might be cops themselves lol. Approach groups with a critical eye, join a small-scale/low-risk org whose goals you support to learn about the practical dynamics of how organizing works and to build up a network of acquaintances and friends, and keep learning from there. Trying to organize something from scratch with no experience is possible but if you don’t have a clear idea of what you’re doing nor have a group of other people who are keen and intrinsically motivated to work on the goal, it’s going to be pretty difficult.