‘The Great African Scandal’ - “Dr. Robert Beckford, a black British academic theologian, broadcaster, and lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, visits Ghana to Investigate and document the burden of economic Imperialism.”
http://www.africanloft.com/robert-beckford...frican-scandal/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=71...bWHBQ&hl=en

The World Bank cripples a third world country with debt, taking economic control. The IMF next demands the removal of all trade barriers / restrictions / subsidies. The local markets are then flooded with subsidized foreign trans-national produce for as little as 1/3 of the local product price therefore destroying the survival of subsistence farmers. This intentional undermining of the local economy along with the creation of such abject poverty is a deliberate final step in the process, providing a source of cheap (slave) labor (children included) for the trans-nationals themselves (locally or as migrants).

[Is there any accountability for these corporate agents of the United Nations?...The second largest source of slave labor in the USA (brothels #1) are 'domestics' in the service of members / employees of The United Nations and World Bank. QSS posting: http://ipb.quicksilverscreen.com/index.php?showtopic=91863 ]

Smarrie,

have you ever said anything good about the USA?
every post i see from you is some anti-american, anticolonial (supposed) rant or complaint.

i really wish the USA was as bad as you say and they would have long ago taken you and your family and your country away, like happens in all those failed states you seem to adore.

The USA are that bad, because they got a lot of people like you, who wish people dead, just because they are aware...

You should get kicked out of this forum for your last sentence!

"Everyone was an American now, or at least Americanized...America was the world's playing field, its rule book, umpire and ball. Even anti-Americanism was Americanism in disguise, conceding, as it did, that America was the only game in town and the matter of America the only business at hand..." The above quote is taken from Salman Rushdie’s novel 'Fury' .

This portion responds to ‘saying something good about the USA’ - I love the musical differences in the countries directions, north and south for sure and the two coasts, but especially love the isolation (maybe) of Chicago’s scene - Califone (‘trick bird’), Tortoise (‘lithium stiffs’, ‘crest’, ‘djed’), The Sea and Cake (‘sound and vision’) and Sam Prekop (‘chicago people’).

No worries with regard to our country (Canada) being ‘taken’ - our politicians are too busy giving it away, seduced with fantasies of playing cowboy on a world stage and their personal hopes of having their very own big belt buckle too.

Your label ‘all those failed states’ qualifying response - ‘failed (collateral failures or victimized?) states’ - their is no contest when the MIC ‘bully’ has the only arsenal and also holds all the hidden rules of engagement. Unfortunately greediness is unable to discriminate and has also increasingly been stepping on its own citizenry, cultivating a very large segment of ‘failed (collateral failures or victimized?) American’ have-nots with the mortgage scandal as a recent example...and yes I do adore the underdogs of life, their time has yet to come, and it will.

Don’t know how I feel regarding USA's ‘theory and practice in teaching’ and still being nervy enough to call it an Education...sinister or just scary! But love Howard Zinn (‘People’s History’ a recommended read) and of late Cynthia McKinney too.

"The USA are that bad, because they got a lot of people like you, who wish people dead, just because they are aware...

You should get kicked out of this forum for your last sentence"

well smarrie, you live up to your loony left wing liberal hype, and i am not from the USA, though at times I wish i were so I could get some of those Veoh posts.

want to kick me off the forum for stating the truth about your continual deluded rants against the USA. i guess that is your version of wishing people dead, silencing them like all your friends are doing in those paradises of North Korea and China. I wasn't wishing you dead, it was an ironic comment about your perverted view of history and always railing against the one superpower around that has brought so much good into the this world (like the internet you are using)

the truth s that i have lived the last 35 years in those countries you feel were exploited by the big bad USA or the West, and i know that just about the only improvement, stability and prosperity they have had was done while the West was there. lighten up my misguided fellow forum member, there is evil and are exploiters everywhere and in every land, but lucky for you and me that the USA is not as bad as you try to make out.

sorry smarrie

the last post i did was done before i saw your next one.

i would want to remove the "loony left wing liberal" comment about you and just say loony. reading your confused comments i feel convicted for getting you stirred up

and remember

when the underdog becomes top dog we are all still in the doghouse

Bow-Wow-Wow, guess we’ll be seeing each other in the doghouse someday! Sorry for the looney lack of clarity, I have gone back with a re-edit of my original post. Also please note the ‘kicked out’ posting was not me, personally you are more than welcome (with an ulterior agenda that you will actually watch some of the subversive docs). I am certainly sorry to hear of your veoh woes, there is good news however - veoh (corporate america) is loosing ground as the people’s posting preference uploader as seen in the movie section, hopefully the same will be happening in the docs forums. I certainly loved your poetics in the line ‘lighten up my misguided fellow forum member’ and return the sentiment...enlighten up yourself as well, please check out Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_...e_United_States
PS: the curiosity is definitely piqued re: country of origin, would it be rude to ask and if so how about some hints?

smarrie,

they have programs to show where your server is from, mine is Trini to de bone, or to you Trinidad and Tobago

which makes it even more ironic again that you are quoting Salman Rushdie, a fellow Trini who would have had his head removed already if it were not for the West protecting him.

i know about zinn, i think you misspelled his name the first time. his claim to fame is running down the USA and being anti-everything establishment. read some of his "so called" people's history

i do admire you and him supporting the underdog and aboriginals, but they are all just as bloody, claw, tooth and nail as the American Eagle ever was

remember

history is written by the winners
and repeated by the losers

Well well well! World Bank handing out the loans (US$65 million) for the attempted [unsuccessful] privatization of Trinidad and Tobago’s WASA - Water Supply And Sanitation [hadn’t shown a profit in its 40 year history] “as the government faces the challenge of a fundamental adjustment in economic policy and initiate a program supported by Bank SAL and an IMF Standby Loan.” 05 / 1997
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:T_aar...=clnk&cd=17

It seems it has gone from bad to worse ever since; this is a very old UN’s tune with an endless chorus of third world countries who can sing this same song having also been done good (I guess you can be thankful ENRON didn’t get its hands on WASA, they would have sold off the copper pipe for scrap and labeled it a necessary upgrade when pointing to the newly created ditch of running water.)

History is rewritten by the winners.

oh Samarrie, you are scary! You have exposed us.

I am a grand wizard of the illuminati in the tri-lateral commision. You have uncovered our plan to take over the world and oppress everyone for fun. Me and the other members of the counsel of 7 and 13 are using the World Bank to destroy all the poor innocent masses of the third world so the USA can have global domination.

Me and by co-cospiritors are aware that you are now aware, and know our secret plan of world dominion so we are sending black helicopters from the UN building at night running with no lights to exercise our thought control technique on your brain with secret transmissions to the micro radio receivers we put in the fluoride in the water you all have been drinking. We are also using your computer, cellphone and any EM device to broadcast our secret "Q" waves.

but what you don't know is that we have implanted in the minds of "aware underdogs" that the USA is the bad guy in all of this. we your real enemy, are really ancient astronauts from planet X who came here in our UFO's many centuries ago after we seeded this world with our patented "life starter kit" many millenium back and now have returned and live and move among you, looking like humans, only those aware like you can see us using the secret Urim & Thumin which are internet google goggles

but what most of us UFO ETs don't know is that life on our own planet was seeded and is still secretly controlled by the super race of Planet Y......

but what they don't know is that at the dawn of time, after Planet Z caused the Big Bang by releasing their super weapon during the war with the Intergalactic Masses Federation (or IMF to you) ......

but..........

Well nonmaus, and me thinking we were almost on the same side of the fence (with you definitely having the better view of ‘things’) only to find you lost in the wrong documentary subforum. Although there are definitely some human ‘snakes’ and ‘weasels’ in this world I can’t seem to believe in David Icke’s ‘UFO lizards’, especially when he calls Chris ‘me and bobby magee’ Kristofferson one of the lizards, there are limits.
The earlier (july) ‘edit thank you’ I left on your profile page is related to your choosing to remove some of the harsher comments regarding MLK, I honestly did appreciate the gesture. Although I wouldn’t agree with the negativity, your MLK knowledge itself indicated a depth and also a level of understanding well beyond just a general point of view...(your not QSS member ‘ScienceFictionado’s’ alter hobby are you?). Anyway, I’m sorry I did not notice your reply (also left on ‘YOUR’ own profile page). I would have had a better chance of seeing it if you had left the comment on ‘MY’ (self-centered egocentric first world POV?) profile page instead

the comments about King were to show that you can't really know anything (as Plato would say) about anyone, even the so called Rev. MLKing or the USA

left wing heroes, right wing heroes are all zeros to me

until human nature is changed it will always be the same old thing

This comedic routine of ours is being crowded out of existence with far too many straight men...maybe that’s because the ‘mother’ of all punch lines is ‘nobody’s ever joking!’ Does a coffee and do-nothingness (zeros) come with that ‘human nature’ change of yours at the local Jiffy Lube or is it as easy-listening as just having the know-how for changing one’s tune?

You're both right. The West or the Global North is guilty of taking advantage of natural and human resources in the Global South (any myriad of third world countries). Democracy evolved naturally in most of the West, while it wasn't allowed to do the same in Africa, Latin America, Middle East or Southern Asia. So while certain areas of the third world may be inhabited by savages (how would you define this term), given time and guidance they may have evolved a democratic system (or some form of it) on their own.

“...global victory for the intangibles that make life possible and worthwhile...

On July 30 [08], negotiations at the World Trade Organization – perhaps the most socially and environmentally destructive body let loose on the planet since World War II – crashed and burned.

Southern nations at the Geneva talks, led by Brazil, India and China, refused to accept the unlimited “dumping” of surplus and subsidized Northern food exports that pushes poor farmers into bankruptcy.

The deal breaker was India and China’s insistence on a “special safeguard mechanism” that could halt imports when domestic farmers are threatened by cheap imports – a first indication of the new food politics created by rising prices.

Since 2001, food fights have been responsible for the stalemate at the WTO. That’s when European and North American governments committed rhetorically to provide development opportunities for Southern countries – but then didn’t deliver.

The WTO, after all, was the centerpiece of the “new world order” designed by Washington’s first Bush government. Global institutions of the old world order – the United Nations, World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, for example – were created during the 1940s and 50s, when two superpowers tried to outdo each other helping former colonies to “develop” in pro-?U.S. or pro-?Soviet ways.

By contrast, the World Trade Organization, established in 1995, expressed the end of political competition (which one bestseller of the time christened the “end of history”) and the beginning of cutthroat competition for economic control of the cheap labour and resources of the southern half of the globe...

[And So] No, it isn’t the end of history, but it could be the beginning of a new space for food and ag[ricultural] policy.” Wayne Roberts
http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=164368

love the evolutional linking but assuming 'democracy' at its apex is quite the leap of faith...will 'guidance' come in the arms of depleted uranium's democratic 'savagery'?

PS: apologies for the harshness...and I had been doing so well, actually showing progress, while undergoing treatment for my anti-american sentiment under the benevolent guidance of dr. nonmaus. (This could also be seen as a possible ploy for seeking far more intensive treatment in Trinidad itself this coming winter, you just don't know what its like in knee-deep-freeze snow!)

well smarrie

if you want to see a show come at carnival about Feb 24 and 25, 2009. the dancing called dutty wine makes dogs humping on the street look modest and rum is everywhere

always good here, except we are having a bit of water shortage in spite of rain, maybe we should have gotten some more help from the World Bank

by the way, i don't believe in democracy either. i think it was able to get some roots down starting in Greece because they had the terrain and small city states and some time on their hands, except i don't think the women and slaves voted too much

and where i have been it the third and forth or whatever world, IMF and world bank or no, their was too much tribalism and division for democracy to work

but as Plato would also say smarrie you are on the right tract with love, that is what changes humans into something better than they are at the moment

Lol, no apologies needed, I can take constructive criticism.

You're right, it is a stretch to consider democracy as the apex of political evolution same way free markets are paraded as the ideal in economics. Each society must form a government that is right for them, democracy as we view it, might just be a stepping stone to something better. But I hope we can all agree that brutal, violent dictatorships is not the way to go.

In the West we extol the virtues of democracy and force those ideas to other nations. Yet we see many corrupt tyrants imitating democracy rigging elections and pandering to Western governments (Mugabe in Zimbabwe). And we see corrupt political parties using democracy to remove effective leadership (Asif Zardari trying to impeach Musharraf in Pakistan). No form of government, no matter how many checks and balances exist, is immune to poor and disingenuous leadership (Dick Cheney is a prime example).

I welcome India's and China's rise to power to restore balance to global leadership though I hope they don't try to establish their own regional hegemony.

We are multicultural here nonmaus, Caribana’s jump-up just closed for another year! (photo reference only)
http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/upfront.cfm?content=164352

are you from Maryland NSW Australia?

American Blackout: http://ipb.quicksilverscreen.com/index.php?showtopic=42918

Hacking Democracy: http://ipb.quicksilverscreen.com/index.php?showtopic=53307

[India maybe, but China!...their good deed re: WTO is only an attempt to gain some breathing space for themselves during the Olympics.]

No, I'm only from America and all too aware of the problems our foreign policy has caused. I don't hate America, I love this country and its people and that's why educating myself on its dark past is important to figure out how best we might navigate the near future.

I have watched Hacking Democracy, really interesting film and it's unfortunate we may never completely know what happened during the 2000 election. Though Recount is a film that manages to inform as well as entertain while holding true to its source material. Yet I would not go as far as to say the conditions in America are the same as Zimbabwe. We've got a much more educated populace and they're determined not to let another 8 years of special interest dictate our laws.

I'll look into American Blackout, but I'm not very impressed with the current black leadership in America. Jesse James and Al Sharpton especially use racial issues to consolidate their power. The wounds of segregation run deep and Obama - insulated from the worst of the civil rights struggle through most of his childhood - is best equipped to move this country past such divisions.

What would be the online equivalent to 'biting one's tongue'?...maybe 'hammer to the hands'. Enough gibbersome, I've got to lay off for reasons of mental health, so I'll skip a point by point retort. I will agree with you regarding your sentiment for the 'country' itself. I am familiar with both coasts, but have only done a few of the cities in between - Chicago (The Art Institute, I still have the goose bumps after seeing their premier Impressionists collection a few years back), Houston, Las Vegas (itself an effen zoo, I was working and never got the chance to head out into the hills along the horizon, even though I could hear them calling my name). I also agree with your sentiment regarding 'its people'. the general population is definitely the friendliest I have met in my travels, although you would get some competition for a trophy prize from Australia (southern sections) and Canada's province Newfoundland. OK that's enough, gotta go 'pee' (actually feeling a temper tantrum coming on thinking about the short term memory loss limitation of 8 years of special interests - please read Howard Zinn if you get the time away from your studies...and your take on 'racial issues'...Obama and his Trilateral tutelage...is the 'dark past' from last night [sorry LOL I can't help myself]...dr. nonmaus! dr. nonmaus! doctor!...

PS: I have made a re-appearance with the absolute sincere intention of apologizing for the last portion of my comments and after re-reading your post I just can’t do it. I am not questioning your intent nor your sincerity but rather get extremely annoyed with your overloading of inaccurate and imprecise conclusions. The worst of my criticisms for you is the fact that you probably remind me far too much of myself. This problem of ours was countered for me (maybe but I doubt it) by my teachers constantly chanting the mantra - ’questions are more important than answers!’ Just thought I would pass it on in the hopes you can make use of it. Nighty night gibbersome!

smarrie

this may be what the doctor ordered, it was posted in Arts & Culture section

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3082712932054125675

i too found the USAmericans about the friendliest people i have met on their home base, just don't take away their AC, cable, hot water, etc or sneak attack them. (ie Pearl Harbor, World Trade Center)

we see what can happen when they get threatened, stirred up and united as the Taliban and Saddam found out.

Yes I did notice it, thanks, and will give it a look-see. It's a QSS member 'Truthiness' [intentional] posting - he is not one for posting comments but does speak loud and clear via his documentary postings. Although to this day I still don't know why he has never accepted my absolute 100% insincere apology for all my anti-americanisms
PS: Sorry just can't seem to get up enough patience to sit through this, and the sun's out!

facinating