Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth in Zimbabwe.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

Franksterr:
You asked:
Are You saying there is no poverty in CUBA?

In the same post I wrote:
Quote:
The Cubans remain relatively poor on an individual basis but they have all the basic requirements needed for human development and the near total elimination of hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, serious crime, drug use and the drug trade, gangs, internecine warfare.

What I am attempting to point out here is that despite having a low per capita income, ALL Cubans, not just some, not just most but ALL Cubans have sufficient food, at LEAST a 10th grade education and they are constantly improving on this, universal health care, no one is homeless, no one need fear not having what they and their family need because they can't find a job, divorce or loss of a mate does not mean deprivation for a woman with several children and everything else listed above.

The point is that elimination of the terrible effects of poverty found in most capitalist countries and certainly in all the poorer ones is possible only with a strict socialist economy. Note I did not say that the overall wealth or personal wealth was changed but that the overall condition of the ENTIRE population was changed for the better.

The United Nations Human Development Index is accepted worldwide as the standard by which conditions in the countries of the world are measured and on this index Cuba placed 51st in the world.
Again I'll stress this point. It is not some of the Cubans or most of the Cubans but ALL of the Cubans, every man, woman, and child regardless of age, religion, physical state or any other factor is represented in the 51st placement.

This could never have been accomplished in any similarly poor country under capitalism simply because there is an intrinsic disparity in wealth under capitalism.
So, with the exception of the highly developed SOCIAL democracies ( meaning capitalist countries with a great many massively funded social programs to alleviate the effects of poverty and the wealth to do it) placement on the Human Development Index always means that there are a heap of people at the bottom to which the rating does NOT apply; who do not get what most of the people in that country get.

What Cuba has done, any country in similar circumstances can also do if they were permitted to try it
Note also that I do not refer to the old secretive and non-democratic Stalinist regimes like the Soviets, Koreans, Chinese. The Cubans are justifiably proud of what they have accomplished and want the world to know what they have done and how they have done it ( and all the while under attack from the United States).
Cuba does not hide what goes on in the country. There are many professional groups that regularly tour the island and know which claims are true and which are not.

In fact, it is the United States which bans its citizens from visiting the island exactly so they will not see the truth.
it is the United States that puts out most of the anti-Cuban propaganda that many believe to be factual because getting people to think that Cuba is a terrible place under a system that is anathema to the United States is a necessary and big part of the U.S. war on Cuba.

If you choose to take the same position, using much of the same anti-Cuban rhetoric lies and half-truths as the racist, imperial, pro-colonial United States, why not go back to being Rhodesian and live it?

Zimbabwe could do for its people what Cuba has done unless there are not enough moral and charismatic leaders in the country, unless the Zimbabwean people lack the fighting spirit of the Cubans, unless the Zimbabweans believe the propaganda as you do and don't think they can make a revolution (and not piddling reforms of the same old systems but a real revolution )

My question for you would be; How long are you willing to wait, how many Zimbabweans will die or starve in hard times or will never be able to reach their human development potential before you admit that capitalism and an undemocratic electoral system doesn't work, cannot be sufficiently reformed.

Lastly, Zimbabwe is black ruled. It is not white ruled. The effects of poverty that afflict so many in country are do to the unequal distribution of the (limited) wealth of the country.
Cuba is poor but no one starves when times are bad, no one is homeless etc, etc, etc .
Please explain your claim that racism is the cause of poverty in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa because I can't follow that at all unless you mean to say that neo-colonialism is racist and in that case I would hold that racism becomes a contributing but minor factor in poverty imposed by unfair trade practices.
The First Worlders, the old colonial powers, the people who are robbing Zimbabwe don't care if you're black, blue or purple, all they want is your money.

Just as the Chinese are out-doing the West at their own game and don't care that most of the United States and Europe is white. It's money that drives them and not racism.

That racism especially anti-black racism is a fact in the world is not in dispute but that racism is the primary cause of the rich robbing the poor of the world including Zimbabwe just does not hold water.

As a communist, I do quite a bit of reading on poverty and its causes and I have seen very few sources that list racism as a primary cause EXCEPT in countries that are predominantly white like the United States and even here it only increases the proportion of blacks in poverty while the total numbers of the poor are white.

This does not apply in predominantly black countries.

It would be one thing if you were to say that racism is but one of the factors in the huge levels of poverty in SSA but to put all the blame on racism and none at all on capitalism suggests that you have a vested interest in capitalism and therefore the status quo.

You cannot keep capitalism and the current non-democratic governmental form and expect change.

There is a saying that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity.

But then there are those in power who put up a facade of change that is not real, that does not work in order to keep things the way they are while fooling the general public into thinking their efforts are sincere.

Well maybe Zimbabwe is too corrupt to ever fix itself.

Maybe it IS a failed state and in that case, what then?

Do you have any workable ideas or are you just looking at what amounts to distant possibilities of reform with only very remote chances of creating serious and systemic improvements in the lives of the nearly twelve million Zimbabweans?

[franksterr]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

johnnycakes

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In the same post I wrote:
Quote:
The Cubans remain relatively poor on an individual basis but they have all the basic requirements needed for human development and the near total elimination of hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, serious crime, drug use and the drug trade, gangs, internecine warfare.

What I am attempting to point out here is that despite having a low per capita income, ALL Cubans, not just some, not just most but ALL Cubans have sufficient food, at LEAST a 10th grade education and they are constantly improving on this, universal health care, no one is homeless, no one need fear not having what they and their family need because they can't find a job, divorce or loss of a mate does not mean deprivation for a woman with several children and everything else listed above.

The point is that elimination of the terrible effects of poverty found in most capitalist countries and certainly in all the poorer ones is possible only with a strict socialist economy. Note I did not say that the overall wealth or personal wealth was changed but that the overall condition of the ENTIRE population was changed for the better.

The United Nations Human Development Index is accepted worldwide as the standard by which conditions in the countries of the world are measured and on this index Cuba placed 51st in the world.
Again I'll stress this point. It is not some of the Cubans or most of the Cubans but ALL of the Cubans, every man, woman, and child regardless of age, religion, physical state or any other factor is represented in the 51st placement.</div></div>

You say&quot;<span style="font-style: italic">ALL Cubans, not just some, not just most but ALL Cubans have sufficient food&quot;..........&quot;No one is homeless&quot;</span> I think that those statement are exaggerations.

How is Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad doing on the UNHDI??
How is Cuba doing on the democracy index?

http://www.wfp.org/countries/cuba

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y00/jun00/07e7.htm

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This could never have been accomplished in any similarly poor country under capitalism simply because there is an intrinsic disparity in wealth under capitalism.
So, with the exception of the highly developed SOCIAL democracies ( meaning capitalist countries with a great many massively funded social programs to alleviate the effects of poverty and the wealth to do it) placement on the Human Development Index always means that there are a heap of people at the bottom to which the rating does NOT apply; who do not get what most of the people in that country get.</div></div>

Chances are the same could be said of Cuba?
Did the UN go to Cuba and do surveys, measurements, demographics and epidemiological studies of the various stages of malnutrition to arrive at those estimates or was each country ask to submit figures on various social indicators?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What Cuba has done, any country in similar circumstances can also do if they were permitted to try it
Note also that I do not refer to the old secretive and non-democratic Stalinist regimes like the Soviets, Koreans, Chinese. The Cubans are justifiably proud of what they have accomplished and want the world to know what they have done and how they have done it ( and all the while under attack from the United States).
Cuba does not hide what goes on in the country. There are many professional groups that regularly tour the island and know which claims are true and which are not.</div></div>

The first 30 yrs is in stark contrast to the last 20 yrs as they were no longer a favored son of Mother Russia......Zimbabwe had no such benefactor.

Name a few of the groups that tour Cuba

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In fact, it is the United States which bans its citizens from visiting the island exactly so they will not see the truth.
it is the United States that puts out most of the anti-Cuban propaganda that many believe to be factual because getting people to think that Cuba is a terrible place under a system that is anathema to the United States is a necessary and big part of the U.S. war on Cuba.</div></div>


Is There a ban on travel to Cuba?

http://www.cubalinda.com/English/Sections/HowCubaUS.asp

Does Cuba ban travel outside of Cuba for Cubans?
Why do Cubans risk their lives to leave and is sometimes persecuted by Cuban authorities for wanting to leave?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you choose to take the same position, using much of the same anti-Cuban rhetoric lies and half-truths as the racist, imperial, pro-colonial United States, why not go back to being Rhodesian and live it? </div></div>

My search is for the truth, and I will not jump out of the pan and into the fire, because some one is pushing absurdities-unrealistic dreams about a Cuban utopia.
I was and is still against Rhodesian, Cuban utopia real or imagine will not change that. The Truth is the truth no matter where it comes from.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Zimbabwe could do for its people what Cuba has done unless there are not enough moral and charismatic leaders in the country, unless the Zimbabwean people lack the fighting spirit of the Cubans, unless the Zimbabweans believe the propaganda as you do and don't think they can make a revolution (and not piddling reforms of the same old systems but a real revolution ) </div></div>

I am not there fighting the battles, and will not ask of others what I for whatever reason is not doing. The leaders of Zimbabwe is fighting it there way, and they have my support, as I can see the direction they are going and the success they have achieved.
They have achieved things which individuals like yourself say could not be done save through a socialist/communist revolution.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My question for you would be; How long are you willing to wait, how many Zimbabweans will die or starve in hard times or will never be able to reach their human development potential before you admit that capitalism and an undemocratic electoral system doesn't work, cannot be sufficiently reformed.</div></div>

As long as the leaders of Zimbabwe are will to endure.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Lastly, Zimbabwe is black ruled. It is not white ruled. The effects of poverty that afflict so many in country are do to the unequal distribution of the (limited) wealth of the country.
Cuba is poor but no one starves when times are bad, no one is homeless etc, etc, etc </div></div>

Zimbabwe has just redistributed land to over a million families, if you do not recognize that as revolutionary wealth re-distribution then I can not help you.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...lling-an-exodus

http://www.buildfreedom.com/tanner/evolution.shtml

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Please explain your claim that racism is the cause of poverty in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa because I can't follow that at all unless you mean to say that neo-colonialism is racist and in that case I would hold that racism becomes a contributing but minor factor in poverty imposed by unfair trade practices.
The First Worlders, the old colonial powers, the people who are robbing Zimbabwe don't care if you're black, blue or purple, all they want is your money. </div></div>

Neo-colonialism is predicated upon racism, it is not incidental or a contributing factor it is the chief purpose and main function...... Making a profit comes second.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9VxnCBD9W4&amp;feature=related

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqzc8KiU0o&amp;feature=related

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Just as the Chinese are out-doing the West at their own game and don't care that most of the United States and Europe is white. It's money that drives them and not racism.

That racism especially anti-black racism is a fact in the world is not in dispute but that racism is the primary cause of the rich robbing the poor of the world including Zimbabwe just does not hold water.</div></div>

The Chinese are trying to secure their spot and so in that quest has no need of that baggage now. The West is secure their spot on the top and racism is the tool used against black nations that are potential competitors. Only 50yrs ago Chines was a basket case today they looms as a threat to the West hegemony

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">As a communist, I do quite a bit of reading on poverty and its causes and I have seen very few sources that list racism as a primary cause EXCEPT in countries that are predominantly white like the United States and even here it only increases the proportion of blacks in poverty while the total numbers of the poor are white.</div></div>

If so them you are reading and not comprehending.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This does not apply in predominantly black countries.

It would be one thing if you were to say that racism is but one of the factors in the huge levels of poverty in SSA but to put all the blame on racism and none at all on capitalism suggests that you have a vested interest in capitalism and therefore the status quo. </div></div>

Capitalism is primarily a tool and racism is primarily a weapon

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You cannot keep capitalism and the current non-democratic governmental form and expect change.</div></div>

How can you say that when we have moved from outright slavery and overt colonialism
to civil rights and political sovereignty.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">There is a saying that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity.</div></div>

Why have been having good success.
Outright revolution without support in place makes many Haiti's.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">But then there are those in power who put up a facade of change that is not real, that does not work in order to keep things the way they are while fooling the general public into thinking their efforts are sincere.

Well maybe Zimbabwe is too corrupt to ever fix itself.

Maybe it IS a failed state and in that case, what then?</div></div>

Zimbabwe is open you can travel there and see for yourself. People come and go as they please.
Time will tell????

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Do you have any workable ideas or are you just looking at what amounts to distant possibilities of reform with only very remote chances of creating serious and systemic improvements in the lives of the nearly twelve million Zimbabweans?</div></div>

The success of Land Reform is a positive testament to the intent of Zimbabwe,s leaders

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

Is there a travel ban for American citizens who want to go to Cuba?

http://www.ehow.com/about_5407689_penalties-unauthorized-travel-cuba.html

http://www.righttotraveltocuba.org/defending/victories_vs_travel_ban

AND there are about 200 more references at &quot;penalties for unauthorized travel to Cuba in case you want more proof.

Franksterr, This has been in place for about 50 years. I'm surprised that anyone even vaguely familiar with the U.S.-Cuban situation would not know this.

You can get around the ban IF your expenses are paid by the Cubans or if you are going as a member of a scholastic group but I could not go as a tourist without facing stiff penalties as enumerated in the link above.

As for questioning the universality of Cuban's having homes, adequate food, adequate medical , dental and mental health care, pre-school to graduate school educational opportunities etc I would suggest you try to find reliable sources that say otherwise and then compare those sources with ones that say what I am saying is true.

I can understand your having problems believing it is true given that it is unique in the world outside of the social democracies in Scandinavia and, of course impossible in the poor Third World outside of Cuba.

Cuba is working along the lines of Marx's &quot;To each according to their needs and from each according to their ability to give&quot;
It's a concept both alien to capitalism and for the most part impossible under capitalism because under capitalism money is piled up in private hands and there is not enough to go around for the rest , resulting in starvation, malnutrition, homelessness etc,,

I end my posts with a quote that is displayed on a large billboard in Cuba:
They put that sign up to remind Cubans of what the world outside of Cuba is like and to show just how good Cuba's democratic socialism is for ALL the people.

It really doesn't matter if YOU choose not to believe that sign because the Cuban people know it is the truth and as repeatedly said, they overwhelmingly support their revolution.

Of the three countries you asked about an HDI rating, I only have one in my head and that is Jamaica that placed around 101 and with a higher per capita income than Cuba.

Cuba's rating puts Cuba in the first tier of nations that includes all the wealthy advanced capitalist nations. I cannot tell you at this moment how the U.N. arrives at its HDI figures but I can tell you that nobody questions them.

You can talk all you want about the advances Zimbabwe has made but those advances have been in just the past year and based on history, those changes are far from revolutionary and in the end will not end the hunger, poverty, lack of social services, crime and exploitation by the colonial powers .
Zimbabwe on the course it is on will never achieve what the Cubans have achieved in lifting ALL their people out of colonial poverty and the effects thereof.
That would require a total redistribution of wealth which in turn requires that the will of the people be expressed in the actions of the government.
The poor do not rule in Africa so this is a non-starter .


Lastly, for now, can you reference any sources that back up your claim that the cause of poverty in Africa is primarily racism and not capitalism because I think that claim is a way of excusing capitalism for some reason I can only guess at.

I went to and listened to the two links you provided to back up your racism claim and only was able to hear the first half of the first because of a computer problem and about 2/3 of the second and all Stockwell had to say in what I hears was that it was a north- south thing and Stockewell used the expression THird World War because iut was a U.S/CIA war on the Third World, not on black people not against brown people but against poor Third World. Nothing at all about racism being a factor.
Try reading the 29 page introduction to 'Killing Hope&quot; by William Blum available on the web by Googling &quot;Killing Hope&quot; and then take a look at the list of countries in which Blum details CIA interventions. Some are African but most are not and Blum (also ex-CIA) also never says that racism is a major factor. How can it be in CIA interventions in Italy, Hungary, Greece, Nicaragua, Chile, Iran etc?
Have you ever Googled &quot; the cause of poverty in Africa&quot; and read what comes up?

You should.

&quot;How can you say that when we have moved from outright slavery and overt colonialism to civil rights and political sovereignty&quot;

Zimbabwe's people have only changed their masters. Zimbabwe's political system is undemocratic and those who own the factories and the means of production and who possess the wealth rule just as in the United States after its revolution.
A few reforms, even the vaunted land reform which has resulted in a third of the farms failing does not make much difference in the lives of most Zimbabweans and these small changes in no way point to a continuance of reforms.

Besides, no one has ever reformed a Zimbabwe type situation into anything that seriously improved the lives of the poor because poverty is a natural part of capitalism and even more so in poor countries.

As said, time will tell and in the case of Zimbabwe all signs point to a downturn rather than a continuance of the small gains of 2010. That has been the history of the Third World under capitalism and nothing has changed within capitalism to indicate any chance of serious change.

The monied folks will not allow any change unless it is at the point of a gun and they are the ones with the most guns.

[franksterr]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

johnnycakes

Is there a travel ban for American citizens who want to go to Cuba?

<span style="font-style: italic"> The Bush Administration has increased restrictions on our right to travel, systematically denying both individuals and groups with legal ways of going to Cuba. U.S. travelers are subject to serious charges and fines, <span style="font-weight: bold">yet to date no one who has stood up for their rights has gone to jail or had to pay the full penalties. Crjminal charges have been dropped, and in most cases, settlements have been negotiated or are awaiting appeal.</span> By demanding our basic Constitutional Right to travel, we can make a difference! </span>
AND there are about 200 more references at &quot;penalties for unauthorized travel to Cuba in case you want more proof.[/i]

http://www.righttotraveltocuba.org/defending/victories_vs_travel_ban

And thats from a site you provided.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=18972

http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/IACHR.rtresmov.html

whilst in Cuba thousand are being imprisoned
<span style="font-style: italic">In the past three decades, thousands of Cubans have been imprisoned for trying to leave the island without permission. In 1994, illegal exit prisoners were thought to constitute the largest category of political prisoners in Cuba. In 1990 alone, there were 335 inmates convicted of illegal exit serving time in a single prison in Havana, </span>

http://www.cubaverdad.net/freedom_of_movement.htm

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Franksterr, This has been in place for about 50 years. I'm surprised that anyone even vaguely familiar with the U.S.-Cuban situation would not know this.

You can get around the ban IF your expenses are paid by the Cubans or if you are going as a member of a scholastic group but I could not go as a tourist without facing stiff penalties as enumerated in the link above.</div></div>

Your own site says no one has been imprisoned by the US for so doing.......a many travel companies advertise ways of getting around the so called US ban.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">As for questioning the universality of Cuban's having homes, adequate food, adequate medical , dental and mental health care, pre-school to graduate school educational opportunities etc I would suggest you try to find reliable sources that say otherwise and then compare those sources with ones that say what I am saying is true.

I can understand your having problems believing it is true given that it is unique in the world outside of the social democracies in Scandinavia and, of course impossible in the poor Third World outside of Cuba. </div></div>

You provide your scholastic sources???
I then we will compare them.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Cuba is working along the lines of Marx's &quot;To each according to their needs and from each according to their ability to give&quot;
It's a concept both alien to capitalism and for the most part impossible under capitalism because under capitalism money is piled up in private hands and there is not enough to go around for the rest , resulting in starvation, malnutrition, homelessness etc,,</div></div>

Is that the case in those capitalist Scandinavian countries?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I end my posts with a quote that is displayed on a large billboard in Cuba:
They put that sign up to remind Cubans of what the world outside of Cuba is like and to show just how good Cuba's democratic socialism is for ALL the people.

It really doesn't matter if YOU choose not to believe that sign because the Cuban people know it is the truth and as repeatedly said, they overwhelmingly support their revolution.

Of the three countries you asked about an HDI rating, I only have one in my head and that is Jamaica that placed around 101 and with a higher per capita income than Cuba.</div></div>

Check again I hear Jamaica is at 80 or there about and Cuba is no longer at 50 or there abouts.
Could it be that Barbados outranks Cuba???
Cuba seems to me missing on the index for the yrs of 09 &amp;10

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Cuba's rating puts Cuba in the first tier of nations that includes all the wealthy advanced capitalist nations. I cannot tell you at this moment how the U.N. arrives at its HDI figures but I can tell you that nobody questions them.</div></div>

You did question them in your earlier postings!!!!!
Really so where is Cuba now?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You can talk all you want about the advances Zimbabwe has made but those advances have been in just the past year and based on history, those changes are far from revolutionary and in the end will not end the hunger, poverty, lack of social services, crime and exploitation by the colonial powers .
Zimbabwe on the course it is on will never achieve what the Cubans have achieved in lifting ALL their people out of colonial poverty and the effects thereof.
That would require a total redistribution of wealth which in turn requires that the will of the people be expressed in the actions of the government.
The poor do not rule in Africa so this is a non-starter .</div></div>

A Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
The poor do not rule anywhere???


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Lastly, for now, can you reference any sources that back up your claim that the cause of poverty in Africa is primarily racism and not capitalism because I think that claim is a way of excusing capitalism for some reason I can only guess at.</div></div>

Check the confession of John Stockwell, the youtube links I gave you earlier.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I went to and listened to the two links you provided to back up your racism claim and only was able to hear the first half of the first because of a computer problem and about 2/3 of the second and all Stockwell had to say in what I hears was that it was a north- south thing and Stockewell used the expression THird World War because iut was a U.S/CIA war on the Third World, not on black people not against brown people but against poor Third World. Nothing at all about racism being a factor.
Try reading the 29 page introduction to 'Killing Hope&quot; by William Blum available on the web by Googling &quot;Killing Hope&quot; and then take a look at the list of countries in which Blum details CIA interventions. Some are African but most are not and Blum (also ex-CIA) also never says that racism is a major factor. How can it be in CIA interventions in Italy, Hungary, Greece, Nicaragua, Chile, Iran etc?
Have you ever Googled &quot; the cause of poverty in Africa&quot; and read what comes up?</div></div>

Sometimes Third world is a euphemism for non-Anglo-Saxon countries.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You should.</div></div>

All the time
when you have seen the entire clip link me back....thats only a primer.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Zimbabwe's people have only changed their masters. Zimbabwe's political system is undemocratic and those who own the factories and the means of production and who possess the wealth rule just as in the United States after its revolution.
A few reforms, even the vaunted land reform which has resulted in a third of the farms failing does not make much difference in the lives of most Zimbabweans and these small changes in no way point to a continuance of reforms.</div></div>

http://www.zimbabwesituation.org/?p=22904

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Besides, no one has ever reformed a Zimbabwe type situation into anything that seriously improved the lives of the poor because poverty is a natural part of capitalism and even more so in poor countries.

As said, time will tell and in the case of Zimbabwe all signs point to a downturn rather than a continuance of the small gains of 2010. That has been the history of the Third World under capitalism and nothing has changed within capitalism to indicate any chance of serious change.

The monied folks will not allow any change unless it is at the point of a gun and they are the ones with the most guns.
</div></div>

We have been down this road too many times already to go there again.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

Franksterr,
So you admit that there is a travel ban and now you want to change the subject to the lack of enforcement ?

Those site also carry a lot of reports of how travelers to Cuba were prosecuted.
The point that you are missing is that the ban is in effect to prevent Cuba from getting the U.S. tourist dollars.
Just the fact that the law is in effect means that most Americans will not go to Cuba just as many will not smoke marijuana even though the penalties are not big.
If you travel without the hard-to-get permission you will be interrogated by the F.B.I, you'll need to hire an expensive lawyer, spend time in court and no one I know would be willing to do that for a vacation. That keeps most Americans away from going to Cuba and helps punish Cuba for having a socialist economy.
The travel ban works quite well to serve its purposes.


Quote:
&quot;Cuba is working along the lines of Marx's &quot;To each according to their needs and from each according to their ability to give&quot;
It's a concept both alien to capitalism and for the most part impossible under capitalism because under capitalism money is piled up in private hands and there is not enough to go around for the rest , resulting in starvation, malnutrition, homelessness etc,,


Is that the case in those capitalist Scandinavian countries?


Franksterr,
You're being disingenuous here.
I know I have pointed out that the Scandinavian countries while being capitalist have wide ranging and very expensive remediation programs to counteract the poverty that is endemic to all capitalist economies.

What the Scandinavian countries do is not possible in the United States which is the richest country (maybe) and absolutely, positively and undeniably n NOT possible in the poor Third World countries which is what these conversations have all been about.

The Scandinavian countries are not exceptions to the rule, it's just that they tax highly and are more humane than the other rich capitalist countries.

As for providing statistics etc on the universality of the benefits of Cuba's socialist economy sorry, that would take a very long time and you would choose not to believe it. If you cannot take the word of the World Health Organization or the United Nations people then I can't help you.
You're interested in the truth. Go find it for yourself. You don't accept my word or the sources I provide so it is the best thing for you to do.


Lastly this:
&quot;Sometimes Third world is a euphemism for non-Anglo-Saxon countries.&quot;

Franksterr, with all due respect, I have to say this is the weakest argument you could present to back up your claim that it is racism and not capitalism that causes poverty.
As said and shown, there are hundreds of sites that back me up and none that back up your racism claim.
Stockwell is a relative latecomer and he never says word one about racism which he surely would if it were a prominent factor in the U.S. imperial interventions which are all about money.
The United States has intervened in countries like Italy, Greece, and others that are predominantly white, many countries that are Hispanic, Iran Iraq, Lebanon and many others in Asia and Africa both north and south.

It seems that you have a need to support capitalism and are so in denial that you can interpret what Stockwell has to say as hinting at racism.

You would not be able to have any intelligent person look at Stockwell's videos and come to the same conclusion that you have.
Try it on someone doing post grad work in political science if you dare..


I checked out this site you referenced- http://www.zimbabwesituation.org/?p=22904 when I said that the few reforms put in place were insignificant in the overall picture. In reference to the land reform program in which big white owned farms were broken up and given to small black farmers, the report said :


The study’s lead author, Ian Scoones from the UK’s Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University, told BBC News he was “genuinely surprised” to see how much activity was happening on the farms visited during the 10-year study.
“People were getting on with things in difficult circumstances and doing remarkably well,” he said.
HE DECLINES , HOWEVER TO CHARACTERISE IT AS A SUCCESS.

The rest of that story is replete with many facts on many things that have gone wrong with the Zimbabwe land reform program. Maybe you should read it through.
The big cash crop tobacco has dropped in production as has maize mainly because the small farmers do not have the agricultural know-how of the replaced white farmers who ran agribusinesses and not inefficient small farms.


From my previous post:
&quot;Besides, no one has ever reformed a Zimbabwe type situation into anything that seriously improved the lives of the poor because poverty is a natural part of capitalism and even more so in poor countries.

The monied folks will not allow any change unless it is at the point of a gun and they are the ones with the most guns.&quot;



To which you understandably backed away from addressing because it is the undeniable truth and you have no answer to the capitalist-caused poverty except to say, without substance, that it is racism that is the cause of poverty under capitalism.
I have over 200 websites that agree with me.


We can and should delineate our respective ideologies.
I support Cuban style socialism and the Cuban electoral form and believe that the Cuban system can work in any country. I am unalterably opposed to capitalism except as practiced and only possible in Scandinavia.

I believe that you 1) unalterably support capitalism and 2) a multi-party electoral system. and 3) that you are opposed to socialism.

Yes or no ?

[franksterr]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

johnnycakes
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
So you admit that there is a travel ban and now you want to change the subject to the lack of enforcement ?</div></div>

Please show where and when did I deny a travel ban, I ask a question???

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Those site also carry a lot of reports of how travelers to Cuba were prosecuted.
The point that you are missing is that the ban is in effect to prevent Cuba from getting the U.S. tourist dollars.</div></div>

Thats more in line with my understanding there is a &quot;trading with the enemy&quot; thing going, in the sense that one should not spend money in particular US dollars in Cuba

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Just the fact that the law is in effect means that most Americans will not go to Cuba just as many will not smoke marijuana even though the penalties are not big.
If you travel without the hard-to-get permission you will be interrogated by the F.B.I, you'll need to hire an expensive lawyer, spend time in court and no one I know would be willing to do that for a vacation. That keeps most Americans away from going to Cuba and helps punish Cuba for having a socialist economy.
The travel ban works quite well to serve its purposes. </div></div>

Do Americans still travel to Cuba?
Is the ban being enforced?


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
&quot;Cuba is working along the lines of Marx's &quot;To each according to their needs and from each according to their ability to give&quot;
It's a concept both alien to capitalism and for the most part impossible under capitalism because under capitalism money is piled up in private hands and there is not enough to go around for the rest , resulting in starvation, malnutrition, homelessness etc,,


Is that the case in those capitalist Scandinavian countries?



You're being disingenuous here.
I know I have pointed out that the Scandinavian countries while being capitalist have wide ranging and very expensive remediation programs to counteract the poverty that is endemic to all capitalist economies.

What the Scandinavian countries do is not possible in the United States which is the richest country (maybe) and absolutely, positively and undeniably n NOT possible in the poor Third World countries which is what these conversations have all been about.</div></div>

No I am not being ingeniousness..
I am asking you questions that you should have ask yourself.
It has been done in Scandinavian countries, which are not as rich as the US...so really why cant the US do it?
You say it has been done in Cuba??? Is Cuba a rich country???
Zimbabwe has done a first step!!! Is Zimbabwe Rich?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Scandinavian countries are not exceptions to the rule, it's just that they tax highly and are more humane than the other rich capitalist countries.</div></div>

The WILL of the leaders.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">As for providing statistics etc on the universality of the benefits of Cuba's socialist economy sorry, that would take a very long time and you would choose not to believe it. If you cannot take the word of the World Health Organization or the United Nations people then I can't help you.
You're interested in the truth. Go find it for yourself. You don't accept my word or the sources I provide so it is the best thing for you to do. </div></div>

I ask for it and I do value them


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Lastly this:
&quot;Sometimes Third world is a euphemism for non-Anglo-Saxon countries.&quot;

Franksterr, with all due respect, I have to say this is the weakest argument you could present to back up your claim that it is racism and not capitalism that causes poverty.
As said and shown, there are hundreds of sites that back me up and none that back up your racism claim.
Stockwell is a relative latecomer and he never says word one about racism which he surely would if it were a prominent factor in the U.S. imperial interventions which are all about money.
The United States has intervened in countries like Italy, Greece, and others that are predominantly white, many countries that are Hispanic, Iran Iraq, Lebanon and many others in Asia and Africa both north and south.</div></div>


Post the links that purport that African poverty is not a result of racism????
Then you do not know the first thing about racism - you think it is about black and white.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKMspN-7Co&amp;feature=related

First lesson Greeks and Italians were not considered white until the late 1800.

http://professorwhatif.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/what-if-youre-not-quite-white/

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It seems that you have a need to support capitalism and are so in denial that you can interpret what Stockwell has to say as hinting at racism.

You would not be able to have any intelligent person look at Stockwell's videos and come to the same conclusion that you have.
Try it on someone doing post grad work in political science if you dare..</div></div>

Educated to make you the fool.
You have a need to tell lies that is what I seemed to notice about you.
Capitalism and Socialism are tools, Racism is a weapon


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I checked out this site you referenced- http://www.zimbabwesituation.org/?p=22904 when I said that the few reforms put in place were insignificant in the overall picture. In reference to the land reform program in which big white owned farms were broken up and given to small black farmers, the report said :


The study’s lead author, Ian Scoones from the UK’s Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University, told BBC News he was “genuinely surprised” to see how much activity was happening on the farms visited during the 10-year study.
“People were getting on with things in difficult circumstances and doing remarkably well,” he said.
HE DECLINES , HOWEVER TO CHARACTERISE IT AS A SUCCESS.

The rest of that story is replete with many facts on many things that have gone wrong with the Zimbabwe land reform program. Maybe you should read it through.
The big cash crop tobacco has dropped in production as has maize mainly because the small farmers do not have the agricultural know-how of the replaced white farmers who ran agribusinesses and not inefficient small farms. </div></div>

Well here is what went right, as I read it One million peasants got land, that was once own by 4000 whites....That is a success.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">From my previous post:
&quot;Besides, no one has ever reformed a Zimbabwe type situation into anything that seriously improved the lives of the poor because poverty is a natural part of capitalism and even more so in poor countries.

The monied folks will not allow any change unless it is at the point of a gun and they are the ones with the most guns.&quot;



To which you understandably backed away from addressing because it is the undeniable truth and you have no answer to the capitalist-caused poverty except to say, without substance, that it is racism that is the cause of poverty under capitalism.
I have over 200 websites that agree with me.</div></div>

Change has come to Zimbabwe
Post the 200 websites or even one??


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">We can and should delineate our respective ideologies.
I support Cuban style socialism and the Cuban electoral form and believe that the Cuban system can work in any country. I am unalterably opposed to capitalism except as practiced and only possible in Scandinavia.

I believe that you 1) unalterably support capitalism and 2) a multi-party electoral system. and 3) that you are opposed to socialism.

Yes or no ? </div></div>

NO.....you believe wrong, I support what works in both system








[/quote]

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i


F:
Please show where and when did I deny a travel ban, I ask a question???

J;
Since the ban has been in effect for 50 years I assumed that everyone interested in the Cuban revolution would know that and that your question was a way of denying it.
Again, go to Google and search under &quot;penalties for unauthorized travel to Cuba&quot;
Several said for instance that fines can be as high as $250,000.00 and there is the possibility of prison time . It is far more convincing for YOU to do what I have done to back up the veracity of my claims and use Google or whatever search engine you have because these search engines provide a wealth of information both pro and con.
Admittedly it is much like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hose and you have to do a lot of fast reading but all the info you need is there.
I cannot do all the work for you so if I tell you HOW to access it, it is incumbent upon you to read it and decide on the merits .



F:
Do Americans still travel to Cuba?
Is the ban being enforced?

J;
I think the last time I checked the figure was 80,000 per year doing it by going through a third country like Canada or Jamaica. The Cuban immigration people do not stamp an Americans passport so when they get back and go through U.S. immigration there is no way the agents can tell that person has been to Cuba.

Yes the ban is still enforced and you can't get to there from the United States without hard to get authorization usually for academic,artistic or official purposes.

The ban, as said, is a major part of the embargo intended to make life miserable for the Cuban people so that they will revolt and end the Cuban SOCIALIST revolution .




Quote:


You're being disingenuous here.
I know I have pointed out that the Scandinavian countries while being capitalist have wide ranging and very expensive remediation programs to counteract the poverty that is endemic to all capitalist economies.

What the Scandinavian countries do is not possible in the United States which is the richest country (maybe) and absolutely, positively and undeniably n NOT possible in the poor Third World countries which is what these conversations have all been about.


No I am not being ingeniousness..
I am asking you questions that you should have ask yourself.
It has been done in Scandinavian countries, which are not as rich as the US...so really why cant the US do it?
You say it has been done in Cuba??? Is Cuba a rich country???
Zimbabwe has done a first step!!! Is Zimbabwe Rich?

Franksterr:
To repeat, what I am trying to get across is that Cuba has ended the ill effects of poverty even though they are still a poor nation via a strict socialist economy.

What they have done can and has only been done in the richest, most highly developed and most civilized of the capitalist countries.

It absolutely, positively cannot be done in Zimbabwe or any other Third World capitalist country. If you want proof all you have to do is to see that it has not been done in any poor capitalist country.

Zimbabwe's land reform was a big first step but as the article you posted showed, about 1/3 of those given farm land are failing and the high levels of knowledge require for tobacco farming and large scale maize production is no longer there.
Since Zimbabwe is retaining both the corrupt multi-party electoral system and capitalism as the economic form, that one reform that is only half successful and the rise in literacy which, as discussed is a relatively inexpensive and easy thing to do are likely all the reforms of any consequence that we will see and Zimbabwe will slide right back to where they were.
We shall see.

F:
The WILL of the leaders.
J:
It is also that they have the money to do it and it is what the people want.



Quote:
Lastly this:
&quot;Sometimes Third world is a euphemism for non-Anglo-Saxon countries.&quot;

Franksterr, with all due respect, I have to say this is the weakest argument you could present to back up your claim that it is racism and not capitalism that causes poverty.
As said and shown, there are hundreds of sites that back me up and none that back up your racism claim.
Stockwell is a relative latecomer and he never says word one about racism which he surely would if it were a prominent factor in the U.S. imperial interventions which are all about money.
The United States has intervened in countries like Italy, Greece, and others that are predominantly white, many countries that are Hispanic, Iran Iraq, Lebanon and many others in Asia and Africa both north and south.

HERE IS YOUR LINK TO THE CAUSES OF POVERTY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax

And I guess I LIED about the link. There are not 200 references as I originally thought but 640.
I've gone through about 100 of them looking for racism as a cause of poverty in SSA but couldn't find any references.



F:
You have a need to tell lies that is what I seemed to notice about you.

J:
I never lie. I don't have to because as I pointed out, the truth has a steep left bias.
I have posted erroneous info on one or two occasions due to a bad memory on a given point but liars are invariably shown to be liars so why would I try?


F:
Well here is what went right, as I read it One million peasants got land, that was once own by 4000 whites....That is a success.
J:
That was a very good thing for all the landless people and there was minimal giving of land to the well connected . .
That said, one third have not been able to farm successfully and the big money crop; tobacco has shrunk considerably as has the main food staple crop: maize.
The land reform was only a mixed success and should have been done in a way that would have helped those who are now failing..





J;
&quot;Besides, no one has ever reformed a Zimbabwe type situation into anything that seriously improved the lives of the poor because poverty is a natural part of capitalism and even more so in poor countries.

The monied folks will not allow any change unless it is at the point of a gun and they are the ones with the most guns.&quot;



To which you understandably backed away from addressing because it is the undeniable truth and you have no answer to the capitalist-caused poverty except to say, without substance, that it is racism that is the cause of poverty under capitalism.
I have over 200 websites that agree with me.


F:
Change has come to Zimbabwe
J:
Small and ephemeral change has come to Zimbabwe IMO

F:
Post the 200 websites or even one??

J: Et voila

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax


F:
NO.....you believe wrong, I support what works in both system

J:
Do you believe that capitalism works in the poor Third World or that multi-party electoral systems in which the parties and not the people nominate the candidates who are supposed to represent the people. ?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax











Edited by franksterr (11/28/10 02:59 PM)

[franksterr]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

johnnycakes
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">F:
Please show where and when did I deny a travel ban, I ask a question???

J;
Since the ban has been in effect for 50 years I assumed that everyone interested in the Cuban revolution would know that and that your question was a way of denying it.
Again, go to Google and search under &quot;penalties for unauthorized travel to Cuba&quot;
Several said for instance that fines can be as high as $250,000.00 and there is the possibility of prison time . It is far more convincing for YOU to do what I have done to back up the veracity of my claims and use Google or whatever search engine you have because these search engines provide a wealth of information both pro and con.
Admittedly it is much like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hose and you have to do a lot of fast reading but all the info you need is there.
I cannot do all the work for you so if I tell you HOW to access it, it is incumbent upon you to read it and decide on the merits .</div></div>


Well you thought wrong.
One of the website you link showed were the ban is not be enforced??? what then does that mean?
If I provide the links you will say its anti-Castro, to avoid that I have you provide the links where possible.



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Do Americans still travel to Cuba?
Is the ban being enforced?

J;
I think the last time I checked the figure was 80,000 per year doing it by going through a third country like Canada or Jamaica. The Cuban immigration people do not stamp an Americans passport so when they get back and go through U.S. immigration there is no way the agents can tell that person has been to Cuba.</div></div>

Is the ban working then or is it effective?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yes the ban is still enforced and you can't get to there from the United States without hard to get authorization usually for academic,artistic or official purposes.</div></div>

But people still do, don't they....?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The ban, as said, is a major part of the embargo intended to make life miserable for the Cuban people so that they will revolt and end the Cuban SOCIALIST revolution .</div></div>

Cubans risk not only there freedom but there very lives when trying to leave Cuba.
Do Americans risk their lives when trying to visit Cuba?


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Franksterr:
To repeat, what I am trying to get across is that Cuba has ended the ill effects of poverty even though they are still a poor nation via a strict socialist economy.

What they have done can and has only been done in the richest, most highly developed and most civilized of the capitalist countries.

It absolutely, positively cannot be done in Zimbabwe or any other Third World capitalist country. If you want proof all you have to do is to see that it has not been done in any poor capitalist country.</div></div>

Not True.
Really is Barbados (42) higher on the HDI than Cuba(50)???
Is Barbados a rich country???

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Zimbabwe's land reform was a big first step but as the article you posted showed, about 1/3 of those given farm land are failing and the high levels of knowledge require for tobacco farming and large scale maize production is no longer there.
Since Zimbabwe is retaining both the corrupt multi-party electoral system and capitalism as the economic form, that one reform that is only half successful and the rise in literacy which, as discussed is a relatively inexpensive and easy thing to do are likely all the reforms of any consequence that we will see and Zimbabwe will slide right back to where they were.
We shall see.</div></div>

Of course there are problems and failures, when you start out on a project for the first time, especially when you have powerful external and internal enemies everything is not going to be perfect.
Once they have accomplish something it is easy to do....if thats they case please refrain from mentioning Cuba's literacy success since its is easy to do.
Wonder why all those other countries are not successful with their literacy campaigns???

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">F:
The WILL of the leaders.
J:
It is also that they have the money to do it and it is what the people want.</div></div>

It all comes down to the WILL of the leaders.





<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">HERE IS YOUR LINK TO THE CAUSES OF POVERTY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax

And I guess I LIED about the link. There are not 200 references as I originally thought but 640.
I've gone through about 100 of them looking for racism as a cause of poverty in SSA but couldn't find any references. </div></div>

Well what have you found?

I plug in the above and since it was not a direct link to any specific site I went with the first one and got suggestions or studies done by the World Bank as to the cause of poverty in Africa.
THE WORLD BANK/IMF ARE ENGINES OF POVERTY CREATION.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrynBzUpyag&amp;feature=related

Countries that did they opposites to what they have been recommending did better and those who followed their advise did worst....are you recommending these people?

What are you now afraid to link me a direct website?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">J:
I never lie. I don't have to because as I pointed out, the truth has a steep left bias.
I have posted erroneous info on one or two occasions due to a bad memory on a given point but liars are invariably shown to be liars so why would I try? </div></div>

Six a one half dozen of the other. I accept that it was due to bad memory.
I hope you are as forgiving should I suffer a lapse in memory.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That was a very good thing for all the landless people and there was minimal giving of land to the well connected . .
That said, one third have not been able to farm successfully and the big money crop; tobacco has shrunk considerably as has the main food staple crop: maize.
The land reform was only a mixed success and should have been done in a way that would have helped those who are now failing..</div></div>

Everything has a learning curve, nevertheless the opening post to this thread shows were their have been an 8% improvement already.,


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">&quot;Besides, no one has ever reformed a Zimbabwe type situation into anything that seriously improved the lives of the poor because poverty is a natural part of capitalism and even more so in poor countries.

The monied folks will not allow any change unless it is at the point of a gun and they are the ones with the most guns.&quot;</div></div>

Zimbabwe is doing it


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">To which you understandably backed away from addressing because it is the undeniable truth and you have no answer to the capitalist-caused poverty except to say, without substance, that it is racism that is the cause of poverty under capitalism.
I have over 200 websites that agree with me.</div></div>

Racist no longer proudly voice or display their racism.... but their actions and results speaks volumes.
Here is a quote from one of the links under your recommended search
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #FF0000">Many developing nations are in debt and poverty partly due to the policies of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold">Their programs have been heavily criticized for many years for resulting in poverty.</span> In addition, for developing or third world countries, there has been an increased dependency on the richer nations. This is despite the IMF and World Bank’s claim that they will reduce poverty.

Following an ideology known as neoliberalism, and spearheaded by these and other institutions known as the “Washington Consensus” (for being based in Washington D.C.), Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) have been imposed to ensure debt repayment and economic restructuring. But the way it has happened has required poor countries to reduce spending on things like health, education and development, while debt repayment and other economic policies have been made the priority.<span style="font-size: 14pt"> In effect, the IMF and World Bank have demanded that poor nations lower the standard of living of their people.</span></span></div></div>

http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty

The World bank is a Cause of poverty in Africa.....do you see it?


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Change has come to Zimbabwe
J:
Small and ephemeral change has come to Zimbabwe IMO</div></div>

Change that the people find to be good, only time will tell if it is ephemeral.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax</div></div>

Same as above.....
The world bank is a racist organization...first 15 minutes are relevant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aigaLewlJl0

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Do you believe that capitalism works in the poor Third World or that multi-party electoral systems in which the parties and not the people nominate the candidates who are supposed to represent the people. ? </div></div>

Barbados.
Their are facets of capitalism that works, which depends a lot on the people using the capitalist system.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax</div></div>


based on the first link, here is what World bank suggest are the causes in Africa...do you see any you agree with wholeheartedly?


<span style="font-style: italic">The consequences of poverty often reinforce its complex causes, exacerbating the problem. The study has identified the following as the main causes of poverty:

1.Inadequate access to employment opportunities

2.Inadequate physical assets, such as land and capital, and minimal access by the poor to credit even on a small scale

3.Inadequate access to the means of supporting rural development in poor regions

4.Inadequate access to markets where the poor can sell goods and services

5.Low endowment of human capital

6.Destruction of natural resources leading to environmental degradation and reduced productivity

7.Inadequate access to assistance for those living at the margin and those victimized by transitory poverty

8.Lack of participation; failure to draw the poor into the design of development programs </span>


Read at your leisure the following is some quotes from your search recommendation

Another issue that should also be considered is the multi-dimensionality of poverty recognizing the importance of other aspects of deprivation besides income such as: <span style="font-weight: bold">health, education, and housing.</span> Policymakers need to consider both monetary and non-monetary indicators in order to capture the different dimensions of poverty. To what extent do these different dimensions re-enforce each other, and what role does mutual re-enforcement play in explaining poverty persistence?

Another enormous challenge in poverty reduction is the phenomena of globalization. Albeit important for a country''s overall economic growth, globalization can also result in unemployment, as workers from previously protected industries are made redundant. This can exacerbate poverty as witnessed in countries such as Zambia after they had liberalized trade in the early 1990s.

<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #FF6666">In fact, the biggest challenge for Africa today and the future is how to convert the process of globalization into more opportunities for its people</span>.</span> This requires better measurement and monitoring of poverty in terms of outcomes in the labour market

http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/news/131205espd_dna2.htm

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

F;
Well you thought wrong.
One of the website you link showed were the ban is not be enforced??? what then does that mean?
If I provide the links you will say its anti-Castro, to avoid that I have you provide the links where possible.

J;

Franksterr,
The ban is selectively enforced. and to repeat myself, it is an official government ban and most Americans would not choose to go because of this and so, yes, the ban is effective and prevents most U.S tourist dollars from getting to Cuba which used to be the most popular U.S tourist destination in the Caribbean.





Quote:


F:
Cubans risk not only their freedom but their very lives when trying to leave Cuba.
Do Americans risk their lives when trying to visit Cuba?

J;
If you mean the Cubans who used to try to float across the Florida Straits in unsafe craft then you are way out of date. It does not happen any more due to the immigration agreement set up after Mariel.

Are you by any chance familiar with the Dry Land Clause of the U.S's Cuban Adjustment Act?
This is quite informative.
The above mentioned clause applies to ONLY Cubans.
It says that any Cuban who can get to the Florida Keys or coast and step foot on dry land is automatically allowed to stay in the United States.
No visa, no waiting years or getting turned down for a visa at the U.S. interest section in Havana and lose the $500.00 fee,, no need to claim and prove political asylum reasons nothing, just get on shore and you're in.

Did you know about this ? and
Despite the fact that this law is in effect and Cubans have a hard life due to the U.S war on them and many have relatives in Florida inviting them in ,the Cubans are going to the United States at much lower numbers than before the revolution.

I have make this point when Jamaicans and others point out the balseros as proof of how wicked the Cuban revolution is:
Were the United States to extend the Dry Land Clause to Jamaica from which three times the number of people leave out of a quarter of the population of Cuba for the U.S. or to Haiti or to the Dominican Republic you'd be able to walk to the United States across the straits on the great number of Jamaicans and Haitians and Dominicans floating in on truck tires and beach rafts.

Were that clause extended to Africa my bet is that a whole heap of Africans would risk their lives for a chance to get to the U.S. It's the dream of most poor people in the world but in order to embarrass the Cubans the Dry Land clause was put into effect to encourage Cubans to either steal boats or to risk their lives in rickety craft on the high seas.
Franksterr:
Not True.
Really is Barbados (42) higher on the HDI than Cuba(50)???
Is Barbados a rich country???

J:
Barbados has a per capita income of about US$20,000.00 and there are only 300,000 people living on the island.
Let's talk about countries as poor as Cuba with populations of over ten million and with a per capita income equal to Cuba's which is, according to the U.S. State Department about US$4500.00.
If you want to choose to pick out the exceptions why not go with Singapore where there's more money per capita.?


Franksterr:

Of course there are problems and failures, when you start out on a project for the first time, especially when you have powerful external and internal enemies everything is not going to be perfect.

J:
Yes that's true. I guess Zimbabwe is lucky it doesn't have the U.S. trying to destroy it as it has been trying to do to Cuba for 50 years of squeezing it economically.

F:
Once they have accomplish something it is easy to do....if thats they case please refrain from mentioning Cuba's literacy success since its is easy to do.

J;
As explained the Cubans and the Venezuelans both used the method of utilizing VOLUNTEER school kids to teach illiterate adults. I do not know what method was used in Zimbabwe but all credit to the government for that great accomplishment.
Perhaps someday Zimbabwe will have get the entire population to a tenth grade level as Cuba has and provide FREE pre-school through graduate school educational opportunities to all Zimbabweans as Cuba does to all its citizens.

Franksterr:
Wonder why all those other countries are not successful with their literacy campaigns?

J:
Perhaps they are not using the methods that were used in Zimbabwe or Cuba. or they ran out of money not having the dedicated volunteer teachers as Cuba does.





Franksterr:
It all comes down to the WILL of the leaders.

J:
In a non-democratic country, yes.





Quote:
HERE IS YOUR LINK TO THE CAUSES OF POVERTY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax

And I guess I LIED about the link. There are not 200 references as I originally thought but 640.
I've gone through about 100 of them looking for racism as a cause of poverty in SSA but couldn't find any references.


Franksterr:
Well what have you found?

J:
Only references to debt, lack of resources/existing poverty, widespread corruption, high incidences of preventable and curable diseases like AIDS and malaria, drought, natural disasters, wars.
I was unable to find any site that had racism as a major factor in the cause of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.
If I couldn't find anything in 100 sites then I am not about to waste any more of my time doing your research for you. I can direct you to any number of sites that link poverty to capitalism. All the leftist sites will tell you that and the others will dodge around it by talking about debt, loans, and other financial problems which lead right into capitalism.
I gave you the link to all those sites and you won't do the work to prove your point.
I would bet that you cannot find more than a few sites out of those 600 or so who mention racism as anything more than a peripheral issue as regards the causes of poverty.
It is up to you to provide the evidence.


J: I never lie. I don't have to because as I pointed out, the truth has a steep left bias.
I have posted erroneous info on one or two occasions due to a bad memory on a given point but liars are invariably shown to be liars so why would I try?


F:
Six a one half dozen of the other. I accept that it was due to bad memory.
I hope you are as forgiving should I suffer a lapse in memory.

J:
Well a lie is defined as something you say that you KNOW not to be true.
If I am mistaken or do not get a number exactly right, that cannot be defined as a lie.
If I am mistaken then it is incumbent upon the person with whom I am discussing the matter to point it out by providing some evidence of my error and not for them to call me a liar which is erroneous. In fact, were you to know that I am just mistaken and not deliberately putting out something that is untrue then you would be lying by calling me a liar.
I'm, just pointing out here that you were mistaken when you called me a liar.





Franksterr:
Everything has a learning curve, nevertheless the opening post to this thread shows where there has been an 8% improvement already.

J:
I hope it all goes as well as you hope it will. The people of Zimbabwe deserve better than what they've gone through pre-2010.
That said and given the history of the region I am just not sanguine of the long term outcome of the reform process started by Robert Mugabe.
As you have said a few times you prefer what works and as I have said a few times , we shall have to wait a few years to see what shakes out of the reforms.
We both agree that they are off to a somewhat shaky start and the wars, drought, debt, and other factors that have afflicted post-colonial SSA are far from being things of the past and could well doom the reform program.
My thoughts are with the poor multitudes who are always the ones who will live lives of misery and who will die waiting for the necessary changes somewhere off in the distant foggy horizon.



F:
Many developing nations are in debt and poverty partly due to the policies of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Their programs have been heavily criticized for many years for resulting in poverty. In addition, for developing or third world countries, there has been an increased dependency on the richer nations. This is despite the IMF and World Bank’s claim that they will reduce poverty.

Following an ideology known as neoliberalism, and spearheaded by these and other institutions known as the “Washington Consensus” (for being based in Washington D.C.), Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) have been imposed to ensure debt repayment and economic restructuring. But the way it has happened has required poor countries to reduce spending on things like health, education and development, while debt repayment and other economic policies have been made the priority. In effect, the IMF and World Bank have demanded that poor nations lower the standard of living of their people.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty

The World bank is a Cause of poverty in Africa.....do you see it?

J:
Absolutely. and the WB lends money to countries that are also white, Latino, Asian with the same terms as demanded from black African countries. It is all about money. It has nothing to do with the predominant race of the country.
The poorer the country is means that the terms mean more deprivation for the poor est segments of that country since social spending cuts are what is usually demanded in return for the loan and so the loans can be repaid.


Quote:
F;

Change that the people find to be good, only time will tell if it is ephemeral.

J;
Agreed


F:
based on the first link, here is what World bank suggest are the causes in Africa...do you see any you agree with wholeheartedly?


The consequences of poverty often reinforce its complex causes, exacerbating the problem. The study has identified the following as the main causes of poverty:

1.Inadequate access to employment opportunities

J; That's a problem of capitalist systems. There is very low unemployment in Cuba and all unemployed Cubans still keep their homes, still get enough to eat, still get to live a decent life and surely more of a decent life that the unemployed in capitalist countries

2.Inadequate physical assets, such as land and capital, and minimal access by the poor to credit even on a small scale

J: Inadequate physical assets, credit land,=lack of money= capitalist failings that hurt the poor


3.Inadequate access to the means of supporting rural development in poor regions

J:
'Inadequate access to the means&quot; = no money= capitalist failing and what you say: no will on the part of the leaders to spend the nations wealth on it or cuts in such programs demanded by international lenders

4.Inadequate access to markets where the poor can sell goods and services

J: Another failure of the free market. Socialist central planning goes far in eliminating this problem.

5.Low endowment of human capital
J;
Poor capitalist economies do not take very good care of their peoples basic needs.


6.Destruction of natural resources leading to environmental degradation and reduced productivity

J; If there is money to be made in tearing down the rain forest or strip mining or polluting things that is what happens.
Cuba is environmentally conscious because it's cheaper in the long run and socialist thought is long term as opposed to the quick buck and the world be damned capitalist mentality. In poor maritime countries the poor often dynamite the delicate reefs to catch fish. This would be unheard of in Cuba..

7.Inadequate access to assistance for those living at the margin and those victimized by transitory poverty

J;
Lack of provision for the poor is a hallmark of capitalism in poor countries and for that matter in the rich United States where some 40 million people have no health care coverage and the same number do not have enough to eat. If you're out of work in a very poor country, break a leg or get sick you're often dead,

8.Lack of participation; failure to draw the poor into the design of development programs
J:
Democracy is required for meaningful popular participation in government programs
True (representative) democracy is rare in the world and nonexistent in most countries.

I erased the last part of your post as there was nothing there to support your claim that racism is the cause of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa or anywhere in the world.

But since you are so convinced that this is so, I am sure you'll find something
that proves you correct in those 600 sites you will be going through something that actually uses the word racism as freely as you do or even once.

I can wait.

























&quot;

[franksterr]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Franksterr,
The ban is selectively enforced. and to repeat myself, it is an official government ban and most Americans would not choose to go because of this and so, yes, the ban is effective and prevents most U.S tourist dollars from getting to Cuba which used to be the most popular U.S tourist destination in the Caribbean.</div></div>

80,000 Americans visit Cuba every yr, how is that an effective ban?


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you mean the Cubans who used to try to float across the Florida Straits in unsafe craft then you are way out of date. It does not happen any more due to the immigration agreement set up after Mariel.</div></div>

Fine if you say that it does not happening anymore, I do hope this is not another memory lapse?
How do Cubans get to Miami these days?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Are you by any chance familiar with the Dry Land Clause of the U.S's Cuban Adjustment Act?
This is quite informative.
The above mentioned clause applies to ONLY Cubans.
It says that any Cuban who can get to the Florida Keys or coast and step foot on dry land is automatically allowed to stay in the United States.
No visa, no waiting years or getting turned down for a visa at the U.S. interest section in Havana and lose the $500.00 fee,, no need to claim and prove political asylum reasons nothing, just get on shore and you're in.

Did you know about this ? and </div></div>

Yes Have heard about it before.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Despite the fact that this law is in effect and Cubans have a hard life due to the U.S war on them and many have relatives in Florida inviting them in ,the Cubans are going to the United States at much lower numbers than before the revolution.</div></div>

That could be because it is now illegal in Cuba to travel to the US without special governmental permission.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I have make this point when Jamaicans and others point out the balseros as proof of how wicked the Cuban revolution is:
Were the United States to extend the Dry Land Clause to Jamaica from which three times the number of people leave out of a quarter of the population of Cuba for the U.S. or to Haiti or to the Dominican Republic you'd be able to walk to the United States across the straits on the great number of Jamaicans and Haitians and Dominicans floating in on truck tires and beach rafts.</div></div>

I am not convince that that would be true, for yrs Jamaicans did not need a visa to visit or take up residence in England when England was the #1 Superpower and this was not the case then.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Were that clause extended to Africa my bet is that a whole heap of Africans would risk their lives for a chance to get to the U.S. It's the dream of most poor people in the world but in order to embarrass the Cubans the Dry Land clause was put into effect to encourage Cubans to either steal boats or to risk their lives in rickety craft on the high seas.
Franksterr:</div></div>

A whole heap of Africans are doing that now, in many parts of Europe…and there is no dry land clause. So the dry land clause may not be the motivation. What Motivates the African are conditions at home, luckily in most cases no African government is deny the ability to leave or re-enter with the threat of imprisonment.

Not True.
Really is Barbados (42) higher on the HDI than Cuba(50)???
Is Barbados a rich country???

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Barbados has a per capita income of about US$20,000.00 and there are only 300,000 people living on the island.
Let's talk about countries as poor as Cuba with populations of over ten million and with a per capita income equal to Cuba's which is, according to the U.S. State Department about US$4500.00.
If you want to choose to pick out the exceptions why not go with Singapore where there's more money per capita.?</div></div>

Look you said choose a capitalist country, you did not specify demographics.
What is it you want to tell me about Singapore?



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yes that's true. I guess Zimbabwe is lucky it doesn't have the U.S. trying to destroy it as it has been trying to do to Cuba for 50 years of squeezing it economically.</div></div>

Maybe you haven’t been paying attention or your memory is foggy on what is happening in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe has just successful wrest the land from the colonialist and is now going to try to do the same with the economy. Zimbabwe is under sanctions 8 yrs now, and has been under the threat of sanctions and regime change his whole tenure.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Franksterr:
It all comes down to the WILL of the leaders.

J:
In a non-democratic country, yes.</div></div>

In Every country.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
HERE IS YOUR LINK TO THE CAUSES OF POVERTY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;s...QAAAKoEBU_QKEax

J:
Only references to debt, lack of resources/existing poverty, widespread corruption, high incidences of preventable and curable diseases like AIDS and malaria, drought, natural disasters, wars.
I was unable to find any site that had racism as a major factor in the cause of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.
If I couldn't find anything in 100 sites then I am not about to waste any more of my time doing your research for you. I can direct you to any number of sites that link poverty to capitalism. All the leftist sites will tell you that and the others will dodge around it by talking about debt, loans, and other financial problems which lead right into capitalism.
I gave you the link to all those sites and you won't do the work to prove your point.
I would bet that you cannot find more than a few sites out of those 600 or so who mention racism as anything more than a peripheral issue as regards the causes of poverty.
It is up to you to provide the evidence. </div></div>

Who or what has created that indebtedness?
Where are the resources going?
Who is infecting the people and spreading diseases?


J:
Well a lie is defined as something you say that you KNOW not to be true.
If I am mistaken or do not get a number exactly right, that cannot be defined as a lie.
If I am mistaken then it is incumbent upon the person with whom I am discussing the matter to point it out by providing some evidence of my error and not for them to call me a liar which is erroneous. In fact, were you to know that I am just mistaken and not deliberately putting out something that is untrue then you would be lying by calling me a liar.
I'm, just pointing out here that you were mistaken when you called me a liar.[/quote]

I already told you I accept that it was due to bad memory.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I hope it all goes as well as you hope it will. The people of Zimbabwe deserve better than what they've gone through pre-2010.
That said and given the history of the region I am just not sanguine of the long term outcome of the reform process started by Robert Mugabe.
As you have said a few times you prefer what works and as I have said a few times , we shall have to wait a few years to see what shakes out of the reforms.
We both agree that they are off to a somewhat shaky start and the wars, drought, debt, and other factors that have afflicted post-colonial SSA are far from being things of the past and could well doom the reform program.
My thoughts are with the poor multitudes who are always the ones who will live lives of misery and who will die waiting for the necessary changes somewhere off in the distant foggy horizon. </div></div>

Only time will tell



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Absolutely. and the WB lends money to countries that are also white, Latino, Asian with the same terms as demanded from black African countries. It is all about money. It has nothing to do with the predominant race of the country.
The poorer the country is means that the terms mean more deprivation for the poor est segments of that country since social spending cuts are what is usually demanded in return for the loan and so the loans can be repaid.</div></div>


Did you not see the youtube link that exposes racism within WB?


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">F:
based on the first link, here is what World bank suggest are the causes in Africa...do you see any you agree with wholeheartedly?


The consequences of poverty often reinforce its complex causes, exacerbating the problem. The study has identified the following as the main causes of poverty:

1.Inadequate access to employment opportunities

J; That's a problem of capitalist systems. There is very low unemployment in Cuba and all unemployed Cubans still keep their homes, still get enough to eat, still get to live a decent life and surely more of a decent life that the unemployed in capitalist countries

<span style="font-style: italic">Is it legal to be unemployed in Cuba?</span>

2.Inadequate physical assets, such as land and capital, and minimal access by the poor to credit even on a small scale

J: Inadequate physical assets, credit land,=lack of money= capitalist failings that hurt the poor
<span style="font-style: italic"> Who are opposing land reform?, who is sanctioning Zimbabwe?</span>

3.Inadequate access to the means of supporting rural development in poor regions

J:
'Inadequate access to the means&quot; = no money= capitalist failing and what you say: no will on the part of the leaders to spend the nations wealth on it or cuts in such programs demanded by international lenders

<span style="font-style: italic">The countries wealth is being used to service debt.</span>

4.Inadequate access to markets where the poor can sell goods and services

J: Another failure of the free market. Socialist central planning goes far in eliminating this problem.

<span style="font-style: italic">These monies are being held by foreign banks</span>

5.Low endowment of human capital
J;
Poor capitalist economies do not take very good care of their peoples basic needs.

<span style="font-style: italic"> World bank structural adjustment policies</span>


6.Destruction of natural resources leading to environmental degradation and reduced productivity

J; If there is money to be made in tearing down the rain forest or strip mining or polluting things that is what happens.
Cuba is environmentally conscious because it's cheaper in the long run and socialist thought is long term as opposed to the quick buck and the world be damned capitalist mentality. In poor maritime countries the poor often dynamite the delicate reefs to catch fish. This would be unheard of in Cuba..

<span style="font-style: italic">imperialism and sap</span>

7.Inadequate access to assistance for those living at the margin and those victimized by transitory poverty

J;
Lack of provision for the poor is a hallmark of capitalism in poor countries and for that matter in the rich United States where some 40 million people have no health care coverage and the same number do not have enough to eat. If you're out of work in a very poor country, break a leg or get sick you're often dead,

<span style="font-style: italic"> SAP</span>

8.Lack of participation; failure to draw the poor into the design of development programs
J:
Democracy is required for meaningful popular participation in government programs
True (representative) democracy is rare in the world and nonexistent in most countries.</div></div>


In short they are all cause by neo-colonialist practicing racism against Africans



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I erased the last part of your post as there was nothing there to support your claim that racism is the cause of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa or anywhere in the world.</div></div>


That’s insincere as the search you provided is replete with info source from the world bank which I have shown is a racist organization.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">But since you are so convinced that this is so, I am sure you'll find something
that proves you correct in those 600 sites you will be going through something that actually uses the word racism as freely as you do or even once.</div></div>

Main Stream Racist organization no longer advertise their racism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YglfSxXF8KU&amp;feature=related

I have no need to the very first one proves my point, The WB is a racist organization.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I can wait. </div></div>

Wait for what, I have already shown the WB as a racist organization.
Second lesson on racism..

&quot;There has always been racism. But it developed as a leading principle of thought and perception in the context of colonialism. That's understandable. When you have your boot on someone's neck, you have to justify it. The justification has to be their depravity. It's very striking to see this in the case of people who aren't very different from one another. Take a look at the British conquest of Ireland, the earliest of the Western colonial conquests. It was described in the same terms as the conquest of Africa. <span style="font-weight: bold">The Irish<span style="text-decoration: underline"> were</span> a different race.</span> They weren't human. They weren't like us. We had to crush and destroy them. No. It has to do with conquest, with oppression. If you're robbing somebody, oppressing them, dictating their lives, it's a very rare person who can say: &quot;Look, I'm a monster. I'm doing this for my own good.&quot; Even Himmler didn't say that. A standard technique of belief formation goes along with oppression, whether it's throwing them in gas chambers or charging them too much at a corner store, or anything in between. The standard reaction is to say: 'It's their depravity. That's why I'm doing it. Maybe I'm even doing them good.' If it's their depravity, there's got to be something about them that makes them different
from me. What's different about them will be whatever you can find.&quot;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&amp;address=389x6097830

- Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky: I think that the most important issue that's being raised by this conference is the question of reparations – namely,<span style="font-weight: bold"> European reparations for the destruction of Africa. Africa's a wreck and it's not because it was hit by an asteroid. It's a wreck largely because it was hit by Europe</span>. Is anybody responsible for this? The US played a role, but in this case it was a secondary role. There is a declassified State Department paper from 1948 that outlines what the US intended to do with various regions of the world after World War II. The US decided to take the Middle East and Asia. When it came to Africa, the document essentially says that we're not so interested in Africa, <span style="font-weight: bold">so we'll give it to the Europeans to &quot;exploit&quot;—that's the word used—for their reconstruction</span>. Remember, Europe was a mess after the war. Now, given the history of European-African interaction, one can imagine another proposal, namely, that Europe be given to Africa for its reconstruction. I can imagine that. Of course, there is talk at the conference about debt relief. That's okay, but how about massive reparations for what happened?

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200108--.htm

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

Franksterr,

The purpose of colonialism is for rich and powerful countries to wrest money and other valuable resources (which also boils down to money) from poorer and weaker countries.

It's that simple.
That rich white colonialists don't care about the lives of the poor black, brown, yellow or in Latin America white skinned people has long been evident.

They are not punishing them, taking what they have because they are of a different race.
They are exploiting them because they want their money.

If the entire world only held white skinned people that exploitation and colonialism would still be taking place.

It is rich and powerful against poor and weak.

And it is all about money.

If you wish to deny this is true then that's fine with me.

I've said all I'm going to on this matter because we're just going in circles here and not accomplishing much.

We do both agree that one of us will be proven right at some indeterminate time in the future and especially as regards sub-Saharan Africa.

Let's take up the matters of how Cuba and Zimbabwe are doing in a year or so or immediately if something major occurs in either country that bears on what we've already discussed.

[franksterr]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

johnnycakes

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The purpose of colonialism is for rich and powerful countries to wrest money and other valuable resources (which also boils down to money) from poorer and weaker countries. </div></div>

Racism is a weapon of colonialism/imperialism

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It's that simple.
That rich white colonialists don't care about the lives of the poor black, brown, yellow or in Latin America white skinned people has long been evident.</div></div>

Racism is about power not skin.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">They are not punishing them, taking what they have because they are of a different race.
They are exploiting them because they want their money.</div></div>

They would not do it if they considered these people the same as themselves. So it goes without saying they are doing it because they are different .

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If the entire world only held white skinned people that exploitation and colonialism would still be taking place.</div></div>

Exploitation is a permanent facet of the human societies. There is unethical and ethical exploitation. Racism is a feature of unethical exploitation.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It is rich and powerful against poor and weak.

And it is all about money.</div></div>

Its not all about money, it is about power.
And keeping the “others” powerless.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you wish to deny this is true then that's fine with me.

I've said all I'm going to on this matter because we're just going in circles here and not accomplishing much. </div></div>

I T is not only about money, money is a means to power….it is all about power.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">We do both agree that one of us will be proven right at some indeterminate time in the future and especially as regards sub-Saharan Africa.

Let's take up the matters of how Cuba and Zimbabwe are doing in a year or so or immediately if something major occurs in either country that bears on what we've already discussed.</div></div>

I am right right now.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

Franksterr,

You said
&quot;I am right right now.&quot;

See if you can get anyone to agree with you about racism being anything but a peripheral cause of poverty in Africa. or in Latin America or Asia.

In the United States with a white majority and about a 12% black population, racism absolutely and positively is the cause of the disproportionate number of blacks living in poverty.

You stand alone in thinking as you do.

[franksterr]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

johnnycakes


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">See if you can get anyone to agree with you about racism being anything but a peripheral cause of poverty in Africa. or in Latin America or Asia.


You stand alone in thinking as you do.
</div></div>

I do not know what to think of your response, Did you or did you not see the youtube link that proved that the world bank is a racist institution?

You believe that America a nation led by racist whites, will have and institution run by other racist whites, that promoted policies that are not racially motivated and maintained? If so then they would not be racist.



<span style="font-weight: bold">Globalization, race, and African economic development intersect in deep, intricate, complicated ways that can only be understood if a long view is taken on the nature of globalization. Further, the connections are best contextualized as an inquiry into Africa’s place in the world system. As Filomina Steady points out, <span style="color: #FF0000">many factors are involved, including the institutionalization of “economic domination through corporate globalization,” </span>which has generated a reproduction of colonization and, consequently, impoverishment. Other factors include “protracted recession, the debt burden, Structural Adjustment Programmes, externally controlled privatization, … an emphasis on exports, … a cultural crisis of major proportions, … the destruction of many African economies, social dislocations and civil strife,” all “compounded by the erosion of the life-supporting capacities of many African ecosystems. Authoritarian regimes and gender-based discrimination complete the picture”</span> (Steady 2002).

THE ROOTS OF GLOBALIZATION
Most analysis on globalization focuses on the contemporary era. A few scholars take the long view, however, dating globalization back into the distant past. This perspective considers it an imperialistic process, inclusive of “the age of exploration,” the period of the transatlantic slave trade, the “legitimate trade,” so named to signal its purveyors’ noninvolvement in the slave trade, in spite of the use of slave labor to plant, harvest, and/or gather commodities that were used in the factories during Europe’s industrial revolution. The trade was undertaken in the period immediately following the end of the transatlantic slave trade, and lasted from the late eighteenth to the nineteenth century colonization, and the postcolonial era. This immediately puts “race” front and center in discussions of the connections between globalization, race, and African economic development. European imperialism created a paradoxical relationship between Africa and Europe that included both a centralized and marginalized position for Africa in global political and economic systems. Africa was central to the extent that it was plundered, raped, and exploited for its human and material resources. It was marginal because it did not have any power in the emerging global system, where Western dominance was built upon Africa’s plundered resources. <span style="font-weight: bold">It was also marginal because the West’s dominance was predicated upon Africans’ <span style="color: #FF0000">presumed racial, cultural, and physiological inferiority to Europeans, </span>a belief that was proclaimed by many of the most distinguished Western intellectuals.</span>
From the fifteenth century to the 1930s, samples of “exotic” peoples, including Africans, were acquired and displayed—for “education” and entertainment—in the homes of the wealthiest Europeans and in public exhibits at zoos and regional and world fairs. <span style="font-weight: bold">Upon this foundation was built racist and essentialist consensus of the early twenty-first century: that Africa is a basket case of impoverished, diseased, and crisis-ridden countries led by inept and kleptocratic leaders, and that its marginality to global political, social, and economic affairs is therefore well earned.</span>
THE ROLE OF GLOBAL FINANCIAL FORCES
A better way to understand Africa’s predicament is to focus on how the conjunctures between structural inequities and failing markets generate underdevelopment. The consequences of these conjunctures in the black community in the United States include being underserved in education, health care, and housing security, while also being overcharged and offered less credit than others. White monopolies are also entrenched in the job market and many career ladders. Blacks bear the spillover costs when whites flee to the suburbs, which leads to smaller tax rolls to maintain public services and provide requisite infrastructure in cities. The cycle continues when black neighborhoods are replaced and appropriated through gentrification and white return to urban centers.

This is similar to conditions in Africa, whose people and land were enslaved, underdeveloped, and overexploited to guarantee capitalist development in Europe. <span style="font-weight: bold">As Walter Rodney observes, “Racism, violence and brutality were the concomitants of the capitalist system when it extended itself abroad in the early centuries of international trade” (Rodney 1973).</span> Consider, as Timothy Shaw has done, the relationship between the political-existential condition of the continent and the analytical-epistemological inquiry of its historical and contemporary experiences. Existentially and politically, Africa stands in the gap between nominal or flag independence and the legacy of underdevelopment bestowed on it by its encounters with imperialism and globalization (which dates as far back as the fifteenth century). Epistemologically, scholars have tried to explain why Africa is so embattled. As Shaw notes, those who do more successful analysis take a historical and critical perspective.

ASPECTS OF GLOBALIZATION
Globalization is best conceived as a process of inexorable worldwide integration that applies to all spheres of life. Historically, it is a process that encompasses the internationalization of trade, manufacturing, and business enterprises. As it relates to Africa, the transatlantic slave trade, “legitimate trade,” and the activities of the Royally Chartered Companies from various European countries were part of the early markers of globalization and the precursors of current foreign direct investment. Race, racism, and gender affect social conditions and economic development initiatives in Africa in a myriad of ways. Globalization cannot be understood outside the context of how neo-liberal economic ideology has saturated the scholarly and popular imagination worldwide.

<span style="color: #FF0000">Historically, the idea that Africans belong to an inferior race has been pervasive in European and American thought. The concept of “race”—the socially constructed categorization of humans based on external appearance, stereotypes, and myths about physical, mental and psychological capacity; cultural difference; and the capacity to be civilized or uncivilized—has been deployed to support a hierarchy in which Europeans are categorized as superior and Africans the most debased. From the earliest Christian exegesis to Shakespeare and his heirs in Western literature and on to theories of scientific racism, black has been predominantly characterized as evil, while white has been seen as good and pure. <span style="font-weight: bold">Consequently, social discrimination, economic exclusion, and racial segregation have marginalized peoples of African descent from global political, social, and economic systems.</span> Moving from the margins to the center in these systems has proved to be challenging and, in some cases, elusive. A historical scholarly analysis, meanwhile, takes African marginalization as a timeless reality generated by characteristics that are argued to be essential to Africans.</span>The presumption of an intrinsic and immutable African racial inferiority has generated a self-fulfilling prophecy in Africa’s marginality. This has led to a conflation of presumed racial inferiority, economic impoverishment, and lack of political power. This “reality” is so disheartening, and African educational systems are so mired in the reproduction of colonial ideological “Otherizing” of Africans, that many Africans embrace a marginalized social, political, and economic characterization as emerging out of something deep in their nature.

There is overwhelming evidence of the depth of social privations in the African continent. The debate on the future is defined as being between Afro-pessimistic and Afro-optimistic perspectives. The Afro-pessimists, observing that anomie, disillusionment, and alienation have become pervasive among the impoverished majority (a condition made even more difficult by the flamboyant gestures of the noveau riche), see no hope for positive, autonomous development. In particular, they see the problems faced by the continent as driven by domestic stimuli, including the failure of leadership exemplified by a kleptocratic “politics of the belly,” through which criminalized states sponsor “economies of plunder.” The Afro-optimists do not dispute that the age of globalization has also coincided with the rending of the social fabric in the African continent, but they are hopeful that an African renaissance will emerge out of the detritus of the continent’s historical experiences. For them, the sources of Africa’s marginalization are external, derived from the exploitation of the age of exploration and colonization. Even independence and postcolonial relations have brought new kinds of economic dependency and the persistence of colonization in other forms. Yet while the imposition of changes that have benefited external forces has rendered African communities weaker in many respects, it has also made them stronger in others, because a few people have become extremely wealthy, and new forms of communal organization for self help have been instituted to provide services that the state is no longer willing or able to offer. It is out of the stronger elements of African resilience that its renaissance is expected to spring. Pervasive and enduring social inequalities will only be defeated with dogged and relentless planning and an optimistic belief in African agency.

DEVELOPMENT ISSUES
There is a North-South divide in development, with the countries of the Northern Hemisphere more economically buoyant and stable than the countries of the South. However, Africa lags behind other regions in the Southern Hemisphere in assessments of economic development. This is obvious in comparisons of social and economic indicators, which reveal that—in contrast with the rest of the world, which grew at a rate of approximately 2 percent from the 1960s to 2000—Africa experienced negative growth rates from 1974 to the 1990s. From 1990 to 1994, the growth rates dropped as low as –1.5 percent. Africa experienced an 11 percent decline in gross domestic product (GDP) between the 1970s and 2004. While one in every ten poor persons in the world was African in 1970, one in every two poor persons was African in 2000. This represented 140 million people in 1975 and 360 million in 2000, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Compared with the rest of the world, Africa has also experienced a profound lack of investment. While investment in East Asia has grown an average of 30 percent since 1975, African countries experienced a decline of 8.5 percent, despite World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) directed economic reforms, with most of the minuscule investment directed toward the public sector.

Education and health are generally regarded as the two critical variables that shape human capital, and Africa also performs worse in these areas than East Asia. Compared with East Asian countries, where primary school enrollment rate was almost 100 percent in the 1960s, Africa averaged only 42 percent enrollment, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. This grew to 60 percent between 1996 and 2004 in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 74 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, 79 percent in South Asia, 93 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 96 percent in East Asia. Life expectancy is also low in Africa. It stood at a little more than forty years in 1960, compared with sixty-two in East Asia. From 2002 to 2004, sub-Saharan Africa experienced an increase in life expectancy, but only to forty-six years, while East Asia and the Pacific region experienced an increase to seventy years. Latin America, meanwhile, had a life expectancy of seventy-one in 2004, while in the Middle East and North Africa it was a little more than sixty-nine years.

According to the IMF, the World Bank, and renowned economists such as Alassane D. Ouattara and Joseph Stiglitz, there is nothing intrinsically positive or negative about globalization. This is similar to the contention that the phenomenon produces antinomies that generate economic growth, improvements in health, and advances in telecommunications technology in some countries, regions, and sectors, while also producing the opposite phenomena in other places. Ouattara claims that African countries do not benefit from globalization because they refuse to open up their economies, persist in the implementation of flawed policies, have weak institutions, and lack transparency, thus causing external investors to mistrust and avoid them. Stiglitz, in contrast, places the blame squarely on the IMF and the World Bank, due to their erroneous ideological commitment to the market-driven policies that they recommend to jump-start economic development in countries where poor institutions, incomplete markets, and imperfect information coexist, as is the case in Africa.

Critics of globalization believe that trade liberalization creates an environment that destroys domestic industries. They hold that the liberalization of capital markets favors wealthier and more efficient foreign financial interests and banks, and that privatization of state-owned enterprises favors the emergence of a small, predatory, capital-owning class that dominates an economy, particularly where there are few legal restraints on their activities. Compounding the problem, the IMF’s commitment to market fundamentalism and the interests of lenders and the rich ensures the implementation of policies endorsed by the neoliberal Washington Consensus. The destructive consequences of such policies are exemplified by the economic collapse of the “East Asian Tigers” (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) in the 1990s. Many argue for more democracy and increased transparency in multilateral institutions, which will help give voice to the developing countries that are being impacted by these policies.

Because it rewards market-oriented policies to the exclusion of all else, contemporary globalization is often held responsible for the dismal state of African economies. A pro-market bias generates the antinomies observed, where some sectors, countries, and world regions thrive and others deteriorate. The debacle faced by African countries must also be blamed on the decision makers who ignore the general good in favor of sectional, and sometimes personal, interests.

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5934/African-Economic-Development.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1UH_QYhkPw

[johnnycakes]

Re: Mugabe's Land reform driving economic growth i

Franksterr,
I read the article in your last post twice
What I took away from it is that racism played a major role in the brutal treatment and murderous exploitation of the continent during the colonial period.
The parts of the article did say that Africans themselves came to believe that what the racists said about Africans being inherently inferior was true and this added to the occupation by white racists held the development of the continent back.

After the end of colonial rule and the taking over of governments by the Africans, the article goes on to say, the problems became problems of imbalance of trade, debt, globalization, kleptocracies, income disparity and all the other ills of neo-colonialism having to do with economic problems and racism is not mentioned as a factor in the post colonial period.

I most certainly agree that the white colonial rule of Africa was deeply and horribly racist but do not see that racism in an all black country can be possible.
Nor can the people of African countries be exploited unless their leaders are in cahoots with those who would exploit them.
I do not see that Africans today consider themselves inherently inferior racially but rather that they are the victims of a global economy in which they cannot compete because of underdevelopment that has not changed appreciably since the end of colonial rule and the assumption of powers by Africans and debt incurred by the b African heads of state since the end of colonial rule.

The unequal terms of trade is, as said in the article, a north/south thing ; the developed world exploiting the undeveloped and underdeveloped world. That would include much of Latin America where the only racism is the white populations victimizing the Native American populations. Both white (Hispanic) and Native American populations of Latin America are in most countries still exploited by the highly developed countries of the North in the same way as the poorer and less developed African countries and while bankers and corporate heads on an individual basis may dislike black people, they don't have to live with them and all they want is their money.

So yes , racism was a key factor in how Africa got to be in such rough shape up to independence when the racists didn't care what they did to people they considered inferior or not human but AFTER independence it was no longer personal. Black Africans both ruled and ran their own economies. It was their money or resources that the neo-colonial economic powers of the north wanted and as I pointed out, the white people in Latin America suffered from the same economic exploitation before and after their colonial periods the same as Africans before and after their independence.

That's why I believe that nowadays the problems are within the continent's systems.
and why I think that both socialist economies and the participation of the people in the decision making processes of government are needed .

When debt payments take all the money needed for infrastructure and social development programs and decisions are made on how the country is to be run and how the resources will be allocated by banks and corporations in the rich countries, there is little difference in the disastrous effects on the infrastructures, development and the lives of millions upon millions living on a dollar a day.

We have a basic disagreement on the causes of the present problems of Africa that will go unresolved.

I am a communist. I believe in the eventuality and inevitability of a communist/anarchic society as described by Noam Chomsky.

For the present however, the best that can be done is for the interim steps of a largely socialist (state run) economy to spread the necessities of life to every person and a form of electoral government wherein the people actually have a meaningful participation and not just the 30 seconds of &quot;democracy&quot; they get by voting and then never getting to have a say in what the elected do in their name.

It is also my belief that capitalism has not, does not and cannot work in the poor and under developed countries of the world and with the globalization of competitive capitalism the ability of the poorer countries to become livable is decreasing.

Below here is the end of the article you posted :

&quot;According to the IMF, the World Bank, and renowned economists such as Alassane D. Ouattara and Joseph Stiglitz, there is nothing intrinsically positive or negative about globalization. This is similar to the contention that the phenomenon produces antinomies that generate economic growth, improvements in health, and advances in telecommunications technology in some countries, regions, and sectors, while also producing the opposite phenomena in other places. Ouattara claims that African countries do not benefit from globalization because they refuse to open up their economies, persist in the implementation of flawed policies, have weak institutions, and lack transparency, thus causing external investors to mistrust and avoid them. Stiglitz, in contrast, places the blame squarely on the IMF and the World Bank, due to their erroneous ideological commitment to the market-driven policies that they recommend to jump-start economic development in countries where poor institutions, incomplete markets, and imperfect information coexist, as is the case in Africa.

Critics of globalization believe that trade liberalization creates an environment that destroys domestic industries. They hold that the liberalization of capital markets favors wealthier and more efficient foreign financial interests and banks, and that privatization of state-owned enterprises favors the emergence of a small, predatory, capital-owning class that dominates an economy, particularly where there are few legal restraints on their activities. Compounding the problem, the IMF’s commitment to market fundamentalism and the interests of lenders and the rich ensures the implementation of policies endorsed by the neoliberal Washington Consensus. The destructive consequences of such policies are exemplified by the economic collapse of the “East Asian Tigers” (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) in the 1990s. Many argue for more democracy and increased transparency in multilateral institutions, which will help give voice to the developing countries that are being impacted by these policies.

Because it rewards market-oriented policies to the exclusion of all else, contemporary globalization is often held responsible for the dismal state of African economies. A pro-market bias generates the antinomies observed, where some sectors, countries, and world regions thrive and others deteriorate. The debacle faced by African countries must also be blamed on the decision makers who ignore the general good in favor of sectional, and sometimes personal, interests.&quot;