This summer, concert goers will get a chance to save the world by rocking out to loud music and buying Earth-friendly cotton t-shirts. The Live Earth concert for our “climate in crisis” will surely raise the profile of environmentalism, but will it actually drive its audience to understand the root causes of the problem? After all, it’s been nearly two years since ten simultaneous Live 8 concerts were held across the world to raise awareness for African poverty, and if that event is any indicator, we shouldn’t expect much beyond the hype and sparkle that does more for aging rockers than the designated cause du jour.

Timed to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of his original Live Aid concert, Bob Geldof hoped the Live 8 event would pressure leaders of the G8 countries (U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, U.S., Canada and Russia) into canceling the debt of the world’s most impoverished nations. Though it has never been easy to get politicians to do anything for the poor, Geldof felt his chances were good since he had the ear of the G8’s new president, U.K. prime minister Tony Blair.

Back in 1985, when he was still an aspiring socialist and junior member of the British Labour party, Tony Blair attended Live Aid. Years later, he told Geldof that the experience had shaped his vision of African policy and so, in 2004, Geldof persuaded Blair to head an examination of African poverty and the role the international community has played in its tragic history. The study was titled the Blair Commission for Africa and focused on debt relief and increased aid as the most direct means of alleviating the “living wound” of Africa’s plight. The next step, Blair and Geldof decided, would be to convince the leaders of the world’s seven richest nations (G7 plus Russia = G8) to commit to the Blair Commission program. And what better way to force these politicians into a deal than to get a billion people involved in the process. So, as Blair got set to host the G8 summit at a golf course in Scotland, Geldof called Bono, Madonna and Pink Floyd, trucked his speakers into London’s Hyde Park and invited the world to the show.

I sat among “thousands of millions,” as Bob Geldof put it, watching the concerts from their homes. Switching between MTV and AOL’s live-to-net broadcast of the concerts in London, Paris, Berlin, Toronto, Philly, Rome, I hummed along with a roster of stars that, as much as they tried, just couldn’t muster the earnest save-the-world insurgent spirit that had made Live Aid such a global phenomenon. Watching Kate Moss’ then-boyfriend Pete Doherty wander deliriously onto the stage and then barely get through a shrill rendition of T-Rex’s classic Children of the Revolution seemed like the symbolic moment. For a generation that has the world at its fingertips, which truly lives in a virtual global village, they have less sensitivity and connection to the plight of starving Africans than the kids did 20 years ago.

Sure, everyone wore their white wristbands, cosmetic evidence of their unity with the campaign to Make Poverty History. But in a development that was symbolic of the disconnect between the glossy, star-driven first world campaign and the soul-draining struggle of the global poor, it was later reported that millions of the bands were produced in Chinese sweatshops where workers are paid 25 cents an hour. As usual, the intentions were good, but you know what they say about the road to hell. And the irony wasn’t lost on many in the Western media. When Geldof announced the concerts on CNN, declaring they were “dealing with the roots of that poverty,” critics assailed him for assembling a “hideously white” roster that only included two African-born performers. Many saw it as a ploy to raise the sagging profile of old, unfashionable rock stars like The Who, Paul McCartney and Duran Duran, while others charged that it was the rock stars who were being used by the G8 politicians.

Bono brushed off the latter criticism, saying “Is there some degree of being used here? Yes. But I am not a cheap date, and neither is Bob Geldof.” Which may well be true. As a result of the Live 8 and Make Poverty History campaigns, the G8 agreed to cancel the debt of the world’s eighteen poorest nations and double 2004 levels of aid to Africa from U.S.$25 to U.S.$50 billion by the year 2010. But when this failed to impress the very Africans Live 8 was created to benefit, neither Bono nor Geldof had any snappy comebacks.

“One should not be surprised,” wrote the African scholar Samir Amin in his Liberal Virus, “that at the very moment when capitalism appears to be completely victorious, ‘the fight against poverty’ has become an unavoidable obligation of the rhetoric of the dominant groups.”

It’s something that the Western media missed entirely. Here we were, fifteen years after end of the Cold War, long after capitalism has been declared the world’s ideological victor, still focused on world poverty. And, with a situation in Africa no better than twenty years ago when the last world aid music event was held. Now, of course, many would say that it is not the fault of liberalism that African countries have not been able to institute sustainable fiscal policies. And that would be true if there wasn’t a long legacy of liberal economic intervention on the continent of Africa, much of it designed around the goal of relieving poverty. So what’s wrong with this picture?

Samir Amin claims that for representatives of the World Bank, IMF and rock stars like Bono and Bob Geldof, poverty is only ever seen as an empirical measurement, one that can be conquered through mathematical reasoning. Increase aid, remove the debt… problem solved. But this is just rock star economics. The reason nothing has changed for Africans since the last time Geldof and Bono beamed their message into hundreds of millions of homes worldwide is that they have been sucked into playing the game of the G8 leaders. They discuss poverty without challenging the methods and mechanisms that generate it.

Now, for Amin the Marxist, the foundations of African poverty are deep and advancement is a treacherous road, obstructed by the evils of capitalism. But it wasn’t just the far left that was questioning Live 8. Two weeks after the concerts, the New York Times published an op-ed by Cameroonian journalist Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme which essentially built on Amin’s criticism, but from a different perspective.

“Our anger is all the greater because,” Tonme wrote, “we didn’t hear anyone at Live 8 raise a cry for democracy in Africa. Africa’s real problem is the lack of freedom of expression, the usurpation of power, the brutal oppression… Don’t they understand that fighting poverty is fruitless if dictatorships remain in place?”

At a time when the armies of America and Britain are supposedly fighting anti-democratic insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, these words should have stung the eyes of pro-war liberals who applauded the debt relief program as a crucial step toward ending poverty.

“Neither debt relief nor huge amounts of food aid nor an invasion of experts will change anything,” wrote Tonme in the Times. “Those will merely prop up the continent’s dictators… We would have preferred for the musicians in Philadelphia and London to have marched and sung for political revolution.”

But revolution is hardly the kind of thing that Geldof’s government-friendly spectacle was designed to inspire. The closest anyone got was a Versace-clad Madonna singing “Music makes the people come together. Music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebels come together.” And there’s good reason for that. Because revolution in countries like Cameroon, Chad and Togo would demand overthrowing leaders who have a long relationship with the IMF and World Bank. Leaders who, according to John Perkins, the “Economic Hit Man” turned best-selling author, are given huge sums of money that are never expected to be repaid “because the nonpayment is what gives us our leverage, our pound of flesh.”

Working for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main, Perkins’ job was to create optimistic financial projections for developing countries that would justify huge IMF and World Bank loans. Though the money was supposedly lent to recipient nations for infrastructural development, much of it never left the United States since it went directly to Main or other U.S. construction and engineering companies like Bechtel or Halliburton which were contracted to do the work. More importantly, Perkins writes in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, he would bring in such high loans that it would drive the countries bankrupt and they would be “forever beholden to their creditors, and… would present easy targets when they needed favors, including military bases, U.N. votes, or access to oil and other natural resources.”

“It’s a sham, it’s a subterfuge,” he says solemnly.

Perkins views the recent pledges by the G8 to Make Poverty History as the latest chapter in this legacy of economic entrapment.

“This program to forgive debt in eighteen nations, with another twenty-two on the back burner, that’s an amazing tool of economic hit men. I believe totally in debt forgiveness, but this is not about debt forgiveness. Every one of those countries is being asked to allow American corporations or international corporations to privatize their electric and water systems and many of their other resources. They are asked to accept the trade barriers we have in the United States and the other G8 countries and yet not keep their own trade barriers to protect their markets from our products. So we are using this debt forgiveness ploy as a way to get them more entrenched in the empire. It’s a very, very subtle and effective economic hit man tool and yet, most people don’t seem to realize that.”

Just one month after the G8 leaders made their highly publicized vow to cancel debt for the poorest eighteen countries, a document leaked from the World Bank severely undermined the credibility of their promise. Penned by Geoff Lamb, the bank’s vice president for concessional finance, the document explained that “most countries receiving 100 per cent debt cancellation would be classified as ‘green light’ and therefore become eligible for new borrowing.” Even more damning is Lamb’s reference to a G8 document instructing that those nations receiving debt relief should be “eased into new borrowing.” According to Perkins, this borrowing will then funnel right back into projects earmarked for Western companies.

Commenting on the leak, Dave Timms of the World Development Movement (WDM) said the World Bank was essentially “asking the executive directors how quickly they can get the countries that receive debt relief back into patterns of borrowing and back into debt.” A World Bank spokesman dismissed the controversy, describing the document as “an informal and preliminary presentation.”

But what about Perkins’ assertion that, as a condition of the debt relief, these countries would be forced into privatizing their resources and lowering trade barriers? A quick glance at the Blair Commission report, the U.K. government’s analysis of African poverty that formed the basis for Bob Geldof’s partnership with Tony Blair in Live 8, is telling. Its opening line states that, “for its part, Africa must accelerate reform.” Reform, of course, is a code word for privatize. Clearly, despite all the nice talk, this is still the modus operandi for the neoliberal forces of globalization. In September 2005, a report published by WDM showed that of the I.M.F. and World Bank’s official poverty reduction strategies (P.R.S.P.’s), which enforce conditions for debt relief, loans and aid on a country-to-country basis, “90 per cent contain privatisation measures… and over 70 per cent include trade liberalisation.” Trade liberalization is another euphemism for lowering of trade barriers.

A report from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs explained the G8 “debt relief” scheme this way: “Candidates seeking debt relief are caught in a classic Catch-22 dilemma: in order to relieve poverty they must institutionalize the circumstances that created it in the first place. This compromise does not end when external debts are finally relieved. Rather, countries must continue to conform to IMF/World Bank expectations in order to win the good credit ratings that are the password for attracting foreign investments.”

Finally, I decided to do a random check on one African country that was scheduled for debt relief – the New York Times op-ed writer Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme’s beloved Cameroon. In October 2005, just four months after Live 8, Cameroon announced that it “plans to privatise its state airline, water utility and telecommunications company as part of an IMF-backed economic reform programme aimed at obtaining debt relief.”

Copyright © 2007 Stephen Marshall from the book Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing by Stephen Marshall Published by The Disinformation Company, Ltd.; April 2007;$16.95US; 978-1932857-42-9

Watch the video related to Socialist Scholar

University of Iceland on the Tyranny of the Status Quo. He participated in a lively television debate on August 31, 1984 with leading socialist intellectuals, including President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. When they complained that a fee was charged for attending his lecture at the University and that hitherto, lectures by visiting scholars had been free-of-charge, Friedman replied that previous lectures had not been free-of-charge in a meaningful sense: Lectures always have related costs. …

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It was like you saw Michael Jackson molesting a boy, then Michael tells you what you saw didn't happen. Huh?

Make no mistake, Obama is from the same ideology that thinks civil rights is "getting even", like Jessie and Al and Rev Wright and all the other race baiters who pervert Dr King's message, to incite racial hatred as a means to gain power. The last people who want racism to end are these same people.

So, Obama's handlers polled and focus grouped, with the results suggesting he bring the cop and the unjustly arrested man, to the WH, to talk through their issues. The whole stunt ended in a disagreement. Now, the messiah's spinners are saying "Mission Accomplished", praising Obama for his wisdom and sense of justice.

Many think Obama made the situation worse for himself.

Have you noticed how many people on YA are complaining about liberals and their "Jessie Jackson" style of civil rights- getting even?

Do you think Obama made the mess worse? Did he start a backlash of people who are sick of race baiting, reverse racism and getting even?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_harvard_scholar_analysis

About Author

Stephen Marshall is a writer and award-winning filmmaker. A founder of Guerrilla News Network, he is coauthor of the book True Lies (Plume) with GNN colleague Anthony Lappé. He is the director of the feature film This Revolution, documentary features such as Battleground: 21 Days on the Empire’s Edge, and controversial, politicized music videos for the Beastie Boys, Eminem and 50 Cent. Over the span of his career, he has traveled and worked in more than 80 countries. He lives in New York City. Visit www.wolvesbook.com 

About The Disinformation Company:
Based in New York, The Disinformation Company www.disinfo.com is active in book publishing, film/DVD distribution and other home entertainment. Recent book releases include Graham Hancock’s Supernatural, Jim Marrs’ The Terror Conspiracy, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Beyond The Bleep. Identity Theft Inc., Circle of Six, and Scamorama. Disinformation books are distributed to the trade by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution (www.cbsd.com).

Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) was one of the most controversial African Americans of his time. He was also one of the most talented people of his time, of any race, something that would be attested to by historians and biographers of all races. Like Barack Obama he was a high profile figure around whom there was considerable controversy and fear. One might even hear those echoes using different words but the same theme as “who is Barack Obama” as recited by Sarah Palin and John McCain in McCarthy hearings about Paul Robeson.

Born of a runaway slave, Paul Robenson was a man whose talents and achievements were far ranging. He spoke out against the treatment of the African Americans throughout much of his life. He was an actor, singer, All-American football player, law graduate, orator and writer. Despite the openly racist and violent opposition he faced, Robeson became a twelve letter athlete excelling in baseball, basketball, football, and track.  He was named twice to the All American Football team, received a Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University, and was the valedictorian of the graduating class of that institution in 1919. His brilliant singing voice, a resonant base, made him a high-demand concert singer both in the United States and abroad. He won high recognition for the film Emperor Jones made in 1925 and his stage performances in Porgy and Bess and Othello on the European stage. He also became known for the song “Ol Man River, the theme song of the play, Showboat, which later became a movie musical. Robeson’s spirituals became widely known and appreciated. By the 1930′s he often refused to sing before segregated audiences.

During his travels to Europe, where he lived for 11 years in the late 1920′s to the late 1930′s, Robeson visited Russia. There he won the International Stalin Peace Prize in 1952 during the McCarthy years, which brought him to the attention of the anti-communist committee hearings in the Senate during those years. Although Robeson declared that he was a socialist, as opposed to communist, but he was painted with the brush of the latter. Concert dates were cancelled, and Robeson became vilified to the extent that he was seldom given much press or recognition for later achievements. Robeson’s passport had been taken away from him in 1950 so that he had been unable to leave the country until the Supreme Court ruling on another case like his and his passport restored. By then he had lost his status and his money, became seriously depressed, and tried twice to commit suicide, according to a music historian who wrote about his life.

Robeson’s problems continued unabated. His biography, written in 1958, was not even reviewed by the major journals of the time. After living in Russia and Africa, and continuing his travels in Europe, he returned to the United States in 1963 . By the 1960′s and 1970′s he was virtually unknown, and his health deteriorated dramatically. Robeson died after suffering a stroke in 1976 in the Philadelphia area. His autobiography Here I Stand gives his life view and documents his beliefs and experiences to 1958. Despite his many accomplishments during the 20th century, and his recognition by many scholars connected with Princeton and Rutgers Universities as being perhaps one of the greatest geniuses of that century, he is seldom, if ever, shown in history books. Despite that omission, however, on January 20, 2004 a postal stamp honoring Paul Robeson was unveiled in Princeton, New Jersey and is now part of the Black Heritage Stamp Collection. The sad thing is that this great talent is largely unknown by young people of color let alone most white Americans living today. Still his legacy continues in the music he gave that provides some sense of immortality for him.

One of Paul Robeson’s songs shows the conviction that everyone can and should contribute equally in America, which Robeson believed and spoke about, despite his interest in political issues that forced him to live many years in relative exile. He wanted to perform equally, as he had found in Europe, and mourned the segregation in America. Like Barack Obama as a young man Paul Robeson believed in the virtues of America, despite the great prejudices of his time. He had a vision of unity in diversity. The song, “Ballad of America,” is a riveting example of the power of his voice in song and speech. Here are some of its words:

“–From her plains and mountains, we have sprung,

To keep the faith with those who went before. . . .

Our marching song will come again,

Simple as a hit tune, deep as our valleys.

High as our mountains, strong as the people who made it.

For I have always believed it and I believe it now and you know who I am.”

Watch the video related to Socialist Scholar

University of Iceland on the Tyranny of the Status Quo. He participated in a lively television debate on August 31, 1984 with leading socialist intellectuals, including President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. When they complained that a fee was charged for attending his lecture at the University and that hitherto, lectures by visiting scholars had been free-of-charge, Friedman replied that previous lectures had not been free-of-charge in a meaningful sense: Lectures always have related costs. …

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http://www.asiaquarterly.com/content/view/34/1/

Justifying the Chinese Occupation: "Peaceful Liberation"

The Chinese Government maintains that Tibet was "peacefully liberated" in 1951 from both imperialism and a brutal feudal system that was "hell on earth."3 According to this argument, Tibet has been transformed into a "Socialist Heaven" through the introduction of revolutionary socialist measures.

This justification of the invasion of Tibet is no different from the age-old argument of Western colonialism: invasion is good for the social and economic development of the occupied colony. If this charge is true, then the Chinese seem to be not only supporting, but also practicing the very imperialist policy they have long condemned, one of the foundational anathemas of the communist revolution. Moreover, this sort of justification echoes the claims Japan used when it invaded China and other East Asian countries during World War II ­ that it was creating a "Greater Asian Co-prosperity Sphere." If Chinese justifications for invading Tibet are legitimate, then it is hard to see how the British takeover of Hong Kong and the Japanese invasion of China were unjustified.

More to the point, I believe, one should question the claim that the level of oppressiveness of a government, in this case, Tibet's supposed brutal feudal system, justifies invasion and occupation by another nation. If that logic held true, one could in theory argue that the Soviet Union or the United States would have had the right to occupy China during the Cultural Revolution, a period most Chinese would agree was a period of extreme oppression and bad governance….

http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=422

"Old Tibet was a backwards, feudal society and the Dalai Lama was an evil slaveholder"

Beijing (as well as sympathetic Western scholars such as Michael Parenti, Tom Grunfeld and Anna Louise Strong) asserts that "pre-liberation" Tibet was a medieval, oppressive society consisting of "landowners, serfs and slaves." Tashi Rabgay, a Tibetan scholar at Harvard, points out that these three alleged social classes are arbitrary and revisionist classifications that have no basis in reality. There were indeed indentured farmers in old Tibet. There were also merchants, nomads, traders, non-indentured farmers, hunters, bandits, monks, nuns, musicians, aristocrats and artists. Tibetan society was a vast, multifaceted affair, as real societies tend to be. To try to reduce it to three base experiences (and non-representative experiences at that) is to engage in the worst kind of revisionism….

About Author

Carol Forsloff is a professional journalist with small town newspaper with hard copy and online editions and political and social blog. She has also written several books, one of which on Sarah Palin is on her website and soon available at Amazon.com. Carol is licensed also as a mental health counselor, certified as a teacher,has taught history, politics, reading and journalism. She is experienced over 40 years in multiple areas. See websites at http://www.thehouseofaloha.com/Books.html, http://sarahpalinsecretlife.com and blog at http://coffeewithcarol.blogspot.com