Eritrea: UN & US Sanction the Powerhouse of HOA

“Irresolute Princes, to escape immediate danger, commonly follow the neutral path, in most instances to their destruction.” —- Niccolo Machiavelli

The aim with this piece is to address the following points: First, to challenge the notion that “it is not to Eritrea’s interest” to support some part of disaffected Somali opposition groups. …. Second, to challenge the notion that, in this case, neutrality is the safest course of action. Historic and political considerations and other available information controvert this notion….It will show that some reactionary elements, such as Saleh AA Younis, have advanced the same position before, and have been proven wrong. .... To make this points, and more, the writings of the man that is considered the father of modern political science, Niccolo Machiavelli, and his book, ‘The Prince’, will be considered. Machiavalli is chosen to highlight the practical, realpolitik, above the ‘moral’ consideration. …… Moreover, the patterns of threat against Eritrea are clear and convincing. These threats materialize every time when the TPLF regime in Ethiopia finds itself in much precarious position and requires its master to rescue it. It is the best indicator of the TPLF regime desperation. TPLF is feeling the bells toll for its dying regime. It needs its master now more than ever to defuse some of the pressures, and to save its neck. READ MORE!!!!!

Susan Rice is Bad News for Africa

If you believe that Barack Obama will pursue a policy in the Horn of Africa that is substantially different than that of George Bush, you are in for a deep disappointment....Susan Rice’s brand ... is a farce, a pretext to justify military aggression under the guise of preventing human suffering. She has amply demonstrated that her sole concern is projection of U.S. power by any means – or pretext – that is available...Rice embraces a policy that causes mass death and starvation in Somalia and ongoing genocide in Congo. Although she’s no blood relative of Condoleezza Rice, on African issues she seems headed in the same direction .... READ MORE!!!!

Food Is too Cheap

The single greatest challenge facing our modern economic food chain is the insanely unnatural cost of food to the consumer, making the simple and necessary act of eating dependent on food that is almost free. The global edifice of cheap food rests on the volatility of a single input; the exponentially depleting supply of easy, cheap oil. We are gorging ourselves at the $1.99 all-you-can-eat oil buffet. Food is too cheap, a “correction” is coming, and there is not a damn thing anybody can do about it. ... For the most part of human history, the cost of eating was a brutal, hard day of death defying exertion. You found food or you died, and you probably died trying ... READ MORE!!!

Robert Fisk - Obama is a Disaster

Sudan's interlocking crises - Mahmood Mamdani

For Part Two - Click Here

Saviors and Survivors - by Mahmood Mamdani

MUST READ:

Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror

In writing Saviors and Survivors Mahmood Mamdani has painstakingly removed the activist smokescreen that has clouded and confused the tragedy of Darfur. His book is a work of serious and authentic scholarship but more than that it reflects an act of moral courage to confront the half truths that have bedeviled the discourse on Darfur and more broadly on Sudan, and possibly prolonged the suffering and sorrow of all Darfurians, African and Arab alike ... More than a thousand years ago, Al Biruni wrote:

“The tradition regarding an event, whether true or false, depends upon the character of the reporters, who are influenced by the divergence of interests and all kinds of animosities and antipathies among nations. We must distinguish different classes of reporters.” .....The byline on the number of dead and displaced in Darfur used by every correspondent worldwide in nearly every story on Darfur is a telling example of the formation of the connecting links between the readers and the writer of a story based on partial information, until the story passes for truth. It would appear that not much has changed over a millennium in the way events are reported....Despite some omissions and a few slips in his Darfur narrative, in writingSaviors and Survivors, Mahmood Mamdani has emulated Al-Biruni’s praiseworthy reporter, who shrinks from a lie and adheres to the truth, enjoying credit even among liars, not to mention others. READ REVIEW

Why Socialism? - By Albert Einstein

... nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development.... Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.... socialism is directed toward a social-ethical end. ... The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor -- not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. .... Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights .... READ MORE!!!!

Dambisa Moyo: On Democracy, Aid and More

READ MORE !!!   Eritrea / Ethiopia : Back to Bread Before Democracy with Dambisa Moyo

In Every Black Man's Eyes--Death To The Rebel

... these beautiful brothers, still but terrible, were hell to Johnny Reb. The black soldier was human--sometimes cowardly, sometimes brave, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, ill-led, ill-fed, ill-trained, ill-equipped. But goddamn, if he wasn't the spitting image of everything the South fought against, everything that slavery declared untrue. Howell Cobb put it best, "If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong." ... That's the point. Black soldiers literally, and symbolically, assaulted the very foundations of the South. There were a living weapon of psychological warfare ... READ MORE !!!

Time for 'Global Perestroika" - by Mikhail Gorbachev

The time has come to strike the right balance between the government and the market, for integrating social and environmental factors and demilitarising the economy....Washington will have to play a special role in this new perestroika, not just because the United States wields great economic, political and military power, but because America was the main architect, and America's elite the main beneficiary, of the current world economic model. That model is now cracking and will, sooner or later, be replaced. That will be a complex and painful process for everyone, including the United States.... We will cope with the new global challenges as well, but only if everyone understands the need for real, cardinal change - for a global perestroika. READ MORE!!!

They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America - by Ivan Van Sertima

Brezinski: On Frost Over The World

In America, Speaking the Truth Is a Career-ending Event

....Truth cannot be spoken in America. It cannot be spoken in universities. It cannot be spoken in the media. It cannot be spoken in courts, which is why defendants and defense attorneys have given up on trials and cop pleas to lesser offenses that never occurred. ...Truth is never spoken by government. .... Washington “is where principles go to die.” ... Read More!!!

Norman Finkelstein - In Praise of Resistance

Must Watch!!!

Unrealistic Expectations & Obama Worship

Foreign Aid Goes Military!

Imagine Lenin's puzzlement if he were alive to see the territories of the globe divided up not among capitalists but among foreign aid bureaucrats. I am exaggerating a little; but a surprising new trend among development economists, foreign aid organizations, and Western policymakers is the willingness to combine foreign military intervention with traditional aid work. This takes even further a tendency that began in the 1980s toward increasing intrusiveness of foreign aid programs in poor societies' economic policies and political institutions. In short, foreign aid has been getting ever more imperial over the past quarter-century. While foreign aid may be squeezed by the current financial crisis, the aid-military complex seems likely to thrive in view of the many threats to security in different parts of the world. Indeed, on October 13, 2008, right after the worst week in US stock market history, World Bank President Robert Zoellick found time in a major speech to talk about how the World Bank was "bringing security and development together." READ MORE!!!

Going Socratic, especially on you, my fellow citizens!!!

I shall never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet. I shall go on saying...Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor and give no attention to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?...I shall do this to everyone I meet, young or old, foreigner or fellow citizen, but especially to you, my fellow citizens. ---- Socrates - from Plato’s, Apology

A Heart from Jenin - Documentary

If you come accross this documentary it is a must watch!!! Here is only half of the documentary please make an effort to watch the full length film to truly appreciate it.

(Video) President-Elect Obama and the Future of US Foreign Policy:

what are Obama’s foreign policy positions, and what are the concerns for those living in countries at the target end of US foreign policy? ....
Click here to view:....President-Elect Obama and the Future of US Foreign Policy: A Roundtable Discussion

(CNN Video) Bush Trying To Pardon Himself

Africa's Prospects: Hope and Opportunity Knocks

Two articles from the Economist 

Africa's Prospects: Opportunity Knocks 

With world markets in turmoil, an unexpected & Overlooked continent may benefit from its very isolation. READ MORE!!!

Africa: There  is Hope   

... the latest trend is cheeringly positive. READ MORE!!!

PENTAGON AND THE BAILOUT -- Must See!!

...why then aren't we concerned about the trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve is pumping into the system? Or the trillions missing from the Pentagon?

Black Swan - By Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
A must read!!! - especially now, given what is transpiring in global financial markets. You surely have come across the phrase "a black swan event" - referring to "wallstreet melt down". However, the implications of the subject matter is far greater than just finance. I have found it difficult to find a comprehensive Book Review that, is not bogged down in some silly moments of the book, and that accurately capture the full essence of the subject matter. Anyhow, here is one report ..... enjoy!! READ MORE!!!

Human Rights Watch: Lies, Crimes and Cover-ups

Human Rights Watch, a US-based group claiming to be a non-governmental organization, but which is in fact funded by government-linked quasi-private foundations and a Congressional funded political propaganda organization, the National Endowment for Democracy has issued a report .....A close reading of the “Report” reveals an astonishing number of blatant falsifications and outright fabrications, glaring deletions of essential facts, deliberate omissions of key contextual and comparative considerations and especially a cover-up of systematic long-term, large-scale security threats to ... democracy posed by Washington . READ MORE!!!

Robert Fisk: On US Foreign Policy and OBAMA

We Blame Capitalism

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."

John Maynard Keynes

NY Gold takeoff from the shakedown of wallstreet

Houston: we have a liftoff.

The New Humanitarian Order

The conflict in Darfur began as a civil war in 1987-89, before Bashir and his group came to power.... Having falsely attributed to Bashir the racialization of the conflict, Moreno-Ocampo focuses on two consequences of the conflict in Darfur: ethnic cleansing through land-grabbing and atrocities in the camps. He attributes both to Bashir. He is again wrong... This new humanitarian order, officially adopted at the UN's 2005 World Summit, claims responsibility for the protection of vulnerable populations. That responsibility is said to belong to "the international community,"... It describes as "human" the populations to be protected and as "humanitarian" the crisis they suffer from, the intervention that promises to rescue them and the agencies that seek to carry out intervention. Whereas the language of sovereignty is profoundly political, that of humanitarian intervention is profoundly apolitical, and sometimes even antipolitical. Looked at closely and critically, what we are witnessing is not a global but a partial transition. The transition from the old system of sovereignty to a new humanitarian order is confined to those states defined as "failed" or "rogue" states. The result is once again a bifurcated system, whereby state sovereignty obtains in large parts of the world but is suspended in more and more countries in Africa and the Middle East. ... The new language refers to its subjects not as bearers of rights--and thus active agents in their emancipation--but as passive beneficiaries of an external "responsibility to protect." Rather than rights-bearing citizens, beneficiaries of the humanitarian order are akin to recipients of charity. Humanitarianism does not claim to reinforce agency, only to sustain bare life. If anything, its tendency is to promote dependence. Humanitarianism heralds a system of trusteeship....It takes no great intellectual effort to recognize that the responsibility to protect has always been the sovereign's obligation. It is not that a new principle has been introduced; rather, its terms have been radically altered. To grasp this shift, we need to ask: who has the responsibility to protect whom, under what conditions and toward what end? READ MORE!!!