Research

Nixak*77* • a day ago

 Let's be clear what's currently the main driver of slashing of rain-forests in Africa [& SE.Asia too] for the production of Palm Oil. Traditionally palm oil was/is used in food & cosmetics, but now it's main use is for so-called 'Bio'-Diesel for foreign markets, Just as the main driver for slashing the Amazon is currently the combo of cattle grazing & so-called 'bio-fuels [aka Bio-Fools]- again for Foreign markets. This represents the 'darker-side' of green, along w so-called 'green' nuke power [& now even 'green' fracking]. One of the first articles @ AlterNet on this Ebola out-break, tried 'blame' an alleged W.African 'appetite' for 'bat-soup' along w the Chinese allegedly slashing Africa's rain-forest for this Ebola out-break. I know enough about Liberia to know both of these assertions are dubious at best- especially in Liberia. I've never seen nor even heard of anyone in Liberia eating 'bat-soup', & Guinea [where this out-break originated] is at-least 85% Muslim. Muslims do have strict dietary guidelines & IMO bats likely don't 'meet' them [no pun intended]. I also know that at-least in Liberia the main ones who were slashing the forests there were logging companies from the US, Scandinavian countries, Germany & Israel- NOT China [the US alone has the Firestone Rubber plantation, the largest in the World at 1 Million acres- under lease till 2029. PS: Firestone has a real sordid 90+ yr {& Counting} history re: how it was acquired and how it's exploited, underpaid & overworked its Liberian workers.]. FYI: Whether Ebola originated w bats or even if they're the main carriers is still an open question [IE: it's a presumption]. I've read 2 reports on the issue [one from DRC Congo {trying to implicate 'bat-soup'} can NOT really even be called a scientific study, because it failed to even test any of the 'suspect' bats for Ebola - the other's from Bangladesh] trying to link bats to Ebola & neither is a slam-dunk - IE: they failed to make an air-tight case.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12596



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 David Pear:

Colonialism is alive and well in the 21st century. It doesn't look much different than the 19th century. I have written about this many times before and feel the futility of writing about it again. As we focus on the Ebola epidemic we should not forget that millions of people have been slaughtered in the D.R. Congo in the worst genocide since WW2. The US is backing the génocidaires; the same ones it backed in Rwanda in the 1990's. The US backed Paul Kagame's invasion of Rwanda and now it is backing his invasion of the D.R. Cong. It is always the same issue. Any country in resource rich Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Eurasia that has the best interests of its own citizens instead of the interests of Western corporations will be a target for destabilization and regime change. Neocolonialism started even before African decolonization began. It goes back to before the US, British and Belgian instigation of the overthrow and execution of Patrice Lumumba in 1960. Lumumba's 'crime' was that he was a 'socialist'. It didn't matter to the West that Lumumba was democratically elected. This is what AFRICOM is all about too. In the guise of the War on Terror the US is looking out for the profits of Western corporations. It shows how little truth there is in the ability of 'free-market capitalism' when it has to be enforced with military power. Yet we will see many racist comments in the main stream about how Africans are tribal. How blacks can't govern themselves. Eating 'bush-meat' which we call 'wild-game' in the West. There is not much 'free' about capitalism. Nor is there anything 'liberal' about neoliberalism.

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Speaking of the Haitian REvolution, probably the greatest of Black leaders from the elite (slave elite) was Toussaint L'Ouverture. Here, people like Frederick Douglass and Denmark Vesey come to mind. But being outnumbered as well as outgunned our slave ancestors in the USA were not able to raise a massive popular insurrection such as happened in Haiti. By the way, have you read CLR James' BLACK JACOBINS? I actually had the pleasure of meeting CLR once.

-Savant

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 There is a question of character and consciousness. Paul Robeson was well paid, but also a man of principle and integrity. Drs. Du Bois and King could have been much better "paid" if they had betrayed. Angela Davis, with her European education, could have probably done even better than her committed predecessors who lost their standing. For she came along in the LATE 1960s, by which time most of the racist legal caste restrictions were removed. Her radicalism lost her a potentially cushy job, and her involvement in the case of the Soledad brothers--brothers from the hood, not middle class folk like her--eventually led to her imprisonment. Martin, Paul Robeson, Angela, Ella Baker , Jo Ann Robinson were all being paid middle class wages....actually, upper class wages for Paul Robeson. They risked it all for the love and liberation of their people. Of course, they were EXCEPTIONAL members of the Black bourgeois or petty bourgeois classes. They would be even more exceptional now given the PRESENT character of the Negro elite.

 -Savant

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