My Beauty Best Teacher

Kwesi Kwaa Prah writes "...Africa represents today the only major historical and cultural area of the world where despite their indigenous socio-cultural majorities, countries prefer to use the languages of their erstwhile masters in their attempts to develop and make social progress. The result of this neo-colonial approach to culture and democracy is that the scientific and technological culture of Africans is hardly advancing.Actually, Africa, by and large, is retrogressing or stagnating. Mass society and its culture is shut off, and condemned to cultural backwardness and alienation from the life of the elite. The elite in turn is bent on what many social critics regard as mindless imitation of the colonial and metropolitan cultures of the west. This is an orientation, which in effect integrates the elite more into the culture of the former colonial masters than the indigenous cultures from where this elite historically and socially derives..."

NaijaBlog writes about the "Replication of Values":

If one takes a glance around the Nigerian elite, one finds that it is populated solely by corporate types who work in banking or have senior management roles within large corporate organisations.There aren't any other types of elite at work (for instance, there isn't an intelligentsia elite or a bourgeoisie chattering class). The more difficult trick therefore is how to lure back Nigerians who actually might improve the society with a different set of values - interested in ideas, culture, research and challenging social norms with more contemporary attitudes. I suspect this is a general problem in developing countries - how to create ideological development and inject fresh thinking into conservative societies.
The trouble is, those who are in power tend to select as advisors and thinkers those who share their values. So, in Nigeria, we have 'gender experts' appointed senior advisory roles who believe firmly in the evangelically motivated doctrine that women should be subservient to their husbands; or we have economists who hold that the way forward for Nigeria is to create sweat shops across the country. In other words, conservative, purely economically-motivated values attract their own. In societies such as this, people with fresh ideas will always be treated as outcasts and alienated, while mediocre talents with outdated views get rewarded.

There is an appealing logic to the latest multimillion-dollar aid package for Africa announced last week by George Bush and Tony Blair. It is supposed to help rob terrorists of a breeding ground and, in a humanitarian spirit, relieve the continent of some of its misery. But anyone who has followed the fate of Africa over recent decades might wonder: Why should these millions of dollars have any better effect than the billions that have gone before? Why does the West feel the need to keep pouring money into Africa? One answer has to do with the underlying conventional wisdom, which blames Africa's miseries on the delayed effects of Western colonialism.
['Africa Unchained']
Yet as the decades pass it becomes apparent that, although there is some truth to the claim, there is more to Africa's problems than that: A solution will require radical changes in the way Africa is governed and in the way its economies function. George Ayittey makes such an argument in "Africa Unchained" (Palgrave, 483 pages, $35), a superb analysis of the continent and its recent ordeals................
................Colonialism plays a part in Mr. Ayittey's account, too, but in a different way. For him, the continent's problems stem from the characteristics of the governing elite. In "Africa Unchained," he draws a sharp distinction between African governments -- generally corrupt, socialist, centralizing -- and the informal sectors of the African economy, which the elite's misdeeds have impoverished. At independence in the 1960s, Africa was a net exporter of food; now it imports $18 billion of food per annum.
But where did the elites pick up their bad habits? Mr. Ayittey describes in detail the economics of precolonial African societies. Property was held in common among the extended family but not by the community as a whole, while economic activity was undertaken for profit, with prices set by hard bargaining. Government operated through consultation, with chiefs exercising power only after full discussion with a council of elders. Thus the modern pattern of one-party or one-person rule, state ownership and state controls over prices and distribution is an import from Europe, not an African tradition.
Free Institutions
Mr. Ayittey's claim that democracy and free markets, not autocracy and communal ownership, are a legacy of Africa's own past is important, since it provides a rationale for Africans to move toward a system that can work. It presents a striking parallel to the work of parliamentarian historians at the time of the English Civil War, who traced English civil liberties back before Magna Carta to the Anglo-Saxon "Witanagemot" -- a gathering of tribal eminences -- and to the free institutions ascribed by Tacitus to the Germans of the first century. These historians gave their liberal cause legitimacy; Mr. Ayittey's researches may give a similar legitimacy to free institutions in Africa.
As for what those institutions might be, Mr. Ayittey calls for independent judiciaries, independent media and, not least, independent central banks. He would like to see power devolve as much as possible to Africa's traditional leaders -- at the village and regional level -- who are closer to the people they rule and less able to escape abroad from the penalties for corruption and malfeasance. He notes that Africa's governments today too often divert what money they have -- from aid or from oil and mineral revenues -- to military spending, wasteful prestige projects and tax-haven bank accounts. Here, too, local control would help. Aid in particular -- Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair take note -- needs to be targeted locally and regionally, rather than nationally, and it needs to be dispensed much more quickly than it is now, and in much smaller amounts.
What chance is there of such reforms actually happening? Less than one might wish. Part of the problem still comes from the West. When the principal cadres of Westerners dealing with Africa are aid agencies, charities and NGOs, rather than the financiers and businessmen who predominate in India and China, one has to expect that Africans, elite and otherwise, will be exposed to a high level of economic illiteracy.
Still, capital and investment will not flow toward Africa until it has done more to shrink the power of its governments and provide havens, secure against tax, inflation and expropriation, for the savings of its striving peoples. And in this regard Western attempts at institution-building will be of little help. It is for Africans to build their own models of governance. Luckily, as Mr. Ayittey shows, they have a proud tradition to draw upon -- and never mind the colonizers.
Mr. Martin Hutchinson is the author of "Great Conservatives" (Academica Press).

William Deresiewicz wrote in American Scholar:

Being an intellectual begins with thinking your way outside of your assumptions and the system that enforces them. But students who get into elite schools are precisely the ones who have best learned to work within the system, so it’s almost impossible for them to see outside it, to see that it’s even there...[continue reading]

An observation even more ominous for the future of Africa's productive capacity where the elite adopt a redistributive rather than productive approach to wealth. This is further accentuated by a preference for non-manufacturing MBA's

Moeletsi Mbeki writes about the need to unfetter the private sector, it "... consists of the rural poor and of subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies. Neither of which is free to operate in the marketplace because each is dominated politically by non-producers who control the state. This is the weakness of the African private sector that explains its inability to become an engine of economic development. Africa’s private sector lacks political power and is therefore not free to operate to maximize its objectives. Above all, it is not free to decide what happens to its savings...The elite diverts these savings towards its own consumption, and also to strengthen the state’s repressive instruments. Much of what Africa’s elite consumes is imported. So state consumption does not create a significant market for African producers. Instead, it is a major drain on national savings that would otherwise have gone into productive investment. This explains Africa’s growing impoverishment. The more the political elite consolidates its power, the stronger its hold over the state, and therefore the more rural societies sink into poverty and African economies regress... ",Global Agenda.

In the words of George Ayittey, Africa Unchained is about “unleashing the entrepreneurial talents and creative energies of the real African people…and a blueprint for Africa’s future.”

Dr. George Ayittey, a distinguished professor at American University in Washington, D.C. and the first among his generation to recognize that “African problems must be solved by Africans,” has written this book to help push Africa on to prosperity. His approach to the solution of African problems was much derided by some in the 90s, but is now gaining popularity with reformers and world leaders in the new search for ways to help Africa.

Whether at the front of Congress, in conference rooms at the World Bank and IMF,on numerous radio and television talk shows; or during the various crises which have engulfed the continent, Ayittey has sturdily maintained the “solution by Africans” approach as a departure point for solving the seemingly intractable problems on the continent.

Ayittey, in a sense, has all along been the Jeremiah of Africa, saying things that some don’t want to hear. Will his critics, who are many, now wait for result or would they rush out to call him a false prophet?

In Africa Unchained he sets out to explain why and how Africa ought to besaved.In a characteristic manner, Ayittey is unsparing in his prescriptions for Africa, and in his criticism of the African elite. He has no faith in either the current leadership, or the ones preceding them. Rather, he places faith in the new leaders to come, whom he calls the “African Cheetah,” his version of the term “Asian Tiger.”

Ayittey is often criticized, mostly by his fellow intellectuals, for his brutal assessments of conditions in Africa. They describe him variously as an “Uncle Tom,” a “Sell-Out,” or an Afro-pessimist.

Often, his response to these critics has been to draw “a distinction between African leaders and the African people,” or the field hands who are governed and the men in the state houses who are the governors.

In Africa Unchained, Ayittey’s analysis of the historical facts of Africa’s post independence experience makes his usual harsh style credible. So when he asks in his prologue “if I have a very strong cutlass (machete) whom should I go after?” you know exactly whom he has gone after and why.

For Ayittey, the problems gained their most impetus during the post colonial period, when leaders got their priorities mixed. Cherished leaders like Nkrumah and Nyerere are drubbed for policies Ayittey claims were wrong headed.

This writer would agree that, indeed, some of these policies, as described by Ayittey, were wrong; but differs in thinking that the period was also one of intense experimentation, and, therefore, things were likely to go wrong.

Many things under Nkrumah went right. The grace for his period is that no one would today doubt the sincerity with which he tackled the experiment. As for Nkrumah stashing money abroad, nothing has been tendered as evidence other than the hearsay which started on February 24, 1966 when he was overthrown.

Nkrumah, after nine years in office, never had the chance to self-adjust his policies before being overthrown. Those leaders who came after had the benefit and the responsibility to amend some of his policies. And indeed, Ayittey agrees with this assertion. Thus, it is the failure to do so by these pretenders to leadership that must give Ayittey’s book real vitality.

Ayittey condemns statist intervention in the economy. He commends some governments for recognizing lately the need to move from socialist models to allow foreign capital infusion by making their markets “more open, permitting profit repatriation.”

These governments had hoped to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to spark growth and development . But Ayittey laments that all the good intentions and the innovations are yet to overcome the “negative image” that Africa has acquired over the years. Thus the economies of these countries still remain sluggish.

Africa continues to remain unattractive for the investor; contrary to all evidence of healthy returns on investment. Not even rich Africans prefer to keep their monies there. Ayittey chastises the late president of the Ivory Coast, Houphouet Boigny, for asking “what sensible man does not keep his wealth in Switzerland, the whole world’s bank?”

It is perplexing to read Ayittey’s book and still be aware that some have called him a sell-out. His love for Africa is apparent in this book. His description of the “low level” efficiencies that make Africa work is lovely to read. What he calls the “astonishing degree of functionality, participatory form of democracy, rule of customary law and accountability of the traditional African society,” is respectful and easy to applaud. These are words of facts as well as love. He cannot be the Afro-pessimist his detractors sometimes call him. Otherwise, how could he put so much faith in the simple African peasant he calls “Atingah”?

The critical question to ask is: Is Ayittey being a romantic by placing so much faith in the African peasant and the simple things that so far have provided “low level” efficiencies to the economies of Africa? The notion may sound simplistic to some. But given that the technological and scientific marvels of the West had their primitive beginnings, I will give this approach a strong support. The experiments have been done. The need now is to provide the right environment to nurture the confidence that will make the feats possible. And this is what effective leadership can do.

As Ayittey’s long held view of solution for the African problem suggests, salvation “does not lie…in the crisis-laden modern sector.” It rides on the “backs of the Atingas (peasants) in Africa.”

Instead of investing in the Atingas, who support the bulk of the economy in Africa, Ayittey says African leaders have forgotten them in the shuffle for development and that the low class Atingas (peasants) never featured in the grandiose developmental schemes of post colonial Africa.

For Ayittey, it is possible to turn Africa around. This means empowering the peasants and freeing them to pursue the various enterprises they are already good at. Africa needs “a completely new approach” and an absolute paradigm shift for this to happen, according to Ayititey.

Ayittey describes the attempts so far as mostly disingenuous. And he blames this on the elite, whom he calls “the vampire parasitic elite minority group.” No wonder the majority of his critics, are found in this group.

Africa Unchained is Ayittey’s third book. It is published by Palgrave Macmillan. It was released about a month ago and already has caught the attention of the book world with favorable reviews from the likes of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

For anyone in academe, government or a seeker of solution for Africa’s seemingly intractable problems, Africa Unchained is the book to read.


E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Washington, DC, March 21, 2005

Okey Ndibe writes:

“Many people think that Nigeria’s central problem has to do with the treachery of the political class,” he said. “And there’s no question that the politicians lack in vision and character. Still, it’s the Nigerian elite that has been most disappointing. It’s them, the educated class, whose betrayal stands out the most. The average educated Nigerian has been a net contributor to the travails of the nation. Whenever I think of them, I’m reminded of Frantz Fanon’s dismissal of the contemptible bourgeoisie with which the neo-colonial state is burdened.”

via NVS

African Review interviews Mukoma wa Ngugi.Answering a question on the funding of culture he states:

National cultures cannot be undergirded by foreign funding. The problem with the African elite is that they have no sense of culture and no ambition beyond the stomach. Western capitalists understood that a nation with culture makes better business decisions – the Rockefellers and Carnegies. A nation with a sense of culture has a sense of what it is worth. It can take pride in what is locally manufactured and at same time be weary of outside exploitation.The African elite, and they are the ones with the money have no notion of legacy building, or being remembered through endowments – it’s the politics of the stomach, of immediate money-making and spending, usually abroad.

More here

My friend who lived over in Germany told me once that an interesting feature of a political system that preaches equality is the marked inequality that exists. The countries that push the most for their citizens to be equal have leaders who live unequal lifestyles, whether it was in East Germany or the Soviet Union in the past, or Venezuela or Cuba today. Similarly, the politicians today that push the most for equality appear to be living it up on the people's dime (Obama throwing lavish parties and remodeling limo's), or using the people's dime to implement policies that support the elite in our country. As surprising as it is to some, conservatives and Republicans and the policies they promote lead to more equality than liberals and Democrats. As an example of this, I found a really good post over at Jack McHugh's Blog:

My colleague noticed an announcement on the website of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic growth about a state government “Vibrant Small Cities Initiative” program to hand out some $6 million in federal money to subsidize “façade improvements” on downtown buildings.

She was pondering the distinction between “vibrant cities” and the “cool cities” that Gov. Granholm has touted as another government central-planners’ vision of how to revitalize Michigan. I suspect there’s no difference, that both are buzz-words describing an particular elite class’s vision of an ideal setting that in many cases they themselves do not choose.

Here’s my attempt to define the contents of that vision. (Granholm wants to give taxpayer money to support places) with high-density population that are inhabited by: older, upper-middle class singles or empty-nesters, college students who are the offspring of upper-middle class families, or unmarried or childless college grads in their 20s or early 30s from the same upper-middle class background.

(Granholm does not want to support) suburban or urban neighborhoods inhabited by: families with children (or any income level), individuals or families who prefer the privacy and space of single family homes, or working people with limited incomes and leisure time, or the poor who can't afford to live in the cities.

For all the blather about “diversity,” the inhabitants of this ideal world of Democrats and liberals is a narrow class-driven vision of elites.

In the wake of the Umar F. Mutallab terrorist incident, Sahara Reporters Aliyu Tilde eviscerates Nigeria's elite and ruling class :

On contemplation, I think the real reason why we elite are afraid of our newly acquired feather is because of the inconvenience that we will suffer from whenever we visit overseas or the opportunities we will miss in our hideout countries where we send our children to study after celebrating the collapse of our public schools at home; where we take our wives for delivery after we have allowed our hospitals to deteriorate; where we hide the billions we steal daily from public coffers; where some of us think is the Promised Land. Think about it: what restrictive measure would the average Nigerian, who will never have the opportunity to board even a domestic flight be afraid of? Will the airport scanners scan him on his farm? Indeed, we are crying for ourselves, for our interests, not for Nigeria

More here
.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nigerian churches and deforestation (loomnie.com)

Moeletsi Mbeki author of the recently published Architects of Poverty discusses the flawed capitalism practiced in the continent.Regarding the elite:

They have no capital like a typical bourgeoisie. They don't create wealth; they are a parasitic elite that lives off the existing assets which they didn't create.It is the same with the BEE tycoons in South Africa. They are living off the assets handed to them by existing companies. They are not a bourgeoisie; yes, they are wealthy but they are not capitalists.

More here.
Watch panel which includes Moeletsi Mbeki discuss the topic on CNBC:

via Annansi Chronicles

Aikins Adusei rails against the complicity and complacency of the Western Media when it comes to the acquired loot deposited in Western Institutions:

Corruption is rife in Africa because there are banking institutions in Europe especially Switzerland, France, Jersey Island, Britain, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria, US and many others who accept money from African leaders without questioning the source of the money. According to the UN around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by the political leaders, the business elite and civil servants every year with collusion and connivance of banking industries in Europe and North America.
Even though it is a common knowledge western banks are acting as safe havens for looted funds from Africa, very little attention is received from the western media to expose them. The media tend to focus their energies on the corrupt leaders with little or no mention at all as to where the monies they have stolen are being kept. There has not been any concrete effort to expose the banks that collude and connive with these corrupt leaders who are impoverishing the people. No effort has been made by the political elite in Europe and America to force the banks to return these stolen monies to the poorest of the poor because they are often the shareholders and beneficiaries of profits made by these banks.

More here

Think about this when faced with a political question:

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order - or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.'

The above quotation came from Ronald Reagan's speech, "A Time For Choosing," which he delivered in October of 1964. This words are still relevant today. Do the policies that you promote take us towards the ant heap of totalitarianism, or advance us up the ladder of liberty? Does withdrawal from Iraq increase individual freedom and order? Does a national healthcare system move us up or down? Is giving federal money for stem-cell research, fuel efficient cars, and windfarms expanding my freedom, or restricting my choices?

Answering these questions in a manner consistent to Reagan's rhetoric about liberty and freedom is the real change that we need in our country.

UPDATE: As I watch the speech, this line blew me away:

There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.

Today, the soldiers of our nation are fighting a valiant and noble war to bring peace and freedom to new people, and thereby make America more free and safe. And yet, there are those among us who want us to lose that war, to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I agree- do we still know the gift that was given to us by our Founding Fathers?

UPDATE 2: You have to watch this speech. I'm rather young- I've never seen it. Link to it above. Check out this line:

This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

During this last election, it was about a little intellectual elite in Washington telling you how to live your life. Remember that exchange with Joe the Plumber and Barack Obama? In it, he said that he thinks it is best if he takes some of your money and redistributes it to others- and those who voted for him admit that he does know better than them how to run their lives. Have we indeed lost our capacity for self-government, as our tradition and schools fail to educate us? Have we abandoned the American Revolution, and the First Principles on which it was based? Reagan continued:

(Our Founding Fathers) knew that governments doesn't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.

Force and coercion- tyranny and oppression. Not to be Mr. Doom and Gloom, but that is what is going to follow this Democratic victory. Reagan understood the nature of the beast. Look at this line:

Well what of this man (Barry Goldwater) that they (the liberals) would destroy -- and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear?

Think about what liberals did to Sarah Palin. They attempted to personally destroy her, so that in doing so, they would destroy everything that she represented- in personally attacking her, their goal was to attack the freedoms and liberties on which our nation was based.

Here is the ending:

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny. Thank you very much.

Today let's learn about our Science Czar, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren.

As the United States of America continues its descent under President Obama and his New Democrat Party into a third-world dictatorship, I still find myself unfamiliar with the overlords who now control my behavior and distribute to me gifts and favors. Oh, I know who is elected into office, and being a teacher of this sort of stuff I understand the bureaucracy and how it works. But who the heck is John Holdren, what role does he play in our political system, how did he get that role, and what sort of a person is he to be controlling me?

It's tough to keep all these czars straight, you know, since under Obamathe number of unelected, unconfirmed offices who go by the old imperial Russian title of Czar has gone up quite a bit (although to be fair, the number of people who have been considered czars under Obama is still just under the number of people who were considered czars under Bush, a two-term President roundly criticized by both the right and left as being undemocratic and statist). Still, I'm determined to get to know all of them- from Kenneth Feinberg, Head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront and Pay Czar who although being a long-time Democratic operative and chief of staff for Democratic Senator Kennedy was put in charge of determining how much CEO's should be paid in once-free America, to Gary Samore, former US Communist party member and current WMD Policy Czar, to Ed Montgomery, auto-worker czar and distributor of gifts and favors.

It's going to be important for all of us to become more familiar with how things work in America now- after the change- we'll need to know how to curry favor with royal envoys, how to avoid being intimidated and bullied by bowing low and saying the right things, and how to bow get gifts from to our new overlords, who now tour around the land giving gifts to favored people.

So today let's get to know a little bit better our Science Czar, John Holdren. From Who Runs Gov:

Holdren is a powerhouse in the world of science and public policy. As director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST), he is the top adviser to President Barack Obama on science and technology, issues that are increasingly relevant to homeland security, energy and the environment. Holdren casts all of the above as priorities.

He also leads interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology policies and budgets, and works with the private sector, state and local governments, the science and higher education communities, and other nations to advance his policy initiatives.

Although a lot of conservatives may focus on other aspects of John Holdren- for example, in a book he published in 1977, he wrote about and appeared to be supportive of forced abortions, mass sterilization, a "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens, populations that would be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food, and other similarly frightening ideas. This research is important and should be realized, but I want to focus instead on another aspect of Holdren- his belief in a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite that will forcibly transfer wealth for some reason or another.

Holdren is a believer in the so-called Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes. This theory is that all left wing causes- including global warming, global cooling, overpopulation, endangered species, poverty, diversity, and many others- can all be solved by a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite that will force others to live their lives differently and will redistribute their property as they see fit.

Basically, Holdren is a run-of-the-mill tyranny supporter, and was appointed to his position by tyrant-in-chief President Barack Obama, and he is to be opposed by all freedom and liberty loving patriots out there.

The worst part about Holdren, aside from the fact that he seizes on the left wing cause of the day to push his tyrannical beliefs, is that his ideas and theories about everything are wrong. From Forbes:

....In keeping with his dogmatic limits-to-growth convictions, Holdren joined his frequent co-author, eco-doomster Paul Ehrlich, in a famous bet against cornucopian economist Julian Simon. In 1980, Holdren, Ehrlich and Stanford colleague John Harte picked a basket of five commodities--chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten--that they were sure were going to rise in price as they became increasingly scarce. They drew up a futures contract obligating Simon to sell Holdren, Ehrlich and Harte the same quantities of five metals that could be purchased for $1,000 10 years later at 1980 prices.

If the combined prices rose above $1,000, Simon would pay the difference. If they fell below $1,000, Ehrlich would pay Simon. Ehrlich mailed Simon a check for $576.07 in October 1990. Simply put, the combined real prices of the metals selected by Holdren and his colleagues fell by more than 50% during the 1980s, confirming cornucopian claims that the supply of resources over time becomes more abundant, not scarcer.....

...Holdren introduced in 1971--with his colleague and perennial population-alarmist, Ehrlich--the concept of the I=PAT identity. Human Impact on the environment is equal to Population x Affluence/consumption x Technology. All of which are supposed to intensify and worsen humanity's impact on the natural world.

History shows that the I=PAT identity largely gets it backward. Population is at worst neutral, while affluence and technology actually promote environmental flourishing. It is in the rich, developed countries that the air becomes clearer, the streams cleaner and the forests more expansive....

...Holdren doesn't appear to have an adequate understanding of the economic process through which these technological advances are achieved. He seems to think new technologies arise full-blown from government agencies and university laboratories....

This is the general flaw to the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes- that bureaucrats like Holdren know what they are doing and if they are given more power over others- power that those free people once exercised- and are given more resources- resources taken from the labor of once-free people- that these bureaucrats will make the world a better place for us all to live- a more prosperous, free, and happy place. It turns out though that he is wrong in almost all of his theories- from bets he placed to equations he invented to his general understanding of economics. He is a failed person- perhaps no more failed than the rest of us, but yet given more power and authority and wealth over the rest of us by a government not in any way empowered to do so.

People are not completely 'benelevent', and neither are the governments they create, and there are no 'enlightened' people in charge of our government today, either Democrat or Republican or liberal or conservative. Whatever the cause that you believe in or support, the answer is never the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes, and yet the Obama administration has appointed as Science Czar one of the greatest believers in this theory- a guy who is supposed to be a scientist actually at his heart a firm believer in a theory that is demonstratively wrong.

John Holdren is yet another example of a failed administration based on failed theories and ideas putting in placed failed administrators who implement failed policies- and we can see the results of this failure in America today.

This post was halfway written last week before I got bored with it and moved on... but it appears that my point was very relevant. My original point was that Ed Schultz, a liberal and a Democrat who supports Barack Obama, as a small man who wants to use the power of the government to control your life, liberty, and property, and demonstrates his smallness in his thoughts and actions, which are thuggish, racist, and sexist.

Last week, Ed Schultz heard the word 'food stamps,' and immediately pictured a black guy! Schultz, like many liberals and demonstrates, screams racism at everyone because in their hearts, people are divided by color and you can stereotype their personalities based on their color and (to him) the job of government is to protect the weaker/poorer/lesser people in society which (to him) are always people of color. No need for Thuggie Eddie to actually get to know people and judge them based on the quality of their character- nope, instead he sees a black guy and thinks 'food stamps', and vice-versa, whenever he hears 'food stamps' he thinks 'this is code for black people 'cause all black people are the kind of people who are all on food stamps and white people are too good for food stamps so food stamps must mean black people.' Ed Schultz is a racist.

Today I heard that Ed Schultz called a woman radio host a 'slut'. Laura Ingraham, a popular conservative radio host and author, criticized President Barack Obama for taking a trip to Ireland and enjoying a Guinness and taking in the sights and going to fancy parties while the Midwestern United States was being hit by severe weather. She felt that this was yet more evidence that Obama was out of touch with the common man.

Soon after, on his radio program (which I sometimes listen to on 1310AM when I want to hear what bizzaro world sounds like), Ed Schultz said

And what do the Republicans thinking about? They’re not thinking about their next-door neighbor. They’re just thinking about how much this is going to cost. President Obama is going to be visiting Joplin, Mo., on Sunday but you know what they’re talking about, like this right-wing slut, what’s her name?, Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she’s a talk slut. You see, she was, back in the day, praising President Reagan when he was drinking a beer overseas. But now that Obama’s doing it, they’re working him over.

Ed is a great example of liberalism- not even pretending to understand the other side, personally attacking the other side, using offensive language that puts down minorities and women and Jews and anyone outside of the ruling elite white class that he wants to empower, getting everything wrong (Ingraham wasn't even on the radio when Reagan was President), and never even failing to address Ingraham's whole point (that Obama is out of touch with the common man).

Ed Schultz is a liberal and a Democrat and supports Barack Obama and is employed by MSNBC and frequently is invited as a guest to speak at liberal events, and demonstrates through his actions just exactly what a liberal Democrat really is- people who want to use the power of the government to control your life, liberty, and property, and aggressively attack with personal and vulgar actions anyone who does not bow to their thuggish, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic demands. It isn't your father's Democratic party anymore.

Laura's books can be found here- check out The Obama Diaries or Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN are Subverting America.

A lot of people are talking about the recent cover story (not opinion piece) in Newsweek (that is supposed to cover the news), which was a one-sided all out endorsement of gay marriage called "Our Mutal Joy." This article claims that what the Bible teaches about love argues for gay marriages, not against them.

Gay marriage is an interesting topic. When I was wandering around the internet, I came across this blog, which seems to describe a good position to take on it:

As a libertarian, I was unfamiliar with why people thought the state should define marriage, much less why it should be defined in such a way as to limit it to a certain number or sex of people. And what I found is that there is an unbelievable wealth of argument in favor of traditional marriage. And most of it is based (no, not in the fevered imaginations of what Hollywood and the media elite think religious conservatives believe) but in Natural Law. In this way of thinking, society defines marriage as a sexual union between a husband and wife, based around the ideas that babies are created via intercourse, that procreation is necessary for the survival of society and that babies need fathers as well as mothers.

As the years have gone on, I've also decided that the Bible might just have some good ideas in it after all, and here is a passage from the Bible that is of interest here, found in the Gospel of Matthew:

And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

It appears to me that there are valid and honest positions expressed here- positions that many people agree with and which must be treated with respect, not mocked, as the Newsweek cover story does:

Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Let's try for a minute to take liberal positions at their word, and think about the kind of respect that they have for people who share different opinions. Is it any wonder that According to a story in Folio yesterday, Newsweek is considering slashing up its rate of publication from 2.6 million to 1.0 million, because people don't want to read liberal attacks in a general news magazine? Take a look here for more analysis on this. Just something for you to think about.

In 1999 V. K. Desai of TinyTech Plants wrote:

I have painfully observed that most of the elite class of every African country is under illusion that model of development and progress imposed on them by developed countries is correct and path of development and progress shown by developed countries is real path. So all the Governments of Africa follow the same pattern of development as Europe and U.S.A. followed. So every African country is trying to establish big industries, is trying to develop highways, cities, power stations, ports, airports and infrastructure required by giant industries...If you want homogeneous development and progress of entire society of millions of masses,you have to evolve your own economic strategy based on local self reliance at least for primary needs of people i.e. for food, cloth and shelter. Very evidently this type of local self reliance can be achieved through cottage scale family size industries based on small and simple technology...[continue reading]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Framework for Industrialization

One of the great things about teaching social studies is helping students to make connections between things that they are learning about and the world around them. In my classes, it isn't just 'economics,' 'us history,' 'world history,' or 'government'- it is how their knowledge of economics, history, or political science can help them better understand the world around them and make better choices with their lives.

For example, another teacher friend of mine just gave this article to her students and had them read it, and I think it is a great example of good teaching. Sadly, I don't teach world history this year, so I can't use it, but what this teacher did is give her students the following article and have them discuss it. The article is called U.S. Decline, Sloth Look a Lot Like End of Rome and makes connections between the end of Rome and the fall of the United States.

Is the United States falling apart like Rome? I happen to think that there are some similarities, but that since the US is exceptional and different it can still be saved, but the point is, it doesn't matter what I think- the goal of the exercise is to get students thinking and have them start realizing that it is important to learn about the fall of Rome because it may provide lessons for our nation, real lessons about what types of politicians to elect into office, what types of policies to lobby in support of, what types of ballot resolutions to vote down, or what types of investments to put their hard-earned money into. The fall of Rome teaches us, and teaches students, and we need to learn from the wisdom of the past, and once students get that, once they understand that, it opens up a whole new world to them.

U.S. Decline, Sloth Look a Lot Like End of Rome is the article that that other teacher used in her classroom- if you are a teacher, you may also want to use it, and then afterwards pose questions to your students that asks them about the history of Rome, the recent policy decisions in the US, how those might be similar or different, and if the results will be similar or different. Enjoy the fun discussion that results and watch the learning occur!

This isn't the whole thing- I recommend you read the whole thing- but here are a couple teasers from it:

Historians cite the late second century as the turning point of the Roman Empire, when the once- proud, feared society began its descent into infamy. As the ruling class was undermined by civil wars and attacks by outsiders, the Romans’ respect for law and social institutions began to erode. In the end, a combination of political and economic mistakes led to the empire’s downfall.

The U.S. today is a mirror image of the Roman Empire as it tipped into chaos. Whether we blame our bloated government, a greedy elite or a lethargic population, the similarities between the two foreshadow a gruesome future.

The Roman economy grew fat from the plunder of conquered territories and the added productivity offered by new lands. The waning of expansionism didn’t bode well for the empire.

While the U.S. ascended quite differently, it also used its position as a superpower to fuel economic expansion. Because the country had the strongest military and economy in the post-World War II era, the U.S. dollar became the de facto global reserve currency, ensuring endless competitive advantages -- which have vanished in the last decade.

Americans have become less productive while relying more on social safety-net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- and now expanded health-care insurance. Worse, like the ancient Romans, a sense of entitlement has replaced the drive and motivation we once championed. With easy access to abundant government handouts, it’s no wonder so many jobless people have stopped looking for work....