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Book by John Maxwell
How to Make Our Own News: A Primer for Environmentalist and Journalists
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Re-inventing
Jamaica
By John Maxwell
Dr Wesley
Hughes, head of
Jamaica’s
economic unit,
says the country
must brace for
more economic
storms—several
years of
economic decline
“heightened by
the onslaught of
the global
financial
crisis.”
Dr Hughes says
Jamaica is now
experiencing the
outer bands of
the global
financial storm
and he warned
Jamaicans to
batten down for
the gale-force
winds.
I believe we
should be
battening down
for extreme
hurricane force
winds, forces so
extreme and
severe that most
of us will not
recognise
Jamaica in five
years.
Lots of people
ignored the
warnings for
hurricane
Charlie in 1951.
One week later,
with 200 people
dead and
thousands of
houses and farms
destroyed,
another storm
was rumoured to
be gathering
strength
somewhere off
Antigua. That
time Jamaica
was a cacophony
of hammering and
sawing as
Jamaicans did
what they should
have done for
“Charlie.”
Fortunately,
Hurricane ‘Dog’
was never a
threat and
disintegrated a
few days later
about 400 miles
southwest of
Jamaica.
Some of us have
been warning of
the approach of
the
Globalisation
hurricane for a
long time.
In a column just
a year ago (“Trouble
Don’t Set Like
Rain”) I
suggested that
we had finally
run out of time
to fix or to
start fixing
Jamaica:
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If
we
didn’t
know
it
before,
we
are
now
at
the
time
when
our
development
must
be
sustainable
in
the
protection
of
everything
we
value
and
all
of
the
people
of
this
once
and
future
blessed
isle.
We
need
to
understand
the
need
to
begin
eradicating
poverty
and
developing
a
survival
Agenda—fifteen
years
late—for
the
21st
century.
Even
so,
better
late
than
total
catastrophe. |
I believe
Jamaicans should
be more than a
little alarmed
by the
government’s
announced
reactions to the
worldwide
crisis. Alone in
the world we
seem to believe
that nothing
needs to be
changed. When I
say ‘alone in
the world’, I
am forgetting
the Republican
party of the
United States
which seems to
believe that
there s nothing
a tax cut can’t
cure. The
problem, as our
government is on
the point of
finding out, is
that tax cuts
don’t matter to
those who don’t
pay taxes and
those are
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a–
The
poor
b–The
rich
All
those
in
between
will
see
their
taxable
incomes
evaporate
anyway.
In
Jamaica
we
are
staring
at
disaster.
Sugar
is
dead.
Bauxite
and
Alumina
are
dead
Air
Jamaica
is
on
its
last
legs.
We
can’t
outsource
our
miseries
any
more.
No
one
wants
to
buy
depleted
sugar
land.
No
one
wants
to
buy
Air
Jamaica
at
any
reasonable
price.
What
to
we
do
next? |
Regaining our
sovereignty
The government
is clearly
averse to doing
anything that
might even
appear to
discommode the
rich. Our public
debt is the
single most
dangerous
millstone around
our necks and
since most of it
is owned by rich
Jamaicans it is
inevitable that
they must be at
least, somewhat
incommoded.
While our
production is
sinking fast,
three quarters
of whatever we
produce in the
way of
government
revenue is
headed straight
into the pockets
of our
creditors.
According to
Nouriel
Roubini’s Global
Economic
Monitor, things
are different in
some places. In
Argentina, where
the whole
society has
already had a
dress rehearsal
for economic
disaster, “the
government has
announced that
97% of the
domestic
investors,
holding $4.3
billion in
"guaranteed
loan" bonds
maturing over
the next two
years, have
agreed to swap
these
instruments for
new debt (Bonar
bonds with a
maturity date of
2014). The swap
will save
Argentina around
$1 billion in
the short term,
making it easier
for Buenos Aires
to finance the
roughly $20
billion in debt
repayments due
in 2009.”
The Argentines
understand that
while they may
not be as rich
as they once
were, it may be
a good idea to
have a country
they can call
home. Our
Jamaican
plutocrats need
to learn this.
Of course, some
Jamaicans
believe that
real life is
possible in the
Cayman Islands—where
their bank
accounts are.
They may not yet
be aware that
the British
government in
concert with the
Germans and
other Europeans,
are going
looking for tax
havens and the
other places
where national
revenues and
other ill gotten
gains find
discreet houses
of
accommodation.
The essentially
criminal
mismanagement
of the
international
capitalist
financial system
is being exposed
around the
world, as
journalists and
others find
their tongues
and their
courage.
Gangsta
Capitalism
There are others
who have spoken
out before but
have not been
heeded. One such
is the Professor
of Accounting at
Essex
University,
Prem Sikka,
who has been
taking his
profession to
task in a series
of hard hitting,
no-holds-barred
articles in the
Guardian.
He asks the
kinds of
questions big
name journalists
should be asking
about the
conduct of the
world’s
expensive and
multinational
audit firms.
In a column last
October Sikka
said:
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The
deepening
financial
crisis
brings
daily
news
of
corporate
collapses
and
bailouts
that
plunder
the
taxpayers'
pockets
at
an
unprecedented
scale.
Innocent
people
are
losing
jobs,
homes,
pensions
and
investments.
Each
collapse
shows
that
highly
paid
directors
had
little
idea
of
the
value
of
company
assets,
liabilities,
income,
costs,
profits
and
financial
health.
This
has
been
accompanied
by
one
constant
factor:
the
silence
of
the
auditors.
Auditors
collected
large
amounts
in
fees
and
dished
out
clean
bills
of
health.
As
he
pointed
out
in
another
column,
“within
a
short
period
of
receiving
clean
bills
of
health
Bear
Stearns,
Carlyle
Capital
Corporation
and
Thornburg
Mortgage
hit
the
financial
buffers,
closely
followed
by
Lehman
Brothers. |
Professor Sikka
is one of not
very many asking
these questions,
which lie at the
heart of the rot
in the free
market system.
To overlook
Lehman’s
exposure to
toxic
derivatives—nearly
$700 billion
(with a b)—is
to overlook the
equivalent of
the combined
GDPs of Greece
and South
Africa.
How can anyone
take any of
these bozos
seriously?
The same
questions need
to be asked of
those most
exquisite
tastemakers in
the valuation
and assessment
of risk, the
ratings
agencies, who
can wake up one
morning and
defeat a
political
movement in
Jamaica or
perhaps, Peru,
by changing the
rating of their
sovereign bonds.
I have for long
railed against
these nutters,
who consistently
rate our
sovereign debt
below American
sub-prime
mortgages.
People do not
understand that
it is normally
faceless
malefactors like
these who
produce famines,
panics and
civil war,
hundreds and
thousands die
and millions are
uprooted because
some ‘country
specialist’ is
dissatisfied
with her
boyfriend’s
performance the
night before the
ratings are
decided.
Twelve years ago
in a column in
this paper I
quoted an
observation by
the billionaire
George Soros, an
observation I
thought
self-evident.
|
In
the
absence
of
equilibrium,
the
contention
that
free
markets
lead
to
the
optimum
allocation
of
resources
loses
its
justification.
The
supposedly
scientific
theory
that
has
been
used
to
validate
it
turns
out
to
be
an
axiomatic
structure
whose
conclusions
are
contained
in
its
assumptions
and
are
not
necessarily
supported
by
the
empirical
evidence.
The
resemblance
to
Marxism,
which
also
claimed
scientific
status
for
its
tenets,
is
too
close
for
comfort. |
It doesn’t worry
me that my
prognostications
are not taken
seriously. If
people like
George Soros and
Warren Buffet
are not taken
seriously, who
am I to cavil at
my
insignificance?
The point I want
to make is that
we urgently need
to slaughter a
few sacred cows,
because if we
don’t, they will
cause even more
damage than they
already have.
Ideology
Negotiable
Thirty years of
World Bank/IMF
indoctrination
have produced a
Jamaica
committed to
fundamentalist
capitalism,
where concepts
of social
justice are even
more primitive
than in the
southern United
States and its
GOP. It is
amusing at
first, then
peculiarly
nauseating to
read an analysis
in the Los
Angeles Times
which equates
the Obama
Administration’s
attempt to
rescue the
American economy
with the return
of “Big
Government’.
This is the same
lunacy which got
all of us into
the present
mess:
Reagan says
“Government is
not the answer,
Government is
the Problem.”
The even more
witless Thatcher
says—’There
is no such thing
as society’, and
the patron saint
of Friedmanism,
Alan Greenspan,
slept with Ayn
Rand texts by
his bedside—while
the world
economy went up
in pipe-dreams
of unimaginable
wealth and ease.
Out of this
farrago of
idiocy has come
the whole
derivatives
scandal, the
sub-prime
mortgage bubble
and the idea
that if money is
to be printed it
is best printed
by the likes of
Goldman Sachs,
the Royal Bank
of Scotland and
Bernard Madoff.
We have to burn
down these
temples of
Moloch and
return to our
humanity.
In Cuba last
week the
government
handed over
45,000 parcels
of unused land
to private
farmers, not
because agrarian
reform had
failed, but
because it had
not worked as
well as it
should have.
There is a place
in every sector
for private
enterprise. What
we cannot allow
houseroom to is
exploitative,
drive-by
capitalism which
reduces people
to serfdom and
values them by
their ‘economic
competitiveness’.
That’s why I
fault the
Jamaican
government for
two of its most
recent
decisions: the
not to increase
the minimum wage
and the refusal
to legalise the
right to strike.
If we are to
create a Jamaica
in which we can
all live,
prosper, be safe
and happy, we
need to realise
that if we are
not partners we
are either dead
or living in
prison.
Two year ago and
again last year,
I suggested that
our political
parties need to
come together,
not to surrender
but to lead
Jamaica to
victory over its
real enemy,
poverty/injustice.
Reading about
how a Philippine
community
rescued itself
by farming
seaweed I
thought how
easy it would be
to do the same
in Jamaica if we
were willing to
give up some of
our cherished
ignorance. In
four years from
a standing start
the Filipinos
had an industry
exporting more
than US $30
million
annually.
If we put our
sugar lands to
work we can—using
purely organic
methods—restore
their fertility
while producing
food and
slashing our
foreign exchange
deficit. In
Florida, an area
the size of
Monymusk
produces citrus
worth $60
million
annually. If we
understand that
we cannot
produce any
commodity to
satisfy global
demand, but that
we can produce
star-apples, or
honey, or mamey,
or sarsaparilla
or pepper, or
turmeric in
quantities which
we can easily
market to other
small
enterprisers, we
can be well on
our way in five
years to
transforming
this country,
putting every
child in school
and reducing the
crime rate to
insignificant
proportions.
We need to look
inside Jamaica,
to our history
and culture
which prove that
we can do these
things, We have
done some
before. Because
of wartime
shortages we
planted corn and
grew enough to
feed ourselves
and to export.
In 1919 the
Jamaica
Government
Railway brought
50 tons of
Jamaican butter
from the
countryside into
Kingston
markets.
We need to set
people free from
their
mass-production
slavery and
their
mass-production
education and
fundamentalist
superstition and
ignorance.
As I said nine
months ago, “the
thousands of
young Goldman
Sachs traders
are mostly
unconscious of
the fact that
their
million-dollar
bonuses mean the
destruction of
whole
communities and
the transition
of many of their
fellows from
citizens to
prostitutes and
jailbirds. The
hedge fund
managers who
have cornered
the market in
rice, corn and
ethanol may
claim not to be
aware that they
also own much of
the market in
hunger,
starvation,
misery and
death”.
We, who bought
into this
nonsense more
heavily than
most, have a
duty to
ourselves and
our neighbours
to achieve a
second, real
emancipation.
The time is now.
Seize the day.
We can and must
make our country
work.
We have
absolutely no
choice.
Copyright ©2009
John Maxwell
jankunnu@gmail.com
posted 7
February 2009
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
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Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
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Negro Digest /
Black World
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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