Money =/= Freedom

Kris Kristofferson once wrote that "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."

Truer words were never written. To be truly free, as any Buddhist, even Jesus Christ himself, would tell you, requires surrendering all your worldly possessions in search of your soul.

Sadly...we live in a different world. So we've created this false front: to be free takes money. The more money, the more freedom.

And believe it or not, there's some truth here, too. If you accept the rules of this game, then you need at least as much money as it takes in order to satisfy your needs. Above that, you start to get greedy, and the rules of humanity start to ebb away, as I wrote last week.

Paradoxically, then, you become less free with the more money you have. You have to pay taxes, of course, because goodness knows enough people are greedy enough that if they have one dollar and their neighbor has none, they wouldn't dare give him fifty cents or even a quarter and the country needs roads and bridges and police and firefighters and doctors and so on.

Freedom is a life lived without responsibility except those you personally accept as your own. The greedy anti-tax crowd would tell you that taxes are unacceptable, but they are the price for living in this "free" society. You accept them.

There comes a point, however, when more money can buy you a sort of freedom. It is at this point that you can buy freedom from politicians.

You see, power, like money, is not freedom. The social construct of power is that you have a duty to those over whom you exercise power, to protect them, and to look out for them.

Indeed, the great cognitive dissonance of American politicians is to reconcile taking money from the powerful and repudiating the powerless, all while trying to secure enough votes of the powerless in order to remain in power.

Last week I wrote about rational markets, about how in theory markets are effective only when everyone has equal access to information.

But look around you. This isn't happening. Right now, you're ingesting all sorts of chemical crap with your food because the USDA has not required food processors (you can't really call them anything but) to clearly label foods as genetically modified, say, or to even fully disclose when they've screwed up in packaging a product, unless it creates a public health crisis.

You'd think this doesn't matter, but when genetic modifications of food require the E. Coli bacteria to express genetic traits like herbicide resistance into crops, and there's a spike in E. Coli outbreaks...well, let's just say a bunch of Messicans didn't stop washing their hands suddenly.

And that's just one instance of what goes on under the table that you don't know about. For example, did you know the African wheat crop was being wiped out? Is it any coincidence that this is happening just as the attention of the GM folks has turned to wheat?

Wheat, corn, rice, cotton...these are all staplec crops of the American consumer.

Are we free? I'd argue not, not so long as tinkering with this basic kind of crop can go on under our noses and we are not kept apprised of it.

Cradle Of Life, Catching Fire

While you've been reading about this scuba diver getting lost at sea, or that skydiver missing his balloon, or this or that Presidential candidate making his forays into actual debate on an issue, a billion people are facing outright war.

Item 1 - Guinea soldiers seize chief over pay dispute:

The troops, who say they have been owed money for up to 12 years and protested over the same issue last year, also fired shots into the air.

The protests come the week after President Lansana Conte sacked Lansana Kouyate as prime minister.

(emphasis added)

Item 2 - Pipeline blown up in Niger delta:

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) group said in an email that it had attacked the Royal Dutch Shell pipeline in Rivers State.

The militants, who want a greater share of oil revenues for the area, said they blew up a flow station and were retreating when soldiers opened fire.

Item 3 - Mozambicans flee South Africa riots:

Mozambique's government says about 20,000 of its citizens have fled South Africa because of the wave of attacks on foreigners in the past two weeks.

In South Africa, at least 50 people have died and a further 35,000 have sought shelter because of the attacks.

In a related item...

Item 4 - Death toll climbs in South African violence:

South Africa has given fresh figures on the numbers of people killed and displaced by the wave of attacks on foreigners over the past two weeks.

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told the BBC 56 people had been killed and more than 650 injured. Previously, 50 deaths were reported.

More than 30,000 had been displaced or forced from their homes, he said.

Other organisations said this was a gross under-estimation and that at least 80,000 had been displaced.

According to South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), as many as 100,000 Africans may have been driven from their houses.

...which is related to this item...

Item 5 - Tsvangirai confident of victory:

The Movement for Democratic Change leader accused the ruling Zanu-PF party of seeking to "decimate" opposition structures ahead of the vote.

His first engagement was to visit supporters hurt in political violence.

Mr Tsvangirai's return was delayed amid an alleged army plot to kill him, which the ruling party said was "fantasy".

Just imagine if Al Gore had to flee to Mexico in 2000, to get a sense of what this story means in Southern Africa. Or for a real world example, all you have to do is contemplate the asassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Item 6 - South Sudan on the brink of war:

Clashes in Sudan's oil-rich town of Abyei could pitch the north and south of the country into civil war again, a senior official from South Sudan says.

"We are on the brink of war," Pagan Amum, secretary general of the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), told the BBC.

Up to 90,000 people have fled after a week of fighting and the disputed town is now controlled by northern soldiers.

You may better know South Sudan as Darfur...

Item 7 - ANC calls to retake the streets:

The secretary general of South Africa's governing ANC has called on party members to form local committees to combat violence against foreigners.

Gwede Mantashe says that they should work to "take the streets back from criminals", whilst giving support to the police and help to the victims.

The unrest has now spread to Cape Town, with people assaulted and shops looted.

It is roughly a thousand miles from the Zimbabwean border, the source of all these refugees that are creating such a ruckus, to Cape Town, so imagine if riots over Cuban immigrants in Miami spread all up the East Coast to Washington, DC! And the ANC is effectively claiming the South Africa government, which has been curiously quiet through it all, is inadequate for calming the population down and is suggesting vigilante actions may be necessary.

Had enough? You are free to go back to debating the merits of the two Davids from American Idol. This has been your moment of waarheid

Focus On The Cradle

It seems silly to think that, in this time of minor turbulence here in America, as two perfectly qualified people duke it out for the chance to run against another perfectly qualified man for the most powerful office in the nation, if no longer the world, we forget there's a far larger and more complex world out there.

Case in point: Zimbabwe. In what could be a preview of our own November, Zimbabwe's recent election results indicated that a thuggish regime, that of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, lost its hold on parliament to the Movement For A Democratic Change.

Mugabe would not be much of a thug if he just accepted those results and turned the reins of power over (which is where comparisons to America pop up, by the way). Further, preliminary results seem to indicate, altho there is no official word, that Mugabe himself has been voted out of the office of president.

A recount was called for, in due course, if only for appearances sake, the electoral commission agreed to do so. So far, 190-odd elections have been officially recounted and 190-odd results remain unchanged.

Now, if this was just a simple election dispute, no problem, right? After all, in the grand scheme of things, Zimbabwe is another landlocked country, borderded by South Africa (which to its credit has taken the lead in beating the drum for international attention), Boswana, Mozambique, and Zambia.

The story does have some intriguing aspects to it, not least of which is an unexpected wedge: China.

Angola's government has authorised a Chinese ship carrying arms destined for Zimbabwe to dock, although it says it will not be allowed to unload weapons.

In a statement, the government said the vessel would only be allowed to deliver goods intended for Angola.

On Thursday, the Chinese authorities said they would recall the ship to China after port workers in South Africa refused to unload the weapons.

Other southern African countries had also refused to allow the ship to dock.

Leaders in the region had expressed concern that the weapons could heighten tensions in Zimbabwe.

Basically, this ship swung around the South African cape, looking for a place to dock like a drunken sailor looking for an open bathroom.

Angola is China's second largest oil provider.

You can do the math, I assume. There's no way those weapons aren't being off-loaded in Angola. And yes, war is not out of the question. We are talking about Mugabe here...

Africa is a rich oil producing region, in particular Nigeria (as you probably know), but it seems the western coast of the continent has fairly robust oil reserves: Angola, Ghana, the DR Congo, all have discovered some oil reserves that they are hurrying to exploit.

Naturally, China has seized an opportunity that we in our infinite stupidity, declined to pursue.

Because, you know, it's all about the Sauds.

In What Universe Was This, Again?

As you may know, or not, depending on how wrapped up you've been in the election, President Dumbya is in Africa. You may even recall that, back in 2002, Bush made note in his State of The Union address that America would increase its aid to Africa because, as he stated at an international summit later that year, "We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror."

In fairness to Bush, he did increase aid substantially to Africa. The trouble is, as measured against GDP, US aid was still lagging far behind nations around the globe.

Too, much of that aid was tied into two evil underpinnings: first, that sexual abstinence be the main way of preventing AIDS (enforced by the insistence that no money go to organizations that were working with the sex trade workers) and second, that African nations tighten their patent laws, so that big pharma companies would have more protections and could charge higher prices for their drugs.

And yet, he had the nerve to say this to the BBC:

"I've got a firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa and have ever since I became president," Mr Bush said.

It is to laugh. Given his lack of commitment exhibited to any person of color who hasn't either married into or been adopted by his family, one has to ponder the possibility that Bush is utterly ignorant of what "commitment" truly means.

Africa is in dire straits, Mr. President. It is in dire need of food, medicine, shelter. It is mostly in dire need of water, not just for drinking, but for irrigation.

Most of all, sir, Africa is in dire need of security. Just a quick perusal of the headlines today will demonstrate this:

Kenyan militia strike back

Uganda peace talks to resume

Intervene in Nigeria, Bush urged

UN troops 'trapped' in Eritrea

Chad declares state of emergency

And that's not even counting the continuing tragedy in Darfur and the Sudan. Sure, malaria is an huge problem in Africa, but what moron would try to control nature when men themselves cannot be controlled with the current attitude of world leaders, one of willful ignorance?

"Freedom" is just another word for these people, Mr. Bush, and you had an opportunity in the wake of September 11 to do real good in the world, to make America a truly shining beacon of hope and democracy, of security and independence.

Instead, you bullied the world and your own people onto the edge of a cliff.

And So It Goes

While we all struggle to come to grips with the twin news stories of the economy and the election, it's easy to lose track of stories that will affect our news in years to come:

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Chadian rebels seeking to overthrow President Idriss Deby battled their way into the capital N'Djamena on Saturday and fought government troops around the presidential palace, diplomats and residents said.

The sound of machine gun and heavy weapons fire could be heard in the capital as foreign embassies advised their citizens to stay in doors and take cover. Fighting was reported to be taking place around the presidential palace and the parliament.

"I can confirm they (the rebels) are in the city," a foreign diplomat told Reuters. The situation was confused and mobile phone networks were not working.

"Rebels are headed for the palace and are about two blocks from here. The rebels are winning," one foreign resident said in an email sent from the compound of a western embassy in N'Djamena, adding she could hear tank and mortar fire.

OK, it's, you know, Chad! What's that got to do with the price of eggs?

Well, nothing today, but...

Chad says the rebels, who advanced rapidly this week across the country from the eastern border with Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, are armed and backed by the Sudanese government. Khartoum routinely denies such accusations.

Now, scroll back, say, twelve years and substitute Afghanistan for Chad.

That's the kind of trouble this could conceivably foment for us. The Darfur region of the Sudan is beset by Arab Islamist fundamentalists (the Janjaweed) who are attempting to drive out the ethnic Africans.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see what happens next: Al Qaeda and its wealthy patricians ask for and are granted asylum in Darfur, Chad and neighboring regions as the Janjaweed press their "influence" outward, backed by the Sudanese government, possibly cutting a deal with Qaddaffi as well.

This would give Al Qaeda a base of operations within striking distance of Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, and yes, Israel. Iran and Syria on one side. Al Qaeda supported by Sudan on the other, and then the fist closes on the Middle East.

Where's the uproar from the rabidly anti-Islamist right in this country? Where are the more Zionist neo-cons like Pamela "Atl-ass" Geller, always screeching about Israel's security, yet never saying word one about how we have squandered our military and financial resources fighting a war against people who once looked to us as an example of what it means to be free? Where's the "you're either with us or with the terrorists" bravado of 2002?

We on the left have been screaming about the tragedy of Darfur, yet here's a strategic as well as humanitarian crisis, and all this administration can do is embarrassedly clear their throats and mutter vague words of support for some nebulous United Nations attempt at putting a band-aid on a fracture.

Truly, "and so it goes.." until it is gone and too late.

Number One With A Bullet

Less than a week ago, I posted what I felt would be the ten most important stories of 2008.

The trials of sub-Saharan Africa were at the head of my list, not intentionally (there really was no order involved), but it was frontmost on my mind as the crisis in Kenya unfolded.

Well, it looks like I may have stumbled into being right, for once:

1) Kenya's dubious election - Kenya's opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) claims that last month's election was rigged in favour of President Mwai Kibaki.

2) A related story: Kenyan leader names new cabinet - Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki has named his new cabinet, hours before Ghana's leader was due to arrive as part of mediation efforts over disputed polls. (This is not a good thing. Kibaki is basically saying, "Screw the mediation. I'm taking the reins!")

3) Still more: Odinga says Obama is his cousin - Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has said he is a cousin of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama. (This could impact how the State Department handles the mediation going forward, if at all.)

4) Let's move onto other African countries now: Teenager prevents assassination of Maldives president - The Maldives president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, survived an assassination attempt today when a teenage boy grabbed the knife of an attacker who jumped out of a crowd of people greeting the president, a government spokesman said. (Islamist militants have been accused, and are also accused of setting off a bomb in Male in September that wounded 12 tourists.)

5) Two Libyans released in Somalia - Two Libyan diplomats have been released in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, after being briefly abducted by gunmen.

6) Staying with Somalia: Sick Somali president in London - Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf is being treated in a London hospital after he collapsed last week. (It's unclear if he's critically ill or not, altho rushing him to London from Africa is indicative of severity. Yusuf was installed by Ethiopian forces and as is evident from the first story, it was not an overwhelmingly popular choice.)

7) Turning now to South Africa: ANC behind Zuma for SA president - South Africa's ruling African National Congress has confirmed that its newly elected leader Jacob Zuma will be the party's presidential candidate in 2009. (This, despite the fact that prosecutors have indicted him on corruption charges in an arms deal with "old Europe.")

8) And finally, Mauritania: Arrests over Mauritania killings - Mauritania's authorities say they have arrested nine people in connection with the shooting of four French tourists last month. (Once more, an African group allegedly related to Al Qaeda has been blamed)

Not a pretty picture for this troubled continent.

The Great Rift Valley

You may or may not have noted the elections in Kenya over the weekend. The election run up was about as nasty as the Iowa caucus previews, perhaps even more so. The aftermath has been nothing but horrid.

The incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, won a vote that's been hotly contested by his rival, Raila Odinga, who accused Kibaki of vote fraud and vote suppression:

NAIROBI (Reuters) - President Mwai Kibaki's government accused rival Raila Odinga's party of unleashing "genocide" in Kenya on Wednesday as the death toll from tribal violence over a disputed election passed 300.

"It is becoming clear that these well-organized acts of genocide and ethnic-cleansing were well-planned, financed and rehearsed by Orange Democratic Movement leaders prior to the general elections," the statement read by Lands Minister Kivutha Kibwana on behalf of his colleagues said.

ODM had no immediate reaction to the accusation. Odinga's supporters, drawn mainly from his Luo tribe, have blamed the violence on Kibaki for "stealing" the December 27 presidential vote. Many clashes have pitted the Luo against Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.

First irony: The US initially supported Kibaki's re-election.

The second irony:

"There are independent reports of serious irregularities in the counting process," said British Foreign Minister David Miliband and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a joint statement. They called for an end to violence and "an intensive political and legal process" to end the crisis.

(emphasis added)

Ahem.

This election has implications that go far beyond the borders of Kenya, a country right smack in the middle of some of the most contentious real estate in the world, bordered by Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Kenya has been a stable democratic regime since 1963 (when it declared independence from England), and until global warming hit the country with a severe drought in 2000, was a beacon economic engine in Africa, despite severe governmental corruption.

Now, however, the only real growth industries are as transit points for sex slaves and heroin.

Moreover, there are other democratic elections coming up in the next 18 months is less stable places like Angola, Ghana and Malawi, places that aren't as sophisticated as Kenya, and more prone to turmoil and trouble.

Kenya seems to be at an impasse: Kibaki has offered to negotiate a settlement with Odinga, but Odinga insists that Kibaki give up his Presidency before any talks can commence.

Meanwhile, the blood spills.

African Idiot

Quietly, almost unnoticed in America save for the occasion commercial about Darfur, Africa is slipping away. Despite Dumbya's assertions that Africa wll live "in liberty, peace, and growing prosperity," it doesn't look promising:

By my count, that's three wars (four if you count the nascent violence in Sierra Leone), economies in shambles in the DR Congo, Nigeria, and Somalia, and the prince who might ride in and save the continent is...Muammar Ghaddafi?!?!?!?!?

Heck of a job, Bushie!

In fairness, Ghaddafi, when oil prices have been firm, has been generous to his African neighbors and now that oil is reaching record prices, I'm sure he sees an opportunity to engage in a little economic hegemony of his own.

The Bush administration was so desperate for any good news in the wake of September 11 and the bungled Iraq invasion that it embraced Ghaddafi's offer to surrender his weapons programs to inspectors, a move he had originally committed to under the Clinton administration, which rightly laughed at the offer. Ghaddafi? WMDs?

Ghaddafi had a strategy, of course: Al Qaeda would eventually target Libya and Ghaddafi himself, so by ingratiating with the US, he could ask for military assistance. And of course, the Bushies were forced to embrace it, even if it made but a ripple in the news.

And it turned out that Ghaddafi did have a (very) small scale weapons program going on, mostly chemical and biological, but an embryonic attempt to develop nukes was in the works. Whether he would have seriously pursued these, or if this all was an elaborate shell game to try to wring some concessions from the West in terms of sanctions, we may never know. He did, however, get the concessions. But not the lifting of sanctions, since he had threatened to kill anyone who wanted regime change, shortly after the US offered to lift the sanctions for basically, errrr, just that.

Ghaddafi had tried to unify OPEC and the Arab world behind him, and failed (and then oil tanked). He'd have more success in Africa, to be sure.

Add to Africa's manmade struggles the growing environmental crises: extreme drought in Darfur and Nigeria caused by global warming, as well as flooding in DR Congo...put it this way: when the good news of an entire continent can be summed up with a story about a rugby team defeating an English side in a preliminary tournament game, you have a deeply troubled continent.

How A Former President Should Act

How much you wanna bet we'd never read a story like this about any former President named "Bush"?

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton launched a program on Sunday to make subsidized malaria drugs available in Tanzania in a test scheme that could serve as a blueprint for Africa as a whole.

The project will make life-saving ACT drugs available at 90 percent less than the current market price to a national drug wholesaler, which will then distribute them to rural shops.

Malaria, caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes, kills up to 3 million people a year worldwide and makes 300 million seriously ill. Ninety percent of deaths are in Africa south of the Sahara, mostly among young children.

Many of those lives could be saved with modern artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drugs, which are far more effective than older treatments such as chloroquine. But a price of up to $8 to $10 per treatment puts them out of reach for many people.

Lest you think this is your run-of-the-mill project, let's take a look at malaria in Africa:

This year malaria will strike up to a half billion people. At least a million will die, most of them under age five, the vast majority living in Africa.[...]

Four species of malaria parasites routinely infect humans; the most virulent, by far, is Plasmodium falciparum. About half of all malaria cases worldwide are caused by falciparum, and 95 percent of the deaths. It's the only form of malaria that can attack the brain. And it can do so with extreme speed—few infectious agents can overwhelm the body as swiftly as falciparum. An African youth can be happily playing soccer in the morning and dead of falciparum malaria that night.

Falciparum is a major reason nearly 20 percent of all Zambian babies do not live to see their fifth birthday. Older children and adults, too, catch the disease—pregnant women are especially prone—but most have developed just enough immunity to fight the parasites to a stalemate, though untreated malaria can persist for years, the fevers fading in and out. There are times when it seems that everyone in Zambia is debilitated to some degree by malaria; many have had it a dozen or more times. No surprise that the nation remains one of the poorest in the world: A country's economic health has little chance of improving until its physical health is revitalized.

Pretty important stuff, to be sure. And it's not like the countries of Africa aren't trying to fight back, but between malaria and AIDS, they run out of resources awfully fast, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in private aid as well as billions in foreign aid.

Now, Big Dog stood in a field outside Dar-Es-Salaam to make this announcement yesterday, pointedly reminding the world of two things: one, that Al Qaeda had destoryed the US embassy there on his watch, yet he felt safe enough to show up in person, and two, that President Bush couldn't even be bothered to slog through the swamps created after hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Or as Kanye West put it, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

There's a foreign policy point to be made here, as well. In the vacuum created by the twin monstrosities o f AIDS and malaria in Africa, the single most Muslim continent on the planet, we could go a long way to engendering both Muslim good will and the world's respect by focusing much more of our resources on solving malaria. George Bush may not care about black people, but America does.

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