Reply #16: Totally different thng going on here

[Cal Carpenter]

That electrification was done by the federal gov't, right? Or more local than that? It didn't result in immediate, major changes to the environment and other conditions immediately resulting in hundreds of thousands being displaced, did it?

It certainly wasn't done by the most powerful financial institutions in the world. These banks we're talking about, these aren't banks that give loans to people, or to companies. These are banks that provide immense loans to entire nations with an incredible number of strings attached and generations of debt. The people of Ethiopia (insert dozens of other country names here) aren't asking for that kind of loan, no. Many of these countries are run by dictators or corrupt RW governments. Many of those governments are only in power because western powers backed them through coups, rigged elections, suppressing the population with military or private contractor's might. Where do you think DynCorp and Bechtel and Blackwater work (work meaning kill, rape, injure, imprison)? Who pays them to do so?

What we call 'spreading democracy' and 'development' is really not what we think it is. And it's not about political parties, or the US in particular. Most of the western world supports this stuff politically, economically, militarily.. Their/Our own economies and standards of living ultimately depend on it, no matter how removed we may feel we are.

So many people claim to know that what we hear and see is propaganda, but they refuse to look at how it effects their thinking and worldview. Knowing that it is propaganda is simply not enough. We have to forget much of what we think we know. These incredibly powerful people and institutions and corporations have shaped the worldview we see here. They have shaped the definitions of abstract concepts, words like development and freedom and democracy, to mean something totally different.

So back to the point, XemaSab - sure it'll be great if those grandkids don't have to 'go barefoot and get ringworm'. But in countries where the World Bank etc operate the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Desperately poorer. Those grandkids are not only going to keep getting ringworm, they are going to live in a nation that is saddled by enormous, insurmountable debt, and their livelihoods will rely completely on the global economic system that essentially owns them.

Btw, I don't quite understand your riddle about bare feet and electrification, but I think I addressed your point.