A quote for the Premier

October 5, 2005

Dear Sir,

Please allow me to quote some more Shakespeare to the Premier ? ?Methinks he doth protest too much?.

Tired of non-performance

October 5, 2005

Dear Sir,

Last week?s Mid-Ocean News? article entitled ?I?m tired of taking crap from people who look and sound like him? turned my stomach. And now the Premier comes back swinging blasting the media and Brannon for disrespect. He then says that the Throne Speech would contain ?a major initiative to address initiatives that seek to divide us?. What is that? You mean curtail free speech ... Mr. Premier? Do you? Now that would bring me right out to the Cabinet steps with my placards.

To your dilemma, Mr. Premier, the people are sick and tired of the way your government is performing, you know the issues, unfinished capital projects, promises of 300 houses, Bermuda Housing Corporation, credit card abuse, travel, big cars, not listening,etc.

For instance here is an example of your Government not listening, last week two elite bodies connected with the offshore community, came out and almost pleaded with the Government to turn off the independence chatter. Did your Government listen? No, they came out with their best talking heads, Scott Simmons and Walter Roban, advocating that there needs to be more dialogue and then the offshore community might understand the report if they read it again. Who are they going to dialogue with? Mr. Premier, you said the job of the BIC is finished. So do they dialogue with the Government whose minds are about as hard as Cemex concrete?

How much more of this are we going to put up with, Bermuda? For instance, not disputing the fact that the Cuban education system is one of the world?s best, we learned last week that Roosevelt Brown has arrange for eight Bermudians to train in Cuba, albeit at no cost. Next year it will be 16 going to Cuba, then 32 and before long, the Michael Manley model will be firmly in place as we hurtle toward Independence whether we like it or not. Not far away will be a Bermudian dollar at a mere three cents as the new red flag is raised on the cabinet office pole.

How about the little whitewash over the comment about the BIC made about not being able to find an example of referenda as a means of deciding a country?s desire to go or not go independent. Wait for it. The talking heads? answer was ?it was not in their remit?. Give me a break! Why did he, the man, bring it up then?

How much more are we going to take, Bermuda? Is it race, you bet your last dollar (soon to be your last three cents) it is , a race to get him out of there before our little country is just a big offshore bedroom for people who don?t look like him, if they decide to hang around for the insults. And Bermuda, the silence, in the words of Harry Viera and Tim Hodgson, is deafening.

Are we still victims?

October 4, 2005

Dear Sir,

It has been said that black people cannot be racist!

Having heard this statement, I wondered that those who say that must, a) either be living on an island by themselves, b) be living blind and uninformed, or c) be ignorant to what the term ?racist? means and even to what it means to be racist.

Could they be unconsciously or consciously racist? Can their possible support of the discriminatory decisions and actions made by their ?employer? be considered racial actions? Can their failure to speak up be considered racist? Are they racists? Does the statement support institutional racism and discrimination?

In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the nations of the world. 57 years later that document continues to be the benchmark, a universal and timeless prescript, and as the Universal Declaration itself states, ?a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations? for all time. The Universal Declaration states that abiding by universal norms of human rights is not just so that we may feel good or out of fear of some moral policeman. Human rights are a matter of enlightened self-interest because ?recognition of the inherent dignity, and of the unequal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world??

Disregard and contempt for human rights, the Declaration continues, poses a threat to world peace and security and undermines the prosperity to which all humanity aspires.

It has been argued that those who point to the persistence of racism in our country are themselves racist. Those who propagate affirmative action are accused of seeking to introduce reverse racism, or, more directly, of resort to anti-white racism.

As we search for self-identity and seek Independence and hope to build up pride in a culture that was not emasculated under a UBP government, where do we look? Should we be receptive to the political ideas expressed by many black intellectuals and politicians who learned to use the sheer emotional power of the message of black consciousness with bitter assertiveness? Should we allow them to use their message to benefit themselves financially and enrich their own lives, despite a Social Agenda.

Will white people meet us halfway to take us just as far?

We are a much broader group of socially unorganised people, angry and impatient for meaningful action. We just watch the new black and old white bourgeoisie. Are we still victims, despite having someone that looks like us, as heads of Government and local institutions?

Who do we turn to??

Neo-liberalism on trial

October 4, 2005

Dear Sir,

I hope you will allow me to reply to citizen Lusher?s letter, ?Historical Clarifications?. The main points of his letter were; was the Soviet command economy was a success or not; whether Stalinism was a form of fascism; whether fascism and war-socialism were one and the same; and commenting on my ?pessimistic world-view of the innate decadence of the capitalist system?.

1) The success of economic planning was proved in the of Soviet industrialisation. In the span of a decade a ?backward? state, despite severe losses in a world war, a serious civil war, successive waves of foreign invasions and economic isolation, Soviet Russia had not only reached its pre-1914 conditions, but had greatly surpassed them and become a major world power. It was as if Africa today, war, famine and disease ravished, were to break free from its economic shackles and become a rival to the USA and China within a decade. Soviet Russia had its problems, but they weren?t in the sphere of economic planning.

2) Stalinism was a form of fascism in that it was based on a middle-class counter-revolution. It was, as Lusher says, ?strongly nationalist, violently anti-communist and anti-Marxist.? This is clearly seen in Stalin?s ?socialism in one country? theory (national socialism), and in the liquidation of the Left Opposition and the repression of Soviet democracy. A river of blood separated the workers democracy of Lenin and Trotsky from the nightmare of Stalinism. Only superficially did the germ of democracy and human equality remain in the rhetoric of Stalinist Russia ? in substance it differed little from Hitler?s Germany.

3) It is impossible to have fascism without war-socialism, but it is possible to have war-socialism without fascism. This needs no further proof than a look at Second World War history. Britain came close to occupation, but was only saved this fate through its war-socialism and the opening of the Eastern front.

4) A pessimistic worldview of capitalism? I see the ?bloody and invisible hand? (Macbeth 3:2) of capitalism manifest itself daily in social and ecological destruction. I see global warming, rising sea levels, global ecological instability, global epidemics fuelled by poverty and habitat destruction, and more frequent and powerful hurricanes. I see uninterrupted, now hidden, now open imperialist wars for resources (think Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir, Chechnya, Xinjiang, Western Sahara, Latin America). I see the absurdity of Africa growing and exporting cash crops for the West while its people starve and Westerners gorge. I see the gap between poor and rich countries growing from 3:1 in 1820 to 35:1 in 1950 and 74:1 in 2005. I see the 2005 UN Human Development Report tell me that global poverty has accelerated in the past 15 years. I see Forbes release a list of absurd fortunes while the ghettos and reservations sink deeper into poverty, and the news speaks of layoffs and wage decreases. I see half empty mansions in Tuckers Town and Fairylands while the poor compete for overcrowded shelter in overcrowded neighbourhoods. I see the growing commodification of women in an ever-growing global sex trade. I see the katastroika of post-Soviet Russia. I see television manufacturing ghettos of the mind rather than enhancing human culture. I see a Judas of a party leadership that is increasingly a committee for managing the common affairs of the rich, itself included. It is seduced by the siren song of short-term profit and steers us to the rocks. I see New Orleans and I see Baghdad. It is not a question of good or bad capitalism, the system cannot be reformed, it must be replaced, the sooner the better. I do not believe this is the best possible of all possible worlds, but I believe that while there?s life there?s hope, and a better world is possible.

A cooperative, democratic, ecological and egalitarian social order is not only possible, it is an absolute necessity. It is time for a new course away from the rocks. It is time to win the battle for democracy within the party and society. It is time to ?Get up, Stand up?.