Friday, April 17, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/04/17/399604918/deaths-of-unarmed-black-men-revive-anti-lynching-plays

Deaths Of Unarmed Black Men Revive 'Anti-Lynching Plays'
Hansi Lo Wang
APRIL 17, 2015

Photograph – Lauren Lattimore (left), Wi-Moto Nyoka, Edmund Alyn Jones and Courtney Harge rehearse a scene from Blue-Eyed Black Boy, a play about lynching that was written around 1930.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

An obscure but riveting genre of theater is being revived in New York City.

They're called "anti-lynching plays." Most were written during the early 1900s by black playwrights to show how lynchings devastated African-American families.

Inspired by the recent deaths of unarmed black men by police, a theater company in Brooklyn, N.Y., is staging aseries of new readings of these plays, including Georgia Douglas Johnson's Blue-Eyed Black Boy.

"It's not a play where we reenact a lynching. The focus is not the gory details," says Wi-Moto Nyoka, an actress featured in the readings. "This is a human take on our shared history."

Lynchings were a common part of Southern life when these one-act plays were written. Magazines for the black community often published them so they could be performed in churches and schools or read aloud in homes, according to Koritha Mitchell, an English literature professor at Ohio State University who wrote about the plays in Living with Lynching.

"These plays were interested in saying, 'Well, we're being told every day that we are hunted because we're a race of criminals, but in fact, the real reason that our neighbor was lynched was because he had land that whites wanted to take,' " Mitchell explains.

She adds that white mobs also targeted African-Americans with successful businesses or families.

"Being able to tell the truth about why communities are under siege was a really important counterpoint to a society that's always telling you that you deserve whatever you get," Mitchell says.

Edmund Alyn Jones, an actor in Blue-Eyed Black Boy, says he hopes modern-day audiences who come to the readings will get a better sense of both history and current events.

"I think the revival of these plays that happen a long time ago give us enough distance to say, 'Oh! That's awful! Oh, wait a minute! That looks a lot like what's happening right now. Oh! I see,' " he says.

In Blue-Eyed Black Boy, a young black man is thrown in jail for brushing up against a white woman on the street — a theme Jones says he sees playing out today.

"A young man now, if he's dressed a certain way or he's in a neighborhood that he doesn't belong in — that is the modern-day equivalent of bumping into that white lady," he says.

Walter Scott, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and other unarmed black men killed by police have been on the mind of Courtney Harge as she has prepared to direct this series of monthly play readings, which began in February. She says she sees parallels between the recent killings and the lynching of thousands of African-Americans after the Civil War.

"Someday you encounter the wrong person, and your life is over. And that kind of idea feels very relevant to the world we, particularly as black people, are living in," says Harge, who also serves as the artistic director of Colloquy Collective, a theater company.

After Sunday's reading of Blue-Eyed Black Boy at JACK, a Brooklyn community arts center, rehearsals will begin for the next play in the series, Johnson's Safe, which is scheduled for May. It's about an African-American woman who makes a tragic choice after giving birth to a baby boy. Just before he's born, she sees a young black man being lynched outside her home.

"[She] asks herself, 'How do I bring a child into this world and try to keep them safe when they're looked at as threats just by existing?' " Harge explains. "'Is it cruel in some way to bring a child into this world that way?' And it's an answer I don't have."

But they're questions in a play written around 1929 that, Harge says, are just as pressing almost 90 years later.




“An obscure but riveting genre of theater is being revived in New York City. They're called "anti-lynching plays." Most were written during the early 1900s by black playwrights to show how lynchings devastated African-American families. Inspired by the recent deaths of unarmed black men by police, a theater company in Brooklyn, N.Y., is staging aseries of new readings of these plays, including Georgia Douglas Johnson's Blue-Eyed Black Boy. …. Lynchings were a common part of Southern life when these one-act plays were written. Magazines for the black community often published them so they could be performed in churches and schools or read aloud in homes, according to Koritha Mitchell, an English literature professor at Ohio State University who wrote about the plays in Living with Lynching. …. "These plays were interested in saying, 'Well, we're being told every day that we are hunted because we're a race of criminals, but in fact, the real reason that our neighbor was lynched was because he had land that whites wanted to take,' " Mitchell explains. She adds that white mobs also targeted African-Americans with successful businesses or families.”

“But they're questions in a play written around 1929 that, Harge says, are just as pressing almost 90 years later.” The problem isn't just that these incidents, whether at the hands of policemen or everyday citizens, are still in existence today, but that they have actually increased in number in recent times. A rise in right wing politics and cultural actions is occurring all over Western society now. An article yesterday was on the increase over the last few years of anti-Jewish actions in Europe, particularly France and Germany, and there have been several in the US as well. Antisemitism, black and Hispanic racism, and white opposition to Islamic groups living in our midst are all occurring to a greater degree than five or ten years ago. The rise of the Tea Party is not merely a coincidence, but a causative factor. The white supremacy groups such as Militia, Sovereign Citizens and the KKK have taken heart at the turn toward the right and are stepping up their activities. They probably feel that they can get away with it now. There also has been talk by Militia groups, etc., of a coming race war and a move toward religious Dominionism, which seeks to declare Christianity as the state religion in the US.

I link it to the world wide financial crisis of 2008 and the lack of jobs which has been going on in the range of ten or fifteen years now. These things are causing societal stress among those of us who aren't wealthy. Our American Middle Class, a group of people who are able to afford buying a house rather than renting or living in an apartment, plus being able to afford at least some luxuries such as jewelry, furs, college tuition, expensive cars and world travel. Having to scrimp to buy food and pay for rent and transportation, even for clothing and medical needs, makes people angry and scared, especially if they used to have a little community status. That makes them strike out against “the other.”

Part of the problem in the US is that we whites have always had at least a little bit of status over somebody as long as blacks, Indians, Asians and Hispanics were being mistreated without penalty. We could have our chance at kicking them, after all. Now that those people are standing up for themselves more often and the Supreme Court is tending to back them up, the poor and Middle Class whites feel disenfranchised. That is particularly true among the less well-educated. You can see the same kind of thing in a wolf pack. The alpha wolf eats first, gets to mate with the females and beats up on the others occasionally just to reinforce his status. I love to watch nature films, but I don't like wolf packs. To me, as long as people resemble wolves, they are not living up to their responsibility as the highest form of intelligent animal.

That's the kind of balance we have had to “stabilize” us in this country, but now a fairer deal for those at the bottom of the heap is being demanded. Martin Luther King did one very important thing – he changed the way black people look at themselves and life in general. Lyndon Baines Johnson backed him up and pushed the Civil Rights laws through. It's going to be harder now for the right wing to merely walk in and take over, though that is clearly what they are trying to do in the US and state legislatures across the nation. That's why I've recently joined the SPLC, the DNC and the ACLU and I give a few dollars a month. I am now receiving a very interesting monthly newspaper from the SPLC. It doesn't cost much, so go to their website and join if you care about these things. They do good work, and even small amounts of money will help them. They seek out pertinent information, back bills in Congress, and file lawsuits. That gives me a greater push toward helping with racism, genderism and religious bigotry than I would have alone.





http://www.npr.org/2015/04/17/400167661/anniversary-of-oklahoma-city-bombing-reopens-wounds-for-survivors

Anniversary Of Oklahoma City Bombing Reopens Wounds For Survivors
Morning Edition
APRIL 17, 2015

Photograph – Phuong Nguyen, 55, and her son, Chris, who survived the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

On the morning of April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast — equal to 4,000 pounds of TNT — killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

The federal office building also housed a day care center. The explosives-laden truck was parked directly beneath it. Of the 21 children there that morning, only six survived.

"I remember that day, clearly, even 20 years later," Phuong Nguyen said during a recent visit to StoryCorps, sitting alongside her son, Chris. "I was sitting in office, and there goes 'BOOM'. My boss come over and say, 'It is the Federal Building — did you have your baby at the day care there?' I say, 'Oh my God.'

"You was the third child brought out. You have bleeding from the head down through your face. And you were screaming and crying."

Chris Nguyen, 25, was just 4 years old the day of the bombing.

"A lot of times people ask me ,'What do you remember?' But I don't remember anything," he said to his mom, who says they would hide the newspaper and turn off the TV on the anniversary of the bombing, because they didn't want him to see or hear anything about what happened.

"And then I found out in kindergarten. Some girl brought in a clip for show-and-tell. It was the bombing, and I started crying. That's the first time I heard about it, but I knew it was the bombing, nobody had to say it to me. I already knew," he said.

"That day it left a scar in our life, and you know [that] scar, it going to stay with you," Phuong said to her son. "It's not going to go away."

And while there are stories, interviews and news reports every year that remind him that he was a part of that day's events, it all feels a little like Harry Potter for Chris.

"In the story his parents die and he survives somehow and he doesn't know why and he doesn't remember because he was also a baby," he said. "That is what it's like for me.

"I guess I've never really talked to you and Dad about this. There's a lot of pressure to make both of you proud, but also for all the parents who lost their own children. They won't ever get to have that, that sense of pride when they see their own children succeeding," he continued. "And when I'm thinking about what I'm doing with my life, I have to think about all of the children that were in that day care that day, and how I'm lucky to have survived. I wouldn't want to waste this opportunity that they don't have."

PJ Allen, another survivor from the day care, had just turned 2 at the time of the bombing. He suffered broken bones, severe burns and damage to his lungs from inhaling debris.

"We were in that hospital for three months," PJ's dad, Willie Watson, told him at StoryCorps. "But I think it was about two or three weeks before you even woke up."

PJ, now 21, just thought he was a normal kid. "I never really fully understood, like, what happened, or even what I was part of."

The two had never discussed the bombing over the years.

"After all these years, 20 years, this is the first time we've sat down and actually talked about the bombing. I wanted to protect you, and I never wanted to relive it with you. Because, I personally hold myself responsible for you getting hurt," Willie said.

"I was supposed to take you to the day care that day," he continued. "But that morning when your mom was getting ready to go to work, she asked me, did I want her to take you. And I told her, I said, 'Well hey, you know, I'm pretty tired. I'm going to sleep another 30 minutes or so, so go ahead and take him.'

"But if I would have kept you there with me, you wouldn't have got to the federal building until the bombing would have been over. You wouldn't have even been there," Willie said.

PJ had never known his father blamed himself for what happened to him that day. Or that his dad has nightmares about it.

"I don't want you to walk around with this burden, I want you to be alive inside. I'm never angry about my situation. I'm all right, I'm good," PJ said. "I like so many things about you, Dad. You're always the coolest guy in the room. I'm like, 'All right, when I get to that age, I'll be just like him. Walk in, be the man.'

"And I don't hold you responsible for that day in any way," he told his dad.

Willie still wrestles with it.

"But you were the one that was in there," he told PJ. "And to see you come back was a miracle, and I'm proud of you. And I love you."

"I wouldn't trade that for anything else in the world," PJ said. "I love you very much, and I'm glad that you're my dad.”

Produced for Morning Edition by Liyna Anwar.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, atStoryCorps.org.



http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51239

William J. Clinton, XLII President of the United States, 1993 – 2001
Remarks on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
April 19, 1995

The bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens. It was an act of cowardice, and it was evil. The United States will not tolerate it. And I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards.

I have met with our team, which we assembled to deal with this bombing. And I have determined to take the following steps to assure the strongest response to this situation:

First, I have deployed a crisis management team under the leadership of the FBI, working with the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, military and local authorities. We are sending the world's finest investigators to solve these murders.

Second, I have declared an emergency in Oklahoma City. And at my direction, James Lee Witt, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is now on his way there to make sure we do everything we can to help the people of Oklahoma deal with the tragedy.

Third, we are taking every precaution to reassure and to protect people who work in or live near other Federal facilities.

Let there be no room for doubt: We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain, and severe. These people are killers, and they must be treated like killers.

Finally, let me say that I ask all Americans tonight to pray—to pray for the people who have lost their lives, to pray for the families and the friends of the dead and the wounded, to pray for the people of Oklahoma City. May God's grace be with them.

Meanwhile, we will be about our work.

Thank you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 5:30 p.m. in the Briefing Room at the White House. The related proclamations of April 20 and April 21 are listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.

Citation: William J. Clinton: "Remarks on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma," April 19, 1995. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51239.


“On the morning of April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast — equal to 4,000 pounds of TNT — killed 168 people and injured hundreds more. The federal office building also housed a day care center. The explosives-laden truck was parked directly beneath it. Of the 21 children there that morning, only six survived. "I remember that day, clearly, even 20 years later," Phuong Nguyen said during a recent visit to StoryCorps, sitting alongside her son, Chris. "I was sitting in office, and there goes 'BOOM'. My boss come over and say, 'It is the Federal Building — did you have your baby at the day care there?' I say, 'Oh my God.'”

CLINTON 1995 – “Let there be no room for doubt: We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain, and severe. These people are killers, and they must be treated like killers.” Clinton was considered to be a corrupt person sexually and was despised by the Republicans, who were trounced by him despite their efforts against him. As a result they absolutely hated him, as they do Barack Obama now. He certainly said what the American people wanted to hear in this address on the event of Oklahoma City bombing, and the fury in his voice and face as the said the words made me feel that there would indeed be justice.

The rage among the common people in this country over that bombing was similar to the mood after the 9/11 villainy. This is not one of the occasions when I am able to remember exactly where I was when I heard about it, as 9/11 was. It is, however, one of the most affecting and painful memories of my life. McVeigh parked his truck under a day nursery, for goodness sake, and almost all those kids were killed. The sheer villainy and enormity of it and the fact that it was, not a certain hated Islamic imam as was at first assumed, but two of our own home grown right wing wackos who did it, making it all the more horrible.

There is a strain of isolationism in the right wingers in this country, including a deep hatred of the UN; and the World Trade Towers were considered to be part of an evil and dangerous trend in our country toward internationalism. They differ from me in that I am in favor of internationalism – it creates a greater level of civilization among all nations who live in peace and accord. The Militia groups and others like them fear the formation of a New World Order through the UN, and are radically opposed to our joining together in treaties and trade organizations with trustworthy nations around the world for the good of all. That is upsetting to me, because if it were not for the Allies in WWII, I have no doubt that Hitler would have become a world conqueror as he wanted so much to be. He was deeply into self-aggrandizement.

What we need is peace and unity, not constant world conflict as those jingoistic members of our society would prefer. We are still fighting that same cultural war in the US today. We have completely eliminated very few of our problems since I was initiated into observing politics in the 1950s and '60s. That feels a little discouraging to me now. Of course there is a place in the Bible somewhere which says of the end times “there will be wars and rumors of wars.” That is all I've known during my lifetime.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-man-trained-islamic-militants-syria-arraigned-federal-terrorism-charges/

Ohio man to be arraigned on ​federal terrorism charges
CBS NEWS
April 17, 2015

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, a U.S. citizen, will be arraigned in Ohio on federal terrorism charges Friday.

The Justice Department says Mohamud, 23, trained with Islamic militants in Syria and was instructed to return to America and commit acts of terrorism, something former FBI agent and "Headgame" author Phillip Mudd said made him more of a threat than the typical homegrown terrorist, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.

"The concern you got to have in this case is not only that somebody can come home again after traveling overseas to fight, but what kind of sophistication or training might people like this have received overseas?" Mudd said.

According to the indictment, Mohamed, a naturalized American citizen from Somalia, said he wanted to go to a military base in Texas and kill three or four soldiers execution style.

His backup plan was allegedly to attack a prison, although he was still trying to recruit a second person for his plot when he was arrested.

"This case shows you how much the world of counterterrorism is changing," Mudd said.

The indictment alleges Mohamud traveled to Syria one year ago -- flying to Turkey and then crossing the border to join his brother who was already fighting for the radical Islamic group al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda's branch in Syria.

There he received training in weapons, explosives, breaking and entering and hand-to-hand combat, but before he could get to the front lines, Mohamud was recruited by a cleric to return to the U.S. to carry out an attack.

"The intelligence game is halfway through now. That is the game that allowed us to find him and maybe map his network," Mudd said. "Here is a second half of this intelligence game we got to look at: Does he tell you something that gives you clues you weren't aware of before?"

Mohamud was arrested last February on state charges in Ohio and held on a million dollars bail so he could not flee the country while the Justice Department prepared federal charges against him.

His attorneys said he will plead not guilty. If convicted Mohamud faces a maximum sentence of 38 years in prison.




“The Justice Department says Mohamud, 23, trained with Islamic militants in Syria and was instructed to return to America and commit acts of terrorism, something former FBI agent and "Headgame" author Phillip Mudd said made him more of a threat than the typical homegrown terrorist, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin. "The concern you got to have in this case is not only that somebody can come home again after traveling overseas to fight, but what kind of sophistication or training might people like this have received overseas?" Mudd said. …. "The intelligence game is halfway through now. That is the game that allowed us to find him and maybe map his network," Mudd said. "Here is a second half of this intelligence game we got to look at: Does he tell you something that gives you clues you weren't aware of before?"

This article appears to be talking about an actual game called The Intelligence Game, and I did find such a website on the Internet. It is run by Center Of Excellence For Biosecurity Risk Analysis on the website called “http://intelgame.acera.unimelb.edu.au/”. It is several levels over my head, so I won't try to play it, but people can register a user name and password and join in, if they aren't afraid the CIA will zoom in on their home computer and start copying all their keystrokes or something. I think there's enough government paranoia around nowadays for that to happen. However they caught this would-be terrorist, however, I'm glad they got him. He should be glad to get out again after 38 years. He's lucky he didn't get the death penalty.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/04/16/400177895/feds-place-commercial-sardine-fishing-on-hold-for-more-than-a-year

Feds Cancel Commercial Sardine Fishing After Stocks Crash
Jackie Northum
April 16, 2015

Life has suddenly gotten easier for the sardine. Federal regulators are not only closing the commercial sardine fishing season early in Oregon, Washington and California, but it will stay closed for more than a year.

The decision to shut down the sardine harvest is an effort to build up depleted stocks of the small, oily fish. The conservation group, Oceana, says that sardine populations have crashed more than 90 percent since 2007.

There are a number of theories about why the fish stocks have collapsed. Oceana says it comes from overfishing. But a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts says the wide swings in the sardine population are normal and usually related to "decades-long shifts in ocean conditions."

The report says that although sardines are small individually, they are a key component in the ocean food web. They're considered a crucial forage fish for marine life along the U.S. west coast, and that the collapse in numbers can have a harmful effect on larger animals, including whales, tuna, birds, and seals, which depend on the sardine for sustenance.

Oceana says that 90 percent of this year's sea lion pups died of starvation for lack of sardines to eat.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council initially decided to shut down the next sardine season for a year, which was due to start July 1st, according to The Associated Press.

But after studying the population numbers more closely, the council pushed that date forward, saying the ban on commercial sardine fishing would start immediately.

The council recognized the decision could pose financial problems for some fishermen, although most also harvest mackerel, anchovies and squid, according to Reuters. About 100 boats have permits to fish for sardines on the west coast.

California's sardine industry was the backdrop for John Steinbeck's classic book, Cannery Row.




“Life has suddenly gotten easier for the sardine. Federal regulators are not only closing the commercial sardine fishing season early in Oregon, Washington and California, but it will stay closed for more than a year. The decision to shut down the sardine harvest is an effort to build up depleted stocks of the small, oily fish. The conservation group, Oceana, says that sardine populations have crashed more than 90 percent since 2007. There are a number of theories about why the fish stocks have collapsed. Oceana says it comes from overfishing. But a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts says the wide swings in the sardine population are normal and usually related to "decades-long shifts in ocean conditions." …. They're considered a crucial forage fish for marine life along the U.S. west coast, and that the collapse in numbers can have a harmful effect on larger animals, including whales, tuna, birds, and seals, which depend on the sardine for sustenance. Oceana says that 90 percent of this year's sea lion pups died of starvation for lack of sardines to eat.”

Whatever the reason for the sardine population to have crashed, prohibiting all fishing right now is a great idea. I'm sure there are fishermen who will make an outcry about it, but business has to step aside for repair of the damage they are doing every now and them. Overfishing has been a common problem with other species in the past, and I think it remains a more likely cause than varying oceanic conditions. The human race increases in number around the globe constantly, since individual people cannot be brought around to the idea that they only need two children to pass on their family genes. Use birth control, for goodness sake.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/04/17/399816448/when-the-world-bank-does-more-harm-than-good

When The World Bank Does More Harm Than Good
NPR STAFF
APRIL 17, 2015

Photograph – In the 1950s, the World Bank funded the creation of the world's largest man-made dam, the Kariba Dam, which sits on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. The construction of such dams can have dire consequences for poor people living near a river, an investigation found.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP/Getty Images

The World Bank's goal is to end extreme poverty and to grow income for the poorest people on the planet.

The bank does this by lending money and giving grants to governments and private corporations in some of the least developed places on the planet. For example, money goes to preserving land, building dams and creating health care systems.

But a lot of poor people actually end up worse off because of those projects, a report from The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found.

People are often displaced, or their livelihoods are ruined. Over the past decade an estimated 3.4 million people have been displaced by bank-funded projects, says Michael Hudson, a senior editor at ICIJ, who worked on the report. In one instance, hundreds of families had their homes burned down.

"The World Bank has promised 'do no harm,' but our reporting has found that the World Bank has broken this promise," Hudson says.

In response, the World Banksays the vast majority of its projects don't involve the resettlement of people. But the bank says it has identified shortcomings in its resettlement policies. And it plans to improve those policies to protect people and businesses affected by bank-funded projects.

ICIJ's Hudson spoke to NPR's Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition about the new report, which he and his team worked on with The Huffington Post and other outlets.

A lot of these projects seem beneficial. But you found that something is going wrong. What is it?

What is often going wrong is what happens to people on the ground when you do these big projects. When you build a big dam, that can have huge consequences for the people living along the banks of the river and people who make their living via subsistence fishing or farming along the river bank. A mega-dam can affect 50,000, even a 100,000 people.

What happens to the people displaced?

In some cases they may have to move. Or they may lose part of their land. In other cases, they may not be physically displaced but rather economically displaced because their livelihoods have been destroyed, or at least partly impacted.

If you make your living fishing from the river or along the coast, and a power plant or dam affects the ecosystem, there's fewer fish, and you're not catching as many. Then your livelihood and your ability to feed your family has been impacted.

The problem is that even resettlements that are done well and fairly often leave poor people even poorer. There's a lot of research that shows that people who are forced to move suffer higher rates of hunger, illness and early death. It causes really serious consequences for people.

You write about a land conservation project in Kenya. What went wrong there?

The land conservation project funneled money to the Kenyan forest service with the idea of preserving a forest in western Kenya. The problem is with the thousands of indigenous people — the Sengwer — living in the forest. Our reporting on the ground shows that hundreds, and perhaps as many as a thousand, homes have been burned by the Kenyan forest service as they try to evict people from the forest.

When you brought these cases to the World Bank's attention, how did they react?

Around the first of March, we told the bank that our reporting had found systemic gaps in its protection for displaced families. Days later, the bank announced that it had found major problems with how it handles resettlement and released an action plan to fix the problem.

The bank has also released internal reports going back several years, which show the bank often had violated its own rules, has failed to protect people, has failed to monitor what happens to them and hasn't held its part as accountable for their actions.

Is it inevitable, on some level, that people may be harmed when you replace a low-level economy with a corner of the global economy via these projects?

There's always a price tag for development. But the question is: Who should pay the price? Should poor people be the ones who sacrifice when the government tries to do a big project? Even the World Bank says the budget for a project should include money to cover people's losses, that you can't just show up at someone's house and tell them to leave — that there has to be a process and that people have to be made whole.




“The World Bank's goal is to end extreme poverty and to grow income for the poorest people on the planet. The bank does this by lending money and giving grants to governments and private corporations in some of the least developed places on the planet. For example, money goes to preserving land, building dams and creating health care systems. …. "The World Bank has promised 'do no harm,' but our reporting has found that the World Bank has broken this promise," Hudson says. In response, the World Banksays the vast majority of its projects don't involve the resettlement of people. But the bank says it has identified shortcomings in its resettlement policies. And it plans to improve those policies to protect people and businesses affected by bank-funded projects. …. When you build a big dam, that can have huge consequences for the people living along the banks of the river and people who make their living via subsistence fishing or farming along the river bank. A mega-dam can affect 50,000, even a 100,000 people. …. The problem is with the thousands of indigenous people — the Sengwer — living in the forest. Our reporting on the ground shows that hundreds, and perhaps as many as a thousand, homes have been burned by the Kenyan forest service as they try to evict people from the forest. …. There's always a price tag for development. But the question is: Who should pay the price? Should poor people be the ones who sacrifice when the government tries to do a big project? Even the World Bank says the budget for a project should include money to cover people's losses, that you can't just show up at someone's house and tell them to leave — that there has to be a process and that people have to be made whole.”

When I was eight or ten years old a missionary and his wife came one night to address our church members with the hope of raising money. The woman had adopted and whining way of speaking when she spoke of the native people's need for salvation, which annoyed me as it sounded like an act rather than real emotion. She described the poverty, their “primitive” native religion, their filth and most shocking of all their nudity. When modern white people have gone into jungles in both Africa and South America they have found a really shocking achievement gap between Western culture and the conditions there.

Much of what the Christian missionaries do is to make the women put on bras and the men trousers instead of those loin cloths. We whites tend to assume that the people there aren't as intelligent as we are, or they wouldn't be living like that. They don't understand that a tribal culture like that will remain much the same for hundreds and even thousands of years if no outsiders come in and bring new things – weapons, clothing, radios, Coca Cola, schools and cell phones.

Cultural exchange is much more likely to effect societal development than a higher level of intelligence. When those who come in are MEN from a much more advanced culture, they tend to think that roads, bridges, guns and dams are the most important, and that an injection of big business is the ultimate cure. Besides, the World Bank is a bank, and making money is one of their goals and their main means of helping the society by lending people money. That's called “development.”

When anthropologists come in their goals are the opposite – they want to record the language, folkways, family history, religious ceremonies, folk arts, etc. without destroying the society. One of the sad things about our American Indian tribes of today is that most of them have lost the ability to speak their own language. The truth is that any group of white people who walk into one of those societies is going to radically change them. It is also true that the disruption to their life is partly helpful and partly harmful. They will absolutely have to change 100% and some of them will hate that and the whites who are now controlling them. After a few generations, and if the technology is introduced carefully, their life may really end up better.

On the international level, the World Bank and other organizations want to – bring everybody up to a par culturally, and then open the area up so that business can come in and mine their gold ore, cut down their thousand year old trees or dig oil wells, etc. The businesses will also give jobs to some, but those people have to leave their village and go into town, where they are much more likely to starve since the food they are used to eating comes from the forest and rivers, and those sources are spoiled by the “development” activity of the businesses. In addition to that, every tree that is cut down diminishes the natural environmental control over the growing CO2 releases which are causing global warming. Trees in their life activities “breathe in CO2” and release oxygen as their waste product. This is another of the sad things that are happening in modern times, along with the cultural damage done by groups like the World Bank. There is no way to stop this from happening. The most we can do is try to give aid to the governments in developing nations so they can care for the people who don't have food or a job to go buy some, and who now need to get a good education so they can make it in life. Life is a struggle no matter who we are and where we live. We have to keep trying to make improvements as well as we can and never lose sight of the fact that those people are fully human and deserve respect.