Is US Debt Destroying the World Economy?

Ever since the Wall Street started tumbling and the American economic crisis came out in the open in September 2008, there have been effects around the world. This disaster and meltdown was not restricted to this country alone; the repercussions are being felt across the globe.

It is aptly termed as a global recession.

The American Economy and the World Economy

Volatility and uncertainty are widespread at this time in the financial markets.

The growth rate of the world’s economy has slowed down.

China has been posting double-digit growth rates for the last four years. However, the growth rate has fallen to 9.0 percent in this quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. This fall is primarily attributed to the unstable international economic climate.

Similar reports are coming from Japan, the second-biggest economy in the world. The Bank of Japan is Japan’s central bank. It’s Governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, has predicted stagnancy in economic growth of the country as the result of fallout of the economic recession in countries across the world.

With the American economy, development across different states of America, its lending to other developing countries and the overall state of affairs in the United States has a direct effect on the economic situation of other major countries of the world.

From current U.S.A. data, new home sales in the United States fell to their lowest level since the recession in 1991.

The Start of the 2008 Crisis

The present financial crisis in the U.S.A. had its beginnings in the highly acclaimed and popular sub-prime US home loans. These high-risk loans were packaged as derivatives or complex investment instruments and sold to banks and investors across the world.

The crunch began when people defaulted on these loans. Repayment delays and defaults in paying back loans started a grim chain of events in motion.

The worst-hit businesses were the lending banks. They became cash-strapped. Inter-banks loans alone could no longer ensure the smooth functioning of the world financial economy. It became clear that not all banks could survive this situation which could have led to bank failures across the world.

This caused world governments to pump in as much as three trillion dollars, in addition to huge cash infusions, into these affected banks.

ING, one of the largest banks in the world, reported a loss of around 675 million dollars in the current quarter. The Netherlands then announced a 13.4-billion-dollar bailout for ING.

Similar scenes occurred when South Korea offered of over hundred billion dollars in guarantees to meet offshore debts of their domestic banks. Britain’s Finance Minister, Alistair Darling, put up plans for boosting public spending to overcome the negative growth rate of the British economy over the last two quarters.

However, the overall sentiment was not all depressing.

The announcement by US President George W. Bush and the European leaders to hold various summits to address this worst world crisis since the Great Depression has brought some cheer into investors and markets alike.

The first summit is to be held soon after US presidential elections on November 4. The summit will primarily address reforms to set the international financial system right.

The most urgent need of the hour is an extensive overhaul of the system while preserving the traditional foundations of democratic capitalism such as free enterprise, free markets, free enterprise and free trade.

Critical Appraisal

The ongoing global financial crisis has many similarities to the Great Depression of the twenties. Major changes like bank failures, the worsening credit crunch, rushed mergers of banks and financial institutions, sinking stock markets and some financial giants tumbling cause similar sentiments to those which were common during that Depression.

However, the major difference is that there is no great change in day-to-day life of the common person. The Great Depression pushed millions of families into extreme poverty.

Today, while a significant number suffer severe hardship, most people are still able to purchase goods, ATMs are working, and the scale of job losses is not as massive at this point.

Some experts say that this indicates the current crisis to be more of a financial correction and subsequent panic, rather than a full economic meltdown.

This has still caused extensive damage to Wall Street institutions. But, so far, the repercussions have not been felt as deeply as during the Great Depression.

History has been a great teacher. Politicians, bankers and others at Federal Reserve, Treasury and elsewhere are well aware of how all this could translate and bring changes in the economic scene. They are trying their best to soften as much of the depressive effects and reduce the number and effects of business closures and stresses.

Although the world economy is witnessing immense uncertainty, there are certain safeguards within the economy as an aftermath of the Great Depression which are helping.

Unemployment rates were as high as 24.9% in 1933. The current rate is 6.1%. It may go up to 7% or 8% which has severe effects on those directly affected but is much less than during the Great Depression.

Most banks presently have Federal deposit insurance. Most investors do not have a risk of losing all their money. Foreclosure problems are restricted to subprime mortgages alone.

Presently about one-third of all homeowners have a clear and free title. The present Federal Reserve is not on the gold standard.

Interest rates can be decreased to increase liquidity.

The current tax structures are not entirely progressive. There are automatic stabilizers within the system.

The impact of a dollar decline in Gross Domestic Product may be offset by tax decreases and automatic government spending increases.

There are some safety nets put into place after the lessons that were learned from the Great Depression.

These include the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate stock markets and protect investors, unemployment insurance, deposit insurance and various social security measures.

All these help to ensure greater flexibility in financial markets.

This may help the world economy to recover faster and reduce the speed and extent of negative events in the markets across the world.

The appraisal shows that there is definitely a recession but not all are convinced that we have, or may experience, a depression.

Many feel that the world economy will bounce back after two or three quarters and things will slowly start looking up.

Sources:

The Federal Response to Home Mortgage Distress: Lessons from the Great Depression by David C. Wheelock

America‘s Greatest Depression 1929-1941, by Lester V. Chandler National Association for Business Economics

For more detailed information on the current situation and how you can protect you and your family order your copy of Surviving the Debt Crisis today.

Craig Maugham is a pen name. Craig has a background in research and reporting but felt that the subject and content of this book was too controversial to be released under his own name.


The author has done his best to provide a balanced account of how the crisis developed and gather the best information and theories, from a wide range of sources, about how to survive the current situation and be better placed to thrive in the future.


He believes that much of what is written about the situation is colored by personal or institutional bias.


Craig says, “The size and urgency of the current situation makes people suspicious and likely to react strongly against anyone that expresses a view which they do not agree with. This could affect the public perception of myself and the various organizations which employ me from time to time.”


You can get this book today from http://www.survivingthedebtcrisis.ebooks-excel.com/

Churchill?s During World War II and Its Aftermath

The growing rapacity of German gluttony forced Hitler to take over Austria in 1938 and threaten Czechoslovakia. In Britain this produced a national crisis which resulted in Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s meeting Hitler in September 1938 at Berchtesgaden. Chamberlain returned from the meeting announcing ‘peace in our time’ which was abruptly smashed when Hitler invaded Prague in March 1939. Soon after given Western weakness and hesitation to work with the Soviet Union Stalin formed a pact with the Nazi’s guaranteeing Russian security and the partitioning of Eastern Europe between the Bear and the Hun. There was nothing to stop Hitler from destroying Poland and then turning his malevolence towards the West.

Public anger which had exploded after the subjugation of Prague had forced Chamberlain to give the improvident pledge to guarantee Poland’s security. Militarily and rationally this was an impossibility. The British did not possess a large enough standing army to lend help to Poland to stem a German advance and the logistics of transferring military relief to Poland was never calculated. Only the Navy was possessed war making power and there was little the Navy could do to defend Poland. She was invaded on the first of September and the Second World War began. Churchill was immediately recalled into power as First Lord of the Admiralty – the very same post he had assumed control of 25 years previous on the eve of the First World War.

From day one of the war Churchill was the true Leader of Britain. Chamberlain was defeatist and broken hearted remarking bitterly how his life’s work was now tragically sundered. He did not have the capability to rouse a nation and persevere to the bitter end. Winston as Naval War Lord was not only attacking the enemy on the seas but combating defeatist elements at home and trying to prod the blind neutral nations into action. Only Churchill could utter with true conviction and spirit, “Now we have begun; now we are going on; now with the help of God, and with the conviction that we are the defenders of Civilisation and Freedom, we are going on, and we are going on to the end.”

The Royal Navy was the only strong force that Britain possessed and from the opening bell the naval squads were on the offensive. Churchill worked at least an 18 hour day. Plans were drawn for a blockade of the German coast, convoy arrangements were made; mine-sweeping was instituted, enemy raiders harassed and submarines sunk. By the end of 1939 the Royal Navy had sunk half of all German submarines. However the war was only in its infancy. Great battles loomed.

On May 10 1940 the Germans began their vicious assault on the West. The Hun streamed into Holland and Belgium. That night the King of England sent for Churchill and asked him to form a government. Thus began the creation of the Churchill legend and his enshrinement into history. The story of the British war effort under Churchill falls into two distinct categories – the struggle to survive and the establishment of the alliance with the USA and Russia and the ultimate destruction of Germany and Japan.

The battle to survive covers the twelve or so months that Britain fought Germany completely alone in 1940-1. This period covered the dazzlingly quick disappearance of France under the heel of the Gestapo in June of 1940 to the German attack on Russia in June of 1941. This grim year brought horrible highlights; the partition of France, the formation of the pro-Nazi French Vichy government, the battle of Britain, the blitz on London, the beginning of the North African desert war, the defeat of Greece, and the British Commando raids along the Norwegian and French coasts.

It was during this sombre episodic current of ruin that Churchill became the most inspirational Leader of the Western world in the 20th century. He portrayed the towering, implacable fierceness of a proud nation, and of liberty, and expressed every free man’s tenacity to fight in words that no other could have summoned forth. Winston’s knowledge of military matters and his close operational vigilance over all affair animated and excited the British war effort with a boldness that astonished. British prestige in this desperate hour reached its highest ever pitch. The world over prayed for its salvation and success.

The immense energy and illimitable skill that throbbed and turned in his heart and mind was at last released from its bondage and given full scope of use. Churchill no longer knew the frustration of ideas that could not be brought alive, vitality that could not be expended, or ingenious approaches that could not be tested. The supreme challenge was met by a man of supreme stature. The Government was turned upside down. Routine was destroyed. Twenty four activity the rule with Churchill as the master organiser. All knew their place and role. Churchill immediately established a small War Cabinet to make effective and quick decisions. At first the membership was four which grew during the war to seven. This tiny all powerful directing force was supported by sixty or seventy other ministers of all parties who formed the core membership of the Coalition government but responsible only for their own departments. As Churchill pointed out, it was only the members of the War Cabinet, “who had the right to have their heads cut off on Tower Hill if we did not win.”

Never before in modern history did one man have so much power. Churchill was everywhere. He not only controlled the government but the operational side of the conflict as well. He was not only the King’s First Minister but Leader of the House of Commons and, even more important Minister of Defence also. The military Chiefs of Staff instead of reporting to their own ministries reported instead directly to Churchill. The Joint Planning Committee – a body of professional staff officers of all three services – worked under Churchill as part of the Ministry of Defence rather than under the Chiefs of Staff. Thus by permission of the War Cabinet and Parliament Churchill became the penultimate democratic Leader.

No one can study Churchill’s part in the war without being staggered by the colossal output of interests, dictation’s, orders, speeches, broadcasts, plans, promotions and prunings. In military matters he covered an almost incomprehensible range of activity. When Britain stood alone and the nation was bracing itself for the storm of invasion Churchill was racing about the government demanding attack plans, offensive action and targets of British incursions. He demanded the end of the passive war. Thus the commando raids were born. He participated during the war in every operational plan and strategy demanding full technical elaboration’s and missives to be sent to his attention. “During the war,” the American General Eisenhower later testified, “Churchill maintained such close contact with all operations as to make him a virtual member of the British Chiefs of Staff; I cannot remember any major discussion with them in which he did not participate.”

Churchill’s power was dependent upon the War Cabinet. It is a tribute to his skill of persuasion that unlike Roosevelt or Stalin, who were by their constitutions absolute military leaders of their nation, Churchill exercised his authority only by the permission of the War Cabinet who were willing to grant this authority only so long as Winston commanded the confidence of Parliament. Much of Parliament’s confidence was bolstered by Churchill’s impassioned, humanised and soaring orations. No man or women in the British Commonwealth who heard on June 4 1940 that France was being devoured by the German beast, will forget the tingling of emotion and courage when Churchill uttered in a strange, hoarse voice: “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever he cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle until in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

Another Leader may have uttered, “We will do what is necessary to win this war and persevere in its struggle until it is won. This government believes in the ultimate ability of our nation to come through to victory.” Or something to that effect. Very few would have evinced the crescendo of emotional “We shall’s” in a peroration. Churchill gave the roar to the British lion and heart to the British public. Romance, history, philosophy and leadership all running in the cloud-burst of Churchill’s speeches and leadership of the war effort. But though he carried his role with pride, prompt execution and relish in no way implies a cold heart or an acceptance of war’s carnage. The suffering that he saw, and he saw a lot with his own eyes as he inspected damage through Britain, on more than one occasion pushed him into tears. When Churchill saw a small shop in ruins and wondered out loud to his private secretary the anguish that the owner must feel to have his whole life exploded and ruptured so completely, he became so visibly upset that he resolved at that moment to compensate all damaged property with state payments. Thus the policy of war damage for private assets came into effect. If Churchill enjoyed the waging of war he certainly suffered from the anguish it induced and endeavoured to share its destruction with the common man and woman.

The second phase of the war lasted from the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7 1941 until the end of the war. Until 1944 the British and Russian armies bore the brunt of the struggle against the demented German race. From early 1944 onwards the Americans assumed a greater share and responsibility of the war effort and began to relegate the British to a supporting role in the drive to victory. Roosevelt and Churchill met nine times during the war establishing a strong if short lived friendship. The Americans including Roosevelt were incorrectly convinced that Churchill and the British wanted to expand their Empire.

This calamitous suspicion allowed the Russians more freedom in Eastern Europe than the British would ever have tolerated. As early as 1943 with victory a matter of time and logistics Churchill implored the American leadership not to let Soviet ambition run unimpeded in Eastern Europe. The American reply was incredibly purblind and vague. It appears in scouring the documents and American communiqués that they trusted the Soviets to behave themselves more than their close allies the British ! Eisenhower and many of his chiefs remarked in letters and in meetings that they could not understand why the British constantly mixed politics and military affairs.

To the British this represented reality and the best hope to avoid another world war with the Soviets after the defeat of Germany. Churchill and his advisors even preached that upon the war’s closing everything necessary should be attempted to revive Germany as a bulwark against the pending Soviet menace. The Americans felt that such targets as Prague, Berlin and Vienna were unnecessary military ventures that would endanger the lives of their men. If the Soviets wanted to shed more life in attacking these seemingly remote locations than the Americans were content to let them. The British just shook their heads in dismay unable to impress the Americans with their superior logic. Victory was attained but it set the stage for the Cold War.

The fact that the British survived the early years of the war when Germany swept all before it and that the British evaded a complete national disaster at Dunkirk and defeated the Nazi’s in the air during the Battle of Britain, issued during the remainder of the war and for a short period after it, an inflated sense of self destiny and strength and even an isolationist mentality. The collective suffering and emotional agony endured by the entire British nation also gave express an imbued spirit of egalitarianism. The depth of this communal desire was the most profound in British history and exercised a new faith in social planning and cohesion. During Churchill’s premiership in the war the most celebrated social reconstruction document of the period was the report by William Beveridge which outlined a radical scheme of comprehensive social security, financed from central taxation. This new state aided social plan included maternity benefits, child allowances, universal health and unemployment insurance, old age pension and death benefits – an entire cradle to grave policy. From 1940-45 Britain moved more rapidly to the left than at any time in history a move marked by the important positions Labour ministers occupied in the war government.

At the end of World War II in 1945, Britain was still one of the Big 3 powers, indeed it was ranked as a great power, an illusion that held until about 1963. The British still had their empire in 1945 and in the ensuing years they could still produce great artists and Nobel prize winners, but much to the chagrin of Churchill and the leadership class British glory was long past. The rapid decolonisation of most of its empire — India, Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka — and parts of Africa shedded from British finance much unneeded expense and worry, and solidified Britain’s secondary role in world affairs subordinate to the USA and Russia.

Success in conflict notwithstanding the British electorate in the 1945 general election shockingly kicked Churchill and the Conservatives from office by an overwhelming share. For the third time the Labour party was called forth to govern. Churchill after leading the democracies to attain the supreme glories and garlands of success instantly found himself shorn of privilege and casted into opposition. It was a role he obviously did not appreciate. For Churchill defeat was only explained by the plain fact that people believed his government to be a war council, unprepared for the extended restructuring of society that peace demanded. Labour presented a sharper and more intelligent platform and catalogue of change. The Conservatives were quite content to rest upon Churchill’s name and ignore the organisation and deliverance of a viable alternative to the Labour programme.

Whilst Churchill harried the Labour government and began the rebuilding of the Conservative party to respond to public and peace-time pressure he began the personal memoirs of the great struggle and in the absence of anything else offered by the other leaders – Stalin, Roosevelt, Truman, or Hitler – Churchill was able to dictate on the best terms and in the most convincing language possible, his and Britannia’s exalted position in the struggle against evil. It was an incomparable success, ensuring that in times forward, historians would favourably compare the works of Thucydides and those of Churchill. Both men represented and recorded their times and events on an unparalleled scale.

What Churchill was able to offer the reader was a glimpse into the details of history’s most horrible man-made disaster. The wicked folly of the conflict was evident at the war’s end. Whole nations lay in ruins. Towns, cities, industrial plants and transportation facilities were erased. Food and life essentials were unavailable to great migratory populations. Cynicism and disillusionment in Europe and elsewhere bred the shift to the political left. Marxism replaced Fascism as an acceptable form of social order. Communism erupting from poverty, spread like an open wound across Asia and Europe. With the complete eradication of Nagasaki and Hiroshima the nuclear age dawned. Moral questionings loudly divided those in the West over the usage of weapons of such finality – especially against a prostrate Japan. Dropping two bombs three days apart on a nation that was in the process of trying to negotiate an exit from the war seemed to many morally reprehensible. It was an inauspicious beginning to the scientific era.

The United States and Russia emerged from the rubble of the war as opponents. Russia was mauled and mutilated by the war with over 20 million dead and whole sections of her country raped. The USA stood at war’s end possessing a massive ego and the greatest economic supremacy in history. The big two were joined by the little third – Great Britain – and the three during the war and after drove the discussions regarding the build up of the United Nations. Most vexing to the Allies in the construction of the United Nations Assembly was whether members were obliged to surrender part or all of their own independence to the new body in order to maintain peace. How would it be possible to invest such a supranational body with enough force to enforce decisions ? How would the large powers relate to the smaller in the decision making of such a forum ? At Moscow in 1943 the Big Three resolved many of these issues and in Washington in 1944, joined by China, hammered out the shape of the new international body. At the Yalta conference in 1945, the Big Three came to terms on the matter of securing for each of the major powers the right to veto decisions of the new international body. This allowed the creation of the UNO charter at San Francisco in April 1945 which clearly identified the principles and responsibilities of the new organisation. Fifty one founding nations signed the document and in September 1945 the UNO opened its headquarters in New York.

Comprising the UNO were principally the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. Most power resided in the Security Council which was given the task of maintaining the peace. Five permanent members sit in the council; the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China and France and six other nations are elected for two year terms as non-permanent members. The permanent members retained veto power with all resolutions needing the consent of the five permanent nations before passing.

In contrast to the Security Council the UNO General Assembly was shaped by all the member states each wielding one nation one vote rights. International problems are to be solved in an open forum and mandates need to be passed by majority vote. This effectively gives the smaller nations more voice in international affairs. The Secretariat acting as the permanent secretary of the UNO concerned itself with internal operations with its Secretary General the highest profiled member of the UNO, exerting wide diplomatic powers emanating from the prestige of the office.

Thus the founding of the UNO was an expression of hope by the survivors of the Second World War. Quickly this vision was marred and jaded by political ineptitude and quivering resolve by the UNO in major affairs. There was little effective work during the Cold War that could be resoundingly accomplished. This war which was contested by two sides that viewed the other as monolithic or controlling inimical forces, could never have been settled via diplomatic channels. The mental straitjackets of both sides; with the Soviet Union believing that the capitalist West controlled by a few monied financiers who desired the destruction of communism and especially the Soviet Union and which would never grant the Russians fair credit in defeating Hitler; and the West believing that Russia controlled the communistic movement world-wide and that communism and especially Russia wanted to overthrow the better functioning liberal states, could only end with the breakdown of one of the combatants. The demise of Marxism gave spring to the hope of a liberal-democratic world.

The major events since 1945 can be summarised in a short list;
- The Collapse of Communism
- The Triumph of Capitalism
- The beginning of the High Tech Era
- The Decline of the USA and the re-emergence of Europe, Japan and China
- The Fragmentation of parts of the world into tribes
- Ecological dislocation
- Growing disparity between the have and have-not nations
- Emerging militant Islamism
- Questioning over the role of the UNO

The most momentous and important event however has been the spread of globalism. Economically, morally, and spiritually people are viewing themselves regardless of race, kin, geography or circumstance as belonging to the entire human race and not a limited defined tribe. Though tribalism in some areas of the world is taking hold even within these identified units a greater consciousness is emanating out to the rest of the globe that though distinct there resides a desire and need to be integrated into a global framework. Economics, peace and ecological salvation commonsensically dictate this. So do the various images from space capturing a small blue ball in the surroundings of space. Somehow this humbles even the largest of egos. So even as, in some parts of the world, balkanisation is shattering mature states, the pieces will still be forced to bond not only together but somehow they will need to align themselves to the greater puzzle that resides outside their narrow borders. It is only by collective effort that the solutioning of poverty, ecological rapine, and the stoppage of war can be peacefully effected.

Churchill died just after the Cuban missile crisis during a bitter period of Cold War strife, which almost pushed the world into a nuclear confrontation. Though he felt certain of liberal-democracy’s triumph he did not see the maturity of his concept. And though he sustained an undying faith in the ability of man to overcome his worst problems we can be sure that without using the leadership skills presented through his example we will have a very difficult time indeed.

Churchill played a significant role during the Second World War. Online resources further explains Churchill’s life and his stand on capitalism, the Jews, and leadershiop.

World Unity Education Can Change The World

World unity education can change the world, it can even change the flow of time, the passing moments shall always bear testimony to how the education imparted by CMS has changed the world. The contemporary world is plagued by wars and weapons of mass destruction that threaten to put an end to the beautiful world we live in. Wars have plagued humanity ever since man learned to communicate, wars will always be there till humanity exists. Humanity has not learned lessons from the conflicts it had in the past, but had the concept of world unity imbibed in the hearts of men and women from an early age, these wars could have been avoided. The terrible destruction and the havoc that they have wrecked on the lives of thousands of innocents would certainly not been there, and the world would have been a more peaceful place to live in. CMS distinguishes itself from other educational institutions around the country as it aims to inoculate its students with the concepts of world unity and world peace.

 

World unity and peace education has the potential to thwart the growth or even the birth of conflict between mankind. Mankind evolved as a social animal, but he also absorbed the principles of conflict from the society. The unique curriculum of CMS has the potential to prevent conflict in the society. Education in CMS includes the concept of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam, which translates as ‘one world family’. Young and tender minds are injected with these concepts of unity and fraternity because their minds are open to all novel ideas and concepts. It is only in CMS that we give a complete description of Article 51 of the Indian Constitution along with its correct interpretation. Article 51 of the Indian Constitution remains the unique entity that enjoins upon the Indian state to endeavour to promote international peace and security, to maintain just and honourable relations between nations, to foster respect for international law, and to encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration.  A complete comprehension of the aforesaid article given by the architect of the constitution Dr B R Ambedkar in the Indian Parliament is of utmost importance to resolve all sorts of conflicts in the world.

 

The world would have been a better place had everyone been told that world law, world peace and world unity emanate from each other. All these qualities are essential ingredients of a healthy society. The society would have been a lot more peaceful had the world united under a single law system, peace would have prevailed in the world, and there would  not have been any wars and conflicts.

 

Conflict in the society is known as war. We know war as it is depicted in the books of history prescribed in our schools. Contemporary history books always present a subjective view of history, they give a biased view of history, history is seen through fogged glasses, only one side of the story is told. The complete perspective is usually missing from the narrative.

 

The narrative fails to give a sociological background of the tussles that have dotted the years of our existence. Wars are usually glorified in our history books, they are depicted as something of which we can even be proud of. The version of history taught to us in most of the modern schools is biased and partial. It shows just one facet of the conflict. The problem boils down to the truth that history remains a mere record of facts. The true story or the solid reasons behind the war remain obscure in most of the cases. The reporting and documenting usually determine the perspective. The reporting and documenting should be disinterested and impartial. They should not glorify wars.

 

Wars have never served any purpose other than cause destruction and havoc in the minds and the society equally. They have not been able to solve any problem, they can never solve any of the problems plaguing humanity. Rather wars have created a myriad of problems themselves for both the warring factions. A war can never be the solution to any problem. The solution lies in the concept of world unity. The world needs to come together after dissolving all differences. These differences could be resolved by arriving at a common concern for all the conflicting factions. These nations should be brought to a common platform that would unite them.

 

The common platform could be the children of the nation. The children of the nation do form the primary concern of the nations of the world. Children are the basic building blocks of every nation. They ought to be provided with the best possible education and moral guidance in the form of world unity education.

 

World unity education means inoculating the concept of the unity of all of humanity. The entire humanity forms one race, there should not be any differences between the nations of the world. All nations should be treated equally, all decisions should be taken in a democratic manner through mutual consensus.

 

A consensus could be arrived at among nations only if all the countries come together under a world government. World government is the concept of a political body that would make, interpret and enforce international law. Inherent to the concept of a world government is the idea that nations would be required to pool or surrender their sovereignty over some areas.

 

Nations of the world would ultimately have no choice but to opt for this kind of a solution. Wars have not led to any solutions yet. They have only caused mayhem and large scale violence. Estimates of all those who were killed in the Second World War range from 50 million to over 70 million. The need of the hour, therefore, is wold uniy education.

 

 

 

Economic Justice and Democratization of Economy to Create Ideal Society

Economic Justice and Democratization of Economy to create Ideal Society

By
Prof Viswanathan,
Director,
International Socio-Economic Research Bureau
(E Mail Id : economist@dataone.in)

DECLARATION OF JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

We, the people of all the countries, in harmony with the sovereignty of the Universal Justice hold these truths to be self-evident that every creator has inalienable ‘Right to Ownership’ on his creations and the Natural laws empowers the creators that only he should use his creations exclusively for the welfare and uplift of the human society as a whole, in which he is an inseparable member.

We declare with all judicial power derived from Natural laws that among all creations of man, his creation of capital alone has enormous ‘economic power’ capable of transforming all the socio-economic-political structures and reconstitute them to suit the aspirations of the owners of capital.

We further declare in unequivocal terms since the capital is created by the collective labor of the people as a whole it should be directly owned by the people and then only the people would secure equal ‘Economic power’ and requisite ‘Fundamental Economic Rights’ with which they could establish an ‘Ideal Society’ in the way in which they desire.
In accordance with ‘Economic Justice’ when the capital is directly owned by the people, we declare that the people would naturally secure what we consider the best among the ‘Fundamental Economic Rights’ like ‘Right to live’, ‘Right to work’, ‘Right to Economic Equality’, ‘Right to economic liberty’, ‘Right to Economic Security’, ‘Right to participate in the management’, ‘Right to capital creation’, ‘Right to live with fraternity’, and requisite ‘socio-economic-political rights to pursuit of decent happiness’

We further proclaim when the people secure the above mentioned ‘fundamental rights’ they would succeed ultimately to establish an Ideal Society or Just Society for which they were tirelessly striving in transforming one form of society into another since the dawn of civilization, and to execute their noble concept of ‘One World, One Government, and One Humanity’ and in the end the people would be victorious in choosing what form of ‘Economic System’ that would be the best of all other systems for the establishment of an Ideal Society for which they would secure all requisite authorities of Natural laws that bestow on them.

1. Emergence of Economic Systems:

Different economic systems had emerged on the horizon of the history of mankind whenever different kinds of ‘Capital Ownership’ sprang up. Especially capitalism and socialism emerged after industrial revolution on the determinant factor of ‘capital ownership’. Generally in all economic systems ‘the ownership of capital’ forms the ‘basic structure’ of a society on which the fabrics of super structure of society are determined. The super structure usually exhibits the qualitative fabrics of society such as religion, culture, education, laws, customs and conventions etc. which are determined according to the aspirations of the owners of capital. In short the social elements are dependent factors of capital ownership.

During the turbulent period of 1750s when Industrial Revolution burst upon the England and other European countries it introduced gigantic machines – a kind of capital – in the factory system of production of goods and services. It engulfed the mankind like huge deluge and tossed the world societies and changed each and every super structural elements of society in such a manner not to even to trace out their originality. We, the people, at that period were deeply perplexed and confused what to do as we were in the vicinity of utter economic ignorance.

2. Two Economic Affidavits:

During Industrial Revolution the economic environments in the factory system was not only in muddle but also demoralizing the societies. No one had any knowledge how the economy was operating and how should it be operated. Everyone was expecting for the worst to come. Whole Europe was plunged into utter ignorance. At that crucial period of time it was Adam Smith, the Father of Economics, published his famous book ‘An enquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations’ in 1776.

3. Economic Affidavit of Adam Smith: In his book Adam Smith spelt out an ‘Economic Affidavit’ solemnly and sincerely that if we, the people, entrusted our capital to a few capitalists in the name of ‘Capitalism’ (Individualism), they would not only change even the sand into gold but also drive the mankind to march towards an ‘Ideal Society’ by modernizing production potentialities with the help of scientific technologies and division of labor. Completely ignoring the working class who constitutes the society, Adam Smith concentered and focused his interest on a few capitalists and advocated that they without the interference of State would accumulate wealth of nations with the help of division of labor using modern machines and assured that the few independent capitalists would moreover create a favorable climate for the establishment of Ideal Society by increasing production many folds. Adam Smith completely neglected the equitable distribution of wealth to the mass working class. He linked the establishment of an ideal society with the mass production but not equitable distribution of wealth. Thus he misguided the whole world convincingly and decisively for a long period during which the working class was thrown into appalling poverty and horrible living hood.

Ricardo and Malthus, drawing he thread of arguments from the wisdom of Adam Smith, eloquently presented their views in favor of a few capitalists and equally convinced the people to surrender their capital in the possession of capitalists who would solve all the socioeconomic problems of mankind. Thus when the people entrusted their capital in the hands of a few capitalists a ‘Capitalistic Mode of Production’ emerged with strong magnitudes in England and some other European countries. This capitalistic mode of production, shattering hitherto existing highly valuable cultures and customs of people, created a complex and conflicting, and highly demoralizing ‘Capitalistic Society’.

The newly emerged ‘capitalistic Society’ forced the social elements such as law, art, culture, customs, religion, education and other economic and political rights and liberties to work for the benefit and security of a few capitalists because on their welfare the welfare of mass working class was depending on. The capitalistic mode of production converted the ‘Right to live’ of mass working class into a dependent factor of the security of the capitalist class who owned the capital and modern factories. This was because if a capitalist collapsed with his factory, the livelihood of the workers working in that factory would also collapse. So all the social elements ranging from culture to human liberty had to work for the security of a few capitalists. Thus the Ideal Society which the people dreamt for long span of time became a myth and mirage. In the capitalistic mode of production the Ideal Society was meant by ‘Capitalistic Society’ representing a few capitalists.

4. Counter Economic Affidavit of Karl Marx:
Having abundant flow of sympathy on the exploited mass working class and endless stream of hatred on the capitalists who caused for the appalling poverty of workers the mentally and morally agitated Karl Marx and Engels declared a ‘Counter Affidavit’ in 1848 in their ‘Communist Manifesto’ and Karl Marx alone in 1867 in his magnum opus the Das Capital. In their counter affidavit they advocated that if We, the people, forfeited our capital from the few capitalists with the help of Bolsheviks (communists) and entrusted the capital in the hands of the ‘State’ under the control of ‘Proletariat Dictatorship’, that the ‘State’ would lead us ‘Towards an Ideal Society’ and establish ‘One World’.* Believing their ‘Counter Affidavit’ word by word, in the October Revolution of 1917 we forfeited our capital from the few capitalists and handed over it to the trustworthy of the ‘State’. The State introduced a ‘Socialistic mode of production’ and on the basis of this, a fearful and subjugating ‘Socialistic Society’ emerged. The working class was engulfed with awe and fearsome and terribly perplexed on the outcome of the ‘Revolution’ and utterly disappointed for not even tracing any hope of achieving ‘Ideal Society’ which their Bolshevik masters promised during the ‘Revolution’.
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*In the words of Karl Marx : “ In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe in its banners : From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”
– Marx(1875), pp 21-23

Karl Marx and Engels were not alive at that time of October Revolution. They were great champions for working class and ‘buts’ about it. They worried wept for working class, they suffered for working class, they sacrificed everything for the working class, and above all they were exiled, especially Karl Marx, from country to country for the cause of working class, and they really wanted to see the working class of all the countries in an ‘Ideal Society’. But the ‘October Revolution’ in Russia proved that their ‘Theory and Practice’ did not coordinate with each other and did not function in harmony. There was something wrong in the ‘Theory and practice’ which resulted in utter collapse of Socialism at the end process. What was the fault that penetrated for its collapse?
I have same streak of opinion in respect of Adam Smith and Malthus as well. I believe when they advocated that we, the people, should entrust our capital in the possession of few capitalists, they believed that the capitalists would not exploit the working class. But when their theories put into practice it was the selfish capitalists who manipulated their theories as convenient and convincing tools to exploit the mass working class. It was the capitalists who portrayed the theories in a darkest dark when they put them in practice because of their selfish motives. In other words there was unbridgeable disparity ( a deep wide chasm) between the theory and practice which the capitalists utilized it to fulfill their selfish motive of maximization of profit in exploiting the mass working class. What was the terrible fault that was penetrating here also?

Though the original proponents of capitalistic and socialistic theories were not enemies of working class, the executors of these theories, the capitalists on one hand and the ‘State’ on the other hand misled the working class for their selfish motives. The primary fault was that we, the people, instead of retaining the capital with us, separating ourselves into two diametrically opposite poles, surrendered our capital to a few capitalists in West European and North American countries and to ‘State’ in Russia, China and other East European countries.

The inherent contradictions that deeply and widely penetrated in the theories and practices of the two economic systems originated a fierce vicious spiral and exploded like a ‘Big Bang’ and scattered away violently but suddenly all the socio-economic problems throughout the world like inextinguishable fire balls. Instead of establishing an ‘Ideal Society’ these two systems, even after a prolonged period of experiments, have pushed the mankind at the verge of nuclear holocaust and wide spread day – to-day terrorism.

5. Democrism – People’s Direct Ownership of Capital:

As long as more than 200 years, Capitalism had left no avenues unexplored to establish an Ideal Society but disastrously collapsed during 1930s throughout the world due to the pressure of its own weight of self contradictions and brutal ambition of maximization of profit. On the same footing, Communism too after exerting all methods of cruel tortures (Stalin’s roughshod treatment of the kulaks) in the name of ‘Proletariat Dictatorship’ for nearly 75 destroyed itself in 1992 in its own breeding place. As both the systems are now struggling for their own survival, they have now decided to end the ‘cold war’ between them. Since the both the systems pushed us into great disappointments and they did not effective economic techniques to solve our economic problems in accordance with ‘Economic Justice’, we, the people, hereby declare to forfeit our own capital both from the capitalists and the ‘State’ and retain it under our direct ownership in peaceful manner or by force if necessity demands and create a ‘new economic system’ known as ‘Democrism’ on the basis of people’s Direct Ownership of Capital and we, further declare the Natural Laws have entrusted upon us all executive powers to do so as our birth right.

On the People’s Direct Ownership of Capital a just economic system known as ‘Democrism’ will in the world and it will provide us ‘Democratic Mode of Production’ which is an inevitable must for the establishment of an ‘Ideal or Just Society’. I venture to say in short,

“Capitalism is popular and popularly defective;
Socialism is destructive and destructively popular;
Democrism is justifiable and justifiably inevitable.”

Whatever race we relate to, whatever language we speak to, whatever color we cover to, whatever religion we follow to, whatever nation we belong to, we are always being influenced by justice and by its emphatic authority of supremacy. The laws may be in transient from time to time, and vary from country to country, but the concept of justice remains illuminant everywhere. We want justice, only the justice and nothing but the justice. Throughout the long passage of history we have honored justice; we have kept in high esteem the men of justice right from king Solomon to Gandhiji . We have unshakable faith that justice is perpetual and ever pervading. We have always fought for justice and it has united us without any discrimination. In his book ‘Anatomy of Liberty’, William O. Douglas, the Justice to the United States Supreme Court, says this truth in every respect as follows:

“The appetite for justice is indeed a cementing influence amon all races, whatever language they speak, whatever of their skin”
-Douglas,William O. “Anatomy of Liberty” (p: xxiv) : (1965)

The universal fact is that if there is justice there will be harmony and immortality. The scientific facts are immortal because they are based on experimental truths. On the other hand if the socio-economic-political principles want to be immortal they should based on justice, only the justice and nothing but justice and perhaps on natural justice. The capitalistic and socialistic principles lack application of justice and therefore they struggle vainly to solve our life problems and they are marching towards their last destiny – the inevitable grave yard. Keeping the above facts in mind I have with utmost care and concern formulated the economic principles on the natural justice in the name of ‘DEMOCRISM’ which will secure universal acceptability. The genesis of all natural justices is to uphold ‘People’s Direct Ownership of Capital’ for which we have to forfeit our capital from the few capitalists and the ‘State’. Why?

“People’s Direct Ownership of Capital : Why do we want?”

1. Denying the natural justice of ‘Right to live’ by Capitalism and Socialism: (Capital promotes and intensifies war)

We, the people of all the countries, unanimously hate intensely the wars which germinate in any form or for any cause. Naturally we are peace loving people. Despite our strong protests the wars have been fought all over the world and billions and billions of innocent people having no association with the war, have been brutally killed and massacred and the skeletons of these people have been heaped like mountains in graveyards. What cause underlies for these wars? The answer is simply one word – ‘the capital’. It is the ‘Ownership of Capital’ by a few capitalists or the ‘State’ that attributes for all kinds of war that negates one’s ‘Right to live’ in the name of patriotism in particular.

Let us for time being set aside the wars fought before Industrial Revolution. The factory system facilitated for the production of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that can be employed from the land, from the ocean and from the air. The whole world turned into open battle field for the nuclear bombs, ballistic missiles, supersonic jets, various kinds of military rockets and the military satellites orbiting the earth. Whatever might be the causes of First and Second World Wars, but their consequences were horrible that pushed the mankind to the very verge of its extinction from the earth planet. Why?

Wars before and after Industrial Revolution: Before the industrialization the wars were fought on a particular battle fields and between two hostile warriors only. The range of destruction was very narrow and limited in coverage because the warriors used only spears and swords. The weapons were manufactured in cottage industries or by the warriors themselves. Natural boundaries like mountains, rivers, oceans and great deserts prevented the enemies to enter into a independent country.

After industrial revolution, weapons of mass destruction were produced with the help of highly sophisticated technologies with help of huge capital in factories owned by a few capitalists and the ‘State’. The natural bounties disappeared and the whole world became open battle field. These weapons were maneuvered only by the highly skilled technocrats. The technocrats used these weapons on the common innocent people to terrorize the enemy-governments to surrender immediately. For example, in World War II USA used nuclear atom bombs to bombard on millions of Japanese civilians and terrorized the government to surrender without fighting in the battle field. Nowadays the battle fields are disappeared and the whole world has become open battle field in the face of mighty ballistic missiles and nuclear atom bombs. They can be produced only with the help of scientists and huge capital owned by the ‘State’ and a ‘few capitalists’. As long as the capital is owned by the ‘State’ and ‘few capitalists’ we cannot escape from nuclear holocaust. Originally Capital was created by the working class to assist them to increase their productivity of consumption goods. As soon as the capital went into the illegal ownership of ‘State’ and ‘Capitalists’ it was used for the production of mass destructive weapons. If we scrutinize the expenditure of the world governments we can detect that a large portion of government expenditure has been allocated for ‘military up gradation’ than for the ‘promotion of education’ and ‘elimination of poverty’.

2. ECONOMIC THEORY OF WAR :

Firstly “if the accumulation of destructive capital increases the temptation for war will increase and vice versa”. The destructive capital means the capital that is used for the production of destructive weapons used by military forces. Secondly the difference in economic ideology of a country prompts it to increase its military power to show its ideological success over the other country and spread its ideology over other countries through war. For example USA and Russia used war as a weapon to spread their capitalistic and socialistic ideologies over other countries. The pages of recent past history will illustrate the fact and also the reason for accumulation of nuclear weapons and other variety of scientific weapons of mass destruction. Thirdly on the globalization of world economy the capitalist rich countries invest huge volume of their excessive capital in poor and developing countries. In order to protect their huge capital from nationalization by the beneficiary countries a mighty military force is required by the investing countries. For instance the American war and threatening of war over Arabian countries to protect her huge capital invested in exploration of petrol and fuel industries. Now American capitalists are investing billion and billions of dollar in I T industries of India and other developing countries. The American capitalists believe that they can protect their capital by their country’s military power. If any country try to nationalize these industries it will result in war. Fourthly the over production of industrial goods by rich countries force them to dump their over production in poor countries through their military power.
Economic reason for two world wars : Virtually after Industrial Revolution in most of the European countries the capital was owned by a few individuals. Since the very aim of capitalism was ‘maximization of profit’ the workers were paid less and it resulted in deficiency of effective demand which caused for ‘over production’. These European countries occupied the poor countries by their military power and converted them as their ‘political colonies’ and with the concept of ‘Free Trade’, they dumped their over-production in the colonies and also exploited the wealth of the colonies. India was the notorious example for that.
With the help of exploited wealth these ‘mother countries’ strengthened mainly their military power. The safety and security of the other ‘Dictatorial European countries’ which had ‘State or less individual Ownership of Capital’ were in jeopardy and unprotected in front of the mighty capitalist countries. On detection of the geographical track these countries found that there were no countries in the world to occupy them as their colonies for exploitation in order to increase their wealth and thereby their military power. These lately wakened dictatorial countries sniffed the fact that their ‘political and military supremacy’ would be pulled down rapidly on the downward track. In order to surpass the supremacy of the Capitalistic European Countries the ‘Dictatorial European Countries, found no other alternative except ‘war’ on the Capitalistic European Countries and on their colonies all over the world. The ‘lust for supremacy’ over the other countries forced them to wage two world wars. Napoleon and Hitler waged war against all of Europe because for the sake of supremacy.
Ayn Rand emphatically points out the genesis for the two world wars in his book ‘Capitalism’ as follows:

“……World War I was started by monarchist Germany and Czarist Russia,
who dragged in their freer allies. World War II was started by alliance of
‘Nazi’ Germany with the Soviet Russia and their attack on Polland” *
- Rand Ayn :“Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” (New American Library-1967) p:37

In this nuclear age we witness a political and economic turbulence all over the world for a mad race for military equilibrium and economic supremacy. Both the Capitalism and Socialism have no blue-print to terminate the opportunity for Third World War. The rich capitalist and socialist countries want to become richer and richer by pushing the vast majority of poor countries to become poorer and poorer as per World Economic Reports. At present the silent turbulence boiling in the poor countries will burst into a Third World War which will be fought between the rich northern countries and the poor southern countries of the world and result in nuclear holocaust. That is why the USA is very keen on preventing the proliferation of nuclear technology among the southern countries using its military might. The only way left for the mankind to stop the flow of ever threatening danger of nuclear war is the execution of economic equality by rich countries in extending their helping hand to poor countries to pull them up from poverty and to reduce the economic imbalance between rich and poor. The capitalist countries will not permit the economic equality within and without but fight for upholding their economic supremacy which will be the ultimate cause for the Third World War.

We, the people, therefore, have no other alternative except to forfeit our capital from the capitalists and the ‘State’ and retain it under our ‘Direct Ownership’ to coordinate with the command of Natural Laws to save the mankind.

2.1. Consequences of World wars and destructive capital:

The First World War was fought between 1914 and 1918. During the span of 4 years the war was fought violently 120 million seconds. Nearly 48 million people (including soldiers) were dead and wounded.* In other words in every 10 seconds 4 people were killed either dead or wounded.
· Nehru, Jawaharlal : “Glimpses World History” : p.637

In the Second World War When the war was virtually approaching its end, on 6th August, 1945 an Atom bomb by name ‘Little Boy’ – a new war machine that the mankind hitherto never experienced – was dropped on Hiroshima. With in 10 seconds one million innocent people were killed. The first world war took 10 seconds to kill 4 people but the second world war, at its end, took 10 seconds to kill one million innocent people. The annihilation depends on the density of population of a city on which an atom bomb drops on. The Super Powers like USA and Russia, have now heaped in their arsenal million times more powerful atom bombs than the one that was dropped on Hiroshima.

No doubt the atom bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were invented by the nuclear scientists. The billion dollar question is whether the scientists produced them with their bare hands or in cottage industries or in sophisticated industries created by huge capital. No capitalist will ever afford such huge capital for the production of weapons of mass destruction because their aim is always ‘maximization of profit’. Only the State can siphon huge capital for the production of atomic bombs only with the help scientists to threaten the other countries and to enjoy the status of ‘super powers’.

Though the atom bombs are the brain-children of atomic physicists the capital required to manufacture them is funded only by the governments secretly against the wishes of the people. As long as the capital is owned by the governments, irrespective of Socialist or Capitalist governments, they spend huge capital for the production of atom bombs in order to achieve military supremacy over other countries or to attain at least an equilibrium in military power. Extensively it is the hard-core radical politicians brain wash the people under the guise of ‘patriotism’, ‘National security’ and ‘National pride’ for the production of atom bombs and other ballistic weapons. Since most of the atomic scientists are the government scientists they have to produce atom bombs at the insistence of governments in the name of national security.

“In 1943 the Manhatten Project Laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, with
J.Robert Oppenheimer as its director, was assigned the task of developing an
atom bomb. The first test at Alamogordo on July 16, 1945, was an outstanding
success (the desert sand was fused to glass for hundreds of yards around the
the site). In August two atom bombs were dropped on Japan”.

“Hiroshima inaugurated not only a new age of science but a new kind of scientists
-the government servants whose knowledge and talent are an important part of the
national arsenal. Furthermore, the scientists were now much more conscious of their
social position and responsibilities. This was true in all advanced industrial countries,
put particularly in the United States and the Soviet Union. Presumably, Soviet
scientists were satisfied to follow the dictates of government leaders, but after World
War II, Oppenheimer and other American scientists entered into a great debate over
the human, political and social implications of atomic science and a profound searching of their own consciences. Oppenheimer resisted the building of the hydrogen bomb – a much more devastating weapon than the bombs used against Japan – in the early
1950’s, and he made important enemies. When Oppenheimer’s security clearance was
withdrawn in 1954, a great outcry from his colleagues expressed more than personal
indignation. The Frankenstein myth appeared to be true, and the monster had locked
the scientist out of his own laboratory. Certain branches of scientific research are not
only secret today, they are expensive secrets; the cyclotrons and reactors of the 1960’s
are far beyond the means of any university or other institution without government support”.*

( * – Cantor, Norman F. – “Western Civilization : Its Genesis and Destiny” III –1970; pp:528-529)

I can arrive two conclusions from deducing the above historical facts:
Firstly, we have to free the atomic scientists from the clutches of governments.
Secondly, we have to forfeit our capital from the hands of governments and to keep it under our own control and possession.
Unless we, the people, forfeit our own capital from the governments and restore ‘people’s direct ownership of capital’ we could not prevent the governments from the mad race for producing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ ranging from AK-47 to atom bombs (of 20,000 megaton attack)

When we pay the tax-money to the governments, we intend tacitly that they would spend it to solve our poverty; but they do not do so. In a speech on April 16, 1953, President Eisenhower said :

Every gun is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed …
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than thirty cities…… We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people…………
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron…….”

Professor Dallas W. Smythe of Illinois said, “Billions for defense but not a cent for socialism. It is not socialism to have the government spend 50 billion dollars for weapons; it would be socialism if the government spent the same amount for education or for public works”.

When we entrusted our capital to the capitalist as well as the socialist governments we constituted a tacit ‘Economic Contract’ with governments. The first and foremost element of the ‘Economic Contract’ was that the governments should utilize our capital to solve our basic economic problems such as poverty, unemployment, economic disparity etc. But the governments in violation of the Economic Contract have spent our capital to destroy our own survival by engaging in the production of weapons- mass-destruction. The governments with the help of scientists produce variety of ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs and test them day in day out to display their scientific genius and military power to other governments. The accumulation of such deadly weapons have now pushed the mankind to the very verge of nuclear holocaust. We, the people of all the countries, therefore, want to recover our capital from the governments and to keep it under our own control and ownership to preserve a perpetual world peace, our birth right.
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“Little Boy” is the nick name given to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. It was Monday morning. Little Boy was dropped from the Enola Gay, one of the B-29 bombers that flew over Hiroshima on that day.
Little Boy
After being released, it took about a minute for Little Boy to reach the point of explosion. Little Boy exploded at approximately 8:15 a.m. (Japan Standard Time) when it reached an altitude of 2,000 ft above the building that is today called the “A-Bomb Dome.”
The July 24, 1995 issue of Newsweek writes:
“A bright light filled the plane,” wrote Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. “We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud…boiling up, mushrooming.” For a moment, no one spoke. Then everyone was talking. “Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!” exclaimed the co-pilot, Robert Lewis, pounding on Tibbets’s shoulder. Lewis said he could taste atomic fission; it tasted like lead. Then he turned away to write in his journal. “My God,” he asked himself, “what have we done?” (special report, “Hiroshima: August 6, 1945″)
note: Paul Tibbets was Colonel, not “Lt. Colonel,” when he was the pilot of the Enola Gay.
The Little Boy generated an enormous amount of energy in terms of air pressure and heat. In addition, it generated a significant amount of radiation (Gamma ray and neutrons) that subsequently caused devastating human injuries.
The people who saw the Little Boy often say “We saw another sun in the sky when it exploded.” The heat and the light generated by the Little Boy were far stronger than bombs which they had seen before. When the heat wave reached ground level it burnt all before it including people.

The strong wind generated by the bomb destroyed most of the houses and buildings within a 1.5 miles radius. When the wind reached the mountains, it was reflected and again hit the people in the city center. The wind generated by Little Boy caused the most serious damage to the city and people.

The radiation generated by the bomb caused long-term problems to those affected. Many people died within the first few months and many more in subsequent years because of radiation exposure. Some people had genetic problems which sometimes resulted in having malformed babies or being unable to have children.
It is believed that more than 140,000 people died by the end of the year. They were citizens including students, soldiers and Koreans who worked in factories within the city. The total number of people who have died due to the bomb is estimated to be 200,000.

The A-Bombs used over Japan; Little Boy (left) and Fat Man (right)
Just three days after the bomb was dropped to Hiroshima, the second atomic bomb called “Fat Man” was dropped to Nagasaki. Though the amount of energy generated by the bomb dropped to Nagasaki was significantly larger than that of the Little Boy, the damage given to the city was slighter than that given to Hiroshima due to the geographic structure of the city. It is estimated that approximately 70,000 people died by the end of the year because of the bombing.
We strongly believe that the world must learn about weapons of total destruction. We hope that the information presented here will help you understand the pain and devastation that nuclear weapons can cause. We don’t want you to just feel sorry for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war inflicted untold pain and suffering on many people in Asia and the Pacific. Rather we want you to work with us to ensure that all of us can live in a safe world.
We hope this document helps you understand what it was, what it means and what we have to do.
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2.2 The cause for dropping atom-bomb on Japan:

There are two theories for dropping atom bomb on Japan. The first is to take retaliation on Japan for its attack on Pearl Harbor. The second is to prevent Socialist Russia to capture Japan. The first theory do not sound reasonable because :

Hitler committed suicide on 30th April, 1945. Immediately on 7th May the Germans agreed to unconditional surrender. Moreover Mussolini and his mistress were killed on April by anti-Fascist Italian partisans. Japan’s position was now completely helpless, and the emperor supported a party in the Japanese government that wished to seek a negotiated peace. The second world war was more or less approaching to its end.
The second theory sounds well because :

On 16th July 1945 President Harry S. Truman - who had assumed office on Roosevelt’s death on 12th April, – was informed that an atom bomb had been successfully tested in New Mexico. The U.S. military found that no other weapon was so awful in destructive power as that of the atom bomb.
At the same time the military forces of Socialist Russia were rapidly advancing towards Japan – the border country of Socialist Russia – to capture it.

The Capitalist America was now in great distress that the Socialist Russia would not only capture Japan but also convert it a Socialist state. To uphold its supremacy America thought that it had no other choice except to execute two things:

1. to prevent immediately the invasion of Socialist Russia on Japan;
2. Instead, it had to capture Japan without sacrificing any more lives of American soldiers in the invasion of Japan.

In order to fulfill the above aims, the Capitalist America was left with only one option that was to use the awful new weapon – the atom bomb – on the civilians to force Japan to immediate surrender. Persuaded by the military strategy, Truman decided to use the bomb and it was dropped on the Japanese city Hiroshima on 6th August, 1945. About 80,000 civilians were killed immediately. Nearly 200,000 died later of radiation or were maimed for life.On the sudden turn of events, Soviet Russia sensed that Japan would go out its hand though it was within its reach. So two days later, on 8th August, Russia declared war on Japan and crossed the Manchurian frontier as the Japanese army remained committed to a fight to the finish.

Since there was a race for supremacy between Socialist Russia and Capitalist America to capture Japan and moreover Russian army crossed the Manchurian frontier, the Capitalist America was forced to act swiftly. So, a second atom bomb – Fat Man – was dropped on Nagasaki on 9th August, 1945 by Capitalist America. Nearly 70,000 civilians died immediately. The following day the Japanese government offered to surrender. On 14th August the terms laid down at Potsdam were accepted and the Second World War was over.

The truth is still solid and sound that the atom bombs were dropped on Japanese cities not because Japan would succeed in the second World War but because the governments of Capitalist America and Socialist Russia were arrogantly desirous to show their supremacy over the other as their economic systems were quite contradictory with each other. Both Capitalism and Communism wanted to prove that it was their system that ultimately led the Second World War towards victory. This ideological conflict between the America and Russia, at the end of the war, resulted in nuclear holocaust of Japan.

There is no assurance to the people of all countries that another nuclear war will not burst out due to the ideological conflicts between the countries or to show their supremacy or for some other reasons the time will decide. Not only America and Russia but all the nuclear countries do not now wish either to destroy all their nuclear weapons or dismantle the industries which produce such weapons of mass destruction. Under these circumstances and ground realities how can we believe and console ourselves that yet another nuclear war will not threaten mankind and cause to vanish the very existence of mankind on the earth. So, we, the people of all the countries, declare to forfeit our capital from the few capitalists and the State and to keep it with ourselves. When we have ‘direct ownership of capital’ we will not allow our capital for the production of nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction.

3. Economic Justice in jeopardy and in peril:

When we handed over our capital to a few capitalists, we were under strong presumption, that they would in certain sense, solve at least our basic problems of poverty and unemployment. On the contrary, since the very basic aim of capitalists is ‘maximization of profit’ they execute all kinds of nefarious designs to exploit the laborers and treat them like other business commodities. So with the enrichment of new technologies the capitalists always intend to replace the workers or minimize the labor force by sophisticated machines. The capitalists never show any interest to promote the economic justice in solving the human problems like poverty, unemployment, economic inequality, unequal distribution of income and wealth etc.

But now the capitalists in some way or other have promoted the welfare of society only by way of promoting their own self interest. In other words if and only if the capitalists are assured that their self interest would be promoted then alone they will allow the betterment of welfare of other members of society. The welfare of huge majority of society is always considered to be a ‘dependent factor of a few capitalists’ in the system of private ownership of capital.

In other words the Welfare of Society (WoS) operates as ‘function of Interest of Capitalists (IoC)’. We can write it as

WoS = f(IoC) ……………. 1

The Interest of Capitalists, in turn, depends on their ‘Maximization of Profit (Max o P). So the equation becomes

IoC = f(Max o P) ……………. 2

The Maximization of Profit (Max o P) by the capitalists results in the ‘Exploitation of Working class’ (EoW). It may written as

Max o P = f(EoW) ……………. 3

The Exploitation of Working class (EoW) creates ‘Maldistribution of National Income’ (Md o NI).

EoW = f(Md o NI) …………….. 4

The degree of maldistribution of national income exposes how the workers are exploited in a country. Generally speaking in most of the countries the top 10% of population enjoys 80% of the national wealth and only just 20% of national wealth is distributed to a vast majority of 90% of population. The maldistribution of national income has always kept the vast majority of people to suffer with low purchasing power and in due course it results in over production. Due to over production the producers are forced to reduce their volume of production and level of employment. On finding the disequilibrium that the goods are not consumed at the rate at which they are produced the producers are forced to close their industries. The very aim of capitalists, the maximization of profit, not only crushes them but also the whole society. Therefore, the private ownership of capital will be dangerous to the whole society and the national capital capital should be equally distributed among the people for the welfare of the mankind. So, Betrand Russel says:

“Private ownership of land and capital is not defensible on the groundsof justice or on the grounds that is economical way of producing what the community needs”
– Russel, Bertrand : “Political Ideals” (p ; 35)

Equally the Marxian theory of “State Ownership of Capital” lacks perfection and threatens human rights. Marxian theory is formed on adamant and inflexible principle and it will not coordinate with the changing world conditions. It preaches a kind of ‘economic fundamentalism’ which wants the elements of society to remain in rigidity for ever. So Loucks rightly states:

“Errors in the theoretical of Marxian thought are so serious and so basic that they cannot be corrected by interpreting or modernizing Marx not can they be considered superficial”
Loucks : “Comparative Economic Systems” ( p : 166)
4.

Poverty in the midst of plenty:

We, the people of all the countries, have accumulated capital more than enough and the goods that could be produced with the help of that capital is more than adequate to eradicate poverty in the world. The statistics of “World Development Report – 1991” substantiate that if we distribute the goods produced equally among the people of all the countries, each one would receive the goods approximately worth of Rs.300 per day, which is more than enough for one’s needs. But in contrary with this fact, two third of world population is now subjected to appalling poverty and suffering with hunger and various diseases for want of adequate notorious food.

The poverty prevails not only between the countries but also within the countries irrespective of whether the country is developed or developing. As there is darkness below the burning candle so is the poverty even in the affluent society due to maldistribution of income and wealth. John Meynard Keynes criticizes the capitalistic system with this ever prevailing paradoxical element of “poverty in the midst of plenty”. Since the capitalism do not know how to distribute income and wealth equally among the people, the capitalists have no moral right or legal right to keep our capital with themselves. They have to honestly return us our capital and we know how to solve our problems under ‘people’s direct ownership of capital’.5.

Absence of Right to Live:

Throughout the length and breadth of the world we can notice the youth both in rural and urban areas bearing great agony in their eyes, having no value for their education are wandering desperately on the streets in seeking employment. The unemployment has pushed them to strip away their dignity, self respect and equal status among others not only in the society but also in their own family. Everywhere they are treated as insignificant trivial and above all less than a human being. In the economic systems, both in capitalism and socialism, they feel that they have deprived of the possession of ‘Right to Live’ at all.

6. Origin of terrorism and economic crimes:

It is partly true that unemployment generates economic insecurity among the youth. But by and large it victimizes the youth an easy prey to drug addiction, trafficking, terrorism, and other socio-economic evils.
The universal accepted fact is that capitalism cannot solve unemployment. The function of capitalism is such that if we want to adhere with capitalism we have to live with unemployment at certain level. The advocates of capitalism have now proved that full-employment in capitalism is only a myth and mirage. Hence as long as capitalism is prevailing in the world, so long as the socio-economic evils will also be pervading in the world as its by products and they will be deteriorating all the well-nurtured cultural fabrics of society. If we want capitalism, we have to learn to live with terrorism and other socio-economic evils.
7. Economic Equality is a Mirage :

It is evident throughout the world, the economic inequality among the people not only within the country but also between the countries is going on widening with an accelerated momentum. In 1982 the per capita income of developed countries in average was 42 times more than that of developing countries like India and China, but the gap was still widening 56 times in 1989. As the gap is going on increasing the poor countries are becoming still poorer and rich countries are more richer. It is natural not only among the people but also among the countries to develop strong feeling of jealousy and hatred, and an impression of inferiority complex and a sentiment of economic slavery. In the complex and confused modern economic systems, the concept and reality of ‘economic equality’ is rushing over beyond the orbit of one’s reach. In this context, our strategic fiscal and monetary policies are reducing to be insignificant to face the challenges. Hence Jawaharlal Nehru rightly blames the capitalistic system of economy for the economic equality:

“Normally speaking it may be said that the forces of a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich, the richer and the poor, the poorer, and thus increase the gap between them”
- Nehru, Jawaharlal : “The Years of Power” (1960) p;294

It would be faulty conclusion that the economic inequality is inseparable function of capitalism alone; even in communist countries we can notice wide economic disparities among the people. Prof.P.T.Baur states:

“….. But there are evident wide differences in income in communist countries after decades of communist rule. And in Soviet Union (a country often thought to be dedicated to the removal of economic differences), the differences in income and living standards are quite as pronounced as in some market oriented societies and this after more than half a century of mass coercion”.*
-* Baur, P.T. : “The Grail of Equality”

The economic equality is one the three basic necessities of ‘Equality, Liberty and Fraternity’ for the establishment of an Ideal Society. But neither capitalism nor communism do not know any effective economic technique to ensure us ‘economic equality’. Hence I venture to say it is futile to allow our capital to remain in possession of some individual capitalists or the State.

8. No Right to Work :

Invariably the ‘Declaration of Independence’ of all the countries proclaim that man has ‘Right to Live’. On the introduction of ‘Division of Labor’ in the modern production system, no one can produce all the goods that require even to lead a very simple life, or a single whole commodity one needs.

On the Division of Labor, everyone is trained to produce only a part of a commodity for which he can receive his wage and with which he has to buy the necessary goods in the market to lead his life. Since a man cannot produce whatever he wants to live, his ‘Right to Live’ solely depends upon his ‘Right to Work’. But no Constitution of any country is powerful enough to provide ‘Right to Work’ as one of the ‘Fundamental Rights’ because the economic systems that the countries pursue are basically defective and incompetent to face the economic challenges. In the absence of ‘Right to Work’ irrespective of what kind of economic system a country follows, the employers never consider man as a man and not even as a commodity. On the other hand they treat man as a ‘rental commodity’ that can be engaged by paying wages as ‘rent’. The defect of economic systems have reduced man and humiliated him as mean and ignoble thing. With full of depression in heart, P.A.Samuelson exhibits the real condition of man as follows:

Since slavery was abolished, human earning power is forbidden by law
to be capitalized. A man is not even free sell himself; he must rent himself at a wage” *
-* Samuelson, P.A. : “Economics” (p : 52)

9.Absence of Stable Just Price :

Universally in all economic systems – whether it is market oriented economy or State controlled economy – the prices in the market are behaving erratically and disorderly. Especially the prices of consumption goods of poor people are always enhancing. But the income of poor people is not increasing as much as the increment of price of their consumption goods. Consequently this economic phenomenon is horribly crushing the purchasing power of the poor. Hence the fact is universally accepted that ‘the poor people are born in poverty, live in poverty and die in poverty’ Whenever the governments declare that they have contained or reduced the rate of inflation it seems always to the benefit of the rich. The economic systems, existing now, do not know any economic techniques to sustain a just price level at stable for the welfare of the vast majority poor.

10. Injustice to Working Class:

In Jerusalem I heard the Israeli Supreme Court say : “It is better that ten guilty persons be acquitted than that one innocent person be convicted”.
This legal justice should not be confined only to the courts of justice but it should be equally extended to govern both the economic justice and economic systems. The economic systems, on the contrary, conveniently permit the economic criminals to escape from punishment and in turn punish the innocent workers who perform their social duty.

The utmost duty of a worker is to produce socially needed goods and services only; but it is not the duty of the worker to bear the responsibility whether the goods and services he produced are sold out. On the other hand it is the duty of the consumers to buy the goods and services that are produced for their consumption at a just price and at the rate at which the goods and services are produced for them.
On the contrary, the consumers, as a whole, behave in the market, guided by their erratic psychological factors, create time lags in purchasing the goods that are produced for their consumption and sometimes neglect the goods to buy at all. These negative and duly non-responsive factors affect the economy severely and ultimately result in the stagnation of goods in the markets. Due to the stagnation of goods in the market an equal volume of goods stagnated are not produced in the subsequent round of production. On the reduction of production of goods the workers who have fulfilled ‘the production – duty’ of the economy, have to lose their employment. The unemployment of a worker not only affects his ‘Right to Live’ but also of the whole family that depends on him. The unemployment of a worker ruins the education of his children, their future ambition in life and their morality and social dignity and their future economic security.

The present economic systems are not competent and efficient enough to secure and save the “Right to live” of the workers who have honestly accomplished their ‘production-duty’ of the economy.
To strengthen my argument I like to quote the words of Prof. Mrs. Joan Robinson :

It is true, with adequate organization there need be no unemployment … There is always something useful that can be done even with a man’s bare hands”*
*– Prof. Mrs. Joan Robinson : “Economic Philosophy” (p : 114)

Joan Robinson too finds fault on the economic systems for wide range of unemployment; in other words, the economic systems that we pursue now are the primary reasons for the failure to provide “Right to Live” to the workers throughout the world. In the present economic systems and economic conditions ‘employment’ and ‘Right to Live’ are synonymous or just the same.
What is the basic cause, today, throughout the world, for billions of youth are crushed by the burden of unemployment? It is the cause :
“Every person, only up to the standard of education and technical training that the society has offered to him, can produce socially needed goods with his bare hands or with the help of small and simple capital that he can afford by himself and thus create ‘self-employment’ opportunities and secure right to live by himself. The creation of self-employment creates an expectation in the mind of the of the worker that the society i.e. the consumers should behave with a sense of ‘economic responsibility’ by consuming the goods at the rate at which he produces, at a reasonable price to sustain the livelihood of the worker. But every self-employed youth knows that the ‘economic responsibility’ is absolutely lacking in the minds of consumers. What is deeply rooted in the minds of unemployed youth is ‘a fear about the future’ that the consumers or the society that he belongs to would not perpetually and automatically accept the goods at a reasonable price that he produces by ‘self-employment’. The ‘fear about the future’ in the minds of the youth who wants to venture in ‘self-employment’ is reasonably justifiable. Due to ‘fear on the future’ the unemployed youth are not venturing in self-employment competing with the highly sophisticated industries. It is then whose fault if the youth are unemployed? The present economic systems have no economic techniques or ‘action programs’ to evacuate the ‘fear of the future’ in the minds of the unemployed youth and to induce ‘economic responsibility’ in the minds of society to save the ‘self-employed’ youth from the competition of well-organized industries.

I have to point out it is the fault of the economic systems for the cause of unemployment and moreover I wish to state that the capitalists and equally the governments should not lay blame on the ‘fate’ of the youth for their unemployment. On the other hand the capitalists and the governments are persistently blame the fate of the youth and try to escape from their ‘economic responsibility’. So we have no other alternative except to forfeit our capital from the them and retain it with ourselves as we know perfectly well how to solve our unemployment and other economic problems.

11.Economic Gambles:

The basic intention leading for the invention of money is it should be used as a ‘medium of exchange’ in buying and selling goods and services. On the contrary, our present economic systems have invariably paved way for the money not only to be used as a ‘medium of exchange’ but also at a large extent as a ‘Medium of Economic Gambles’ throwing away the honesty and morality of societies to the winds. The multi-millionaires, today, have idly and futilely invested billions and billions of money in the stock markets as a medium of gambles uprooting the very noble function of money. The electronic media and the news papers extensively propagating the stock market indices for the benefit of the rich gamblers, the economic criminals, who want to earn quick and easy money with out shedding even a drop of sweat. The present economic systems have accepted this kind of economic gambles without any shyness.

In addition, in the cradles of civilization, especially in the places of sports and games like cricket stadium, Tennis courts, Football grounds, Boxing arenas billions and billions of money are set into circulation as a ‘medium of gambles’. With the help of the ‘capital-power’ the capitalists today have vigorously transformed the noble arts, skillful sports, beautiful games and wonderful cultures into easy-money-earning centers instead of promoting these symbols of civilization. The capitalists in the name of ‘promoters’ have developed strong hatred not only in the minds of ‘players’ but also in the minds of ‘audience’. This kind of economic gambles is now rapidly spreading like dangerous virus in all four corners of the world. For example, the ‘Statesman’ in its 10th October 1978 issue states as follows :
“Britain is a gambling nation. Nearly 94 percent of population indulge in an occasional flutter on races, at the gambling tables, on foot-ball pools or on a variety of other sports. 39 percent of all Britons are habitual gamblers. In 1977 an estimated $ 800 million were stated on races and gamblers. In 1977 an estimated $ 800 million were stated on races and other sports”. Instead of producing socially needed goods and services and creating employment opportunities, the capitalists are utilizing ‘our capital’ for economic gambles extensively and demoralizing our long cherished cultures and civilizations throughout the world.
The capitalists now adopt a new business strategy to exploit the consumers : ‘First kill the civilization and then sell the goods’. The capitalists know the consumers will become a easy prey for sexual exposition. So they in all their advertisements use ‘women in half naked beauty’ to enchant consumers to buy their commodities. We know the capitalists are misusing ‘our capital’ to ‘sexually assault’ the consumers to maximize their profit at the cost of cultural destruction and spreading demoralization. With deep mental agony I like to state that millions of young women have now turned as prostitutes as a source of employment and the International Labor Organization (ILO) now recommends to accept prostitution as ‘flesh industry’ which contributes reasonable amount of foreign exchange for many countries.

12.Class distinction and failure of economic machinery :

In lieu of promoting fraternity among the people the present economic systems create various class distinctions such as 1. proletariat and capitalist, 2. consumer and producer, 3. savers and investors. The class distinction between proletariat and capitalist is always underlying at the bottom of strikes, lock outs and innumerable industrial disputes. The class distinction between ‘consumers and producers’ is attributable for the failure of determination of ‘just price’ in the market and for uneven distribution of goods among the people. The class distinction between ‘savers and investors’ is harmfully preventing the requisite acquisition of investment to eradicate poverty and unemployment expeditiously in the world. The present economic systems are full of contradictions without which they can not function. Our capital in the possession of few capitalists and the State is the root cause for all class distinctions. Once the capital comes under the ‘direct ownership of people’ all the class distinctions will disappear

13.Maximization of profit destroys morality of society:

In the present economic systems the industries project their ‘volume of profit’ as the ‘balance of judgment’ of their determination of ‘industrial success’ The industry which earns more profit is considered to be more successful. The mental attitude forces the capitalists even to destroy the natural environment extensively in order to produce goods cheaply. With the sole aim of maximization of profit, the capitalists have no even an iota of concern over the future welfare

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The Role of Legal Professionals in Consolidating Ghana’s Democracy and Good-Governance

THE ROLE OF LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN CONSOLIDATING GHANA’S DEMOCRACY AND GOOD-GOVERNANCE

Introduction

To talk about Good Governance from the African perspective, we need to make reference to the Durban Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance, which mentions among other things “just, honest, transparent, accountable, participatory government and probity in public life”. Accordingly, African States in that declaration have agreed to work with renewed determination to enforce the rule of law; equality of all citizens before the law; individual and collective freedoms; the right to participate in free, credible and democratic political process; and adhere to the separation of powers, including protection for the independence of the judiciary.

In the achievement of these goals the role of the legal profession is very significant. I would therefore like to talk about the legal profession within the context of democratic governance. Before addressing this particular issue, I deem it equally important to talk about Ghana’s level of commitment and performance in ensuring democracy and good governance as portrayed in its assessment under the African Peer Review Mechanism.

Democracy and good governance

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is a mutually agreed instrument voluntarily acceded to by the member States of the African Union and it is an innovative approach to improving governance. The origin of APRM was the 37th Summit of the Organization of African Unity held in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia, adopted a document setting out a new vision for the revival and development of Africa, which was to become known as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. (NEPAD)

Note that as of June 2005, the APRM Participating Countries were, Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda Expressions of Intention to Accede to the APRM have been received from: São Tomé and Príncipe, Sudan, Zambia.

The mandate of the APRM is to encourage conformity in regard to political, economic and corporate governance values, codes and standards, among African countries. Ghana has been a shining example in the APRM process, being among the first group of countries to sign the Memorandum of Understanding on 9 March 2003.

Ghana instituted a National Governing Council in compliance with the requirement for participating countries to have an independent self-assessment of its governance record in  four areas, namely: Democracy and Political Governance; Economic Governance and Management; Corporate Governance; and Socio-Economic Development. This article, however, will focus on Democracy and Political Governance.
Continue reading

Life in the New World Order – Soul Mates or Cell Mates?

“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government …. all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” – Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

Our lives are being directed according to a business plan. The agenda has been laid out over decades and centuries, we are just led to believe it’s happening in real time. There are some very significant dates coming up within the next few short years. Hard to imagine that we are smack dab in the middle of an end-game scenario, with plans coming to fruition that have been laid out and documented since at least the 1920′s and 30′s. Even more incredible, you can literally go back hundreds of years to find out it’s the same basic cast of characters through elite bloodlines responsible for secret societies and shadow governments. Members of this group are said to include such prominent families as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, Duponts, as well as presidents, prime ministers and European monarchs.

Using their influence through international organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the CFR, the United Nations and NATO, the objective of the internationalists is nothing less than the subjugation of everyone on the planet to a one world government. How long has all this been going on? Without stretching the limits of your indulgence regarding quotations (I’ll do that later), consider these, which, if you disregard the names and dates, could easily have been uttered this morning:

“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” – Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli of England 1844

“From the days of Sparticus, Wieskhopf, Karl Marx, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemberg, and Emma Goldman, this world conspiracy has been steadily growing. This conspiracy played a definite recognizable role in the tragedy of the French revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century. And now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their head and have become the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”- Winston Churchill London Press l922

” If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.” – President Andrew Jackson 1829-1837

“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen….At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.” New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, 1922

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt l933

“The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.” Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952

The Council on Foreign Relations states the following on their website:

“Three former high-ranking government officials from Canada, Mexico, and the United States call for a North American economic and security community by 2010 to address shared security threats, challenges to competitiveness, and interest in broad-based development across the three countries.”

“North America is vulnerable on several fronts: the region faces terrorist and criminal security threats, increased economic competition from abroad, and uneven economic development at home. In response to these challenges, a trinational, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America has developed a roadmap to promote North American security and advance the well-being of citizens of all three countries.” – May 2005 task force report Building a North American Community published by the Council on Foreign Relations

I refute these assertions categorically. The biggest terrorist and criminal threat we face in North America is from the US government itself. There is a long history of false flag operations or self inflicted wounds like 9-11 committed by this country, so having us join them would surely not mitigate that threat, rather it would increase. As far as competition or uneven economic development, the market will have to take care of any imbalances within itself. Just because the economy is not doing so well right now is no excuse to do away with a sovereign country and abrogate our rights as free individuals, or steal our resources. There is no reason to believe that secretly plotting to merge these nations against the will of their citizens would advance the well-being of anyone, instead, it would destroy our heritage and turn us all into slaves of a corporate fascist state. No thanks. Same goes for the plans to adopt a new common currency for all 3 countries, as if we should have anything to do with the corruption tied to the Federal Reserve System. I would rather not have any part of a nation that can remove people from their home, torture and imprison them, and then deny them any right to a fair trial. What happened to sweet land of liberty, oh right, that’s just a song.

Everyone should be aware that the corporate elites in this world fully endorse the Red Chinese model of social governance and economics as the standard for their emerging New World Order. That is the reason for the FEMA camps that have been set up currently under the guise of emergency centers for immigration, natural disaster, or “other”. As per the Chinese model, dissidents will be dealt with severely and placed into work camps. A United Nations global police force will help keep everyone in line, once they implement their plans for the Universal Biometrics Identification Card.

“Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.” David Rockefeller 1973 New York Times

The movers and shakers of this world will use any means necessary to force their plans of unification on the world. Any issue, whether real, imagined or created can and will be utilized to achieve their objectives; overpopulation, global warming, disease, natural disasters, civil unrest. Population control measures include biological warfare targeting food supply, as well as various methods of climate manipulation through Chemtrails spraying and implementation of the HAARP technology .

The net has begun to close. You are not going to like the changes coming up – we will be forced, bribed and cajoled into accepting new identification measures, new laws, new taxes for global warming, new taxes for more security. After all, there’s going to be a lot of angry Iraqi Muslim terrorist types who are out to kill us, especially after we invaded, then decimated their country, destroyed their noble and learned culture, killed about a million of them, displaced a few million more. I guess you could say they might be a tad snarly towards America. They hate our freedoms huh? I guess after we brought our freedom and democracy to them so spectacularly in Iraq, they checked it out and said, “I hate it”.

“The terrorist is the one with the small bomb” – Brendan Behan

You’re going to hear more hoo-ha about things like the NAU, the Amero, RFID chips, you’re going to see more jack-booted heavily armed militia types wearing Kevlar, detaining you and abrogating every god-given right you once had, rights that were once so beautifully encoded by those brilliant fathers of the Constitution, you remember the Constitution don’t you? – that inspired set of principles that once made America the envy of the world, until the likes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ripped it up and wiped their arses with it, all the while laughing while they grew rich and flushed the country and it’s noble ideals down the toilet.

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded” – Charles-Louis De Secondat 1748

The coup has already happened folks, you’re too busy worried about Democrats and Republicans, but the truth is – these crooks rigged at least a couple of elections which is common knowledge, so they assumed power illegitimately. In reality, the false left/right paradigm is but another low-level reality to keep the masses diverted and occupied. Republican or Democrat, they all answer to the same bosses – now would you like Coke or Coke Classic? – it’s the same damned pop. And how nice when you control the military, the media, the judiciary, the senate – you can just pretend you have support, even if the vast majority of people in your own country are fully cognizant of the fact that you lie, cheat, murder and abuse. How else can you explain the polls which show 80 – 90% of the populace demanding an end to war, or a real investigation of the US government’s unquestionable cover up and involvement in 9/11. A real opposition would call them on at least some of the lies, a real media would research some of the corruption, a real Supreme Court would hold everyone accountable to the law. These guys are good at it too, they make the Sopranos look like choir boys. There’s going to be more fireworks so get ready. These psychopaths are being backed into a corner, and it’s going to get rough.

“A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Starting to get hot around here

“There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine . . . been here 4 1/2 billion years. We’ve been here, what, a 100,000 years, maybe 200,000. And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry a little over 200 years. 200 years versus 4 1/2 billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we’re a threat? The planet isn’t going away. We are.” – George Carlin

The global warming thing is already past due and beginning to stink. Any sane person would have to admit that this planet is in some kind of trouble if we don’t properly manage our resources and stop polluting ourselves into ecological extinction. What I object to is the way the globalists are trying to use this fact, and sometimes distort it to further their own agenda. I can remember back in the 70s when we were told about the cooling down of the earth and the impending ice age. Soon they will find a way to blame and tax us for the temperature rising on other planets as well, in the meantime – let’s see a few of you politicians get out of your limos and hop on a bus like a regular shmoe.

“‘Protecting the Environment’ is a ruse. The goal is the political and economic subjugation of most men by the few, under the guise of preserving nature.” J. H. Robbins

Witness all the stark incongruity that exists in this strange world of ours – there are now special units that check garbage cans to make sure people are fined for not managing their refuse properly, we’re made to feel like some kind of criminal if we screw up sorting our tin cans. I only hope that they make a carbon tax that is very high so we can feel guilty for driving the car to buy milk, or pay a fine for using a 60W bulb – meanwhile, the US government is dumping depleted uranium that will continue to poison the earth for, let’s say (glances at watch) 5 BILLION YEARS. But never mind that – don’t you dare put the plastic milk jug in the same box with the cardboard – you Bastard!

“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” H. L. Mencken

Another Path

“If totalitarianism wins this conflict, the world will be ruled by tyrants, and individuals will be slaves. If democracy wins, the nations of the earth will be united in a commonwealth of free peoples, and individuals, wherever found, will be the sovereign units of the new world order.” – Declaration of the Federation of the World

Two men stand at the top of a mountain – one man sees the panoramic beauty of all existence, the line of sky between earth and the heavens but a jumping off point for his consciousness – what other worlds? what other possibilities in my mind? What a blessing and a benediction is this life, I have my family, my friends, and all the beauty of nature at this moment to behold. The other man stands in the exact spot – he sees an opportunity to capitalize on the richness of the mountain, extract the ore, use the local tribe for cheap labour, and if I can just get rid of this guy standing beside me…

We spend most of our lives trying to acquire things like knowledge, experience, wealth, respect. Once past a certain point in our lives, usually closer to the end, many find themselves trying to cast off those trappings they have spent a lifetime gathering, seeing all such things as chains or diversions, layers between ourselves and our truth. Focused within the resolution provided through the lens of wisdom, and diminishing opportunity of time – those vestments, once thought as prizes to be won, can be seen as constraints that limit one’s true potential. We learn to redefine our perspectives or else we end up very frustrated with the world, our greatest fear being stagnation and mental intransigence, which only inhibits growth and progression in our life. We learn that the only thing constant in this world is change.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

Change is good, change is inevitable, but no matter how many things might change in our life there will always remain certain constants that must never change. You know, basic things, like the things we learn as children – simple rules that tell us it’s wrong to lie, to kill, to steal. These things do not change because you are a bus driver, a politician, a multi-billionaire, or you work for the CIA.

“The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations” – David Friedman

I spent my whole life thinking I could avoid politics and anything to do with the public realm. I believed that if I just looked after myself and my family, what happened outside of my little sphere would not matter too much. After all, I’ve never hurt anyone, always paid my taxes, was known to enjoy the odd hockey game with a beer. My discovery of the truth regarding 9/11, followed by my realization of the malevolent forces that control our world has turned my life around, and so once again I must change.

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” – Pericles 430 B.C.

The raising of my family confers upon me the responsibility to try and make sure they can grow up in a world where mass-murderers are not allowed to rule the planet, despoiling the earth and killing whomever necessary to fit their plans for expansion and domination. As the saying goes, it’s not about right and left, its about right and wrong! If somebody marched into your country, accused you of international high crimes, occupied your land and slaughtered your family and friends while stealing your resources, and was then found to be guilty of lying about those accusations – which were subsequently proved to be categorically false, but stayed on year after year, killing, stealing, lying….Would that seem all right to you? How can you not allow that same reasoning to prevail for the people of Iraq, or anywhere else?

“Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it” – William Penn

I am just one person, but we are many. In every sense they have lost the battle with me, and so I know it is possible for others. The truth movement is only gaining in strength with each passing day. The truth will out, every time – it’s only got one way to go. I salute the great people in this movement who have inspired me with their integrity, their bravery, and most of all their brilliance as scholars in search of the truth. And on the other side, I feel only contempt for those who knowingly uphold such deceit and hypocrisy which brings us all to war.

“An individual’s character is not defined by their circumstance, it is revealed through it” – Peter Zaza

I am able to live in a psychologically clean environment where nobody rules my thoughts, I pay little attention to the mainstream media, other than to discern the true subtext of every headline and article so blatantly part of the grand pysops campaign. Most importantly, I have a cause, and a true inner moral compass with which I can live my life and fight this battle, and let’s be clear – this is going to be tantamount to war – a war for our thoughts, and as so many who are still dying every day prove to us all – a battle for our very lives.

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” – Elie Wiesel

Yes, the truth can only get bigger, it is within its nature. Those who would adhere to the myths promulgated by liars must employ increasingly desperate measures – repressive laws, no fly lists, surveillance, termination of basic rights, more aggressive tactics to instill fear. Fascist dictators do not claw back measures like the egregiously titled Patriot Act, they don’t make bogus laws giving themselves omnipotent powers because they intend to repeal them 6 months later, they just keep on exposing themselves further as parasites and psychopaths, with ever more obvious signs of their waning struggle for power. Do you want the Patriot Act? Or do you want to act like a patriot?

“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” Benjamin Franklin.

“Why, the Government is merely…a temporary servant…Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” – Mark Twain

Something else seems to happen in these situations as shown to us through history – there will be a large economic correction or depression which will help settle the matter of the current cabal in office. It will most likely be expensive for us all, but the cost of our hubris and callous indifference will exact a price on ordinary men, as well as the nations they support.

“Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later” – Benjamin Franklin

It’s too bad really, they could have invested those trillions of dollars and all that human potential into energy research, education, health care, anything to do with the betterment of mankind rather than its destruction. Instead, they opted to make war and commit the worst crimes of humanity in some insane quest for dominance.

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix

How can we retain hope or have any chance of true fulfillment in our lives with all this going on?

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of Truth and Love has always won There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it, always” – Mahatma Gandhi

I alone retain complete and utter sovereignty over my life – no one gave me my freedom, and no one is going to take it from me. I refuse to carry RFID tracking devices, biometric implants, or whatever else you want to use to restrict and monitor my life. I will not let you degrade and humiliate me at airports, roadside checks, random searches, or whatever else you concoct to try and subjugate us with in the name of your bullshit war on terror. I reject your new world order and the idiot box TV it rode in on.

I challenge everyone to turn off the television, do some research and think for yourself. Stop looking toward anybody outside of yourself for direction, leadership, understanding or help in this world – especially if that someone is a politician. Stop waiting for somebody else to get their hands dirty and fix all the problems.

Stop thinking about other people who live on this Earth as being other.

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” – Thomas Jefferson

CasaZaza


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Democracy and Mental Health

As a teenager around year 1976 or 1977, back home in Tehran, I was reading a novel that was about participating events during the Russian revolution.

The novel was attention-grabbing and several times I came across the word Democracy. I really did not know the meaning of that word. My curiosity motivated me to look up the word in a dictionary we had in our library. I did not appreciate to skip the unfamiliar word that like many other Latin words were being printed in our Persian literature.

I looked up the word just because I had an emerging need for conceptualizing the story. I think the meaning that I found was too vague or too broad and I tried to put things into a context by that simple minded meaning of a big concept as Democracy.

I was not satisfied with the dictionary. I guess this word had been reluctantly overlooked by the system of censure at that time or it might have been by accident or because of translation errors. I remember I was thinking how come this was the first time I had seen this word, while I used to read books. Who knows?

I asked my father what that word meant. He did not like my question and he did not know the answer either. He suggested that I do not care about that remark because that word did not meant to be for us Iranian. I become conscious that if my father did not have a respond to my question, it maybe due to the fact that the word itself did not relate to our lives anyway, so why learns it?
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Democracy at Its Best – The Swiss Style!

‘Government of the people, by the people and for the people’, it was Lincoln on democracy. The democracy that he defined prevails in his mother country, US. Thanks to the US constitution which plays the balancing act between the three premiere institutions of democracy, the legislature, the executive and the judiciary in the US with a series of powers given to these institutions to control each other, known as ‘checks and balances’. Though the President of US is said to be elected directly by the people of US, it is an electoral college that ultimately decides who is to become the President. Election to the upper house, meant for the Senates is held once in two years; similarly members to the House of Representatives are elected by the people periodically. The democracy that prevails in the US is an indirect form of democracy through the elected representatives of the people.

In India, considered to be the largest democracy of the world with a population of more than 120 million, people are delegating their power to their representatives through the election process. The elected members are sometimes participating in the voice voting and in rare cases involving important issues as well as electing the President or the Vice President of India they exercise their vote in a secret ballot. Though illiteracy plays its havoc in having a healthy democracy in India, by and large, it is successful.
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Ancient Greek, Roman Contrasts – Democracy With Alexander, Emperor With Julius





Ancient Roman history books tell us about the single minded ambition and powerful physical presence of Julius Caesar, the greatest of any Caesar. Julius took his Roman legions far beyond the boundaries of Rome and created the Roman Empire, with him as the first dictator, or single ruler.

For this, of course, he was to pay for his life, and even then, a series of others who would call themselves Caesar continued the rule by leader, no longer the council of equals that the Senate and Forum had been.

The early Roman model had followed that of Greece, which had created the first modern example of honest rule by all through the equal power of their individual vote on any issue of urgency or efficiency: all had their say.

To begin his triumphal return to Rome, Julius Caesar came to, and then crossed the Rubicon River. He had hesitated, history understands, but not for long, as this plan had been building in the masterful mind and ambitious heart for years.

It was said of Julius as he rose that he would rather be first in any village than second in Rome. And so he became the first in every village he conquered, one by one, until he reached the Atlantic and had no more villages to gather up into the family of Rome.

But after his conquests, he and his men secured what they had established, began the building of roads and forts and the exchange of young sons between villages to work with them in far away lands, in the customary divide and rule. The new lads would become loyal soldiers for Rome once they were a thousand miles from their native village. It worked very well, and has been used by canny dictators since. But it was Julius Caesar, the Father of the Fatherland, who brought civilization to savage Europe.

Now long after Rome has faded as a power, the sense of a united Europe continued, even as languages diverged and now many versions of Latin are spoken between Portugal to Spain to France to Belgium to Italy and as far as Romania and beyond, and Christian all over. Yon Cassius did have a lean and hungry look, but all people prefer they get a vote, and a chance to express their deepest thoughts freely.

In his way, Julius gave his life to ensure that a civilized people could get along, and perhaps who was first in the village was not all.

At his Rubicon, the Indus, the soldiers of Alexander voted to go home, and they did. One man rule with Julius, or a Senate like Greece? We will discuss this further: this was the defining era that defined nation states to empires for more than the next thousand years. It is not a battle completed yet.

Democratic World Government

Consumer Democracy





A reader suggested recently that some of my articles should be submitted to Digg, an online website where readers submit and vote for newsworthy and interesting pieces. The advice was flattering, and indeed it seems that some of what is said here is by all accounts of interest to a broad spectrum of readers, but more interesting still is the process by which Digg aims to achieve objectives of newsworthiness.

The website operates on the democratic principle that readers can pick and choose what submitted articles they want to read and whether they want to “digg” them, with the obvious result that those articles with the most number of “digs” receive front-page coverage and therefore exposure. For articles that readers deem uninteresting, instead of just not voting, readers have the option to choose “This is lame” – if there are enough of these “lame-votes”, the article is removed by supposedly light-handed moderators.

So far this all sounds like fairly intuitive democratic reasoning, and by all accounts there should be little complaint with the method, but there have been some considerable voices of opposition to the site’s worthiness. The most recent attack was by one fairly high-profile writer named Charlie Demerjian, who published an article called “Digg.com is worthless as a democratic concept” in which he recounted an experience of having written a fair piece about gaming online to discover that it was overwhelmingly popular. Deciding to submit it to Digg.com, Demerjian unsurprisingly saw its popularity rocket and received more e-mails and comments, some in agreement and some in disagreement with what he had to say, but all fair.

When the young writer conducted a search on dig.com for his article several days later then he was surprised to find that it had been deleted. Querying the moderators of the website, he was told that the piece had also received ten “lame votes” and hence had been removed as this was the required number. Logically, he pointed out that despite an article receiving over one-thousand potential votes, it could be removed if only ten dissenters chirped in.

Consumer Democracy

Demerjian’s rant is somewhat reminiscent of attacks launched at Prime Time shows such as “American Idol” and “The X Factor”. The Spanish version, Operaccion Triumfo, recently received accusations by two investigative journalists that the final rounds were rigged in a currently banned expose.

On the occasions that there certainly was no unauthorised “editing” involved from producers however, viewers have complained at the lack of quality of the winners’ albums, and this has reflected in the mostly poor record sales once they hit the stores. In large part this is why it costs so much to make a phone call to vote for the candidates – because if revenues from shows where consumer democracy prevails were to be left up to end product sales most of these shows would display a net loss.

Demerjian summarises; “Luckily for humanity, the editing process has been left to professionals, or in our case, monkeys on crack. Regardless, they are professional monkeys on crack, and they show a good deal more common sense than the unwashed masses”, and here he hits the point.

Although we like to think that we know exactly what we want, and that we are capable of choosing our preferred product, as inexperienced consumers we are in fact notoriously inefficient, which is why as a society we have traditionally always been happy to have “professionals” do the selection process for us.

If there is no natural editing process, an artificial one often has to be implemented in order to make the venture commercially viable. The reason Digg.com has the ridiculous rule of 10 vs. 1000 is that, were this not the case, consumers would leave popular articles on the front page for ridiculous amounts of time to the degree where they abandoned the site because it became “more of the same”.

It all comes down to habit. The difference between consumers and professionals is that, whereas consumers are notoriously habitual in their behaviour, professional editors and producers are anything but – in their eternal commitment to the “latest new thing”, they perform the natural recycling process which would seem exhausting to us in practice but which makes us content to return to shows and stores.

As the current trend of “reality” aligns itself with democratic knowledge-sharing technological capabilities such as the internet, such artificial ways of replacing a natural editing process will have to become necessary, because, as the evidence shows, consumer democracies are fundamentally dysfunctional.

Product cycles are best left up to the chosen few, even if, as Demerjian points out, they do happen to come with a crack habit.

World Internet Statistics

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