19 Feb 2024 7:18 am
(PART III OF III)
One of the reasons for my mentioning Walter Rodney's book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was to point out that, although Western cultures claim that "the African continent is poor because Africans are less intelligent and more prone to violence," Africa's impoverishment is the result of 500 years of European colonialism. ( https://www.versobooks.com/products/788 ... ricaRodney ). The "less intelligent" idiocy is blatantly racist, while the "prone to violence" nonsense hides a system of exploitation underscored by a long history of European and American-sponsored military coups. This way, when an average American watches a sixty-second segment depicting a coup d'État in, say, Burkina Faso, they'll usually sigh while saying, "Oh, those 'stupid' and 'violent' Africans can't get along with one another." However, those individuals don't understand that European and American governments install Western-friendly military regimes in natural resource-rich African nations, which help to ensure the mostly duty-free flow of resources out of Africa. Most Americans don't understand that when a coup unfolds, it's because someone with the interests of workers in mind rather than the interests of capitalists has come to power and, therefore, must be removed. It's so Americans can look at the formation of AFRICOM while telling themselves, "Oh, that's good. That should keep those 'stupid and violent' Africans in line." There's little understanding that, for example, the Green New Deal would be built upon the backs of already heavily exploited Africans. So, the widespread and erroneous belief that Africans are unintelligent and violent effectively assures that bread and circus-obsessed Americans never have to face reality. While discussing Socialist Industrial Unionism ( http://www.slp.org/pdf/statements/siu_chart.pdf , I wrote, "...workers elected to positions of authority by their fellow workers would serve for set durations and return to their previous jobs upon completing their terms. They would be subject to immediate recall whenever a majority of those who elected them deemed it necessary."
Cannonppointer: "Yes, yes - immediate recall. Governments that live only in the mind dispense perfect justice. They function beautifully, efficiently, and seamlessly."
Many socialist states have had and continue to have governing systems in which elected members are subject to recall by those who elected them. Cuba, for example, employs such a system: its National Assembly, its municipal assemblies, and its local governing bodies or "street councils." There's nothing imaginative about it.
I wrote: "It's not that any worker would have more or less say than any other worker. It would be a matter of workers voicing their say in their workplaces. Engineers wouldn't vote for bricklayers, and bricklayers/construction workers wouldn't vote for engineers because they'd be employed in separate industries."
Cannonpointer: "The people who design the bridges and oversee their construction are in a different industry than the fellows they order about? Is that so? I had no idea. But in the world of the mind, all things are possible."
No, that's not so. That's not what I wrote. Workers temporarily elected to positions of authority would, as have such workers in existing socialist societies, direct workers within their workplaces or their respective industries. Again, "Engineers wouldn't vote for bricklayers, and bricklayers/construction workers wouldn't vote for engineers because they'd be employed in separate industries."
(END OF PART III)