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Reparations & In d u s t r i a l i zed Cannibalism
Subject: Reparations and A New Global Order
Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 03:29:08 -0400 From
"Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory" <toplab@toplab.org> To: CC:
If I sent this before, forgive the duplication. However, I thought you
should see this. Joanie
Although this paper was written in 1993, with the increasing momentum
of the reparations movement it remains relevant. --TOPLAB
A paper read at the second Plenary Session of the First Pan-African
Conference on Reparations, Abuja, Nigeria, April 27, 1993.
Contemplating the condition of the Black World is vexatious to the spirit:
that is probably the strongest impetus which has brought us all here today.
For many centuries, and especially in the last five, the black skin has been
a badge of contempt. For instance, it used to be said in Brazil that if you
are white and running down the street, you are an athlete; but if you are
black and running down the street, you are a thief! And in most parts of the
world today, if you are white and rich, you are honoured and celebrated, and
all doors fly open as you approach; but if you are black and rich, you are
under suspicion, and handcuffs and guard dogs stand ready to take you away.
Yes, the black skin is still the badge of contempt in the world today, as it
has been for nearly 2,000 years. To make sure it does not remain so in the
21st century is perhaps the overall purpose of our search for reparations.
We are gathered here today, thinkers and activists who want to change Black
People's condition in the world. What things do we need to change, both in
the world and in ourselves, if we are to accomplish the mission of
reparations? What changes must we make in structures, in psychology, in
historical consciousness and much else?
We might begin by noting that Blacks are not the only people in the world
who are seeking, or who have sought, reparations. In fact, by only now
pressing our claim for reparations, we are latecomers to a varied company
of peoples in the Americans, in Asia, and in Europe. Here is a partial
catalogue of reparations, paid and pending, which are 20th century
precedents for reparations to the Black World.
In the Americas, from Southern Chile to the Arctic north of Canada,
reparations are belong sought and being made. The Mapuche, an aboriginal
people of Southern Chile, are pressing for the return of their lands, some
30 million hectares of which were, bit by bit, taken away and given to
European immigrants since 1540. The Inuit of Arctic Canada, more commonly
known as the Eskimo, were in 1992 offered restitution of some 850,000 sq.
miles of their ancestral lands, their home range for millennia before
European invaders arrived there.
In the USA, claims by the Sioux to the Black Lands of South Dakota are now
in the courts. And the US Government is attempting to give some 400,000
acres of grazing land to the Navaho, and some other lands to the Hopi in the
south-west of the USA.
In 1938, the US Government admitted wrongdoing in interning some 120,000
Japanese-Americans under Executive Order 9066 of 1942, during WW II,
and awarded each internee $20,000.
Earlier on, and further afield, under the Thompson-Urrutia Treaty of 1921,
the USA paid Colombia reparations, including the sum of S25 m on, for
excising the territory of Panama from Colombia for the purpose of building
the Panama Canal.
In Asia, following WW II, Japan paid reparations, mostly to the Asian
countries it had occupied. By May 1949, $39 million had been paid from
Japanese assets in Japan, and another unspecified amount had been paid from
Japanese assets held outside Japan. And Japan as obliged to sign treaties
of reparations with Burma 1954), the Philippines (1956, and Indonesia (1958).
More recently, the Emperor of Japan has apologised to Korea for atrocities
committed there by the Japanese, and North Korea is asking for $5 billion in
reparations for damages sustained during 35 years of Japanese colonisation.
In Europe, after WW II, the victors demanded reparations from Germany for
all damages to civilians and their dependants, for losses caused by the
maltreatment of prisoners of war, and for all non-military property that was
destroyed in the war. In 1921, Germany's reparations liability was fixed at
132 billion gold marks. After WW II, the victorious Allies fled reparations
claims against Germany for $320 billion. Reparations were also levied on
Italy and Finland. The items for which these claims were made included
bodily loss, loss of liberty, loss of property, injury to professional
careers, dislocation and forced emigration time spent in concentration camps
because of racial, religious and political persecution. Others were the
social cost of war, as represented by the burden from loss of life, social
disorder, and institutional disorder; and the economic cost of war, as
represented by the capital destroyed and the value of civilian goods and
services foregone to make war goods. Payments were made in cash and kind --
goods, services, capital equipment, land, farm and forest products; and
penalties were added for late deliveries.
Perhaps the most famous case of reparations was that paid by Germany to
the Jews. These were paid by West Germany to Israel for crimes against
Jews in territories controlled by Hitler's Germany, and to individuals to
indemnify them for persecution. In the initial phase, these included $2 billion
to make amends to victims of Nazi persecution; $952 million in personal
indemnities; $35.70 per month per inmate of concentration camps; pensions
for the survivors of victims; $820 million to Israel to resettle 50,000
Jewish emigrants from lands formerly controlled by Hitler. All that was just
the beginning. Other, and largely undisclosed, payments followed. And even
in 1992, the World Jewish Congress in New York announced that the newly
unified Germany would pay compensation, totalling S63 million for 1993, to
50,000 Jews who suffered Nazi persecution but had not been paid reparations
because they lived in East Germany.
With such precedents of reparations to non-Black peoples in four continents,
it would be sheer racism for the world to discountenance reparations claims
from the Black World.
But our own search for reparations must, of necessity, be tailored to our
peculiar condition, to our peculiar experience. Some others may need only
that their ancestral home range be returned to them; some others that they
be compensated for the indignities of internment and the loss of citizen
rights; some others that acts of genocide and other atrocities against their
people be atoned or and paid or; some others that lands excised from their
territory be paid for. We, however, who have experienced all of the above
and more, and experienced them for much longer than most, and therefore
suffer chronically from their effects--we must take a more comprehensive
view of what reparations must mean for us. We must ask not only that
reparations be made for specific acts, or that restitution be made of
specific properties; we who have been such monumental victims are obliged
to also ask: What sorts of system, capitalist as well as pre-capitalist, with
their values and world outlook, made this long holocaust possible; and what
must be done to transform these systems into some other kind where holocaust
could not be inflicted on us? Unless we address and effectively answer that
question, our quest for reparations would be flawed and incomplete. We must
therefore look into the nature of the old existing global order and see what
needs to be done to change it for the better.
The hallmarks of the old global order, which was initiated by the voyage by
Columbus may be summarised as a propensity for perpetrating holocaust,
a devotion to exploitation, and a passion for necrophobia. It has inflected
holocaust, through genocide and culturecide -- but not only on the Black
World; it has visited exploitation, through slavery and colonialism -- but
not only on the Black World; but it has reserved for the Black World a
special scourge: that virulent strain of racism known as Negrophobia!
That old global order just described is not a thing of the past; It is still
very much with us. In different parts of the world today, In 1993, even as
we sit here in this hall, Blacks are still being subjected to the holocaust
of genocide and culturecide (as 1n the Sudan); to the exploitations of
slavery (as in Mauritania), and of colonialism and neo-colonialism (as in
every part of the Black World; and to negrophobia, in all its forms and
degrees, throughout the entire globe. To end this dreadful condition and to
make all the appropriate repairs, i.e. reparations, we need to move from
this old global order, where holocaust happened to us, to a different global
order where holocaust will never happen to us. We need to move from this
old global order, which sucks resources out of our veins and piles debt
upon our heads, to a different global order in which our enormous resources
shall serve our own prosperity. We need to move from this old global order
which is permeated with negrophobia, to a new global order that is cleansed
of negrophobia, one where we would live in dignity and equality with all the
other races of humanly.
Now, what are we, the Black World, going to contribute to the making of
these changes?
Let me begin by noting that reparation is not just about money: it is not
even mostly about money; in fact, money is not even one percent of what
reparation is about. Reparation is mostly about making repairs. Self-made
repairs, on ourselves: mental repairs, psychological repairs, cultural
repairs, organisational repairs, social repairs, institutional repairs,
technological repairs, economic repairs. political repairs, educational
repairs, repairs of every type that we need in order to recreate and
sustainable black societies. For the sad truth is that five centuries of
holocaust have made our societies brittle and unviable. And as the great
Marcus Garvey warned over 50 years ago, if we continue as we are, we are
heading for extinction.
More important than any monies to be received, more fundamental than any
lands to be recovered, is the opportunity the reparations campaign offers us
for the rehabilitation of Black people, by Black people, for Black people;
opportunities for the rehabilitation of our minds, our material condition,
our collective reputation, our cultures, our memories, our self-respect, our
religious, our political traditions and our family institutions; but first
and foremost for the rehabilitation of our minds.
Let me repeat that the most important aspect of reparation is not the money
the campaign may or may not bring: the most important part of reparation is
our self-repair; the change it will bring about in our understanding of our
history, of ourselves, and of our destiny; the chance it will bring about in
our place in the world.
Now, we who are campaigning for reparations cannot hope to change the
world without changing ourselves. We cannot hope to change the world
without changing our ways of seeing the world, our ways of thinking about
the world,our ways of organising our world, our ways of working and dreaming
in our world. All these, and more, must change for the better. The type of Black
man and Black woman that was made by the holocaust -- that was made to
feel inferior by slavery and then was steeped in colonial attitudes and values --
that type of Black will not be able to bring the post-reparation global order into
being without changing profoundly in the process that has begun; that type of
Black will not be even appropriate for the post-reparation global order unless
thoroughly and suitably reconstructed. So, reparation,like charity, must begin
with ourselves, with the making of the new Black person, with the making of a
new Black World. How?
We must begin by asking ourselves: What weaknesses on our side made the
holocaust possible? Weaknesses of organisation?
Weakness of solidarity? Weaknesses of identity? Weaknesses of mentality?
Weaknesses of behaviour? If we do not correct such weaknesses, even if
we got billions of billions of dollars in reparations money, even if we got
back all our expropriated land, we would fritter it all away yet again, and
recycle it all back, into alien hands.
We must therefore find out what deficiencies in our sense of identity
what quirks in our mentality, what faults in our feelings solidarity made it
possible for some of us to sell some of us into bondage; still make it
possible for us to succumb to the divide and conquer tactics of our
exploiters; make it possible for all too many of us to be afflicted with
Negro necrophobia -- our counterpart of the self-hating disease of the
anti-Semitic Semite. Twenty years ago, when I was writing The West and
the Rest of Us, I gave it a subtitle: "White Predators, Black Slavers and the
African Elite". That was to serve notice that we cannot overlook our complicity,
as Black Slavers and as the African Elite, in what happened, and
is still happening to us. We must, therefore, change ourselves in order to
end our criminal complicity in perpetuating our lamentable condition.
Beyond all that, we must discover where we now are in our history. We must
recognise that in 36 years of independence, reckoning from Ghana's in 1957
(just four years short of the 40 years the Israelites spent in the
wilderness!), we have been blundering about in the neo-colonial wilderness.
And we must ask: Why did Moses lead his people into the wilderness and keep
them wandering about for two generations? I do not believe that he, a
learned man raised in the pharaoh's court, did not know the direct route to
his people's Promised Land. I believe it was a dilatory sojourn whose
tribulations were calculated to cure his people of the legacy of slavery.
You can't make a free people out of slaves without first putting them
through experiences that would purge them of the slave mentality. We, in our
own wilderness years, need to take conscious steps to purge ourselves of
the legacy of a 500 year holocaust of slavery and colonialism. In that way,
when we finally arrive at our own Promised Land -- a Black World cured of the
holocaust legacy -- we would be ready for the new liberated phase of our
long adventure on this Earth.
To help us get our bearings in this wilderness phase, I would suggest four
main measures:
The creation of Holocaust Monuments in all parts of the Black World, as
reminders of what we have been through and are determined never again to
through. Efforts already being made in this area should continue and be
added to. I am thinking, for instance, of the Goree Island Project in
Senegal, and the Slave Route Project in Benin Republic. But let me recommend
a major monument here in Abuja, this new capital rising in a
zone that, in the past, witnessed intensive slave raiding for the trans-Sahara
slave trade. We should erect here a monument complex that portrays scenes
from the Black Holocaust, scenes taken from all parts of the world; a great
Black Holocaust Monument that shall serve as the Black World's counterpart
of the Wailing Wall of the Jews in Jerusalem.
The institution of a Holocaust Memorial Day, to be observed each year
throughout the Black World, as a day of mourning and remembrance. with
solemn ceremonies at local holocaust monuments. Perhaps this date,
April 27, on which we have assembled here, should be designated the
Holocaust Memorial Day of the Black World.
The creation of a Black Heritage Education Curriculum, to teach us our true
history, and thereby restore our self-worth as descendants of the pioneers
of world civilisation, and supply us with the antidote to the White
Supremacist Ideology and its damaging effects. This would produce a
post-holocaust Black personality, one cured of the debilities inflicted by
the holocaust experience.
The creation of a Black World League of Nations, with its complex of
institutions, to take care of our collective security, to foster solidarity
and prosperity among us, and to prevent the infliction of any future damage
on any part of the Black World.
These measures, and others like them, would teach us who we are
what we havem been and ought to become, and would promote and
concretise Black World solidarity. Having made such internal changes
in ourselves and 1n our world, we would be better able to foster in the
entire global order two key changes:
A different view of global history, particularly of the last 500 years, and
of the millennia before 525 BC -- that calamitous year when Black Egypt fell
permanently to white invaders, leaving all of Africa open for incursions
from West Eurasia; and structural changes that would block the possibility
of future damage of the sorts for which we now seek reparations.
To conclude, let me note that, for us, no global order would be truly new
without apologies for ancient wrongs, without an end to continuing wrongs,
without reparations, without restitutions, without the creation of systems
and mechanisms that would ensure that the holocaust we have been through
never happens again. Our crusade for reparations would be completed only
when we achieve a global order without necrophobia, without alien hegemony
over any part of the Black World, and without the possibility of holocaust.
>From our perspective, a global order which failed to meet such conditions
would not really be new or adequate: It would be an order serving us the
same old bitter wine in some new bottle.
>From here today, I foresee a day when we too shall get back our
expropriated lands; I foresee a day when we too shall get compensation
or our losses and our pains; I foresee a day when negrophobia and the
conditions which foster it shall have vanished from the earth. But between
now and that day, much work waits to be done. The most serious part
of that work is the work of self rehabilitation. And so I say: "Black Soul,
Heal Thyself, and all shall be restored to you".
I thank you all.
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"The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated." —José Martí
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The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory http://www.toplab.org
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Subject:
Stolen Intellect: A Call for Reparations
From: Louisreyesrivera@aol.com
Subject: STOLEN INTELLECT
Date: 21 Jun 2002 14:13:58 -0400
PLEASE POST & SPREAD
Floating the Internet are a series of solid arguments bolster the call for
MILLIONS FOR REPARATIONS march to take place Saturday, August 17, 2002, as
well as the on-going call to develop a full fledged UNION OF CULTURAL
WORKERS
OF COLOR, of which I am currently a part. The following article by Omowale
Clay, a participating organizer for the MILLIONS FOR REPARATIONS march, I
thought would be of interest to everyone. Let me know what you think....
ALSO FOR YOUR INFORMATION:
I have recently begun a one-hour weekly talk show on Pacifica Radio's
New York City station, WBAI (99.5 FM), called PERSPECTIVE, which airs
every Thursday afternoon at 2pm. For folks who can't tune in, you might
want to do so through the following website: http://www.WBAI.org.
With PERSPECTIVE, I hope to develop a forum through which artists of color
may participate in developing an open dialogue on social and political
issues
in addition to discussion of the artform. Stay tuned.
Louisreyesrivera@aol.com
Stealing Our Minds
Reparations for the Theft of Black Intellectual Property
by Omowale Clay for Millions for Reparations
On May 6, 2002, Otis Blackwell, a legendary Black singer and songwriter died
of a heart attack in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 70 and most Black people,
particularly our young, never heard of this brilliant artist. However, if I
asked whether you've heard of Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire;" Elvis
Presley's "Don't Be Cruel," "All Shook Up," and "Return To Sender;" James
Taylor's " Handy Man;" or Ms. Peggy Lee's "Fever," many of you would say
yes. An affirmative answer places you within the Otis Blackwell songbook,
which is credited with containing songs that have sold over 185 millions
copies. Although Mr. Blackwell never even met Elvis Presley, he recorded the
songs that were then taken to Presley to listen to and copy. Many people in
the music world feel that in fact it was Mr. Blackwell's interpretations of
his own songs that gave Elvis that "hip", meaning Black, music image.
The story of Mr. Otis Blackwell's musical genius, and it's direct
relationship to the fame and wealth of a number of white entertainers, is an
old story that could easily find a companion in the career of dancing genius
William "Bojangles" Robinson and his white copy-cats Fred Astaire and Gene
Kelly. However, this relationship between Black genius and white fame and
wealth is by no means isolated to song and dance. I am sure if we look
deeper into the eleven secret herbs and spices of Kentucky Fried Chicken we
would find the key ingredient being a Black woman, one learned in the
traditions of African culinary skills.
Our history is rich with contributions to science and technology. Only a
casual glance back in time reveals a small sampling of inventions and their
Black inventors:
Air Conditioner Unit / Frederick Jones: 1949
Automatic Gear Shift / Richard Spikes: 1932
Bicycle Frame / L.R. Johnson: 1899
Cellular Phone / Henry T. Sampson: 1971
Door Knob / O. Dorsey: 1878
Elevator / Alexander Mill: 1867
Traffic Light / Garrett Morgan: 1923
Gas Mask / Garrett Morgan: 1914
Horse Shoe / J. Ricks: 1885
Lawn Mower / L.A. Burr: 1889
Mailbox / Paul L. Dowing: 1891
Refrigerator / J. Standard: 1891
Spark plug / Edmond Berger: 1839
Ironing Board / Sarah Boone: 1892
Europeans not only exploited African labor and material resources, but also
have spent a lifetime portraying Black people as having made no significant
contributions to the science and culture of humankind. All the while, they
(Europeans) were stealing our ideas and culture. Remember, it was Africans
who taught whites how to grow rice and managed most agricultural development
in the western hemisphere as slaves. For centuries Europeans, now on both
sides of the Atlantic, have been stealing and continue to steal ideas from
African people on the continent and in the underdeveloped colonies,
plantations and ghettoes of the Diaspora, which have been our home, our
existence and our oppression.
However, as we turn our mass attention from the concept of "Lord, what have
we done to deserve this situation we are in", to the collective rage of a
people who see their current conditions as the outcome and sum total of
history's greatest crime against humanity, "the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade",
the only issue today of any merit is "They Owe Us..."
Even as the great financial and industrial juggernauts of the 20th century
turn their predatory institutions and military towards a new century, not
only to claim their right to re-colonize our labor, but even to patent and
copyright the very air we breathe -- nature's biological gifts and human
DNA.
We as a people are rising to challenge the declarations of these robber
barons. We stake our own claim to the 21st century -- it being the era of
reparations. And in so doing, our claim must include compensation for the
historical theft of our ideas -- in today's legal terms, called "Our
Intellectual Property[1]". That's right, for the non-payment or gross
underpayment of our ideas, imagination and talent. It has been a collective
theft, on a grand scale, of our peoples' genius, that also has fueled the
engine of European development, even up until today.
As we demand our human right to reparations we must not leave any stone
unturned that has been one of the building blocks of someone else's wealth,
built on the theft of our individual and collective genius. For all the
Brothers and Sisters who never "got paid", our collective "we" is here to
collect.
Join us at the National Reparations Rally, August 17, 2002, Washington D.C.
"They Owe Us..."
Call (718) 398-1766 for information & bus tickets.
___________
[1] Intellectual property is a legal concept, which deals with creations of
human ingenuity. Such creations, whether they be inventions, designs,
trademarks or artistic works, such as music, books, films, Dances, sculpture
or photography are considered and protected as property for a certain period
in time, provided that the creators meet a certain criteria, for example,
originality, defined by the relevant laws.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1. Cannibalism [page 130]
Industry of Identity Deficit - Author: Betsy U. Chang
... Betsy U. Chang was born in Seoul, Korea in 1954
. In 1964, her family moved to Hong Kong where she
attended King George V School until 1972
. She holds a B.Sc. ... www.id-deficit.org/author.htm
 This book is a response to (1) the reports of the
killing of James Byrd Jr., a resident of Jasper,
Texas, on Sunday morning, June 7, 1998 and (2) the
coupling of identity deficit with the industries of
identity, which will continue to compound social
problems while disproportionately filling the coffers
of commercial interests.
|
.1 Mad Cow Disease:
Will Ic e - Ni n e Your Br a i n
Rendering: The ancient but seldom discussed practice of boiling
d own and making feed meal and other products (gummy candies,
lipstick, homeopathic medicines, pharmaceuticals, candles, soaps,
w axes, inks, cement, and lubricants) out of slaughterhouse and
restau-rant scraps, dead farm animals, roadkill, and cats and dogs
euthanized in animal shelter.
For example: the City of Los Angeles sends 200 tons of euthanized
cats and dogs per month to West Coast Rendering to be made into
feed meal and other products.? Forty-three billion pounds is the
weight of the parts we didn?t eat from the animals that we killed, in
1996, in the USA. So what do we do with 43 billion pounds of bloody
scrap leftover when we?ve taken what we want from the animals.
We boil it down and feed it to them, feed it to them in captivity.
Sandra Blakeslee. New York Times, 3/11/97 <mkzdk.org/prionhell>
not rated
MkzdK 2001 Entrance
"All glory to this Supreme Creative Pulsation of
Consciousness which is the abode of flashing, unparalleled
delight, whose majesty of path extends to far regions, from
the Earth up to Siva, which is variegated by the display of
various states of creation, maintenance, and withdrawal;
and of whose extension this universe is just a minute
particle." -Ksemaraja. 10th C.
+++++++++++++
Thursday, 13 June, 2002, 16:49 GMT 17:49 UK
Africa looted for $140bn, leader says
Olusegun Obasanjo: Time to bring looted money home
Africa has lost $140bn through corruption in the decades since
independence, Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo has said.
The huge sum - largely spirited away by leaders and their associates -
was one of the main reasons why Africa's poverty was so severe.
The Western world must demonstrate practical commitment to assist us by
repatriating monies that have been stolen from our treasuries and stashed
away in their financial institutions.
Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's president
Now, Mr Obasanjo told a meeting of civil society organisations in Ethiopia's
Addis Ababa, it was time to write rules to help bring some of the money
home.
"We are working to get an international convention by which money stolen
by corrupt African leaders and stashed abroad is repatriated," Mr Obasanjo
said.
Mr Obasanjo said that while the leaders were the main culprits,
Western countries which had harboured the stolen loot should bear
some responsibility.
"It is not enough to accuse developing countries of corruption," he said.
"The Western world must demonstrate practical commitment to assist
us by repatriating monies that have been stolen from our treasuries
and stashed away in their financial institutions."
Dirty money
Nigeria has suffered more than most African countries from the tendency
of its leaders to treat its economy as a personal cash cow.
Some of Abacha's plundered billions have been returned
While most post-independence leaders have been accused of greater or lesser
levels of corruption, its last dictator but one, Sani Abacha, proved the
most publicly egregious.
Abacha, who died in office in 1998, and his family squirreled billions of
dollars away in foreign bank accounts.
About $1bn has now been returned, the bulk of it from Switzerland.
But much more remains either unaccounted for or - in the case of cash
frozen in UK bank accounts - unreturned pending legal action.
The deal to return the money, however, left about $200m in the hands of
the Abacha family - a "very difficult" compromise to agree, Mr Obasanjo
said.
"If there is an international convention in place, it would have been easier
to recover such monies."
Across the board Nigeria is far from alone in having suffered from it's
leaders depredations.
For instance in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, billions
were looted through exploitation of mineral revenues during the 30-year
rule of Mobutu Sese Seko.
In Angola, pressure groups estimate that as much as $1bn a year in
oil-related revenue disappears every year.
A new initiative, spearheaded by international financier George Soros and
the NGO Global Witness, is trying to persuade oil and mineral companies
to publish full accounts of what they pay in tax and other levies so as to
shine a spotlight on this kind of theft.
+++++++++++++
Nazism = Industrialized Cannibalism .
Can "human nature" be changed by reason & or facts?
Has reality ever been directly persuasive on what people think or do?
(Take a look at the Peters projection map ...)
Is change the hoped for result start with the industrialized
cannibalism of Nazi Germany the once victims largely ignore there
victim status today ( I.E.: Not learning from the mistakes of
there persecutors now persecute others as they were persecuted
with the aid of there former persecutors in a mirror image asthey refuse to count and tally the exact number of victims (mostly
kids civilians too. All describes as collateral damage (read useless
feeders as Hitler & Kissinger call some people) as they were
numbered during WW2, it is the count that they should perhaps
do ( One man One Vote even in South Africa ) to find equity and
perhaps equity.
Nazism + Subjection + devaluing the other = Genocide .
After that it is easy to wear the victims skin or take on this
or that stile as fashion.
ED...
++++++++++++++++
Organization: Write On, Inc. To: grailchaser@excite.com
To: My Net Colleagues, From: Idyllium
Re: Judging The Book.
Something to ponder as we strut smugly, with upturned noses, through life.
A woman in a cheap, faded, cotton dress, accompanied by her husband,
dressed in a threadbare suit , entered the offices of the president of
Harvard University, "May we see the President,?" They timidly asked
the secretary in the outer office.
The secretary sized them up disdainfully and decided they were nothing
but poor, backwoods hicks who could obviously have no serious
business at Harvard. "Do you have an appointment?
" She asked snootily.
The couple responded negatively.
"Well," the secretary snapped,: "He'll be busy all day, and will not
be likely to find time to see you."
"We'll wait," the couple replied softly.
Hours passed, The secretary ignored them, hoping they would
grow discouraged and go away.
The couple was tenacious.
Finally, frustrated, the secretary decided to disturb the president,
convinced she would be chastised for the interruption.
"Maybe! if you saw them for just a minute they'll go away, " she urged.
The President sighed in exasperation and reluctantly agreed to see the hicks.
He met the couple stern faced . His impatience and hauteur showed.
The woman explained, quietly, "We had a son who attended Harvard for a
year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he
was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial
to him, somewhere on your campus."
The president's smile was indulgent but skeptical. "Madam," he said ,
"I am sorry about your son, but we cannot put up a statue for every
Harvard student who meets an untimely death.
Why, this place would quickly look like a cemetery."
"Oh, no," the woman hastened to explained .
"We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to
donate a building to Harvard in our dear son's name."
The president looked at the shabbily dressed couple standing in front
of him, and could hardly contain his derision. "A building! " he exclaimed,
Do you have any idea what such a project would cost?
We have already invested close to $10 million in just the basic structure
of this school."
The woman fell silent. The president was pleased. He was sure he
would now quickly get rid of them, and return to his busy agenda.
The nondescript woman then turned to her husband and said quietly,
"Is that all it cost to build ? Maybe we should just start a university of
our own. " Her husband agreed. The Harvard president was a picture
of confusion and bewilderment.
Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford thanked the Harvard president for his time,
left his offices and headed back to California where, in Palo Alto, they
established the prestigious university which bears their name...........
a proud memorial to the son to whom Harvard was so indifferent."
Next
Charles, I'll pass your aphorisms along to my old friend, T.
They're right up his alley.
Did you hear this one?
Zeke Hatfield brings his fiance to meet his family in Possum Hollow.
Zeke: Dad, this here's Rose O' Sharon Boone. Ain't she real purty?--and
she's a virgin too!
Dad: Take her back to her back to her home, son. If she ain't good enough
for her kinfolk she ain't good enough for our'n.
Be well, J.