August 24, 2006 at 18:31:08

A Little Poverty Never Hurt Anybody

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By Jason Miller (about the author) Page 4 of 4 page(s)

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A glimpse of the ugly reality of pathological avarice in action...

To move beyond an abstract analysis of the machinations of the oppression and exploitation of most of the human race by a select and privileged few, consider one of many specific examples. For years, British and US oil interests have enjoyed the complicity of the criminal ruling elite in Nigeria in plundering an incredibly valuable natural resource. In return a majority of the indigenous people have received land too polluted to farm, brutal attacks by government forces, and extreme poverty.

(2)According to an article written for Amnesty International:

"It's 10 years since the Nigerian Government executed the well-known Ogoni writer and human rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa. But little has changed for the people of the Niger Delta, reports Seth Jordan....

...Oil was discovered in the Ogoni region in the late 1950s by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group....by the 1990s an estimated US $30 billion worth of oil had already been extracted, and oil revenues accounted for over 98 per cent of Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings; the 550,000 local farmers and fishermen who inhabited the coastal land had received little except a ravaged environment. Once fertile farmland had been destroyed by uncontrolled pollution, and virtually all fish and wildlife had vanished. Only a handful of local people were employed by the oil companies or benefited economically in any way....

"On 4 February 2005, soldiers from Nigeria's Joint Task Force fired on protesters from the Ugborodo community at the Escravos oil terminal run by Chevron Nigeria. One man was shot and later died from his injuries. Thirty other demonstrators were injured by blows from rifle butts and other weapons. Neither the government nor the oil company provided adequate medical care or helped to transport the injured."

Nigeria provides a potent example of the blatant abuses of the impoverished masses by the privileged few. But sadly, it is but one of many such cases.

While the rapacious individuals who wield the power in this world have stacked the deck heavily in their favor, there are glimmers of hope. The United States and Israel are both failing in their wars of aggression in the Middle East. A wave of democratic socialism is beginning to sweep South America. A populist leader may still win the presidency in Mexico. Joe Lieberman was ejected. And checks and balances were at least temporarily restored in the United States when a federal judge ordered George Bush to obey the Constitution.

A collective populist movement is slowly evolving. It is only a matter of time before humanity's oppressed put aside their religious, racial, and nationalist differences to unite against their common enemy. When six billion people act in unison against a few million, there will indeed be a new world order.

(1) http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

(2) http://www.amnesty.org.au/act_now/campaigns/refugees/features/still_dying_for_oil_10_years_on

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Jason Miller, Senior Editor and Founder of TPC, is a tenacious forty something vegan straight edge activist who lives in Kansas and who has a boundless passion for animal liberation and anti-capitalism. Addicted to reading and learning, he is mostly (more...)

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