Repeat after me...

It is all about resource proxy wars

It is all about resource proxy wars

It is all about resource proxy wars

It is all about resource proxy wars

I have been to this hospital and it is horrific. You all should go.

You all should go and experience what it is like to never forget.

by Georgianne Nienaber (145 articles, 46 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 337 comments) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 9:37:09 PM
 

Thanks GN

Be sure to read DR Congo: Peace Accord Fails to End Killing of Civilians and take action.

by Rady Ananda (133 articles, 300 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 1222 comments) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 11:07:16 PM
 

The Entire Picture And Overall Costs?

How about the damage to the environment, the massacre of wildlife, the rape of the planet. All of this for greed and nothing but greed. What are fututre generations going to think of us ?

by ramsheyi (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 641 comments) on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 7:17:05 AM
 

Forget about wildlife

think about the cost to women and children

I am ready to take an AK57 to every one of my beloved gorillas if it would make it all STOP! Conservation is a front for the resource wars in DRC and elsewhere in Africa.

by Georgianne Nienaber (145 articles, 46 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 337 comments) on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 10:20:09 AM
 

Thanks Georgianne and Rady!

I've never had a cell phone but I do have a computer. How many people died so that I could post this comment? Well, it had better be a darned good comment then. I just joined Friends of the Congo and sent them a donation.

I hope everyone reading this will do the same--it is the very least that we can do to begin to atone for the needless misery and death that fuels our materialistic lifestyles.

Some animal rights activists say that anyone who wants to eat an animal should have to kill that animal themself. Maybe anyone who wants a cell phone should have to kill an African child themself before being allowed to buy it.

There are some people on Care2 who constantly question why I describe myself as an anti-civilizationist. They should visit a few African villages untouched by war, and then visit the DRC to see what civilization brings with it.

Anyone else remember a 1947 seven song from Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters called "Bongo Bongo Bongo"? Google it, read the lyrics, and listen to it again. They had it right. We've known it all along.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 4:00:07 PM
 

Bongo bongo bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo

http://www.lyricstime.com/the-andrews-sisters-civilization-bongo-bongo-bongo-lyrics.html 

Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)
The Andrews Sisters with Danny Kaye
- written by Bob Hilliard and Carl Sigman
- as recorded September 27, 1947 in Los Angeles by The Andrews Sisters
with Danny Kaye and Vic Schoen & His Orchestra.

Each morning, a missionary advertises neon sign
He tells the native population that civilization is fine
And three educated savages holler from a bamboo tree
That civilization is a thing for me to see

So bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go
Don't want no bright lights, false teeth, doorbells, landlords, I make it clear
That no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here

I looked through a magazine the missionary's wife concealed (Magazine? What happens?)
I see how people who are civilized bung you with automobile (You know you can get hurt that way Daniel?)
At the movies they have got to pay many coconuts to see (What do they see, Darling?)
Uncivilized pictures that the newsreel takes of me

So bongo, bongo, bongo, he don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no

Bingo, bangle, bungle, he's so happy in the jungle, he refuse to go
Don't want no penthouse, bathtub, streetcars, taxis, noise in my ear
So, no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here

They hurry like savages to get aboard an iron train
And though it's smokey and it's crowded, they're too civilized to complain
When they've got two weeks vacation, they hurry to vacation ground (What do they do, Darling?)
They swim and they fish, but that's what I do all year round

So bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go
Don't want no jailhouse, shotgun, fish-hooks, golf clubs, I got my spears
So, no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here

They have things like the atom bomb, so I think I'll stay where I "ahm"
Civilization, I'll stay right here!

LISTEN to a version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MTGDncw5fo

by Rady Ananda (133 articles, 300 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 1222 comments) on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 4:58:05 PM
 

Dian Fossey

First, thanks for helping out Friends of Congo.

Dian Fossey's favorite song was Bongo Bongo. She had an old reel-to-reel (battery powered) that she would crank up in her tent at Karisoke. Dian understood very well what was happening, and if you analyze her writings carefully, she predicts the current situation in Congo and elsewhere in Africa. Most people don't realize that conservation organizations of that time were in overdrive to discredit her, right up to the highest levels of the State Department. The movie, Gorillas in the Mist, is a complete fabrication, and National Geographic as well as conservation organizations "consulted" on the production to ensure that the truth was not told.

Unfortunately, conservation organizations have wrapped themselves in her name and a distorted version of Dian's vision. Her biggest fear was that the gorillas would be brokered for multi-national interests.

by Georgianne Nienaber (145 articles, 46 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 337 comments) on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 7:50:29 PM
 

The bottom-line problem...

The bottom-line problem is not the that companies (multi- or single country) seek and mine coltan from areas of Congo and elsewhere in Africa, but rather that governments own or confiscate the land and then deal with the companies, or take over the mining operations themselves, sometimes even using forced rather than hired workers. There is no private property in that part of the world - or if there is it is only for those who are part of the government or friends of those who are part of it. There are no individuals as property owners negotiating with others who own companies, each for their own mutual benefit, with the coltan being the value sought by the companies and money or other trade value sought by the landowners. While the governments in industrialized countries are delayed a bit by trappings of legality before confiscating property they covet for some purpose, those in power in most of Africa just use assorted means of physical violence to accomplish the same thing. There is no free-market in this, or actually any, part of the world but its consequences are the most colorful here - if one thinks of the color of blood resulting from the inevitable violence of such a situation.

Shining the light on situations of societal chaos for multitudes to see is one of the major values of the Internet and many who write articles here. However, even pointing out that governments are the crux of the problem is insufficient unless one understands that a society of rulers and ruled is not necessary for social order, no matter the color of the individuals or the language they speak.  A self-ordering society of individuals trading to mutual benefit can exist. Individual self-order without rule by others is the social system whose members are humans, who have become fully adult. Just as people can become physical adults, so can they become social adults - if only they are allowed (and even required in the sense that they will not achieve their desires unless they do) to socially mature sufficiently. "One for All and All for One", with the "One" always included in the "All", is a very reasonable way to view the proper society for human beings. Understanding the social interaction methodology by which more individuals would progress to become fully socially mature adults requires a paradigm shift in thinking about human interactions.


**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness,
individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting

by Kitty Antonik Wakfer (24 articles, 6 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 136 comments) on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 6:52:05 PM