Leave Zimbabwe to the idiots...

http://allafrica.com/stories/200807011044.html said:On Monday the world caught a glimpse of the pressure that Robert Mugabe is under, as global condemnation intensifies in the wake of his sham election. Mugabe went on a tirade calling a journalist a "bloody idiot" when he was waylaid by reporters at the African Union Summit in Egypt on Monday. The drama happened when a journalist from the UK ITV news channel asked him on what basis he thought he was President of Zimbabwe. Mugabe responded angrily saying it was on the same basis that Gordon Brown is "Prime Minister of Zimbabwe". It is not clear if he forgot which country is his and which country is Brown's. He sounded muddled and angry at being questioned by the journalist.

I wonder if he realized he just said that he is not the President...

Africa is the @$$hole of the world, and it's really unfortunate. Almost the entire continent is in really bad shape, it seems, and the populations of its nations are getting E36 M3 ed on. They deserve better, but nobody seems able to help them. And don't tell me South Africa is any better. Ever heard first-hand stories / seen pictures of the slums in which a huge portion of the population lives? Their cities may be modern, and their mountains magestic, but their crime rate is high and their government won't let you leave the country with more than $50,000.

I had a professor, George Agbango, from Ghana. He was a UN ambassidor (I think) until his government was overthrown years ago. He was forced to flee his own country. I liked him. He used to throw chalk at people who didn't pay attention to him in class.

I knew a guy who got arrested for trying to take over Ghana. I also had a professor from Ghana who used to be a Catholic priest there.

Africa is as you describe because their governments are totally corrupt. Giving money to help the poor there only gives us more poor and more wealthy African leaders. Rhodesia was a major food exporter. Today they are all starving. The world will have to go in and clean it up and the U.S. has enough E36 M3 to do right now. No one else wants to help out.

The continent has tremendous wealth. The governments have destroyed it.

One of my most interesting classes that I have taken so far is African Studies, which I took in my first year. They really are in a rut; development is at such a low level that boatloads of money will only do so much. Any level of Prosperity won't be found for them until they have some level of infrastructure.

The wife's employer has a glass plant in Zimbabwe. It's crazy trying to do business; any money coming into the country automatically has 35% deducted which goes directly to Mugabe's government. At one point, the gov't was going to seize the glass plant, then they figured out they had no idea of how to run it.

Next time anyone on the board starts complaining about how crappy things are here, check out Zimbabwe and similar places, then get back to me.

Concerning the "modern" cities, my parents went over to South Africa and visited some of them, and came back to reveal that the tall skyscrapers that once held so much promise are now vacant, except for the first floor, which are occupied by businesses that close up well before dark, after which the criminals take over the streets, until daylight. As American tourists, they were guarded by heavily armed men each night; not the kind of thing my folks were used to, with the possible exception of Haiti.

I've never heard of a more dire situation, except in science fantasy fiction.

Well, thank Science that Hollywood and the Left went all out to help those people throw off the oppressive government they had in South Africa. They are so much better off today.

But Danny Glover said...

I looked at data a couple years ago that talked about how countries that were expected to prosper because they had great quantities of natural resourses tended to be the poorest nations in the world. Look at the entire continent of Africa, the Middle East, and Russia. All have vast quantities of natural resourses, and all have a population that is desperatly poor.

[tin foil hat] That's because we ("The West") are exploiting them for our own gain. We don't really want to help, because that would mean giving up controlling interests in oil, diamonds, etc.[/tin foil hat]

Well colonial powers did kinda rape those countries for their natural resources (we took over in Vietnam after the French decided the rubber there wasn't worth the crap they had to put up with). Then after WW1 everybody decided that wasn't nice, and pulled out immediately, leaving giant power vacuums to be filled by tribal warlords and/or corrupt officials.

Crack monkey, that doesn't fit. If it did, the statistic would stick to russia like superglue sticks to non-skin objects (not at all). Russia has never been occupied. At least not in the past century. Also, nations which were held by foreign nations as colonies that are able to make an economy on things other than natural resources are doing fine. I'll have to find some examples.

But look at South America as well for examples of nations with high natural resource output, but corrupt governments that leave nothing for their people.

confuZion3 wrote: Crack monkey, that doesn't fit. If it did, the statistic would stick to russia like superglue sticks to non-skin objects (not at all). Russia has never been occupied. At least not in the past century. Also, nations which were held by foreign nations as colonies that are able to make an economy on things other than natural resources are doing fine. I'll have to find some examples. But look at South America as well for examples of nations with high natural resource output, but corrupt governments that leave nothing for their people.

Overthrown by one regime to the next continually plundering itself for the sake of one guys idealogical choices or anothers... If Japan had a choice in the early 1900s China and Russia would be flying a white flag with a big red dot in it.

Russia would have stomped the crap out of japan in a land war.

GlennS wrote: Russia would have stomped the crap out of japan in a land war.

They're like Isreal. Only Russia has been around for Centuries and Isreal has only been a nation for 60 years. You don't mess with Russia.

Dr. Hess wrote: Well, thank Science that Hollywood and the Left went all out to help those people throw off the oppressive government they had in South Africa. They are so much better off today.

Thank God that the cheneyrumbush and the neocons went all out to help those people throw off the oppressive government they had in Iraq. They are so much better off today.

The whole colonies economic model worked for a while then fell apart. I'm not saying it was right or wrong, just that it worked out OK for all parties for a while.

Salanis, we took over in Nam because the French were going to nuke them and the US said, no, you can't go around nukeing people that p- you off, we'll take over. That worked out well. THANKS, KENNEDY.

South America has tremendous natural resources and corrupt governments, much as ours is becoming. But the constant overthrows weren't really all that bloody. As my Caculus teacher, who was in the Peace Corps in Brazil, said: They would have military juntas like this. Two generals get together. One says "I got 30 tanks. How many you got? I got 20 tanks. You win. Let's go party." Occasionally the previous politicans would get capped somewhere along the way, which I'm still trying to find fault with as a general principal of government.

The U.S. is the perfect example of tremendous natural resources and a very wealthy people. Why? Because for the most part, our system isn't as corrupt as the rest. Yet. We are heading that way. I'll leave out examples like Syrians financing presidential election runs. In fact, I've argued before that the very things that have made the U.S.A. the superpower of the world have been carefully cut down by useful idiots that think they are helping.

1. Tremendous natural resources. Laws have been put in place that prohibit us from using them. Oil, coal, forest, uranium, whatever. Save the snail darter.

2. A moral people. Children are taught that it is their Constitutional right to sport berkeley and murder their accidental offspring. Theiving and lying are OK because there is no right and wrong, it's all shades of gray. If that million dollar baseball player picked up the ball off the ground and says he caught it in the air, it's OK as long as he doesn't get caught by the instant playback. Religion, whatever your personal feelings are, provides a moral framework of right and wrong. Religion has been banished from our society and replaced with the religion of no-religion (also a religion).

3. A Constitution limiting government. Don't have one anymore when you can change the meaning of words. When you can change the meaning, then everything is out the window. "People" now means "State", like "People's Republic of ..." "Arms" means "Deer Rifle or other guns with a 'sporting purpose.'" "Infringed" means "make a jacket decoration out of." New meaning of "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is "The right of the State of California to keep Deer Rifles shall not be made into a jacket decoration." Out of 9 Supreme Court Justices, 4 agreed with that. Scarry, isn't it?

4. A strong work ethic. Why when you can get free beer money and WIC cheese and stay at home?

These things been robbed of us and the result has crippled our country. We are becoming a third world (pavement challenged) nation.

seann wrote:

Dr. Hess wrote: Well, thank Science that Hollywood and the Left went all out to help those people throw off the oppressive government they had in South Africa. They are so much better off today.

Thank God that the cheneyrumbush and the neocons went all out to help those people throw off the oppressive government they had in Iraq. They are so much better off today.

Yeah, seann. Before they would get fed feet first into a chipper/shredder. Today the worst you can find is that the bad neocons had a dog bark at them.

^^Russia's greatest allie is winter. No invading force has been tough or stuborn enough to deal with that E36 M3.

Back to Africa, It is best sumed up in a line from "Lord of War". "The primary market was Africa. 11 major conflicts involving 32 countries in less than a decade. A gunrunner's wet dream"

Dr. Hess wrote: [A variation on his usual theme of right-wing political arguments.

I'll just pretend that I took the time to craft arguments on how you're very incorrect, only looking at one portion of the situation, and coming up with some bizarre revisionist history.

You can pretend that you argued back and that some other people genuinely on the political left jumped in with stuff. Both of you then insulted each other's sources.

Then we can all pretend that the argument went on for three days with no one's opinions getting changed.

Salanis wrote:

Dr. Hess wrote: [A variation on his usual theme of right-wing political arguments.

I'll just pretend that I took the time to craft arguments on how you're very incorrect, only looking at one portion of the situation, and coming up with some bizarre revisionist history. You can pretend that you argued back and that some other people genuinely on the political left jumped in with stuff. Both of you then insulted each other's sources. Then we can all pretend that the argument went on for three days with no one's opinions getting changed.

and this is why I have given up on politics on this board

And then I will say something stupid to try to break the tension that gets panned by everyone...

John Brown wrote: And then I will say something stupid to try to break the tension that gets panned by everyone...

You can do that anyway. Find some political picture with a goofy tag line!

OK, Salanis. Why don't you go ask Grandpa who he thinks put BHO where he is today. I would like to hear his answer.

Edit: "...put BHO..."

Dr. Hess wrote: OK, Salanis. Why don't you go ask Grandpa who he thinks but BHO where he is today. I would like to hear his answer.

^WTF grammar maybe-not?

We spoke about this last week. He is voting for McCain and disagrees with Obama's political stance. Obama doesn't piss him off though, and he can see why young people like him. His statement on Obama was:

He is a strong communicator on the level of Clinton and Regan. He does as good a job as anyone of espousing the Democratic boilerplate. He's not a warrior who would stand up to someone getting in his face.

Edit: And what the heck does the current crop of pres candidates have to do with this argument? No. Don't answer. That's a rhetorical question.