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| Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah |
By Ekow Mensah
As far back as February 24, 1966 plans had been completed
for turning the local airport at Tamale into a major international airport.
Indeed if the CIA sponsored coup had not occurred, Muslim
pilgrims would have started flying to Mecca from Tamale more than 40 years ago.
Interestingly 47 years on the Mahama administration is
promising to go back to Nkrumah’s plan
and to turn the Tamale airport into an international airport.
In his book “Dark Days In Ghana” (Pages 100 to 103)
Nkrumah laments on the subversion of his plans for the Tamale airport and other
development projects.
Excerpts of Nkrumah’s Lamentations are published below;
Apart from handing over public corporations to private enterprise. The, "N.L.C." announced
drastic cuts in the routes operated by Ghana Airways, the halting of work on
the new international airport at Tamale in Northern Ghana, and the cancellation
of a number of orders for new ships for the state owned Black Star Line. Both
Ghana Airways and the Black Star Line were established by my government to break the monopoly of
foreign transport companies. They were ultimately to become foreign currency
earners.
At Afienya, some 26 miles from Accra, the “N.L.C.” shut down the excellent Gliding School
established by flight Captain Hanna Reitsch. The school,
recognized as among the best
in the world was providing valuable initial flying training for members of the
Young Pioneers, Army and Air Force cadets and for trainees from other African countries.
The excuse was made that these were all prestige project.
The same excuse was given as the reason for abandoning or selling to private
ownership other important state enterprises though everyone knows that they were surrendered
because they threatened the business interests
of the new masters of Ghana-the neo-colonialists and their agents. The
foundation of new industries and the building up of national air and shipping
lines is seen as evidence of prestige spending only by imperialists and
neo-colonialists who wish to see a country revert back to the position of a
colony.
The Juapong Textile and Knitting factory near Akosombo in the Volta Region. was one of the many vital development projects to be abandoned during the first few
months of "N.L.C." rule. This factory, half completed when the army
and police traitors seized power, was to offer employment over 800 people, and
to make use of 400,000 tons of locally produced cotton from the Abutia, Chinderi and Zongo
Mancheri state farms. The factory, when completed was expected to produce over
80,000 tons of textiles of various kinds annually, and about 3,000 tons of
knitwear. It was the only industry sited by
the government in the Volta Region and suspension of work on it therefore
caused bitter disappointment locally, and resulted in a great waste of time.
Energy, and money. A writer in the Ghanaian
Times visited the site towards the end of 1966 and reported "the whole
area desolate, with the half-completed buildings almost overgrown with
weeds". The project had been started by
Chinese experts, and when these were sent home no attempt was made to continue
with the work.
Another example of the stupidity
of sending away much-needed specialists from socialist countries may be seen in
the "N.L.C.'s"
decision to return the 29 Russian-built fishing trawlers which had been lying
idle since the departure of the Soviet technicians. And this when the people of
Ghana badly need an increase in the protein content of their diet. Later, as a result of protests, the "N.L.C.'· declared
their intention to sell the trawlers to private interests.
Some 2.500
Russian and Chinese experts were expelled from Ghana by the "N.L.C . "
regardless of the invaluable services they were rendering to the economic
development of the country. The "N.L.C." had
stated that it was "non-aligned" yet it callously sacrificed the
interests of the people by abandoning precious economic projects simply for political reasons. Even the imperialist press was moved to remark:
"The new regime has pledged
to pursue a policy of non-alignment while being friendly with all. But there is
no mistaking the fair breeze blowing towards the Western camp at the
moment" (Daily Telegraph, 10th March
1966).
All projects or schemes developed
by Soviet or Chinese experts, and also several undertaken by specialists from
other socialist countries were suspended, abandoned entirely or sold to foreign
capitalists. Small wonder William H. Beaty.
Vice-President of the Chase Manhattan Bank of the U.S.A, was quick to visit Ghana and spoke of the
"favourable investment conditions" owing to the "remarkable
strides" which had been made since 24th February 1966. Like his counterparts in other capitalist countries, he doubtless
regarded Ghana under the "N.L.C." as just another client state set up to sustain
Imperialism, neo-colonialism and the capitalist economies of the West.
Traitors among our own people are
helping in the sell-out. Seeing the
opportunity to make quick money some of them
have become "market analysts" for prospective investors. Perhaps they hope the grand-sounding name may
disguise the fact that they are raking in vast sums of money by acting as
middle-men in the disgraceful and indiscriminate disposal of Ghana's state
property to private enterprise.
Their task has been made easy by the
encouragement of prospective investors by advertisements of the Capital
Investments Board. They have been promised
generous concessions, including a ten- year tax holiday and the free transfer
abroad of profits after the payment of any tax due. What a paradise for
neo-colonialists-the free transfer abroad of profits and a tax holiday; and all
this without any strings attached. In their wildest dreams they could not have hoped for better conditions, even from the servile
"N.L.C."
Under my government there was
strict control of the operations of all foreign firms in Ghana. We were
constantly vigilant to see that there was no exploitation of the Ghanaian
people, and that most of the profits were retained inside Ghana to be used to
promote further economic and social development.
In Ghana today it is as though
the clock suddenly stopped on 24th February 1966, and the hands have been turned
backwards. Unfinished factory buildings
remain in precisely the same condition as when the builders left them after
work on 23rd February 1966. The machines of other factories said to be prestige
projects or closed because of the departure of foreign technicians, lie idle
while thousands of Ghanaian unemployed fill
the streets. Work on new schools. Hospitals,
roads and airport buildings has stopped with the new regime making the excuse
that the country is too poor to pay for them.
The cars and property of Party officials have been sold; where the money has gone, only the "N.L.C." can tell.
EDITORIAL
MUDSLINGING
The political space
in Ghana is being filled with mudslinging and there is very little attentions
on how to feed, cloth, educates and house the people.
Everyday we are told
about who is sleeping with who rumours and recycle rumours about murders, fake
professional qualifications and sometimes who is driving what car.
Ghana can make
progress in all fields but this possible only if and when we elevate the political debate to the point
where the needs of the people debate to
the point where the needs of the people
take the most prominent space.
The people of Ghana are suffering all manner of indignities
including power cuts, water shortages and limited access to
housing, education and health and this is that should grab our attention.
We hope the politicians are listening.
Life After Oil and Gas
 |
We will need fossil fuels like oil and gas for the foreseeable future. So there’s really little choice (sigh). We have to press ahead with
fracking for natural gas. We must approve the Keystone XL
pipeline to get Canadian oil.
This mantra, repeated on TV ads and in political debates, is
punctuated with a tinge of inevitability and regret. But, increasingly,
scientific research and the experience of other countries should prompt us to
ask: To what extent will we really “need” fossil fuel in the years to come? To
what extent is it a choice?
As renewable energy gets
cheaper and machines and buildings become more energy efficient, a number of
countries that two decades ago ran on a fuel mix much like America’s are
successfully dialing down their fossil fuel habits. Thirteen countries got more
than 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy in 2011, according
to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, and many are aiming still
higher.
Could we? Should we?
A National Research Council report released last week concluded
that the United States could halve by 2030 the oil used in cars and trucks
compared with 2005 levels by improving the efficiency of gasoline-powered
vehicles and by relying more on cars that use alternative power sources, like
electric batteries and biofuels.
Just days earlier a team of Stanford engineers published a proposal showing how New York
State — not windy like the Great Plains, nor sunny like Arizona — could easily
produce the power it needs from wind, solar and water power by 2030. In fact
there was so much potential power, the researchers found, that renewable power
could also fuel our cars.
“It’s absolutely not true that we need natural gas, coal or
oil — we think it’s a myth,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and
environmental engineering and the main author of the study, published in the journal Energy Policy. “You could
power America with renewables from a technical and economic standpoint. The
biggest obstacles are social and political — what you need is the will to do
it.”
Other countries have made far more concerted efforts to
reduce fossil fuel use than the United States and have some impressive numbers
to show for it. Of the countries that rely most heavily on renewable
electricity, some, like Norway, rely on that old renewable, hydroelectric
power. But others, like Denmark, Portugal and Germany, have created financial
incentives to promote newer technologies like wind and solar energy.
People convinced that America “needs” the oil that would
flow south from Canada through the Keystone XL pipeline might be surprised to
learn that Canada produced 63.4 percent of its electricity from renewable
sources in 2011, largely from hydropower and a bit of wind. (Maybe that is why
Canada has all that oil to sell.) The United States got only 12.3 percent of
its electricity from renewables in 2011. Still, many experts say that
aggressively rebalancing the United States’ mix of fossil fuel and renewable
energy to reduce its carbon footprint may well be impractical and unwise for
now.
“There is plenty of room for wind and solar to grow and they
are becoming more competitive, but these are still variable resources — the sun
doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow,” said Alex Klein, the
research director of IHS Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm on
renewable energy. “An industrial economy needs a reliable power source, so we
think fossil fuel will be an important foundation of our energy mix for the
next few decades.”
Fatih Birol, chief economist at the 28-nation International
Energy Agency, which includes the United States, said that reducing fossil fuel
use was crucial to curbing global temperature rise, but added that improving
the energy efficiency of homes, vehicles and industry was an easier short-term
strategy. He noted that the 19.5 million residents of New York State consume as
much energy as the 800 million in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa)
and that, even with President Obama’s automotive fuel standards, European
vehicles were on average more than 30 percent more fuel efficient than American
ones.
He cautioned that a rapid expansion of renewable power would
be complicated and costly.
Using large amounts of renewable energy often
requires modifying national power grids, and renewable energy is still
generally more expensive than using fossil fuels. That is particularly true in
the United States, where natural gas is plentiful and, therefore, a cheap way
to generate electricity (while producing half the carbon dioxide emissions of
other fossil fuels, like coal). Promoting wind and solar would mean higher
electricity costs for consumers and industry.
Indeed, many of the European countries that have led the way
in adopting renewables had little fossil fuel of their own, so electricity
costs were already high. Others had strong environmental movements that made it
politically acceptable to endure higher prices in order to reduce emissions.
But Dr. Birol predicted that the price of wind power would
continue to drop, while the price of natural gas would rise in coming years,
with the two potentially reaching parity by 2020. He noted, too, that countries
could often get 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like
wind and solar without much modification to their grids. A few states, like
Iowa and South Dakota, get nearly that much of their electricity from renewable
power (in both states, wind), while others use little at all.
So as Europeans have grown accustomed to wind turbines
dotting the landscape, much of America continues to regard renewable power as a
boutique product, cool but otherworldly. When I tell colleagues that Portugal
now gets 40 percent of its electricity from renewable power, the standard
response is “Portugal is windy.” But many places in America are, too.
When I
returned from Kristianstad, Sweden, and marveled at how that city uses waste
from farms, forestry and food processing plants to make biogas that supplies 100 percent of its heat, the response is
likewise disbelief. But I’d venture that a similar plan could work fine in
Milwaukee or Burlington, Vt., cities that also anchor rural areas.
MAPPING studies by Dr. Jacobson and colleagues have
concluded that America is rich in renewable resources and (unlike Europe) has
the empty space to create wind and solar plants. New York State has plenty of
wind and sun to do the job, they found. Their blueprint for powering the state
with clean energy calls for 10 percent land-based wind, 40 percent offshore
wind, 20 percent solar power plants and 18 percent solar panels on rooftops —
as well as a small amount of geothermal
and hydroelectric power.
Dr. Jacobson said that careful grid design and coordination
of power sources would ensure a stable power supply, although a smidgen of
natural gas would be needed for the 0.2 percent of the time that renewables
failed to generate sufficient electricity. The report claims that the plan
would create 58,000 jobs in New York State (which now imports much of its
power), create energy security and ultimately stabilize electricity prices.
The authors say the substantial costs of enacting the scheme
could be recouped in under two decades, particularly if the societal cost of
pollution and carbon emissions were factored in. The team is currently working
on an all-renewable blueprint for California.
Sounds good on paper, but even Europe is struggling a bit
with its renewable ambitions at the moment.
Germany, which got 20.7 percent of its electricity from
renewable energy in 2011, is re-evaluating the incentives it provides to
increase that share to 35 percent by 2020, because of worries that its current
approach will drive up power prices inordinately at a time of economic
uncertainty. It has had trouble ramping up transmission capacity to carry the
wind power generated in the blustery North to the industrial South, where it is
needed.
Dr. Birol said that natural gas and renewable energy could
ultimately be “a good couple” for powering New York State, and elsewhere. But
in what mix? If, in 20 years, cars are 50 percent more efficient and New York
State could get much of its electricity from wind and solar, should we be more
measured in making fossil fuel investments? As Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo considers
the boundaries of hydraulic fracturing in New York State and as Secretary of
State John Kerry decides the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, how much we
really “need” fossil fuels is worth pondering.
Elisabeth Rosenthal is a reporter on environment and health
for The New York Times.
China’s carrier killer unnerves US navy
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| Chinese President Xi Jinping |
China has
successfully tested a “carrier killer” missile designed to change the military
balance of power in Asia by deterring American aircraft carrier operations up
to 1,250 miles from Chinese shores.
The feat will have been a cause
of quiet satisfaction for the leaders of China and Russia, who have been
discussing enhanced military co-operation at their first summit since a change
of power in Beijing.
Last week a senior US defence
official, Ashton Carter, reaffirmed in a speech in Jakarta that the Americans
would send new Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighters plus more U-2 spy planes,
drones and missile defence systems to Asia.
The moves add up to an arms race
that, for some commentators, recalls the rivalry between the western powers and
a rising Japan in the 1930s.
The new Chinese missile test
appears to be shown in satellite photographs of two bull’s-eye craters on a
200-yard white platform mocked up in the Gobi desert to simulate the deck of a
carrier, according to media reports in Taiwan.
The images, which military
analysts believe show the impact of a DF-21D anti-ship missile, appeared on
Google Earth in late January.
This unique weapon originates in
Soviet missile technology given to China in the 1950s. It is a two-stage,
solid-fuel rocket fired from a mobile launcher on land. As it comes down, a
satellite-linked guidance system can manoeuvre the warhead to hit a moving
target such as a large ship.
It is so precise that the US navy
has reportedly been forced to change its tactics and to evolve a range of
highly classified counter-measures.
The DF-21D is one of a series of
weapons deployed by China to strengthen its hand in disputes over the
self-ruled island of Taiwan and a handful of islands controlled by Japan.
Last week the head of Taiwan’s
National Security Bureau, Tsai Teh-sheng, told MPs that the Chinese Second
Artillery Corps had moved its DF-16 ballistic missiles from central China to
coastal areas near Taiwan.
The Second Artillery Corps is the
core unit controlling nuclear and ballistic missiles in the Chinese military
system.
Tsai also said China planned to
build a nuclear aircraft carrier after it had completed three conventional
carriers. The first of these, the 58,500-ton Liaoning, has just become
operational at its home port of Qingdao, northeast China.
According to a dispatch from the
official news agency, Xinhua, the Liaoning has completed tests of its weapon
systems and has staged test flights from its sloping deck.
But China has a long way to go
before it can rival the US navy’s 10 carrier groups and 90 years of experience.
A Chinese website, Sina.com, has recounted hair-raising
engine and hydraulics problems in the Liaoning’s J-15 fighters and the failure
of a cable intended to stop one of them in a test landing at an airbase.
While brandished as symbols of
prestige, the carrier and the J-15 symbolise China’s dependence on Russian
military hardware.
The carrier started life in the
Soviet Navy and was bought from Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
while the J-15 is a troubled derivative of the Soviet SU-27.
The arms relationship was
therefore high on the agenda when China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, met the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow last week on his first foreign
visit since taking power. “Russia and China share some tactical and even
strategic interests in containing the West’s recent trend towards interference
in other nations’ affairs, as in Libya and now in Syria,” said Douglas Paal and
Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Xi is likely to have pressed the
Russians for a “new quality” of arms relations, involving transfers of
technology and joint ventures. But the two analysts think Putin will tread with
caution. Although sales to Beijing may have saved the dying Soviet arms
industry, today the Russians are furious with China’s copycat weapons-makers.
“Moscow has been unhappy with
Chinese efforts to reverse-engineer and produce Russia’s exported systems,”
they said.
Indeed, the latest Chinese
triumph — the Yun-20, a four-engined “cargo jumbo” military transport capable
of flying 66 tons of material 2,800 miles — is an example of just that.
The Chinese media trumpeted the
prototype’s maiden flight on January 26. It is powered by four Russian-made
Soloviev D-30KP-2 jet engines but the media said future planes would “soon” be
fitted with better Chinese engines.
Other disagreements reflect the
mutual insecurities of the two neighbours, who share a 2,670-mile border.
Russian strategists fret about the empty, resource-rich wastes of Siberia next
door to a crowded, resource-hungry China.
Russia has failed to back China
in its island dispute with Japan. China resents Russia selling arms to Vietnam,
against which China fought a border war in 1979.
The politics of energy are
tricky, too. Beijing is furious that the Russians are drilling for oil in a
disputed area of the South China Sea controlled by Vietnam, and the two sides
have haggled for 10 years over the terms for a natural gas pipeline from Russia
to China.
The militant tone of recent
comments in China has got Americans worried enough to send a warning to
Beijing.
Last week the former US national
security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, took the unusual step of releasing the
transcript of a cautionary interview he gave to the People’s Daily on March 7 —
including the parts the Communist party newspaper chose to leave out.
“What worries me these days is
what I see in the Chinese press,” Brzezinski said, pointing to an article in
the People’s Daily itself, which said China should link up with Russia and
North Korea against America, whose goal, it claimed, was “no longer simply
containment . . . rather it is a way of choking aimed and controlling or even
suffocating”. It said Cold War history showed that “containment will surely be
accompanied by murder”.
Brzezinski cited the article in
the Liberation Army Daily that said “we should cast away . . . pacifism and
romanticism” and prepare for war.
“Don’t make the mistake that
other countries have made a century ago,” Brzezinski warned his interviewers.
The message seems to have got
through to Beijing. Last week the Chinese internet was ablaze with furious
ultranationalist comment after a top PLA officer, General Liu Yuan, told
everyone to cool down.
DEMOGRAFIC TRENDS IN CUBA
An urgent challenge
An urgent challenge
By
Leticia MartÃnez Hernández
Certain journalism theorists state
that too many figures can complicate the reading or decoding of texts, or
obscure the message. If figures are used at the beginning of an article, this
is even worse. However, on some subjects, there is no alternative but to
present figures to assist understanding.
For this reason, an analysis of
Cuba’s demographic structure must begin with figures which allow a reliable
interpretation. According to preliminary data from the most recent population
census, 18.3% of Cubans are aged 60 or over. Other studies reveal that this
sector of the population will represent 30% of the total by 2030. The current
average life expectancy rate is 78 years.
The birthrate, on the other hand,
remains low: for over 30 years Cuba has not reached replacement fertility
rates; that is, women are not giving birth to daughters to replace them in
their reproductive role. In 2011, an average of 0.86 girls per woman were born.
The proportion of Cubans aged 0-14 years has been gradually decreasing, to the
current level of 17%.
These figures highlight a complex
demographic situation in Cuba, marked by an increasingly aging population and
low birthrates, all of which cannot be separated from the revolutionary social
process which has men and women at its center.
So, Cubans are among those who live
the longest in this unequal world. At the same time, women with higher levels
of education and integrated into work and public life, leads to them having
fewer children. Moreover, this is not merely related to the professional
satisfaction of Cuban women, but is also determined by the country’s economic
conditions, which make the decision to have children more complex.
Migratory movement, in conjunction
with life expectancy at birth and birthrate trends, are also affecting the
country’s demographic structure.
The complexity and magnitude of all
these factors is currently the principal social-demographic challenge facing
the nation, given its impact on society, the economy and families, as well as
its implications in terms of social benefits and assistance, national defense,
health services and workforce renewal. By 2021, it is estimated that the
difference between those leaving work and those joining the workforce will be
in excess of 5,700; by 2030, the difference is expected to reach 78,000.
In this context, the issue has
become a priority for the government, prompting the creation of a commission
comprising key ministers and the administrative bodies most involved: the
ministries of Labor and Social Security, Finance and Prices, Economy and
Planning, Public Health, Education, Higher Education, Culture, Light Industry,
Domestic Trade, Construction, as well as the National Sports, Physical
Education and Recreation Institute, and the Cuban Radio and Television Institute.
This commission is charged with
drafting a comprehensive strategy for the country, taking into consideration
economic, social, cultural, and biological factors, as well as related
consequences, in order to implement longer-term solutions.
The 2013 Economic Plan includes 58
million pesos, a figure within the country’s real possibilities, to finance 30
measures directed at providing appropriate attention for those over 60 and
stimulating the birthrate.
These measures are part of a plan
for local government entities, and are subject to ongoing monitoring. Although
they cannot provide the necessary comprehensive solution, given many
accumulated needs, they will address the most urgent aspects.
The Economic Plan therefore,
reflects actions directed toward stimulating the birthrate and reducing female
infertility. In this regard, more services are being provided for infertile
couples, in addition to the use of in vitro fertilization.
Also included is the maintenance and
repair of children’s day-care centers, in coordination with local government.
The same is intended for senior citizen homes and day centers.
Under the new plan, health checks
will be available annually for older adults, as well as prostheses, walkers and
canes, neck braces and wheelchairs.
It is essential to address the issue
with a coherent strategy which, among other aspects, is economically viable.
Cuba's current policy updating process is also geared to addressing the
country's demographic challenge.
The aging of the population is an
inevitable process, and is a responsibility to be assumed by the country, more
so given that it is the result of the humanist vocation of its Revolution.
In addition, the low birthrate
requires solutions of every kind to stimulate and make motherhood a rewarding
experience. Various measures are being studied to ensure an upward trend in the
medium term.
Understanding the problem fully,
considering all its aspects, taking into account research, and paying attention
to popular wisdom would seem to be the most positive ways of disentangling the
difficulties of this urgent challenge.
American education system: Critical infrastructure,
ignorant adults
By
John Stanton
In times of rapid change, the
learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully
equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." Eric Hoffer
"Every valuable human being
must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better
than they are." Neils Bohr
A good case can be made for ending
initial education (more of which could be obtained in the home through
electronic devices) somewhere around the age of eighteen. This formal initial
period could be followed by two years of service in a socially desirable cause;
then by direct involvement in some professional activity and by advanced,
systematic training within that area; and finally by regular periods of one and
eventually even two years of broadening, integrative study at the beginning of
every decade of one's life, somewhere up to the age of sixty. Zibignew Brezezinski 1970
There is an illuminating briefing
produced by the Center for Digital Education titled Education Market Forecast,
2012. One page, in particular, displays where select US K-12 schools and
universities would rank in the Fortune 500. The New York City K-12 school
system, with US $18.5 billion in revenue, would be ranked number 136 far ahead
of Marriot International and Yahoo, Inc. At the college level, the University
of Michigan with US $5.8 billion in revenue ranks ahead of MasterCard and the
Washington Post.
There
are approximately 4,493 colleges and universities in the USA with some 35
million or so students. At the K-12 level there are roughly 49 million students
in 98,708 public school facilities in 14,000 districts. Private schools
(parochial, charter, etc.) have nearly 6 million students under their care in
as many as 33,000 facilities. States of the United States spent (all sources)
nearly US $2 trillion on education. K-12 and college/university systems employ
11.1 million people. Only 50 percent of the 11.1 million are teachers with the
other 50 percent being administrators, ground and maintenance personnel,
technology advisors, etc. It is worth noting that public and private spending
(all sources) on the K-12 through the college and university levels in the
United States exceeds that spent on social security and national defense
combined.
"Colleges
and universities are important regional economic engines for their communities
and are multifaceted in that they provide education, workforce training,
employment, research activity, and health care," according to Moody's
Education Outlook 2012. It is becoming the case that colleges and universities
are employers of last resort in places like Detroit, Michigan or Up State New
York. This is likely to change for the worse as in January 2013 Moody's
indicated in its US Higher Education Outlook Negative for 2013 that "the
US higher education sector has hit a critical juncture in the evolution of its
business model."
Education
Factories
Mark
Twain, Thoreau, Shakespeare, Diversity and Sustainability notwithstanding, the
American education system (K-12, college/university) is a profit making
industry (despite the org/edu claims) that is in the business of manufacturing,
and warehousing, American human capital. Any nation-state that hopes for
longevity must design an education system that ensures a secure life and
continuity for its people. That means teaching national/social uniformity in
living and purpose.
The US
education system is the backbone, the spinal column of the nation.
A key
function of the education industry is to develop and produce taxpayers that
will have skillsets useful in maintaining and increasing the nation's
productivity levels whether in a research laboratory or the bedroom (nation's
fertility rate). Critical in the manufacturing process is designing individual
and collective minds to agree to the covenant, a sort of the secular religion,
between "we the people" and the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights
and the ideals contained in the Declaration of Independence. Those same minds
are manufactured to generally accept the worldviews of American business,
education and government leaders flowing through corporate media.
Another
critical function of the US education industry is to produce minds that are
numb to the contradictions in the capitalist, globalist mode of living and
thinking. Certainly not numb to asking questions of the system (to a point);
but produced with an inability to think with depth and breadth about the
globalized world, about life and one's place in it, about connections. In 1950
Dean Acheson once remarked that higher order Americans spend about 10 minutes a
day thinking about what goes on outside the borders of the USA. Even with the
Internet and WWW, that 10 minute mark probably still holds.
From
preschool to graduate school students undergo a form of distraction therapy.
Video games, American Idol, late night talk shows, nonsense news and
information, marketers for clothing, tech gear, music, and credit cards bombard
the mind like spray wax at the end of a car wash. But this is all part of the
plan for education in America. It's an education in buying and selling;
what George W. Bush described as freedom, "freedom is the ability to buy
and sell." He was right on many levels but no one likes to pull the
curtain back and find that the education industry is just like the defense
industry with contractors, consultants, presidents, CEO's, analysts, investment
bankers, fraud, waste, abuse etc.
 |
| US President Hussein Obama |
It is
utterly popular and awfully tedious to say that there is an education-military
complex. Eisenhower's overused statement is very much dated. In fact President
U.S. Grant thought about those matters during his presidency. But, we seem to
be in the midst of the development of a national security republic perpetually
at war and undereducated, by design, in the machinations of the American
national security state.
Arguably,
it is dangerous to try and break up the industrial model of education,
particularly now in the midst of high unemployment in the USA and the perilous
state of the US and world economy. The warehousing function that K-12 and
college universities play is vital to local economies and keeping millions of
young people off the street. The industrial model excels at manufacturing minds
with conformity/uniformity built in.
And
yet, the US education industry is not even listed as a leading Critical Infrastructuresector in the USA. Perhaps it should be listed under the
Defense Industrial Base as important as its function is to the nation.
What's
a Nation State to Do?
So you
want to privatize, corporatize, and decentralize the US education industry? You
want to end formalized education at 18 years of age as Brezezinski said in
1970? Is this the best way to get more competent American engineers,
scientists, warfighters, buyers, and sellers? You want to make the US education
industry more efficient and effective? You want high scores on the
national College Board-Educational Testing Service (teach to the test) to claim
the number one slot in the world? You want to save money by eliminating excess
human capital, and closing/consolidating schools? You want to do
Podcasts, Skype around the world, work in electronic collectives via the
Internet and World Wide Web?
The
answers to these questions raise significant issues for the future stability of
the American nation-state and, indeed, the continuity of the American Republic
and its form of government. At the moment, the glue that binds Americans
together is many years of participation in the US education educational system.
What
needs to be changed within the American education is not so much the addition
of technical wizardry, robust communications networks, or the next big fad
(teacher as facilitator, blended learning, TED lectures, etc.). An
emphasis needs to be placed on the nuts and bolts, the blocking and tackling
aspects of education, the items that are foundational-human capital.
It all
has to start with the reeducation of "educated" adults in positions
of power: parents, professors, teachers, mentors, politicians, military
leaders, et al. It is a crime to blame the young for the failings, the
ignorance, of adults who refuse to re-educate themselves about the world around
them. They fear the information and knowledge that the Internet and WWW. They
are the "learned" that Eric Hoffer refers to above.
Duh...What?
Most
American adults do not know the difference between the Internet and WWW or have
a rudimentary knowledge of the history and mechanics behind it. Hence, the
young reflect that. The same adults would not be able to locate Benin or Brunei
on a map even though Google Earth is at their fingertips. "I know nothing
about anatomy," said an adult recently. Well, over at Chrome there are,
for no charge but time, 3D software programs on human anatomy. In fact, for every
field of academic endeavor, there is a free education software program that can
be downloaded and used to self-educate.
Over
50 percent of American adults reject Evolutionary Theory and Evolutionary
Psychology/Biology. American adults (the "great leaders") are
destroying America's English language to the point that words/concepts like
accountability, torture, displaced peoples, drones, casualties, shootings and
death are meaningless to K-12 and college university students. Those same
adults rip teachers and administrators for lack of effort and appropriate
qualifications and demand action and accountability.
Finally,
the academic disciplines are mostly stove-piped and isolated from each other
during a time when understanding the economic, social, biological, and cultural
interconnections from the local to global level are paramount. In fact,
students are more stimulated and thrive in a well-run interdisciplinary program
as opposed to smokestack pedagogy. There are many ways to discover. For
example, can literary analysis/criticism inform about militarism in society?
Yes. Greg Winston's Joyce and Militarism (2012, University of Florida)
focuses in on some of James Joyce's classics and the times/environment they
were written. It is an extraordinary book that travels through the occupation
of Ireland by England and World War I.
Murray
Gell Mann put it best at a conference sponsored by the National Defense
University in 2003.
"Unfortunately,
in a great many places in our society, including academia and most bureaucracies,
prestige accrues principally to those who study carefully some aspect of a
problem, while discussion of the big picture is relegated to cocktail parties.
It is of crucial importance that we learn to supplement those specialized
studies with what I call a crude look at the whole...It is essential, in my
opinion, to make some effort to search out in advance what kinds of paths might
lead humanity to a reasonably sustainable and desirable world during the coming
decades. And while the study of the many different subjects involved is being
pursued by the appropriate specialists, we need to supplement that study with
interdisciplinary investigations of the strong interdependence of all the
principal facets of the world situation. In short, we need a crude look at the
whole, treating global security and global politics as parts of a very general
set of questions about the future."
What
a radical idea.
Ten years without Saddam Hussein
 |
| Late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein |
2013 marks ten years since the beginning of U.S. and Britain's military operations in Iraq that ended with the fall of Hussein's regime. The victory of the allies over the poorly armed Iraqi army was not a surprise to most observers. However, the retention of the foreign military presence in the country would inevitably lead to an increase of popular resistance.
Ten years after the start of the American invasion, The Independent columnist John Kampfner called the war in Iraq one of the greatest foreign policy debacles in contemporary history. Today, few believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by a foreign intervention that caused chaos and death of civilians was justified. We should analyze the mistakes of Bush and Blair to develop decision-making mechanisms regarding external intervention in emergency situations caused by human rights violations.
No one in the United States is interested in starting new wars after the events in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a recent poll conducted by Washington Post-ABC News, the American public does not want the use of force for political purposes. However, if Assad uses chemical weapons against his own people, the opinion of the Americans may change. At the same time, the UK will not be able to fully participate in the operation due to the reduction of the military budget, and is likely to be limited to the support of the Air Force, if necessary.
The U.S. maintains military superiority, but President Obama knows that, at least for now, any military action would involve the risks that would outweigh the frustrations caused by inaction, Kempfner continued. The events in Iraq have caused a reaction in the Middle East and could be repeated in Syria. On May 1, 2003, the U.S. officially announced the completion of military operations in Iraq and victory of the coalition forces.
U.S. President George W. Bush delivered a speech aboard the aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln," where he announced the victory of the allied forces over the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. In the coming years the military were going to continue the search for unconventional weapons and begin rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure. One way or the other, the coalition forces remained in Iraq indefinitely. In May of 2003, after the completion of the brilliant "Operation Iraqi Freedom," it was difficult to imagine that the U.S. military would stay in the country for many years.
In addition, by early 2008, the American contingent was increased to 160 thousand people. At the same time, the losses of the coalition forces have significantly increased. In one year, 952 U.S. military personnel were killed, and over six thousand were injured. At the time it seemed that the Iraq war would never end. However, following the election of U.S. President Barack Obama, a phased reduction of the military presence in Iraq has begun. By August of 2010, all U.S. combat troops have left the country, while the number of military employees still amounted to 50 thousand people.
Finally, on December 15 of 2011, the completion of the U.S. Army mission in Iraq that lasted nearly nine years was announced. The U.S. military disclosed the irretrievable losses of the American army that amounted to 4,487 people. If the number of casualties in the ranks of the coalition forces is well documented, the number of casualties among civilian and insurgents is difficult to calculate due to the lack of reliable official sources. All calculations and computations in this regard caused heated debates. According to several sources, by July 2010, the number of civilian deaths ranged between 97, 461 and 106, 348 people.
In 2006, Nuri al-Maliki, nominated for the post of prime minister by the "United Iraqi Alliance" (UIA), became head of the Iraqi government. Parliamentary elections held in March of 2010 secured the second place for Maliki's coalition, which allowed him to stay as prime minister. After the war was over, the Shiite al-Maliki government began conducting an independent foreign policy without consulting with the U.S. and its allies. Very soon, Baghdad was outside of Washington's sphere of influence.
Iraq had a strong reaction to Ankara's unilateral actions in northern Iraq, demanding an end to cross-border operations against the PKK. In addition, in September of 2012, Iraq proposed its own plan to settle the Syrian conflict and opposed any military options. The Iraqi government is doing everything possible to recover the status of a regional power lost after the fall of the old regime. In the coming years, the role of Baghdad in regional affairs will only increase, experts believe.
Scientists
grow tooth from gum cells
Researchers from King's College London have achieved a
breakthrough method during which they can grow real teeth from a person's own
gum cells.
The study published the Journal of Dental Research is first
major advance in developing a method to replace missing teeth with new
bioengineered teeth.
Researchers isolated some cells from adult human gum
(gingival) tissue from patients and grew them in the lab, and then combined
them with cell mesenchyme cells from mice.
The mixed cell was transplanted into mice to start growing
into a tooth. The result revealed hybrid human-mouse teeth that had viable
roots.
"Epithelial cells derived from adult human gum tissue
are capable of responding to tooth inducing signals from embryonic tooth
mesenchyme in an appropriate way to contribute to tooth crown and root
formation and give rise to relevant differentiated cell types, following in
vitro culture,” the research leader Professor Paul Sharpe clarified the method.
As mesenchyme cells can be found in the pulp of wisdom
teeth, among other sources, the difficult part of the research had been in
getting hold of enough cells.
The experts believe that the recent research is valuable in
dentistry while the current implant-based methods of whole tooth replacement
fail to reproduce a natural root structure.
"The next major challenge is to identify a way to
culture adult human mesenchymal cells to be tooth-inducing, as at the moment we
can only make embryonic mesenchymal cells do this,” Sharpe noted in the report.
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