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04 February 2011 By Stephen Lendman
The line from Gilbert &
Sullivan's HMS Pinafore relates well to what's going
on in
Egypt,
perhaps elsewhere in the region as well, saying:
"Things are seldom as they seem. Skim milk masquerades
as cream."
Visceral street anger is
real. What's orchestrating it, however, is suspect,
especially its likely Washington impresario,
implementing long-planned regime change for new faces
continuing old policies, leaving deep-rooted hardships
unaddressed. The script is familiar.
In his book "Freedom Next
Time," John Pilger discussed Nelson Mandela's betrayal
in
post-apartheid South Africa, embracing
what he called "Thatcherism,"
telling Pilger:
"You can put any label on
it you like; you can call it Thatcherite, but for this
country, privatization is the fundamental policy."
In 1990, two weeks before
freed from prison, he was quoted saying:
"The nationalization of the
mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of
the ANC (and changing) our views....is inconceivable.
Black economic empowerment is a goal we
fully support and encourage, but in our situation
state control of certain sectors of the economy is
unavoidable."
In 1955, that view became
ANC Freedom Charter policy. Its liberation struggle
wasn't just political but also economic. White mine
workers earned 10 times more than blacks, and large
industrialists used security forces to enforce order
by disappearing dissenters.
Post-apartheid, a new way
was possible, Mandela poised to lead it by rejecting
market orthodoxy for economic justice. In 1994, ANC
candidates won overwhelmingly. Nonetheless, despite
transitioning peacefully, betrayal, not progressive
change followed. Black South Africans became predatory
capitalist hostages. They still are, worse off now
than under apartheid.
Even
The New York Times noticed, writer Celia
Dugger headlining on
September 26,
2010: "Wage Laws Squeeze South Africa's Poor," saying:
"In the 16 years since the
end of apartheid, South Africa has followed the
prescriptions of the West, opening its market-based
economy to trade, while keeping inflation and public
debt in check (by following IMF diktats). It has won
praise for its efforts," but at a price. "For over a
decade, the jobless rate been among the highest in the
world," exacerbated by the
global economic crisis,
"wiping out more than a million jobs."
Overall, the toll included:
-- double the number of
people impoverished on less than $1 a day from two to
four million;
-- unemployment doubling to
48% from 1991 - 2002, currently even higher;
-- two million
South Africans losing their homes while
the government built only 1.8 million others;
-- in the first decade of
ANC rule, nearly one million South Africans lost
farms; as a result, shack dwellers grew by 50%;
-- in 2006, 25% of South
Africans lived in them with no running water or
electricity;
-- the HIV/AIDS infection
rate is about 20%; ANC officials deny its severity and
do little to help; as a result, average life
expectancy is lower than in 1990;
-- 40% of schools have no
electricity;
-- 25% of people have no
clean water, and most with it can't afford the cost;
-- 60% have inadequate
sanitation, and 40% no telephones.
Post-apartheid came at a
high price with political empowerment traded for
economic betrayal, and no planned relief for millions
of suffering South Africans, victims of predatory
capitalism.
Post-Communist Russia
The Berlin Wall's fall
should have been triumphant for millions. Instead it
was tragic for
Russia
and post-Soviet states like
Ukraine,
Georgia, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania
and others.
In March 1985,
Mikhail Gorbachev came to power,
promising political and social change, but wasn't
around long enough to lead it. He liberalized the
country, introduced elections, and favored (then)
Scandinavian-style
social democracy,
combining
free market capitalism
with strong social safety net protections. He
envisioned "a socialist beacon for all mankind," an
egalitarian society, but never got the chance to build
it.
When the
Soviet Union
dissolved, he was out.
Boris
Yeltsin replaced him, supporting harsh
Chicago School orthodoxy, masquerading as "reform."
Former apparatchiks profited along with a new oligarch
"nouveaux billionaire" class, strip-mining Russia's
wealth, then shipping it offshore to tax havens.
Predatory capitalism
devastated ordinary Russians, enriching a select few
at their expense. The toll included:
-- 80% of farmers bankrupt;
-- about 70,000 state
factories closed, causing an epidemic of unemployment;
-- 74 million Russians
(half the population) impoverished; for 37 million of
them conditions were desperate, and the country's
underclass remained permanent;
-- alcohol, painkilling and
hard drug used soared;
-- since 1995, HIV/AIDS
increased 20-fold;
-- suicides also rose, and
violent crime more than fourfold; and
-- Russia's population
declined by around 700,000 a year before leveling off;
unfettered capitalism killed 10% of it - a startling
condemnation of how capitalist excess harms so many,
including in other post-Soviet states.
Free
Market Repression in
Haiti
Except briefly in 1804
after revolutionary liberation turned slaves into
citizens and during Jean-Bertrand Aristide's tenure as
president, Haitians suffered harsh predatory
capitalist exploitation, making it the region's
poorest nation and one of the poorest globally. Even
before the devastating January 2010 earthquake,
followed by greater than ever depravation and raging
cholera, its burdens included:
-- imperial control as a de
facto US colony;
-- its ruling elite having
dominant social and economic control; six families
controllig the economy, media, universities, commerce
and trade;
-- the region's most
unequal wealth distribution and one the most unequal
globally;
-- 1% of Haitians
controlling half the country's wealth;
-- in contrast, over 80%
enduring harrowing poverty;
-- three-fourths of the
population living on less than $2 a day and over half
(56%) less than $1 a day;
-- 5% of the population
owning 75% of the
arable land;
-- rampant unemployment and
underemployment; two-thirds or more of workers with no
reliable jobs, and most with them earn below-subsistance
pay;
-- structural adjustments
decimating the rural economy, forcing displaced
peasants to cities for non-existent jobs;
-- public sector employment
the lowest in the region at less than .7%;
-- life expectancy only 53
years; the highest hemispheric death rare, and infant
mortality is double the regional average at 76 per
1000;
-- the
World
Bank placing Haiti in its bottom
rankings based on deficient sanitation, poor
nutrition, high malnutrition, and inadequate health
services;
-- over half its people
food insecure and half its children undersized from
malnutrition;
-- more than half with no
access to clean drinking water;
-- its bottom hemispheric
ranking in health care spending with only 25 doctors
and 11 nurses per 100,000 population and most rural
areas with no access;
-- the highest HIV-AIDS
incidence outside sub-Sararan
Africa;
-- the region's lowest
sweatshop wages for Haitians lucky enough to have
work;
-- called "the Republic of
NGOs," most exploit Haitians brutally for profit; and
-- its longstanding "restavec"
system, entrapping hundreds of thousands of children
in forced bondage;
Overall, America maintains
imperial dominance, controlling Haiti's resources, its
economy and politics. It exploits Haitians ruthlessly,
strip-mines the country for profits, and installs new
regimes no different from old ones.
The same story repeats
globally, including in
Iraq
and
Afghanistan,
plagued by war, occupation, torture, oppression,
appalling poverty and unemployment, no security, clean
water, enough food, shelter, medical care or other
essential services. US "liberation" brought millions
of deaths, disease, hunger, depravation, and grievous
unaddressed human suffering. Moreover, privation
levels keep rising as well at home because
Washington
refuses to address them.
A Final Comment
Post-WW II decolonization
produced neocolonial regimes, Cold War politics, the
Non-Aligned Movement, emergent
nationalism, ethnic conflicts, and American imperial
dominance, distinguished by its:
-- abhorrence of democracy;
-- support for neocolonial
strongmen, mostly
police state
dictatorships serving Western interests; and
-- use of direct or proxy
belligerence for world capitalist enforcement, keeping
the world safe for big money.
Old orders passed. New ones
emerged. Everything changed but stayed the same, more
than ever dominated by
finance capital
and monopoly corporations, controlling governments for
their own self-interest at the expense of harshly
exploited workers globally. As a result, today's world
is characterized by instability, declining living
standards, police state harshness, and enormous human
suffering, especially in areas like the
Middle East.
Across the region, people
want it ended, pitting revolutionary populism against
imperial harshness offering pretense, not change. As a
result, expect new faces continuing old policies,
yielding nothing unless sustained mass outrage
persists. That's today's reality, resolution still in
doubt, but odds always favor the strong.
Stephen
Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit
his blog site at
sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with
distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News
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