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Disillusionment

Disillusionment
Isn't a negative response.
It's awakening.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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The Impact Of Poverty On Education

THE IMPACT OF POVERTY ON EDUCATION.

INTRODUCTION

There are so many different tools that have been thought relevant in people’s developmental projects both at individual and societal levels. Education is one of such practical tools. Importantly to note, there are also various meanings that denote the broad term ‘education’. In this essay, however, we are mainly interested in defining formal education since our discussion will dwell much on it. According to Nwomonoh (1998) , formal education is the process of gaining knowledge, attitudes, information and skills during the course of life especially at school.

Though education is said to be so instrumental in human development but also in the revamping of world economies, it is very unfortunate that education systems, world wide, are being held to ransom all because of poverty at both governmental and household levels. According to Thibault (2009) , poverty means the shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine our quality of life. It may also include lack of access to opportunities like education and employment which aid the escape of poverty.

Problems in our society are interconnected in one way or the other, just like poverty and personal family problems affect a student’s capability to learn. Improving education entails improving the living conditions of students. Having in mind that education is basically responsible for the development of many countries including Malawi, as the back ground suggests, we cannot afford to bypass such a vital element without a mention. Considering also the fact that poverty is one of the forces that come in the way; blocking the success of education, we feel it rational to look at how the two realities, education and poverty, affect each other both positively and negatively. That is also why we are convinced that this topic is worth studying. Our awareness of this source, poverty, and its impact on education will enable us devise some proper measures of intervention with the hope of minimizing the negative impact of poverty on education. This point, in short, explains the purpose of our investigation and why we are so passionate in getting into this research. During the whole discussion we are being guided by two questions thus, ‘does poverty really affect education? And if it does, what points do we have on the positive and negative impacts of poverty on education? ’

METHODOLOGY

The study was basically qualitative in approach because of the nature of the issue that was being addressed. This was the case because the issue of how poverty affects education, both positively and negatively is particularly very difficult to predict the conclusions without penetrating into the core of the issue. For instance, one may unreasonably rush into concluding that poverty affects education negatively only and we cannot even dare to speak of poverty affecting education positively. The study was conducted in three schools namely; Mulunguzi, Masongola and Chirunga Private Secondary schools in Zomba district between 24th April and 3rd May. In this research we used both government and private funded schools to have a more balanced result on how poverty affects formal education in these different institutions. The information required for the study was collected through group interviews of form three students and individual interviews with teachers using semi-structured interview schedules. We opted to use these interviews in the first place because we felt books are more theoretical whereas a field research is practical and it involves real life experiences. Nevertheless, we still used desk research as a supplementary source of information and for clarity in some areas.

RESULTS

Positive impacts of poverty on education
To begin with, poverty encourages one to get educated and of course work hard in class. This is because the problems faced due to poverty are very serious and therefore students who are from poverty stricken families strive to end the problems and one of the best solutions is through education. That is to say, if a person, for instance, due to poverty, is taking just a meal in a day instead of three meals, and again if he/she is sometimes sleeping on an empty stomach, he/she will resort to education bearing in mind that if he/she gets educated they will secure formal employment and eventually be able to make ends meet for themselves as well as fending for their families.

Not only does poverty encourage one to get educated, but also it helped in the introduction of free primary education. In Malawi, for instance, when Bakili Muluzi became president, he introduced free primary education and he had eliminated the requirements for school uniform forthwith (Kadzamira & Rose,2001) . This had increased the access to education dramatically as those pupils who were coming from less privileged families were also given access to this free primary education. It should also be noted that the free primary education system was not only implemented to fulfill an electoral pledge but also bearing in mind that some families were not able to send their children to school due to poverty. Free primary education was there to deal with illiteracy by reducing families’ direct costs of education. Again due to the influx in the number of pupils in primary schools; there was a lack of teachers. Sonani (2002) , testifies that the Ministry of Education re-employed all retired teachers below the age of 65. This also meant that the once retired teachers got back to their source of income which helped them support their families as well as hauling the economy of the country. The implementation of free primary education system in Malawi forced the government to provide infrastructures so as to accommodate the large number of pupils in these schools. Simply put, poverty had led to the introduction of free primary education which means that more children are going to school, and again more teachers are being trained and getting employed and finally the construction of school blocks culminating into infrastructural development, all these branching from poverty.

We may also look at poverty from a positive angle bearing in mind that when a country is poor more funds and donations come into it. These funds and donations are also given to the education sector to build new infrastructures and in the maintenance of already existing ones in the sector. These privileged countries also provide learning materials to schools that are poor as a result students in these less privileged schools perform well in accordance with the amount and quality of the learning materials that they have been provided with. For instance, a United States based non governmental organization known as “Water for People” handed over 44 water toilets they built to Chimwankhunda primary school. The school toilet facilities had been vandalized 11 years ago but because of poverty the school could not renovate them (Gausi,2007) .

In addition, these funds and donations help more people to get educated. This is so because people can use funds as school fees, pocket money and buy stationery. The donations may include library books, chairs and writing materials. These can make a conducive environment for one to learn since there will be enough facilities at the school. For instance, with funding from the “United States Agency for International Development” (USAID) ,3,300 needy Malawian primary school girls are being funded. They are being provided with food, clothing, school supplies and hygienic products like soap and body lotion (Muhaliwa,2005) . Likewise,500 pupils at Katoto primary school in Mzuzu no longer sit on the floors during lessons courtesy of Southern Bottlers Limited and Lions Club of Limbe. Before these funds and donations, pupils used to sit on the floor due to scarcity of desks. These donations improved the pupils’ school attendance in such a way that pupils have started going to school regularly.

In the same line, a needy student can be given a scholarship to go further with his/her education. In this case the scholarship is given to the person just because he/she cannot manage to pay school fees on her own. This in turn benefits the needy person and the community at large. In this situation poverty has assisted in the development of education in an area by beckoning funds and donations from rich countries and organisations.

Further more; in most cases poverty facilitates one’s ambitions to attain formal education. It becomes easier for a poor child to put much of his concentration on education as compared to a rich child. This is because a poverty stricken student will have less destructive materials for entertainment. He/she will also have less or no money to indulge him/herself in activities that require spending a lot of money for instance, drinking beer. Sometimes even if the child can find money he/she can buy basic needs and not just spending it anyhow. Contrast to this a rich child may obtain things like ipods, mp3s, games for entertainment. These things in most cases destruct the concentration of students in their studies. As a result, one’s class performance is negatively affected since most of his/her time is being spent on entertainment.

Negative impacts of poverty on education

Just as a coin has got two sides, a head and a tail, poverty also, apart from having positive impacts on education, it does have negative impacts on the same. We have talked much about the positive face of poverty on education. We shall surely do ourselves injustice if we do not look at the negative part. In spite of the fact that poverty has an impact on education that is worth complimenting, we cannot afford in this discussion to overlook the point that so many students have been forced to leave the corridors of learning institutions due to the same poverty. One of the reasons that force some students leave the learning institutions prematurely is pregnancy, which in most cases, come because of poverty. It is almost common knowledge that a good number of students who come from poor families wish they could be sailing in the same boat with those who come from well to do families as far as luxurious life is concerned. The poor students constantly feel that there is something missing at the core psychologically. With this feeling in their minds, they tend to regard themselves as incomplete and not accepted socially. Consequently, they envy the rich students and squarely want to posses the things that are associated with the rich students. Very unfortunate that the poor students’ parents cannot afford to fulfill their children’s desires like what the rich parents would provide. Because the pull towards recognition is too strong for the poor students to resist, they end up in indulging themselves into prostitution in their search for money. Pity indeed that instead of recreating, as anticipated, their promiscuous behavior sees most of them getting pregnant and for some very unfortunate ones get even HIV and other STIs. From this discussion, commonsense convinces us that this school dropp out due to pregnancy is one of the negative impacts of poverty on education.

Adding more flesh to this discussion, we can also appreciate that hunger has been so instrumental in bringing down the standards of education world wide, in general, and Malawi, in particular. Frankly speaking, there are very few students if not none, who concentrate on their studies on empty stomachs. Food is one of the basic needs that every person is obliged to have if he/she is to survive. It is not surprising, therefore, to see some students performing miserably in class simply because they have not taken enough food or they have taken none altogether. The question of hunger finds its way into the education system because the government has failed to provide adequate food in most of its boarding schools. This is poverty at governmental level. There are also some students who are not boarders but still endure the hostile reality of hunger right in their homes. This is due to poverty at household level. It is sad that poverty, both at governmental and household level, has helped in engineering the deteriorating of education standards in Malawi.

Bearing in mind that it is only the eagle that can tell us the real whisper of a cloud, we visited Masongola Secondary school with the hope of getting first hand information from the students and their teachers since they are the ones who mostly benefit or get destructed by poverty. The Masongola secondary school students and their teacher, Mr. Enock Abraham, testified to us during an interview that government’s inability to provide extra food, apart from the usual beans that the institution offers, has seen many students developing ulcers. It would sound bizarre to reason that one can attend classes whilst he/she is on a hospital bed battling with ulcers. The Masongola students further testified that most poor students who have ulcers just bow down out of the race of learning because they cannot afford to buy extra food whenever the institution is serving the students beans.

This pitiful development goes beyond the boundaries of Masongola secondary school. Mulunguzi secondary school as Mr……the head teacher at the institution testifies, has not been spared from the scourge of school dropp outs simply because the school has not been able to provide extra or adequate food to students who cannot take what their friends take on health grounds. Needless to say this leaves the education standards in Malawi vacillating. It is a pity that though we have wrestled with this question of poverty a dozen times, we have not been successful in the battle. At one point in time, the government attempted to minimize the chances of school dropout in primary schools through its provision of porridge to pupils in the junior section. This attempt was in itself a good gesture but the government has failed to implement the initiative further in other schools that up to now have not benefited from the program.

It may not sound an exaggeration if we may say poverty has also forced a good number of students to give up their hopes of getting educated simply because they find it so difficult traveling to and from their respective schools. Lack of transport means, in short, has pushed them well towards the blink of despair as far as attaining formal education is concerned. This point speaks for itself how poverty can sometimes work on the education’s disadvantage.

As we go further with this discussion, we also appreciate the fact that the problem that mostly hinders a student’s success is inadequate resources that include; few teachers and learning materials. It must be highlighted that these problems are not only in developing countries but they may also find their way in reasonably developed countries like South Africa. In a developing country like Malawi, the education system encounters these problems because of the government’s failure to look into problems of infrastructure, capacity and availability of teaching and learning materials (Nkawike,2005) . The Muluzi government did a little if any; in as far as infrastructure is concerned. Lack of school blocks facilitated by a large number of pupils due to the introduction of the free primary education in 1994, forced pupils to have lessons under trees. In 2003, for example, lack of school blocks resulted in a tragedy at Nkomachi in Lilongwe when a tree fell onto an outdoor class, resulting in injury and deaths of pupils (Mvula & Chanika,2004) . This problem of learning materials continues till date, in all levels of the education system. According to Abraham (2009) , the school has always had shortage of learning blocks to an extent that the Physical Science and Biology laboratories are used as classrooms. There is also great shortage of books in all departments, and some departments like the technical department needs new equipment and current books which are very expensive. With this unfortunate situation we cannot anticipate good performance from Masongola secondary school.

In order to deal with these issues, the Muluzi government thought it wise to disregard the provision of learning materials in schools. Instead the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) pass mark was reduced to ensure the success of students in their examinations. Even the director of Basic Education, Nelson Kaperemera admitted that funds intended for learning materials were servicing the debts of government at the expense of improving quality education. Instead of reducing the pass mark, the government and other stake holders should strive to improve quality of education, improve teacher salaries, and provide adequate materials and train teachers properly (Malawi News,2006) .

In developing countries like Malawi, the schools are understaffed (teaching personnel) and they tend to be handling a large number of students for long hours. Furthermore, the teachers are subjected to meager salaries, which are even made late. The government does not seem to have the welfare of teachers at heart, for instance the education Manager for Phalombe, Enoch Ali says the district is facing a dire shortage of teachers, a situation that is contributing to low education standards. The teacher pupil ratio in Phalombe is 1: 120, whilst the recommended ratio is 1: 60 (The Nation,2006) . Due to low pay teachers resort to organizing part time classes, which demand an extra amount of money on top of the normal fees. These changes clearly affect those students who come from very poor families, as they do not receive adequate studies because of lack of money.
This does not only occur in secondary schools, but it also happens in universities. As the academic staff of the Universities go on strike because of the government’s reluctance to increase their salaries. One considers how this is supposed to retain staff in the University. As a result lecturers spend more time doing consultancies; instead of preparing lectures and doing University mandated research. If we are serious about fighting poverty, formal education is the hub of ideas to fight these problems by improving its standards (Kapasula,2008) .
Child labour is one of the major problems that contribute to school dropp out. The majority of child labour victims are children who are living in poverty. This is so because they lack basic needs, for this reason they are forced even against their will to do any kind of work in order to gain financial wealth. This, therefore, affects school attendance. Evidence of school dropp out due to child labour is found in central region where most children are being employed in estates. This region has high tobacco production. Since this crop demands a lot of work, children are at high demand because they do not claim high wages compared to adults. Research, therefore, showed that the percentage of children attending schools is lower compared to that of northern and southern region (Nyirongo,2004) . We have the case of two brothers aged between 12 and 15 who were forced to work at a tobacco farm at Mpherembe in Kasungu district, where they were receiving 150 kwacha a day due to poverty (Namangale,2005) . We can see that child labour has a great impact on education because through it, a lot of children are being deprived of their right to education as they spend most of their time working.

In addition to that, Chirwa (2003) found out that child labour is also taking place in people’s houses. In this case children are forced to dropp out of school either by parents or on their own, to work in neighbouring homes. Here one of the victims is a 12 year old girl Elizabeth Chalimba, who left school when she was in standard six to work as a nanny in order to support her siblings. Children from low income families are at risk because though school is their only hope for a better future, they dropp out because their parents are failing to provide them with basic needs. Apart from child labour, psychological problems due to poverty is also another cause of school dropp outs. Research shows that the impact of poverty is greater on children as opposed to adults. Firstly, the problem arises due to the environment in which these children are raised. These environments being impoverished, they are intellectually unstimulating, and lack of stimulation results in impaired intellectual development of a child. This in turn contributes to failure in class which can later on lead to school dropp out.

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poem by Innocent Masina Nkhonyo
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Thank U

How about getting off of these antibiotics
How about stopping eating when Im filled up
How about them transparent dangling carrots
How about that ever elusive kudo
Thank you india
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence
How about me not blaming you for everything
How about me enjoying the moment for once
How about how good it feels to finally forgive you
How about grieving it all one at a time
Thank you india
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence
The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down
How about no longer being masochistic
How about remembering your divinity
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How about not equating death with stopping
Thank you india
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence
Yeah yeah
Ahh ohhh
Ahhh ho oh
Ahhh ho ohhhhhh
Yeaahhhh yeahh

song performed by Alanis Morissette
Added by Lucian Velea
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Stream Line Consciousness

Big brother voyeur blimps unidentified spies
uncle sam peeping toms patrolling skies
bird brain police intelligence
remote viewing homeland pest control
pentagon private eye monitoring the public's every move
mass produced micro chips intercepting prayers patrolling citizens from heaven
Bentham's Panopticon NSA
super computer surveillance cameras
world police spying Manhattan streets

'Athens plummets Euro death spiral
suicide rates soar deepening into despair'

haaretz..the post.. the times
blogs tribunes dailies all in a mad gab
headlong headline attention grabbing scramble

'Yugoslavia - Iraq - Egypt - Yemen - Iran - Syria - United States'
bilderberg building blocks New American Century post apocalyptic prophecy

'foreign mercenaries …national guard...DOD
homeland security to amass covert munitions stockpile
Americans on guard anxieties mounting surrounding
the stripping of amendments 1st if you swing to your left
2nd if you stand on the right
whispers of martial law circulate Anarchical reverberations
emanate from internet Alt culture epicenters
bottle necking global tensions'

'common feeling of deepening disappointment...
heightened expectations...
people expecting an explosive situation over the
next few weeks'

...riot police respond 'to preserve public order'
public roads barricaded to 'protect security of citizens'

'blatant act of censorship
western mainstream media staying away
from Myanmar massacres of Mohammedan Angels
further showing strong anti Muslim bias'

'Media blackout Burmese army
seeking coverage under propaganda blankets'

from the middle east throughout the western world
planet consciousness blurring lines between conspiracy/reality
conflicting global network narratives multiply violent scenarios daily
Victims in a world wide scramble
Government Banking Military

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poem by Gregory Allen Uhan
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A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

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poem by Nyein Way
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Death Of The Middle Class

Oligarchs and Banksters tighten financial screws
In a bold attempt to kill the global Middle Class
Heads of State unable/unwilling to halt this ruse
The “Great Depression of 1929” we soon surpass

ROTMS

By Andrew Gavin Marshall - Global Research

We now stand at the edge of the global financial abyss of a ‘Great Global Debt Depression, ’ where nations, mired in extreme debt, are beginning to implement ‘fiscal austerity’ measures to reduce their deficits, which will ultimately result in systematic global social genocide, as the middle classes vanish and the social foundations upon which our nations rest are swept away. How did we get here? Who brought us here? Where is this road leading? These are questions I will briefly attempt to answer.

At the heart of the global political economy is the central banking system. Central banks are responsible for printing a nation’s currency and setting interest rates, thus determining the value of the currency. This should no doubt be the prerogative of a national government, however, central banks are of a particularly deceptive nature, in which while being imbued with governmental authority, they are in fact privately owned by the world’s major global banks, and are thus profit-seeking institutions. How do central banks make a profit? The answer is simple: how do all banks make a profit? Interest on debt. Loans are made, interest rates are set, and profits are made. It is a system of debt, imperial economics at its finest.

In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, creating the Federal Reserve System, with the Board located in Washington, appointed by the President, but where true power rested in the 12 regional banks, most notably among them, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The regional Fed banks were private banks, owned in shares by the major banks in each region, which elected the board members to represent them, and who would then share power with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

In the early 1920s, the Council on Foreign Relations was formed in the United States as the premier foreign policy think tank, dominated by powerful banking interests. In 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was created to manage German reparations payments, but it also had another role, which was much less known, but much more significant. It was to act as a “coordinator of the operations of central banks around the world.” Essentially, it is the central bank for the world’s central banks, whose operations are kept ‘strictly confidential.’ As historian Carroll Quigley wrote:

'The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.'

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was formed as a secretive global think tank, comprising intellectual, financial, corporate, political, military and media elites from Western Europe and North America, with prominent bankers such as David Rockefeller, as well as European royalty, such as the Dutch royal family, who are the largest shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell, whose CEO attends every meeting. This group of roughly 130 elites meets every year in secret to discuss and debate global affairs, and to set general goals and undertake broad agendas at various meetings. The group was initially formed to promote European integration. The 1956 meeting discussed European integration and a common currency. In fact, the current Chairman of the Bilderberg Group told European media last year that the euro was debated at the Bilderberg Group.

In 1973, David Rockefeller, Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Steering Committee of the Blderberg Group, formed the Trilateral Commission with CFR academic Zbigniew Brzezinski. That same year, the oil price shocks created a wealth of oil money, which was discussed at that years Bilderberg meeting 5 months prior to the oil shocks, and the money was funneled through western banks, which loaned it to ‘third world’ nations desperately in need of loans to finance industrialization.

When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he appointed over two dozen members of the Trilateral Commission into his cabinet, including himself, and of course, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was his National Security Adviser. In 1979, Carter appointed David Rockefeller’s former aide and friend, Paul Volcker, who had held various positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Treasury Department, and who also happened to be a member of the Trilateral Commission, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. When another oil shock took place in 1979, Volcker decided to raise interest rates from 2% in the late 70s, to 18% in the early 80s. The effect this had was that the countries of the developing world suddenly had to pay enormous interest on their loans, and in 1982, Mexico announced it could no longer afford to pay its interest, and it defaulted on its debt, which set off the 1980s debt crisis – collapsing nations in debt across Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia.

It was the IMF and the World Bank came to the ‘assistance’ of the Third World with their ‘structural adjustment programs’, which forced countries seeking assistance to privatize all state owned industries and resources, devalue their currencies, liberalize their economies, dismantle health, education and social services; ultimately resulting in the re-colonization of the ‘Third World’ as Western corporations and banks bought all their assets and resources, and ultimately created the conditions of social genocide, with the spread of mass poverty, and the emergence of corrupt national elites who were subservient to the interests of Western elites. The people in these nations would protest, riot and rebel, and the states would clamp down with the police and military.

In the West, corporations and banks saw rapid, record-breaking profits. This was the era in which the term ‘globalization’ emerged. While profits soared, wages for people in the West did not. Thus, to consume in an economy in which prices were rising, people had to go into debt. This is why this era marked the rise of credit cards fueling consumption, and the middle class became a class based entirely on debt.

In the 1990s, the ‘new world order’ was born, with America ruling the global economy, free trade agreements began integrating regional and global markets for the benefit of global banks and corporations, and speculation dominated the economy.

The global economic crisis arose as a result of decades of global imperialism – known recently as ‘globalization’ – and the reckless growth of– speculation, derivatives and an explosion of debt. As the economic crisis spread, nations of the world, particularly the United States, bailed out the major banks (which should have been made to fail and crumble under their own corruption and greed) , and now the West has essentially privatized profits for the banks, and socialized the risk. In other words, the nations bought the debt from the banks, and now the people have to pay for it. The people, however, are immersed in their own personal debt to such degrees that today, the average Canadian is $39,000 in debt, and students are graduating into a jobless market with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt that they will never repay. Hence, we are now faced with a global debt crisis.

To manage the economic crisis, the G20 was established as the major international forum for cooperation among the 20 major economies of the world, including the major developing – or emerging – economies, such as India, Brazil, South Africa and China. At the onset of the financial crisis, China and Russia’s central banks began calling for the establishment of a global currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. This proposal was backed by the UN and the IMF. It should be noted, however, that the Chinese and Russian central banks cooperate with the Western central banks through the Bank for International Settlements – which the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, recently said was the principle forum for “governance of central bank cooperation” and that the G20 is “the prime group for global economic governance.” In 2009, the IMF stated that the BIS “is the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements.” The President of the European Union, appointed to the position after attending a Bilderberg meeting, declared 2009 as the “first year of global governance.” The 2009 Bilderberg meeting reported on the desire to create a global treasury, or global central bank, to manage the world economy. In 2009, prior to the Bilderberg meeting in fact, the G20 set in motion plans to make the IMF a global central bank of sorts, issuing and even printing its own currency – called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) – which is valued against a basket of currencies. In May of 2010, the IMF Managing Director stated that “crisis is an opportunity, ” and while Special Drawing Rights are a step in the right direction, ultimately what is needed is “a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features.” Thus, we see the emergence of a process towards the formation of a global central bank and a global currency, totally unaccountable to any nation or people, and totally controlled by global banking interests.

In 2010, Greece was plunged into a debt crisis, a crisis which is now spreading across Europe, to the U.K. and eventually to Japan and the United States. If we look at Greece, we see the nature of the global debt crisis. The debt is owed to major European and American banks. To pay the interest on the debt, Greece had to get a loan from the European Central Bank and the IMF, which forced the country to impose ‘fiscal austerity’ measures as a condition for the loans, pressuring Greece to commit social genocide. Meanwhile, the major banks of America and Europe speculate against the Greek debt, further plunging the country into economic and social crisis. The loan is granted, to pay the interest, yet simply has the effect of adding to the overall debt, as a new loan is new debt. Thus, Greece is caught in the same debt trap that re-colonized the Third World.

At the recent G20 meeting in Toronto, the major nations of the world agreed to impose fiscal austerity – or in other words, commit social genocide – within their nations, in a veritable global structural adjustment program. So now we will see the beginnings of the Great Global Debt Depression, in which major western and global nations cut social spending, create mass unemployment by dismantling health, education, and social services. Further, state infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, airports, ports, railways, prisons, hospitals, electric transmission lines and water – will be privatized, so that global corporations and banks will own the entirely of national assets. Simultaneously, of course, taxes will be raised dramatically to levels never before seen. The BIS said that interest rates should rise at the same time, meaning that interest payments on debt will dramatically increase at both the national and individual level, forcing governments to turn to the IMF for loans – likely in the form of its new global reserve currency – to simply pay the interest, and will thus be absorbing more debt. Simultaneously, of course, the middle class will in effect have its debts called in, and since the middle class exists only as an illusion, the illusion will vanish.

Already, towns, cities, and states across America are resorting to drastic actions to reduce their debts, such as closing fire stations, scaling back trash collection, turning off street lights, ending bus services and public transportation, cutting back on library hours or closing them altogether, school districts cutting down the school day, week or year. Simultaneously, this is occurring with a dramatic increase in the rate of privatizations or “public-private partnerships” in which even libraries are being privatized.

No wonder then, that this month, the Managing Director of the IMF warned that America and Europe, in the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, face an “explosion of social unrest.” Just yesterday, Europe experienced a wave of mass protests and social unrest in opposition to ‘austerity measures’, with a general strike in Spain involving millions of people, and a march on the EU headquarters in Brussels of nearly 100,000 people. As social unrest spreads, governments will likely react – as we saw in the case of the G20 in Toronto – with oppressive police state measures. Here, we see the true relevance of the emergence of ‘Homeland Security States’, designed not to protect people from terrorists, but to protect the powerful from the people.

So while things have never seemed quite so bleak, there is a dim and growing beacon of hope, in what Zbigniew Brzezinski has termed as the greatest threat to elite interests everywhere – the ‘global political awakening’. The global political awakening is representative of the fact that for the first time in all of human history, mankind is politically awakened and stirring, activated and aware, and that generally – as Zbigniew Brzezinski explains – generally is aware of global inequalities, exploitation, and disrespect. This awakening is largely the result of the information revolution – thus revealing the contradictory nature of the globalization project – as while it globalizes power and oppression, so too does it globalize awareness and opposition. This awakening is the greatest threat to entrenched elite interests everywhere. The awakening, while having taken root in the global south – already long subjected to exploitation and devastation – is now stirring in the west, and will grow as the economy crumbles. As the middle classes realize their consumption was an illusion of wealth, they will seek answers and demand true change, not the Wall Street packaged ‘brand-name’ change of Obama Inc., but true, inspired, and empowering change.

In 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech in which he spoke out against the Vietnam War and the American empire, and he stated that, “It seems as if we are on the wrong side of a world revolution.” So now it seems to me that the time has come for that to change.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) .

poem by Ray Lucero
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The Spreaders Of Negativity

The spreaders of negativity now as ever are not rare
And that the World is ruled by negative people we are only too aware
With wars waging in some Countries and poor people to be found everywhere
And so much financial hardship and unhappiness in the bigger World out there,
The World is ruled by negative people and their weapon for to cling to power is fear
And 'tis only negative stuff from them we ever do hear
For to cling to power they create fear and division of their promotion of us against they
We'd be better off without their type as leaders that's how I feel anyway
We will never know of peace in the World as long as negative people hold the power
In a garden that is ruled by weeds you won't find any flower
As long as negative people are in positions of power peace we will never know
With them as our leaders mistrust between us and those different to us grow
The spreaders of negativity with us do have their way
They only cause division would that seem fair to say?

poem by Francis Duggan
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Awakening Means....

awakening means....
i can hear you!
i can see you!
i can taste you!
i can feel you!

i breathe in our suffering,
i breathe out our freedom.

awakening means...
no need for a name!
no need for possessions.
no need to conquer!
no need to convert!

i breathe in our humanity,
i breathe out our equality.

awakening means....
i cannot help but care!
i am already involved.
i am immersed and drenched.
i have countless forms.

i breathe in our common labor,
i breathe out our sacred journey.

awakening means...
the journey is the destination.
we are the journey.
we are the destination!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Early Morning When The First Rays Fall

Early morning when the first soft rays fall,
when the awakening sun hangs blood red
this part of the great universe recall,
the awakening has been acquired

when the awakening sun hangs blood red
birds twitter with the jolly songs they sing,
the awakening has been acquired
as the good news of the morning they bring.

birds twitter with the jolly songs they sing
to and thro many insects and bees fly
as the good news of the morning they bring,
fluttering on flowers under the sky.

Early morning when the first soft rays fall,
this part of the great universe recall…

poem by Gert Strydom
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The Mix-Up

One winter morning
Upon awakening from a long night sleep
All characters got mixed up with their authors
Including Pinocchio
Who could not decide what was real:
Had he dreamt of being Carlo Collodi
Or was it that Carlo Collodi was dreaming
Of being Pinocchio?

This occurred long after
Upon awakening from a long night sleep
Zhuang Zi woke up from his dream
And was at a loss to figure out
How real was real and asked:
Had he dreamt of being a butterfly
Or was it rather that a butterfly
Was dreaming of being Zhuang Zi?

The next day
As she woke up from a long night sleep
An elephant got mixed up with a crocodile
And she could not decide what was real:
Had she dreamt of being a crocodile
Or was it rather that a crocodile
Was dreaming of being an elephant?

Two years later
Upon awakening from a long night sleep
The moon became confused with the sun
And it could not decide what was real:
Had it dreamt of being the sun
Or was it that the sun was dreaming
Of being the moon?

And in a rare unguarded state of mind
Upon awakening from a long night sleep
God got embarrassed for the muddle
But she could not decide what was real:
Had she dreamt of being Man
Or was it rather that Man
Was dreaming of being God?

poem by Paul Hartal
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Interview Process

I was never one,
To sit through an interview process.
When I was asked...
'Why do you wish to work for us? '
My response...
'Give me a reason to want to! '
Here's another one...
'Where do you see yourself,
In the next five years?
My response...
'Not being interviewed,
For a position I'm overqualified for! '
And when test results were revealed...
This was the exchange...
'You have done remarkably well.
In fact,
The position you most qualify for
Was 'just' filled.
We will keep your resumé in our active files.
And if a similar position opens...
You will be contacted! '

Well...
Those active files were usually discarded
In an opened trash can!

My new approach now is this...
'I want to start at least tweny dollars an hour! '
Their response...
'We can't pay that.
I'm not even getting that! '
My response...
'I can understand why you're not getting paid that.
If you can not see I am worth more than that...
I'll be surprised if you're still here...
After someone discovers you were stupid enough,
To let me walk out that door! '

And most companies fail,
For the lack of qualified employees.
Who wants to hire someone smarter than they are?

I knew of folks who trained five years...
Just learning how to file documents alphabetically.
And they have won 'Employee of the Month' awards!

But then again...
None of them 'looked' like me either!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Telephone Conversation

Wednesday, January 23,2008
Week 10: Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

Week 10 Dividing lines: Differences in Class, race, Gender and Ideology

Telephone Conversation
by Wole Soyinka

The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. 'Madam, ' I warned,
'I hate a wasted journey—I am African.'
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was foully.
'HOW DARK? '... I had not misheard... 'ARE YOU LIGHT
OR VERY DARK? ' Button B, Button A.* Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfounded to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis-
'ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT? ' Revelation came.
'You mean-like plain or milk chocolate? '
Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted,
I chose. 'West African sepia'-and as afterthought,
'Down in my passport.' Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece. 'WHAT'S THAT? ' conceding
'DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.' 'Like brunette.'
'THAT'S DARK, ISN'T IT? ' 'Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but, madam, you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blond. Friction, caused-

[...] Read more

poem by Tamilarasi Shalu
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What I think I have in common with the school of deconstruction is the mode of negative thinking or negative awareness, in the technical, philosophical sense of the negative, but which comes to me through negative theology.

quote by Harold Bloom
Added by Lucian Velea
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There Are Demons that Torment All of Us

There are demons that torment all of us. Our past struggles in coming to ourselves where our acts reflect are pain and not our core. Such demons are thought compulsions, which have become an unwelcome tradition in us. They are the ultimate distraction; they have nothing to do with anything. Just think of the ways in which the past echoes through the media during presidential campaigns. Things said and done in the candidates past that have nothing to do with anything relevant are constantly being played. The negative slander of the opposition with a portion of their past truth gets more time, money and energy than defining who one is and what one stands for. Such adds, are disinformation, they have nothing to do with the issues, and who would be best suited to be president.

A significant portion of our mind generates negative rhetoric like the negative presidential campaign adds; it spins gross distortions against itself and for its self. Even more lethal in countless ways is the positive adds that are also distortions. In both cases the mind lies to itself. Our enemies, meaning those who are jealous, envious of us or those who are threaten by us, or those who are addicted to manipulating people, will take advantage of the rhetoric we except. Such parricides will play on your vanities and exploit your weakness. The artful ones will do both.

Superficially the parasites sharaid themselves as a friend, as a stable alliance, as someone you trust, confide in, as a wife. They will appear to be your most genuine supporter who defends you from the negative distortions from your self and from others. But they are not there to support you, all they know is betrayal, for the ones who they are closest too betrayed them. Many times they have identified with the parent or parents or person who betrayed them. As a defense they will not admit how hurt they are and how awful their childhood and life is. They were brought up in a world in which there was the appearance of love, but not real love. They perpetuate this illusion and people who could potentially really love them get caught up in the gravity of their illusions, in their atmosphere; it is a planet of denial and deception where not real caring grows but contempt, where no real love can grow. Where potential love withers and fades unless freeing itself from this insidious sneer.

Such people, cannot really help you, they cannot even help them selves. They can not give to you what they themselves to not have, love, genuine compassion, sincerity.

poem by Michael Kavuoti
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Life Is Like A Number Line

Life Is Like a number Line,
Between negative infinity to positive infinity,
At the middle have that zero,
All are finite numbers,
Zero stands for nothing,
Infinity for everything,
But zero is some how useful,
When it is with numbers on proper side,
Infinity is useless as it engulf all!

Numbers are special on their own,
Some are positives, have mirror images in negatives,
May be integers or fractions,
May be rational or irrational,
Some are real and some are imaginary,
These make number of life complex,
Polynomaials with complex roots,
Or with complex coefficients,
If we take them on XY plane, they act and interact with one another,
Some make us laugh, as we find the answer,
Some brings us to sober, as they remain as mystery!

But life Is not to dimensional,
Multi dimensional it is,
So multidimensional space of life make it wonderful,
A wonder out of reach of all!

But modular sets can draw some with some similarities
If you want to become mathematician,
Learn to play with them, bearing all headache they cause!

Otherwise either multiply all numbers by zero,
And yourself too, become zero,
Or merge all in infinity to wash your dirty hands,
If you want to know what is life,
Become a mathematician to play with numbers,
Life Is nothing but interaction of real with real or real with imaginary, positive with positive,
Negative with negative,
Or positive with negative,
Rational with rational,
irrational with irrational, most of time a rational with irrational,
But noone is perfect like zero among finite,
And no one can't say anything about the infinite!

The Soul is that space on which all numbers play according to the karma and thoughts!

Oops this interactions of numbers is life!

poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar
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Paradise Found

Up the mountainous path we climbed
through the ridges and valleys we walked
seeking adventure of a peculiar sort.
Down the steep ravines we paced
stopping at times to catch our breath
and to view the lovely country ahead.
On and on we made our way
until at dusk we were exhausted.
It would be here where we would make our stay
in an area that seemed to be lightly forested.
Under a clear night sky bright with stars shinning
we settled down eager to refresh ourselves and
made preparations to share our meal for the evening
seeming perhaps like some fugitive band.
A restful and joyous sleep we had that night
one that exceeded our expectations.
Some enchanted evening we experienced
one that was followed by no disillusionment;
awakening to the sweet fragrance of flowers and other delights.
It was as if we were in paradise it seemed................

We all looked around and beheld in awe
the serenity and beauty surrounding us all.
There were flowers of many types and hues
and fruit bearing trees from which to choose.
There were various animals at a stream nearby
and birds flying overhead in the clear blue sky.
There was everything here for us to see
that we almost no longer thought could be.

poem by George Krokos
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Sleeping Beauty

delusional
i believe i could cure it all for you dear
coax or trick or drive or
drag the demons from you
make it right for you sleeping beauty
truly thought i could heal you
far beyond a visible sign of your awakening
failing miserably to rescue sleeping beauty
truly thought i couuld make it right
if i kissed you one more time to
help you face the nightmare
but you're far too poison for me
such a fool to think that i could wake you from your slumber
that i could actually heal you
sleeping beauty
poisoned and hopeless
far beyond a visible sign of your awakening
failing miserably to find a way to comfort you
far beyond a visible sign of your awakening
hiding from some poisened memory
poisened and hopeless
sleeping beauty

song performed by A Perfect Circle from Mer De Noms
Added by Lucian Velea
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Early morning when the first rays fall (pantoum)

Early morning when the first rays fall,
when the sun hangs blood red
this part of the universe recall,
in moments of awakening that has been acquired.

When the sun hangs blood red,
birds twitter with the songs they sing
in moments of awakening that has been acquired
as the good news of the morning that they bring.

Birds twitter with the songs they sing,
to and thro insects and bees fly
as the good news of the morning that they bring,
with butterflies rocking on flowers under the blue sky.

To and thro insects and bees fly,
the buds of morning glories open to the sun,
with butterflies rocking on flowers under the blue sky,
ants in brigades begin their daily fun.

The buds of morning glories open to the sun
early morning when the first rays fall,
ants in brigades begin their daily fun
in moments of awakening that has been acquired

poem by Gert Strydom
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Muse A Maze Sings Dreams through Sleep's Haze 1965

Warp and weft, bereft of self-references, dream dance double helix above, beneath and around the sum of understanding, st[r]anding both apart from and a part of the spiral hole swirling, curling and whirling through the whole into and out of itself. A state_mental line, desperate to [t]race light, as if its existence depended upon its speed seed, soars arching, starching star I Ching through sliding parallel word worlds, trying to reach, underscore, underline and define itself. Is everything relativity maze one [m]asks laughingly, muse intent upon making an intact exit from channelled dream tunnel.

Muse maze amusing seems to spring
from creativity that night
brings into fractal firework focus fling.
Here flames, there names, door to delight
perception tunes, reads runes, insight
cues into clues, amazing bells ring,
distinguished details recondite
subconsciously, persist despite
approaching daylight blanketing
precise recall of everything.

Swift spinning wheel revolves within,
revel keyed to rainbow bright,
now wing weft warps, now weaves from sight,
enters, leaves as senses spin.
What is end when things begin
from finish, swing new day from night,
wind sings chains free, both slack and tight,
yet what is joy without chagrin?

What is sense, what static din?
Some wavelengths ultraviolet light
funnel, infra-red some, - sight
depends more on expected whim
than on the rods and cones within
retinal lining - photons' rite
when redefined as ‘wrong' or ‘right',
pre-expectations underpin.

Neurons nitroglycerin
polychromatic dynamite,
synaptic leaps reject rein tight
upon emotions sybilline.
Cyclone eye churns Yang and Yin
while wings gain height wild winds unite,
tension rises, satellite
impressions signal ‘hurry…kin'.

Dream maze replays what yesterday
dissolves in fluids that today
fleet flow to meet tomorrow, greet
completion leaving soul replete
ignoring bias fools always
portray.

There are no dreams that go astray,
there is no duty one must pay,

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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Even Those Paid to Be Biased

People are awakening to realize,
They've been played.
Even those paid to be biased,
To spy on others...
Find they've been set up,
To sit and quack like feathered ducks.

Eyes all over the place,
Are opening wide to see...
Exactly who those victims are.
And recognizing everyday,
The identity of the wolves.
And knowing they've been branded as sheep.

People are awakening to realize,
They've been played.
Even those paid to be biased,
To spy on others...
Find they've been set up,
To sit and quack like feathered ducks.

And the ones who tremble and shake in their limousines,
Find they feel desperate not to be revealed, caught or seen.
Afraid their deceiving and greedy days,
Rapidly lose in snob appeal and popularity.
And in their social circles they sweat, yes!
All of them are suffering in nervous regret!

People are awakening to realize,
They've been played.
Even those paid to be biased,
To spy on others...
Find they've been set up,
To sit and quack like feathered ducks.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Best Gift One Can Receive

Awakening from values placed,
On the emptiness of symbols and images...
Can save a lot of waste of one's appreciation,
For others and their worth as human beings.

People wait until it is too late,
To live their lives from a basic point of view.
Believing the purpose of life is in acquiring things,
To pursue with a flaunting of pretentions.

Today people are teaching their children,
It is okay to take from others.
Then find what they have done,
Disappoints with the results that come.

Today people do not accept,
Their own consequences they face.
Only to place blame and find fault,
With those directions they chose to take.

Awakening from values placed,
On the emptiness of symbols and images...
Can save a lot of waste of one's appreciation,
For others and their worth as human beings.

Awakening before it is too late,
To self examine...
Is not a sign of weakness.
It is the best gift one can receive.

Afterall...ultimately,
Is it what one has that delivers to them happiness?
Or...
Is it the caring of someone shown that is freely given,
And genuinely felt and known...
That validates with an acknowledgement,
What they have been seeking that is regarded as progress.

'I've given you every 'thing' that money can buy.
And you act as if I don't exist.
It is as if...
I don't know who you are,
Anymore.'

~Oh?
And 'who' are you?
Who are 'we'?
WHAT are we?
Machines are being made...
To 'do' what we 'do'.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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