BS: Changing the World

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 May 07 - 01:49 AM

I asked a friend of mine to explain the post from Alex. Here's his reply:

Joe, the guest quotes the chorus of a folk song about coca from Colombia, and wants the rest of the song and the composer.
Daylia's post discusses the song, gives a translation of the chorus, and links an article on the subject (does not have the rest of the song and no information on it). The article gives the sad story of one area of coca cultivation; the same situation is found elsewhere in South America.
The guest Alex makes a comment I can't quite translate about coca- whether it is good or bad- which is a much discussed matter in Colombia, Bolivia and elsewhere in the region. The work of the indios is so hard and their environment so difficult that some argue that the coca is necessary to their existence.

Coca was used in pre-Columbian times, but the processing for cocaine, etc. has developed much as the linked article states.

In any case, there is nothing in the post that doesn't belong in Mudcat- it's too bad that we don't have a translation to go with it.
Sorry, but I don't have the ability to give a good translation that could be added to the thread.

Thanks, as always.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: GUEST,alex
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:39 AM

hola como estas se que usaste el coro de una cancion muy   conocida en años atras    ""Soy coquero, me paro y to digo, que solo no estoy hay muchos conmigo que estamos en este trabajo maldito ya estamos adentro y no hay como salirnos.''   ahora si no es mucha   molestia y sin querer quitarle su tiempo le agradeceria si me haria saber el titulo   o el artista de la cancion ya que me encantaria escucharla ya que hace mas de 10 años que no la escucho y me encantaria conseguirla   gracias mi correo es [e-mail]
   atte   alex

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 02:37 PM

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/graham.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: *daylia*
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 09:45 AM

Cuilionn, thanks for your insights about the connection between slavery and certain crops. Although the bulk of these crops were (and still are)luxuries -- sugar, opium, tea, chocolate, coca, coffee -- some of them, like rubber, quinine (to combat malaria) and cotton were not.

Here's a some points to ponder about slavery and sugar cane ...

"One such seminal crop is sugar cane, the propagation of which, on a large scale, accelerated colonization of the Caribbean islands and led to a massive Africa-America slave trade, whereby 10-13 million people were forcefully brought to the New World (Hobhouse, 1986)....

Now, let's think about sugar for a moment. Nobody needs sugar. You can go from birth to the grave without ever having a teaspoon full of white sugar. You will never miss it.

Throughout the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, sugar was a drug, a medicine. It was used to pack wounds, to keep wounds septic. And it was very expensive and there was very little of it. Nobody even knew where it came from. It was called cane honey, because they knew it came from some kind of jointed grass, but nobody had a clear picture of what sugar was.

Well, when you extract sugar from sugar cane, it requires, in pre-modern technology, a temperature of about 130 degrees. You cannot -- free men will not work sugar. It's too unpleasant. You faint, you die from heat prostration. You have to take prisoners and you have to chain them to the sugar vats.

And so, in the fifty years before the discovery of America, they began growing sugar cane in the east Atlantic islands, Medeira and the Canary Islands. And they brought Africans, and sold them into slavery specifically for sugar production ...

In 1800, every ounce of sugar entering England was being produced by slave labor of the most brutal and demeaning sort. And there was very little protest over this. It was just accepted. To this day, sugar cultivation in the third world is a kind of institutionalized slavery ... All of Christian civilization acquiesced in the bringing back of a practice that had been discredited during the fall of Rome, in order to supply the insatiable need for sugar. It was an addiction. It had no cultural defense whatsoever."


In South America, the discovery of rubber's uses by English/Peruvian businessmen in the early 1900's led to the virtual enslavement of the indigenous populations on the borders of Columbia and Peru. It's estimated that 100,000 native and "colonizing" peoples died during the cruelty of that period.

WHen the rubber craze died down, production turned to coca. Today, the "peasant" descendants of the "rubber slaves" in Columbia are still living in absolutely deplorable conditions, still enslaved economically by international markets for crack and cocaine. The cultivation of coca and the surrounding violence/guerrilla warfare has devastating environmental as well as human costs.

Here's an example of a present-day folksong from the Caquetá Region of Colombia, wrenched from the suffering of the poor campesinos caught in the stranglehold of the coca plantations:

One could easily conclude that coca is both a socio-economic and an ecological tragedy. Even if people see this, it seems that there is no alternative. A very well-known song in the area says:

Soy coquero, me paro y to digo, que solo no estoy hay muchos conmigo que estamos en este trabajo maldito ya estamos adentro y no hay como salirnos.

(I am a coca maker, I stand up and admit it, but I'm not alone; there are many with me doing this cursed work we are trapped by it and there's no way out!)

The rest of the article is here.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Cuilionn
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 07:40 PM

How tae help defeat the slave trades that still exist?

Weel, for stairters: stop eatin sae muckle chocolate. The international chocolate trade relies on a hantle o child & slave labour. (Addictive substances hae allus been connectit wi human slavery. Consider sugar, alcohol, coffee, tobacco, an various & sundry narcotics thro history. Think carefully afore ye buy ONY o those things. Consider whae benefits frae, & whae suffers for, aa yir purchases.)

If ye maun hae yir chocolate, (an Ah'm no exemptin masel, here), dae yir best tae seek oot fair-trade/organic/sustainable producers, an resairch the brands an their source kintras (countries) wi care. (West Africa haes some o the wairst documentit cases o child slavery on cocoa plantations.)

Buy frae those whae employ wairker-cooperatives an refuse tae use child labour. (Ane place tae luik: www.coopamerica.org.) The chocolate's mair expensive per purchase, aye, but ye'll no hae bluid on yir hauns while ye're eatin it.

--Cuilionn (far belaw the poverty line, but ettlin tae mak ev'ry penny count for sumpit!)

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 02:08 AM

Thank you RichM.

We need to be reminded that we have the power to make changes. Whining about taxes doesn't change anything. Standing behind your beliefs in mass, does.

Boycott multi-nationals and unethical corporations. Walk, ride bikes, take public transit, reduce air pollution. Eat organic and don't buy genetically modified foods. Support farmers who oppose Montsanto. Shame the Johns. etc.

No, slavery has not ended but slavery as a way of building a nation, has. Segregation is now illegal (thank-you, Rosa). Abortion is legal. Child abuse and spousal abuse is out in the open and socially deplored.

We can and do change. The only thing we know for sure is change. We can influence the direction of the changes and must accept the challenge.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Peace
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 03:39 PM

Carol: Obviously through taxation. I am aware these things have to be paid for: I'm a fire fighter. We use town money to buy trucks and gear so we can provide a protective/rescue service. However, the excessive taxation of poor people is a form of slavery. I don't care how that apple is sliced, the lower right hand corner is that poor people pay a larger percentage of their incomes in the form of taxation as compared to people who are 100 times as wealthy. You know that. Spo do I.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 03:30 PM

I think the point was not whether slavery has ended, but this:

Every day activists use the tools it helped pioneer

... and that using these tools can work profound change, if not total elimination of issues one confronts, and that a new way of addressing social issues changed the world in which we live.

Call it the dawn of the "I don't THINK so" age.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:21 AM

brucie, how do you propose to pay for roads, bridges, schools, your health care system, etc., without taxes? As a concept, it's just the bill for services rendered. As practiced, it is, as you say, grossly unfair.

But to try to put it into the same category as slavery really does the people who are physically held captive against their will and treated as property an injustice. Maybe extortion would be a more appropriate word for your view of taxation.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Peace
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 10:32 AM

I disagree Carol. Taxation--which we know to be extremely unfair to lower income people--is a form of slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: *daylia*
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 10:21 AM

Amos, I like it, even if it does sound almost too good to be true.

As Jean-Luc would say, let's make it so!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 08:32 AM



I suspect would have an even richer legacy, the folk music of delight and exhilaration and accomplishment.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: *daylia*
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 08:26 AM

If slavery were to truly disappear after thousands of years of dominating human history on this planet, there'd probably be a lot less folk music around! From Jamaican reggae, to Brazilian macaratas, Antillean tambu, American rag-time, blues, gospel, spirituals ... all of these colorful and influential genres sprang from the desperation of a people bludgeoned by generations of slavery.

For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction indeed!

All of which begs the question - if life were always just peachy-keen, how much "need" would remain for folk music? Would we all just succumb to a content -- and silent -- existence???

As it is today, slavery does at least give certain cultural icons an opportunity to publicly save a little face.   ;-(

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 06:55 PM

One way and another slavery has a long history - but it's a mistake to see the Atlantic slave trade, and the consequent chattel slavery which disfigured American history, as just as a survival from the bad old days. It was a new social invention, different in a number of ways from previously existing slaveries - in its way modern and up-to-date, in the same way that the industrial manufacturing system was a new social invention, modern and up-to-date.

The analogy was frequently drawn at the time. Advocates of the chatel slave system would point at the evils of the industrial manufacturing system, and claim that so-called "free labour" involved suffering and degradation, and loss of freedom, as bad as or even worse than the slave system, and was in fact just a camouflaged form of slavery.

As a defence of the slave system it was a fallacious and distorting argument - but it contained an element of truth. And it still does today. The peculiar form of slavery initiated by Europeans and developed so horribly in America is gone, but other forms of slavery and near-slavery are flourishing around the world.

But the historical anti-slavery movement does indeed have the importance that RichM's post claims for it - it shows how it is indeed possible for horrible evils, which are apparently universally accepted and inevitable, to be swept away by determined opposition. And in the case of Britain, it was achieved without a shot being fired.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 06:37 PM

I like the term that came into vougue during the Carter administration: human rights. If we could just focus on this concept and nothing else we'd find that all ill bahavior by people and groups of people fall somewhere into violations of human rights...

And, yes, we may have to do all the things that were noted above to bring about a change but one thing that is for sure...

...we need a change...

"You may call me a dreamer
but I'm not the only one..." (Lennon)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Teresa
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 06:28 PM

CarolC wrote: "The only big difference between the old kind of slavery and the kind we mostly see today, is that in the former case, it was institutionalized openly by
governments. These days, the governments know it's there, and they turn a blind eye to it. But it's still slavery."

Slavery was just one example of exploitation of human beings, and corporations now openly and secretively institutionalize it.
Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 05:59 PM

Good point, Don Firth. Maybe we should start using some of those activist methods to try to end the slavery that exists in the contries of the western world today.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 03:54 PM

RichM, I read the article and I take your point.

Granted, slavery still exists in the world, but it's nowhere near as prevalent as it once was. And it is not longer considered acceptable by the vast majority of the world's peoples. Even among those who practice it, they try to disguise it as something else.   Though it still exists here and there, you have to admit that things are immensely improved.

But—I think we're talking about a whole lot of things besides slavery here.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 03:42 PM

Taxation is just the government using economy of scale to provide services that you couldn't afford all by yourself, like roads and other kinds of infrastructure, military, schools, etc., and in your case, a basic level of medical care for everyone. But governments can and do use the taxpayers money badly. But that's not slavery.

There is a very big problem of slavery... holding people against their will in captivity, and forcing them to do your bidding (for instance; the very robust sex slave trade) in all western countries, including the US and Canada, as well as in less developed parts of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Peace
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 03:27 PM

We have it: Taxation.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 03:10 PM

The only big difference between the old kind of slavery and the kind we mostly see today, is that in the former case, it was institutionalized openly by governments. These days, the governments know it's there, and they turn a blind eye to it. But it's still slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 02:59 PM

Perhaps we need a new definition of slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Changing the World
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 02:44 PM

Sorry, but slavery is not over, not abolished. Not even in the UK, not in the US, and not in the rest of the world. Sure, it's not legal most places, but it's far from defeated.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: BS: Changing the World
From: RichM
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 02:40 PM

Changing the World

Though born in the age of swords, wigs, and stagecoaches, the British anti-slavery movement leaves us an extraordinary legacy. Every day activists use the tools it helped pioneer: consumer boycotts, newsletters, petitions, political posters and buttons, national campaigns with local committees, and much more. But far more important is the boldness of its vision.
Look at the problems that confront the world today: global warming; the vast gap between rich and poor nations; the relentless spread of nuclear weapons; the poisoning of the earth's soil, air, and water; the habit of war. To solve almost any one of these, a realist might say, is surely the work of centuries; to think otherwise is naive. But many a hardheaded realist could-and did-say exactly the same thing to those who first proposed to end slavery. After all, was it not in one form or another woven into the economy of most of the world? Had it not existed for millennia? Was it not older, even, than money and the written word? Surely anyone expecting to change all of that was a dreamer. But the realists turned out to be wrong. "Never doubt," said Margaret Mead, "that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."


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