Wednesday Open Thread: Haile Selassie on Racism and Economics10-04-1963
It's Day 58 of the Year 2019 CE, meaning that it's February 27, 2019
Transcript of Emperor Selassie's actual speech is below (in part), the full speech is here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie%27s_address_to_the_United_...
Haile Selassie's 10/04/1963 speech (in part) as per Wikipedia
(Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License)
Last May, in Addis Ababa, I convened a meeting of Heads of African States and Governments. In three days, the thirty-two nations represented at that Conference demonstrated to the world that when the will and the determination exist, nations and peoples of diverse backgrounds can and will work together. In unity, to the achievement of common goals and the assurance of that equality and brotherhood which we desire. On the question of racial discrimination, the Addis Ababa Conference taught, to those who will learn, this further lesson:
That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; That until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained; And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; Until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil.
The basis of racial discrimination and colonialism has been economic, and it is with economic weapons that these evils have been and can be overcome. In pursuance of resolutions adopted at the Addis Ababa summit conference, African states have undertaken certain measures in the economic field which, if adopted by all member states of the United Nations, would soon reduce intransigeance to reason. I ask, today, for adherence to these measures by every nation represented [here] which is truly devoted to the principles enunciated in the charter.
We must act while we can, while the occasion exists to exert those legitimate pressures available to us lest time run out and resort be had to less happy means.
The great nations of the world would do well to remember that in the modern age even their own fates are not wholly in their hands. Peace demands the united efforts of us all. Who can foresee what spark might ignite the fuse?
The stake of each one of us is identical-life or death. We all wish to live. We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance, poverty, hunger and disease. And we shall all be hard-pressed to escape the deadly rain of nuclear fall-out should catastrophe overtake us.
The problems which confront us today are, equally, unprecedented. They have no counterparts in human experience. Men search the pages of history for solutions, for precedents, but there are none. This then, is the ultimate challenge. Where are we to look for our survival, for the answers to the questions which have never before been posed? We must look, first, to the Almighty God, Who has raised man above the animals and endowed him with intelligence and reason. We must put our faith in Him, that He will not desert us or permit us to destroy humanity which He created in His image.
And we must look into ourselves, into the depth of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been : more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.
~~Haile Selassie I
Bookmark this and listen to and read it, ponder it and consider its implications. Come back in a month of two and do it again and consider especially your role in bringing the better world of which he speaks to fruition. Try to implement that role, and, in a couple of months, come back and read and ponder it again.
(The Addis Ababa summit conference referred to was, I believe, that of May 25, 1963, which established The Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
Image is: Haile Selassie
Its an open thread so have at it. The floor is yours
.
Comments
Good morning...
Heady thoughts so early today, el.
All the problems Haile describes remain with us, but we have the rapid degradation of the biosphere as an added emphasis to our current emergency.
The fossil fuel driven machinery of war has humanity by the throat and continues to choke us. The corporate jaws of the war death hound are locked on the windpipe of the planet.
Nothing less than killing the corporate monster is required, yet we just play around the edges talking about new elections and incremental changes for survival.
Would that the house of cards would fall and set us on a path of kindness toward each other and our fellow creatures. At least we can choose to walk an individual path of peace.
Lady Smith and Dolly riding the peace train...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHn8dRhPQTo]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning, Lookout, thanks for reading. That's a pretty
far out version of Peace Train. An interesting thing about Ladysmith Black Mambazo is that they specialize in two styles of music, isicathamiya and mbube. The first one is the traditional music of the Zulu, but the second one was more or less invented by the author of the song mbube, which swept their country ages ago and eventually got transplanted here and globally after morphing into Wemoweh and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds, 1939:
And yes, the corporate monster is killing us, devoted solely to the pecuniary gin of its shareholders and guided by amoral boards, officers and executives, it has no internal brakes and no steering beyond financial cost-benefit analysis. If the state and people don't rein it in, it comes to coopt, control and capture government and the result, by definition, is fascism, and manifests itself ever more and more clearly as straight on corrupt fascist oligarchy.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Never seen charts like this before
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/river/russianStages.html
I think we peaked at 21.74 feet, over 30,000 cubic feet per second this morning. The rain finally let up, it stopped briefly but now on again. This property is sub-surface level so the yards in back are floating. The lot next door is underwater again, everything is saturated to the max.
River path trail ended here yesterday, when the river was at 18 ft.. This is Oat Valley Creek with nowhere to go 'cause the river is so high.
Close-up of the beer well on the corner, just on the other side of it is the raging Russian river.
It's not really a beer well, it's a city water well that a local beer company helped finance. public/private
The water at the bridge was almost up to Robert's ass already, we saw him on the way back. I hope he got the hell out of there, can't believe the constant thunderous roar. The traffic on my street grew insane yesterday when the Evacuation Alert went out, everyone plus dawg has to drive over the bridge to look at the water, people stop right in the middle to ogle nature in all its glory. It's a ritual here. Resistance is futile.
After this, I don't care very much about a toothache, because I am a lucky duck to be upstream from all this:
whew! that was close
strength and healing to all
peace and love
{hugs}
Good morning, eyo. Thanks for checking in. Those charts are
simply amazing. I'm going to have to try to find a visual of the mouth, down at Jenner. It must've blown right through the bar, but the silt load has to be simply crazy all the same. Stay safe and take care of yourself.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Stumptown's Webcam in Guerneville, CA
I can't get the videos to play without flash, but the photos are good (if you like watching floods):
https://www.wunderground.com/webcams/Stumptown/1/show.html
Updated: 3:10 PM GMT on February 27, 2019 (40 minutes ago)
That's all the webcams I know about, nothing in Jenner. I am way upstream and just got back from our bridge, people all over the place... a guy from Geyserville came up here to take pictures, I shared the umbrella during a cloudburst while he snapped a few photos too. He said it looks like the Mississippi. lol
Russian River @21 ft.
Cloverdale Bridge
February 27, 2019
Guerneville got hammered. Again
Some sad photos of Guerneville once again being flooded by the Russian River.
Entire town of Guerneville cut off by Russian River flooding
This sure brings back memories of the late 90's El Nino flooding across the Central Valley. How many more disasters can CA experience and of course the next question is will people get help from the government?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
As did the Sierra
Wow. If California's drought wasn't already over it sure would be after this storm.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Good morning, Snoopy. Thanks for the info.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Bernie's M4A includes dental
Finally, thanks to The EB I have downloaded the town hall video. There was a specific excerpt online about Medicare For All:
I vote for RED cards! lol Go Bernie, says every person who understands what "growing old" entails. Bad eyes, bad hearing, and bad teeth. heh Unless you have a lot of money it is hard to keep up with all that, it is expensive. granny in the ditch
So the next thing I hope to see is the legislation being proposed, why did the Ds kill HR 676? What has replaced it? What are we supposed to "make Bernie do" when everything changes after he is elected? As if...
peace
It only stands to reason that "health care" would include the
full body, if only because infections travel. Dental infections spread to and attack such things as the sites of recent surgeries, joint repair and replacements especially. Kaiser, at least my plan, does give limited eye cover, check ups and glasses every two years of so, emergency care and cataract surgeries, with copay, but no dental. Dunno about hearing, but my wife's ear infection was covered and they'e in wait-and-see mode on the tinnitus it spawned, so that's probably covered to some extent at least.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning, el, thank you for this morning's Selassie,
takes me back to my youthful experience at the UN in '68, "Human Rights Year." Yes, the struggle is ongoing, perhaps never ending; today's post provides encouragement, thanks again for that.
Can't believe how busy i've been, not-stop something in need of care. Hoping after today, i may relax a little and catch up on c99.
Hoping you and all have a good one.
Good morning Smiley. Good luck with your ongoing task
avalanche. I've been there many times myself, and it drains you. Hope you get a break rsn.
Have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Amandla Ngawethu!
I went straight to Malcolm X from this essay. I think maybe it was him via Alex Haley's book where I first heard of Selassie. Thanks a lot. right on
Amandla Ngawethu! Power to the People
Sartre ftw.
http://www.hobbesandhobsbawm.com/
PEACE
Ah yes, good old Malcolm he's staring at me in mild condemnation
from directly under my monitor. He just happens to be on the right side of my tryptich of thought and behavior wardens
Here's Mr. Mayfield:
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
More on the "Aid" convoy in Venezuela
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOqGsYserzc]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Good morning, Aspie. Thanks.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning, el ~~
what a great OT - Haile Selassie! I'm going to do just as you say and bookmark it and keep coming back to it after contemplation. What beautiful words. What a beautiful sentiment. If only people would take the action he spells out.
Have a beautiful day, everyone!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good morning, barely, RA. Thanks for reading and have a
great one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
hello el...
et al.
thanks for the Haile Selassie. bookmarked at top of the marks. will read again. encouraging. hopeful. in spite of little hope. damn. I keep finding bees on the walkway. immobile if not dead. sunny in the morning then too cold and windy for them to survive. bring them in and warm them up in a glass and put them out again. they fly off happy, but few survive. I can ready study after study, article after article, and am fine. but these damn bees have brought me to my knees. not bees knees. as in loss of breath. sadness. fuckthisshit. how can there be so much beauty and so much disintegration at the same time. walk in peace. love the one your with. bring all the love you have to bear now. be. here. now. om. well, we are here now, so far so good. not dead yet... (have a best one... and thanks for the ot - oh, and we finally got an over inch of rain overnight, windy again now and not raining.)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGFXGwHsD_A]
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
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Good morning, magi. Sucks about the bees. I find downers
now and then, mostly bumbles, but have never succeeded in reviving one. Buckets overnght for two days now, and yes, fuck this shit.
Have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --