Persephone powers and abilities

Or look at Brazil: potentially an extremely rich country with tremendous resources, except it had the curse of being part of the Western system of subordination. So in northeast Brazil, for example, which is a rather fertile area with plenty of rich land, just it’s all owned by plantations, Brazilian medical researchers now identify the population as a new species with about 40 percent the brain size of human beings, a result of generations of profound malnutrition and neglect—and this may be un-remediable except after generations, because of the lingering effects of malnutrition on one’s offspring.54 Alright, that’s a good example of the legacy of our commitments, and the same kind of pattern runs throughout the former Western colonies.

Whatever you think of the Soviet economic system, did it work or did it fail? Well, in a culture with deeply totalitarian strains, like ours, we always ask an idiotic question about that: we ask, how does Russia compare economically with Western Europe, or with the United States? And the answer is, it looks pretty bad. But an eight-year-old would know the problem with that question: these economies haven’t been alike for six hundred years—you’d have to go back to the pre-Columbian period before East and West Europe were anything more or less alike economically....
Now, suppose we asked a rational question, instead of asking an insane question like “how did the Soviet Union compare with Western Europe?” If you want to evaluate alternative modes of economic development—whether you like them or not—what you ought to ask is, how did societies that were like the Soviet Union in 1910 compare with it in 1990? Well, history doesn’t offer precise analogs, but there are good choices. So we could compare Russia and Brazil, say, or Bulgaria and Guatemala—those are reasonable comparisons. Brazil, for example, ought to be a super-rich country: it has unbelievable natural resources, it has no enemies, it hasn’t been practically destroyed three times by invasions in this century [i.e. the Soviet Union suffered massive losses in both World Wars and the 1918 Western intervention in its Civil War]. In fact, it’s a lot better equipped to develop than the Soviet Union ever was. Okay, just compare Brazil and Russia—that’s a sane comparison.
Well, there’s a good reason why nobody undertakes it, and we only make idiotic comparisons—because if you compare Brazil and Russia, or Guatemala and Hungary, you get the wrong answer. Brazil, for maybe 5 or 10 percent of its population, is indeed like Western Europe—and for around 80 percent of its population, it’s kind of like Central Africa. In fact, for probably 80 percent of the Brazilian population, Soviet Russia would have looked like heaven. If a Guatemalan peasant suddenly landed in Bulgaria, he’d probably think he’d gone to paradise or something. So therefore we don’t make those comparisons, we only make crazy comparisons, which anybody who thinks for a second would see are preposterous. And everybody here does make them: all the academics make them, all the development economists make them, the newspaper commentators make them. But just think for a second: if you want to know how successful the Soviet economic system was, compare Russia in 1990 with someplace that was like it in 1910. Is that such a brilliant insight?

In fact, it’s gotten to the point where some major corporations don’t even worry about strikes anymore, they see them as an opportunity to destroy unions. For instance, the Caterpillar corporation recently broke an eighteen-month strike in Decatur, Illinois [from June 1994 to December 1995], and part of the way they did it was by developing excess production capacity in foreign countries. See, major corporations have a ton of capital now, and one of the things they’ve been able to do with it is to build up extra overseas production capacity. So Caterpillar has been building plants in Brazil—where they get far cheaper labor than in the United States—and then they can use that production capability to fill their international orders in the event of a strike in the U.S. So they didn’t really mind the strike in Decatur, because it gave them an opportunity to finally break the union through this international strategy.72 That’s something that’s relatively new, and given this increasing centralization of power in the international economy, and the ability of big transnational corporations to play one national workforce against another to drive down work standards everywhere, there just has to be international solidarity today if there’s going to be any hope—and that means real international solidarity.

Well, okay, these are complicated matters, and you don’t just want to sloganize about them—but in my opinion, all of these international agreements are part of a general attack on democracy and free markets that we’re seeing in the contemporary period, as banks, investment firms, and transnational corporations develop new methods to extend their power free from public scrutiny. And in that context, it’s not very surprising that they’re all being rammed through as quickly and secretly as they are. And whatever you happen to think about the specific treaties that have now been put into place, there is just no doubt that their consequences for most of the people in the world are going to be vast.
In fact, these treaties are just one more step in the process that’s been accelerating in recent years of differentiating the two main class interests of the world still further—far more so than before—so that the Third World wealth-distribution model is being extended everywhere. And while the proportions of wealth in a rich country like the United States will always differ significantly from the proportions in a deeply impoverished country like Brazil, for example (deeply impoverished thanks to the fact that it’s been under the Western heel for centuries), you can certainly see the effects under way in recent years. I mean, in the United States things probably aren’t going to get to the point where 80 percent of the population is living like Central Africa and 10 percent is fabulously wealthy. Maybe it’ll be 50 percent and 30 percent or something like that, with the rest somewhere in between—because more people are always going to be needed in the Western societies for things like scientific research and skilled labor, providing propaganda services, being managers, things like that. But the changes no doubt are happening, and they will be rapidly accelerated as these accords are implemented.

WOMAN: You mentioned “social cleansing” and people in the Third World selling their body parts for money. I don’t know if you saw the recent Barbara Walters program . . . The answer is, “No by definition.” WOMAN: Well, I have to admit I watched it. She had a segment on some American women who were attacked by villagers in Guatemala and put in jail for allegedly stealing babies for the organ trade. The gist of the story was that the Guatemalan people are totally out of their minds for supposing that babies are being taken out of the country and used for black market sale of organs. 22 What I’d like to know is, do you know of any evidence that this black market trade in children’s organs does in fact exist, and do you think the U.S. might be playing a role in it? Well, look: suppose you started a rumor in Boston that children from the Boston suburbs are being kidnapped by Guatemalans and taken to Guatemala so their bodies could be used for organ transplants. How far off the ground do you think that rumor would get? WOMAN: Not far. Okay, but in Guatemalan peasant societies it does get off the ground. Do they have different genes than we do? WOMAN: No. Alright, so there’s got to be some reason why the story spreads there and it wouldn’t spread here. And the reason is very clear. Though the specific stories are doubtless false in this case, there’s a background which is true—that’s why nobody would believe it here, and they do believe it there: because they know about other things that go on.
For one thing, in Latin America there is plenty of kidnapping of children. Now, what the children are used for, you can argue. Some of them are kidnapped for adoption, some of them are used for prostitution—and that goes on throughout the U.S. domains. I mean, you take a look at the U.S. domains—Thailand, Brazil, practically everywhere you go—there are young children being kidnapped for sex-slavery, or just plain slavery.23 So kidnapping of children unquestionably takes place. And there is strong evidence—I don’t think anybody doubts it very much—that people in these regions are killed for organ transplants.24 Now, whether it’s children or not, I don’t know. But if you take a look at the recent Amnesty International report on Colombia, for example, they say almost casually—just because it’s so routine—that in Colombia they carry out what’s called “social cleansing”: the army and the paramilitary forces go through the cities and pick up “undesirables,” like homeless people, or homosexuals, or prostitutes, or drug addicts, anybody they don’t like, and they just take them and murder them, then chop them up and mutilate their bodies for organ transplants. That’s called “social cleansing,” and everybody thinks it’s a great idea. 25 And again, this goes on throughout the U.S. domains.
In fact, it’s even beginning now in Eastern Europe as they’re being turned back into another sector of the Third World—people are starting to sell organs to survive, like you sell a cornea or a kidney or something.26 WOMAN: Your own? Yeah, your own. You just sell it because you’re totally desperate—so you sell your eyes, or your kidney, something that can be taken out without killing you. That goes on, and it’s been going on for a long time. Well, you know, that’s a background, and against that background these stories, which have been rampant, are believable—and they are in fact believed. And it’s not just by peasants in the highlands: the chief official in the Salvadoran government in charge of children [Victoria de Aviles], the “Procurator for the Defense of Children,” she’s called, recently stated that children in El Salvador are being kidnapped for adoption, crime, and organ transplants. Well, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s not an authority you just dismiss. In Brazil too there’s been a lot of testimony about these things from very respectable sources: church sources, medical investigators, legal sources, and others.27
Now, it’s interesting: I didn’t see the Barbara Walters program you mentioned, but I’ve read the State Department reports on which she probably based her stuff—and they’re very selective in their coverage. They say, “Oh, it’s all nonsense and lies, and it was all started by the Communists,” and they trace it back to sort of Communist sources—which doubtless picked it up, but they are not the sources. The State Department carefully excluded all the other sources, like the church sources, the government sources, the mainstream legal investigators, the human rights groups—they didn’t mention them, they just said, “Yeah, the stories were picked up by the Russian propaganda apparatus back in the bad old days.” But that’s not where it comes from. Like I say, the Russians couldn’t start these stories in the Boston suburbs—and there’s a reason why they couldn’t start them in the Boston suburbs and somebody could start them in Guatemala. And the reason is, there’s a background in Guatemala against which these things are not implausible—which is not to say these women are being correctly charged; undoubtedly they’re not, these women are just women who happened to be in Guatemala. But the point is, that background makes it easy for people there to be frightened, and in that sort of context it’s quite understandable how these attacks can have happened.

1. That with all of the money and power and MARRIAGES she has been through she still believes in such old fashion views of things. Dream doesn’t have to change her last name, in fact none of the kids do.

1. Capitalism is based on the private ownership of resources and the pursuit of profit. In a capitalist system, wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of a few individuals or corporations, leading to significant wealth and power inequality. This concentration of economic power undermines the democratic principle of political equality, as those with greater wealth have more influence over the political process, such as through campaign contributions or lobbying efforts. This unequal distribution of economic power can result in the wealthy exerting disproportionate influence over public policy, undermining the will and interests of the majority.
2. Democracy relies on the principle of political participation, ensuring that citizens have the ability to engage in the political process and influence decision-making. However, capitalism can limit political participation by prioritizing economic power over political power. In a society where access to resources and opportunities is heavily influenced by wealth, those with fewer economic means may face barriers to participating fully in the democratic process. This can lead to a situation where the interests and concerns of marginalized or economically disadvantaged groups are not adequately represented in the political sphere.
3. Capitalism emphasizes the market-driven allocation of goods and services based on supply and demand. This approach can lead to the commodification of certain public goods that are essential for democratic societies. For example, education, healthcare, and access to basic utilities are crucial for the well-being and equal opportunity of citizens. However, in a purely capitalist system, these goods may be treated as commodities rather than rights, potentially leading to unequal access based on an individual's ability to pay. This undermines the democratic principle of equal opportunity and limits social mobility.
4. Capitalism often prioritizes short-term profits and shareholder value. While this focus can drive economic growth, it leads to decisions that prioritize immediate gains over long-term societal and environmental considerations. This can create negative externalities, such as environmental degradation or labor exploitation, which may conflict with democratic values and the broader interests of society. In a democratic system, there is a need to balance the interests of various stakeholders, including workers, consumers, and the environment, which may require regulations and safeguards that go beyond profit maximization. Why should the interests of shareholders be weighed against the will of the people? Much less valued equally.