A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR columnist Jared A. Ball, Ph.D.
The logic of the world-stealers leads inexorably to genocide. Thus, the vast miseries that are the inevitable result of imperial mega-theft must be blamed on the victims who insist on continuing to breathe. There is no overpopulation, and "Mother Nature is not the problem. Predators and imperialists are."
The "Predatory Buccaneer" and the Overpopulation Lie
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR columnist Jared A. Ball, Ph.D.
"It has long been an expressed corporate interest that the reduction of populations whose land has been stolen would prevent overpopulation and, ultimately, revolutionary threats."
It is truly dangerous when the richest among us, those who live not off their own blood, sweat and tears but from ours, talk so openly about the presumed horrors over an equally presumptuous situation of "overpopulation." When the world's wealthiest like Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Oprah Winfrey gather in secret meetings, as they did last year, to discuss overpopulation they do so to hide the fact that their hero Thomas Mathus and his followers espouse what is tantamount to a polite Nazi-like genocide based on a lie of resource scarcity which itself only exists to protect an on-going global theft. This lie blames overpopulation in the so-called "Third World" for everything from poverty, to crime to global warming. So their response? Rid the planet of at least one billion people. And, of course, it makes perfect sense. Once you've accumulated your wealth from having stolen their land, labor and resources, why share it? It is absolutely logical to then conclude that fewer of them be here to threaten the luxury you enjoy at their expense. In fact, it has long been an expressed corporate interest that the reduction of populations whose land has been stolen would prevent overpopulation and, ultimately, revolutionary threats from among those whose lives are continuously ruined in order to develop the wealth only a few get to enjoy.
Their problem is that there is indeed plenty of room and sustenance for everyone in the world provided, of course, that current levels of resource distribution are more appropriately adjusted. In other words, myths of overpopulation are generated to protect the imbalance in the world today where, for instance, the U.S. at 5% of the world's population uses 25% of its resources or where 1% of the planet owns 40% of its wealth. Mathus' nonsensical and racist theory that food and other resources are threatened by overpopulation is a white supremacist lie. It excuses the current resource imbalance and supports equally false and constructed notions of Black and Brown inferiority which justifies elite land-grabs while preventing the real questions of why do so few have so much. The fact remains that if every human being on the planet were grouped in to families of four that each could live in a small house with a yard and all within the state of Texas. Mother Nature is not the problem. Predators and imperialists are.
"The nonsensical and racist theory that food and other resources are threatened by overpopulation is a white supremacist lie."
And as a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine reports these "new capitalists of chaos" cannot wait to benefit from imposed poverty and the conflicts it produces. This particular story focuses on Phil Heilberg, a former Wall Street trader with the now defunct AIG, who one colleague calls a "predatory buccaneer," and who has now become one of the single greatest landowners in Africa. He proudly proclaims to be a net benefit to humanity by backing one Sudanese gangster against another so as to clear land of the Mathusian excess so that he can bring in American agribusiness farming which he says will bring more food to those who need it. In his own words Heilberg says, "the world needs food. Thomas Mathus talked about the problem of finite land but infinite growth... I think people will panic, especially those who have no land to grow on." So he buys it by the millions of acres along with China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates and India, all U.S. allies. And how does he get it? He is very clear. He calls it "going to the guns" and compares himself to a "Mafia head" who funds those who will kill their own so that he may take over their land, because as they say, "those who control the food will control the world." Heilberg denies that this is "colonization" because he does not see himself as imposing his ideals on others. But it is an absolute imposition of ideals when those who might be against your plans of land-grabbing are killed by those you pay. Murder and theft by proxy was described years ago by Kwame Nkrumah as "neocolonialism." Today - and where we agree with Heilberg - it is just "part of the system."
For Black Agenda Radio I'm Jared Ball. Online go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
Dr. Jared Ball can be reached at jared.ball@morgan.edu.
The compilation of Glen Ford's work, "The Black Agenda" was published by OR Books posthumously. In the introduction he recounted his life story and career.
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