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Negro Captain Paul Cuffee Arrives in London

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Traveller, the 109 ton vessel entirely owned and navigated by Negroes, was probably the first such vessel to reach Europe. – The Times of London, 1811

That’s right.  Over 200 years ago CHOSSA were alive and doing well.  From Wikipedia, here is what we know of Paul Cuffee.

Paul Cuffe, also known as Paul Cuffee (January 17, 1759 – September 7, 1817) was an American businessman, whaler and abolitionist. Born free into a multi-racial family on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, Cuffe became a successful merchant and sea captain. His mother, Ruth Moses, was a Wampanoag [Native Indigenous tribe] from Harwich, Cape Cod, and his father an Ashanti captured as a child in West Africa and sold into slavery in Newport about 1720. In the mid-1740s, his father was manumitted by his Quaker owner, John Slocum. His parents married in 1747 in Dartmouth.

After Cuffe’s father died when the youth was thirteen, he and his older brother, John, inherited the family farm (their mother had life rights). They resided there with their mother and three younger sisters. The following year Cuffe signed on to the first of three whaling voyages to the West Indies. During the Revolutionary War, Cuffe delivered goods to Nantucket by slipping through a British blockade on a small sailboat. After the war, he built a lucrative shipping business along the Atlantic Coast and in other parts of the world. He also built his own ships in a boatyard on the Westport River. In Westport, Massachusetts, he founded the first racially integrated school in the United States.

Before I go any further, I have to tell you why I mention Brother Cuffee and his accomplishments.  If this could be done over 200 years ago, would someone please  tell me why we can’t have African and CHOSSA shipbuilders, and ship owners today, in 2023?  I do know why and I will get back to this in a later post.  For the moment, let’s enjoy the successful story of our brother.

A devout Quaker, Cuffe joined the Westport Friends Meeting in 1808. He often spoke at the Sunday services at the Westport Meeting House and also at other Quaker meetings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1813, he donated half the money for a new meeting house in Westport, and oversaw the construction. The building still survives.

Cuffe became involved in the British effort to found a colony in Sierra Leone, to which the British had transported more than 1,000 former slaves originally from America. Some had been enslaved by American Patriots and had sought refuge and freedom behind British lines during the war. After the British were defeated, they took those former slaves first to Nova Scotia and London. Prodded by Black Loyalists such as Thomas Peters [subject for another post], who had agitated for a return to Africa, the British in 1792 offered the Nova Scotia blacks a chance to set up a colony of their own in Sierra Leone, where they resettled.

At the urging of leading British abolitionists, in 1810 Cuffe sailed to Sierra Leone to learn about conditions for the settlers and whether he could help them.

On his last trip in 1815–16, he transported nine families of free blacks from Massachusetts to Sierra Leone to assist and work with the former slaves and other local residents to develop their economy. Some historians relate Cuffe’s work to the “Back to Africa” movement being promoted by the newly organized American Colonization Society (ACS). A group made up of both Northerners and Southerners, it was focused on resettling free blacks from the United States to Africa – eventually resulting in development of Liberia. The leaders of the ACS had sought Paul Cuffe’s advice and support for their effort. After some hesitation, and given the strong objections by free blacks in Philadelphia and New York City to the ACS proposal, Cuffe chose not to support the ACS. He believed his efforts in providing training, machinery and ships to the people of Africa would enable them to improve their lives and rise in the world.

This point is why I applaud and respect Brother Paul Cuffee. He was one of the first CHOSSA advocating “Back to Africa”, but with a big difference, not under European hegemony.  The American Colonization Society sought him out because they wanted to use him.  Brother Cuffee understood their mission was to establish a European American colony in Africa and wanted no part in their scheme, which is why he refused there theme, and them.

…In 1780, at the age of 21, Paul and his brother John Cuffe refused to pay taxes because free blacks did not have the right to vote in Massachusetts. In 1780, they petitioned the council of Bristol County, Massachusetts, to end such taxation without representation, which had been an issue of colonists that led many to the Revolution. The petition was denied, but his suit contributed to the state legislature decision in 1783 to grant voting rights to all free male citizens of the state.

If nothing else, you have to appreciate his tenacity, and his genius.

In 1787, Paul Cuffe and his brother-in-law, Michael Wainer (husband of Mary Slocum, his older sister and ten years older than Paul) built their first ship together, a 25-ton schooner Sunfish. It was the beginning of a long partnership between the two men and their families. Their next ship was the 40-ton schooner Mary that was built in their own boatyard on the Acoaxet River. They then sold the Mary and Sunfish to finance construction of the Ranger — a 69-ton schooner launched in 1796 again from Cuffe’s shipyard in Westport. In 1799 Cuffe added to his shipyard property, increasing it from 0.22 acres to 0.33 acres to provide more room for both his family home and the boatyard.

By 1800 he had enough capital to build and hold a half-interest in the 162-ton barque Hero. At that time Cuffe was one of the most wealthy — if not the most wealthy — African American or Native American in the United States. His largest ship, the 268-ton Alpha, was built in 1806.

…Also in 1799 Paul Cuffe bought two large properties from a Westport neighbor, Ebenezer Eddy. The first was the Eddy family homestead of 100-acres with a house and outbuildings that was some 300 yards south of his boatyard on the Acoaxet River. The following year Paul sold this property to his sister and brother-in-law, Mary and Michael Wainer, for the same price he had paid for it. In the deed it states that the Wainers were already living on the property. From this record it appears that Paul bought the property for the Wainers with the understanding that they would buy the property from him when they were able. Michael Wainer and Paul Cuffe remained partners, with Wainer’s sons captaining and crewing most of the ships.

The second property that Paul purchased from the Eddy family in 1799 was a 40-acre lot several hundred yards north of his boatyard that had previously belonged to the Allen family and was known as “The Allen Lot.” He appears to have leased this land out to others to farm and then willed it to his youngest son, William, along with money to build a house on it.

Some years later, in 1813, Paul purchased from David Soule a roughly 4-acre property abutting his boatyard and home on the north and west. This was property of only a little over 4 acres that he identified as his homestead and divided among his wife and children when he died in 1817.

Most importantly, all of this was done without voting rights (Democracy) and debt (Capitalism).  Cuffee accomplished all of this while prominent men like Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both slave owners, believed “the emigration of free Blacks to colonies either within or outside the United States was the easiest and most realistic solution to the race problem in America. It was a means of providing an alternative for free blacks, rather than absorbing a large population of ex-slaves into the white community through emancipation.Wikipedia

Subsequently Cuffe wrote as follows:

“I have for these many years past felt a lively interest in their behalf, wishing that the inhabitants of the colony might become established in truth, and thereby be instrumental in its promotion amongst our African brethren.”

In early 1817, Cuffe’s health deteriorated. He never returned to Africa, and died in Westport on September 7, 1817. His last words were, “Let me pass quietly away.”

Henry Noble Sherwood, who wrote one of the first biographies about Paul Cuffe summed up his life in the final paragraph of that work as follows:

“Overwhelming his industry, his religion and education stands his optimism. He believed in the victory of righteousness; therefore, he worked for it. He believed in the triumph of truth; therefore, he dedicated himself to it. He realized the mastery of poverty; therefore, he gave pursuit to wealth. He believed in the amelioration of his race; therefore, he consecrated himself to it.” (Sherwood, Paul Cuffe, p. 229.)

I will always celebrate Paul Cuffee.  As a proud father, let me say that I will definitely remember him on his birthday because it is the same as my youngest child, my daughter Akima, who is a St. Paul’s School and Stanford University graduate, with a Master’s in Special Education from Arcadia University.  Thankfully she walked away from the corporate “recruiters” and is a school teacher. 

If my writing interests you, I hope you will pass it on to the folks who follow you, and also to the folks who you follow.  I don’t write for money.  My books that offer insight into who I am, and what I am about, including full details for the implementation of Equism, are free. They can be found at my blog equism.net.  Please go to the Tab Links to Books, and click on either one, or both, for you perusal and assessment.  I have another one incubating.

Meanwhile, I await your critique.

Thanks again for your time, attention, and indulgence.

Peace and Love be with you.

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Our Mind Is Powerful: Prayer Is A Source!

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Yesterday, I was commenting to my youngest daughter, Akima, that I would pray for a friend of mine. He was hospitalized and not doing very well. His wife had asked me to say a prayer for his successful recovery. Inquisitively, she asked, “dad, if you are an atheist, how can you say a prayer for your friend?”

Here is my response to her, and you.

I pray, but not to a spook ‘God.’ I believe prayer is a conversation with self. It is a request to self, and a reminder to self, of what I want to occur. For me, there is no ‘spook god’ involved in the process.

Prayer is self-programming the human computer (our mind) to provide for our individual, as well as collective human need. And just like the computer, you can only get out of it what you put into it, something the ruling elite fully understand, and implement via religion.

“Religion keeps the poor from killing the rich.  Napoleon Bonaparte

“Religion is an opiate for the masses.” — Karl Marx

“We have used the Bible as if it were a mere special constable’s handbook, an opium dose for keeping the beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded, a mere book to keep the poor in order.”  Charles Kingsley, Canon of the Church of England

“When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said: ‘Let us pray. ‘ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.” — Jomo Kenyatta, Independence Leader of Kenya

And one more, from an Amer-African centered perspective.

It’s not what you know that hurts you. It’s what you know, that just ain’t so. — Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige

There are many who discuss the origins and history of religion, but no one does it better than Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy and The Lessons of History . Here are three examples from Durant, and though they refer directly to Christianity, the same could be said about the other major religions as well.

“Religion does not seem at first to have had any connection with morals. Apparently (for we are merely guessing, or echoing Petromius, who echoed Lucretius) ‘it was fear that first made the gods — fear of hidden forces in the earth, rivers, oceans, trees, wind and sky’. Religion became the propitiatory of worship of these forces through offerings, sacrifices, incantation, and prayer. Only when priest used these fears and rituals to support morality and law did religion become a vital force and rival the state. It told the people that the local code of morals and laws had been dictated by the gods. It pictured the god Thoth giving laws to Memes for Egypt, the god Shamash giving Hammurabi a code for Babylonia, Yahveh giving the Ten Commandments and 613 Precepts to Moses for the Jews, and the divine nymph Egeria giving Numa Pompilius laws for Rome. Pagan cults and Christian creeds proclaimed that earthly rulers were appointed and protected by the gods. Gratefully, nearly every state shared its lands and revenues with the priests.

…The Church was manned with men, who often proved biased, venal, and extortionate. France grew in wealth and power and made the papacy her political tool. Kings became strong enough to compel a pope to dissolve that Jesuit Order which had so devotedly supported the popes. The Church stooped to fraud, as with pious legends, bogus relics, and dubious miracles; for centuries it was from a mythical Donation of Constantine: that had allegedly bequeathed Western Europe to Pope Sylvester I (r. 314–35), and from the “False Decretals”(c. 842) that forged a series of documents to give a sacred antiquity to papal omnipotence.

…History has justified the Church in the belief that the masses of mankind desire a religion rich in miracle, mystery, and myth. Some minor modifications have been allowed in ritual, in ecclesiastical costume, and in Episcopal authority; but the Church dares not alter the doctrines that reason smiles at, for such changes would offend and disillusion the millions whose hopes have been tied to inspiring and consolatory imaginations. Catholicism survives because it appeals to the imagination, hope and the senses; because its mythology consoles and brightens the lives of the poor.”

A very wise man told me that “work is better than prayer.”

I believe that work is the actualization of what is programmed in our mind. Work is the physical activity that one carries out as a result of the data that the brain has processed to determine what must be done to sustain life.

If your brain tells you that you must serve the European in order to sustain life, then that’s what you will do. Religion is the great programmer of the mind to ensure that behavior. Presently, humanity serves the ruling elite.

And speaking of the ‘mind’, Carter G. Woodson, in his book The Miseducation of the Negro, 1932, had this to say regarding the mind of the Negro.

“No systematic effort towards change has been possible, for taught the same economics, history, philosophy, literature, and religion which have established the present code of morals, the Negro’s mind has been brought under the control of his oppressor, the problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.

The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worthwhile, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples. The Negro thus educated is a hopeless liability of the race”.

Sound familiar? That was over 100 years ago, and the same conditions exist today.

Power is required to be a free people. Caucasian/European power comes from the barrel of a gun.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered an automatic weapon.” — General Douglas MacArthur

MacArthur said it facetiously, mocking General Bonaparte’s famous “The pen is mightier than the sword” speech.

“There are only two powers in the world, saber and mind; at the end, saber is always defeated by the mind.” — Napoleon Bonaparte

Our power comes from our mind.

“Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think.” — Buddha

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The Mysterious ‘Invisible Hand’ Is White, Not Black!

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It seems as if we are always dealing with something mystical or transcendental when it comes to an explanation of phenomena that humans can’t see, hear, feel, smell, or touch, whether it be ‘God’, the ‘Devil’, or an ‘Invisible Hand.’ In the West, Spookism must prevail.

In religion folk are taught to walk by faith, not by sight. Don’t believe what you see with your own two eyes; believe what you are told by “God’s” vicegerent on Earth.

In economics, Adam Smith, working for his European masters — the banking cartels — developed an incredibly useful tool for them. Smith convinced people that an ‘invisible hand,’ controlling economic activity, was good for society and would produce a fair and equitable distribution of humanity’s need for food, clothing, shelter. In today’s world, that list must also include the health care, education, communication, and transportation needs of society.

Needless to say, that hasn’t happened. And it won’t happen. Because it can’t happen.

“Interest Is The Invention of Satin!” Are Bankers The Devil?

Since usury (charging interest on a loan) is forbidden in both Christianity and Islam, why is it a practice throughout…

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The ‘hand’ controlling global economic activity is not ‘invisible’, though it is definitely hidden from most folk; but it is hiding in ‘plain sight’ if one has eyes to see.

Here is one example, regarding the issue of the cost of goods and services, which many people are not able to pay, as a result of the never-ending cycle of inflation. Cost/price is of utmost importance today, particularly among the poor and impoverished.

The prices of goods and services on this planet are controlled by a number of factors.

1. Supply and Demand

2. Government Intervention, or lack thereof

3. Cost of Production (materials and labor)

4. Inflation, which is a general increase in prices over time (Capitalism requires an ever-expanding market)

5. Exchange Rates between two currencies also affect the prices of imported and exported goods and services

All of the above are controlled by the European banking cartels.

Twin Elephants in the Room: The Rothschilds and Antisemitism/Anti-Semitism

Let me briefly deal with each one, starting with antisemitism, which was birthed first. On October 27, 2022, the…

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Capitalism, their Western economic ideology, strengthens, fortifies, and governs European hegemony and their global domination; at a severe cost to CHOSSA (Children of Stolen and Sold Africans) and other Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific.

To further elucidate, I must return to the guru of modern economic theory, Campbell R. McConnell, author of Economics, 1987 McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, now in its 21st edition.

Professor McConnell detonates a very powerful atomic bomb, the sound of which will soon be heard around the world. His nuclear truth completely shatters the myth of capitalism as a fair, just, and equitable economic system.

He states that“we should emphasize that there is nothing particularly ethical about the price system for distributing output”. There is nothing ethical about the price system as a mechanism for distributing output fairly.

The price system, a Western invention, developed during the evolution of capitalism, via the Monetary Economy (1694), gives the European complete control over the marketplace, as well as the control and use of our Earth’s natural and human resources. The Caucasian gives value to everything by controlling both the supply and demand of all resources, thereby allowing him to assign a “price” or cost to each of them. Men are making those decisions, not an ‘invisible hand.’

To increase the devastation of his detonation, McConnell further blasts, “Those households which manage to accumulate large amounts of property resources by inheritance…or by crook will receive large incomes and thus command large shares of the economy’s output”which in turn only produces more property resources, commanding a still greater share of the society’s output. [“by crook”, the European rich get richer, and the poor people of color get poorer].

The Europeans have made it their business to steal all of the world’s natural resources and they gained tremendous wealth with those resources acquired; and they now determine the price of our labor, as well as the price for the goods produced by our labor.

With this present structure, what would make you think that you can ever achieve financial independence in America, Europe, or any part of the planet ruled by a white supremacist economic ideology that is structured solely to maintain European hegemony over the world and its natural resources, and the people and their human resources?

As long as:

1. Banks are privately owned, and issue a sovereign Nation’s currency

2. Interest is charged, and Debt is an acceptable business practice

3. There is private ownership of Power Generation (nuclear, electric, fossil)

4. Health Care is privately owned, and a cost to citizens

5. Foreign ownership of Sovereign lands is permitted

6. There is cost for Education

7. Media is operated, controlled, and owned by Oligarchs and their families

8. The Utilities (electricity, water, gas, internet) of a nation are privately owned

9. There is no efficient, cost-effective Public Transportation System

10. War is the only means to conflict resolution

11. The development of Artificial Intelligence is privately owned and financed

12. Aeronautical operations and Space exploration is privately owned

13. Privately owned businesses exploit sovereign land (metals and minerals)

14. The business of Insurance is privately owned

15. White supremacy/racism is alive

16. Federal Judges are appointed, and not elected; democracy doesn’t exist

17. A nation’s food production is controlled by cartels and conglomerates

18. Nationalism, Imperialism, and Militarism are endemic to Western Culture.

There will be:

1. Slavery

2. Poverty

3. Famine, Sickness and Disease

4. War, and its Devastation

5. Man-made Climate Change

6. Inflation and Deflation

7. Unemployment

8. Crime

9. No civil, or human rights

Yesterday I received some feedback from my recent essay, Capitalism Is Good For White People: Why Is It Bad For Black Folk? It was suggested that I provide a list of why Capitalism is bad for black folk because the headline begged the question, without any specific reasons being enumerated. I believed the narrative sufficiently explained that an economic ideology based on lies, while simultaneously empowering white folk, cannot, nor will not, ever be good for black folk. I hope the above list helps to better understand why Capitalism is bad for black folk.

Capitalism Is Good For White Folk: Why Is It Bad For Black Folk?

The guru of modern economic theory, Campbell R. McConnell, author of Economics, 1987 McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, now in…

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If my writing interests you, here are two other examples that I hope you will find informative.

Africans On The Continent, And In The Diaspora: Please Know That Economics Is the Driving Force in…

“Why does economics matter? Because everything that one does each day, hour, minute, and second, is precisely…

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A Major Display of ‘Whiteness’ By Richard Dreyfuss Sparked A Major Display of ‘Africanity’ In Me

I try to stay away from writing about Hollywood and the Motion Picture Industry so I don’t have to spend time dealing…

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Capitalism Is Good For White Folk: Why Is It Bad For Black Folk?

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The guru of modern economic theory, Campbell R. McConnell, author of Economics, 1987 McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, now in its 21st edition, in his opening remarks tells us:

Two fundamental facts provide a foundation for the field of economics [capitalism]. It is imperative that we carefully state and fully understand these two facts, since everything that follows in our study of economics depends directly or indirectly upon them.

a. Society’s material wants, that is, the material wants of its citizens and institutions, are virtually unlimited and insatiable.

b. Economic resources — the means of producing goods and services, are limited or scarce.

These are lies that underpin and provide the foundation for the European economic ideology and philosophy called Capitalism. Their foundation was weak and defective from its inception.

It is absurd to say that the “material wants of its citizens and institutions are virtually unlimited or insatiable.” Human wants are tied to human needs. Humans, and their needs are not unlimited or insatiable. In fact, physical human needs are quite quantifiable, and can be satisfied.

Within range, humans can only consume a quantifiable amount of food before their bodies reject it (through regurgitation). We can easily determine the amount of food (for nutritional purposes) that humans need on a daily basis. With regard to clothing, it is also a simple task of quantifying the clothing needs of humans.

Depending on geography and ecology, reasonably, one can only wear one pair of shoes at a time. One can only wear one pair of pants or a skirt at a time. One can only wear one shirt or blouse at a time. The same for a hat, or coat, or underwear. From the standpoint of shelter, it is the same thing. A human can only live in one house at a time, sleep in one bed at a time, and only use one toilet at a time.

Yes, you could postulate that one could want more than three meals a day, want more than a closet or dresser full of clothes, and/or want two or three residences scattered throughout the country. But let’s be certain that those wants are based on greed, not need. It really goes to a value system based on individualism, not one based on a communal spirit of collective cooperation.

In the second fundamental assertion providing the foundation for capitalism McConnell states, “Economic resources — the means for producing the goods and services are limited.” It is an equally absurd lie used to justify their control of the natural and human resources that provide the means for producing the goods and services necessary for human growth and development.

Economic resources are in such significant supply that they can be said to be unlimited. One kernel of corn, planted in the ground, will yield a stalk with seven ears of corn containing 100 kernels on each ear. This represents a return of 700 to 1. Nature is plentiful, bountiful, and beautiful.

“Surplus, not shortage, has been the driving force in the building of markets, creating supply, and determining prices. Indeed, it can be argued that a central concern of the modern world economic system [capitalism] during this century has been to organize and promote markets so that they are protected from ruinous surplus.

Two important cases illustrate the point.

…with the Nixon administration the government formally encouraged the concept of the agribusiness — that is, supported management of the surplus by the private sector, not by the government. As a practical matter, that meant disposal of the surplus was increasingly the job of the major grain companies, not the government.

Ironic as it may seem, the recent humanitarian concerns for making the food surplus available to millions of poor, undernourished people must be viewed as almost incidental to the overall march of U.S, agricultural policy, which has sought the winning of a profitable and stable market for the surplus over the last century.

…Surplus, not shortage, has governed the oil industry since its inception. Through the Standard Oil Trust, John D. Rockefeller, sought to organize the industry so that is would not be overwhelmed by unbridled competition fed by surplus.

…One reason the oil companies moved into the coal industry was because they feared that this abundant resource might be turned into a devasting, and uncontrollable river of synthetic oil.” — Wealth by Stealth, Rolf Hackman, 2013

There were many goals and objectives to be achieved from the holocaust called World War II, including the birth of the State of Israel; but we must not forget that both Japanese and German scientists had simultaneously developed synthetic oil that threatened the world-wide supply. The Germans produced synthetic oil from coal, while the Japanese produced synthetic oil from plants, both abundant resources on our planet.

Another reason for the war was to control the rich minerals found in Africa.

Mineral exploration and exploitation of Africa by European and American interests served a major purpose. Africa supplied their need for gold, diamonds, and other ‘precious’ gemstones and metals; as well as iron, chrome, titanium, platinum, and uranium, just to name a few of the minerals used in the production of weapons, including most importantly, nuclear weapons, in order to maintain their hegemony of the world and its peoples.

“Historically, the extraction of raw materials was the business of large international corporations, some of them founded in the colonial period, which obtained rights to the minerals for relatively insignificant sums. Little processing of the raw material was carried out in the poor countries.

Many of the international corporations that operate in raw materials are vertically integrated — that is, they control each stage of the production-to-consumer process. Very little of raw or processed materials are traded on the open market through such exchanges as the London Metals Exchange.

In other words, as long as the poor countries are dependent on transnational corporations to reach markets abroad, there is little real meaning to their sovereignty over natural resources. [The history of the Ghana Cocoa Industry is a great example] It is a legal, not a commercial, distinction.

Much of the industry in raw materials today remains based on the mine, as it has been for centuries. And it is the mine which sums up the meaning of the business, or bitter relationships between first and third worlds, of the debasement of humankind. Since the fourteenth century when modern warfare was first invented, the output of the mine has been closely dependent on military industry, for it yields up the stuff with which we make cannon and shells and warships and planes.

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