Volume 5, Number
20
May 21, 2002
The Farmer
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On "Life And Debt"
by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad
Stephanie Black uses Raggae music to decorate the ugly tales of how the IMF destroyed Jamaica in
her film documentary, "Life And Debt". This movie is so "real" that you
think that it was first class "Hollywood" tricknology. But on further viewing one sees
that the violence and terrible conditions that the beautiful people of Jamaica have been forced to
live in is all too real. Here are some of the story lines:
1. Dairy farmers in Jamaica were forced out of business as the US dumped 134% subsidized powdered
milk on the market.
2. Jamaica singer, Sizzla, sing out while slave wage garment workers make Tommy Hilfiger shirts
and Brooks clothing for America. The garment workers were paid $30 per week then when they
protested, the companies in the "free trade zone" brought in boat loads of Asians to
replace them.
3. Ten year old American scrap meat is dumped on the Jamaican market.
4. "McDonalds" forces an indigenous restaurant named "McDonalds" to close
down even though the Jamaican restaurant was there first.
5. Former Prime Minister Michael Manly admits regret at signing IMF agreement.
6. Vegetable farmers were encouraged to grow hot peppers to ship to America, but their product
never met "grade" requirements.
Jamaica’s story is not an isolated case of good intentioned white folks making a mistake. This
movie could portray many countries in the so-called "Third World" as the IMF and World
Bank hide behind lofty sounding names and profess lofty goals as they "bloodsuck" the poor
and gullible.
Here is a quote from Michel Chossudovsky in "The
causes of global famine", October 19, 1995:
"Since the early 1980s, grain markets are deregulated under the supervision of the World
Bank, US grain surpluses are used (far more systematically than in the past) to destroy the
peasantry and destabilize national food agriculture. The latter becomes, under these circumstances,
far more vulnerable to the vagaries of drought and environmental degradation. Similarly, subsidized
beef and dairy products imported (duty free) from the European Community have led to the demise of
Africa’s nomadic pastoral economy. European beef imports to West Africa increased seven fold since
1984 with the effect of displacing local level livestock producers. In the Sahel, the deregulation
of the grain market under the supervision of the World Bank was initiated at the height of the
1983-84 drought with devastating social consequences. " (full text at: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/28/039.html
Have you ever heard of "PL 480"? It is a federal government food give away program to
foreign countries. It is run by the State Department and the not the Department of Agriculture,
because it is an instrument of Foreign Policy, i.e. war. On June 19, 2000 Guyana asked Jamaica to
amend their Food Aid Program. Actually it was America’s Food Aid Program that was dumping cheap
rice on the Jamaican market which destroyed Guyana rice export market to Jamaica.
Imagine that you are a wheat farmer in Africa or Asia. You save your money to buy seed or saved
your seed from last year. You fight monsoons and droughts to get your crop planted and harvested.
Then just as you were bringing your wheat to the city, America pulls in this huge ship that has been
waiting off shore for months just to dump cheap wheat on your market. America subsidizes her
unwilling soldiers, called farmers, to produce her weapons, called "food aid".
These African countries, like Black people in America, send their smartest children to colleges
in the West to be trained in how to fall for slick sophisticated traps. Some one with a third grade
education would not fall for such shenanigans like: "You should grow raw products for the
export market, then buy food from Europe and America. You can get rich that way and drive a
Mercedes." When will we learn?
For all of you who think that "conspiracies" are myths come see this movie "Life
and Debt" then talk to me. We will be showing this film Saturday, May 25, 2002, 8:00 p.m. in
the Willet Science Center on Mercer University’s Campus as a part of our "Agriculture and
Black Survival Conference". This conference/retreat will be held over the Memorial Day Weekend
in Macon, Ga. For more details about the conference go to: http://muhammadfarms.com/Fighting_hidden_agenda.htm
The theme for the conference is "Fighting the Hidden Agenda". Those who will attend
already know that their is a "Hidden Agenda", but who will develop an alternative plan?
Surely not a "mystery god".
Peace, Doc