Sasha Alyson 🌍🌏🌎 Karma Colonialism

Important investigation by the excellent @jamesjwan for @africaarguments into the backgrounds of board members of four big conservation NGOs. The upshot: they are dominated by individuals from finance. africanarguments.org/2023/08/reveal…

Decades ago, ‘carbon offsetting’ started being pushed. Any fool could see then it was, at best, idiotic. Now even mainstream media can’t ignore the fact that it’s fake & fraud on a big scale. It’s now a key in colonial land grabbing. @MariaSTsehai theguardian.com/environment/20…

August 24, 1944: Allied troops liberate Paris. African soldiers from France's colonies fought and died with other allied troops during World War II. But for the liberation of Paris, the US and UK insisted that the French division must be all white. independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…

For those fed up with what Google has become, I recommend DuckDuckGo. It's clean, fast, and finds what you want -- just like Google once was. And it doesn't track you. Your browser settings will let you set this, or another choice, as your default search engine.

"We're not the ones who did it!" That's a common attitude about reparations for slavery - from those who do continue to reap the benefits. Kenneth Mohammed reports on a thorough new study which says the West owes $131 TRILLION. And why it should pay. theguardian.com/global-develop…

Nickel is essential for the booming electric-battery industry. Indonesia has more than anyone else, and wants to process nickel ore internally. Trying to retain colonial relationships, the E.U., through the WTO, seeks to deny Indonesia that right. nytimes.com/2023/08/18/bus…

With great reluctance, France formally gave up its colonies in Africa, but sought to maintain economic influence through a special currency, the CFA franc. Will France at last abandon this vestige of colonialism? Will new African leaders force it to? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

TODAY'S FACT Britain banned cotton textile imports from India ('calicoes'), which were then superior to the British ones. Britain adopted free trade only when it had acquired a technological lead over its competitors. -Economist Ha-Joon Chang, in Bad Samaritans

43 years ago this year, Walter Rodney, an extraordinary Pan-African intellectual, was assassinated. In this reflection on his work, I explain how his scholarship illustrates that it is the mind that achieves freedom last. folukeafrica.com/walter-rodney-… via @folukeifejola

What would happen if children had a meaningful choice about their education? They'd get better at making decisions about their lives. They'd come to demand greater control of their lives. That will worry certain people. The rest of us should welcome it. karmacolonialism.org/what-would-hap…

For 77 years, the UNICEF director has ALWAYS been a white American. Why are liberal media silent about this? Most recently, Biden chose a long-time aide for the spot - even as he got great press for appointing a black woman to the US Supreme Court. karmacolonialism.org/unicef-values-…

@kareem_carr Thank you. There IS often a need to suggest that someone's perspective should carry extra weight, but I've long resisted the oft-misused 'expert' term. (Here's why: wp.me/Pbyzib-1yv) This is much better.

A lot of folks react negatively to the word "expert". They hate the implication that credentials make you more knowledgeable. I like the word "specialist". It makes clear that all I'm saying is this person spends all their time on this thing so maybe they know more than most.

📕📘📗 Copyright laws protect the work of some, but create an intellectual apartheid by limiting book access for others. Z-Library makes ebooks freely, widely available. And it violates copyright. Should it be:

Major new review of econometric studies about what drives deforestation — and how can we stop it? (Spoiler alert: Indigenous land rights are key.) conservation.org/blog/what-driv… @ConservationOrg @TenureFacility

A mother in Kenya asks: "Why doesn't my son learn anything in school? He's finished grade 5 and can't even read his own name!" karmacolonialism.org/slavery-and-li…

"Not our problem," said the World Bank's IFC, regarding complaints that its funding had been used for predatory micro-lending practices in Cambodia. An independent ombudsman concluded otherwise. But this comes too late for those who were harmed. karmacolonialism.org/cambodias-micr…

"The villagers themselves own and drive all the work being done." -Univ. of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, of the Millennium Villages Project. The reality was the exact opposite. Here we see the groupthink that keeps dishonest aid projects afloat. karmacolonialism.org/groupthink-at-…

"A cartoon is like that little boy that can say the emperor is naked," says Gado (Godfrey Mwampembwa). Even The Economist is recognizing the power of Africa's cartoonists. economist.com/culture/2023/0…

Disaster capitalism: Exploiting a crisis to rapidly push through laws that benefit a small elite, and which wouldn't stand a chance in normal times. The water shortage during Hawaii's wildfire crisis shows disaster capitalism in action. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…