Dr. Wolassa Kumo
1. Introduction

By early 1950s, based on the level of economic development and geopolitical alignment, the World was divided into three Worlds: The First World, the industrialised, capitalist, countries of North America, western Europe, Japan and Australia under the United States’ sphere of political influence; the Second World, the former Soviet Union, the socialist counties of Eastern Europe, and China; and the Third World, Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia and Middle East. For about 4 decades until 1991 the first two worlds had engaged in Cold War with military tensions, arms race, proxy wars, and economic and technological competitions. The Third World was mostly a battle ground for proxy wars between the first two worlds.

This global politico ? economic order was fundamentally altered following the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe that overthrew socialist governments and forced the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union itself and the creation of 15 independent states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Following this, socialism also collapsed in less developed countries of Ethiopia, Cambodia and Mongolia.

With the end of the Second World, the concepts of the First and the Third Worlds became irrelevant. At present the world can be categorised into three economic zones: a) Advanced, industrialised countries (which includes all of the former First world countries); b) Emerging Market Economies,(rapidly expanding economies of China, Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa, Argentina ,Mexico, South Korea, and Indonesia); and c) Lesser-developed countries mostly in Africa and also in Asia and Latin America.

The next three decades will see major changes in world economic order with emerging markets poised to take over as global economic leaders. The following sections of this brief article investigate the trends in global labour and total factor productivity as engines driving rapid changes in global economic order.

2. Global output growth during the past 60 years

In 1950 the total GDP of India converted at Geary Khamis (GK) [1] PPPs in 1990 US dollar prices was US$ 222 billion, bigger than that of Japan (US $ 160.9 billion), France (US$220 billion), West Germany (US213.9 billion) and China (US$198.6 billion) all at constant 1990 prices. In terms of the size of total output, six decades ago, India was the third largest economy in the World after USA with total GDP at Geary Khamis PPP of US$ 1,455 billion, and United kingdom with total GDP of US $ 347.8 billion (of course excluding the former USSR with the total GDP of over US$ 510 billion) all at the 1990 prices.

During the next three decades the global economy expanded remarkably but at different paces in different major economies. By 1980 India’s total GDP nearly tripled to over US$ 637 billion while that of China grew more than four times to US$805.8 billion. During the same period, the total GDP of Japan grew almost ten times to over US$1,568 billion.

On the other hand, the total output of United States grew only three times to about US$4230 billion over the same period while the UK total output only doubled during the three decades between 1950 and 1980. Western Germany’s total output expanded by nearly four and one half times to US$946 billion while French total output expanded only three and one half times during the same period.

In fact, Japan’s total output exceeded that of each of India and China within a decade and one half after WWII while it exceeded that of each of UK and West Germany by mid 1960s. Therefore, by late 1960s Japan and West Germany emerged as the second and third world economic powers respectively after the United Sates.

However, growth trends for the next three decades ending in 2009 decelerated for most advanced economies. At the 1990 constant PPP prices, the US total output expanded only slightly more than 2 times at the end of 2009 from its 1980 level while that of Japan expanded only by 1.7 times for the same period. Similarly, total output in UK, Germany, and France expanded by less than 2 times during this period.

On the other hand, Chinese total output expanded nearly 11 times while that of India expanded five and one half times during the 1980-2009 period. Clearly, the growth moment started to decline in advanced economies since the early 1980s while it started to pick up in the current emerging market economies such as India, China, Brazil and later the Russian federation.

Based on the Geary Khamis PPPs at 1990 constant prices, in January 2010, China and India have become the second and third largest economies in the world respectively after the United States while Russia and Brazil are catching up with the UK and France. Japan and Germany are fourth and fifth largest economies in the world respectively.

Such rapid growth in some emerging market economies since the 1980s is attributed primarily to continuous improvements in labour and total factor productivity.

3. Labour and total factor productivity

The expansion of total output at any given point in time is strongly positively associated with the growth in labour and total factor productivity. For instance, the total output per person employed in the United States grew 1.7 times during the 1950-1980 period but only 1.5 times during the 1980-2009 period. Output per person employed expanded 3 times in France during 1950-1980 but only about 1.5 times during the 1980-2009 period while in UK there was no major difference in growth of output per employed person during the two periods.. In Japan output per employed person expanded six times during the 1950-80 period but only 1.6 times during the slow growth periods of 1980-2009. Thus, the rapid expansion in total output in advanced economies during the 1950-1980 period was directly linked with the rapid expansion in contribution of labour.

Then opposite is true for most emerging market economies. The, total output per employed person grew only by about 1.6 times in China during 1950-1980 but rapidly accelerated during the 1980-2009 period to about seven times. In India output per employed persons expanded only 1.3 times during the 1950-1980 period but it expanded 3 times during the 1980-2009 period. Thus the first three decades following the end of WWII, saw rapid growth in labour productivity in advanced economies while the past three decades since 1980 saw a sharp decline in labour productivity. This was accompanies by rapid growth in labour productivity in emerging market economies during the past three decades.

In spite of rapid growth in labour productivity in emerging market economies during the past three decades, in absolute terms, labour productivity in these economies is still lower than those of the advanced economies. The United States is still a world leader in total output/labour ratio. The GDP per persons employed in the United States in 2009 is the highest in the world, at about GK $ 66000 followed by Ireland GK$55000, Luxemburg GK$52000 and Norway GK$51000 all at the 1990 constant GK dollars.

Among the BRICs Russia leads in output per person employed in 2009 at about GK$18000 followed by Brazil, GK $ 13000 and China GK $ 11000 and India GK$ 7000, at 1990 constant GK dollars.

Labour productivity performance is critical for economic growth but its effect is usually short term. . The long term economic performance depends on total factor productivity (TFP) which reflects a country’s ability to use a broad range of skills, including its public policies and infrastructural development to improve living standards [2]. The TFP growth accounts for the changes in output not caused by changes in inputs. Its growth represents the effect of technological change, efficiency improvements, and our inability to measure the contribution of all other inputs. It is estimated as the residual by subtracting the sum of two-period average compensation share weighted input growth rates from the output growth rate as log differences of level which are known as Tornqvist indexes[1].

Rich countries are facing an increasing challenge from emerging economies not only in terms of labour productivity bus also in terms of total factor productivity .The growth in total factor productivity in most advanced economies between 1982 and 2008 measured as percent of Tornqvist index was mostly negative and marginal. For instance, between 1982 and 2008 total factor productivity in the United States grew only by 0.35 percent per year on average while in Japan it grew only by about 0.18 percent per year on average.

On the other hand, TFP grew much higher in emerging market economies. For instance, TFP grew by about 1.98 percent per year on average in China, and 0.87 percent in India for the period 1982- 2008 and by over 4 percent in Russia for the period 1995 – 2008.

It can be argued therefore that the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and the ensuing Great recession were not merely the result of short term bad bank behaviour, but the result of long term decline in total factor productivity in developed economies. Most of the developed economies have shown persistent trend of decline over the past thirty years while emerging economies have shown persistent sign of improvement in productivity and economic growth. The economic resilience of the emerging market economies during the 2008-2009 Great recession is the proof of their long term economic rigour.

4. The changing global economic order

Economist are predicting that during the next there decades the world economic order will change drastically and that China will take over United States as the world economic superpower. Robert Fogel [3], the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, argues that in 2040, the Chinese economy will reach $123 trillion, or nearly three times the economic output of the entire globe in 2000. He states further that China’s per capita income will hit $85,000, more than double the forecast for the European Union, and also much higher than that of India and Japan. Fogel forecasts further that although China will not overtake the United States in per capita wealth, its share of global GDP of 40 percent will be more than 3 times that of USA and more than 8 times that of the European Union after three decades.

The basic factors contributing to China’s faster economic expansion are: enormous investment in education leading to rapid increases in productivity; the continued role of the massive rural sector; currently underestimated economic progress; locally driven reforms and more open criticism than most think; and rapidly expanding consumerism tendencies [3].
The main factors for the relative decline of the European union will be declining fertility and consumer restraints.

However, not everyone shares such optimistic view about China’s economic future. Gordon Chang [4] argues that China will not achieve such massive expansion during the coming three decades. He argues that although China is making record investment in education, its education remains inappropriate for modern society. He further stresses that although China still has cheap labour, there is generally accepted projection that its labour force will level off in a half decade and then shrink.

Chang argues further that in spite of Fogel’s observations, Chinese communist party tolerates less criticism today than it did two decades ago and that economic reforms have stalled because China has progressed as far as it can within the existing political framework. He reiterates that a true market economy requires a rule of law, which in turn requires institutional curbs on government.

Chang rejects Fogel’s view on the role of consumer spending in China. He argues that historically, private consumption in China contributed about 60% of economic output; today it accounts for about 30% as the bulk of growth is driven by government’s massive investment on infrastructure. Change observes further that as much as Europe faces demographic challenges so does China; Chinese statistics show that the country’s birthrate fell 42 percent from 1990 to 2007, and government projections suggest that by 2025, nearly a quarter of China’s population will have celebrated its 60th birthday.

Finally, Chang states that China’s 1.4 trillion people will not earn a per capita income of US$85000 in 2040 for the main reason that the Earth cannot sustain such rapid growth, a clear reminder about China’s responsibility to curb carbon emissions to a sustainable level.

However, only time will tell whether Fogel or Chang will have accurately predicted the future state of the Chinese economy and hence the emergent global economic order.

References

[1] The Conference Board Total Economy Database, January 2010, http://www.conference-board.org/economics/database.cfm

[2] Finfacts Ireland, Business and Finance Portal, 2010: http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews

[3] Robert Fogel, January /February 2010. $123,000,000,000,000*
*China’s estimated economy by the year 2040. Be warned. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/123000000000000

[4] Gordon C Chang, January 8, 2010. China’s Economy To Reach $123 Trillion? A Nobel Prize winner seems to think so. Here’s why he’s wrong.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/07/china-economy-robert-fogel-opinions-columnists-gordon-g-chang.html

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Media Matters: Sean Hannity deceptively cropped President Obama’s answer to a question about the Cold War to suggest that Obama did not acknowledge the actions of past U.S. presidents in freeing Eastern Europe. [ READ MORE ] [ READ MORE (2) ]

First, I find it despicable for a high-school graduate (Hannity) to be telling a Harvard educated constitutional lawyer — to “HIT THE BOOKS!” [ Hannity graduated in 1980 from St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary high school, located in Uniondale, New York. Hannity dropped out of New York University and Adelphi University. Source: WikiPedia ]

He (Hannity) wanted so desperately for President Obama to mention Ronald Reagan — A SERIAL LIAR who was at the right place at the right time: The Soviet Union was going down with or without Reagan. He (Reagan) did not cause the breakup of the Soviet Union — although we must acknowledge that he played a leading role as the leader of the Soviet Union’s chief adversary — The United States.

And we shouldn’t forget that this man Ronald Reagan, was “sinking into senility” years before he left office.

The Ronald Reagan MYTH is the greatest PR SWINDLE of the our age. Republicans have sold Reagan over the years as the iconic American leader — the LITMUS TEST for measuring other modern presidents. I dis-agree.

Ronald Reagan was a serial liar with a Heart of Darkness who made Americans feel good about themselves!

Some say he was just as incompetent as George W. Bush, and was only lucky that nothing as catastrophic as 9/11 happened during his tenure — to expose his insanity and criminality.

Reagan was every bit as criminal as is George W. Bush.

Hundreds of thousands of central Americans perished due to Ronald Reagan’s criminal policies. In fact, it is Ronald Reagan who empowered Osama Bin Laden, funding his terrorist army to displace the Russians from Afghanistan.

As is usual with imperialist America, once the mighty “Muhjadeen” had completed their task of throwing out the Soviets, Reagan and his crooks quickly abandoned them and they became the present Taliban and Al Qaeda — primed and very ready to kill Americans.

Reagan was a “showman,” and a very good one, but also a cold-hearted racist — who supported the vicious Apartheid regime in South Africa — an “Immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian” act, per South African Anglican Archbishop, Desmond Tutu.

“The Ronald Reagan who won the cold war, cut taxes, shrank the government, saved the economy, and was the most beloved president since FDR is a myth,” author Will Bunch says….”The truculent jingoist of the myth was concocted after Alzheimer’s silenced the man and the would-be juggernaut launched by the GOP’s 1994 election triumph crashed and burned before a Democratic president (Bill Clinton) who shrank government and the deficit, balanced the budget, and even racked up surpluses,” he adds.

In his book – Tear Down This MYTH, Bunch names the leading, venal mythmakers and shames the myth exploiters, too. Anyone interested in the TRUTH about “Mythical Reagan,” should read this book.

Let us remember Reagan as he really was…
[ Courtesy: http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/reagan.htm ]

•    A Liar

•    A Thief

•    A Mass murderer

•    A War criminal

•    A Traitor of the American people

•    A Destroyer of freedom

•    A Destroyer of the environment

•    A Corporate whore

While Reagan may have not been entirely aware of what he was doing (he was sinking into SENILITY during his second term) and how his decisions would impact the world, he was also much more sinister than the media has portrayed him.

References:

1.    http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/reagan.htm
2.    http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Nader/MegacorpWorldReagan_RNR.html
3.    http://www.geocities.com/iran_contra_christic_institute/
4.    Oliver North: Drug Trafficking Hero!
5.    The Franklin Scandal Tried in Civil Court
6.    America: What Went Wrong?
7.    http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/Reagan.html

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Other Republican THUG GOONS Were Out in Full Force Peddling FALSEHOODS, RACISM and INNUENDO — on Wednesday:
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After just four months, media figures ignore economists to declare stimulus a failure

Right-Wing media THUGS have used a recent comment by Vice President Biden — that the Obama administration “misread how bad the economy was” — to suggest that the economic recovery package is a complete failure, rather than noting the assessment by economists then and now that the legislation does not go far enough and that further stimulus spending may be necessary. [ READ MORE ]

Kilmeade: Americans don’t have “pure genes” like Swedes because “we keep marrying other species and other ethnics”

Fox’s Napolitano refers to stimulus bills as “bailouts”

Tammy Bruce wants president who “punishes” NYT “when they reveal state secrets. Look, we killed people … for giving secrets”

“Illegel Brit Immigrant” Steyn downplays health crisis, discusses “Al Gore version of Stalinism” and how genocide did “wonders for Bosnian longevity”

“Worst Person in the World” — Republican State Senator, Sylvia Allen, of Arizona believes that the earth is 6,000 years old.

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By Robert Parry

Granted, the very idea of rating Reagan as one of the worst presidents ever will infuriate his many right-wing acolytes and offend Washington insiders who have made a cottage industry out of buying some protection from Republicans by lauding the 40th President.

But there’s a growing realization that the starting point for many of the catastrophes confronting the United States today can be traced to Reagan’s presidency. There’s also a grudging reassessment that the “failed” presidents of the 1970s – Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter – may deserve more credit for trying to grapple with the problems that now beset the country.

Nixon, Ford and Carter won scant praise for addressing the systemic challenges of America’s oil dependence, environmental degradation, the arms race, and nuclear proliferation – all issues that Reagan essentially ignored and that now threaten America’s future.

Nixon helped create the Environmental Protection Agency; he imposed energy-conservation measures; he opened the diplomatic door to communist China. Nixon’s administration also detected the growing weakness in the Soviet Union and advocated a policy of détente (a plan for bringing the Cold War to an end or at least curbing its most dangerous excesses).

After Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate scandal, Ford continued many of Nixon’s policies, particularly trying to wind down the Cold War with Moscow. However, confronting a rebellion from Reagan’s Republican Right in 1976, Ford abandoned “détente.”

Ford also let hard-line Cold Warriors (and a first wave of young intellectuals who became known as neoconservatives) pressure the CIA’s analytical division, and he brought in a new generation of hard-liners, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

After defeating Ford in 1976, Carter injected more respect for human rights into U.S. foreign policy, a move some scholars believe put an important nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union, leaving it hard-pressed to justify the repressive internal practices of the East Bloc. Carter also emphasized the need to contain the spread of nuclear weapons, especially in unstable countries like Pakistan.

Domestically, Carter pushed a comprehensive energy policy and warned Americans that their growing dependence on foreign oil represented a national security threat, what he famously called “the moral equivalent of war.”

However, powerful vested interests – both domestic and foreign – managed to exploit the shortcomings of these three presidents to sabotage any sustained progress. By 1980, Reagan had become a pied piper luring the American people away from the tough choices that Nixon, Ford and Carter had defined.

Cruelty with a Smile

With his superficially sunny disposition – and a ruthless political strategy of exploiting white-male resentments – Reagan convinced millions of Americans that the threats they faced were: African-American welfare queens, Central American leftists, a rapidly expanding Evil Empire based in Moscow, and the do-good federal government.

In his First Inaugural Address in 1981, Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

When it came to cutting back on America’s energy use, Reagan’s message could be boiled down to the old reggae lyric, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Rather than pressing Detroit to build smaller, fuel-efficient cars, Reagan made clear that the auto industry could manufacture gas-guzzlers without much nagging from Washington.

The same with the environment. Reagan intentionally staffed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department with officials who were hostile toward regulation aimed at protecting the environment. George W. Bush didn’t invent Republican hostility toward scientific warnings of environmental calamities; he was just picking up where Reagan left off.

Reagan pushed for deregulation of industries, including banking; he slashed income taxes for the wealthiest Americans in an experiment known as “supply side” economics, which held falsely that cutting rates for the rich would increase revenues and eliminate the federal deficit.

Over the years, “supply side” would evolve into a secular religion for many on the Right, but Reagan’s budget director David Stockman once blurted out the truth, that it would lead to red ink “as far as the eye could see.”

While conceding that some of Reagan’s economic plans did not work out as intended, his defenders – including many mainstream journalists – still argue that Reagan should be hailed as a great President because he “won the Cold War,” a short-hand phrase that they like to attach to his historical biography.

However, a strong case can be made that the Cold War was won well before Reagan arrived in the White House. Indeed, in the 1970s, it was a common perception in the U.S. intelligence community that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was winding down, in large part because the Soviet economic model had failed in the technological race with the West.

That was the view of many Kremlinologists in the CIA’s analytical division. Also, I was told by a senior CIA’s operations official that some of the CIA’s best spies inside the Soviet hierarchy supported the view that the Soviet Union was headed toward collapse, not surging toward world supremacy, as Reagan and his foreign policy team insisted in the early 1980s.

The CIA analysis was the basis for the détente that was launched by Nixon and Ford, essentially seeking a negotiated solution to the most dangerous remaining aspects of the Cold War.

The Afghan Debacle

In that view, Soviet military operations, including sending troops into Afghanistan in 1979, were mostly defensive in nature. In Afghanistan, the Soviets hoped to prop up a pro-communist government that was seeking to modernize the country but was beset by opposition from Islamic fundamentalists who were getting covert support from the U.S. government.

Though the Afghan covert operation originated with Cold Warriors in the Carter administration, especially national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the war was dramatically ramped up under Reagan, who traded U.S. acquiescence toward Pakistan’s nuclear bomb for its help in shipping sophisticated weapons to the Afghan jihadists (including a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden).

While Reagan’s acolytes cite the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan as decisive in “winning the Cold War,” the counter-argument is that Moscow was already in disarray – and while failure in Afghanistan may have sped the Soviet Union’s final collapse – it also created twin dangers for the future of the world: the rise of al-Qaeda terrorism and the nuclear bomb in the hands of Pakistan’s unstable Islamic Republic.

Trade-offs elsewhere in the world also damaged long-term U.S. interests. In Latin America, for instance, Reagan’s brutal strategy of arming right-wing militaries to crush peasant, student and labor uprisings left the region with a legacy of anti-Americanism that is now resurfacing in the emergence of populist leftist governments.

In Nicaragua, for instance, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega (whom Reagan once denounced as a “dictator in designer glasses“) is now back in power. In El Salvador, the leftist FMLN won the latest elections. Indeed, across the region, hostility to Washington is now the rule, creating openings for China, Iran, Cuba and other American rivals.

In the early 1980s, Reagan also credentialed a young generation of neocon intellectuals, who pioneered a concept called “perception management,” the shaping of how Americans saw, understood and were frightened by threats from abroad.

Many honest reporters saw their careers damaged when they resisted the lies and distortions of the Reagan administration. Likewise, U.S. intelligence analysts were purged when they refused to bend to the propaganda demands from above.

To marginalize dissent, Reagan and his subordinates stoked anger toward anyone who challenged the era’s feel-good optimism. Skeptics were not just honorable critics, they were un-American defeatists or – in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s memorable attack line – they would “blame America first.”

Under Reagan, a right-wing infrastructure also took shape, linking media outlets (magazines, newspapers, books, etc.) with well-financed think tanks that churned out endless op-eds and research papers. Plus, there were attack groups that went after mainstream journalists who dared disclose information that poked holes in Reagan’s propaganda themes.

In effect, Reagan’s team created a faux reality for the American public. Civil wars in Central America between impoverished peasants and wealthy oligarchs became East-West showdowns. U.S.-backed insurgents in Nicaragua, Angola and Afghanistan were transformed from corrupt, brutal (often drug-tainted) thugs into noble “freedom-fighters.”

With the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan also revived Richard Nixon’s theory of an imperial presidency that could ignore the nation’s laws and evade accountability through criminal cover-ups. That behavior also would rear its head again in the war crimes of George W. Bush. [For details on Reagan's abuses, see Robert Parry's Lost History and Secrecy & Privilege.]

Wall Street Greed

The American Dream also dimmed during Reagan’s tenure.

While he played the role of the nation’s kindly grandfather, his operatives divided the American people, using “wedge issues” to deepen grievances especially of white men who were encouraged to see themselves as victims of “reverse discrimination” and “political correctness.”

Yet even as working-class white men were rallying to the Republican banner (as so-called “Reagan Democrats”), their economic interests were being savaged. Unions were broken and marginalized; “free trade” policies shipped manufacturing jobs abroad; old neighborhoods were decaying; drug use among the young was soaring.

Meanwhile, unprecedented greed was unleashed on Wall Street, fraying old-fashioned bonds between company owners and employees.

Before Reagan, corporate CEOs earned less than 50 times the salary of an average worker. By the end of the Reagan-Bush-I administrations in 1993, the average CEO salary was more than 100 times that of a typical worker. (At the end of the Bush-II administration, that CEO-salary figure was more than 250 times that of an average worker.)

Many other trends set during the Reagan era continued to corrode the U.S. political process in the years after Reagan left office. After 9/11, for instance, the neocons reemerged as a dominant force, reprising their “perception management” tactics, depicting the “war on terror” – like the last days of the Cold War – as a terrifying conflict between good and evil.

The hyping of the Islamic threat mirrored the neocons’ exaggerated depiction of the Soviet menace in the 1980s – and again the propaganda strategy worked. Many Americans let their emotions run wild, from the hunger for revenge after 9/11 to the war fever over invading Iraq.

Arguably, the descent into this dark fantasyland – that Ronald Reagan began in the early 1980s – reached its nadir in the flag-waving early days of the Iraq War. Only gradually did reality begin to reassert itself as the death toll mounted in Iraq and the Katrina disaster reminded Americans why they needed an effective government.

Still, the disasters – set in motion by Ronald Reagan – continued to roll in. Bush’s Reagan-esque tax cuts for the rich blew another huge hole in the federal budget and the Reagan-esque anti-regulatory fervor led to a massive financial meltdown that threw the nation into economic chaos.

Love Reagan; Hate Bush

Ironically, George W. Bush has come in for savage criticism, but the Republican leader who inspired Bush’s presidency – Ronald Reagan – remained an honored figure, his name attached to scores of national landmarks including Washington’s National Airport.

Even leading Democrats genuflect to Reagan. Early in Campaign 2008, when Barack Obama was positioning himself as a bipartisan political figure who could appeal to Republicans, he bowed to the Reagan mystique, hailing the GOP icon as a leader who “changed the trajectory of America.”

Though Obama’s chief point was that Reagan in 1980 “put us on a fundamentally different path” – a point which may be historically undeniable – Obama went further, justifying Reagan’s course correction because of “all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability.”

While Obama later clarified his point to say he didn’t mean to endorse Reagan’s conservative policies, Obama seemed to suggest that Reagan’s 1980 election administered a needed dose of accountability to the United States when Reagan actually did the opposite. Reagan’s presidency represented a dangerous escape from accountability – and reality.

Still, Obama and congressional Democrats continue to pander to the Reagan myth. On Tuesday, as the nation approached the fifth anniversary of Reagan’s death, Obama welcomed Nancy Reagan to the White House and signed a law creating a panel to plan and carry out events to honor Reagan’s 100th birthday in 2011.

Obama hailed the right-wing icon. “President Reagan helped as much as any President to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics — that transcended even the most heated arguments of the day,” Obama said. [For more on Obama's earlier pandering about Reagan, see Consortiumnews.com's "Obama's Dubious Praise for Reagan."]

It’s a sure thing that the Reagan Centennial Committee won’t do much more than add to the hagiography surrounding the 40th President.

Despite the grievous harm that Reagan’s presidency inflicted on the American Republic and the American people, it may take many more years before a historian has the guts to put this deformed era into a truthful perspective and rate Reagan where he belongs — near the bottom of the presidential list.

References:

1. The Ronald Reagan MYTH — The greatest PR SWINDLE of the our age. Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future — by Will Bunch

2. Ronald Reagan: A serial liar with a Heart of Darkness who made Americans feel good about themselves!

The Times and Crimes of Ronald Reagan

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   Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis [ Enlarge ]
Many had assumed that the November 2008 presidential elections in America would be of great significance for Africa, and the still tyrannized African nations that have been the victims of European colonialism and American post-colonialism. These erroneous analysts had based their argumentation and hopes on the extremely unlikely hypothesis that the origins and the family background of the (then candidate) 44th president of the United States would play a considerable role in his foreign policy making, and more specifically in the US African policy.

The aforementioned hypothesis was absolutely wrong for two reasons; first, a US president’s family background and his personal origins matter little if not at all when it comes to the US foreign policy making, which remains a hermetically closed and utterly restricted area for newcomers. Behind the scenes, groups of influence, lobbying centers, and dark forces exercise an absolute control over the US foreign policy making, and can easily eliminate a bothersome president – one way (1963) or another (1976).

Second, the United States is not anymore an omnipotent superpower if it had ever been. The United States are confronted with the world’s worst financial and economic crisis of all times, and as it has been the global economy’s locomotive over the past 60 years, it will experience the forthcoming dismantlement of the capitalist system in the most adverse way.

In fact, the US cannot influence developments in other parts of the world – except through a trickery which is smartly produced and overwhelmingly diffused by the adroit US State Department propaganda machine. The trickery consists precisely in the incessant projection of the old US image of the sole superpower, as if it has continued down to our times. What has truly been left of America is its old image, namely an amalgamation of the rising economic dynamo of the 50s and the 60s, and the aura of the Cold War’s victor of the early 90s.

If one does not accept as true the deception projected by the US political Marketing machinery, one can achieve miracles in these days of real freedom of political action. This is a reality that has been detected by few thus far; with the precipitation of the economic collapse, which is practically speaking absolutely unhindered, more and more people allover the world will come to terms with the reality that the colonial restrainer has been removed. Had Saddam Hussein survived until 2009 and had he remained in power, today’s America would have been totally unable to undertake Gulf War I to remove the Baathist army from Kuwait, if that adventure had been attempted with a 19-year delay.

If the November 2008 American presidential elections are not a determinant date for Africa’s future, what are the elections that matter today for the tyrannized Ogadenis, the persecuted Berbers, the dehumanized Sidamas, the massacred Furis of Darfur, the forgotten Bejas of Eastern Sudan, and so many severely maltreated and permanently targeted African nations?

   Nigeria’s General Obasanjo and Jimmy Carter — 1970’s

Bolivia and Venezuela More Influential than the US

One has to shift focus to the South; developments that took place in Bolivia and Venezuela, and more specifically the two recent referenda held in the Latin American countries, create a new dynamics which is of vital importance for all African nations that have been the target of the colonial powers France and England, and the postcolonial superpower.

In fact, Latin America gradually becomes the center of gravitation for African liberation fronts, political parties and movements of oppressed nations whose existence has been so bothersome for the criminal colonials and their local lackeys, the shameful and unrepresentative tyrants who rule based on racist and cruel, tribal militias, like Meles Zenawi of the pseudo-Ethiopian Abyssinia, Omar al Bashir of the Sudan, Buteflika of Algeria, Kibaki of Kenya, Mohamed VI of Morocco, and many others.

Four Impotent Challengers of Colonialism in Africa: Russia, China, India and Japan

As it happens, not only is Latin America closer to Africa than any major non Western power (Russia, China, India and Japan) but also Bolivia and Venezuela come to cover a great political vacuum.

Russia has been a great colonial power in Asia and in Europe; under the coverage of Marxism – Leninism, it continued its colonial expansionism until the early 90s. But Russia had always failed in Africa; the Russian Orientalism and Africanism proved to be inconsiderate replicas of the French Orientalism and Africanism, which have been composed by the Western European colonial powers, England and France, in order to function to their profit. In other words, the Western European colonial system of interpretation cannot function to the benefit of other users. It is an inherently Western European system of fallacious interpretation adequately adjusted in order to alter the real data and transfigure the realities according to benefit of its launchers. The paranoid Soviet policy in the wider Horn of Africa area in the late 70s highlights precisely the suicidal perception of African History and Politics by Russia / Soviet Union.

India was colonized, but after it became independent, just 60 years ago, it never managed to become a fully de-colonized country and state; the Indian foreign policy, despite (or because of) the fake nationalism of several parties, bears all the insignia of an approach to world politics that perfectly reflects the colonial countries’ interests. The eternalized internal divisions testify to the prevalence of situations created by the colonial powers elsewhere. In no way did the African policy of India oppose the colonial powers’ interests in the region.

Japan was a limited circumference colonial power (East – Southeast Asia) for a relatively brief period of time; following its defeat in WW II, Japan has been politically and economically, ideologically and culturally colonized. Its presence in Africa has been complementary to that of the European colonial powers and America, thus perfectly contributing to the perpetuation of the colonial plan.

China was never colonized, only partly invaded by the Japanese militarists during the wars with Japan in the first half of the 20th century; yet, China had already been severely targeted by the colonial powers, and to this testify the famous Opium Wars (1839 – 1842) and the heroic Boxer Rebellion (1898 – 1901). However, the rise of the Communist Party as ruling power and the Maoism as political ideology proved to be a sort of late westernization of China. The reformist policies initiated Deng Xiaoping did not however reflect Chinese authenticity in Beijing’s foreign policy making. The socialist market economy helped only shape a quantitative approach to the world politics and China’s global role, despite its economic rise as the world’s second economy (GDP in terms of purchasing power parity: US $ 7.8 trillion), is still very limited and highly volatile. Worse, by allying itself with rogue dictators, Beijing has lost any chance of dynamically influencing groundbreaking developments in various parts of the world. In brief, China’s rising influence only quantitatively challenges the interests of the colonial powers. The pillars of theoretical, cultural, intellectual, academic, ideological, economic and political colonialism in Africa have been left intact by China’s presence in the Black Continent. There has never been a real, new concept of African Identity, Peace, Progress and Development to be initiated by China; as the no 1 challenge to Washington, Beijing proved to be a poor conceptual thinker, gullibly playing the colonial game – to the ultimate benefit of the colonial powers.

The Rise of the Indigenous Nations in Bolivia

Why are then the two recent referenda so important? For both, ideological and political reasons.

First took place the referendum organized by President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia; on January 25, 2009 more than 62% of the Bolivians ratified a New constitution for Bolivia, which is the epitome of the prevalence of Identity and Authenticity over the racist, colonial plans of mixed, altered or alien identity.

In fact, President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia led his country into a real re-foundation geared according to the interests of the Bolivia’s indigenous peoples who constitute the outright majority of the country and yet, they had been deprived of basic rights, considered as second class citizens, culturally oppressed, economically exploited, and politically erased.

•   Does this remind Africans of anything similar?

•   What place do the Bejas occupy in Sudan’s colonial state?

•   Can the Beja schoolchildren pursue primary and secondary education in their language?

•   What role do the Afars play in Eritrea?

•   Is there any Afar University functioning in Eritrea?

Quite exemplarily, the establishment of three universities, which will be fully functioning in the major native languages, Aymara and Queshua, has been announced in Bolivia in the aftermath of the referendum.

What position do the Sidamas have in Abyssinia (the colonial coffin that has been fallaciously re-baptized as Ethiopia)? Could one compare the electrification projects undertaken over the past 18 years in the Tigray province with those completed in the Sidama land?

What is the status of the Berbers in Algeria? How many Berberic native speakers have been elected in the two chambers of the Algerian Parliament? Can they write their official documentation in the Berberic writing which represents the African Atlas’ cultural continuity and historical authenticity?

These questions could easily be multiplied by 10 or 50, if one intended to make parallelisms, referring to all the oppressed and persecuted African nations – victims of the Anglo-French colonial conspiracy.

The solemn declaration of President Evo Morales Ayma, an Aymara Indian and the nation’s first indigenous president, are in fact the dream of every African leader of a National Liberation movement:

“The colonial state ends here. Internal colonialism and external colonialism end here. Sisters and brothers, neo-liberalism ends here too.”

This great discourse was pronounced in La Paz; but, who would not like to utter these relieving words in Ogaden, Darfur, Kordofan, Luo land, Western Sahara, and so many other African lands?

In fact, President Evo Morales’ victory in the referendum of January 25 shows what the correct meeting place is for all African National Liberation movements’ leaders.

The new charter voted by the great majority of the Bolivians establishes water as a basic right, grants the state greater control over the natural resources, and guarantees indigenous and women representation in Congress.

Even more spectacularly, it provides for the institutionalization of all of Bolivia’s 36 native languages as official! This shows that the number of languages is not a problem when the right principles are adopted without tergiversation.

In addition, the constitution offers indigenous groups the right to administer their own resources, to levy taxes and allocate funds, to promulgate their own laws, and to carry out community justice as long as national laws are not violated.

The great news from Bolivia need further focus, and I intend to expand in several forthcoming articles in order to help African readerships better understand and share the great experiment of Indigenous Identity, Historical Authenticity, and Cultural Continuity that is currently blossoming in Bolivia.

The Consolidation of President Chavez in Venezuela

To take over from the Bolivians, the Venezuelans have just consolidated President Chavez’s power in a referendum held only yesterday. The results allow the socialist leader to continue running for president in the forthcoming presidential elections. More than 54% of Venezuelans voted in favour of abolishing the existing term limits for elected officials, which represents a wider margin of victory than expected. President Chavez, a close ally of Bolivia’s Evo Morales, announced that he would stand for re-election when his current six-year term expires in January 2013. Addressing a great number of gathered followers, after the announcement of the electoral triumph, President Chavez said emotionally: “the gates to the future have been opened wide.”

Both referenda demonstrate the real dynamics of our times and throw to the dustbin of the World History the irresponsible leaders of various oppressed African nations’ liberation fronts – all those who disastrously link the destiny of their nations, as well as their own careers and personal ambitions, with the colonial trash of England and France, and the collapsing and impotent America, a nation that needs to undergo a great shock and an even greater revolution than that of 1783, before truly changing and re-adopting its original, anti-colonial Declaration of Independence.

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Book Review: Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future — by Will Bunch

Editorial Reviews “With help from a loving Beltway press corps, Republicans sold Reagan as the iconic American leader. From promotions like the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project and Operation Serenade, the GOP marketing machine worked to perfection. Will Bunch’s long overdue book, Tear Down This Myth, pulls back the curtain and looks at Reagan, minus the branding. It’s a sobering sight.” — Eric Boehlert, author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush “Will Bunch’s subtle account of Reagan’s legacy carefully dismantles the image of conservative purism that has been painted over the real Ronald Reagan. But in tearing down the myth, Bunch also gives us a fascinating portrait of Reagan the pragmatist, able to compromise, to change his ground and to govern from the center as political winds shifted. This is a buried Reagan, hidden even at the time but still perceptible, in some ways, to those of us who fought him at the time. Tear Down This Myth is historical revisionism for which both Reagan’s supporters and his opponents should be grateful.”– James K. Galbraith, author of The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too “Tear Down This Myth is as feisty as it is fearless. In it, Will Bunch begins the process, long overdue, of deflating Ronald Reagan’s overinflated reputation.” — Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism “Will Bunch’s iconoclasm is deeply necessary. It is also splendidly entertaining. The myth that Ronald Reagan was loved by everybody all the time is one of the greatest PR swindles of the age. This is a must-read for all who cherish truth in history.”– Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America “Will Bunch’s book couldn’t come at a better time. Following an election that saw America reject Reaganism, Tear Down This Myth explores how that conservative ideology came to power and what was so destructive about it.”– David Sirota, author of The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington “The Ronald Reagan who won the cold war, cut taxes, shrank the government, saved the economy, and was the most beloved president since FDR is a myth, Bunch says….The truculent jingoist of the myth was concocted after Alzheimer’s silenced the man and the would-be juggernaut launched by the GOP’s 1994 election triumph crashed and burned before a Democratic president who shrank government and the deficit, balanced the budget, and even racked up surpluses. Bunch names the leading, venal mythmakers and shames the myth exploiters, too. Anyone interested in America’s immediate future should read this book.” — Booklist Product Description In this provocative new book, award-winning political journalist Will Bunch unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit. With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following: Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan’s average popularity as president was only, well, average, lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan’s 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan’s tax cut did, however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO and Wall Street greed. Most historians agree that Reagan’s waste-ridden military buildup didn’t actually “win the Cold War.” And Reagan mythmakers ignore his real contributions — his willingness to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of a “liberal” Hollywood-produced TV movie. George H. W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s rolling back of Reaganomics during the 1990s spurred a decade of peace and prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt energy policies, and coming generations of debt. With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America’s future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence. 1. Book Excerpt: How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan – With the Gipper’s reputation flagging after Clinton, neoconservatives launched a stealthy campaign to remake him as a “great” president. 2. See ALL Reviews 3. Note: Ronald Reagan – A serial liar with a Heart of Darkness who made Americans feel good about themselves!

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