As far as the picture goes, let’s just hope that it’s not too late for humanity to do something about it.

Before you can criticize Obama’s win you have to have an understanding of what PEACE IS and how it has been actualized by past peace prize winners. Peace has many definitions, which according to wiki (yes wiki!) include:

“the absence of hostility… the existence of healthy or newly-healed interpersonal or international relationships, safety in matters of social or economic welfare, the acknowledgment of equality and fairness in political relationships…”

Whether you want to accept it or not, Obama has been instrumental in advancing understanding and creating a state of mutual political stability during a difficult time amongst various American demographics; and yes so far rhetoric has been a large part of his methodology, but rhetoric has historically been a powerful tool in the forging of peaceful relations (…the whole ‘pen is mightier than the sword” cliche). Its a huge mistake to underestimate the power of words, esp. wrt their power to incite action w/in others- not everyone is called to physically labor in the pursuit of ‘peace’, and their selection of present and past winners such as MLK, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama and this Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad illustrates that the Nobel committee are cognizant of that.

Anyways, wrt to this post, I wouldnt go so far as to claim that the Chinese are hindering these workers opportunity for growth, we have a govt that does an excellent job of that already- but for argument’s sake, what kind of knowledge do you expect the Chinese to relay to these workers when a) most times they can barely communicate w/ ea other, and b) the workers have such little education? My cousin in Addis is a civil engineer, and I have overheard him talk, on more than one occasion, about the various tricks and gadgets the Chinese engineers have introduced THEM to- but I’m not sure what else they can be held responsible for. Its clear their government has subversive designs on Africa as a whole, but at the end of the day, [many] of these Chinese expats are going home to flea-ridden qorqoro betoch. IMO they are just pawns in a bigger game.

My biggest fear however, is the fact that we may completely lose our own manufacturing capabilities and be forced to turn into a consumer society, with a services-based economy. If we let others run our industries with their own machinery/workforce, I’m worried about the relatively large population of uneducated farmer families that will be forced into poverty because they can’t contribute to said services economy. There should be policies that allow for the empowerment of our own people, so that we can have a self-sustained workforce in industrial/agrarian sectors.