SOCIALISM OR YOUR MONEY BACK

Email received from Zimbabwe:

Comrades!
How do you take the political paradigm that recently marred Egypt and
Tunisia? It’s a pity that the protests cost people’s lives despite the
motive to topple the long serving leaders were fulfilled. Why war! But it
boggles my mind to finally discover that these two countries had become
model US client states.

Consider the following as one writer perceptively put it:
“More recent(ly), under the 31-year rule of dictator Habib Borguiba
(predecessor of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali), his regime received circa US$750
million annually, and then advanced military support as well. Between 1987
to 2009, under Ben Ali, the US signed US$349 million in sales of military
hardware to Tunisia”

“After 2009, with Obama in office, Tunisia was to be sold military
helicopters in a US$282 million sale.”

Egypt’s case is phenomenally outrageous, being the second largest
recipient of US ‘aid’ after Israel.

The writer cited: “The US has provided Egypt with US$1,3 billion a year in
military aid since 1979 and an average of US$815 million a year in
economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over US$50 billion in US
largesse since 1775.

“The report from Congressional Research Service, put the economic
assistance figure at over US$2 billion annually, a sure sign to Mubarak
that he could put off any ‘reform’ as long as Washington bankrolled his
power. The US has also invested a large amount of advanced weaponry into
Egypt’s so-called ‘defence.’

But unemployment, starvation, meagre wages… remains part of a parcel to
the lives of the workers and the poor peasantry.
So how do you take the US?

Why expending on the armoury!
Yet each day, 30 000 children dies as a result of extreme poverty.
Yet everyday 50 000 people dies of hunger and preventable illnesses.
Yet 2, 8 billion people lives on less than US$1, 20 a day.
2, 8 billion nearly half the world’s population.
Yet one in five survives in less than US65p per day.
A nasty society quite really.
Real socialism is the alternative.
Bringing a system that disregards all and caters for all.

B. Musemwa