RE: Using Cuba To Defend Nkrumahism Is Laughable

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MMA 9 years ago

Nkrumah is never a boring subject but Baidoo and kwarteng are succeeding in making him one with their excessively long articles.

Normally, ghanaweb does not allow re-joinders to re-joinders. But if you give the new articl ...
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Nkrumah is never a boring subject but Baidoo and kwarteng are succeeding in making him one with their excessively long articles.

Normally, ghanaweb does not allow re-joinders to re-joinders. But if you give the new articles new names, the webmaster won't know.

He doesn't read them. He just dumps everything he gets from everybody on the site. That's why we get one-sided articles from the likes of Okoampa on a daily basis.

Boring, boring, boring...
Kwabena Akurang-Parry 9 years ago

While both writers have given us their best, Kwarteng's essays are better. Our problem is that we don't read and tend to think that essays should be brief and "simple." Please, read and keep some of the gems of knowledge for ...
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While both writers have given us their best, Kwarteng's essays are better. Our problem is that we don't read and tend to think that essays should be brief and "simple." Please, read and keep some of the gems of knowledge for your own intellectual growth!
MMA 9 years ago

Akadu, I read BOTH articles which is why I know both are EXCESSIVELY long. Great length is not necessarily a sign of intellectualism. You do not need to go into excess (overkill) to prove your points. Even for "intellectualis ...
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Akadu, I read BOTH articles which is why I know both are EXCESSIVELY long. Great length is not necessarily a sign of intellectualism. You do not need to go into excess (overkill) to prove your points. Even for "intellectualism", length must be fully justified.

Kwarteng is very widely read and cannot prevent himself from making all these extensive knowledge tumble out all at once. Baidoo, far less well read than Kwarteng, was forced to respond in kind (the length) and ended up with a less analytical piece that went on and on and on.

Akadu, there is something to be said for preciseness, erudition and brevity even (or especially) in good scholarship. I guess that is no more than you try to impress on the students you supervise...
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 9 years ago

The respected scholar, Prof. Akurang-Parry is not the same as Akadu, although they are staying under the same roof, unless Akadu has been recently kicked out. Akadu is too useless to rent a place of his own, and is/was theref ...
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The respected scholar, Prof. Akurang-Parry is not the same as Akadu, although they are staying under the same roof, unless Akadu has been recently kicked out. Akadu is too useless to rent a place of his own, and is/was therefore a "percher" to the prof, using his internet services to post nonsense to ghanaweb.
The eternal question to be answered is why the blazes the good prof. allowed his identity to be marauded by one of the most indecent air-heads alive. But sex, even between people of the same gender, can poison the mind!
Mark (UK) 9 years ago

Bro
I have read Akadu's postings in the past and do know that she resides with her mentor. That itself does not suggest any thing. Cohabiting and copulation are 2 different things. Do you know something that we do not know?

Bro
I have read Akadu's postings in the past and do know that she resides with her mentor. That itself does not suggest any thing. Cohabiting and copulation are 2 different things. Do you know something that we do not know?
THESE CON RAWLINGSES 9 years ago

I got it!

I got it!
John 9 years ago

Not right!

Not right!
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear MMA,

Good day.

I do appreciate your reservation about one of writing styles. Having said that, I do also think brevity is not exclusively the mark of great intellectualism.

Let me give you one good example: Whe ...
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Dear MMA,

Good day.

I do appreciate your reservation about one of writing styles. Having said that, I do also think brevity is not exclusively the mark of great intellectualism.

Let me give you one good example: When the British science journalist Edward Hooper's controversial book "The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS, a 1000-plus page book on the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, came out I quickly bought one and read.

Then I began to read reviews of the book in American papers. My friends did the same but they mostly concentrated on papers like the NEW YORK DAILIES and the NEW YORK POST.

I, on the other hand, concentrated on the NEW YORK TIMES and then later on the NEW YORK DAILIES and THE NEW YORK POST. My friends' reasons for choosing the other papers over the NEW YORK TIMES was that the latter was too wordy and gave too much depth to topical issues. They did not have the luxury of time on their side to learn about things that could be said in a few words.

Yet, they exhibited serious lapses in their intellectual grasp of Hooper's analysis even when we restricted our debates to the reviews given in American papers. What am I driving at? They realized that both the NEW YORK POST and the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS skipped many essential points which Hooper said in his book and which the NEW YORK TIMES exhaustively covered.

I would say things I picked from the NEW YORK TIMES (as well as from Hooper's book) only for my friends to rebuff them on the suspicions that I was making up things. I had to literally bring out my copy of the NEW YORK TIMES to show them origins of my facts. Some of them stopped reading the NEW YORK POST and the NEW YORK DAILIES from that day forward. And I learned a lot myself from that day.

Anyway I will continue to write about Kwame Nkrumah as long as I live. This is something I have promised myself. And I also have many readers who enjoy reading them. In fact, I have had readers who have privately written to me not to stop writing about Nkrumah.

One MODERNGHANA reader (FRANCIS MBIAH) wrote the following:

“Please return with more food for thought. The sad part of Ghana's discourse as a nation is: Is anybody, group of bodies, multi bodies, out there willing to re-visit Nkrumah's vision and wisdom?
Sankofa should be Ghana's mantle to remove the nation from its current quagmire. It's a shame but it is what it is.”

Please overlook my typos/grammatical errors in my rejoinders to Baidoo, Jr. I had to rush to put them together before Baidoo, Jr.’s articles went to the archives.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks.
MMA 9 years ago

Ooops, I lost a more detailed reply ...

Will just say now, NO, brevity is not exclusively the mark of great intellectualism. Neither is lengthiness. But you ALWAYS write lengthy articles. ALWAYS! Gives the impression you b ...
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Ooops, I lost a more detailed reply ...

Will just say now, NO, brevity is not exclusively the mark of great intellectualism. Neither is lengthiness. But you ALWAYS write lengthy articles. ALWAYS! Gives the impression you believe the scholarly worth of a piece is found in how long it is. Not always! It takes the rare scholar to know what NOT to include in a piece of argument/article. You always seem go on and on and on. That is the only weakness I find in your articles.

Sorry, but sometimes you remind me of the communist leaders who make 5 hour speeches. Lol. Well, Nkrumah wasn't like that...

Too bad I lost the other more detailed answer.

Have a good weekend - whatever is left of it.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear MMA,

1) Senator Wendy Davis gave a 10-hour speech Texas Senate.

2) Paul Ryan gave a 12-hour speech in the US Congress

3) Sir Ivan Lawrence gave a 4-hour speech in the British House of Commons

5) John Goldin ...
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Dear MMA,

1) Senator Wendy Davis gave a 10-hour speech Texas Senate.

2) Paul Ryan gave a 12-hour speech in the US Congress

3) Sir Ivan Lawrence gave a 4-hour speech in the British House of Commons

5) John Golding gave an 11-hour speech in the British parliament...Let me stop here. None of these was a communist.

4) Strom Thurmond gave a 24-hour speech in the US Congress
What is your definition of a "rare scholar"? How many articles (scholarly articles, newspapers articles, journals, magazines, etc) do you read a day from peer-reviewed journals, newspapers, books, websites, etc., a day?

You should not use the consistency ("ALWAYS") of a pattern as definition for character. Remember I used the phrase "not exclusively" not imply that both "brevity" and "lengthiness" are not marks of intellectualism. One reader of my articles once suggested I might be a talkative in real life based on my lengthy articles. Then he changed his mind as we physically became friends and he soon realized how relatively quite I was/am in real life!

I did not explicitly use "lengthiness" because you used it in your earlier response for me. So, you see MMA, how even my simple phrase have confused you! I tell some friends it is not about brevity or length of a piece.

It is about passion for critical reading, which has nothing to do with length or brevity. Readers like ADJOA WANGARA and JUSTICE SARPONG were complaining about the length of my articles, yet they got my simple commentaries in the COMMENT section twisted out of context.

I had to explain myself further to them what I actually meant in my one short commentary to them in the COMMENT section. I kept asking myself, why do they even get my five- or six-sentence commentaries wrong or misinterpreted? In other words, they got both my long articles and short answers out of context. To them it does not matter the length of a statement.

I can assure that I have "rare scholars" who appreciate these articles, regardless of their length. They read every single piece of article I publish here on Ghanaweb because I send them copies.

Besides, I have profiled some of them on Ghanaweb (I won't mention specific names). A couple of them sit on academic review boards here in the States. If they don't have issues reading them, why should I care? I also have Ghanaweb readers who read every single article I post on Ghanaweb without complaining.

And yes, there are capitalists who make 5-hour speeches. Interestingly, Nkrumah was not like that because he was not a communist. The late Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, a physicist, scientist, mathematician, Egyptologist, historian, sociologist, gave a 6-hour speech in one instance in Central Africa and he wasn't a communist.

Finally, you need not worry. Others read this piece and still went ahead to read the longer one. I have private emails from them to prove my case that they read both. They had wanted the longer published instead. The longer version has 460 "hits" on Ghanaweb since its publication yesterday. I HAVE 11 EMAILS FROM MODERNGHANA READERS WHO HAD READ IT. I HAVE STILL FINISHED ANSWERING ALL THE QUESTIONS THEY ASKED. THE DEPTH AND NUMBER OF SHOW HOW SERIOUS THEY ARE WITH THE ISSUES I RAISED.

LET ME GIVE YOU ONE SINGLE ASSIGMENT: JUST GIVE ME ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE OF AN IDEA YOU THINK SHOULD NOT BE IN THIS PIECE (AND I WLL SHOW YOU WHY IT SHOULD BE THERE)!

Mind you, you are not obliged to read articles you don't like, whether they are short or long! I have read terrible short and long articles. But I always prefer insightfully long articles to shorter stupid ones.

You don't have to read what you missed. Others have read it for me!

Have a great weekend!
MMA 9 years ago

I. Take note, Francis. I never said your article was bad. I am only saying it was excessively (unnecessarily) too long. There was overkill in it. It is not the same thing as saying it is bad. I will never say that. You are fu ...
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I. Take note, Francis. I never said your article was bad. I am only saying it was excessively (unnecessarily) too long. There was overkill in it. It is not the same thing as saying it is bad. I will never say that. You are full of knowledge and very well read. I have no doubt of that.

2. Don't put too much store on hits and personal emails. Every article that is posted on ghanaweb has a few people who condemn it. That doesn't, necessarily, mean the article is bad. The same article also elicits praises from some readers. Draw the same conclusion... Let's not talk about Ajoa Wangara (the so called).

3. One idea that should not be in your piece? Francis, it's not so much about which idea that shouldn't be there. Long as the piece is, you could as well also be blaming yourself for not adding even more ideas. The "rare" touch I was talking of is not so much about the idea that shouldn't be there. It is more about the idea that should be there but which the writer feels bold enough to leave out. And often, in your case, it is about belabouring (belaboring) the point, the idea. Just look at your concluding remarks in this piece. You want to, rightly, tell us that Nkrumah has been recognised internationally. But you, Francis, will not be satisfied until you mention 10 different recognitions to support the point. I think you even showed a lot of restraint, by your normal standards, by stopping at "only" ten. Maybe it was because you wanted to send the piece to get it into the first "print run" on ghanaweb.

4. Francis, never lose sight of the majority of visitors to ghanaweb and any such sites. They are people in a hurry who want to go on to something else. Many have only the time on their breaks to visit here. Know your typical Ghanaian and his/her reading habits. I am not saying you should lower the rigour in your pieces to the level of the lowest common denominator here. But, for goodness sake, ghanaweb is not the New York Review of Books or its cousin in London, LRB, not to talk of the higher academic journals. Tone it down a bit and you will see that you will get even more positive and encouraging private emails (and hits). One such mail may just also come from me ... but not bearing my ghanaweb moniker.

Cheers
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear MMA,

None of the emails I mentioned has come from you.

I am certain of this. And you know why? Every one of them says the exact opposite of what you have been saying all along.

They are unanimously asking me t ...
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Dear MMA,

None of the emails I mentioned has come from you.

I am certain of this. And you know why? Every one of them says the exact opposite of what you have been saying all along.

They are unanimously asking me to do the opposite of what you are saying. AS FOR ADJOA WANGARA, PLEASE IGNORE HIM BECAUSE I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT HE HAS BEEN SAYING FOR SOME TIME NOW BECAUSE I DON'T READ HIM ANYMORE. YOU GUYS CAN READ HIM FOR ALL I CARE AS HE DOES NOT DICTATE HOW I SHOULD WRITE, HOE LONG OR SHORT MY WRITEUPS SHOULD BE, OR WHETHER OR NOT I SHOULD CITE MY SOURCES. I EXACTLY WHAT MY CONSCIENCE DICTATES. MY CONSCIENCE IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAT WHAT THE LIKES OF ADJOA WANGARA SAYS. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT HE IS NOT ONE OF MY TARGET AUDIENCES.

SO MMA WHATEVER I AM DOING WILL CONTINUE AS IT IS UNTIL I CEASE WRITING FOR GHANAWEB. LET ME ASSURE YOU THAT THERE TONS OF EVIDENCE I EXCLUDED FROM MY REJOINDER TO MR. PHILIP KOBINA BAIDOO, JR.'s, EVIDENCE WHOSE ELABORATION COULD FILL UP A 400-PAGE BOOK. I AM NOT EXAGGERATING. THERE WERE SO MANY FACTUAL ERRORS AND OUTRIGHT LIES AND DISTORTIONS IN BAIDOO, JR.’S PIECE THAT I FELT ASHAMED THAT AN OLD GUY LIKE HIM WILL DISGRACING HIMSELF LIKE THAT. WHAT A SHAME! THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING!

NOTHING COMPLICATED (LONG) WORKS I SHOULD NOT BE READING AT A TENDER AGE. EVERYONE CAN DO THE SAME. BESIDES IT IS NOT KIDS WHO COME TO GHANAWEB TO READ.

FINALLY, I DON'T MEASURE THE VALUE OF MY ESSAYS BY THE NUMBER OF "HITS" I GET. NO.NO.NO.NO.NON. I GAVE YOU THAT MODERNGHANA "460 HITS" JUST TO GIVE YOU AN INKLING OF WHAT IS GOING AT OTHER WEBSITES.

BESIDES, IT IS NOT EVERY ONE WHO "HIT" ON AN ARTICLE READS IT. NOT EVERY ONE COMMENTS ON A GHANAWEB ARTICLE, FOR INSTANCE, ACTUALLY READS IT. AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO READ BUT DON'T COMMENT.

I READ GHANAWEB ARTICLES ALL THE TIME BUT REFUSE TO LEAVE COMMENT. I HAVE MY PERSONAL REASONS FOR DOING SO. AND REMEMBER, MMA, THERE ARE SO MANY STUPID ARTICLES ON GHANAWEB THAT GENERATE MORE COMMENTS THAN "USEFUL."

I HAVE ALSO SEEN ARTICLES WITH LARGE NUMBER OF COMMENTS, MMA, OF WHICH THE MAJORITY ARE INSULTS. THUS, "HITS" DON'T NECESSARILY REFLECT HOW READERS LIKE ONE'S ARTICLES OR HOW MANY HAVE ACTUALLY READ ONE PIECE. I DON'T ASSIGN TOO MUCH WEIGHT TO "HITS" OR TO THE NUMBER OF COMMENTS.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND.
MMA 9 years ago

Well, Francis, let's leave it that way. You can, and certainly should, continue writing the way you think is best for you and the audience you have in mind. Nobody can take that right away from you. It's a free world... Besid ...
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Well, Francis, let's leave it that way. You can, and certainly should, continue writing the way you think is best for you and the audience you have in mind. Nobody can take that right away from you. It's a free world... Besides, ghanaweb has no stylistic standards and they will post whatever you write even if it is 10,000 words long. So, you should write as long articles as you please. Nobody can force you to do otherwise, not least myself.

But, if you do so, I will also continue thinking that you are wasting an opportunity to get more people on ghanaweb to read you by your reader-unfriendly style of putting your ideas across. There will be people who will like your present style but I believe that even more of the guys who like the things you do here would wish they read shorter articles from you - even if they don't come out here to say so, as I am doing, because they are too decent to tell it to you in your face...
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear MMA,

Don't sweat over this. Nothing is going to change about the way I write. You can't pretend to use other monikers elsewhere to make your case. There is no need for that.

I have a friend in London who occasiona ...
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Dear MMA,

Don't sweat over this. Nothing is going to change about the way I write. You can't pretend to use other monikers elsewhere to make your case. There is no need for that.

I have a friend in London who occasionally helps me out with IP info on commentators. You don't have to go that far. You know what I mean? You can write your own pieces and make them shorter. That should be fine with me.

Nearly all those who have contacted me over my second rejoinder to Mr. Baidoo, Jr.'s essay have said the exhaustive examples I offered in the piece made the first few paragraphs clearer. I don't make vacuous claims without offering exhaustive examples and evidence to back them up!

You are among the insignificant minority who are always complaining about irrelevancies! NEXT TIME I SHALL COPY AND PASTE WHAT MANY OF THOSE WHO HAVE WRITTEN TO ME HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS PIECE YOU ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT. YOU KNOW COPYING AND PASTING IS ONE OF MY EXPERTISE...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

WHILE YOU ARE COMPLAINING AND USING WEIRD MONIKERS ELSEHWERE TO MAKE A FRIVOLOUS CASE, NEARLY ALL MY READERS (99.9999%) ARE SAYING THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. WHY DO YOU READ AT ALL IF IT WILL HURT? WHY DON'T SKIP MATERIAL YOU DON'T LIKE? I DON'T GET IT!

LIKE I SAID BEFORE, NEARLLY ALL MY READERS (EXCEPT YOU) APPRECIATE THE DATA I PROVIDED IN THE PIECE. AT LEAST THREE HAVE GONE AHEAD TO BORROW FROM A LIBRARY ALL THE MAJOR TITLES I PROVIDED IN THE PIECE. TO THEM THE FIRST FEW PARAGRAPHS MEANT NOTHING! THESE ARE SERIOUS READERS, I MUST ADD. TWO OF THEM ARE NEWSPAPER REVIEWERS (HERE IN THE STATES. YOU WILL BE SHOCKED IF I TELL NAMES OF THE NEWSPAPERS; I WILL NOT MENTION NAMES FOR NOW).

IN THE END, WHAT YOU SAY MATTERS NOT. GET USED TO MY STYLE OF WRITING. YOU CAN COMPLAIN ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR OWN PAPER OR WEBSITE AND I SEND MY WRITE-UPS THERE.

THANKS.
MMA 9 years ago

Francis, I have been on ghanaweb since its inception 20 years ago and, prior to that, I have been on the receiver's list of Ghana Review which went to an unsuccessful print version. This was in the early days of the internet ...
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Francis, I have been on ghanaweb since its inception 20 years ago and, prior to that, I have been on the receiver's list of Ghana Review which went to an unsuccessful print version. This was in the early days of the internet - the very early days in the early 90s.

Throughout my stay on ghanaweb, I have used different monikers. I throw one away when I am fed up and use another until I throw that away too. I do that because I think the internet is an anonymous place, a virtual anything goes place, NOT because I want to hide under another moniker and make what you term a "frivolous" case. My opinions are always consistent no matter the moniker I use.

I am very much aware of the ipnumber identification possibility and know I don't fool anybody who wants to find out when I change monikers, and I am surprised that, you, as a science man, do not know that and must depend on someone in London to help you with that. Even Sarpong in the US and Oyokoba in Canada and many others know how to do that. You can use that method to see if in any of my comments I have insulted you or made "frivolous" comments - whatever you mean by that. You can also use that to see the number of times I have attacked Ajoa Wangara for his attacks on you. If you check carefully, you will see that I was the same guy who reminded you that the number of hits you get on an article don't matter because most of those who click on an article don't read it. This is info you were throwing back at me in one of your previous responses. And while you're checking on the ipaddresses, find out also if I, at anytime, insulted you - even once.

You make another mistake, Francis. You argue as if I do not like (or endorse) the contents of your essays. You conflate a dislike of your style with a dislike of the content. You fail to make a distinction between form and content. I have never argued anything against the contents of your pieces. As a matter of fact, I do not even comment on them. If I do, it will be strictly on a factual basis that does not take into account the form or presentation. My problem with you is with your style or presentation, NOT THE CONTENTS. For instance, you may think that the present discussion is coming about because I am anti-Nkrumah and do not like your defence of the man. But I am not anti-Nkrumah! Indeed, I was in elementary school when the man was overthrown. It was only my parents' objections that prevented me from joining the GYP. I have a first hand experience of Nkrumah's rule and credit my education in Ghana entirely to him knowing my own backgrounds and where I was coming from.

But I felt strongly that you did not need 9000 words to see off Baidoo's feeble complaint about Nkrumah. I felt that if you needed to write such a long piece to see off such a weak attack by Baidoo, then you're probably not going about the defence of Nkrumah in the most effective way. That was what I meant by the overkill. Of course, I know your style of writing and I know that you will never depart from that style. As a matter of fact, I also know the manner in which you try to defend your style - by some direct or oblique references to some authority figures (those who say you're doing well).

There is no need for you to copy and paste comments from those who appreciate what you write. After all, I am not arguing that nobody appreciates your work. I know many people do. I, myself, greatly admire your vast reading and knowledge (which I suspect lies behind your tendency to want to say everything and ending up saying too much...).

But, to say it again, the bottom line is that, on ghanaweb, you can write as long an article as you like. You know that and I know that, too. The only way the webmaster would have refused to post your present article was if he had seen it as a re-joinder to a re-joinder, not because it is more than 9000 words long.

I am not sweating myself over this at all. This is a place we all come to discuss articles posted here about Ghana, to commend and critique to the best of our knowledge. That is just what I am doing. If there is anything personal about it, it will be only because I find your work worth my time to discuss even if it's only to talk about the style...

Let me stop here, Francis, before trying to beat you at what you do best... Lol, lol

Cheers and take care...
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear MMA,

I don't care a hoot about ADJOA WANGARA. Regarding IPs, I got you there, right? Again I don't attach too much weight certain things in like. Hahahahahaha...I hope you get my drift?

I believe we should even st ...
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Dear MMA,

I don't care a hoot about ADJOA WANGARA. Regarding IPs, I got you there, right? Again I don't attach too much weight certain things in like. Hahahahahaha...I hope you get my drift?

I believe we should even stop discussing him. He adds or takes nothing from my intellectual personality.

That said, I don't want to stop spending money on technologies that should help me read readers' IP. One of my Ghanaweb readers promised to provide me with useful info in that regard, and I simply could not resist that.

Besides, I have never bothered to get such a piece of technology because I am not the type to intimidate.

I have repeated said on Ghanaweb that I can stand up to any Ghanaweb columnist or commentator regardless of his/her expertise and degrees.

I don't attach too much weight to degrees anyway. I am more concerned about what a writer has to say and how he/she says it that the degrees or expertise.

Finally, let me say that I excluded tons of evidence from my second rejoinder to Mr. Baidoo, Jr. I have also said I have loads of evidence against Mr. Baidoo, Jr. which if I should elaborate could cover a 400-page book.

There were so many outright lies, historical distortions, needless over exaggerations, and what have you in the man's trivial essay I could not let them pass without correcting them.

Aside that, there were also so many corrective ideas in my head as I typed and which I later discovered had not even been included in my rejoinder. I had wanted to take him on on every single distortion and lie.

Hahahahahaha...now I can see you are getting my infectious disease too. Your commentaries keep getting longer each time you respond to me. Please try to get rid of that disease. It is incurable...Hahahahahaha. And don't read too much into the IP thing. It is one of my...Hahahahahaha...

Please overlook my errors.

Have a great week.
Kojo T 9 years ago

Why waste time on Baidoo. He does not know the difference between Nkrumaism, communism, and socialism He cannot see how Obama got USA growing while conservative Europe is stagnant and cannot see why Africa is not making prog ...
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Why waste time on Baidoo. He does not know the difference between Nkrumaism, communism, and socialism He cannot see how Obama got USA growing while conservative Europe is stagnant and cannot see why Africa is not making progress Francis stop wasting time on village scholars
C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

Wow! This is indeed what is called Rapid Response. Now, let us see what the "theorists" who claimed you had the previous one ready will say.

I have posted below the edited version of what I wrote in response to Mr Baidoo J ...
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Wow! This is indeed what is called Rapid Response. Now, let us see what the "theorists" who claimed you had the previous one ready will say.

I have posted below the edited version of what I wrote in response to Mr Baidoo Jr. In a way, it anticipated your response to him.
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I only managed to complete reading this long piece now and so can't comment comprehensively.

I was struck by the number of lies and distortions in Phillip's diatribe too. That's not the only lie. Even claiming that deregulation of the telephone system happened during K4s era is a blatant lie. Telecoms research was one of the topics in our State Building Seminar Group and so I knew quite a lot abt the sector in Ghana and some other African countries in the '90s. Then I got involved commercially. I have with me a newsprint from Dagens Naeringsliv of Sat 3 Feb. 1996, page 9, in Norwegian, of course, detailing how that Norwegian, Trygve Tamburstuen sold his TV station, Tele 2 Nornett AS in order to supply the capital to start what MTN took over with another Norwegian Ole Huslid of ScanCom and those Lebanee blokes. And we know of how Tsatsu Tsikata also started one mobile company, don't we? All those things preceded the K4 regime.

Overall, the piece is more of an ad hominem attack on Francis rather than debunking what he wrote. It has got nothing to do with the reality of how Western countries developed with the wide scope for private plunder of other nations and peoples which allowed Western filibusters to accumulate capital beyond anything imaginable in the past during the mercantilist period of the slave trade and exploitation of the free labour of some and then direct colonisation -imperialism - which provides the life blood for the vampire capitalists to survive on. Marx recognised this in his life time and revised his earlier views in the Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) in which he criticised the German Social Democrats. Marx was noted for saying in his life time that, if what some of his followers were saying was Marxism, then he was not a Marxist! Engels spent the rest of his life trying to explain what Marx and himself wrote, as the distortions were already emerging. Theirs was no dogmatic doctrine.

Lenin further expanded on this trend with his Imperialism: The Last Stage of Capitalism. And then Nkrumah capped it with his central authoritative contribution with his book Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, a stage in which we are now.

Just imagine Ghana colonising Nigeria alone and passing laws to loot their resources, as some Western nations did, with the loot spreading to even those Western nations which didn't, not only their own working class whom they use in their imperialist wars. Of course, the Monroe Doctrine ensured that the US had its own Latin American backyard to exploit. Even that, the state played significant direct roles in their devt. That's why Francis referred to the TVA project, e.g., that built the Hoover Dam and regenerated whole stretches of the US private capital had run down into medieval existence.

All the Asian Tigers have reached where they are now thanks to very active state intervention and participation in the economy. Even setting up state banks to make loans to businesses in certain sectors is direct intervention. The state decides and allocate scarce credit resources, directing it to where it wants. Without that kind of state support in the recent credit crunch in the West, there would have been a major depression equal to that of the 1930s or worse!

Anyway, this is just for the records. All we want is to Bring Back the State In, just as others are doing and scholars like Peter Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, Theda Skocpol. et all had argued. Had they been listened to, there would have been no Credit Crunch!

Andy-K
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Nyebro Yao,

Thanks for your response.

In any case I read your insightful commentary when I went through Baidoo, Jr.'s article again about 45 minutes ago. I hope Baidoo, Jr. read it too.

Let me also say I sent a lon ...
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Nyebro Yao,

Thanks for your response.

In any case I read your insightful commentary when I went through Baidoo, Jr.'s article again about 45 minutes ago. I hope Baidoo, Jr. read it too.

Let me also say I sent a longer response than this to Ghanaweb. This piece is even mis-titled. I gave the editor clear instructions and reminders but he ignored them.

That said, the one I intended for publication is currently on MODERNGHANA. That one has more information/evidence than this.

Unfortunately Ghanaweb published the wrong one. Baidoo, Jr.'s piece is full of outright lies, factual errors, distortions, groundless exaggerations, etc. The evidence I provide here and in the one posted on MODERNGHANA exposes all his errors, lies, and historical inaccuracies.

I will do him good to read and re-examine the evidence I provide. There were so many things he said that are not true! Overwhelming evidence points to the fact that the world is moving towards "mixed economy" and Baidoo, Jr. is stuck with capitalism!

Finally, the subtext of your insightful commentary here richly adds to the debate. It exposes Baidoo, Jr. and his lack of depth about serious topical issues.

Have a great weekend!
ADJOA WANGARA 9 years ago

Kwarteng, by and by they will all know the sort of idiot you are.

You even can't get what you yourself copy and paste because you join the platform just because other people are presenting topics and discussing issues.

...
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Kwarteng, by and by they will all know the sort of idiot you are.

You even can't get what you yourself copy and paste because you join the platform just because other people are presenting topics and discussing issues.

You will forever remain an idiot owing to the low standard of you I.Q.
JOE 9 years ago

Adjoa Wangara is so pissed that Kwarteng has never bothered to even acknowledge her presence and immature rants to his brilliant articles.Your postings show you are a very shallow minded individual without any critical thinki ...
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Adjoa Wangara is so pissed that Kwarteng has never bothered to even acknowledge her presence and immature rants to his brilliant articles.Your postings show you are a very shallow minded individual without any critical thinking skills. Poor SOUL!
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear JOE,

Good day.

The fact is that I don't read ADJOA WANGARA'S comments anymore. I stopped doing that last year. Moreover, there are respectable Ghanaweb readers (I won't mention names) who privately emailed me to ig ...
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Dear JOE,

Good day.

The fact is that I don't read ADJOA WANGARA'S comments anymore. I stopped doing that last year. Moreover, there are respectable Ghanaweb readers (I won't mention names) who privately emailed me to ignore him, in fact to stop responding to ADJOA WANGARA's comments, and to rather concentrate on more intelligent and constructive critics. Actually I skip his name any time I see it and move to other names.

In fact, I even make sure I don't see the titles he gives his comments. I also make sure to look at the right side under the POST BUTTON just to see which names are lined up there, and then I go ahead to respond to those I want to respond to. So please don’t bother, my Brother JOE.

I have always said other readers can read his comments for fun. As for me I care less what he writes. I don't even want to know what he writes about me or about my articles.

Finally, I will continue to ignore him as long as I write for Ghanaweb. My style of writing won't change either, the reason being that he is not among my target readership. I don't write for him.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks.
Jonas Ababio 9 years ago

From all indications,the conceited and ignorant Baidoo lacks an in-depth knowledge of African politics and global affairs.His article was full of lies,distortions and contradictions.

From all indications,the conceited and ignorant Baidoo lacks an in-depth knowledge of African politics and global affairs.His article was full of lies,distortions and contradictions.
Abongo 9 years ago

Thanks a lot

Thanks a lot
Abongo 9 years ago

Thanks a lot

Thanks a lot
Kojo T 9 years ago

Hi there happy and productive 2015 to you May your brain continue to function on 8 cylinders

Hi there happy and productive 2015 to you May your brain continue to function on 8 cylinders
JOE 9 years ago

Where is Kofi Atta he was the first person to theorize that the previous article was ready and waiting for an opportunity to be sent to the editor. Kofi what do you say to the current rapid response from Kwarteng?

Where is Kofi Atta he was the first person to theorize that the previous article was ready and waiting for an opportunity to be sent to the editor. Kofi what do you say to the current rapid response from Kwarteng?
IDRIS PACAS 9 years ago

What a write-up? Thanks!

What a write-up? Thanks!
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear Readers,

This piece is not the one intended for publication. I mistakenly sent this one to Ghanaweb. The actual one I intended for publication is on MODERNGHANA now.

In it, the one I intended for publication, I pr ...
read full comment

Dear Readers,

This piece is not the one intended for publication. I mistakenly sent this one to Ghanaweb. The actual one I intended for publication is on MODERNGHANA now.

In it, the one I intended for publication, I provide additional evidence from US Subcommittees, the State Department, Department of Justice, etc., and additional sources on declassified information.

More than that, I also show why Baidoo, Jr.'s commentary on Hernando De Soto, the Peruvian economist, is a complete lie. There are so many outright lies, factual errors, distortions, overgeneralization, and what have you, in Baidoo, Jr.'s piece that I wonder if he did any research before putting his piece together.

OF COURSE BAIDOO, JR.'S PIECE IS AN EMOTIONA, NOT AN INTELLECTUAL, PIECE. THUS, WE HAVE PROVIDED ENOUGHT EVIDENCE TO CORRECT THE ERRORS IN HIS PIECE!

I hope he learns from this piece. In any case we shall provide more incontrovertible evidence in the future. Here is the version I wanted published:

........................................................................................................................................................

RE: Using Cuba To Defend Nkrumahism Is Laughable

We should like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Philip Kobina Baidoo, Jr. for responding to our rejoinder. That aside, we should quickly add that though he made some efforts to respond to our piece, he failed abysmally to address most of the substantive issues we raised therein. We may, however, forgive him for serious intellectual lapses because, among other things, his frank admission on not reading Marx’s four-volume piece in its entirety (and other writings) we recommended for his perusal says a lot about where his intellect stands on important global issues. Thus, we shall not waste too much time on him.

How can anyone read one or two writings in a writer’s larger corpus of written works and decide to draw general conclusions? Who says the subject matter Marx discussed in his first volume is what he also discussed in his three other volumes? What sort of faulty reasoning is this? Using the same logic, however, can we read “Maps” in Nuruddin Farah’s so-called “Blood in the Sun” trilogy, and decide to draw general conclusions on “Secrets” and “Gifts” which are also in the trilogy? Can one even read a chapter or two of the same book and begin to draw general conclusions based on the book’s subject matter? Again, let us assume that Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s statement to the effect that he had only read the first volume in Marx’s four-part volume is hypothetical, nothing to be taken serious, but has it occurred to him that the summary he gave on Marx’s first volume may not be represented in the other three volumes?

Simply put, what Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s says about Marx’s first volume is not representative of Marx’s larger work. What we want to say, in effect, is that what Mr. Baidoo, Jr. attributes to Marx in his reading of the first volume is a “small” component of the larger context of Marx’s entire corpus of written works, and therefore, we cannot read too much into it. Does this not fall under fallacy of defective induction, faulty generalization, or overgeneralization? The issue we raise is analogous to reading Nkrumah’s 1967 “Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization” and then making general conclusions without also reading the revised version (1970). One word, one paragraph, one additional page, and a new introduction can make a huge difference in the general interpretation of two same books, one being a revised version of the other. Nkrumah’s revised position on the “class” nature of traditional African society, for instance, has created major divisions among scholars around the world as to what to make of the new information in the general exegesis of the two texts.

Another good example is Einstein’s forced use of “cosmological constant,” a constant he created to address a problem that did not fit the constant. Einstein, in fact, regretted inventing it and using it. What is more, he continued to use it over other mathematicians’ and physicists’ objections only to retract it later. At one time, Einstein even ignored the correct implications of his mathematical computations based on some of his ideas because, apparently, the German scientist Erwin F. Freundlich, his friend, had given him astronomical data that happened to be entirely correct about the Milky Way (See Amir D. Aczel’s “The Mystery of the Newly-Discovered Einstein Manuscript: Why Did He Come Back to Lambda?”).

Why does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. read too much into Marx’s first book and what, in his limited opinion, was Marx’s faulty reasoning with regard to some of the underlying assumptions for his theories? Of course, there is nothing wrong with aspects of Marx’s ideas being wrong. Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Babylonian, and Mesopotamian mathematics and science were not always right. Yet a revision of Ancient Egyptian calendar engendered the calendar we use today. We can say the same of mathematical pi and of hundreds of other ancient ideas. Even not every aspect of the moral philosopher Adam Smith’s ideas is relevant today. How much of today’s capitalism is owed to Adam Smith’s classical economics? How much of today’s Marxism is owed to Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ theories? How much of today’s evolution is owed to Charles Darwin (Alfred Russell Wallace and Al-Jahiz)? How does Darwin’s atheistic evolutionary theory different from Francis Collins’ theistic evolutionary theory? Did Isaac Newton, the man who gave us the Three Laws of Motion and Gravitational Theory, and Gottfried W. Leibniz, who together with Newton gave us calculus, infinitesimal calculus that is, dabble in alchemy, a now discredited science (now seen as pseudoscience; there is some evidence that point origin of infinitesimal calculus to India, which later made its way to Europe)?

Did Greek thinkers like Aristotle and Anaximander not advance the so-called spontaneous generation, generally meaning life forms originate from lifeless matter, a pseudoscience discredited by Louis Pasteur’s (and others’) germ theory? Again theories and hypotheses undergo radical changes all the time, so too are assumptions. And yet Karl Marx’s theories are not the only ones. It is why Leninism, Maoism, Stalinism, and Fidelism (Castroism) are variants of Marxism, as it were subject to the realities and dictates of circumstance, time, revisions, geography, and the like. Thus, the “infinite assumptions” which Mr. Baidoo, Jr. associated with Marx’s first volume can be found in natural science, mathematics, logic, philosophy, and other branches of social science, too. Even “labor time” is a staple of capitalism.

What are we saying? Our point is that Marxism and capitalism are merely theories and therefore not carved in stones or, alternatively, are not expected to work all the time. The Supply-Demand Curve, for instance, does not always work in practice. But it is always beautiful and workable in theory. Therefore, it is not everything that Adam Smith and Karl Marx said that should be religiously pursued to its logical conclusion in the complex praxis of human interactions (Note: “the supply-demand theory” is implied in Smiths’s “invisible hand concept”; insider trading (privileged information), incomplete information, monopolies, greed, patrimonial capitalism, time, politics, decisional irrationality, corruption, oligarchies, and geography are some of the variables that limit the operational utility of Smith’s “invisible hand theory,” the basis of free market; this is also why regulation and state intervention models are called for). If the markets are so predictable, for instance, how come Alan Greenspan and his team of world-class economists could not foresee America’s recession at the coming of the Obama Administration and putting corrective mechanisms in place to nip it in the bud?

The fact is that markets do fail all the time, and has actually been so throughout human history. This is one of the major criticisms leveled against Milton Friedman. This is where regulation, legislation, and state intervention come in. “But he slipped all too easily into claiming both that markets always work and that only markets work,” Paul Krugman writes of Milton Friedman. “It’s extremely hard to find cases in which Friedman acknowledged the possibility that markets could go wrong, or that government intervention could serve a useful purpose (See Krugman’s “Who Was Milton Friedman?”, the New York Book Review, Feb. 15, 2007). Krugman also maintains: “Friedman was wrong on some issues, and sometimes seemed less than honest with his readers, I regard him as a great economist and a great man.” Sadly, Mr. Baidoo did not inform his readers that Keynes’ economic theories had always been part of the political economy of the 20th century, that they are back in full swing in the 21st, and that Keynes’ work and ideas made the British Treasury more powerful.

It would also have enriched Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s central thesis if he had informed his readers that “Keynes was also one of the fathers of the 1944 Bretton Woods Accord, which established the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and which put in place a system of fixed exchange rates (See “Keynes’ Economic Theories Re-emerge in Government Intervention Policies,” PBS NEWSHOUR, Feb. 23, 2009).

Accordingly, we advise Mr. Baidoo, Jr. to go back and read the rest of the writings in Marx’s larger corpus in order to draw more informed conclusions about Marxist thought. Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s faulty generalization (“hasty generalization”) is unacceptable. Further, we pointed out that many of the issues Marx and Engel raised about the deficits of capitalism are still with us here today. In that regard, we still recommend Kenneth Lapidides’ edited volume “Marx and Engels on Trade Unions” Let us remind Mr. Baidoo, Jr. again what the French scholar Jacques Rancière had to say: “The domination of capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist Party that gives de-localized capitalist enterprises cheap labor to lower prizes and deprive workers of the rights of self-organization. Happily, it is possible to hope for a less absurd and more just than today’s (See Stuart Jeffrey’s article, ”WHY MARXISM IS ON THE RISE,’ The Guardian, July 4, 2012). How does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. account for this contradiction Prof. Rancière describes?

Moreover, we would like Mr. Baidoo, Jr. to pay more attention to this part of Jeffrey’s factual data: “That hope, perhaps, explains another improbable truth of our economically catastrophic times, THE REVIVAL IN MARX AND MARXIST THOUGHT. SALES OF DAS KAPITAL, MARX’S MASTERPIECE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, HAVE SOARED EVER SINCE 2008, AS HAVE THOSE OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO AND THE GRUNDRISSE (OR, TO GIVE IT IN ITS ENGLISH TITLE, OUTLINES OF THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY). THEIR SALES ROSE AS BRITISH WORKERS BAILED OUT BANKS TO KEEP THE DEGRADED SYSTEM GOING AND THE SNOUTS OF THE RICH FAMILY IN THEIR TROUGHS WHILE THE REST OF US STRUGGLE IN DEBT, JOB INSECURITY OR WORSE (our emphasis).”

“THERE’S EVEN A CHINESE THEATRE DIRECTOR CALLED HE NIAN WHO CAPITALIZED ON DAS KAPITAL’S RENAISSANCE TO CREATE AN ALL-SINGING, ALL-DANCING MUSICA,” Jeffrey continues, adding: “AND IN PERHAPS THE MOST LOVELY REVERSAL OF THE LUXURIANTLY BEARDED REVOLUTIONARY THEORIST’S FORTUNES, KARL MARX WAS RECENTLY CHOSEN FROM A LIST OF 10 CONTENDERS TO APPEAR ON A NEW ISSUE OF MasterCard BY CUSTOMERS OF GERMAN BANK SPARKASSE IN CHEMNITZ. IN COMMUNIST EAST GERMANY FROM 1953 TO 1990, CHEMNITZ WAS KNOWN AS KARL MARX STADT. CLEARLY, MORE THAN TWO DECADES AFTER THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, THE FORMER EAST GERMANY HASN’T AIRBRUSHED ITS MARXIST PAST (our emphasis).”

To Mr. Baidoo, Jr., here is some statistics for you (as per Jeffrey): “IN 2008, REUTERS REPORTS, A SURVEY OF EAST GERMANY FOUND 52% BELIEVED THE FREE-MARKET ECONOMY WAS “UNSUITABLE” AND 43% SAID THEY WANTED SOCIALISM BACK. KARL MARX MAY BE DEAD AND BURIED IN HIGHGATE CEMETARY, BUT HE IS ALIVE AND WELL AMONG CREDIT-HUNGRY GERMANS. WOULD MARX HAVE APPRECIATED THE IRONY OF HIS IMAGE BEING DEPLOYED ON A CARD TO GET GERMANS DEEPER IN DEBT? YOU THINK (our emphasis).”

Jeffrey continues: “THERE HAS BEEN A GLUT OF BOOKS TRUMPETING MARXISM’S RELEVANCE. ENGLISH LITERATURE PROFESSOR TERRY EAGLETON LAST YEAR PUBLISHED A BOOK CALLED “WHY MARX WAS RIGHT.” FRENCH MAOST PHILOSOPHER ALAIN BADIOU PUBLISHED A LITTLE RED BOOK CALLED “THE COMMUNIST HYPOTHESIS…”

Readers interested in this topic may want to go ahead and read Jeffrey’s entire article for additional information. On the other hand, the statistics Jeffrey gives as regards East Germany is nothing new, particularly surprising. There are similar statistics that can be extracted from around the world (we shall leave this as homework for Mr. Baidoo, Jr). Then also, how do we jive Jeffrey’s statistics with Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s statement: “To be honest, I haven’t read all the four volumes. I only read the first one, but it is full of such claptrap, even when I was dabbling in socialism I couldn’t believe what I was reading. In reality it is a book relevant to the era that it was written, that is me being modest, but not now.” What are many in advanced capitalist countries (and around the world) seeing in Karl Marx that Mr. Baidoo, Jr. fails to see? Why are capitalist societies bringing back Marx and his works? Why do Marxist theories continue to influence capitalist societies today? And why does the larger world still warm up to Marxist thinking?

As a matter of fact, what we intend achieving with these lengthy quotes, Jeffrey’s, is to reaffirm our contention, a thesis we broached in our earlier rejoinder to Mr. Baidoo, Jr., that neither communism nor socialism is dead. We cited an example where communist parties exist as part of ruling coalitions (governments) in a number of countries around the world. We also mentioned a few such countries. On this score, Mr. Baidoo, Jr. even accepts that socialism is alive and kicking, but so is communism. Did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. find out how much the Cuban government contributes to each Cuban’s medical bill, accommodation, food, education, etc? Did Mr. Baidoo. Jr. find out Cuba’s employment and homelessness statistics by comparing them to capitalist Ghana’s? Since Mr. Baidoo, Jr. seems to get the jitters when Communist Cuba is mentioned in connection with the Human Development Index (HDI), why did he not take it upon himself to prove to his readers why Cuba should not be in the Top 50 (2014) by, among other things, disproving the data collected by experts at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)? Did we not say Cuba was “not a nirvana” in our rejoinder to Mr. Baidoo, Jr., implying that she has her own challenges as any other country on the planet, including America, the world’s richest and largest economy?

Perhaps, once again, Mr. Baidoo, Jr. could help himself by reading Cornel West’s and Tavis Smiley’s book “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto,” and watching the authors’ bus-tour documentary otherwise called “The Poverty Tour: A Call To Conscience,” across poverty-ridden America (the authors argue that close to half of America’s population, 150 million, is near or actually live in poverty). Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. taken the time to assess Thomas Piketty’s work on wealth and income inequality and how it demolishes some of the major tenets of capitalism? What are we saying? Piketty has relied on data from the past 250 years to investigate how distortions in profit and economic growth rate, in the case where the former takes over the latter, in the long run lead to socioeconomic insecurity (See his work “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”). Accordingly, he has argued for progressive tax reforms to be undertaken on an international scale to neutralize the instability resulting from gross distortions between economic growth rates and profit generation. He has also blamed the rising tide of crony capitalism as constituting one of the major culprits behind socioeconomic inequalities around the globe.

Is it not surprising, then, that five decades of being under economic sanctions and without Ghana’s (Africa’s) vast natural wealth and the tens of billions of dollars African countries’ receive in foreign aid, Cuba still does better than capitalist Ghana, for instance, as measured by economic indices? We are even retrogressing developmentally with our oil and new-found mineral wealth! So what has Ghana been doing since Joseph Ankrah, Akwasi Afrifa, Nii Amaa Ollennu, K.A. Busia, Edward Akufo-Addo, I.K. Acheampong, Fred Akuffo, J.J. Rawlings, Hilla Limann, John Kufuor, John Atta Mills, and John D. Mahama, all capitalists? And why did the Mo Ibrahim Foundation ignore John Kufour for its prestigious “Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership” award if he did so well as Mr. Baidoo, Jr. says? Is it possible the award is reserved for Kufour in the future?

Then again, unlike the billions of dollars of foreign aid capitalist Ghana rakes in to improve her economy, has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. bothered to find out how much America’s economic embargo costs Cuba (and America IN TURN)? (See Portia Siegelbaum’s “Cuba: U.S. Embargo Causes $1 Trillion in Losses,” CBS News, Sept. 2011). The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, has said the embargo costs America $1.2 billion annually (and Cuba $685 million annually). What does this say about Communist Cuba and capitalist Ghana? Even Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s title is misleading. Where did we specifically use Cuban communism to support Nkrumahism? Where is Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s evidence for this titular speciousness? Did we not topically discuss the Beijing Consensus, the Nordic Consensus, the Washington Consensus (capitalism), socialism and communism, and “mixed economy,” and yet he selectively chose Cuban Communism for his groundless titular mischievousness? Is he mischievously implying that Nkrumah’s “mixed economy” is communism?

Having said that, how do we end this controversy on communism and the proven rightness of Karl Marx’s larger vision? We shall quote the late Prof. Eric Hobsbawn, a former British historian, on this: “Contradictions of a market system based on no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment,’ a system of exploitation and of ‘endless accumulation’ can never be overcome: that at some point in a series of transformations and restructurings the development of this essentially destabilizing system will lead to a state of affairs that can no longer be described as capitalism” ( See Stuart Jeffrey’s article and 2012 edition (introduction) of “The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition”).

Mr. Baidoo, Jr. also writes: “Now, to the most useless part of his diatribe against my piece, which he cobbled together the names of writers he claims I must read to keep abreast with his work of fiction… To pour out those pages of words without personal critical analysis of the facts, but constant references to other peoples work is a sure sign of inferiority complex.” What does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. mean by mentioning Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlick, Al Gore, Kenneth Galbraith, etc, without citing their works and critiquing them? Is he also implying he has inferiority complex? Does Molefi Kete Asante, Ama Mazama, Wole Soyinka, Marimba Ani, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Noam Chomsky, Kofi Kissi Dompere, and several writers around the world suffering from inferiority complex because they constantly reference other people’s works in their works? And who says we do not know these writers and their works, Carson’s, Al Gore’s, Galbraith’s, and Ehrlich’s? Do you have to be a capitalist to be an environmentalist? (like Rachel Carson; see the article “Rachel Carson’s Ecological Critique,” Monthly Review, Volume 59, Issue 9, Feb. 2008,)? Was Carson not influenced by socialist ideals? (See how left-wing/socialist ideas influenced Rachel Carson; Brett Clark and John B. Foster are the authors of the said article. Check under the ECOLOGY section)?

And was Al Gore not directly influenced by Rachel Carson too? “For me personally, Silent Spring had a profound,” writes Al Gore (See Al Gore’s presentation paper “Introduction to 25th Anniversary Edition of ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Spring” at Indiana University). “Silent Spring” was a book Rachel Carson authored. This book and the controversy it generated led to the creation of America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)! Let us recall that Al Gore has not been largely successful (with his environmental campaign and “An Inconvenient Truth”) in terms of originating serious international regulation/legislations to counter global warming/environmental destruction because private profit (capitalism; free market) has remained grave obstacles to his agenda.

This is what Joe Kay meant when he wrote: “A serious response to the environmental damage already sustained and the threat of truly catastrophic future damage REGUIRES A TRANSFORMATION OF A SOCIALIST CHARATER. Global warming cannot be solved within the framework of a system distinguished by the existence of rival nation-states and the subornation of all decisions to the interests of private profit (our emphasis; see Kay’s article “Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: Political Posturing and the Democratic Party”; see also Fawzi Ibrahim’s book “Capitalism Versus Planet Earth: An Irreconcilable Conflict”). The Kyoto Protocol suffered from similar reasons (and others). Yet Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize (with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate (IPCC)) did not generate as much negative controversy as Kenyan Wangari Maathai’s? Why? Some also see Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize as a “sympathy award” after he had lost the presidency to George W. Bush, an election some claimed to have been rigged for Bush.

And by mentioning Al Gore, was Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s making reference to Al Gore’s lie that he invented the internet (Readers can read the transcript here “A Cautionary Tale for Politicians: Al Gore and the ‘Invention,’ The Washington Post, Nov. 4, 2013; CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Al Gore in March 8, 1999 when he committed the public gaffe; the video for the interview in question is also here).

On the other hand, Al Gore’s book “The Assault on Reason” deals with everything that is wrong with American democracy and capitalism. For instance, he discusses why Congress consistently refused to pass legislation to keep a check on the tuna industry in America for ignoring high levels of mercury in tuna, while continuing to sell them to the American public (Al Gore mentioned this in his book; I have since not followed up on this controversial question if the US Congress has passed such a legislation as of this writing. I stand to be corrected, though). We also want to add that American left-wing politicians and scholars have been influenced by one socialist/communist ideal of another, as Paul R. Gregory argues in his Jan. 22, 2012 Forbes article “Is President Obama A Socialist?”

“By ‘socialist,” Paul writes, “I do not mean a Lenin, Castro, or Mao, but whether Obama falls within the mainstream of contemporary socialism as represented, for example, by Germany’s Social Democrats, French Socialists, or Spain’s socialist-workers part? BY THIS CRITERION, YES, OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST (our emphasis).” We implore readers to read the 2011 Declaration of Principles of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and see for themselves how they favorably compare with the policies of the Obama Administration. Paul concludes after closely studying PES’s 2011 Declaration and the Obama Administration’s policies: “If the Party of European Socialists were to rate Obama, he would get a near perfect score. The political views and programs that Obama is prepared to reveal to the public are consistent with those of European socialists. He is clearly a socialist in the European sense of the term.” Paul could not have been right!

Finally, Paul reminds us that “Marxism provided the intellectual foundations of the European welfare state.” But Paul need not have gone that far. Obama’s writings clearly demonstrate socialist influences on his political and intellectual development. Is it any wonder that Republicans are claiming the Obama Healthcare Act, his newly proposed “free” community college education, progressive tax policies and redistribution of wealth, etc., are socialist? Yet Obama’s state capitalism (or state intervention) saved the American economy, particularly American banks and some in the auto-industry from virtual collapse. Some have called Obama’s state intervention policies “socialist state intervention” (See “GM’s Main Street Bondholders Would Lose, Lawyer Says,” Bloomberg News, May 28, 2009. Authors: Christopher Scinta/Tiffany Kary; see also Jon Greenberg’s “Did President Obama Save the Auto Industry,” Sept. 6, 2012, Tampa Bay Times). Where is Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s take on Obama’s state capitalism and the revival of the American economy? Neither does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. inform us that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which the Obama Administration pursued and consequently deployed to revamp the American economy, bringing the American economy back to its feet in other words, is Keynesian, and that Keynes influenced the policies of John F. Kennedy, too!

How about Keynes’ work “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” and its proven predictions about Germany’s development in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles, formation of the League of Nations, precursor of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan (and the book’s prescriptive parallels with America’s recent Wall Street economic meltdown)? Could Mr. Baidoo, Jr. deliberately tell us how Keynes’ work strengthened the British Treasury? Or, how Labor Prime Minister James Callahan’s 1976 denunciation of Keynesian economics coincided with the international prominence of Milton Friedman’s economics, the same year Friedman received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, bearing in mind that Friedman probably constituted the most vocal critic of Keynes, at least in America, at the time and throughout his academic career and social life?

Lastly, Frankin D. Roosevelt’s reliance on Keynesian economics is what has made America today. Many of America’s physical infrastructures and some of America’s powerful institutions in existence today derived from his New Deal, which, in turn, relied heavily on John Maynard Keynes’ “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.” Social Security, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Federal Crop Insurance Corporation ( FCIC), Tennessee Valley Authority, 40-hour worksheet, abolition of child labor, unemployment benefits, etc., all resulted from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s deployment of Keynesian state capitalism (state intervention). As a matter of fact, Keynesian economics is still part of the Washington Consensus, the Beijing Consensus (Chinese Model, command economy) and the Nordic Model. Contrary to what other may think, it has not disappeared into thin air. In fact, Keynes did neither place complete emphasis on nor exclusively direct only governments to run their economies. He merely gave governments a prescriptive formula for specific roles they should play in reviving depressive economics.

Keynes made this clear in his influential book “The General Theory.” Indeed he recognized the role of the private sector as well. Paul Krugman, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2008), writes: “Keynes did not, despite what you may have heard, want the government to run the economy. He described his analysis in his 1936 masterwork,” The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,’ as ‘moderately conservative in its implications.’ He wanted to fix capitalism, not replace it. BUT HE DID CHALLENGE THE NOTION THAT FREE-MARKET ECONOMIES CAN FUNCTION WITHOUT A MINDER, EXPRESSING PARTICULAR CONTEMPT FOR FINANCIAL MARKETS, WHICH HE VIEWED AS BEING DOMINATED BY SHORT-TERM SPECULATION WITH LITTLE REGARD FOR FUNDAMENTALS. AND HE CALLED FOR ACTIVE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION…TO FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT DURING SLUMPS (our emphasis; see ”How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” the New York Times, Sept. 2, 2009).

Krugman also says that no economic model, not even the economic models developed by Joseph Schumpeter or by the classical economics, provided satisfactorily answers to address the American crisis (the Great Depression) and, as a result, American economists and politicians turned to the Keynesian model of state intervention. And it worked. Keynesian economics saved American capitalism. In other words, Krugman is implying here that Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” had no answer to the American crisis or the Great Depression that rocked the world. Is Europe probably not the biggest user of the Keynesian model in various disguises? How about Canada and New Zealand? We may want to ask again: What is wrong with having one’s theory replaced by another’s? Does this not happen all the time? Even the late influential economist Milton Friedman, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1976), and his Chicago School did everything to overthrow the Keynesian model. Today, Friedman economics is under attack where the weakness and deficits of his theories have been exposed (See Noami Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism; see Paul Krugman’s work on Milton Friedman; there are several others).

What is more, it is no wonder Friedman tried to distance himself from the Chilean murderous dictator Augusto Pinochet, under whom the former served as adviser. Why does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. incorrectly claim Keynesian economics is dead when it is not? Why does he fault Keynes and Marx but leave the classical economists alone? Why does he make too much of Marx’s faulty underlying reasons for his ideas, at least as expressed in Marx’s first volume? Does Marxism have all the answers? Does capitalism have all the answers? Henri Poincare, Hendrik Lorentz, David Gilbert, Karl Schwartzman, Albert Einstein, Marcel Grossman and others contributed to the development of Special Relativity and General Relativity, both of which significantly revised Newtonian physics. Newton, on the other hand, revised or changed Aristotelian (or classical Greek physics). Copernican (Indian physics and the physics of Kepler/Galileo) heliocentrism revised Ptolemaic geocentrism. Now, as of this writing, there is a vigorous search for an alternative theory to explain the world as neither Relativity nor Newtonian physics sufficiently explains every phenomenon of the natural world. It is why we have string theory. Finally, what is wrong citing others’ works to support one’s own?

Furthermore, there are even speculations that the recent research undertaken by CERN did produce results that invalidate Relativity but, of course, there is a consensus on a possible cover-up (We discussed this question with Dr. Chandra Kant Raju, one of the world’s leading authorities on Einstein. Dr. Raju proved one of Einstein’s major calculations wrong and developed a mathematical model to correct it, earning him the prestigious Telesio-Galileo Academy of Science Award (2010). Dr. Raju who had closely followed the CERN experiment and is of the view that Western physicists do not want to discredit Einstein. We take this as a controversial allegation, though). Neither was Charles Darwin the originator of evolution (See Ah-Jahiz and Alfred Russel Wallace). We could say the same of socialism/communism and Marx/Engels. Darwin was a member of a club that held discussions on evolution and other naturalist ideas before he embarked on the theory. Marx also belonged to socialist organizations before formally delving fully into socialist theory. Chinua Achebe got the title “Things Fall Apart” from W.B. Yeats’ poetic piece “The Second Coming.” Joseph Conrad’s “Hear of Darkness” challenged Achebe to produce a work that indicted Conrad’s novelistic work on Africa (See Achebe’s essay “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness”; readers can find this essay in his book “Hopes and Impediments”).

Tsitsi Dangarembga, the Zimbabwean author of the post-colonial classic “Nervous Condition,” got the title from Jean-Paul Sartre’s introduction to Fanon’s book “The Wretched of the Earth.” Shakespeare’s Othello came straight from Leo Africanus’ book “A Geographical History of Africa” and Cinthio’s 1565 book “Hecatommithi.” Molefi Kete Asante developed his Afrocentric theory by reading Kwame Nkrumah, Cheikh Anta Diop, WEB Du Bois, and others. We also know how much of the Bible comes straight from the Epic of Gilgamesh, etc. The list is endless. The central question again is: What is wrong for one to cite his/her sources to develop his subject matter? What does plagiarism do to one’s intellectual credibility? Is Einstein not being posthumously attacked and censured today for failing to list his sources when freely appropriating others’ ideas was a general practice then? What is wrong with reading to expand one’s horizon? Did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. expect us to prove critiques for all the sourced we cited in our rejoinder? How long will that take? Is he aware that many writings harbor internal critiques of their own?

Or, does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. mistakes the little and shallow summary he presented in his essays for serious critique? Nothing of the sort he did in both essays comes anywhere close to the methodology of critique! Besides, one learns to critique using facts, logical argumentation, sources, and scientific data, not sentimentalism, ad hominem tactics, and covert insults, etc., something we avoided in our first rejoinder.

Back to one of our preoccupations. Unfortunately, Obama cannot take all the credit for saving American banks, American auto industry, and the American economy from collapse. Individuals in control of drug cartels and profits from international drug trafficking deserve part of the credit, too (See Ed Vulliamy’s “How a Big US Bank Laundered Billions from Mexico’s Murderous Drug Gangs,” The Guardian, April 2, 2100; Michael Smith’s “Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal,” Bloomberg News, June 28, 2010; Avinash Tharoor’s piece “Banks Launder Billions of Illegal Cartel While Snubbing Legal Marijuana Business,” Huffington Post, Sept. 22, 2014; John Burnett’s “Awash in Cash, Drug Cartels Rely On Big Banks to Launder Profits,” National Public Radio, March 20, 2014; Angelo Young’s “Citi, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Were Channels for Sending Drug Money to Colombia, Court Filings Show,” International Business Times, Sept. 12, 2014). Did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. read Dawn Paley’s book “Drug War Capitalism” for hard evidence on the slippery relationship among capitalism, drug cartels, money laundering, and drug trafficking?

Bloomberg Markets Magazine has also reported on the roles Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp., America’s biggest banks, played in financing drug trafficking through money laundering activities. It is probably public knowledge that American banks, like their Swiss counterparts, heavily rely on laundered money and money stolen stashed in their banks by kleptomaniacs! Mr. Baidoo, Jr. may want to watch, to read the transcript, or to listen to the interview between Brad Birkenfeld, an employee of Union Bank of Switzerland (UUBS), and the folks Democracy Now to understand how both Swiss and American banks train their employees to hide stolen money in their banks. The American Internal Revenue Service (IRS) awarded Birkenfeld a whopping US$104 million for exposing the banks involved in this scandal (See “Whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld Rewarded Record $104M for Exposing How UBS Helped Rich Evade Taxes,” Democracy Now, Sept. 12, 2012).

More surprisingly, it turns out American and Swiss Banks have similar secrecy laws that protect criminals. Birkenfeld’s whisleblowing alone has exposed 46,000 Americans tax evaders, thus far, thanks to free market economy and loopholes in global capitalism.

Now to Boris Yeltsin. Did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. ever try finding out how between $4.2 billion to $10 billion disappeared under Boris Yeltsin, the chronic alcoholic, ending up in the Bank of New York (See “Foreign Loans Diverted in Monster Money Laundering,” World Bank)? “The legacy of Boris Yeltsin,” writes Justin Raimondo in “The Legacy of Boris Yeltsin,” “who presided over what Paul Klebnikov described as ‘ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT REGIMES IN HISTORY,’ is, quite literary, the death agony of the Russian nation” (our emphasis).” Vladimir Volkov also writes in “The Bitter Legacy of Boris Yeltsin: “…the Yeltsin ‘generation of utter cynics’ was filled with people ‘who, without the slightest bit of embarrassment, were thoroughly corrupt and totally indifferent to the ideas that formed the foundation of the country.”

Volkov continues: “AT THE SAME TIME CRIMINALITY AND CORRUPTION FLOURISHED IN RUSSIA. ONE SCANDAL THAT OCCURRED AT THE TIME OF YELTSIN’S REELECTION CAMPAIGN IN 1996 BECAME A SYMBOL OF THIS CORRUPTION. AT THAT TIME, TWO HIGH-RANKING FUNCTIONARIES IN THE YELTSIN PREELECTION HEADQUARTERS WERE SEIZED WITH $500 MILLION OF CASH THAT THEY HAD BEEN CARRYING OUT OF GOVERNMENT BUILDING. ANOTHER SIMILAR SUCH SCANDAL, THE ‘BANK OF NEW YEAR’ AFFAIR, HAPPENED THREE YEARS LATER WHEN IT BECAME KNOWN THAT BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAD BEEN HIDDEN IN WESTERN BANK ACCOUNTS AS PART OF A MONEY LAUNDERING SCHEME TO SHELTER THE INCOMES OF RUSSIAN OLIGARCRHS UNDER THE PROTECTION OF LEADING GOVERNMENT BEREAUCRATS AND WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF WESTERN BUSINESS (our emphasis).” It was also Yeltsin who appointed Putin which, and according to Volkov: “was entirely in keeping with the logic of the restoration of capitalism.”

In fact it was Bill Clinton who, in the 1990s, would return most of the stolen money to Russia. So, what is Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s boring reference to Boris Yeltsin, a kleptomaniacal capitalist drunkard, all about, if we may ask? Boris Yeltsin was as corrupt as the 46,000 Americans who had their stolen money hidden in Swiss bank accounts. “Between 1992 and 1994, the rise in the death rate in Russia was so dramatic that Western demographers did not believe the figures,” Raymond maintains. These terrible statistics occurred under Yeltsin’s watch presidency. The question is: What were Yeltsin and his kleptomaniacal cliques doing with Russia’s money when Russians died from preventable causes? Yeltsin’s heaping praises on American capitalism, in Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s reckoning, while capitalizing on Russian capitalism to enrich himself, his family, and his friends, is shameful. Why did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. mention Yeltsin in his piece at all knowing full well that his record is probably one of the worst in Russian history? This is not how intellectuals protect his credibility. It is never done anywhere, citing incredible and questionable characters as one’s authority! In other words, Mr. Baidoo, Jr. should have read about Yeltsin before including him as a source!

That brings us to the issues of the subprime crisis, race, racism, credit crunch, and the US government (the US Justice Department). Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America paid US$36 billion for their racist treatment of minorities and other poor Americans (See “Citgroup Will Pay $7 Billion to Settle Justice Department Investigation into Subprime,” CNBC/Reuters, July 14, 2014; see also Dean Starkman’s “Wrecking an Economy Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry,” New Republic, Aug. 20, 2014). With regards to the subprime crisis and racism, New York Post writer Paul Sperry notes: “In the 1990s, convinced that the US mortgage was RACIST, the Clinton Administration launched a massive campaign of social engineering…They targeted private banks with discrimination lawsuits if they didn’t lend to enough minorities…” (our emphasis; See “Re-Inflating the Bubble,” April 2013).

Another writer David Dayen also notes: “Indeed, the subprime loans in the 2000s were either originated by or funded by our biggest banks. Coates recognizes this, pointing out that THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUCCESSFULLY SUED NOT FLY-BY-NIGHT ORGINATORS, BUT WELLS FARGO AND BANK OF AMERICA, OVER HOUSING DISCRIMINATION. LOAN OFFICERS AT WELLS FARGO, THE LEADING ORIGINATOR OF HOME LOANS TO ETHNIC MINORITIES, REFERRED TO BLACK CUSTOMERS AS ‘MUD PEOPLE’ AND THEIR OFFERINGS AS ‘GHETTO LOANS.’ The problem in the 1960s was that black people couldn’t get loans; the problem in the present is that they can too easily (our emphasis; See ‘African-Americans Are Still Being Victimized by the Mortgage Market,” New Republic, May 27, 2014; see also Steve Dibert’s “Appraisal Fraud and the Impact of Valuation on Foreclosure Defense”). Readers can go to the US Justice Department website and read the following: “JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REACHES $335 MILLION SETTLEMENT TO RESOLVE ALLEGATIONS OF LENDING DISCRIMINATION BY COUNTRYWIDE FINANCIAL CORPORATION (our emphasis).”

The same website (Justice Department) reports: “MORE THAN 200,000 AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND HISPANIC BORROWERS WHO QUALIFIED FOR LOANS WERE CHARGED HIGHER FEES OR PLACED INTO SUBPRIME LOANS (our emphasis).” Dayen maintains elsewhere: “I CORRESPOND WITH HOMEOWNERS ABUSED BY THE SYSTEM ON AN ALMOST DAILY BASIS. THE MAJORITY ARE BLACK OR HISPANIC (our emphasis).” Where is Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s evidence that capitalism does not work alongside racism? Given that we have provided incontrovertible evidence from the US Department of Justice and from other federal bodies to support our claims of racism and capitalism, what has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. finally got to say about dishonesty and the Libor Scandal, capitalism, housing discrimination and the Subprime Crisis (which forced the US Government to make American companies pay tens of billions of dollars in fines)? Where is Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s evidence to prove the US Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) wrong? Lest we are not misunderstood, we are not implying that only banks in capitalist societies are involved in corruption. We are merely pushing the idea that capitalism makes such high-profile corruption cases possible and easy of execution. Even communists and socialists who steal their countries’ money are aided by capitalist businessmen in Western societies.

Again, readers may want to read David Dayen’s full article “Bank of America Whistleblower’s Bombshell: ‘We Were Told to Lie’“ for additional surprising information and hard data. Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. heard of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and what it responsibilities are? Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. ever known that a number of American States threatened to secede from the Union should Obama win his second elections? Twenty states were involved in the said lawsuit (See Jake Miller’s Nov. 14, 2012 CBS News article “States Petition to Secede from Union”; see also Elizabeth Dias’s Nov. 14, 2012 Time article “Obama’s Re-Election Inspires Southern Secessionists”).

Does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. know why these states wanted to secede? Does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. know why some Americans persisted in asking Obama to prove his citizenship even when he has made that evidence available to the public? Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. ever heard of racial profiling? Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. seen any study that seeks to attach money to racism (See Donnell Alexander’s piece “Racism Literally Costs America $2 Trillion…Ready to Stop Payment?”)? Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. seen the W.K. Kellog Foundation Report “The Business Cost for Racial Equity (Quantifies the Cost of Racism in the US)? Finally, regarding the Peruvian economist and his views on property rights, could Mr. Baidoo, Jr. go back and read Hernando De Soto’s work “The Mystery of Capitalism: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere” again and then come back to tell readers that the data and examples he uses are global in scope and that his Peruvian background is just one of the many examples he uses? After all, De Soto’s position on property rights and capitalism is not largely a personal opinion as Mr. Baidoo, Jr. would have us believe, given that it is based on factual data and as failures of the market shows. We have all seen how the Great Depression of the early part of the 20th century, recessions and Subprime Crisis in the 21st century, and other such examples weaken capitalism and undermine investors’ faith in free market capitalism

Did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. ever hear of ex-President Nicholas Sarkozy and other European leaders saying France (and the rest of Europe) should do more to provide opportunities for minorities in the wake of Obama’s election? Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. ever tried to find out how much ethnocentrism (“tribalism”) and ethno-political wars have and, still continue, to cost Africa in financial terms? How much does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. know about racism in the modeling industry, for instance? Are racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, religious and cultural terrorism not real? How much has ethnocentrism contributed to Africa’s GDP and development? Is Mr. Baidoo, Jr. willing to search for answers as to why Afro-Cubans have fared relatively better under Castro’s communism than under Fulgencio Batista’s capitalism? Since Mr. Baidoo, Jr. says racism does not exist, has he bothered to read sociologist John Solomos’ “Race and Racism in Britain”?

Has Mr. Baidoo, Jr. seen the NatCen’s British Social Attitudes report on racism? And then there is the surprising statement from Mr. Baidoo’ Jr. that Noam Chomsky exhibits pathological hatred for his country, America. Where could Mr. Baidoo, Jr. possibly have got this skewed, ill-informed statement from? If Mr. Baidoo, Jr. had taken his time to read Chomsky, he would surely have noticed how much this professor painstakingly relies on declassified and congressional data, among others, to make his case! Has Chomsky not received tons of honorary degrees from some of the world’s best universities (for his scholarship)? Is Chomsky also not a respected member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences? What is Mr. Baidoo, Jr. afraid of knowing by reading Chomsky’s scholarly works? Has Justice Studies Association Chomsky Award (or “Social Activist Award”) not been named in his honor? Have Chomsky not made America and the world proud by his numerous contributions to artificial science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, logic, computer science, mathematics, music theory, programming language theory, and political science? It is sad how much Mr. Baidoo, Jr. misses out by failing to read Chomsky, a scholar whose political science theories would certainly have expanded the former’s horizon and enriched his intellectual experience!

Then also, has Chomsky not been honored with the American Psychological Association’s prestigious recognition “the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award”? Did the British Prospect magazine (2005) not rank him as the No. 1 public intellectual in the world for his global intellectual influence and activism (See also Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers)? Has Noam Chomsky not been ranked the 7th by the New Statesman (2006) in its list titled, “Heroes of Our Time-The Top 50”? Why then are American institutions honoring if he displays pathological hatred for his country? Could it not equally be said that he wants his country to become a better country, hence his righteous criticisms and censure of America’s internal and foreign policies? Who loves America more than Noam Chomsky? Could it be more prudent if Mr. Baidoo, Jr. should give us a better reason than the flimsy one he has given us? How many of Chomsky’s books had he read to make that conclusion? Could it be that Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s conclusions about Chomsky are based on the latter’s public debates, most of which he wins anyway, and public interviews? We want to know!

Now returning to other matters, is it not strange that Mr. Baidoo, Jr. will not read Adolf Hitler too? Of course Mr. Baidoo, Jr. is entitled to his position not to read Hitler. Reading one author as opposed to anther is a personal choice no one should disrespect. On this score, however, we shall not fault Mr. Baidoo, Jr. We, on the other hand, have read Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” for a number of reasons. It bears pointing out that scholars, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and historians from around the world have studied Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” Other scholars have also studied and researched the book as a serious inquest of political theory. Besides, transcripts from the Nuremberg Trials cannot say what Hitler could say about himself in his book. Also, the work of Yale University genocide scholar and researcher Ben Kiernan sheds light on Hutu militants’ usage of writings by Hitler (and other Nazi writings) during the Rwanda Genocide (See Kiernan’s book “Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur”).

Thus, Kiernan’s work and the question of the Hutu militants’ ideological identification with Hitler and Nazism drove us to read Hitler. For instance, we wanted to understand why Hitler hated Jews, capitalists, communists, the handicapped, the Roma (“Gypsies”), homosexuals, and others so much. The question is: Why did Hitler’s National Socialism make room for private property but, rather strangely, reject capitalism? How do we account for the source of this glaring contradiction? We should not overlook the fact that Keynes’ dire predictions in “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” and his position on the implications of the Treaty of Versailles played out in Hitler’s political development. This is not to justify the Holocaust, something we condemn in no uncertain terms. But Hitler did not invent Nazism. Neither is South Africa’s Apartheid nor America’s Jim Crow substantially different from Nazism. They share many things in common. For instance, Nazi Germany used concentration camps in South West Africa, now Namibia, before its appearance during the Holocaust. Nazi Germany also applied eugenics, human experiment, forced starvation to Namibia’s Namaqua and Hereros way before they appeared in Nazi Germany (See David Olusoga’s and Casper W. Erichsen’s book “The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism”).

In fact, the Herero and Namaqua Genocide is the first of its kind in recorded modern history (See the United Nations’ Whitaker Report (1985). Significantly, David and Casper show in their work that some of the German scientists and officials involved in the Herero and Namaqua Genocide later joined Hitler’s movement, consequently, making their Namibian Holocaust knowledge and expertise available to Nazis. That aside, there a Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein who says Nazi Germany appropriate the idea of “concentration camp” from the British who used it during the Boer Wars (First Anglo-Boer War and Second Anglo-Boer War) (See Finkelstein’s “The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering”). The following works by some of the leading Jewish scholars and writers shed light on major controversies associated with Hitler, Nazism, capitalism, and the Holocaust:

1) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Hannah Arendt)

2)51 Documents: Zionists Collaboration with the Nazis (Lenni Black)

3)War Against the Weak : Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (Edwin Black; Hitler and his Nazi clique appropriated many of America’s ideas on eugenics and applied them to others during the Holocaust; readers should also read Harriet A. Washington’s book “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans FROM Colonial Times to the Present”; Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”; and the work of South Africa’s Apartheid-era Dr. Wouter Basson (Dr. Death); let also remember what Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, Francisco Marcias Nguema, and other African despots have done to their fellow Africans; Boko Haram, Al-Shabab, the Lord’s Resistance Army).

4)The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine (Edwin Black)

5)IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation (Edwin Black)

6)Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust (Edwin Black)

What is more, Prof. Dan Silverman has shown how Hitler’s policies industrialized Germany and how he also solved Germany’s unemployment problem, with Prof. Silverman concluding that Hitler’s notable achievements include, but not limited to, bringing Germany out of the Great Depression, building massive road networks and houses across the country. He even provides data to prove how Hitler’s economic program achieved successes far beating most in the industrialized world (See Professor’s “Hitler’s Economy: Nazi Work Creation Programs, 1933-1936). Hitler’s “economic miracle” and industrialization gave the world the foundations of space technology, ballistic technology, etc. German U-boat technology contributed to improving research on modern submarine technology, and German scientists helped make Russian and American space programs possible. These notable achievements somehow parallel the solid foundations which Stalin, Nehru, and Mao built for the USSR’’s, India’s, and China’s development.

Of course, Hitler partly relied on “slave” labor to achieve his economic miracle, so too did American (and Western) capitalism build on slavery and the slaughter of millions of people. Let us not overlook the fact slavery partly contributed to Britain’s Industrial Revolution! Therefore, what is the moral basis for Mr. Baidoo, Jr. selective criticism of others who have done exactly what the capitalists have done before them? Mr. Baidoo, Jr. could at least have gone into Keynes’ “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” and the Treaty of Versailles so as to leave readers in a better appreciation of why Germany became what it was prior to and the ascendency of Nazi Germany. The rise of Hitler and Nazism would probably not have happened if the world had listened to John Maynard Keynes.

Keynes’ predictions in “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” that Germany was being unfairly treated, among other criticisms, could not be divorced from the realities that accompanied the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany and all the terrible things associated with Germany in the 1930s and 1940s! Of the debatable casualty figure that Mr. Baidoo, Jr. attributes to Hitler, what percentage is attributed to the USSR, Japan, Europe, America, etc? Mr. Baidoo, Jr. should have explored Wall Street’s financing of Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany. Powerful evidence exists to prove this shameful relationship. Antony C. Sutton’s three-volume piece “Wall Street and The Rise of Hitler” and Glen Yeadon’s “The Nazi and his “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution” and Glen Yeadon’s “Hydra in America: Suppressed History of a Century (Wall Street and the Rise of the Fourth Reich)” provide extensive evidence to back this relationship.

Declassified documents based on the US Subcommittee on War Mobilization of the Military Affairs Committee’s investigations (Kilgore Committee, 1942) show American and European industrial capitalists offering financial support to Nazi organizations and communists. Some of the evidence also comes from the US State Department, etc. Information on names of individual capitalist financiers of communists and Nazi organizations, names of industries and institutions, letters, amounts of money given to Nazis groups and communists, declassified data, etc., are given in detail.

Is it not ironic that Russian communism produced some of the world’s most influential writers, scientists, mathematicians, Nobel Laureates, etc., as opposed to capitalist African countries, including Ghana? Is it not ironic that some Russian writers under communism received the Nobel Prize in Literature while J.K. Rowling has not received one yet (We are not implying that the Nobel Prize is everything or that Rowling cannot receive one in the future)? Is it not also ironic that Mr. Baidoo, Jr. selectively mentioned Mao but failed to mention America’s Founding Fathers’ and slavocracy and slave ownership, European decimination of Native Americans and Australian Aborigines, and King Leopold’s slaughter of 10 million Congolese? Why did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. also fail to tell his readers which of our sources were socialist, and which capitalist? Since when did the US Congress that founded the Federal Reserve System become socialist? Who was the Mr. Baidoo, Jr.’s socialist that founded the Federal Reserve System? Could Mr. Baidoo, Jr. identify this socialist for us?

Were socialists behind the banking panics that prompted the creation of the Federal Reserve System? Were socialists behind the 1907 financial crisis involving the New York Stock Exchange? Again who were these socialists behind the financial crisis of 1907? If capitalist countries do not wage wars indiscriminately, what sort of wars do they engage in? Were socialists the cause of America’s recession under the Obama Administration? Are capitalists always right, socialists always wrong? Who introduced commercial or chattel slavery in the Americas, Africans, Europeans, or Native Americans? And what has mercantilism got to do with World War 1 and World War 2, as mercantilism lasted from the 16th to the 18th century? Where are the empirical data on the failure of Nkrumah’s socialism?

The other central question is: Why did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. cite others to make his case? Is it only Baidoo, Jr., not Francis Kwarteng, who can and is also obliged to cite sources for his work? And did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. come into this world with the knowledge he professes upon birth? What kind of education did Mr. Baidoo, Jr. receive or which schools did he attend in his mother’s womb before his birth? Those are not insults, if I may add. They are merely to shed light on the fact that the human brain is “tabula rasa” at the point of birth and that only time fills it up with information. We may also encourage Mr. Baidoo, Jr. to take a long walk back to 7-10,000 or 500 years of human history or limit himself to the 20th century if he cannot agree to the first proposition. He should drown himself in the history of scholarship, history of knowledge, sociology of state formation and statecraft, history of science, history of philosophy, classical scholarship, etc. That is the only way he can advance powerful arguments.

Finally, we may want to stress that we have adopted a centrist position on the question of political economy because neither capitalism nor socialism (and communism) is the best for every society or has all the answers. The Nordic Model or Nkrumah’s “mixed economy” may hold the key to unraveling Africa’s economic success if we are willing to study the Beijing Consensus and the Nordic Model.

We shall end with a list of international recognitions given Nkrumah:

1)The World Veterans federation “World Peace Prize” (1954)

2)Man of the Millennium (BBC, 1999)

3)Gold Medal (Special Session, United Nations, 1978)

4)Millennium Excellence Award 2000 Recipient?Personality of the Century (Excellent Awards Foundation, Ghana)

5)Biennial Kwame Nkrumah International Conference (Canada’s Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Lincoln Univeristy). The Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Coca-Cola Foundation, and the Office of Research and Scholarship and the Sociology Department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University have supported the conference.

6)The International Lenin Peace Prize (1962; Paul Robeson, WEB Du Bois, Pablo Neruda (Nobel Prize in Literature), Linus Pauling (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Peace Prize), and Nelson Mandela all received this Prize).

7)African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Awards (African Union, 2008)

8)Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (Howard University, Nkrumah papers)

9)100 Greatest Africans of All Time (New African Magazine, 2004)

10)The SATMA Awards (South African government, Ingwe Mabalabala, the National Heritage Council of South Africa). Mr. Enoch Ampofo who received the award on behalf of Nkrumah’s family and the Ghanaian learned this fact while in South Africa. He notes: “Gaining perspectives into how Dr. Kwame Nkrumah has affected the lives of people in South Africa, I found out that back in the days of Apartheid, the oppressed people went to school and were taught about the principles of Kwame Nkrumah or Nkrumahism.”

We shall return…

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ADJOA WANGARA 9 years ago

People will bear with me why I keep on saying Kwarteng is a fool, who will copy all sorts of nonsense and post them anyhow without even realising when and where to post.

A stupid fool indeed!

People will bear with me why I keep on saying Kwarteng is a fool, who will copy all sorts of nonsense and post them anyhow without even realising when and where to post.

A stupid fool indeed!
Kwabena Akurang-Parry 9 years ago

Kwarteng has a fine mind. Sadly, Baidoo's response borders on packaging mediocrity as knowledge! This is the kind of essays that Ghanaweb should promote!

Kwarteng has a fine mind. Sadly, Baidoo's response borders on packaging mediocrity as knowledge! This is the kind of essays that Ghanaweb should promote!
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear Readers,

Thanks for reading.

I should ask you to overlook typos/grammatical errors, because I had to rush to put this piece (and the first rejoinder) together.

My strategy is to always give readers my version ...
read full comment

Dear Readers,

Thanks for reading.

I should ask you to overlook typos/grammatical errors, because I had to rush to put this piece (and the first rejoinder) together.

My strategy is to always give readers my version of historical accounts as soon as Mr. Baidoo, Jr.'s pieces disappeared into the archives.

I can also say on authority that anyone who has taken GLOBAL HISTORY at the high school or community college level will quickly throw away Baidoo, Jr.'s pieces away.

We can also say on authority that even GLOBAL HISTORY at the high school and community college levels, in many instances, does not treat sensitive data as you may obtain from declassified records (America, Europe, Russia, Japan, Africa, etc), State Department/Justice Department, etc.

There are also many former FBI/CIA agents who have written tons of serious books/essays whose important contents do not make it to the contents studied in the classroom (NOTE: THE FBI AND THE CIA HAVE TO GIVE CLEARANCE BEFORE SUCH WORKS BY THEIR AGENTS ARE RELEASED FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION. THEY MAKE THESE AUTHORS DO NOT PROVIDE INFORMATION TO COMPROMISE NATIONAL SECURITY OR LIE TO DISCREDIT THEM, THE FBI AND THE CIA THAT IS. WE ARE NOT SAYING WHAT THESE CALIBERS OF WRITERS TALK ABOUT ARE BEYOND CENSORSHIP).

What Mr. Baidoo, Jr. does is releasing his uncontrollable emotional pressure as intellectualism. Unfortunately that is not how I operate. I want to the furthest extent to say what I want to say based on verifiable facts. This is not say what we (others and I) present on Ghanaweb is the final story. It is not. It is merely convenient summaries.

In the end we need to always go outside the classroom and formal textbooks for answers. Textbook publication itself is extremely political. There are certain things the American South does not want to see in textbooks meant for students in the American south (which are freely taught in other parts of America, particularly in the North or Northeast of America).

The African American scholar Molefi Kete Asante, one of America's leading textbook writers, and James W. Loewen, a White American sociologist and textbook author, have exposed lies in American textbooks. Several others have done the same. For instance, there is conscious attempts on the part of authorities in the American South to ban the late Howard Zinn's classic "A People History of the United States," a beautiful and well-researched books I read in mid-2000s.

The main issue of Zinn's detractors is that Zinn relied on Native-American, African-American, Asian-American, etc., sources, rather than mainstream European-American sources alone, to speak on behalf of America's history, the making of America that is! Yet any scholar worth his/her salt will tell you that Zinn's multisource and comparative methodology is a far more refined and better approach than the one-sided Eurocentric approach. I found this out by reading the book and crosschecking the authority of his sources.

I am not saying this problem is unique to America. Far from it. This partly why I keep going back and forth over my sources before giving them out!

Besides, I do not say this or that because my source says. I also take my time to verify whether my sources are primary, secondary or tertiary. This matters a lot.

Even where an author has given me a secondary or tertiary interpretation of facts, I still go ahead to read the primary source myself just to establish claims of compatibility, or otherwise.

I am not a trained historian but I do this for fun! And I may have my limitations because I am not a trained historian. But this admission does not prevent me (or others) an excuse to do shoddy historical work, for one does not necessarily have to be a historian, a trained one for that matter, to do serious historical work. Yet training is good and proper.

Have a great weekend!
BERNARD 9 years ago

Baidoo Jnr's, agenda is to destroy the achievements of the Great Osagyefo which his predecessors such as Adu Boahen tried in vain to do. Baidoo must also be reminded that we are aware that even in the UK where he lives, it's ...
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Baidoo Jnr's, agenda is to destroy the achievements of the Great Osagyefo which his predecessors such as Adu Boahen tried in vain to do. Baidoo must also be reminded that we are aware that even in the UK where he lives, it's the State that takes care of the British Mornachy. And he must take a cue from tuesday's State of the union address by President Obama on America's foreign policy against Cuba and what it has achieved.

Baidoo Jnr is engaged in cheap and silly propaganda for his NPP paymasters to create the impression that Nkrumahism is dead and therefore it is only the Dankwa/Busia adoption of capitalism can save Ghana.
Jonas Ababio 9 years ago

We know all these quasi-intellectuals.The latest is Nana.They have nothing good to offer.It is laughable.

We know all these quasi-intellectuals.The latest is Nana.They have nothing good to offer.It is laughable.
Robert Okine 9 years ago

Those disgraced,shallow-minded quasi-intellectuals including Baidoo have now resorted to insults using different monikers.Why are they hiding? I can't stop laughing.

Those disgraced,shallow-minded quasi-intellectuals including Baidoo have now resorted to insults using different monikers.Why are they hiding? I can't stop laughing.
Nana 9 years ago

I blame Ghana Web for granting you the opportunities to torture us.

I blame Ghana Web for granting you the opportunities to torture us.
Robert Okine 9 years ago

Are you Nana SARPONG ?

Are you Nana SARPONG ?
James K. Dadzie 9 years ago

Living in Britain and enjoying free socialist benefits like free medical care with his family,and turning round to condemn SOCIALISM clearly indicates the mindset of a half-baked scholar.He doesn't even know that the preferen ...
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Living in Britain and enjoying free socialist benefits like free medical care with his family,and turning round to condemn SOCIALISM clearly indicates the mindset of a half-baked scholar.He doesn't even know that the preference now is MIXED ECONOMY.This is why Britain is offering him free socialist benefits.Let him relocate to Africa with his family and experience African CAPITALISM.Baidoo is a conceited,ignorant imbecile.
James K. Dadzie 9 years ago

BAIDOO'S STUPIDITY

BAIDOO'S STUPIDITY
Albert Owusu-Ansah 9 years ago

Your simple response is a TECHNICAL KNOCK OUT(TKO) for the immature and misinformed Philip Kobina Baidoo.

Your simple response is a TECHNICAL KNOCK OUT(TKO) for the immature and misinformed Philip Kobina Baidoo.
Gye Nyame 9 years ago

UK's economy is in deep shit because of all the socialized programs --all the dead wood former socialist countries like Poland, Czech Republic etc., are flocking to EU countries like UK and sucking their NHS system and other ...
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UK's economy is in deep shit because of all the socialized programs --all the dead wood former socialist countries like Poland, Czech Republic etc., are flocking to EU countries like UK and sucking their NHS system and other benefits dry. The British work for their government -- they are taxed like the wazoo that most in UK don't have the purchasing power that the folks in the US have. A few people really work and the rest sit at home and go on welfare/dole.

Talking about Cuba – you should see the excitement in Havana due to the news of restoration of diplomatic ties with the US – some homes are literary flying American flags in their windows, which they couldn’t dare do before. Why do you think the people are so excited? They are seeing $$$$$$$ bills.

I don’t know if any of you folks actually visited the Eastern Bloc especially before the Berlin wall came down. I did, to see the devastation in the countries – even Russia if you take out Moscow and St Petersburg out is nothing to write home about.

Hong Kong has an economy has the free market close to pure capitalism and it is a thriving economic with almost no public debt.

Most of the Ghanaian leaders you mentioned are not capitalist and I wish they were – most were indoctrinated with the socialist ideas of more and more government instead of empowering the private sector and that is why we have not advanced.

The sad part is folks like Kwarteng have chosen to live in the US where they earn 6 and 7 figure salaries and enjoy the comforts of the system and yet they turn around the bash the system. I guess they are socialist by day and capitalist at night. Whether you folks like it or not the US is the only super power and will remain so for a long time due to capitalism.

Kwarteng and his supporters are simply stuck in the 50s and need to come to the 21st century. Even China has seen the light.Seriously, it is just a waste of time debating these "isms" because no matter what you write or say people will believe in what they believe in, in some cases even to their own detriment.
Balderash 9 years ago

He could have made in a shorter write-up. Capitalism has always used banditry. All the so called capitalist economic theories intentionally ignore the political dimensions of capitalism. There is a reason why the wealthie ...
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He could have made in a shorter write-up. Capitalism has always used banditry. All the so called capitalist economic theories intentionally ignore the political dimensions of capitalism. There is a reason why the wealthiest capitalist countries spend so much on their military. Add the usual invasions of weaker countries under the guise of all their lofty ideals. I do really think the one we should focus here is Lenin. Lenin put into practice Marx's theories. That the soviet union failed had little to do with lenin. The Russians have this saying that all that the communists told them about communism is a lie but that they said about capitalism was true.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear Balderdash,

Go and read all the works of Antony C. Sutton and of Glen Yeadon, both of whom gives tons of information on declassified records, Congressional/Subcommittee investigational reports on how industrial capita ...
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Dear Balderdash,

Go and read all the works of Antony C. Sutton and of Glen Yeadon, both of whom gives tons of information on declassified records, Congressional/Subcommittee investigational reports on how industrial capitalists from Europe and America financed Nazi groups and Communists.

In other words, American and European industrial capitalists helped build Nazi Germany and Communist USSR. Check out the references I provide in this piece. I have read them and you will be surprised what American declassified data say about these controversial subjects, that is how American and European industrial capitalists contributed to Nazism and Communism.

Declassified German, American, Russian, and European files show that Western assistance to Nazis and Communists went beyond money. It included sensitive technology as well. Therefore, let us stop the propaganda and go to the source of the controversies, declassified records.

You should have known by now that the world is tilting toward "mixed economy." Take a critical look at the political economy in the past century and the 21st. More and more are realizing the follies of capitalism!

Read Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" to see the kinds of conclusions (income and wealth inequity) he reaches with 250-years of data on capitalism.

Please read all the sources by concentrating on the evidence. Cheap propaganda will take you nowhere. There are many in Germany, for instance, who want socialism back. The story is relatively similar across the world, even in Britain. Check the facts.

Have a great weekend.

RE: Using Cuba To Defend Nkrumahism Is Laughable

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