In the Western world, they say that ignorance is bliss. But in Africa we say ignorance kills.

– Orikinla Osinachi

Royal Dutch Shell first tapped its commercial oil well in the Niger Delta in 1956. A half century down the road the horrors of Western corporate interests are still taking their toll. On August 13, 2007, senior oil workers threatened to vacate the Delta region if the violence persists. As a result, militants have flooded the streets of Port Harcourt, frisking “suspicious” individuals. All too predictably, President Bush has dispatched armed attack boats to aid President Obasanjo in his aggressive in his aggressive police-state tactics. It is such bi-lateral corporate endeavors that have led the rebels of the Niger Delta region to drastic and desperate measures. Globally, they have been given the title as “the bad guys” (a literal term used in an article at allafrica.com). But, as is often the case, their exhaustive attempts at reformation have been overlooked . . . merely their actions, not their motives, are cause for media discussion.

Nevertheless, the crisis in the Niger Delta is exemplary of how environmental and economic degradation has led to a violent response infused with cultural solidarity. Nigeria’s history is one of long running environmental, economic and cultural exploitation. Resources are essential to the Nigerian economy; oil accounting for 90% of exports and 80% of government revenue. Nigeria, today, earns about $7.09 billion annually from crude oil. Success in the oil industry has earned Nigeria the title of the 11th nation to join OPEC in 1971. But according to UNDP, although Nigeria is one of the world’s leading oil producers, it ranks 151st out of 177 of the world’s poorest countries. Nationally, 50 to 80 million people are living below the poverty line. In the Niger Delta, the foci of oil production, 72% of households live below the poverty line. A nation with such abounding resources should not be facing an economic crisis that has persisted since its liberation in 1960. The Nigerian federal government, in cohorts with oil multinationals, works collaboratively to maintain such bourgeois ideals. Meanwhile, Niger Deltans continue to economically vegetate in an evolving global corporate market. Perhaps these conditions begin to make more sense when we acknowledge that 10% of the country controls 40.8% of the country’s wealth. Indeed, the ruling hands of the elite are to blame. While some insist that oil money can be used to facilitate the launching of future development plans, the progression towards development remains stagnant. As we have seen so many times before, there is a conflict in the capitalist agenda and humanitarian efforts.

The people of the Niger Delta have attempted reformative tactics in vain by protesting peacefully for decades. Aside from minor uprisings in the 1990s, any violence inflicted generally stemmed from the Nigerian government who acted to maintain their corporate ties to the global market economy. Yet the Niger Deltans continued to try reformative ideas to alleviate the situation: demanding compensation via institutional/financial agreements for oil producing communities and implementing laws regarding more efficient means of resource control. However, just compensation and resource efficiency are far from being realized. Thus, economic, cultural and environmental degradation persist despite countless decades of peaceful protest and reform attempts. But now, chaos has erupted.

The frustrations emanating from the lack of attention given to environmental degradation and perpetual exploitation by the oil industry has led to a hardened resentment of the corporate world. The Human Rights Violations Investigation Committee states:

Oil, one of the greatest blessings God has showered on our country, has turned out to be a curse. Oil became, in the hands of the ruling elite and the political class, an instrument sounding the death knell of good governance (Civil Society Forum 2005)

While the world continues to turn a blind eye to the ethical issues at hand in the Niger Delta, the acts of violence and vandalism steadily increase. Futile attempts at reform have given way to violent disruptions, costing corporate oil companies millions in damages. The dialogue surrounding this issue grows steadily as civilians are proving to be militant, blowing up oil refineries and kidnapping its workers as in the 2006 MEND Hostage situation. Who is to blame? And how do we end this chaos? Certain scholars, like Anthony Maduagwu, target Nigerian infrastructure and federal government as the source of instability: “NEPA and oil refineries are two of the fingered authorities that are being manipulated. It is the job of the government to fish out these elements of anti-progress and deal with them accordingly.” Yet when oil production profits are in the hands of the political elite, the target of concern becomes not only civic, but corporate as well. There is a substantial reason why these acts of violence and vandalism are not solely directed at the federal government. These acts of violence, although targeted at the oil industry and Nigerian federal government, are intended to be heard around the world. To quote John F. Kennedy, “those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”

At first glance, it would appear that the largest obstacle facing the indigenous protestors of the region is cultural fragmentation. With over 250 different cultures residing in Nigeria, the region’s history is one of long and complex cultural conflicts. Yet in the face of opposition, cultural solidarity is crucial for transformation. Despite years of conflict, various ethnic groups in the Niger Delta region are allied in their resistance to the federal government and oil companies. The Chikoko Movement, consisting of Ijaw, Itsekiri, Ogoni, Andoni, and Ilage, and the Odua’s People’s Congress, is exemplary of cultural unification within the region. In February 2006, a series of oil workers have been taken hostage by armed militant leaders who identify themselves as members of the Ijaw tribe. The group is responsible for a series of strikes in which 14 people were murdered and 11 proved missing. While the Ijaw are allied with other indigenous tribes, they are highly autonomous in action given the extremity of their situation. More so than other tribes, the Ijaw remain restricted from everyday Nigerian politics and civil society. As a result of the oil refineries, Ijaw public health has deteriorated and environmental conditions continue to worsen. Thus, violence persists. As tension mounts, miniscule cultural conflicts begin to subside and give way to communal rebellion. It is far more practical to oppose as a united front than a fragmented network of individuals. Slowly, collective revolutionary tactics are taking a toll on the corporate market. Continued unrest in the region has led to a decline of daily oil exports of 2.5 million barrels by 10%. Many Nigerians have realized that cultural unity provides a platform for effective opposition. The difficulty remains in swaying the upper class Nigerians away from the beckoning finger of the Western “corporatocracy”.

Cultural homogenization is a definite factor in the maintenance of class consciousness. As corporate globalization continues to break down national borders, multi-national cooperation among the South makes cultural unity more viable. The world is polarizing into a dichotomy of “Us vs. Them” between wealthy countries of the global North and impoverished countries of the global South. Economic polarity makes bourgeois and proletarian homogenization unavoidable. In essence, it becomes crucial for the global South to act as a cohesive force in order to combat neoliberal efforts. Thus, cultural unification is a by-product of class consciousness — the same class consciousness that Marx prophesizes will lead to the bloody end of, in this case, global capitalism and the neoliberal order. In terms of cultural unity paving the way for proletariat revolution, Latin America is arguably the most progressive region of the global South. The push for cultural integration has provided the region with an increasing solidarity that is essential to face the imperialist powers of the global North. There are many that feel “the time has come to launch the Latin American Revolution, to integrate, and breakaway.”¹ Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez; the Independent Democratic Pole in Colombia; the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil; the indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador; the Socialist Parties of Chile and the piqueteros in Argentina are all exemplary of the rising resistance to corporate neo-liberal policies. These leftist South American governments are gaining momentum through regional multi-lateral cooperation. Together, they are unwavering in their pursuit of cultural integration while answering to the outrage of their impoverished civilians. At the forefront of this uprising is Venezuela.

While Venezuela features the same civilian unrest and anti neoliberal sentiments as many other countries of the global South, their domestic politics provide them with a slightly different mode of operation. Venezuela is unique in the fact that the initiatives of the political elite are clearly aligned with proletarian progress. Thus, unlike the situation in the Niger Delta, the exploited civilians are generally supportive of their government. Supportive civilians advocate nationalism, which, in turn, provides the footing for cultural unity. The difficulty in the case of Latin America, is discerning how well these political elites can maintain the proletariat as their priority concern. The neoliberal consensus questions the motives of political leaders like Hugo Chavez, calling him a “dictator in the making.” The fact is, with or without radical leaders like Chavez, the masses are arranging themselves.

This is most evident in the countryside where a “revolution within a revolution” is occurring.² Their peasantry and poor urban classes are highly vocal in their anti-neoliberal sentiments. Agrarian Revolution, one of the most progressive facets of the Bolivarian Revolution, attempts to overthrow the current structure of bourgeois power by leveling the playing field for the landless proletariat. The Venezuelan Agrarian Revolution incorporates the following three aspects: cultural unity, ecological and environmental emphasis, and violent resistance.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a petroleum-rich nation lying on the northern Caribbean Coast of South America. Basing their principles upon the 19th century South American Revolutionary leader, Simon Bolivar, proponents of Bolivarianism are advocates of social democracy and vehemently opposed to the neoliberal order. It is not difficult to see why. The polarity of bourgeois and proletariat civilians has resulted in a segregated rural sector and embittered urban poor. As of 2005, a mere 5% of all Venezuelan landowners own 75 to 80% of private land. Only 2% own 60% of the country’s farmland in terms of agriculture. Before the oil boom in the 1970s, 75% of the population lived in rural regions. Today, 90% live in urban areas. Inevitably, industrialism and corporate enterprises have devastated Venezuela’s agrarian sphere, with thousands of campesinos flooding cities in attempts to keep up with modernity’s high demand for labor. However, Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president and leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, has utilized high oil profits to fund a number of social programs for the poor. His most ambitious attempt to re-structure bourgeois power is the Agrarian Land Reform.

In November of 2001, Chavez initiated the Vuelta al Campo or Return to the Countryside campaign under the Law on Land and Agricultural Development. The campaign put four primary objectives into movement: 1) minimize the size of landholdings; 2) tax idle property; 3) redistribute (mostly federally owned) unused land to peasant families; and 4) seize undeveloped land from private estate owners in exchange for market value compensation. This year, Chavez aims at expropriating 7.4 million acres and redistributing it to the peasant class. He further asserts that 42 million acres will be confiscated in order to dilute the polarity of bourgeois and peasant landholdings. Although the Agrarian Revolution has been slow in its development, wealthy foreign and domestic private land owners are outraged. They argue that expropriation violates private property rights. Their response has been one of brutal and violent resistance to the newly empowered rural peasantry. In response, the proletariat has resorted to violent tactics to secure new land dwellings. Thus, Chavez’s six year “Revolution for the Poor” has come into full effect, proposing violence as an essential means to combat proletariat opponents.

Calling upon the collective support of all the world’s poor nations, Chavez has only increased his criticism of corporate globalization in recent years. He asserts: Now the imperialist forces are starting to strike against the people of Latin America and the world. It is up to our soldiers to stay alert and be prepared to defend the people and not to submit themselves to the interests of the empire.

Venezuela is now preparing to fight what Chavez calls an “asymmetric war” against the leading imperialist nation of the world, the United States. Venezuelan parking lots have been transformed into military training camps, where civilians of all ages and both sexes pledge their allegiance to fighting the capitalist agenda. Most recently, Venezuela purchased 100, 000 AK-47 rifles and a number of helicopters, planes and ships from Russia, Brazil and Spain. The U.S. did not respond out of character. They “resent[ed] the fact Venezuela did not buy US-made weapons!”³ Chavez now fears his vigorous opposition to neoliberalism will invoke a covert coup of his administration by the U.S. government. U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, told the Miami Herald, “What in the world [is the threat] that Venezuela sees that makes them want all those weapons?”

But Chavez’s notions do not seem to be that absurd. Consider the 1970s Allende Regime in Chile. Allende, a self-proclaimed Marxist and opponent of the capitalist cause, attempted a similar land reform from 1970 to 1973. Between those same years, the U.S. spent $8 million on covert tactics to remove Allende from office. In Nixon’s words, the U.S. government planned to exploit the Chilean market “until they screamed.” Expropriation in Chile also meant that American private land holders were at risk with their property investments. In 1973, a successful coup officially replaced Allende with the corrupt capitalist Pinochet. The U.S. denies any sanctioned involvement. However, the U.S. provided $183 million in bilateral assistance to Pinochet’s regime in comparison with $19.8 million during Allende’s. Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor in 1970, argued “Allende’s election was a challenge to our national interest” given his “anti-American politics”. Is it therefore unlikely that Chavez would expect the same scenario given his blatant rejection to corporate U.S. interests? Perhaps Rumsfeld’s dismay stems from the fact that both Venezuela and U.S. are economically dependent upon one another, with Venezuela accounting for 14% of U.S. petroleum imports. “If somebody meddles with Venezuela, they’ll repent it for 100 years,” says Chavez. “We’ll make the blood flow.” Sound indicative of a bloody proletarian Marxist revolution?

Chavez has already solidified ties with other progressives within South America. Brazilian president, Luize Inacio Lula de Silva (Lula) shares the same stance on corporate imperialism as Chavez. Lula, a former factory worker and union leader, is the president of the Worker’s Party whose concern lies with the proletariat. Chavez and Lula are virtually agreed in their viewpoints on the FTAA, the IMF and neoliberalism as a whole. For the proletariat of Latin America, they have evolved into “symbols of the fight against free-market policies and U.S. imperialism.”⁴ The Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil parallels the Venezuelan Agrarian Revolution. The MST is considered the largest social movement in Latin America. Nearly 1.5 million participants in the movement work to achieve reform of the rural land shares to the peasantry. With such a large following, it is not surprising that both Chavez and Lula were welcomed like proletariat demigods at the 2003 World Social Forum in Brazil. Throughout the duration of their speeches, the entire audience resounded with waves of support from all over Latin America. At the Forum’s end, Portuguese musicians led thousands in the traditional Socialist anthem, “La Internationale.” The crowd sang along in their native languages. Alberto Muller, a retired Venezuelan general claims:

On an international level, these movements may seem fragile, but if they succeed in forging an ideology in the form of a cultural proposal, grounded in a set of common values by Latin America and the Caribbean, they could become a more permanent influence.

Cross-cultural unity in support of a Socialist transition is on the verge of actualization. The neo-liberal order, ie. global market capitalism, is quickly eroding in its legitimacy as proletariat nations are amassing.

However, any truth in the global Marxist prophecy will most likely be vehemently contested by the global North. The idea that Marxism may be a legitimate threat despite the end of the Cold War is far too much to swallow for the political-ethno-centric capitalists of Western society. Yet, as we have seen, corporate globalization has proved to be a covert extension of capitalist imperialism, encompassing grand scale exploitation in an array of realms. Ironically, Marxism still remains sovereign in its definition as the “anti-freedom” while capitalist corruption glorifies imperialism. Regardless, the South has begun to take shape as a collectively exploited community, whose quality of life is determined by the resistance of cultural, environmental, economic and ideological realms. The exploited working class grows more desperate when attempts at reforming their situation are perpetually suppressed by Northern and (sometimes) Southern governments. Reformation does not bring the swift change needed to end the South’s misery. Thus, exploitation via neoliberal policies only exacerbates proletarian resentment of the capitalist order and those that promote it. This steadfast Capitalist corruption propels the Marxist theory of the emergence of new Socialist endeavors attempting to stifle global South exploitation.

1. Mrquez, Humberto. “World Social Forum: The Rising Leftist Tide in South America.”:12.
2. DeLong, Seth. “Venezuela’s Land Reform: More like Lincoln than Lenin.” Venezuelan Views, News and Analysis. (25 Feb. 2005) :5.
3. Ceasar, Mike. “Chavez’s ‘Citizen Militias’ on the March.” BBC. 1 July 2005. (5 Feb. 2006):12.
4. Sustar, Lee, Selfa, Lance and Orlando. “Voices Against War and Neoliberalism: World Social Forum.” Internationalist Socialist Review. April 2003. (5 May 2005):7.

The Republic of India is one of the top twelve nations in the world in terms of biodiversity. Featuring nearly 8% of all recorded species on Earth, this subcontinent is home to 47,000 plant species and 81,000 animal species. Simultaneously, India is home to the largest network of indigenous farmers in the world. Yet biotechnology has led to extreme environmental degradation in the region, threatening to replace its diverse ecology with corporate hybrid monoculture. The original Green Revolution was supposed to save 58 million Indian hectares. Today, 120 million of the 142 million cultivable hectares is degraded- over twice the magnitude that the Green Revolution attempted to save! In the Indian state of Punjab, 84 of the 138 developmental blocks are recorded as having 98% ground water exploitation. The critical limit is 80%. The result has had devastating impacts on the agricultural community, leaving exploited farmers with little choice of action. In the past six years, more than three thousand farmers have committed suicide in Andrha Pradesh, that is six to ten farmers everyday! When did this start? Why is this occurring? And why have such little media attention been given to this crisis?

There are three potential causes for the onset of these self-inflicted massacres: 1) exploitation by multinational agribusinesses 2) severe economic disparity and 3) a means of resistance by exposing the abuse of the agrarian sphere. In 1998, around the inception of mass farmer suicides, the World Bank imposed regulations that opened up India’s seed market to corporate multinationals like Monsanto. Non-renewable GM crops now replaced a self-sustainable farming system that had been perfected over thousands of years. While corporate agribusinesses impose their hybrid monoculture on peasant farmers, they refuse to consider the biodiversity that is desired to maintain traditional practices. For example, 75% of cultivable Indian land exists in dry zones. Non GM rice utilizes 3,000 liters of water in order to produce one kilo, while non-renewable hybrid rice requires 5,000 liters per kilo! Cotton, largely considered the “pesticide treadmill,” makes India the third largest cotton grower in the world, accounting for 1/3 of its export earnings. Continuous GM cotton crop failures resulted in the state of Andrha Pradesh, the seed capital of India, prohibiting the sales of Bt cotton varieties by Monsanto. This perpetual poverty is sustained by the bourgeois pursuit of maximizing production at the lowest possible expense!!!!! Last year the Indian government forced Monsanto to cut the royalties they receive from the patented seeds in India- but Monsanto has appealed to the Indian Supreme Court.

The economic disparity of Indian farmers only increases as they try to keep up with the lowest import prices. It is estimated that they are losing $26 billion annually. In fact, non Indian farmers receive six times the amount of GDP that Indian farmers get, requiring an exorbitant amount of loans to be taken out. While 90% of farm loans come from money lenders, they are charged anywhere from 36-50% interest, placing them in a cyclical mode of poverty. Surely poverty alone cannot be responsible for such massive amounts of bloodshed! After all, poverty has always existed, so what is it about current conditions that have led to all this bloodshed?

The fact is that mass suicides have transformed these farmers into agrarian martyrs for peasants everywhere. Their deaths are inspiring significant social forces both by the government and among its citizens. In response to the crisis, the government has implemented compensation laws in which the victim’s family receives free electricity and $3,500. In response to economic disparity, the Indian government imposed a one year suspension for all agriculture loans while waiving interest.

However, monetary compensation laws only provide more economic incentive for suicide, thus the citizens of India are forced to devise alternative solutions to the problem. Arguably, the mass suicides can be seen as a revolutionary tactic . . . Dr. R. Raghuarami, an Indian psychologist, argues that many of the farmers are taking their lives with direct intent of addressing attention to the agrarian struggle. He argues that “suicide by one farmer is inviting others to do the same.” The All Indian Kisan Sabha (AIKS), or peasants front of the Communist Party in India view this agrarian crisis as a direct result of proletarian exploitation. S. Ramachandran Pillai, AIKS president, “called for a united movement of the peasantry to fight the neo-liberal imperialist offensive looming large all over the country.” AIKS has formed allies with other social groups like the Agricultural Workers Union, Adivasi Kshema Samithi, Center for Indian Trade Unions and the Democratic Youth Federation of India to combat neoliberalism and to voice demands for proletariat justice. The nation is calling upon cultural unification to combat the imperialist offensive and the corrupt bourgeois government. The debate on the true reasons for the uproar of suicides and the effects of GM crops remains heated . . . but, unfortunately, it is very likely that the rest of the world would not have been aware of this current crisis if it were not for these intense disputes. With each passing day, an estimated seven more farmers die . . . the question remains, are you listening?

Bourgeois romantics are neo liberals who emphasize free market methods in lieu of a better global civil society. They envisage a global market composed of different ethnicities and cultures in which all will be able to trade and share resources in a mutually beneficial manner. They are the CEOs who give a portion of their profit to Southern aid programs. They are the corporate industrialists who argue modernity and technology will enhance Southern economies. They are even the so-called “humanitarians” that coerce third world markets into the global market arena promising to ameliorate mass poverty. They are everywhere. They exist in all forms, colors, professions, religions and political spheres. In short, a bourgeois romantic is a hypocritical capitalist: one whose intentions are socialist but whose priorities are capitalist. They are the “good intentioned” proponents of free trade.

What they refuse to acknowledge is that free trade is anything but free. Although it allows the global North free market range, it leaves the global South in shackles. Free trade is a modern euphemism for unrestricted global capitalism. We call it free trade when national and corporate interests unite to increase their profit margin while simultaneously manipulating international trade pacts. We call it free trade when established institutions like the IMF or World Bank, whose sole purpose is to aid the poorest of nations, operate under the biases of wealthy nations.

However, it is not just the WTO, IMF and World Bank that attempt to blur the line between corporate and humanitarian interests. The biotech industry is one of massive concern for the global community and definitely worth taking a look at. However, it is not surprising that very little dialogue regarding the issue exists within the U.S. This is largely due to the fact that humanitarian efforts are being used to shield the ploy of corporate profits. Corporations view the global South as an “untapped” market, whose dependency on foreign aid makes them convenient need-based consumers. Many aid and development programs, under the guise of federal governance, are largely aligned with corporate initiatives. Monsanto, the world’s leading chemical company, invests millions each year by creating GM foods resistant to their best-selling weed killer, Round-Up ®. The super objective of Monsanto would be to make pesticides commonplace among agricultural production and consequently maximize their product sales. The problem now is that Monsanto has found a market in hunger and starvation. In attempts to play off the humanitarian sympathies of other nations and individuals, Monsanto launched an aggressive publicity campaign (1998) in Europe featuring the slogan, “Let the Harvest Begin.” This campaign promoted the research and utilization of GM foods to feed the famished nations of Africa. The response by the global South was one of outrage!

Why? After all, from a bourgeois romantic’s perspective: food is food! Especially for the starving and impoverished peoples of Africa! Ah, but a closer look at the true effect that these multi-national corporate interests have on developing economies explains the severe resistance to GM crops. The Institute for Food and Development Policy (IFDP) addresses three destabilizing factors that posit GM foods as a threat to the global South. These include 1) corporate welfare schemes, 2) the denial to the right of information, and 3) an inappropriate response to hunger.

Corporate welfare schemes are funds established to assist the poor, but in turn, serve the pockets of the corporate multinationals. The IFDP asserts that “taxpayer dollars are being used to turn countries in the South into alternative markets for GE products, particularly through foreign assistance programs.” While USAID and the World Food Program continue to bask in the facade of altruism; they vehemently oppose the labeling of GM crops. In 2004, excessive US trade sanctions cost Thailand $8.7 billion US dollars- forcing them to begin the integration of unmarked GM crops.

The mass quantities of shipped food are not labeled “organic” or “genetically engineered” making it difficult for farmers and sustainable communities to survive. The patent rights of GM crops promote a dependent domestic economy. If a farmer attempts to plant GM seeds without consent, s/he is essentially violating the patent rights on Monsanto’s GM seeds. In some cases, GM seeds have blown over into independent farms and put farmers at legal liability to compensate the corporate patent-holders. Not only is this a legal and economic stress, but it contaminates organic farming methods. Therefore, patent rights are viewed as an adversary to sustainable progress and economic stability in developing countries. This theory relies on two very false premises: that hunger is caused by insufficient food and that potential health benefits of GMOs outweigh that of their risk. However, research shows that the world pumps out more food per person than ever in history. It is definitely not an issue of food shortage. Thus, the problem is not the production of food, but the ability for the impoverished to access it.

Development programs continue to exploit the famished and impoverished countries of developing countries by coercing them to perform actions against their will: the acceptance of “aid” that counteracts the sustainable development process. Once GM food crosses the borders, developing countries will be unable to escape the financial power of corporate imperialism on their agricultural economy. Africa, is one example, in which a collective group of developing nations stand united in its opposition to the biotech industry and its exploitation of struggling nations. Catherine Bernini, Executive Director of the WFP exemplified the capitalist ideal when she said, “Food is power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize.” Meanwhile, the rest of us sit at home — complacent with the idea that our tax dollars are doing what we cannot — assisting those that really truly need it.

The fact is there are two casualties in this “foreign aid” façade: one being the exploited economies of developing nations and the other being us, the citizenry. However, we are only casualties in our convictions- equally exploited to serve, in turn, as the advocates of such misleading “foreign aid” and “assistance” programs. How do we escape such false convictions? The American people, complacent in their isolationist views of the world, rest assured that their government (one of the people, by the people and for the people…or so they say) is taking care of the “bigger” issues at hand. It is far past the time to re-educate ourselves. Not on just the issues pertaining to our own government and the big issues of war and conflict, but even in our international role as “humanitarians.” Foreign “aid” programs are no more than misleading titles that alleviate the capitalist guilt of our citizenry while surreptitiously building entire markets on the strife of the third world. Do you still wonder why the rest of the world holds so much contempt for America? Bourgeois Romanticism has permeated past Foreign Aid efforts and even covertly into our non-profit sectors and religious missions. So, before you rest morally appeased on your stance with globalization, ask yourself: Have you escaped the deception of the Bourgeois Romantic? Or are you, like so many others, merely one of them?