Obama declares to Africa: End tyranny, corruption
ACCRA, Ghana — An American president who has “the blood of Africa within me” praised and scolded the continent of his ancestors Saturday, asserting forces of tyranny and corruption must yield if Africa is to achieve its promise.
“Yes you can,” Barack Obama declared, dusting off his campaign slogan and adapting it for his foreign audience. Speaking to Parliament, he called upon African societies to seize opportunities for peace, democracy and prosperity.
(snip)
“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or if police can be bought off by drug traffickers,” he said.
“No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery.
That rhetoric sounds familiar. Me, on June 9:
I keep hearing the left wing say that poverty causes crime. My opinion is that it’s the other way around, that crime causes poverty. This is true in both the practical definition (try getting a good job with a felony sheet), and the philosophical and general — who wants to lay down roots and invest serious capital in a neighborhood, city, country where it can be stolen or expropriated from you without a thought or care? Insurance costs for a business in a bad part of town are higher, if you can get insurance at all, because you’re sure to use the insurance. Heck, a certain part of Oklahoma City, Okla. can’t even sustain a pharmacy.
Once upon a time, all Chevy Corvettes were made in North St. Louis City. Many of its parts were also made in nearby factories. In the 1970s (?), GM closed that plant, built two new plants, one in Bowling Green, Kentucky to build the Corvettes, and one in (was was then) exurban St. Louis, Wentzville, Mo., so that the St. Louis GM assembly line workers could have another job, in that case, full size vans. GM didn’t go through all that expense for nothing, it was because the neighborhood got black, i.e. crime ridden. Unfortunately for Wentzville, some of the GM workers that moved from North St. Louis to Wentzville were also black, and this created a mini-ghetto that still exists there to this day, even though Wentzville is now a solid suburb. Whenever you hear about a heinous crime committed in Wentzville, or by a Wentzvillian, it’s almost always black, and almost always in turn relations to a black GM worker.
President Obama might as well build a windmill in Ghana then try to joust it. After all, changing human nature and racial reality is quite a bit harder than repeating a three-word campaign slogan over and over again. More than that, Rahm and Axelrod don’t have any contingency plans when it comes to human nature.
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