How to Help Uganda’s Child Soldiers All By Yourself

There have been a lot of campaigns lately on Facebook, enlisting the support of users like you and I, to help in the plight of Uganda’s child soldiers.  These are glossy, heart felt campaigns that are meant to elicit in us an emotional response, not a critical response.  Most of us are good people who want good things for ourselves and good things for people all around the world, right?  So why not financially support something like KONY 2012, it’s as little as $10 a month, right?  It seems simple, but unfortunately it’s not.  Well, I can give you a few real simple solutions right now that will greatly help to alleviate the problems we all really care about in Uganda:

1. Make sure that any soy or soy based product that you purchase has not been made from soy crops grown in Uganda.
2. When buying tea, check to see that it’s not sourced from Uganda, and if it is, it should be labeled FAIR TRADE.
3. Do you ever buy roses or other plant products that originate in Uganda?  Change your flower choice to something locally grown and produced.
4. Coffee is a big export from Uganda, so is tea, and unless it’s FAIR TRADE...
5. Both cotton and tobacco are other large export crops from Uganda that serve to keep the indigenous population at a severe disadvantage.
6. Do you like and use essential oils of eucalyptus, geranium, or citronella?  These amongst others are often sourced in Uganda.

Here is a link to see all of Uganda exports:

http://www.ugandaexportsonline.com/exports.htm

I’m sure you’re beginning to see a trend here.  So why would avoiding products like the ones I’ve listed above help to alleviate the suffering and oppression of child soldiers in Uganda?  Well, it will involve a tiny history lesson, so I’ll keep it brief.

Uganda began as a colony created by Britain.  The colonists (capitalists and missionaries) imposed boundaries that grouped together a wide range of ethnic groups with different political systems and cultures.  The  economic fruits of colonization are still being gathered today, by foreign interests and corporations, but the Ugandans themselves have been left to forge a political and economic system “on their own”, already deprived of much of their country’s own natural resources.  They only achieved “independence” in 1962, and have been struggling to forge their own identity ever since.    

Here in Canada we have witnessed first hand the result of “colonization” on our own First Nations groups.  The long term effects of residential schools and treaty negotiations can be seen in action today.  It only takes a little imagination to see how a territory, artificially created to encompass more than ten distinct ethnic groups, would have difficulty finding function.  Add to this a situation where all vestiges of previous cultures have been abolished, all lands have been “re-assigned”, and all resources are already in the hands of foreign investment.  In a place that has over ten distinct ethnic groups, according to census data nearly 50% of that populace is Roman Catholic.  This is a story all too familiar all around the world.

Great steps are taken by capitalist nations to “modernize” other “primitive” nations, and  people are stripped of their culture and religion in a very systemic fashion.  The lands of the colonized are divided up and parceled out according to the economic plans of the colonizers, and then the people are left to fend for themselves in a country that was created for them, with a religion that was given to them, with a culture that conquered them.  If they want change they have to somehow find a way to use the political system that was imposed upon them by the colonizers.  (And we here all know about the magic of democracy, do we not?)  This breeds a terrible amount of unrest.  

We in the West are allowed to witness the dysfunction and the terror, but we are not made privy to the reasons behind the creation of such atrocities.  If we were made aware that the chocolate we eat, the sugar we consume, the tea we drink, the clothes we buy, the flowers we give to our loved ones to let them know we care - if we knew all of what we bought was directly related to the health and welfare of Ugandan children, then the corporations would not be able to keep such a crippling grip on the people of Uganda.  Perhaps the people of Uganda, if they had self governance and control over their own resources, their own destiny, perhaps they might not have a reason to think that it’s necessary for children to wage war.  

It’s difficult in our time of economic turmoil, in our time of work and life, to find time to think about things, really think about them, investigate them.  We are too consumed with our lives, our work, our children, our art, to search out answers.  We trust.  We feel.  And these are very good things.  In our globally connected community, we have to find ways to help our fellow man and to create abundance for all in the world.  It’s too much to have to soft through all the information, find the good charities, and the not so good ones. The way I see it is this:

If someone is asking you to send money, to spend money, they obviously don’t understand the big picture.  And if you send them money, unfortunately neither do you.  The beauty of our connectedness as a global community is that money is currently the international language.  So where we put our money matters.  It all goes back to that idea of thinking, locally, shopping locally, it’s not just a fad.  Really.

Big Brother is Here - Digital Surveillance and Mind Control

Many people who use the internet on a regular basis are unaware of the impact that Google’s new privacy policy will have on the information that will be made available to them.  These same Canadian Internet users will not only have access to limited information based on Google’s profile of them, but they will also be subject to the intrusion of the government and it’s associated agencies without their awareness, should the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act pass into law.  The changes on their own should cause pause in any thinking citizen who values their rights and freedoms.  However when the two changes are taken into consideration together, their combined powers have the potential to completely subjugate the entirety of the the country’s “connected” population to the will of those that govern.  Really, that’s all of us.  And really, it’s that serious. 

In order to retain one’s autonomy under these changing conditions, and in order for one to have access to accurate and unlimited information, we will all have to drastically change the way we think about our connectivity, what we use it for, and how it now has the power to use us.  We are going to have to find news ways of thinking and communicating. 

This is extremely serious. 

First, let’s take a look at Google’s privacy policy, how they’re marketing it and why.  Apparently, there’s just too much information in the world.  We use so many digital applications and websites, that it’s just getting to be, well... inefficient.  That’s the premise.  Instead of having to sort through unfathomable piles of data to find what we’re looking for, Google’s decided that in order to create a more efficient user experience, it will filter all our search results based on what it knows about us.  What does it know about us?  Well, any search engine that’s powered by Google is included, so any activity there will be used to generate your user profile.  And your Google mail account, that information there will be used to generate your unique profile.  Things you search and watch on Youtube, that will be added to your user data...  You can see how much information they’ll have, and they already have - enough to get a pretty accurate picture of who you are and how you think.  On March 1, when you go on the Internet to do a search, the results of that search will be based on what you’ve already searched and indicated an interest in.  Less useless information for you to sort through.  That’s how it’s being sold.

I am sure by now the wheels are turning in a lot of heads about the potential this sort of change has for direct marketing.  Imagine all the ads, all the information that was made available to you, imagine it was gathered and prepared just for you.  It’s supposed to sound like a dream.  It’s actually quite the nightmare.

It’s rather obvious how this new policy is meant to benefit primarily the interests of corporations, but there is a far darker and more sinister effect to this policy.  It actually  serves to institute a very subtle but powerful control on every individual’s access to information, and therefore their thoughts.  No lie.  Let me give you an example from today:

I’ve been researching the use of bentonite clay as a natural pond liner for one of my friends... by researching I mean reading books, my books.  I know there’s lots of condensed information on the internet that I want to share with her about this, and I know I’d like her to see the particular properties of the clay in a video, in action, that would be great!  So I go to Youtube and I punch in the word “bentonite”.  I get two pages of search results, that’s it.  There is one link to a video about that particular clay and it’s application and pottery, but the rest of the video links provided to me are in relation to bentonite clay and it’s applications in African American hair care and other beauty uses.  That’s it.  Nothing more.  Two pages of results.  YouTube already knows I’m black... go figure.  But there was nothing made available to me that would even remotely suggest that bentonite has many uses.  This is based on my previous knowledge, as I have been working with clay all my life.  I know that it’s used as a high temperature lubricant on oil rigs, I know it is used as a natural alternative to rubber pond liners, I know that it is used to create interesting effects in pottery, so why aren’t there any videos on those applications?  Good thing I know this stuff already, or else I wouldn’t be able to know it... DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM??  I had to change the query to include what I already knew, mainly that you can use bentonite to seal a pond.  Once I specified that, then more appropriate videos came up in the search results.

This is not going to be limited to merely your YouTube search results, this new and systemic limitation will affect ALL of your searches.  The question then becomes, if one is on a quest for new information, how are we going to access that information if it requires that we already know something about it?  Google and all it’s affiliates are turning into one of those dangerous ”friends”, who only tell you what you need to know in order to get you to do or think what they want you to do, or think.  Further, this enables them to find out what you do know (based on your used profile generated from multiple sources) and based on that, stop you from obtaining specific additional information, especially on sensitive subjects, illegal subjects, controversial subjects. 

And what about this scenario?  What if a young man or woman is interested in buying and consuming raw milk, or starting up a little bee colony in their back yard - both of which are considered illegal in Canada, the latter only being permitted with appropriate licensing .  This individual performs a Google search.  What if the mandate behind the information returned to this individual, in this particular case, is to deter the individual from “breaking the law” so when this young hippie does a search it’s entirely possible that Google has decided it’s most appropriate to return search results that deter such “illegal behavior”.  The search results might return a few pages on sicknesses related to raw milk, or a news article on a farmer that was imprisoned for breaking the laws on food consumption here in Canada.  And if corporations will use data profiles to target users, why wouldn’t the government?  Who decides what information is best suited for what type of user profile?  Is it the one with the most dollars on the table?  The one with the biggest nuclear weapons?  Who decides?  This is not a benign process. These are VERY important questions. 

The facts are the facts.  This is the closest thing to “thought police” to ever emerge in our society.  Myself, I’ve concluded that in the future, in order to avoid a tailor made picture of the world and my desires, custom made for me by Google, I’ll hit up my local library AND my not so local library.  The world is changing.  Again. 

Now add to Google’s new privacy policy the inception of the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act, being pushed into law by our government as we speak.  In a nutshell, this piece of legislation would allow “back door” access to all digital forms of information exchange, and it would give this access to police and other government agencies.  Currently, a warrant is required to have access to an individuals phone records, texts, emails, web browsing history, etc.  This new legislation wants to change all that.  Child pornography and terrorism are the poster children for the cause.  Those who oppose the idea of Internet surveillance are “with the terrorist and pornographers”.  It’s a brutal way to sell it, and a brilliant way to stifle curiosity about the scary and intrusive ramifications such a sweeping and powerful piece of legislation would cause. 

So in the name of preventing terrorism and child pornography, the government would like to essentially “monitor” all digital information exchange that occurs within the country.  All text messages, all emails, all web browsing history... The intention is to put all of that data through a government controlled data scanning device which will detect certain “potential problems” and then the appropriate responding agency can follow the digital trail back to it’s source.    I mean, I guess that’s great if you can stop the child pornographers, but the data can easily be used to identify all sorts of statistical outliers, as far as data patterns about users are concerned.  Whoever has access to that information can really figure out anything about anyone they want, and this can be done using data programs that use statistical analysis of data to identify certain types of users... I’ve already talked about it above in regards to Google. 

So if you’re feeling rebellious, and want to plan an event to protest something politically, the government and it’s associated institutions have the capacity to know every detail of the event, as it unfolds among the populous interested in protesting.  If there were a collective of individuals interested in distributing raw milk, natural meat, or any other “illegal” food item, the government would have the capacity to know about it before it actually occurred, if it was communicated digitally that is.

Imagine how that might work if Canadians become subject to Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act.  Imagine how that might work in conjunction with the changes to Google’s privacy policy.  The government would have the ability to feed you information, only the information they wanted you to see.  And they might think you need to change your thinking, especially if you’re into alternative medicines or public food gardens.  Anything that is seen as a threat to the current world order, the perpetuation of capitalism, and the current world domination by corporations will be annihilated in one of three ways:

by concealing specific information from those that would use it
by feeding custom created information streams to targeted individuals, to either make them do something, buy something, or make them not want to do something (thought control) or think certain things.
if the above two options fail to bring about social compliance among the population, the government can easily hone in on rabble rousers and nay sayers with their “back door” access. 

Think about what information is out there about you digitally right now.  Do you use your bank card to buy things?  This would indicate where you were and when, how often you go certain places.  It would reveal your habits in a three dimensional fashion: what you spend, where you spend it, and when.  That digital information is readily available.  What about your cell phone?  Do you carry one around?  One with a map function?  Do you use Facebook?  How often do you update it?  What sorts of things do you put on there?  Do you “sign in” to “Places”? 

Is there anything that’s private anymore?  Now is more important than ever to understand the permanence of your digital footprint in all areas of life, especially if you’re a “rabble rouser” or a “trouble maker”... I know you know who you are.   If you think things ought to be different than how they are, if you think you are the 99%, if you think there has to be a better way, it would do you and everyone like you a world of good, to keep their thoughts to themselves, at least in a digital sense.  The world is changing.  Again. 

Me?  I’m going back to books and coffee shops, newspapers and handouts, brochures and community gatherings.  Thanks to to recent changes in Internet policy, if change is to be had, we are going to have to find new ways of talking about it and executing it.

Please share this information with everyone you know that it will matter to.