Originally posted by pacific
bump-dang
Well said, Pacific. By the way, are you in favor of the Banana Revolution?

Anyway, let's return to it...
fatso wrote:
> Interesting article and a revolution which did
> succeed. I have been to Prague 2 yrs ago and the
> place was thriving. Ukrainian in employ of the
> Chechs has sold me a lovely crystal glass cube
> with image of a Cathedral etched inside cleverly
> via laser technique. People looked prosperous
> and no surprise: did you know that British beer
> drinkers fly nowadays cheaply over there just to
> have a good weekend ? Incidentally, the castle
> looks forbidding but is guarded nowadays by
> typical Shveik soldiers in light blu uniforms.
> What difference since my last stay there, in
> 1969, when the soldiers looked drab standing on
> some sort of wooden packing to stop the dirt
> flowing over their boots. The russkies used to
> march by in troop strength! To top it all, they
> did not give a ****: national flag was torn by
> the wind of November and they did not care.
>
> Now they care very much and they have made great
> strides in the right direction. I wish Mr
> Yushtchenko would heed the Havel example and
> hurry his colossus of a country along.
>
> fatso
You mean another Banana Republic to join the ranks of globalization? I thought competition and unemployment was hard enough already...

Well I'm glad somebody else besides me noticed the connection between bananas and revolution...
Bananas and the Revolution
Peter Schata
"There is a long political history behind bananas becoming the fifth most important food commodity in the world. They were on of the first products where no expense was spared to create world markets for this unmistakeable fruit, turning whole countries over to banana production, with stooge dictators controlled by the USA, in what aptly became known as 'the banana republics'. Half a century after the big Hollywood-style banana campaigns, the banana reflects ever more clearly a world economic system concerned only with the kind of 'growth' that means control of the markets and massive profits. What happens to the environment or to the people, who produce and consume the
fruit of such intentions, appears to be irrelevant.
(...)
In our democracies there is little self-determination, and we only need to look at poverty and unemployment in Europe as well, to raise doubts as to what is meant by 'free trade'. Such distortions of language that hoodwink millions of people into accepting their lot, need to be challenged and overturned. New language means new ideas, new concepts. This is the revolution. We are this revolution!
Such a revolution is especially important if we are to find ways to shift from the current forms of egocentric globalisation to a global society that recognises the actual interrelatedness of all human beings as well as our interconnectedness with the planet that supports us."
http://apm.brookes.a...tion schata.htm