Arundhati Roy talked about the "NGO'isation of civil society" on Dem. Now!

[AP]

About 40 minutes into her talk, she notes that NGOs often (not always) are stepping into countries which are privatizing civil services, and with much smaller ("Netherlands-sized", I think she said) budgets, pretend to do things that the civil government should be doing. She says that NGOs are often funded by the World Bank and US Aid, which are the very organizations which want to see civil government disappear so that privatization can reign.

She also says that NGOs tend to coopt all the local activists and neuter them with the promise of a regular, paying job.

They also tend to reinforce dependence stereotypes, she said. (Ie, that dark skinned people are not competent to govern themselves.)

She cautioned people not to interpret her statements as a condemnation of all NGO's, but she was definitely encouraging people to think hard about what NGOs are doing.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/23/1239219

[JohnOneillsMemory]

1. NGOs as the Enablers of Empire. She is on to something.

I heard her and was struck by this dynamic, too.

The help the NGO industry provides to the mass victims of bad government acts as a palliative against revolution or reform.

This safety valve for malfeasance is akin to the illusion of democracy in the US preventing the realization of it by keeping outrage below the threshold of action.

We are free to wear t-shirts, bumper stickers, write letters to editors, and gather in Free Speech Zones just as long as it doesn't actually affect the use of power.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/11/1092102504650.html
(Pentagon Plan for Global Anti-Terror Army)

Now that a Pentagon budget has been proposed for training overseas armies to do the local tasks of empire-terror followed by a coup maintained by repression and more terror-the White House can plunder countries and have the refugees safely in tents so Americans don't feel too guilty to spend large at Christmas.

[AP]

2. kick