Why the Episcopal Church Rejects White South African Refugees

By Joe Schaeffer | May 18, 2025 | @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Illegal Immigration, Opinion

The progressive-dominated Episcopal Church has finally found a foreigner it doesn’t want resettled into the US. White South Africans fleeing oppression cannot be welcomed into America because, in the eyes of these religious leftists, that would help bolster a dominant and oppressive “lighter skin tone” (their words) social construct that must be destroyed.

For the progressive activist, the massive unchecked wave of Third World immigration into the West, both legal and illegal, was never about helping vulnerable refugees. It was always about enacting radical social transformation via rapid and undigestible demographic change. Genuine assimilation is the very last thing these people would have wanted. The reasons why should not be hard to grasp. Harmony is the enemy of the social revolutionary. Division and disorder are two of the very best of tools for those eager to topple a hated status quo.

Not the Right Face for a Refugee

“In a striking move that ends a nearly four-decades-old relationship between the federal government and the Episcopal Church, the denomination announced on [May 12] that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by President Trump’s administration,” is how taxpayer-funded progressive NPR reported the news.

In what would seem to be a bizarre justification but in fact is nothing of the sort when one realizes its long-term goals, the Church invoked “racial justice” as a reason to reject the white South Africans.

“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” a letter from the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, to members states.

The moral opposition goes far beyond 1980s-vintage multicultural rainbow daydreams that have turned into a bloodstained-machete disaster in modern South Africa. Social progressives will not allow themselves to believe that white Westerners can be victims of racial abuse. For this goes against their entire worldview that white racism is the original sin that must be wiped away in order to return Multicultural Humankind to the socially just Garden of Eden.

Episcopal Epistle on Sin and Skin

In a remarkable document some 20 years ahead of its time, the Episcopal Church House of Bishops in 1994 issued a pastoral letter on the “Sin of Racism.” Guess who the great transgressors were?

“In the United States our primary experience is one of white privilege, even in places where whites may be a minority in the surrounding population,” the bishops proclaimed. “This comes as a surprise to many white people, because they do not think of themselves as racist. They may even see themselves as victims of various violent reactions against the dominant culture.”

The next sentences are crucial to understanding why white South Africans cannot be allowed into the US.

“Questions abound. Can the old melting pot image of assimilation be replaced by a better metaphor that reflects the value of difference?” the pastoral letter asks. “How can the inherited privilege and unearned advantage of some people be used to bring about the reconciliation of all?… How can the Episcopal Church, which reflects the dominant culture, be a factor in changing destructive racial attitudes and behaviors?”

Helping to bring more whites into an America that they can easily assimilate into is anathema to these clerical revolutionaries because they believe it will strengthen a society that they have sworn to overthrow.

The Episcopal Church has openly stated that white skin perpetuates “the nature of racism” that has defined America since its founding.

“As it remains in the USA today, racism is a system of oppression grounded in visible physical differences, and is designed to perpetuate the belief that one ‘race’ – defined primarily by its lighter skin tone – is superior to all others,” a 2011 “Antiracism Training Manual of the Episcopal Church” declares. “What transforms it from a prejudice into an oppressive system is the reinforcement that it receives from the systemic exercise of collective power, culturally socialized and institutionally organized.”

That is from an official document of the Episcopal Church.

Mandatory Anti-Racism Training For Priests

Lest we be accused of cherry-picking years-old tracts, allow us to present the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey’s “Anti-Racism Training 2025” seminar. It starts out with a quote from Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza stressing that “racism” is a “system of oppression” that serves as “a way of maintaining power for certain groups at the expense of others.”

For Discerning News Hounds

“Systemic racism in America began during the colonial period and continues today. One reason it’s been able to survive is because it’s kept hidden and denied,” the diocese states. Among the topics that make up its Anti-Racism Training Zoom classes are “Systemic Racism and White Privilege,” “Internalized Racism, “Settler Colonialism” and “Racism in Immigration and Naturalization.”

Now here’s the kicker. You can’t be a priest or lay leader in the Episcopal Church in New Jersey without submitting to this education.

“All lay and clergy who hold elected positions on commissions, committees and other bodies of the Diocese of New Jersey must take the training at least every three years,” the diocese orders. “In addition, all clergy new to the Diocese are required to take Anti-Racism within 12 months of their calling.”

Anti-white agitation is not some fringe spoke of the US Episcopal Church today. It is a defining marker. It should be a scandal of the first magnitude that the federal government lavished millions in taxpayer funds to help these cultural radicals pursue their toxic agenda via the NGO mass immigration pipeline.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Joe Schaeffer Political Columnist

The world needs People Day more than Earth Day

Al Gore is redirecting his efforts to Africa, benefiting the Climate Cabal but hurting its poor

Paul Driessen

Al Gore recently announced that he is refocusing his climate and energy efforts from the United States to the international arena, especially Africa. Like President Obama, he wants Africa to “leapfrog dirty fossil fuels” and have wind and solar energy power industries, businesses, communications, transportation, and modern healthcare and living standards.

Mr. Gore believes momentum on Net Zero climate action and renewables is “unstoppable.” Despite the Trump Administration removing the USA from the Paris climate pact and systematically reversing Obama-Biden Era climate and energy policies.

Despite the absence of even one community anywhere on Earth having been able to meet its electricity needs solely with intermittent, weather-dependent, land- and resource-intensive wind and solar energy.

Despite coal, oil and natural gas still providing 82% of total global energy needs and 100% of enormous petrochemical requirements. Despite China’s electricity generation alone emitting 2.5 times more carbon dioxide than the USA, and nearly one-third of the global total.

Despite millions of Europeans being made jobless and sent into energy poverty by climate-centric policies.

Despite hurricanes and tornados, floods and droughts not increasing in frequency or intensity in decades, and the number of people killed by weather and other natural disasters plummeting 90% since 1900.

Mr. Gore’s policies definitely benefit himself and the Industrial-Political Climate Complex. He certainly won’t move to Africa or give up his energy-gobbling Nashville or oceanside Montecito homes, or his SUVs, private jet travel or climate cash. But his pronouncements would certainly roll back industrialized-nation living standards and relegate poor nation aspirations to irrelevance.

In fact, they’re highly reminiscent of Obama science advisor John Holdren’s plan to de-develop and de-industrialize the West, and then tell poor nations how much development they will be “permitted” to have.

“Once the United States has clearly started on the path of [de-developing and] cleaning up its own mess,” Holdren wrote, “it can then turn its attention to the problems of the de–development of the other [developed countries] … and ecologically feasible development of the [under-developed countries].”

That’s why, this Earth Day, people everywhere – especially Africa’s and the world’s impoverished, malnourished, energy-deprived citizens – should observe People Day … and emphasize the energy and other resources people everywhere need to enjoy decent lives and safeguard our planet from the ravages that all-renewable energy would inflict. 

Sub-Sahara Africa’s population has increased by nearly 500,000,000 since Gore’s 2005 “Inconvenient Truth” and over 1,000,000,000 since 1960 – to 1.3 billion today.

Excluding South Africa (64,000,000 people using 3,200 kWh of electricity per person per year), the average Sub-Sahara African gets a barely detectable 180 kWh annually. Compare that to average annual electricity consumption rates per capita in Europe (6,500 kWh) and the United States (13,000 kWh).

In starker terms, nearly 1.3 billion Africans have access to a trifling 1.4% of the electricity that an average American uses every year. That that means the average Sub-Sahara African has electricity 20 minutes a day, 141 minutes a week, 123 hours (out of 8,760) per year – at totally unpredictable times … for a few minutes or hours at a time.

Bringing abundant, reliable, affordable electricity to this vast region (3.2 times larger than the Lower 48 USA) will require trillions of dollars – spent on power generation systems that can actually do the job.

However, many African governments refuse to develop their vast coal and natural gas deposits to generate electricity. Their officials still fear and kowtow to Al Gore, UN and European pressure, and the catechism of climate cataclysm – while raking huge sums into private bank accounts from “climate reparation” and renewable energy grants.

Worse, European financial institutions, the World Bank and other lenders still refuse to finance fossil fuel development or fossil fuel electricity generation. Even pre-Trump Obama and Biden USAID (US Agency for International Development) programs “put the climate crisis at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security,” and focused on compelling aid recipients to “transition” from fossil to wind and solar.

Thankfully, change is in the air. African people and their leaders increasingly recognize that coal, oil and gas not only fuel electricity generation, vehicles, cooking, heating and other necessities. Developing and selling those resources also generates billions in revenue that can be used to finance more energy and economic development – without having to beg ideological institutions for handouts, submit to their demands and restrictions, or remain mired in poverty, disease and despondency.

Following the example of China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam in driving hard toward modernity, Niger, Senegal and Côte D’Ivoire are leading the way in Africa. Guyana is doing likewise on the north coast of South America, even as Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro seeks ways to seize its oil fields. They’re all poised to ride oil booms, while South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and other African nations are breaking away from domineering, climate-obsessed banks and NGOs, to chart their own courses.

These countries are also beginning to realize that “clean, green, renewable, sustainable, affordable” wind and solar power reflects none of those concepts.

An African “clean energy transition” would require hundreds of thousands of wind turbines, tens of millions of solar panels and hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines across tens of millions of acres of Africa’s magnificent scenic areas and wildlife habitats.

Their massive raw material requirements would mean mining at scales unprecedented in history, much of it by countries, companies and artisanal miners that pay little attention to workplace safety, air and water pollution, mined land reclamation or other standards.

The installations, mines, waste dumps, and toxic waters and materials would destroy more habitats, starving, poisoning and killing still more of Africa’s unique fish, birds and wildlife.

Most of the manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels, transformers, vehicle and grid-scale backup batteries, and other equipment would be conducted far from Africa, largely in China – resulting in still more global pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, while providing few employment opportunities or other benefits to Africa.

Africa would end up destroying Africa to save it from climate catastrophes that exist only in headlines, computer-models, and Al Gore’s fertile imagination. It would generate still pitiful amounts of expensive electricity only 25-30% of the year, as unpredictably as today.

I helped organize the very first (1970) Earth Day on my college campus, when the United States and other industrialized countries still faced serious air and water pollution problems. Since then, America and much of the world have enacted laws and regulations, changed public and corporate attitudes about the environment, installed amazing technologies, and cleaned up their air, water and land – while generating previously unknown and unimaginable health and prosperity.

Africa can and should do likewise. A vital first step is focusing on People Day and energy technologies that can actually turn their dreams into reality – instead of fanciful systems that destroy environmental treasures to “solve” exaggerated and imaginary climate crises.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate change and human rights issues.

Observations From the Back Row With News and Views for 3/25/25

By Rich Kozlovich

Why do we think that way we do?  Machiavelli noted there are only two groups of people in the world. The privileged and the common people. The privileged only want to maintain their privileges, or expand them, and the common people only want security. They want to be able to house, feed, and clothe their families in safety.  That is what molds everyone’s thinking, except for the misfits who hate both, and want to destroy both.

The issue isn’t why people think what they think, it’s how many think what they think in each category, and very often that’s a result of where we are in the stream of historical cycles.  I've read three books on historical cycles and they all agree we're in an end cycle, which epitomized instability, economic downturns, and violence. 

Turkish President Erdogan apparently believed the guy running against him had a good chance of winning, and that was just unacceptable, so he had his opponent arrested on trumped up charges.  I’ve been following Erdogan's antics for some years. First, Turkish Islam has always been a bit different than traditional Islam, and it’s been far more secular, so pushing all this Islamic radicalism on Turkey and his tyrannical failures may have been part of the bridge too far construction against him.   As a result, this action filled the streets thousands and thousands of demonstrators who are outraged at this act.  Will there be a new president as a result?

The last time I remember a nation having this many people running wild in the streets over politics was Romania in 1989. That resulted in Nicolae Ceausescu being overthrown and very unceremoniously shot later on along with his wife.  Erdogan is afraid, make no mistake about that, and he has reason to be.  

If there is a new President, I’m of the opinion a new President would moderate a lot of Turkey’s policies that were promulgated by Erdogan, who created a lot of instability involving energy, trade, foreign policy, domestic stability, and economics, and that’s a big one, because Turkey’s economy is in trouble and is in very real need of stability, which I've stated for some years, and in opposition to all the "experts" who kept claiming Turkey was doing great and would be a big force in the Middle East.  Experts entirely too often are expert at ignoring the basics, and embracing preconceptualism, which means ignoring the things known because they're inconvenient, and making up the things not known, just like Henry Kissinger. More Here, and Here. 

If there is a new president, and he has any sense of geopolitics, he’ll want to find common ground with Trump. There will always be tension between Russia and Turkey, so looking North isn’t their answer, and they have issues with Iran.  I also think we would see a move for Turkey to have a much more harmonious relations with Israel, especially involving trade. Stability  Israel is no threat to Turkey, versus the radicals being supported by Iran.   This will be interesting to watch.  

Recently there was an article discussing how one of the first things Trump did was to restore Winston Churchill's bust to its rightful place in the oval office, which Obama had removed, which generated some conversation about his years in the “wilderness” after his failures during WWI, and it played havoc with his ego.  At one point it’s been claimed he considered suicide, although I’ve wondered how true that is, especially since during those years he set up an unofficial intelligence and spy network, all volunteers, of some of the smartest and well connected people in Europe. People who saw the dangers developing with Hitler and Mussolini.

Those people created what became the foundation for the official intelligence services when the war started and was headed up by, “Intrepid”, William Stephenson. I recommend reading the book, A Man Called Intrepid.

Those who read a lot of history are aware he did things that would have been considered despicable now, and would have ended his career today. The legend of Churchill is much bigger than Churchill, but that’s true of every hero in history. Churchill was a 19th century man of empire, and all his views and actions were predicated on that.

But one thing is clear. I never read about anyone in England that could have taken his place when doom was upon them. There may not be one now, and make no mistake, doom is upon them, and the same is true of Germany.  Unless there’s a major political upheaval, Germany is doomed also.

I keep seeing conservative writers coaching the Democrats about what they're doing wrong, and what they need to change.  And I have to wonder why? 

Actually, it really doesn’t matter what sane advice they’re given as long as they have great minds, like Mad Maxine, who claims what Trump really wants is civil war, in spite of the fact it's the left that just about has a monopoly on political violence.  And that great democrat seer, America’s very own Smeagol, James Carville, who insists Trump has put the very existence of America in jeopardy, and believes the Trump administration was going "collapse" within 30 days".

And as for those who allegedly have been educated in this arena, I have serious doubts about them also. Take AOC for an example. She graduated cum laude from Boston University with a bachelor's degree in international relations and economics. And while I may be overstating this, I think she’s dumb as dirt, nothing personal mind you.

They, along with a host of leftist celebrities and nitwits in general, just can’t keep from saying stupid things. They really are gifts that keeps on giving. They will follow the example of their moral leader, Dan Rather, and deny, deny, deny, and go down the drain together.  Or, they could change and embrace truth, but that would be a stab in their hearts because they would have become conservatives, admitting all they believed in and promoted is evil.

They’ll choose denial and go down the drain.  

I keep hearing how Donald Trump is a dictator whose goal is to destroy American democracy forever. If that’s true, why didn’t he do it during his first term?  If the Democrats were going to help America, why didn’t she do it during the 12 years of Obama and Biden?  As for being tyranny, it seems clear none of those on the left took a civic class in high school.  

Leftism is the term that encompasses communism, fascism, progressivism, environmentalism, liberalism, and a host of other "isms", but they're all scions of socialism going back to the foundation of socialism, the French Revolution.  As for groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and the Occupy Wall Street, all violent misfits, they're the American left's modern version of the Nazi "Brown Shirt" thugs.  Different names, same purpose!  But the underlying social philosophy is socialism. If calling them communists pleases you, I'm fine with that.

As one write noted, the Democrat party views the Bill or Rights as the Bill of Permissions, and has worked for decades to create centralized power bases, that are not to be questioned, dealing with every aspect of human life, including the economy. They want to tax more, spend more, borrow more, regulate more, end the use of economically sound and effective energy sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, while imposing totally ineffective. and expensive, alternative energy programs on America.  

By dictate they wish to force everyone to buy electric vehicles that are a disaster,  under the pretext of saving the world from global warming, the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetrated on humanity.  All in order to justify making everyone live in centralized communities they're calling "walkable communities", which will be small and condensed, making them easier to control.   Taking away the people's right to choose is what dictators do! 

Trump wants to decentralize power transferring it to local governments which the people can more easily control.  He wants less taxes, less spending, less regulations, and less government interference in people's lives by unelected tyrannical bureaucrats to choose how to live their lives, spend their money, and live where and how they please.   That's not what a dictator does!

 "The Democrats are rudderless, divided, and leaderless. The positions that form the core of their agenda are beyond unpopular. All they have is theater, and it’s veering into acts of domestic terrorism." - Matt Vespa

Africa

• Black terrorists talk ‘seizing the means of production’ in South Africa - As the South African government ramps up the persecution of and aggression against white Afrikaners, having passed a new “land reform” law (legalized land seizures without compensation) in January of this year, a clip from a six-year-old Lauren Southern documentary is going viral, reminding the West (and everyone else) that not only is the anti-Boer agenda in South Africa very evil, but very Marxian as well..........
• Dismantling USAID Services in Africa - The potential dismantling of USAID (United States Agency for International Development) services in Africa presents both opportunities and challenges. While some view this as a loss of critical support, others see it as an opportunity for African nations to assert greater control over their own development. The true impact of this decision will hinge on how African countries navigate the shift, leveraging the advantages of independence while managing the risks that come with it......

My Take - Let's not be delusional, all this foreign aid going to these petty dictatorships is going into the corrupt pockets of their leaders.  It's always been that way, and everyone knew it was that way.  So why continue?  American's aren't benefiting from this scam at all!  But I'm betting some large multinational corporations are at the expense of American taxpayers.     RK 

Canada

• Go, Canada! Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do - Canada is finally waking up to a bitterly cold, hard truth: its freeloading days are numbered. The maple syrup cartel isn’t keeping the economy afloat, and the national security situation is downright embarrassing. Justin Trudeau is about to hit the unemployment line, presumably with a fresh bottle of Just for Men, jeggings, and a box of tissues. With Donald Trump back in the White House and looking to balance the ledger on trade, tariffs, and defense spending, Canada is realizing that the gravy train may be reaching its final stop miles short of Tim Horton’s..........
• Eurologic: Danes, other Europeans, vow to fight back against America by ... not buying their arms

Covid

• Waiting for an investigation of COVID-19 crimes  -  Recently, even the left-stream media has acknowledged the lab leak origin of SARS-COV-2, which it called a conspiracy theory five years ago. It is time to take another look at crimes that the Democrat party and its accomplices perpetrated on the American people at the time of the pandemic, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans by denial of treatment.........

Dark Money

• Liberal Dark Money Network Arabella Advisors and Other Progressive Non-Profits Are Behind the Push for the IRS’s Direct File Initiative - A network of progressive non-profits has quietly spent years pushing the IRS’s new “Direct File” service. Progressive supporters of Direct File claim to advocate for low-income taxpayers. Research shows that key organizations promoting Direct File are closely tied to Arabella Advisors and its billion-dollar network of left-leaning dark money groups...........

Democrats

• Democrats and their digging- Our friend Ruy Teixeira is back with another message for Democrats.  My guess is that they won’t like it.  It ain’t pretty, to say the least.  Teixeira is telling Democrats that Trump may be underwater in some polls, but they are more like 20,000 leagues under the sea (to remember Captain Nemo).  Here are the 4 points driving the party down:.........
• Jasmine Crockett Confesses: 'I Don't Care About Legislation, Just Want to Take Down Trump'  - In a shocking admission, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) revealed her true priorities, stating that she has little interest in passing legislation and is focused solely on taking down President Donald Trump. Her blatant disregard for productive governance highlights the growing trend among some Democrats, prioritizing partisan attacks over meaningful policy work that could actually benefit the American people. It's a clear indication that, for some, political vendettas are more important than delivering results for their constituents.
• Jasmine Crockett: I Have Never Promoted Violence Against Elon Musk -During a Sunday appearance on MSNBC, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) denied playing any role in promoting the violence waged against Elon Musk’s brand, Tesla. The Texas Democrat acknowledged participating in the so-called “Tesla takedown,” which she maintained was a “large protest.”..........
• Dems 2025: Stalingrad II or Keystone Kops? - I am wondering about the ongoing District Judge Blitzkrieg and the Tesla Blitzkrieg and the Bernie-AOC “Fight Oligarchy” Blitzkrieg Tour. Could this be the Democrat equivalent of the Battle of Stalingrad? If so, the question is: which Democrat astroturf outfit is going to play the role of the German 6th Army?........
•  The Democrat Party’s Identity Crisis is Far Worse Than Most of the Media Is Reporting - Ever since the 2024 election, the Democrats have been embroiled in a crisis. They have no message, no leader, and no strategy. As we have seen in recent weeks, all they have to offer the American people at the moment is rage and protests. Some people in media have acknowledged that the Democrats have a problem, but it’s far worse than anyone is admitting. Axios is a liberal media outlet, but they have published a piece that highlights how bad things are.  Here are some highlights:............
• California Shows Without Death Penalty, Murderers Keep Killing - Who needs the death penalty anyway? Certainly not California. Just lock the murderers up at a modest cost of buying a nice house a year and everything is fine. Of course, you can’t keep them in solitary or deny them visitations because that would be inhumane............

Editor's Note: This next article by Daniel Greenfield is a must read article: RK

• An Assassination Has Ties to California’s Political Elite, Including its Possible Next Governor - In a scene right out of a movie, cars with stolen license plates parked outside a home in the Fruitvale neighborhood in Oakland, made famous by BLM rioters when a career criminal was shot during a fight in a train station, and the men inside opened fire on the homeowner.  The homeowner grabbed his gun and returned fire..............Worse was yet to come.........Did the toxic mix of green energy, turning shipping containers into housing for the homeless, police defunding and corrupt political connections in the upper echelons of progressive politics turn into a murder plot? The answer to the question may determine California’s next governor............

 DOGE

• Low-hanging fruit is not enough - No one was more pleased than I over Trump’s executive orders to cut government costs, remove DIE organizations and indoctrination, fire excess government non-workers, and prohibit men from competing with women in sports. Initially, for these actions, there is plenty of “low-hanging fruit” to be taken down.   The headlines in the news are replete with the administration’s claims of increased safety, better efficiency, and reduced costs. Promises made, promises kept.
• Elon Musk Claims DOGE Discovered $330 Million in SBA Loans Given to Kids - Elon Musk revealed that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) discovered the Small Business Administration (SBA) had given more than $300 million in loans to children under 11 years old.

• Elon Musk: 'No More Loans' After Discovering Baby Took Out $100,000 Loan 

Energy

• Trump Makes Coal Great Again - Unlike his predecessor, President Donald Trump understands that abundant and affordable energy is absolutely essential to the future of America. Since his return to the Oval Office, Trump has made energy dominance a keystone of his domestic agenda.......

Education 

• Trump begins to dismantle Department of Education - On Thursday afternoon, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at dismantling and reorganizing the Department of Education at the federal level, shifting responsibility to the states.  This move aligns with Trump’s longstanding stance on reducing federal intervention in local governance, especially in areas such as education.  He has consistently advocated for increasing school choice and reducing federal oversight in favor of local control..............
• Public School Teachers: The Stupidest Creatures on the Planet - Quite the statement, eh? Let me explain. I’m well into my 60s and for my entire adult life I’ve heard that public school teachers are underpaid. It has been repeated as a mantra for decades. Ignoring for a moment whether it is true or not -- and the answer to that is generally, it depends -- let’s accept the mantra and analyze why public-school teachers are still underpaid after all these years.......

Immigration

• Birthright citizenship in America vs. in the world - Today, the United States recognizes children of foreigners and non-citizens who are born in this country as U.S. citizens.  President Trump believes that if the parents are foreign-born or non-citizens, and they happen to give birth to a child in the United States, that child does not automatically become a citizen of the United States and therefore is not entitled to all the benefits a U.S. citizen has earned and is eligible for.  Many support and many are in opposition to the president’s view........
• Trump Hits Venezuela With Economic Sanctions for ‘Purposefully and Deceitfully’ Sending Illegal Alien Gang Members to U.S. -  President Donald Trump has announced secondary tariffs on foreign countries that purchase oil and gas from Venezuela. The tariffs are in response to Venezuela “purposefully and deceitfully” sending illegal alien gang members, including those with Tren de Aragua, to the United States via the southern border.......

Lawfare

• Exclusive — Rep. Michael Rulli: Congress Must Write Laws to ‘Prevent’ Lawfare from Happening Again - Congress must write laws to “prevent” lawfare from happening again, Rep. Michael Rulli (R-OH) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily, discussing the judges who are attempting to halt President Donald Trump’s agenda......

Middle East

• Report: U.S. Warns Egypt to Accept Gazans or Lose Billions in Aid - President Donald Trump’s administration has delivered a “final offer” to Egypt to accept up to 700,000 Gazans, according to a new report which says the proposal includes billions of dollars in economic aid and a warning that the same deal will be offered elsewhere if Cairo refuses....... 

My Take - Why are we giving these misfits billions of dollars in the first place.  Especially since they're building up their military, and its being speculated that's being done to invade Israel?  RK

Trump

• Trump Didn't Kill the Old World Order -- He Just Pronounced It Dead - In the first 60 days of his second administration, President Trump has made it clear that he intends to end the Old World Order that has shaped our planet since World War II. Free trade is out; tariffs are in. Nation-building is out; territorial acquisition is in. Wars of ideology pitting democracy against communism are out; trade deals are in. Foreign aid to win hearts and minds is out; bare-knuckled mineral deals are in. America as policeman of world is out; America First is in.............
• The president and his policies do make a difference - The main goal of Joe Biden and the Democrats was to make the government more centralized, controlling, and powerful. They want to tax more, spend more, and regulate more. They wanted to destroy oil, coal, and natural gas companies, and to take away freedom of choice on what type of vehicles to drive...........

Wokeness is a Neurological Disorder

 

• Marlow: Why Does Bob Iger Still Have a Job After ‘Snow White’ Debacle? - On Monday’s “Alex Marlow Show,” host and Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow talked about Disney and its “Snow White” remake. Marlow said, “Bob Iger’s got to be really bad at his job, it’s just like no one ever mentions this. He seems like he’s terrible at his job. So, why does no one ever say this guy should get fired and move on to a different part of life?”.............
• Marlow: Why Does Bob Iger Still Have a Job After ‘Snow White’ Debacle? - On Monday’s “Alex Marlow Show,” host and Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow talked about Disney and its “Snow White” remake. Marlow said, “Bob Iger’s got to be really bad at his job, it’s just like no one ever mentions this. He seems like he’s terrible at his job. So, why does no one ever say this guy should get fired and move on to a different part of life?”..............
• Has Women’s History Month served its purpose? - Phew! Women’s History Month (WHM) is finally drawing to a close. Next year, it’d be great if President Trump doesn’t issue the annual proclamation recognizing the month..............
• “A New World Order With European Values”: The Unholy Union of Globalism and Anti-Free Speech Measures -  “A New World Order With European Values.” Emblazoned across banners and signs, those words met the participants at this week’s meeting of the World Forum in Berlin.  Each year, leaders, executives, journalists and academics gather to address the greatest threats facing humanity. This year, there was little doubt about what they view as the current threat: the resurgence of populism and free speech............
• Does Dr. Mehmet Oz still support transgender medicine?  Senator Josh Hawley has persistently asked Dr. Oz questions about his views on transgenderism. The doctor, who is the president’s nominee to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has a history of endorsing transgender medical interventions on his television show—up until a few short years ago, Oz openly supported the use of transgender surgeries for minors and cross-sex hormones........... 

My Take - Listen up Donny, this is nuts.  Here are my articles on:

1. The Weirdness of Oz.   
2. Trump Picks The Weirdness of Oz to Lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 
3. More Lunacy in the Land of Oz 
4. My Take on the Land of Oz

Government Failure in Africa

January 10, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I mocked economists yesterday. To be more specific, I eviscerated 108 leftist economists who signed a letter warning that Javier Milei’s libertarian agenda would be bad for Argentina.

They now look like idiots given that country’s amazing turnaround.

I’ve also, at various times, mocked the Economist. And the British magazine has deserved criticism periodically because of articles about central banking, poverty, and the IRS.

Today, though, I’m going to give the magazine a bit of praise.

To set the stage for our discussion, here’s a map from the Fraser Institute showing the level of economic freedom in different countries. It’s bad to be orange and it’s even worse to be red.

The obvious takeaway from this map is that Africa is the most economically repressed part of the world.

So what should be done? The obvious answer is free markets and limited government. After all, that’s the only approach that has ever turned poor countries into rich countries.

What’s not so obvious, though, is that the Economist would agree. Yet that’s exactly what’s happened. Here are some excerpts from a new article.

Africa…is…the poorest continent. …its 54 countries…will have to do something exceptional: break with their own past and with the dismal statist orthodoxy that now grips much of the world. Africa’s leaders will have to embrace business, growth and free markets. They will need to unleash a capitalist revolution. …

What should Africa’s leaders do? A starting-point is to ditch decades of bad ideas. These range from mimicking the worst of Chinese state capitalism, whose shortcomings are on full display, to…copying and pasting proposals by World Bank technocrats. …governments should build a political consensus in favour of growth.

…Instead of fetishising government jobs…, Africans could do with more risk-taking tycoons. …Africa does not require saving. It needs less paternalism, complacency and corruption—and more capitalism.

Amen. The magazine may have a bad habit of supporting bad policy in Europe and the United States, but this article about Africa hits the nail on the head.

In an older column from the Foundation for Economic Education, Rainer Zitelmann was even more direct about Africa’s need for capitalism and less government. And he warned that foreign aid is counterproductive.

Here is some of what he wrote.

Development aid has a nice moral ring to it, and in some people’s view, it constitutes a kind of quasi-religious atonement for the sins of colonialism… But does it really achieve what its proponents hope it will? …In Asia, the fight against poverty and hunger has been so effective because so many Asian countries have implemented capitalist reforms. …

Asian countries have received much less development aid than African countries. Zambia-born Dambisa Moyo, who studied at Harvard and earned a Ph.D. from Oxford, identifies Western development aid as one of the reasons for the failure to rid Africa of poverty. …financial transfers aimed at boosting economic development…have frequently ended up in the hands of corrupt despots rather than those of the poor. …Africa could definitely learn one thing from Asia: Hunger and poverty are not fought through development aid but through entrepreneurship and capitalism.

Given what I’ve written in the past, I fully agree with Zitelmann that foreign aid hurts rather than helps. The only long-run solution to poverty is free markets.  The great challenge, though, is convincing African politicians to relax their control over the economy.

• Is it possible to bribe them to do the right thing, perhaps by making foreign aid contingent on better scores for economic liberty?
• Is it possible that the African people will get so angry about economic stagnation that they find their own versions of Javier Milei?
• Is it possible that international bureaucracies might go back to the era of the Washington Consensus and push African nations to liberalize?

All of those options offer hope, but I assume they also are unlikely.

Though one good change that could and should happen is that the statists at the OECD and IMF should stop trying to cajole African nations into raising their tax burdens. Haven’t Africans suffered enough? Or do those bureaucracies want more social turmoil like we have seen in Kenya?

P.S. By African standards, Botswana is semi-successful.

Africa Is a Bad Investment

By Rich Kozlovich

I subscribe to a number of geopolitical sites, and Geopolitical Futures is one of them, but it's a paid subscription site so I can't link this article.  On December 5, 2024 one of their analysts, Ronan Wordsworth, posted an article entitled, "The US Re-Engages With Africa, saying how Washington is trying to gain three decades of lost ground in Africa from China and Russia".  But now, the man who failed to get one geopolitical issue right in over 40 years, Joe Biden, is going "to focus on pragmatic engagement".  

Why?  And why did America walk away for all these years?  It's really quite simple. 

When the Cold War ended, Africa tumbled down the list of U.S. foreign policy priorities. In most cases where it became involved, Washington tended to stress adherence to Western ideals like democracy, transparency and human rights, which often clashed with the interests of authoritarian African regimes. With Washington offering less but demanding more, growing numbers of Africans questioned whether the U.S. could meet their countries’ needs.

And what exactly were their needs?  I'll tell you what, we'll come back to that.

China is getting access to mineral rights and is spending a lot of money on infrastructure.  Really, infrastructure?   What exactly does that mean?  Well, if it means the same thing in Africa that it means in America then infrastructure is a code word for massive corruption and cronyism.  Little of that money will get into the hands of the people or will it provide better conditions for their societies. Basically China is offering a form of colonialism:

More and more “less-developed” countries are responding favorably to China’s political and financial offers of investment, conflict resolution, an alternative financial non-dollar system, and all-around benign, benevolent, Big Brotherhood.  The Chinese pitch is that it will help you by investing in your roads, ports, and resource development. China sells this in the name of trade: they will provide a market for the resources and pay you for them and you will use that money to buy manufactured products from China...............

Xi is using trade and investment to make the world dependent on China and will exploit that dependence to impose a global system of Communist subjugation on the world. If China’s internal policies are any indication, that subjugation will be brutal, overpowering, omnipresent, inescapable, and genocidal. Xi is quite open about it. He gives speeches about his plans and objectives. If you want to do business with China, you will do as China says about everything, all the time, including in your own country.........

The United States has now offered:

"to invest $55 billion in the continent over the next three years. In year one, the U.S. and Africa signed hundreds of deals worth at least $14.2 billion. These included U.S. investments in minor infrastructure projects, local industrial development and green energy projects. Washington also established Prosper Africa, an initiative that connects U.S. and African businesses to facilitate trade and investment."

It's not the job of America's government, or America's business communities to enrich these other nations.  IF we do business with them, we need to do so because it's profitable, their social issues are not our fault, nor are they our responsibility.  

While I believe in free trade in principle, in practice, what's called free trade ends up being free to them and costly to us more often than not.  As for America's business community, they are at best leaky vessels.  They believe in money, not principle, or societal values.  They believe in the next quarterly report, and would easily and quickly sell the nation down the river for another good quarterly report.  I am in total agreement about the valuelessness of foreign aid. That's a system rank with untold corruption.

There's all this talk about the mineral richness of Africa, but we need to ask ourselves this: Given the corrupt lack of civil rights in these nations what are the consequences for this?   Well, here are the consequences no one is mentioning.   Paul Driessen in his article, Cobalt Slavery, Child Labor, Ecological Destruction and Death, addresses this saying:

But almost one-third of Congo cobalt is gouged from the earth by artisanal miners: men and women, and boys and girls as young as six. They and their families live and work in a treeless “hellscape of craters and tunnels patrolled by maniacs with guns.”  Noxious clouds of gas permeate air that even infants must breathe. Families fish, play and bathe in – and drink from – rivers and lakes contaminated with metals and industrial chemicals.  They labor ten to twelve hours a day in sweltering heat and toxic mud, water and dust.....Injured miners may get initial medical care; then nothing......Almost everywhere, breast, kidney and lung cancers are rising, because adults, children and babies are exposed constantly to heavy metals and uranium in everything around them. High lead levels cause permanent neurological damage....

“Fair living” wages? Male artisanal miners receive around $2-4 a day – for output that might reach two 90-pound (40-kilogram) sacks of heterogenite cobalt ore. Women and children are typically paid half that, regardless of how much they produce or the purity of the ore they mine.  Those who disobey mine overseers can get “locked in a shipping container with no food or water for up to two days.” At Kanina, two boys who tried to get more than the usual pittance for their 65-pound bags of ore were gunned down – murdered – by security guards.   “Here it is better not to be born,” a mother lamented. A miner reflected, “Here we work in our graves.” Of course we fear the dangers, said another, “but if we do not work, we do not eat.”

This is what goes on all through Africa.  So, is America now going to say all this is just fine now?  Will China and Russia say to these corrupt monsters this is unacceptable?  Don't bet your life on it.

I keep seeing this kind thinking that can only be called a Kissinger Syndrome Mental Disorder.  Globalism is a mental disorder because it requires believing the unbelievable, and I keep coming back to the same question. How does this benefit America? 

After the European powers were kicked out of Africa, leaving behind established stable institutions for the first time in African history, Africans turned these nations into such crap holes of corruption they make Washington look honest.  Dystopia rules Africa, poverty, misery, suffering, disease, and early death.  Not to mention unending levels of violence.   These nations may talk harmony but that's a delusion, the locust plagues of 1986, 1988, and 2020 are classic examples of what's wrong with Africa, and it's leadership.

South Africa is the perfect example. A once economically and socially stable nation, it is now a violent corrupt mess devoid of the rule of law, and is such an economic mess they're needing loans from the The World Bank and International Monetary Fund.  Billions have been sent to these nations only to have the "leadership" steal it propping up their corrupt leadership. 

There's no rule of law that pervades any of their societies, because stability is not a societal cultural paradigm in Africa. It's claimed their populations all yearn for democracy, but the first time they have the opportunity to vote, they vote in the same kind of vile characters they kicked out. 

These nations have always been violent primitive tribal societies, and that's never going to change. The fact they have modern communications, transportation, and arms doesn't alter their foundational social paradigms. 

So, why do we care if China, Russia, or anyone else wants to send them billions, or make investments there? It will be wasted. These corrupt nations are going to take the money and give nothing of value in return, and all these investment schemes will become corrupted and rot. Unless China or Russia intend to literally take over these countries.  And if that happens that will be even better for America, because they will go broke all the faster, and make no mistake, China's economy is all smoke and mirrors, and Russia can't even produce it's own military equipment.  They're buying drones from Iran and artillery shells from N. Korea. 

Let China and Russia waste their investments and let America stay home and mind our own business.  And what is that business?   Paying off the national debt, balancing the budget, stop borrowing, seriously reduce spending, cutting regulations, reduce the size of government, cut taxes, returning to energy independence, reimposing the rule of law, secure the nation's borders, and make education work once again.  America is capable of doing all of that, and if we do, we don't need anyone, they'll need us.

That's what should be our focus instead of wasting our money on Africa, or for that matter, any other of these corrupt unappreciative disloyal crap hole nations, where slavery is still being practiced, but then again, so too does China.  

It was a waste decades ago and it will be a waste now.

Why Mr. Beast Is Under Fire for Bringing Clean Water to 500,000 Africans

Jon Miltimore November 15, 2023 @ American Institute for Economic Research

James Stephen “Jimmy” Donaldson, better known by his professional moniker “Mr. Beast,” has made a name for himself — and hundreds of millions of dollars for humanitarian causes — by leveraging his social media platform. 

He’s cleaned up our oceans, planted 20 million trees, and fought hunger by feeding needy people in communities across the US. In his latest effort, Mr. Beast built 100 wells in Africa, bringing clean drinking water to an estimated 500,000 people in countries from Kenya to Cameroon to Zimbabwe.

Not everyone is happy with Mr. Beast’s latest campaign, however, or his broader philanthropic efforts. 

One Kenyan politician told CNN Mr. Beast’s well campaign fed the perception that African countries are “dependent on handouts,” while the founder of a charity complained that “a white male figure with a huge platform…gets all of the attention.”

While this might sound simply like sour grapes — and some of it likely is — the criticisms against Mr. Beast are much broader than many might suspect. For years, many have complained that Mr. Beast’s “philanthro-tainment’ strategy — combining philanthropy with online entertainment — is exploitative. 

For example, in February when Mr. Beast partnered with a non-profit organization to provide sight-restoring surgery — procedures Mr. Beast personally paid for — he was accused of “poverty porn.” 

“…it is all in the service of enriching himself,” one person tweeted.

“He cares about poor people and disabled people because they make him money,” another one said. 

“Doctors/nurses don’t exploit their patient’s dignity for profit.”

‘The Stranglehold of the Profit-Seekers’

The last word is key: profit. 

Profit has become a dirty word over the last century. Ayn Rand explored the growing distaste for profit at length in her classic work Atlas Shrugged, a dystopian novel that depicts a society in which the titans of industry who produce the goods and services of society are viewed with contempt by many — particularly moochers — for pursuing profit. 

James Taggart, a villain in the novel, talks of “breaking up the vicious tyranny of economic power” and setting “men free of the rule of the dollar.”

“We will liberate our culture from the stranglehold of the profit-seekers,” thunders Taggart.

Rand was conscious of the fact that our modern world was turning the idea of profits into a sin, even though economist Adam Smith long ago observed that self-interest is the source of economic prosperity in society. 

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,” Smith famously wrote in The Wealth of Nations. 

Smith understood that self-interest isn’t just healthy and rational; it’s the economic engine of society. In pursuit of his own desires, the butcher provides an essential service to others, just as the brewer and baker do.

Yet profit is anathema to many today, particularly those who’ve been inundated with social justice tropes at universities. The Marxist notion that profits are mere exploitation has been adopted by many, even by people who likely would never consider themselves Marxists. 

Like the failed businessman in Atlas Shrugged who defends himself by saying “I can proudly say that in all of my life I have never made a profit,” many young people now see profit as synonymous with exploitation. 

“Inspiring people to help others is great, but encouraging young [people] to exploit vulnerable communities for content which they can then profit off of enormously, is the issue,” tweeted the Washington Post’s grievance correspondent Taylor Lorenz.

In other words, the scorn heaped on Mr. Beast stems from the fact that he has accrued an estimated $500 million fortune while pulling off his remarkable humanitarian achievements. 

And it’s worth noting that the criticism he’s received is in notable contrast to the (initial) widespread praise of Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX founder who built an empire singing a song of effective altruism and rejecting the importance of profits.

“It’s okay to do a deal that is moderately bad, in bailing out a place,” SBF said during a 2022 talk with Bloomberg. 

SBF let it be known he wasn’t very concerned about crass profits; he was far more focused on helping others. (A closer inspection of SBF’s private rhetoric and business shows he was far more concerned with making money for himself than he let on.)  

The difference is that Mr. Beast’s humanitarian efforts actually worked, whereas SBF’s “altruistic” efforts failed miserably (and he’s now facing more than 100 years in prison).

This is the real reason Mr. Beast is taking so much heat. He’s showing the power of voluntary action and the miraculous power of the profit motive. This isn’t just a stark contrast to SBF’s altruistic efforts, however. 

‘It’s Embarrassing’

One of the best quotes you’ll find on Mr. Beast’s humanitarian work in Africa comes from Kenyan journalist Ferdinand Omond.

“[I]t’s embarrassing that a YouTuber jetted into Kenya on a charity tour to perform tasks our taxes should have completed ages ago,” said Omond.

These words have to sting, in large part because they ring so true. 

Is this an embarrassment for the Kenyan government, which has long been plagued by inefficiency and corruption? Undoubtedly. But it’s also an embarrassment to every public intellectual who insists profits are evil and that government-led efforts are the solution to poverty, despite their dismal track record.

And it should be pointed out that the Kenyan government is not the only one that has proven utterly inept at fighting poverty. 

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson famously declared “war” on poverty. Over the next five decades, the average wealth transfer, in real terms, to a low-income family increased from $3,070 per capita (1965) to $34,093 (2016). Economist Vance Gill last year estimated the federal government has spent a total of $25 trillion in its nearly 60-year War on Poverty.

What do we have to show for this fortune in federal spending? 

According to the United States Census, in 1966, the percentage of American families living in poverty was 12.4 percent. Today, according to new data from the US Census, the percentage of Americans living in poverty is … 12.4 percent.

That’s right. Since 1964, despite tens of trillions of dollars in spending at the federal level alone, the poverty rate in America has not budged; it has merely bobbed around the same level since the Beatles arrived in the British Invasion. 

Some could argue that poverty in America could be much worse if we hadn’t spent $25 trillion fighting it, but this ignores an inconvenient truth. In the two decades before the War on Poverty, poverty had fallen from 32.1 percent to 12.4 percent.

All of this helps explain why Mr. Beast is being attacked despite all the good work he is doing.

Milton Friedman famously said that one of the biggest mistakes humans make “is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

The results of Mr. Beast’s philanthropy, which is all voluntary and profit-driven, surpass government-led efforts by miles. And that’s what his critics can’t handle. 

READ MORE 

Tags:  Leadership, International, Entrepreneurship, Art and Culture  

Jon Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Get notified of new articles from Jon Miltimore and AIER. SUBSCRIBE

 

Cobalt Slavery, Child Labor, Ecological Destruction and Death

Paul Driessen Jul 29, 2023 

Global cobalt demand soared with the advent of cell phones and laptop computers. It exploded with the arrival of electric vehicles and now is skyrocketing in tandem with government EV mandates and subsidies. Cobalt improves battery performance, extends driving range and reduces fire risks. 

Demand will reach stratospheric heights if governments remain obsessed with climate change and Net Zero. States and nations would have to switch to electric cars, trucks, buses and tractors; end coal and gas electricity generation; convert gas furnaces, water heaters and stoves to electricity; and provide alternative power for windless, sunless periods. Electricity generation would triple or quadruple. 

Weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels would require billions of battery modules, to stabilize power grids and avoid blackouts every time wind and sunshine don’t cooperate. 

All that Net Zero transformation equipment – plus transmission lines, substations and transformers – will require billions of tons of cobalt, lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, iron, aluminum, rare earths and other raw materials at scales unprecedented in human history. That will necessitate mining, ore processing, manufacturing, land disruption and pollution at equally unprecedented levels. 

Just President Biden’s first tranche of US offshore wind turbines (30,000 megawatts by 2030) will require some 110,000 tons of copper, for the turbines alone. Transmission lines, transformers and batteries are extra. Based on average global ore concentrations, getting that copper would require extracting 40,000,000 tons of surface rock (overburden) and 25,000,000 tons of copper ore. 

But those 2,500 12-megawatt 800-foot-tall turbines would provide barely enough electricity to power New York state on a hot summer day, if the wind is blowing, and before its Net Zero mandates kick in. 

However, the Biden Administration opposes mining in the United States – even for essential Net Zero materials; even under stringent US pollution, workplace safety and mined-land reclamation regulations. The President’s horse-blindered Secretary of the Interior has vetoed mining for materials in Alaska, Minnesota and almost anywhere critical metals and minerals might be found. 

The Administration is laser-focused on ending the “climate crisis” by switching to “clean” energy. It has few qualms about importing the critically needed materials from foreign countries, primarily China – regardless of economic, defense, national security, ecological or human rights implications. It just wants the dirty aspects of “clean” energy far away and out of sight. 

Cobalt mining involves unimaginable horrors. Cobalt Red, by Nottingham University associate professor of modern slavery Siddharth Kara, exposes the excruciating realities that Stop Oil and Net Zero campaigners strive to keep buried – along with the bodies of parents and children killed in cave-ins or dying slowly and painfully after being maimed or poisoned in cobalt mines. 

Professor Kara took multiple trips to the Democratic Republic of Congo, risking his health and life to document conditions for desperate Africans in a region that holds 72% of the world’s known supplies of cobalt. He estimates that 70% of this cobalt (half the world’s entire supply) involves some measure of child labor, while much of the rest involves near-slave labor. 

The DRC’s once-verdant southeastern corner hosts the largest, most accessible, highest grade cobalt ore deposits known on Earth. For EV buyers, Net Zero aficionados, and corporate and government elites, the land is blessed with cobalt interspersed with copper, other Net Zero metals, uranium, chromium, gold and silver. For those toiling at the bottom of the Congo food chain, the land is cursed with those metals. 

In DRC mines, “labor is valued by the penny, life hardly at all,” Kara says. Miners in its big industrial mines get somewhat decent working conditions, medical care and pay (perhaps $10 per day). 

But almost one-third of Congo cobalt is gouged from the earth by artisanal miners: men and women, and boys and girls as young as six. They and their families live and work in a treeless “hellscape of craters and tunnels patrolled by maniacs with guns.” 

Noxious clouds of gas permeate air that even infants must breathe. Families fish, play and bathe in – and drink from – rivers and lakes contaminated with metals and industrial chemicals. 

They labor ten to twelve hours a day in sweltering heat and toxic mud, water and dust, in enormous pits hundreds of feet deep – hacking at rocky walls and in long, narrow tunnels that collapse with frightening frequency. Injured miners may get initial medical care; then nothing. 

In some areas, their clothing and skin are covered with mustard-colored dust – dried sulfuric acid from processing the ores. Almost everywhere, breast, kidney and lung cancers are rising, because adults, children and babies are exposed constantly to heavy metals and uranium in everything around them. High lead levels cause permanent neurological damage.

Fifteen-year-old Muteba hobbles on crutches, his shattered, mangled legs dangling below his skinny waist. He‘s the only survivor from a cave-in that buried his brother and six others alive. There are thousands more like him – maimed, paralyzed, disfigured or dead. 

“Fair living” wages? Male artisanal miners receive around $2-4 a day – for output that might reach two 90-pound (40-kilogram) sacks of heterogenite cobalt ore. Women and children are typically paid half that, regardless of how much they produce or the purity of the ore they mine. 

Those who disobey mine overseers can get “locked in a shipping container with no food or water for up to two days.” At Kanina, two boys who tried to get more than the usual pittance for their 65-pound bags of ore were gunned down – murdered – by security guards. 

“Here it is better not to be born,” a mother lamented. A miner reflected, “Here we work in our graves.” Of course we fear the dangers, said another, “but if we do not work, we do not eat.” 

And still mining, tech and EV companies, ESG investment firms, politicians and climate zealots tell us they require and ensure “responsible sourcing” of Net Zero supply chains, good wages, safe working environments, and prevention of child labor and slavery. What indifferent, self-serving fraud. 

No DRC buyer knows or cares where a quantity of cobalt ore came from, under what conditions it was mined, or whether children dug it out. The entire marketplace is designed to collect and mix ores from formal industrial mines and legal or illegal artisanal operations – making it impossible to trace sources or tell whether child slaves or brutal militias were involved. 

At least one marketplace is a remote night operation that can have no other purpose “than to launder artisanally mined cobalt into the formal supply chain completely our of view.” Every mixed load of ore is then thrown into acid baths for initial processing – before being sent out of country, mostly to China. 

We hear much about reparations for descendants of American slaves – but little about reparations for Native Americans, and zilch about helping these modern-day slaves. 

Nor do we hear from billionaires like Bill Gates, John Kerry, Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros and Michael Bloomberg. They lavishly fund “climate crisis” and “clean energy” campaigns. Have they spent one dime bringing decent wages, working conditions, living standards and medical care to Congo’s miners? 

These human rights issues should top their charitable giving – and the agenda for anyone promoting ESG, Net Zero or batteries. 

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental policy and human rights.