Can Obama and his masters give the people HAPPINESS?

[RWalker]

“We shall measure our progress by the improvement in the health of our people; by the number of children in school, and by the quality of their education; by the availability of water and electricity in our towns and villages, and by the happiness which our people take in being able to manage their own affairs. The welfare of our people is our chief pride, and it is by this that my Government will ask to be judged." Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, "Broadcast to the Nation," 24 December 1957

What exactly is happiness?" And how does Africa, and by implication every part of humanity, achieve this universally desired State of Happiness?

On this weekend that imperialist monopoly finance capital plays it ace card, in the form of the warmongering house slave of international capitalism, Obama, we should rejoice in the fact that in the sweep of history this invasion of Ghana, symbolic of the neo-colonialist desire=2 0to further subjugate Africa and African people, as part of their general drive to tighten their grip on the world and the various peoples who comprise human civilization and culture, is bound to fail, because the neo-colonial scheme will never benefit the oppressed and exploited people of Ghana and Africa at large. Thus this disappointment will contribute to the educating of the African and other peoples and make the task of organizing for revolution that much easier. And in the final analysis, since all sane, or even reasonably sane, people desire happiness as opposed to the moribund state of existence offered by capitalist, imperialist, neo-colonial, settler and general colonial oppression and exploitation, wars and the other forms of tragedies it offers, the message and program imposed upon Ghana and Africa by the racist imperialists and their despicable coterie/cabal of international African stooges, will not make the people of Africa happy, as there is no such thing as a sane "slave" who is happy with his or her lot. And as many have demonstrated, from all differnet walks of life, all reasonably sane peoples of the world want to be happy, to live in a state of happiness. This is precisely why Dr. Kwame Nkrumah used happiness as a critical metric to determine the efficacy of a state's political-economic policies.


So, we may w ell ask, what is this happiness that Nkrumah use as a measurement of good governance, that is governance that leads to the progressive development of the people governed. Many thinkers and activists have expressed their opinions on the subject, as we will see from this quick review from a spectrum of personalities:

Aristotle said “Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.” According to the great Buddha, “Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.” Sigmund Freud believed that, “What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree. “


The Pan-European activist (who was born in Africa by the way), author and philosopher Albert Camus observed, “But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?” The notorious old British imperialist Benjamin Disraeli said,” Actio n may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” The German missionary, who played a rather dubious part in Africa, Albert Schweitzer commented, “ I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

The renowned philosopher Baruch Spinoza reminds us that. “What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.” The mathematician and philosophical thinker, Bertrand Russell, tells us that, “The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.

Helen Keller observed that, “Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” and “Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and t ouch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves. “

Famed suffragette leader, Susan B. Anthony, tells us that, “ Independence is happiness.” The well-known writer, who based herself in China, Pearl S. Buck, observed that, “Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.”

The Indian agitator for independence, Mohandas K. Gandhi, believed that, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” The American literary giant and social crusader, Samuel Clemens (AKA Mark Twain), believed that, “The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people”

But no one was more precise about the real nature of happiness than our beloved Osagyefo, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. He made the understanding of happiness crystal clear in Consciencism:


“…lf happiness is defined in the context of society, then happiness becomes that feeling which an individual derives, from a given economic, political and cultural context, that he is in a position to make good his aspirations. Since capitalist development is unfortunately a process in which a rapacious oligarchy is pitted against an exploited mass, happiness, according to this definition, is denied to many. The achievements of the capitalist oligarchy define new limits of what is attainable by the individual, and thereby push outward the frontiers of legitimate aspirations. But capitalism is a system in which these limiting aspirations are by definition denied to the people, and only reserved for a few.” P. 76, “Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonisation”

Keeping in mind Osagyefo’s definition of happiness, and the responsibilities it imposes on the new African man and woman, we must carefully (that is scientifically) calibrate our Political-Economic processes so that the output is sufficient to the achievement of the quality of life that will allow us to enjoy life to the fullest possible ext ent, that is to be happy.

This kind of development and progress requires socialism, as capitalism, as its history and the current round of global crises it has engendered, demonstrates, cannot provide us a “human” existence. Thus, it cannot provide us happiness.

On that same page of “Consciencism” just cited (p. 76), Nkrumah says this about socialism relative to capitalism:

“The evil of capitalism consists in its alienation of the fruit of labor from those who with the toil of their body and the sweat of their b row produce this fruit. This aspect of capitalism makes it irreconcilable with those basic principles which animate the traditional African society. Capitalism is unjust; in our newly independent countries it is not only too complicated to be workable, it is also alien.

“Under socialism, however, the study and mastery of nature has a humanist impulse, and is directed not towards a profiteering accomplishment, but the affording of ever-i ncreasing satisfaction for the material and spiritual needs of the greatest number. Ideas of transformation and development, in so far as they relate to the purposes of society as a whole and not to an oligarch purpose, are properly speaking appropriate to socialism

To achieve true happiness it is clear that we must wage an uncompromising struggle for our independent development as a distinct people, with a distinct collective personality derived from our history – both good and bad; as a global nation based in our true homeland and as a culture animated by the realities of history and the African personality; informed by our particular “intellectual map” shaped in the firestorm of constant raids from sea and land pirates from other areas of the world, chattel slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, zionism and all attendant ill affects associated with this unholy array, and our the fiercely dialectical struggle against these malevolent factors and actors .

In short, the struggle for our liberation is in fact our struggle for happiness. Thus our happiness will only be realized in the construction of socialism leading to an eventual social form that takes the positive essence of communalism and combines it with20state of art scientific and technological means and methods…As Nkrumah tells us:

”We have seen that for purposes of true development, a liberated territory must embrace philosophical consciencism. In its materialist* aspect, philosophical consciencism preserves a humanist egalitarianism. The philosophical materialism, which forms a part of consciencism, accommodates dialectic, and holds it to be the efficient cause of all change. In order that development may not be gibbous, philosophical consciencism insists that account must be taken of the material conditions of the territory involved, as account must also be taken of the experience and consciousness of the people whose redemption is sought. A people can only redeemed by lifting themselves up, as it were, by the strings of their boots. In these circumstances development must be socialist. It is only a socialist scheme of development which can ensure that a society is redeemed, that the general welfare is honestly pursued, that autonomy rests with the society as a whole and not in part, that the experience and consciousness of the people are not ravaged and raped. It is only a socialist scheme of development that can meet the passionate objectivity of philosophical consciencism.”
p, 113, ”Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonisation“

As Sophocles: observed, “Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.” Osagyefo understood that the prerequisite social consciousness, that is the understanding needed for achieving our individual and communal happiness, would not spontaneously evolve. Because our development from communal based groups to socialist civilization was arrested by the forceful intrusion of imperialism in its various forms and aspects, our circumstances dictated deliberated intervention of African revolution forces and personalities. Consequently, Nkrumah observed that ”As soon as independence has”… it made obvious the need to complete the “task of training cadres to educate the masses so that our socialist policies could be understood,” and so that the basic tenets of socialist instruction are “ taken to the people” to develop their socialist conscience.

Stating that ”we aimed in Ghana to create a socialist society with which each would give according to his ability and receive according to his needs” he called on advanced CPP party members “vanguard activists” many “drawn from the political education section of the party”....”in order to provide a steady flow of ideologically sound cadres to carry on the work of politicization of the masses” because “ it became necessary to establish an institution where training and instruction could be given” so it was ..”.Founded in Feb 1961 to provide ideological education for party members and for all from Africa and the world who wish to equip themselves with knowledge of ...colonialism, neocolonialism” (quoted sections are from pp 161-2 of Nkrumah’s book, Revolutionary Path )

This approach is critical to achieving happiness as individuals and as an African national community of many dimensions that is from the local to global.

To be successful we must believe that the gestating Pan-African Nation, that Nkrumah describes fully in “Class Struggle in Africa”, can be realized, “born” of you will, in our current historical epoch. This great nation in the making is in fact the key to our individual happiness.

And we must fully realize that it cannot be born without the defeat of imperialism and neo-colonialism in Africa. To do this we must build Pan-Africanism as our first objective. All else is of minor importance to this, if we truly want to be happy, that is free and prosperous as a nation and people.

To build Pan-Africanism we must have the mass political agencies and the pre-requisite inter-agency cooperation synergy based on the principles and concepts of cooperation, the of the identity of meaning, sublation and a general array of processes leading to dialectical change of a positive nature. .

Then we will know the immense joy of real happiness.

****
*As Carl Gustav Jung observed “Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.”

[marklen]

Yes I think so...
OBAMA IS GREAT

[MsLioness]

Originally Posted by marklen

Yes I think so...
OBAMA IS GREAT

i'm afraid to click the link because of the response....lol

happiness is only brought about through struggle... there is no happiness bank somewhere, full of happiness, just waiting to be passed out to the masses.

Forward to Pan-Africanism!