I have no problem at all with what you just said, so it 'looks' to me like you understood me perfectly.

You're right to clarify your position on USAID, since you linked to the pro-USAID review at Coffee Review. I would only say that we disagree on the one wee point about Coffee Review being neutral. They may be, sort of. But my logic was sound, and was based on 'their' comments, not just my opinion. I was clear. They are either ignorant and provided an innocent, but forgiveable endorsement of an evil organization. Or they are not ignorant and are okay with an evil organization and the corporatocracy that it is a part of.

Now, 'Okay with' can mean they actually see things the way the corporatocracy wants them to see things or it can mean that they are decent people who just don't want to see the darkness associated with USAID, because it's easier that way. It's their choice.

Again, I was fully cognizant of the fact that the article in question was one you linked to, not one that someone in your coop wrote.

I may sound harsh. I'm not really. No one is perfect. I consider myself weak, actually. I don't do much that I should do. I haven't done much that I should have done in my life, for myself and for others. I might choose to parse a situation or development and state, very clearly and straightforwardly, what I find, but I'm human. I have a high regard for Coffee Review and those who work there, even if it sounds like I don't. The USAID thing certainly gets my attention and the positive mention of USAID by Kenneth Davids is going to be filed away by me, which is what you should expect a fellow who is interested in social justice issues, like myself, to do.

But that's not enough, in my books, for me to assert positively that Coffee Review's staff are nasty imperialists. They may like the blue pill (a la The Matrix), as so many good and bad people do, but that isn't going to be enough to make 'me' view them as the enemy. One article that's got one thing in it that's politically off color isn't sufficient, in my view, to base a final assessment (of character) on.

But I can point it out, which serves to educate and alert others, and in that way be minimally productive - as long as I'm not going to travel to a South American finca and get my hands dirty volunteering to help out a independent coffee producer or something.

It's too easy to make enemies in this money system. Others, who don't like my political views, I have found, often are very quick to be negative and to automatically dismiss and/or attack me for them. While it's okay for them to take a position, even one that's antisocial, I must just shut up and be invisible.

I never made the assertion you imply I made.

Best wishes. RB