From the unexplained to the mundane, come join us on a journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, where we constantly use your favorite term,
it's history.
Fuckin' Lernis.
We are your famous users of that phrase, Taylor and Chelsea, and today, Chelsea, I think you
forgot what I said this episode's going to be about.
We've done a lot of focus on World War II, the only of the World Wars which actually
took place.
I think we're still in that universe, right?
Pretty sure it never changed.
Yeah.
So, we focus on that.
What happens after World War II is the Cold War, which I'm sure you know was between two
fairly big countries, the US and the USSR, on each side.
We're going to focus on the fringier part of that, which is everybody who wasn't actually
involved on one side or the other.
And what happens during the decades following World War II, that really leads us to today.
Okay.
Chelsea, how much do you know about the middle ground in the Cold War?
Absolutely zero.
Anything to do with this stuff, I am not knowing a whole bunch of stuff.
You know those two, right?
And then there's wars during the middle that are kind of proxy wars.
You got the Korean War starting it off, the Vietnam War, a whole bunch of other little
microfights, the Afghanistan War in the 80s you might not know about, but that's not too
big of a worry.
No, I know of these things, but not the stuff.
Okay.
And I'm excited to learn more.
And yeah, we're going to start learning more.
And this is actually a huge time for independent states to kind of come about.
As World War II ends, new countries gained their independence leaving the colonial era.
You got India and Pakistan, pretty much all of Africa, Indonesia, Philippines, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand kind of fall into this category, but that was also kind of pre-World
War II, where they fully gained their independence.
They're all coming onto the scene and they really don't know what they're going to be
about.
They just know that they kind of like this independence thing and they got to figure
out what's going on.
And now Chelsea, you've heard the term third world country before, right?
Yes.
Okay.
What in your mind does that mean?
I know it's not what I think it is, but now I can't remember what it is.
To me, it's like someone that like they don't have food, they don't have like shelter.
Coronation, more or less, right?
It's a coronation, yeah.
But I know that's not it.
No, and you've heard the term first world, right?
Yeah.
Now, what does that mean?
We have things.
Okay.
Like when I think first world, I think like over here.
First would be half, second, third would be half.
Is that a proper way to summarize it?
I guess so.
Okay.
Yeah, but then I think of ourselves as first world and like there's still like, I don't
know.
Okay.
I don't know what I'm trying to say.
That's totally fine.
I was just curious because I bet you don't have an answer for this.
What's the second world?
That would be somewhere in between.
Okay.
Which nobody would really, truly fit into.
I don't think so.
And part of it is that nothing actually really fits the description of it anymore.
So these terms actually come out of this era of post-World War II, of creating the three
world.
So the first world is the US and its allies.
Second world is the USSR and its allies.
And the third world is just supposed to be anybody who's not aligned with them.
That's literally how it actually comes from.
I did not know that.
And I don't know that I've ever heard second world applied to anything.
And maybe that's because it is Russia.
I've never actually heard it used anywhere.
It wouldn't even be considered Russia anymore because it would have been the USSR and its
block, the Warsaw Pact more or less.
So it doesn't even really apply to Russia anymore.
So maybe that's why I never heard it over.
Yeah.
The term third world and first world's kind of been picked up to kind of mean something
different outside of the Cold War ally blocks.
However, this is where it comes from.
And these are that group that comes out of it.
All these nations are coming up in South America, Africa and Asia.
Including their independence.
After World War II, the first big thing that really happens is the Korean War, which is
splitting a country of Korea against its north and south sides.
A lot of countries are looking at this, especially in that area.
And they're saying, wow, this is really a proxy fight between two big sides, the China
USSR side on one and the US and its allies on the other.
Is this going to happen to every one of our countries?
So these countries get together and they go to what's called the Bandung meeting.
It's in 1955 and it's a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were just newly
independent, which took place on April 18th to 24th, 1955 and Badang, West Java, Indonesia.
There were 29 countries that participated representing a total population of 1.5 billion
people or 54% of the world's population.
It includes Indonesia, Burma, India, Salem, which is now Sri Lanka, Pakistan and quite
a few other countries are invited here.
And of Indonesia, Sukarno and India's Prime Minister, Nauru were key organizers and they
have a quest to build a non-aligned movement that would win the support of newly emerging
nations out of Asia and Africa.
Nauru, the Prime Minister of India, first got the idea at the Asian Relations Conference
held in India, March of 1947 on the eve of India's independence.
So this is a buildup of groups coming together and Mao Zedong of China also was a key organizer
of this backed by his influential right man, Premier and Foreign Minister, Zhou Enlai.
Mao believed that an anti-colonial nationalist and anti-imperial agenda was underway in Africa
and Asia and he wanted to make sure that China was kind of a leading force behind it.
In the separate to represent China as a model, Mao publicly maintained a friendly and conciliatory
tone towards newly independent Asian nations while simultaneously denouncing Western colonial
empires.
The Badang Conference reflected what the organizers regarded as a reluctance by Western powers
to consult with them on decisions affecting Asia in a setting of Cold War tensions.
Their concern over tensions between the People's Republic of China and the United States, their
desire to lay firmer foundations for China's peace relations with themselves and the West,
and their opposition to colonialism, especially France's neocolonialism in North Africa and
his colonial rule in Algeria.
What comes out of the Badang meeting is a 10-point declaration on promotion of world peace and
cooperation.
So these countries get together and they say, look, we all kind of agree.
We want our independence.
We want to work together to make sure that we can do it.
These are the principles that we're going to follow, and there's 10 of them.
First, the respect of fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of the
Charter of the United Nations.
Second, the respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.
Three, recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations,
large and small.
Four, the abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another
country.
Five, respect for the rights of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively in
conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
Six, abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve any particular
interest of the big powers and an abstention by any country from exerting pressures on
other countries.
Seven, refraining from acts of threats or aggressions or the use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any country.
Eight, settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means such as negotiation, conciliation,
arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the party's own
choice in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
Nine, promotion of mutual interest and cooperation.
Ten, respect for justice international obligations.
So I read those and they sound pretty darn peaceful, do they not?
They sound incredibly peaceful, that's why I just said it.
Yeah, there's like half of them are like, hey, by the way, there should not be war.
China's included in this?
Yes.
They were one of the members that had a person there.
And this was all built on the five key peace principles too that Indonesia wants to follow,
which are mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual
non-aggression, mutual non-interference in domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit
and peaceful coexistence.
That sounds exactly like I would describe China.
Well, the world today, of course, as it moved from here.
Basically everything.
Yeah.
So what this Badung meeting happens from it, what gets taken away is an idea to form something
called the Non-Aligned Movement, generally shortened to NAM or NAM, just because, you
know, we like our shortened abbreviations.
This comes about in 1961, on the principles agreed to at the Badung Conference.
The Non-Aligned Movement was formally established in Belgrade, Yugoslavia through an initiative
of Yugoslav president, Joseph Petito and Indian Prime Minister, Nauru, Egyptians president,
Amal Nasser, Ghanian president, Huame Nakhruma and Indonesian president, Sukarno.
This led to the first conference of heads of states of governments of non-aligned countries
with the purpose of the organization being summarized by Fidel Castro in his Havana Declaration
of 1979 as to, quote, ensure the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security
of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism,
racism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony,
as well as against great power and block politics, end quote.
Quite a few names there that came up, a little bit interesting that the Non-Aligned Movement,
if you know a bit of history, it does include countries that you would generally consider
part of the USSR block of countries, say Cuba and Yugoslavia.
But they at least consider themselves independent enough that they want to be part of the Non-Aligned
Movement.
It ends up being a weird kind of balance of somewhat fall onto one side of the coin, but
at the same time they are independent states who want to assert their independence.
Was Cuba involved in the Cold War?
Yeah, it was the missile crisis.
Right, that's what I'm thinking of, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, Mr. Burns famously didn't realize Fidel had won the Cuban Civil War and Batista was
still in power.
If anybody needs a Simpson's reference to be able to get this into their minds.
I was just saying the other day, a lot of references I have come from this instance.
Yes.
That's where I heard it first.
Yes, there's also a really good joke in that episode I didn't get until I was older, where
Castro seems pretty happy that in San Francisco they named a district after him, and then
he is whispered something.
And it turns out that it's the gay district of San Francisco that he is now learning at
that point.
We could do an episode just on like Simpson's.
Anyhow, back to this.
The countries of the non-aligned movement represent nearly two thirds of the United
Nations members and contain 55% of the world's population.
Membership is particularly concentrated.
Countries considered to be in the developing countries, although non-aligned movements
also had a number of developed nations.
It really depends on where you draw that line.
Like Mexico is a part of it, Korea is a part of it.
They end up getting developed and a lot of countries end up leaving it just because they
are more developed than the actual non-aligned movement is generally.
And this group gains the most traction it's ever going to get in the fifties and early
sixties when the international policy of non-alignment achieves major successes in
decolonization, disarmament, and opposition to racism and opposition to apartheid South
Africa.
A really big push from them is that apartheid states cannot exist because that is kind of
subverting classes of people.
They're also-
Can we just remind people listening what apartheid is?
Yeah, apartheid is a subjugation of one class of people under another, whether it's based
on race, ethnicity, or regional background, color of skin, religion.
So if you're black in South Africa in the nineties and back, basically you couldn't
go into certain parts of the town, was okay not to serve these people.
They couldn't vote.
They're second class citizens.
Exactly.
Just to catch everyone's attention.
Also they, at this time too, also call out Israel for being an apartheid state, which
is kind of a very early adoption of that term.
Oh, okay.
This entire kind of idea of decolonization, disarmament, and opposition to racism persists
throughout the entire Cold War, despite several conflicts between members, because India and
Pakistan are both members, they fight constantly.
But they kind of both agree.
They want colonization to just stay out of them fucking with each other.
And despite the fact that many of the members of these countries do end up developing some
relationships with the USSR, China, and the US, they're still part of the online movement
overall, which is what I said earlier.
One of the quotations that basically from the declaration of this non-alignment movement
I quite like is, peace cannot be achieved with separation, but with the aspirations
towards collective security in global terms and expansion of freedom as well as terminating
the domination of one country over another.
End quote.
Yeah, I do like that.
And this group meets regularly every three years through the non-alignment summit.
The chairman rotates to the country organizing the summit.
Basically they'll get together.
They'll all agree on a few things they're going to try to push between the summit and
the next one.
And they'll act as a voting block towards that.
So I can't help but notice.
I don't want to spoil the episode, but I have not heard of one taking place recently.
We will get to that actually.
Okay.
Don't worry.
Okay.
The requirement for membership of the non-aligned movement coincided with the key beliefs of
the United Nations.
Current requirements are that the candidate country has displayed practices in accordance
with the 10 Badang principles of 1955.
If you wanted to join this, you actually had to show that you're willing to actually act
within that, you know, happy kind of demilitarized peace agreement of those 10 points.
From this group, Chelsea, comes the G77.
Does that mean anything to you?
I mean, you take one seven out and I think we have that.
Yeah.
No, I think you know what the G7 is, right?
I'm pretty sure that I do.
Okay.
Yeah.
You can explain it if you would like.
It's the group of seven at the UN, it is considered the seven most industrially developed
countries kind of get together and they all agree on what their plan is going to be moving
forward.
So from that, what do you think the G77 is?
The same thing, but 77 countries.
That seems like the natural way to go.
So I'm going to explain it from here.
Either that or it's just to name someone throughout and they liked it.
I had never heard of this before.
I offhandedly heard it in a podcast episode and I tried doing research, couldn't really
find anything.
And then I finally started to learn more about them.
The G77 is the natural continuation of the non aligned movement.
It is a group of 77 countries, which was established on June 15th, 1964 with a joint declaration
of the 77 developing countries issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations
conference on trade and development in Geneva, beginning with the first ministerial meeting
of the group of 77 in Algeria on October 10th to 25th, 1967.
It adopted the charter of Algiers.
It has permanent institution structure gradually developed, which led to chapters all over
the world.
It has an aims to basically act as a voting block within the UN.
The G77 comes from the non aligned movement.
It is basically non aligned countries throughout the Cold War.
And they say there are 77 of us if we can all vote along the same lines.
And just so that we understand what the General Assembly Chelsea, when you're voting in the
General Assembly, there's five countries in the UN who have veto power, no matter what
they want.
It's unanimous consent throughout one of these countries.
And they're saying, no, we're not doing that.
I think we knew that.
Yes, we do know that.
But what the G77 is saying is with 77 countries all voting in unison towards certain directions,
we can actually sway the movement of votes just as much as one of those veto powers because
nobody can get majority consent without these 77 countries.
Okay, that makes sense.
So they came up with their own thing.
Yeah, so the group of 77 is largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries in the
United Nations, which provides the means for the countries of the South to articulate and
promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity
on all major international economic issues within the United Nations system and promote
South-South cooperation to for development.
And just so we're on the same page when we're talking about South, it's what's commonly
referred to as the North-South divide in that the southern half of the globe is generally
considered where all the poverty is and where all the developing nations are.
So when they talk about the South divide, it's that these countries are developing.
They're the third world.
They want to stick together.
Are we using third world in the sense that you unaligned?
Yes.
Yes, okay.
But it more or less means the exact same thing here.
And the G77, this was their policy.
Any measure which was of interest to most members of the G77 should be supported by the entire
group so long as the measure did not militate against the interests of any member of the
group.
On the other hand, there was a conflict of interest and effort should be made to find
a consensus on it with the G77 as a whole.
The issue wasn't erased in high level consultation between G77 and the Secretary General of UN
CTAD and an understanding was reached on the broad approach to be followed to deal with
it more or less based on the suggestions made in paper.
So the G77 will get its member groups together right before the UN summit starts annually.
And they all basically say, here's what's coming up on the docket.
This is how we're going to vote on all of it.
This is how we're going to try to negotiate on everything and we're going to do it as
a solid block.
And from this, there's certain areas that the developing world tries to focus on a lot
more than, like, say the G7 does these days.
Regarding environmental matters, the G77's position is that the developed countries bear
historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, pointing out also the disparity
of per capita emissions between the developing and developed countries.
The G7 versus G77, I feel like would have completely different agenda.
Yes, they do.
Like G77 is focused on the environment, economic development, poverty, eradication, the transfer
of IP, intellectual property to the developing world so it can develop faster instead of
having to pay exorbitant fees towards developing it.
The G77 actually predates the G7 by over a decade.
And in fact, the G7 is a response to the G77.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
I was going to assume that it wasn't like, didn't happen at the same time.
But I feel like the big guys probably came in for the G7 and just like, I feel like it
would have gone better with the G7.
All the developing countries and stuff like that in there probably would have gone better,
but then all the big guys come in.
Well, and you got to remember too, the G7 is just basically the first world.
It's the US and its allies.
It was the G8 for a little bit when the USSR broke up and Russia joined it, but it's no
longer a part of that.
It's back to the G7.
And it is just the first world and I'm using it in the traditional sense of the term, allies.
So it completely leads out the second world as well.
It just ends up to push the agenda of Europe and North America.
Basically how this all flows is to keep it just kind of on track.
We have that badang meeting at the beginning, which leads to the non aligned movement, which
leads to the G77 and the G77 being the largest of all of those groups.
I'm following.
And from there, the G77 wants to push and this is absolutely going to be a trigger term
for anybody in the conspiracy community, but it's the new international economic order.
So a new world order is something that comes up constantly in conspiracies, but these guys
are literally just saying the economic order is literally just there's a couple of countries
on top that dictate everything to us and we never get anything.
So I mean, that makes sense in the term anyway.
Yeah, exactly.
And they basically say this is the new international economic order.
Their main principles are for their sovereign equality of all states with non interference
in their internal affairs, their effective participation in solving world problems and
the right to adopt their own economic and social systems to full sovereignty of all
states over its natural resources and other economic activity necessary for development
as well as regulation of transnational corporations.
Three, just in equitable relations between the price of raw materials and other goods
exported by developing countries and the prices of raw materials and other goods exported
by the developed countries and for strengthening of bilateral multilateral international assistance
to promote industrialization in the developing countries through in particular the provisioning
of sufficient financial resources and opportunities for transfer of appropriate techniques and
technologies and they wanted four reforms with this as well.
One, overhaul of rules of international trade, especially concerning raw materials, foods
and the systems of preference and reprosperity commodity agreements, transportation and insurance.
Two, reform to international monetary systems and other financing mechanisms to bring them
into line with the developing needs.
Three, both financial and technology transfers, incentives and assistance for industrializations,
projects in developing countries.
This industrialization is understood as essential for the diversification of economies, which
during colonization folks some very restrictive range of raw materials and for the promotion
of cooperation among the countries of the south with a view to greater individual collective
autonomy, broader participation and enhanced involvement in international trade.
This was supposed to be the economic cooperation among development countries, which replaces
colonial dependence with new international relationships among developing countries
based on trade.
And you know what, in 1974, at least part of this gets passed.
They adopt the declaration for the establishment of a new international economic order in
the UN along with its accompanying program of actions and formalized a sentiment among
nation states.
And a few months later, the UN General Assembly adopted the charter of economic rights and
duties of states.
However, really pisses off the US.
The United States government rejected the NIEO, which is the new international economic
order immediately and conservatives, new conservatives and libertarians criticized
the new economic order.
They basically think it's like the apocalypse and the communists are winning at this point.
1974, absolutely terrifying the NIEO.
For example, economist Harry Johnson criticized the NIEO for using central planning and monopolistic
powers to extort transfers of income and wealth from the developed countries.
In his view, commanding prices for raw materials above their natural level usually reduces consumption
and thus causes unemployment among producers and price regulations typically gives the
extra income to those in control of who is allowed to produce.
Newly elected president Ronald Reagan took these calls for market led foreign policies
to the North South Summit in Cancun in 1981 and basically said to these heads of state
that private investment and free markets were the surest path to development, prosperity
and democracy.
So the US is having none of the NIEO like basically like, no, you just got to participate
and let us do our thing because we're invested in making everybody better and that's how
democracies happen.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So basically all they've ever done at the UN is the declaration for the establishment
of the NIEO since 1974.
There's only been one thing that's been passed and it was in 2018 and it was a resolution
towards a new international economic order and it just basically keeps it visible in
the policy arena and they basically said like, well, maybe you can do some stuff with regards
to if you really don't like big conglomerate international corporations, maybe you don't
have to do business with them.
But like that's about it.
Oh my God.
So yeah, that's kind of a height of the G77 is kind of the NIEO period.
Right around this time, 1974 is right around when the Vietnam War is ending, Nixon's coming
into power and the OPEC oil crisis happens as well, which I think you remember Chelsea,
right?
I don't know.
Maybe.
Basically a bunch of oil producing exporting countries, OPEC, all come to an agreement
and say we're going to jack up the price of oil or cut them.
And sorry, I'm doing a very short version of this.
There's a lot more to it than just this, but OPEC countries, there's a bunch of them,
UAE, all of the Middle East, I believe Russia was not part of it at this point, but they
all say like, let's cut the supply of oil and jack the prices up so that we can all
profit hard.
Yeah.
The US is seeing these pushes around the world for kind of independence from them and they
just decide like, we're not going to have any of this anymore.
G7 comes out.
This is where they start to plan as a group, how they're going to push for their agenda
and where things really start to change.
This is becoming sad.
And it seemed to start on such a good base.
Really did.
And I should say the implementation of the NIEO has faced numerous challenges.
One of the main issues of the growing economic inequality, hyper-globalization, which began
gaining traction in the 1980s and accelerated after the world cold war, effectively overturning
the Bretton Woods consensus.
It's just basically the post-World War II international relations and economies.
The new order created largely by the Western policymakers was designed to greatly reduce
regulation of global markets by removing controls on capital flows.
And the new trade organizations were intended to open up markets all over the world and
make it especially difficult for governments to pursue protectionist policies.
And that's what a lot of the policies that they're driving for with the NIEO is to say
we need to stand on level ground so the developing world needs some protections.
And those protections, if anything, somehow disappeared more after they asked for them.
Funny how that works.
The liberal international order, which was a framework of the NIEO, has been crumbling
for a long time.
The number of liberal democracies has been declining in the world since 2006, reversing
a trend that once looked unstoppable.
So you know, falling more into dictatorships than democracies from here on out.
Yeah, actually, yeah.
Yep.
I think so.
Basically, from here, we can go into what happens to the G77.
As G77 is embedded in the United Nations, its impact and effectiveness and its achievements
and failures have been largely dependent on the rise and fall and success and failures
of the United Nations.
The group functioned extraordinarily effectively and vigorously during the longest part of
the Golden Area of International Economic Cooperation under the United Nations.
That is 1964 to late 70s.
Its decline started from the beginning of the decline of the United Nations from the
early 1980s.
There is a consensus that this outcome was brought about by a well-planned concerted
attack on the UN by major developed countries.
And there is really no way to restore G77 to its past glory and dynamism without restoring
the UN and its charter functions which were snatched away from it and without restructuring
its capabilities, which have been systematically dismantled over the last three decades.
Well as well as the countries that were included in it would no longer fit, some of them.
We would think, but it was the global south that was in it and it's more or less still
the global south.
Chelsea I want you to go to the Wikipedia page for the G77.
It has a map of the members in it.
But I mean the G77 charter, yeah they're all still there.
But they had like what they stood for right?
And I mean China was in that to me that just does not apply to them anymore.
And it's called the G77 plus China that's the name for it now.
It is still around, it has a membership that has 135 countries at this point.
And basically it has a good summary of what these countries are on its page.
It is first and foremost every country in the world except if you're part of the Council
of Europe, except for Azerbaijan because they're part of this.
Except if you're a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States Free Trade Area except
Tajikistan.
And except for members of the OECD, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
Except Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico.
And I like that they have these general rules and then accepts in them.
Yeah, accept.
There's a lot of accepts.
And then there's two microstates that aren't in it.
They're called Palau and Tuvalu, which I actually just heard in the news today.
Anyhow, it is massive but there was an undermining of the power of the UN in the 1980s.
I found a quote from which could Dubai, I'm sorry I'm not sure how to say it, it's an
Indian name, he's an Indian diplomat who was part of a negotiator for the G77 in the 1970s
and 1980s.
And he said this, unfortunately by the 1980s, major developed countries had already started
their assault to enfeeble the UN and transform its mad base.
The process of transferring the UN charter functions in the economic field to the International
Monetary Fund, World Bank and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was in full swing.
So were there relentless efforts to reduce the staff strengths and put a freeze on the
budget of UN organizations.
So the US is big plan through working with these countries in the UN is to say we're
actually going to focus mostly on the IMF and the World Bank because they fund a lot
of your development.
The US subverts a lot of the world by getting them to take loan from the IMF and then they're
not able to pay back those loans.
So they make those countries focus on austerity, cutting their funding for social structure,
safety nets and following policies as the USC spit.
And that's really how they undermined the G77 that and you know, there's a lot of coups
in this time that are really funded by the US.
There's all through South America.
They're all meant to undermine what happened during this time.
Wow, I learned a lot in that episode.
And I just want to get back to your question.
I'm thinking that the NAMM isn't around, not aligned movement.
Well, their next meeting is in January of 2024.
Oh, so they're still around.
Yeah.
They've definitely changed, especially both of the G77 and the non-aligned movement had
to kind of focus themselves once the Cold War ended.
And ever since there's not a paradigm of Cold War powers, they've lost a lot of relevancy
because of that, because there's no check and balance on power against the old.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Now with the G77 and the non-aligned movement, they did end up getting a lot more support
from USSR.
It depends on how you want to look at it.
You'll see some people just talk about that as propaganda and trying to subvert economies
in the world.
You could also say that there's an argument, or at least what they're actually trying
to do is just say if people are naturally left with their own choices, they'll naturally
end up flowing to communism.
And let's just help them get to that point.
Of course, that's not what most websites say these days, and that might not actually
be what it is.
The G77 plus China's conference in Cuba just ended right before the UN assembly takes place.
In Cuba, I believe the Secretary General actually spoke at it.
He's got some pretty interesting stuff, and it's basically saying that we need to focus
on the development of the developing world, stop hoarding its resources from it, and let
them have a spot at the table.
There's a lot more to it than just that, but I thought it was pretty interesting.
Do they still meet before the UN?
Yeah, just happened.
I mean, you never hear about it on the news.
You always hear G7, but we're a part of the G7, so I guess that's why you would hear
about it.
G77 just met, and most people wouldn't even be able to tell you what that is.
So, at least now you know, and you can kind of keep an eye on what's going on.
They do in fact have a website where they keep all of their stuff on it, just g77.org,
I believe.
So now you can walk around asking people if they know what the G77 is, and if they say
no, you can just go walk away.
You don't want to talk to that person.
But as we say here, it's history.
We fucking learned it.
So yeah, yeah.
It was my new thing I learned for the day, I'm done.
Cold War, everybody knows about it, but most people I don't think know about that middle
ground that was tried to push throughout it.
That was in the end subverted, but it was at least attempted, and it was going to be
the peaceful option, honestly, if you read what they actually wanted to push.
They gave it a good peaceful shot.
Chelsea, anything that you're curious about or want to talk about?
I do not think so.
Okay.
This is not my forte, but I did learn some things.
Yeah.
I'm pretty sure most people will, like when I was doing research for this, it is slim
pickings actually going through it.
A lot of the people who will actually talk about the online movement are talking about
how clearly it's just to show that you need the free market to take over.
And oh, look, it's a right wing think tank is actually writing that article.
So you just got to kind of go and try to find the actual sources.
But G77 incredibly rare to actually see anything written about it.
Yeah, I would assume as much.
Anyhow, I've been Taylor here with Chelsea.
We are Journey to the Fringe.
Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week.
Bye.
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