Let them eat mud ?

Let them eat mud ? (Full Version)

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cjan -> Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 7:30:02 AM)
I try to keep up on world news, but, I had no idea things are this bad. Things don't have to be this way. I can't help but think of the good that could be done by re-directing the world's resources from war to producing and distributing food and water to those in need. And, yes, to teach and give them the means to feed themselves.Not an original idea, certainly, but, when will we ever learn ? If for no other reason than pragmatic self interest, the more developed countries need to bust a move. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?_r=1&ref=americas&oref=slogin

KatyLied -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 7:31:22 AM)
Redirecting the world's resources away from war is always a good thing. Except for those who profit from war. They may not like that plan.

meatcleaver -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 7:51:48 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: cjan I try to keep up on world news, but, I had no idea things are this bad. Things don't have to be this way. I can't help but think of the good that could be done by re-directing the world's resources from war to producing and distributing food and water to those in need. And, yes, to teach and give them the means to feed themselves.Not an original idea, certainly, but, when will we ever learn ? If for no other reason than pragmatic self interest, the more developed countries need to bust a move. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?_r=1&ref=americas&oref=slogin As Karl Marx put it, Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity. Which is a derivative of a Chinese proverb. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The free marketeers who don't really believe in free markets when it hurts them won't allow such a noble thing as allowing the poor nations to develop at the expense of them exploiting those nations. And don't forget, it is more important to have cars running on bio-fuel than having the poor with full bellies.

lvlychaos -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 7:55:52 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KatyLied Redirecting the world's resources away from war is always a good thing. Except for those who profit from war. They may not like that plan. Of course they aren't the ones who are starving either ...

popeye1250 -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 8:47:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: cjan I try to keep up on world news, but, I had no idea things are this bad. Things don't have to be this way. I can't help but think of the good that could be done by re-directing the world's resources from war to producing and distributing food and water to those in need. And, yes, to teach and give them the means to feed themselves.Not an original idea, certainly, but, when will we ever learn ? If for no other reason than pragmatic self interest, the more developed countries need to bust a move. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?_r=1&ref=americas&oref=slogin Cjan, I don't know whether you're aware of it or not but the more developed countries have been, "busting a move" for the last 40-50 years, sending hundreds of billions of dollars and other currencies to (Africa) and other third world countries through the "U.N". Of course most of the money gets stollen. How many African "potentates" own property on the French Riviera? How many tens of thousands of Mercedes Benz's have been bought with that money? When "Bono" and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil visited Africa some years ago O'Neil asked; "where are all the fresh water wells we paid for?" "All of these villages should have at least one well for fresh water that the U.S. paid $2,100 for already!" "Where are they?" Good question, where are they? And the U.S. "loaned" Russia some $67B back in the 90's and Vladimir Putin bought a $70m villa on the French Riviera and those useless idiots in the U.S. State Dept said nothing and did nothing! The U.S. Taxpayers paid for his $70m villa! I could go on for ten pages about how useless and corrupt this "foreign aid" crap is! I've been to Haiti in the USCG many times returning prisoners who were trying to sneak into the U.S. Haiti is worse off now than they were 30 years ago! "Foreign Aid" doesn't work! Are you aware that every single country in the Carribean is on some type of U.S. "foreign aid?" And for many, many years now too! Ninety percent of foreign aid is stollen, we "know" that. The trick is to not give any money to countries but more directly to the people. "Foreign aid" is supposed to be a hand up, not a hand out. If we've been giving money to a country for 20 years and there is no improvement then we need to stop it! Cut them lose! The people who are starving need to have uprisings and overthrow their own governments. "The West" can only do so much and when it starts to become "institutionalizd" i.e. "permanent" there's something wrong! The congress approved a $34.6 B "foreign aid" bill last fall and we have veterans of Afganistan and Iraq going without! Ten years ago that amount was $10b! If "foreign aid" really worked the amount we gave every year would be going "down" not up!

hisannabelle -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 8:56:07 AM)
this is not all that new, unfortunately. for decades (at least, that i've read about, quite likely longer) poor people in india who cannot afford grain have gone as far as to pick bits of grain out of cow paddies to have something to eat. people will accept even the most inane circumstances as daily routine if they are that hungry and that downtrodden. it's disgusting. some of the worst famine-ridden areas in india have also been some of the highest-yielding agriculturally, throughout history - but all of it is taken out in taxes and profit, and none of it is used to feed the people who spend their lives and their energy growing it. then again, at least in india's case, if we didn't have companies like ricetec and the soybean oil industry destroying india's biodiversity, a lot of things would still be available to many indians locally at least at a reasonable price. this is why i ultimately tried to steer clear of the potato bread thread, because i thought about it and about posting my thoughts in general, for awhile and then i realized that that really doesn't apply to me. by american standards, i am low class, but i am not so poor that my sole means of subsistence will ever be potatoes. this is a good reminder to me of what i am blessed with...i just finished grocery shopping, and i was worrying a couple of hours ago about how i was going to stretch this over the next month. sometimes a reality check is in order. and popeye...unfortunately "foreign aid" is specifically engineered to work that way, as sad as it is.

popeye1250 -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:37:39 AM)
Yup, giving "foreign aid" money to third world "governments" is like handing out hundred dollar bills to crack addicts. You may as well flush it down the toilet. What do they "think" is going to happen to that money? Could anyone in here recomend me for a job at the State Dept? I KNOW I can be more incompetant than the people "working" there now!

cjan -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:43:55 AM)
popeye, I new you would turn up sooner rather than later in this thread, and I welcome your point of view. I didn't say anything about "foreign aid" or suggest any particular course of action. Much of what you say is true, sadly. Yes, corruption abroad and in international "aid" organizations is rampant. I'm not suggesting that things that have been tried before and proved to not work be perpetuated. Reform and new ideas and methods are needed. I was chatting with a friend just the other day and she told me of an ongoing project underway that's based in our area. A group of botanists and other concerned people are developing, cultivating, educating interested people worlwide about a tree called "merengue" ( I'm pretty sure that's not how it's spelled, but I will find out for sure). This tree's leaves and flowers and fruit are edible and can be processed to make super nutritious food. They have developed soil free ways to grow the trees so that they will grow in poor soil, no soil or in urban areas on roof tops. Other folks are working on ways to purify and provide pure drinking water. A local lady in south Florida started a service that serves everyone. She approached local produce growers and asked what they do with the produce that supermarkets don't want, i.e., produce that is otherwise fine but has blemishes and such. They said they let it rot in the fields. She convinced them to allow volunteers to pick it and put it in refrigerated storage for distribution to folks in need. She got independent truckers and trucking companies to volunteer dead heading trucks to deliver the produce to every county in Florida to food pantries and such. It worked beautifully for everyone. The growers got a substantial tax write off. Vounteers got the satisfaction of helping those in need and the hungry got fed. We have many options as to how to make a difference. It's not ,and should not be, just about government.

popeye1250 -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:58:25 AM)
Cjan, again I agree. This should come from individuals not from government. Jim Rogers of the Business Channel took a year and a half long trip around the world on his Harley Davidson. When he was interviewed after getting back he was asked what he thought of our "foreign aid" programs in those countries he visited. He said, "I would't do any foreign aid, the people who benefit from foreign aid are the Lobbyists in Washington who help get the money out of the congress, the Despots who steal that money after we give it to their countries and the Mercedes Benz dealors, and there's a Mercedes Benz dealor in every country in the world!" Just another govt. program out of control. And it fosters a sense of "dependance" in these countries. I just don't want my government in the "foreign aid" business.

stella41b -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 11:07:05 AM)
You know it can take as little as a two hour flight and a change of clothes to transform a Moscow gangster into a Russian business tycoon. About 3,400 adults sleep on the streets in Central London. How many children? We don't know. Nobody has ever attempted to investigate this. Perhaps when we've learned to tackle poverty on the streets of our own cities we might be able to come up with a better solution for tackling Third World poverty. We need to get out of this mindset that making money is success and not having money is failure. We need to stop seeing poor people as a problem and focus on poverty as a problem. We need to stop making people feel guilty for feeding their ravenous hunger on the scraps of fish we're throwing them. Throwing money at the problem isn't working.. it didn't work in the trailer parks in the US, it hasn't really changed much in the Third World, it just keeps poor people poor. Concern and words don't mean much either. Oh and while we're on the subject of poverty on our own city streets let's not forget about the people who rarely ever get a mention and who the registered charities aren't really all that bothered about - the working poor, the exploited and the modern day corporate slaves. Yes, I'm talking about the millions of people lulled into consumerist spending who got themselves into debt and who have to work to keep themselves from going under. People who fell for the economic prosperity line like we all once fell for the weapons of mass destruction line. It's like when they closed down our industries because they were 'unprofitable' years ago throwing hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and like idiots most of us let them do it because we assumed that we were going to get something out of it. Maybe instead of picking on the 'soft' and 'safe' targets like people on welfare, crack addicts and such maybe we need to start picking on the real parasites that are feeding off most of us - the banks, various corporations and so on. Nothing is ever going to change unfortunately until we start doing something most of us are unwilling to do - step outside our comfort zone and start uniting and sticking up for ourselves. Before they really take us to the cleaners.

mkswing -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 11:17:45 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 Cjan, I don't know whether you're aware of it or not but the more developed countries have been, "busting a move" for the last 40-50 years, sending hundreds of billions of dollars and other currencies to (Africa) and other third world countries through the "U.N". Of course most of the money gets stollen. How many African "potentates" own property on the French Riviera? How many tens of thousands of Mercedes Benz's have been bought with that money? When "Bono" and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil visited Africa some years ago O'Neil asked; "where are all the fresh water wells we paid for?" "All of these villages should have at least one well for fresh water that the U.S. paid $2,100 for already!" "Where are they?" Good question, where are they? And the U.S. "loaned" Russia some $67B back in the 90's and Vladimir Putin bought a $70m villa on the French Riviera and those useless idiots in the U.S. State Dept said nothing and did nothing! The U.S. Taxpayers paid for his $70m villa! I could go on for ten pages about how useless and corrupt this "foreign aid" crap is! I've been to Haiti in the USCG many times returning prisoners who were trying to sneak into the U.S. Haiti is worse off now than they were 30 years ago! "Foreign Aid" doesn't work! Are you aware that every single country in the Carribean is on some type of U.S. "foreign aid?" And for many, many years now too! Ninety percent of foreign aid is stollen, we "know" that. The trick is to not give any money to countries but more directly to the people. "Foreign aid" is supposed to be a hand up, not a hand out. If we've been giving money to a country for 20 years and there is no improvement then we need to stop it! Cut them lose! The people who are starving need to have uprisings and overthrow their own governments. "The West" can only do so much and when it starts to become "institutionalizd" i.e. "permanent" there's something wrong! The congress approved a $34.6 B "foreign aid" bill last fall and we have veterans of Afganistan and Iraq going without! Ten years ago that amount was $10b! If "foreign aid" really worked the amount we gave every year would be going "down" not up! not all of it is stolen. most of it comes with conditions attached e.g those countries have to use the "experts" from the countries providing the money. I am not sure how could you be an expert on Ghana when you are living thousands of miles away in washington DC. in any case those experts come there, collect big fees, and in the end take that aid money back to where it came from. if they are loans then the poor countries have to pay that off. if those are grants than there are other ways of paying that off. there is no such thing as a free lunch, right?

popeye1250 -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 11:27:34 AM)
Mkswing, if we've been giving a country "foreign aid" money for 25 years and they're still poor it's pretty obvious that it doesn't work I'd say! The problem is that there is no "advocate" for the Taxpayers in Washington! The congress appropriates money year after year after year and the same people, companies and corporations get that money! It's the same players! Lobbyists are killing this country!

hisannabelle -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 11:39:14 AM)
popeye, it doesn't work, because as mkswing said, it's specifically supposed to not work. do you really honestly believe that "first world" governments WANT african countries and other "third world" nations to be prosperous? where would we get our cheap labor? who would we order around? who would the world bank leave in debt then? imagine a world where all of those countries were even as prosperous as the least prosperous "developed nation" you can think of. seriously. imagine the fallout that would create for nations like america. if you want to know why "foreign aid" isn't working, it isn't because our government is incompetent. they're extremely, extremely competent at what they set out to do. unfortunately, they don't set out to help anyone but themselves, and they're awfully good at that. what is the easiest, quickest way to help people improve their situation? create jobs. build infrastructure. we don't do that in places like africa, because that would actually bring about economic change, and economic change in africa would be devastating for most of the wealthy countries in the world. so we throw money at the problem. it doesn't solve the situation, it makes it look like we are sort of kind of trying to help (enough to get some people off our backs), and it's ultimately useless at improving anyone's quality of life.

Leatherist -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 11:47:05 AM)
World resources are limited, and no one is getting off of thier ass to make food and energy production more efficient. They suck up what there is instead, while destroying the ecology that would make it possible. I often think of our current culture like a yeast culture. It eats and excretes poison into it's space, and eventually dies. All the is left behind is the poison. We have gas prices approaching four dollars a gallon due to china getting off of it's ass and allowing a vast army of people to profit at least marginally from thier labor. Only a totally innefficient communist government and policy kept that from happening years ago. Now we have become dependent on each other. At least we have enough invested in each other to avoid war. Why are people in africa and elesewhere starving? They have nothing to offer a capitalist culture-there is no gain from helping them. But they DO reperesent the loss of things WE want if they go the same route that china does. And our own standards of living have been steadily shrinking since the 60's.

cjan -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:21:47 PM)
I like what stella had to say about getting off our asses and doing things that feed,educate, train and help the local homeless, poor, and working poor folks. The few examples I gave in my second post are examples of things that individual citizens and private groups are doing with no public funds or goyernment nonsense. There are many more examples of this kind of action world wide. I think that private citizens getting involved and doing whatever it is that we can do has the potential for making a real difference. I'm reminded of Tip O'Neal's ( former U.S. Speaker of the House) observation that "all politics is local politics". Perhaps this can be applied to action taken locally that is cost and result effective.

subfever -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:36:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: hisannabelle this is not all that new, unfortunately. for decades (at least, that i've read about, quite likely longer) poor people in india who cannot afford grain have gone as far as to pick bits of grain out of cow paddies to have something to eat. people will accept even the most inane circumstances as daily routine if they are that hungry and that downtrodden. it's disgusting. some of the worst famine-ridden areas in india have also been some of the highest-yielding agriculturally, throughout history - but all of it is taken out in taxes and profit, and none of it is used to feed the people who spend their lives and their energy growing it. It kind of lends credence to the theory that there's really no rational excuse for government, doesn't it?

subfever -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:39:21 PM)
quote: Maybe instead of picking on the 'soft' and 'safe' targets like people on welfare, crack addicts and such maybe we need to start picking on the real parasites that are feeding off most of us - the banks, various corporations and so on. Now you're making sense.

popeye1250 -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:42:37 PM)
"Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

subfever -> RE: Let them eat mud ? (4/18/2008 9:46:02 PM)
And the sad part is... most people would believe it... [;)]

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