Re: Theos-World CWL
Apr 12, 2004 08:18 PM
by Ali Hassan
From: "stevestubbs" <stevestubbs@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Theos-World CWL
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 13:11:58 -0000
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Erica Letzerich <eletzerich@y...>
wrote:
>
> We are civilized!
>
> In Africa millions of people die every year of
> starvation.
I must beg to differ. The problem with Africa is that most of the
problems there are the result of deliberate and conscious human
action. Religious wars, religious superstition, slavery, racism,
tribalism, genocide, extinction of wildlife, the destruction of the
farm system, and the refusal to stop the spread of HIV infection are
not cosmic phenomena visited on them by voodoo gods, nor are they are
perfidy of the middle class in some country other than your own.
Unfortunately, the same general observation can be made of other less
wealthy areas of the world, although religious superstition is the
main problem in the MIddle East rather than destruction of wildlife
or destruction of farms. If anyone suggests that these folks need to
behave themselves we are told that this is their great culture we are
talking about and that we cannot and must not question their great
culture.
Karma has nothing to do with it? Or is that too simplified and catch-all?
Africa is a very old land, and she suffers from the abuses of others as well
as her own leaders. I don't think it will end any time soon. I think the
continent is in a cycle of death/rebirth in this age, and it can be very
painful to watch.
When one thinks of China reinventing itself, even the millions of casualties
under Mao and the Japanese before him, seem like a very clean rebirth,
overall.
The reason this is significant is that it highlights the naivete of
the idea that the problems will vanish if somehow a subsidy is paid.
I would believe in the subsidy solution if it had not already been
tried fifty years ago and failed. All subsidies are is money paid by
the poor people in rich countries to the rich people in poor
countries. Africa's problems are not solved by outside intervention
because as a practical matter they cannot be solved by outside
intervention. Nobody fixes it because nobody knows how.
When you say "outside", you are reinforcing an us-them border mentality.
When you think in terms of suffering humanity, then there is no outside or
inside or borders or nationalism.
I was listening to an economist lecture a few months ago and he said
the real problem is that 200 years ago everyone was poor and now a
few people have managed to improve their lot. From a certain ultra
liberal perspective that is totally unacceptable, so that we have to
return to a state of universal destitution.
From even a double digit I.Q., that sounds like the bleating of a Rush
Limbaugh. A certifiable idiot.
200 years ago, there were entrenched royalty and nobility who were very
rich- they were the CEO/management class of their day. Everyone else was
poor.
When America was Europeanized, one remarkable thing was the continent was so
rich that any industrious person who wanted to could become quite well off.
Many did. The other was that almost everyone who came here of their own
doing, rather than in chains, were doing so to better their material
existence.
<snip >
So here is a question for you. I know you are not one of those folks
who pound their chest and clutch their gut and don't do anything. So
how do you eat and pay the rent now that you have sent all your money
to Zimbabwe?
maybe just a near insignificant thing like taking your browser over to
www.thehungersite.com and clicking the big yellow button every morning will
help you eat your American breakfast easier. It helps me. If you have 2
computers, you can feed 2 people. It's like voting.
regards-
Ali
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