Dedicated to the G8
Parabeaglex2
270 Posts
I am born today,
The sun burns a promise in my eyes.
Mama strikes me,
And I draw a breath, and cry.
Above me a cloud softly tumbles through the sky.
I am glad to be alive!
------
It is my seventh day,
I taste the hunger, and I cry.
My brother and sister
Cling to Mama's side.
She squeezes her breast, but it has nothing to provide.
Someone weeps.
I fall asleep.
------
It is twenty days, today.
Mama does not hold me anymore.
I open my mouth, but I am too weak to cry.
Above me a bird slowly crawls across the sky.
Why is there nothing, now, to do but die?
------
Thank you, Harry Chapin
The sun burns a promise in my eyes.
Mama strikes me,
And I draw a breath, and cry.
Above me a cloud softly tumbles through the sky.
I am glad to be alive!
------
It is my seventh day,
I taste the hunger, and I cry.
My brother and sister
Cling to Mama's side.
She squeezes her breast, but it has nothing to provide.
Someone weeps.
I fall asleep.
------
It is twenty days, today.
Mama does not hold me anymore.
I open my mouth, but I am too weak to cry.
Above me a bird slowly crawls across the sky.
Why is there nothing, now, to do but die?
------
Thank you, Harry Chapin
Comments
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
I posted this, Harry Chapin's "The Shortest Story" as a sort of a tribute to the work he did when he was charged by President Carter to head the US involvement with the World Hunger Organization. He wrote this and included it in his "Greatest Stories Live" album. Unfortunately, when he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal (posthumously), the keynote speaker was Ted Kennedy and, as a result, the award lost some of its luster.
Anyway, it seemed like the thing to do. I felt it was time we all stopped being such a self-centered herd of people living in the richest country in the world and ignoring the famines in Africa.
Just my humble opinion. And, fortunately, it seems that the Brits are willing to step up to the plate and provide aid to Africa. More than those of us in the powerful, rich, United States. Thanks, Dubya!
For those of you who have never been fortunate enough to have a mole in the back yard...You can poke a garden hose in their hole and run water full blast down it from the time the sun rises till the time the sun goes down, and then some, and it never impacts the mole or the hole, only the water bill and the grass that sucks up most of the water. Similarly, pouring American dollars or Euros into the deep hole of African corruption will not significantly impact the starving in that country, their infrastructure or their health crises.
By the way, Albert Gore and Theodore Kennedy gave less to charity two years ago than any other members of the administration or congress. But, I'm sure they had other, more appropriate ways of contributing.
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
He goes on to say, "White Europeans need to get over their guilt trip and recognize that the problems facing sub-Saharan Africa are caused by the Africans themselves. In africa you have land rich in resources, a surplus of labor, a largely benign climate and fertile soil. What Africa lacks are honest, competent leaders who care about their own people. If any such leaders have emerged since the colonial period, all have been murdered by the thugs wo ended up running most of the countries. Practically every conflict they have turns into an orgy of mutilation, rape and mass murder."
Perhaps his most solid conclusion is "No outsider can save another person from his or her own self-destructive tendencies."
Oh, and my own comment about shooting a water hose down a mole's hole; here's what Reese says today, "Pouring foreign aid into Africa is like trying to irrigate a desert with spit. Billions and billions of dollars have poured into that rathole, with virtually no visible results."
He concludes by saying, "Far too many Europeans and North Americans prefer the comfort of living with delusions rather than honestly assessing problems. The provider of aid is often more interested in his own selfish objectives than in the African people."
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
James Shikwati, a distinguished Kenyan economist, was singing another song: "For God's sake, please just stop the aid."
In an interview in der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, Mr. Shikwati describes what he sees as the disastrous result of aid to Africa. Not only do African leaders exploit it for their own purposes, stuffing their pocketbooks and adding to their power, but aid weakens local markets, destroys incentives and fosters corruption and complacency. He scoffs at the motives of the United Nations World Food Program, "which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of ... being dedicated to the fight against hunger while ... being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated."
What the Kenyans have to learn, he says of his own country, is how to help themselves by encouraging sustainable markets. He cites the distribution of corn and clothes as examples of "do-goodism" gone wrong, hurting those it sets out to help in an endless circle of vicious venality. Corn arrives from highly subsidized European and American farmers. African politicians take portions of it to distribute to their constituents. What isn't given away is dumped on the black market, and sold at such bargain prices that an African farmer can't compete, so he puts down his hoe. When the next famine arrives, begging begins again.
African children receive generous packages of clothes. Good? Not necessarily. Local tailors, seamstresses and merchants lose their livelihoods because no one in the low-wage world of Africa can compete with the donated products that find their way to the black market. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria's textile industry; six years later the figure had fallen to 57,000. The results, Mr. Shikwati says, are similar in other areas "where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide."
Increasing numbers of Africans decry the damages of paternalism, but you didn't hear those voices at the Live 8 concerts. Rage and protest were not directed at corrupt local leaders, either. Nelson Mandela's heroism directed at whites who oppressed blacks is needed now directed at black politicians who oppress the black masses.
The developed world rightly directs its generosity to crises of health and hunger, but aid must be part of a larger package to educate and encourage private incentive and enterprise. It's not enough to teach an African how to fish, but we must show the African how to sell the fish in a market where competition is fair. He has to learn how to keep government officials from cutting in on his business. Aid without reform is a dead-end concept, literally.
Jean-Bedel Bokassa, once the leader of the Central African Republic, got it right: "We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it." James Shikwati sums up the problem today: "Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its two feet." This is not the feel-good message easy for feel-good masses to applaud, but snapping fingers only adds to mindless noise.
St. Jude's is a fine children's cancer hospital in Memphis. Some of you may know it as the pet project of Danny and Marlo Thomas. Fine place. Lots of great work and much of the care is free I understand. St Jude's is a huge charity, very popular in the South and perhaps elsewhere. Little known is that St. Jude Charity Foundation, and for that matter, the hospital, is owned and operated by ALSAC. That stands for Americal, Lebanese, Syrian Associated Charities. For many years my family donated to that charity, usually as a memorial to someone we knew who had died. Lebanon and Syria are corrupt, terrorist sponsoring countries. How much of my charity money do I reckon found its way into the pockets of the corrupt officials in those countries. Every damned nickle of it, that's how much. G8 my ass.
PT Barnum is sitting on a cloud somewhere chuckling.
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
Isn't it about time we admitted that there are just some things that we can do nothing about?
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
The thought is that we simply should share our wealth with them and hope for the best. Having shared our wealth with them, we have then met our obligation as a society and a people and nothing beyond that really is our concern. We have no right to demand or expect this or that. We only are obliged to give them part of what we have and we are further obligated to give them, pro-rata, more of what we have than any other group of people in other places in the world. So, that in the end, it can be said that we had the longest hose and we blasted the most water down the rat hole and our water bill was higher and our spicket is running the widest open. Reportedly, that will bring the warmest collective feeling.
Are we suddenly singing to the choir? Where are Judy, Parabeagle, G8 minus 5 (G3), HRLass, Whatever, what's her name and Bettie Boop when you need them? I won't include Whirlwind since she's beginning to 'come around'. x:-)
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
Actually - although I'm loathe to say this - some excellent points have been made. I remember Somalia and our attempt to get food to them; look what happened there!
Guess it's nice to embrace the ideology, but the practical application of famine relief in Africa can be troublesome.
Parabeagle says he's 'loathe' to admit there were good points made here. Why? Haven't we learned enough, historically, particularly beginning in the 60s, to know that pie in the sky dreams and acid-laced visions of tip-toeing through tulips and 'just getting along' and loving one another and living and let live is nothing more than letters and smoke strung together. It does not take a village. But it does take a dream, an idea, a vision and some direction and leadership from somewhere. It takes more than a check and that's been our history. 'A check' is the answer provided by The Great Society to our own people and it didn't even work here.
What we do know is that the Democrat mantras criticizing but never offering alternative suggestions is not gaining anything. Their response when you ask for suggestions and alternatives is just like Gillian3's, "I don't know, but....."
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
When an advanced society intrudes upon a less advanced one whether by colonization, war, trade, disease or other far reaching influence the less advanced society will be unable to maintain it's integrity or its natural growth pattern.
The middle ages were all about war both within and across Europe and the Near East. But all of the combatants were of a roughly equitable degree of civilization.
Our history is full of instances where the touch of an advanced civilzation destroyed a less advanced one, the native peoples of the Americas were uniformly decimated by the arrival of 17th century Europeans, in the ancient world the advanced civilization of Egypt enslaved vast numbers of less developed people because they didn't have the technology required to protect themselves.
I think this pattern is repeating itself in Africa. Economies, thinking patterns, education level and moral codes all need to develop at an appropriate rate within a society for it to achieve its potential.
I'm still trying to understand the lady's points, as stretched as they are. What I think I hear is a suggestion that animals be left alone to fend and fight for themselves and whichever ones live will have done so as a part of natures natural plan. Sounds workable if you're talking about wild lions in the jungle. But if a man shows up and throws a large stick at them and they suddenly untangle and somehow regroup to fight again, we have upset the balance of nature. How many more hundred years should the people of the middle east be left alone to bash each other's heads in? 200? 600? What's nature's progression plan for that?
As for the comment of G3, it is the same as always; offering nothing in the way of a position statement, an alternative or a realistic suggestion, only continuing to attack and ridicule the incumbent government body. G3, do you need more brass pins to press into the flesh of the Bush doll?
Parageagle; practice, after me....'I was wrong'.
Disclaimer: This message is not intended to offend or attack. It is posted as personal opinion. If you find yourself offended or uncomfortable, email me and let me know why.
As the only remaining super power, despite our internal bickering between parties and whose politics are "right," we have been able to sustain a capitalist environment that is geared toward healthy competition between companies and benefiting the consumer. More selection, competitive prices for goods, etc. While I personally believe that less government is better, that there needs to be better accountability and more personal responsibility for those using social services, etc., we still enjoy a market that allows free trade. Therefore, there is hope for those with the entrepreneurial spirit, as evidenced by the new businesses always springing up. In these third world nations, this spirit is broken in order to keep control of the masses. So, for those that cry for assisting the unfortunate, would you support the notion of using whatever means necessary to provide these nations the change that must take place, or would this be another example of the US forwarding its own agenda? I think that recent history tells us the answer.
Send your money and tell others that you are making a difference. I personally support ministries, not charities, that are geared toward education and teaching the people of these countries how to support themselves. The Heifer Project that teaches families how to raise animals to feed their families. That give them the education they need to start thinking for themselves.
As Robert Browning remarked, "Nothing is of value in itself, only to what it may lead or the help it may yield the spirit." If it makes you feel good inside, do it. Don't be concerned that you were duped by the hype of the outcry.
Throw in a little Iron Butterfly and I'm good. x:-)