Make Poverty History

Tread carefully Leopard. We catamaran owners are already accused of being an arrogant lot this morning.
The meek (if you remember) will inherit the earth, that is if no one else really objects....... You and I can only look on in dismay I fear.......
 
oh yes, i'm well aware that to question the doctrine of george bush as the great satan will stir up a whole heap of trouble, probably more even than attacking organised religion these days /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Yes the removal of old Saddam was the right thing .

However was the method right ?

And to reply to Snowleopard if you look at the history he was there because previously it suited the major nations of the world. If they had behaved properly in the first place and not out of self interest etc etc etc . Some times the cheapest and seemingly easy route is not the answer . As they say" take the rocky road to salvation and the easy road to hell".

Also what about the USA Hawks among them manufacturers wanting to sell their armaments and try them out on some poor oppressed civilians .Dont tell me they were altruistic. Presidents are elected by big lobbying groups and suported by big corporations . Most of the evil is in the West A lot of people make money out of wars. So who is better than Saddam ?

And then you could go on to Afganistan and again and again and again

Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword


So MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
 
IF THEY HAD BEHAVED PROPERLY IN THE FIRST PLACE? Are you now becoming a cynic as well as an idealist?

There is an old Armenian Proverb that translated means He who plants an "IF" tree cannot expect much fruit.......
 
Same thing!

George Bush Senior = God the Father
George W = God the Son
Cant see Tony as the Holy Ghost though somehow? Wonder why not?
 
Idealist no. Cynic sometimes , practical yes . ie try to do ones best now etc

I do know that man is not perfect even made worse by all of us being individualists which is an advantage to the oppessors if we don't act together on moral issues

You are also right about the IF Tree . it represents an opportunity long gone.

However there are a lot of opportunities available to the world leaders in June and perhaps some of them will grasp the nettle and go perhaps with some encouragement from people interested in MAKING POVERTY HISTORY
 
The Bushes I suppose will serve their purpose one way or another . The American empire will carry on

Tony however is to be pitied . Gone are the days of glory.

he hoped for Kudos on Iraq and was branded a liar

he supported the working man , took his eye off the ball and is now fighting for his political life over Longbridge

He is facing the prospect of putting up with Gordon for another 5 years

and his greatest fear is that the Labour party will lose and he will not get to his last amition which is to chair the G8 meeting in June

poor young old man
 
" Also what about the USA Hawks among them manufacturers wanting to sell their armaments and try them out on some poor oppressed civilians .Dont tell me they were altruistic. Presidents are elected by big lobbying groups and suported by big corporations . Most of the evil is in the West A lot of people make money out of wars. So who is better than Saddam ? "

What a load of pious claptrap! Most of the evil is in the West, indeed. Like Western N Korea or Western S Rhodesia, not to mention the "stans" or Russia or Syria or Iran or Saudi or Western China (who incidentally are the worlds largest supplier of the sort of small arms the average African "soldier" kills his fellow man with). And of course all the worlds hard drugs are grown in the West, and AIDS originated in the West. I could go on but I wont. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

We are free people because those Americans you denigrate first rescued us from Hitler and then from the Russians, when they could just as easily have stayed at home taking the same view of Adolph as the pacifists now take of Saddam.
 
You don't indicate in your profile what "our" country is but if you are talking about the UK, where are the people dying from hunger? where are they dying for lack of medicines? or clean drinking water?

What standard of living should we have here before we help others? A TV for every family? A car?
 
Well said! How many times have I heard Bush and Blair compared to Saddam and Hitler. If it were a valid comparison no one would be surprised to hear that Bush was putting Mormons into gas chambers or deporting Mexicans into slave labour batallions. We would be used to hearing that Blair was attacking the Welsh with mustard gas or bulldozing Scottish cities.

And no one would be surprised to hear that those criticizing the government had disappeared during the night to be tortured and killed.

Get real guys!
 
[ QUOTE ]
We are free people because those Americans you denigrate first rescued us from Hitler and then from the Russians, when they could just as easily have stayed at home taking the same view of Adolph as the pacifists now take of Saddam.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahem, the yanks would just as easily stayed at home, in fact, they did!

When the luftwaffe were on the verge of annhilating the RAF and Hitler was preparing Operation Sealion to invade the south coast, america stayed neutral. It seems it was quite happy to be a pacifist then, but not in Dec 1941 when the japs attacked Pearl Harbour. The Americians only came to our aid when they had no choice.

Americian policy was the same in the Gulf wars as it was in WWII as it was in every war, "what can we gain if we go to war, and what will we lose if we don't"
 
Couldn't agree more! After a two-year stint working with several aid groups in Africa and seeing where the aid money really goes, i have vowed never to donate to 'general' overseas aid funds. I have actually seen a 15,000 dollar flight being made in a private jet to collect icecream - using donated funds!! If you donate aid, what little is left to go to the people who need it (after large amounts have been hived off by local officials and warlords) simply makes them stop trying to help themselves. Every project we carried out - we were upgrading local hospitals with new generators and sterilising gear etc - was entirely looted by the time we returned six months later to check how things were going. Border guards wouldn't let our trucks through with the hospital gear unless we paid a 'duty' - in US dollars of course! They didn't like the fact that we were bringing in goods rather than just sending the cash - makes it too complicated to embezzle!
Corruption & tribalism are the root of all Africa's problems, and chucking money at the problem will never work without policing. People I spoke with in Uganda who could remember when the Brits ran the country and said it was the best time ever - Ugandan hospitals were better than many European ones! Trains ran on time, the shops stocked everything and at sensible prices and the country traded it coffee and tea freely, making it profitable and successful. Yes, the Brit overlords took a large cut, but the country was viable and independant in trade and economical terms.
Now I'd better stop in case the PC brigade are lurking and I get carried away by men in suits!
 
" Now I'd better stop in case the PC brigade are lurking and I get carried away by men in suits! " Or more likely the massed ranks of Tech college sociology lecturers with beards (the women only) kaftans, sandles and halitosis.!

There's nothing quite like a good prejudice! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Well nothing but the real life confirmation of one.
 
Simple solution then (are you watching Mr Bliar?)

Re establish the Empire. Now, to do this we need to recreate the apparatus of empire, a decent Royal Navy and plenty of District Commissioners. Naturally, in naval terms, we shall need gunboats and battleships. These will require much investment in heavy engineering and shipbuilding, which by chance tend to happen in Labour constituencies. A new battlecruiser squadron at Rosyth with associated employment increae may bring a twinkle to Gordon's eye. Darned good tourist attraction too!

District Commissioners need to be relatively literate and able to discourse freely on topics that the locals don't understand, but makes them feel wise. We have a steady souce of these, young people with a 2.1 in History of Socialist Art from Slaggthorpe University, young people who might otherwise have spent their working lives asking if you want that supersize...

Having spoken at length last night to someone who plans to go and support the Make Poverty History action her biggest fear is being lumped in with the anarchists and rentamob who habitually turn up to these things. A valid concern and one that ought to et more attention, the media will certainly see them as all the same.
 
You cannot make a broad statement that an opinion is completely balderdash . Life is not that simple . While there is a lot of evil in the places you mention there is also a lot in the West . You have only to look around . Indifference , drunkenness , racial predjudice ,lust , extortion , self interest etc etc We are human and hence imperfect . That is not to say that there are not a lot of good things as well as you correctly point out

China Korea , Zimbabwe and the rest all run by dictators and the groups that support them but I do know that there are a lot of good people in these countries striving against difficult odds. I have been there and met all types . There is not much difference between us and them.


However that does not mean that USA and the rest of West is clean .


So perhaps you could consider what motivated the USA Hawks to pressure the government .

Care for their fellow man ?

America first ie protect our borders etc ?

The Israel lobby ?

Control over oil ?

An opportunity for armaments suppliers to sell their goods ?

Militarist to try out their weapons and justify their existance ?

Fear of the Moslem impact on the world .


Whatever you conclude I believe we still are all very tribal and are motivated that way .



Even the global village has its railroad track with some on the wrong side
 
Unless I missed it I don't think he said it was "balderdash", but he did use the expression "pious claptrap" and, in essence he is right. You then go on to illustrate what evil is with a list mainly of trivia (Indifference , drunkenness , racial predjudice ,lust , extortion , self interest ) which makes me worry about your motives behind all this. How about war, disasters, disease, starvation as real examples of evil? (Personally, I would be inclined to include your racial prejudice and extortion in my list as well; but I hope you understand my point.)

It really does look as if you want to throw money at the problem to ease your conscience, rather than to effectively address the issue. I don't know what the answer is but I do know that if corruption and apathy (in the recipient countries) are not sorted out then all the money we may send may, in propping up the dodgy regimes, do more harm than good.

I am happy to see us spend the money if it is well spent, but to date I have not seen how it will be spent. Neither have you said how you think it would get rid of poverty.
 
Sorry thrown off original intent result of responding to other points -trivial or otherwise
G8 is where those who have power meet so the lobby is for good action by those in Power whether by money , change of tariff laws, political relations policy etc etc


Personally I think that to put money in a box is the easy option . It leaves the difficult bits to others
 
Re:Poverty Is Relative

Any economic model shows that to improve the lot of poor people, permanently, you have to inmprove the lot of everyone. The soviets tried it the other way. Dragging people down to the lower level but it wasn't a great success.

China shows that motivation makes a huge difference. So how do we motivate Africa? I'd suggest education as the answer.

How do we motivate givers, who now don't trust the big charities, to give? I'd suggest by showing how small charities can focus on micro projects and really make a difference.

As an illustration try www.friendsofsikunda.org a charity set up by a middle aged women who only went to the Gambia on holiday, her husband thought it was a fishing trip, and sort of adopted a village. He wonders how, on a fishing trip, they ended up that far inland.

Sue, the chairman, is a keen member of my crew. She would take issue with the idea that africans are lazy. She has been constantly amazed at how they rise to a challenge, how honest they are and how generous they are with the little they have. If you wish to donate your money will go directly into education & health based projects or you can "adopt" a kids school fee's. If you don't like the way things are going take the chairman saling.

Another charity I've had dealings with is Water Aid. It's a charity funded by the UK water industry. All as it tries to do is increase the amount of villages in Africa with clean water. It puts in money but more important it "lends" expertise to the third world. So british plumbers and water engineers fly out and work on projects and train locals. www.wateraid.org.uk

Check around locally and you'll find lots of little charities making a big difference. I think that they're the answer.
 
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