Live8
Wow. I guess I really haven’t posted in a while. Sorry. Despite what KH might say about this, I’ve actually been a little less angry at the world, hence, less posting. It’s not to say that there isn’t things to be pissed at, its just it takes a lot of energy to be mad all the time. Opinions, done right, require thought and work and shouldn’t just be pulled out of ones ass. Sure I could babble about things with out thought or reflection (sending Karl Rove to jail. hehehe), but these days I would rather sit out side, drink a beer and enjoy the weather.
However, since I have been promising this for a while, I guess I should post something here on Scaggsville. To be fair to all of our readers, I think it should be something that will piss about half of you off. Keeps everyone involved, lets people feel included.
Thankfully over the 4th of July weekend I was in the mountains and missed all of the Live8 hullaballu. I’ve heard from others that MTV cut away from a fantastic Pink Floyd show to talk about Tom Cruise’s new pimple on his ass or something like that. I read a few articles about how they were going to save Africa by taking .07 percent of our GDP, bla bla bla. Basically I missed it all.
The only bit of Live8 I did see was U2 for about 20 seconds (needed a new beer and the TV was on re-running it when I went inside to get a drink). Bono gave some speech about saving 3 million Africans a week from mosquito bites. Well that just pissed me off (DDT, could save over 100 million kids a year world wide... but hey, lets believe junk science. ) So how did he propose we do that? I’ll tell you how… BY TAKING MY MONEY.
Well that 20 seconds got me pissed off enough to start a thinkin’ about Africa.
What really spits in my gravy (just made that up) about all this Live8 crap is that it perfectly reflects liberal idealism. Lets do things that FEEL right, that make US FEEL better. Africa doesn’t need US to feel better, it needs real solutions to fix it’s real problems. Throwing money at a problem doesn’t make it better and sometimes it makes it worse. Moreover, I don’t wake every morning, go to work, pay my taxes (under threat of violence) and have some corrupt U.N. official can get rich or some tribal Warlord abuse his citizens all so some millionaire rock artists can tell me how Americans are too wealthy and need to give more (while each received a $12,000 “goodie bag”).
Africa is a continent of vast natural wealth. Everything from oil to heavy metals to diamonds to farmland is standing right there looking them in the eyes and yelling “Hello!”. I don’t want to hear jack shit about colonial oppression, because that’s crap. At the very latest most of Africa was free of European control since the 1960’s. Almost 50 years and one of them can get it right, please. The problems facing Africa today are entirely cultural (may have been different cause in the past, but not so much now – read Guns, Germs, and Steel for a decent study on wealth, power, and sleeping with livestock.)
The first problem Africa faced as non-colonel states was that they inherited liberal western idealism and adopted it as their nations were born. Before World War Two, under European command, Africans were not starving. Africans were not killing each other off by the millions. Enter post WWII and the European Empires collapsing. Western educated Africans fed a bunch of hippy crap in Western schools formed governments that couldn’t run effectively. Wacky liberal ideas taught by the college intelligentsia, ideas that wouldn’t work in the best possible cases. Of coarse they failed in Africa. Thomas Sowell explains this pretty well, though I don’t really agree with his river conclusions. None the less, read his article, why reinvent the wheel right?
The second problem Africa has, is it can’t get past its tribal associations. Clan A just can’t expect Clan B to be slaves or cease to exist just because Clan A wants them too. My extended family doesn’t go around killing off other people’s extended families just because I’m from one side of the mountain and they are from the other. It’s called respect for human rights. Not the crap that the U.N. is pushing, I’m talking real respect for life here. Hello, you people have more in common than you think… Who cares if you are a Hootoo or Watutsi… Jesus Man!, you’re both starving to death when you aren’t killing each other with sticks and knives. PUT THE STICKS DOWN and GROW SOMETHING.
Third big problem. Put DOWN THE DICK. Lets think about this. I’m hungry, I don’t have anything to eat. Lets have some more kids. HELLO, DON’T HAVE ANY MORE KIDS, just put down the dick, step away and GROW SOMETHING. This also relates to AIDS. Millions are dieing from AIDS in Africa. No the CIA didn’t create AIDS. Get over that. If you do have AIDS, RAPING infants to death will not cure you of AIDS. I can’t stress this enough, RAPING INFANTS, BABYS AND OTHER VIRGINS WILL NOT CURE AIDS. The best way to not die from AIDS is not to catch AIDS. Fucking around with everyone in the village and in the neighboring villages is a good way to catch diseases. Try monogamous relationships. A real religion helps that. Not that it’s necessary, hell I don’t wanna be called a crusader, but if you believe in one lifelong partner it sure helps your chances of not getting the HIV.
Fourth problem, where the hell is all the food? As a colony, Rhodesia exported food all over Africa and the world. Everybody ate. As Zimbabwe they can’t even feed themselves. Same stretch of dirt, same crops, same people, different culture in charge. The few people who actually could use the extremely rich farmland to produce something were a handful of white farmers. Well, back to the tribal problems, the new “leader” kills or runs off farmers from the only functioning farms and gives them to all his tribal buddies. Now, not only are people still starving as the fields are left to go bare, machinery rusting, livestock dying, but now the economy is crap too . Same deal with the Ivory Coast same deal with South Africa same deal over and over and over again.
Fifth problem, the few countries that do have stable governments are ruled under sharia law. Guess what, that’s not working for the richest nations in the world, it’s not going to work for you dirt farmers. Islam as a form of government is stuck in the 12th century and doesn’t work. You can’t treat half your population as cattle and expect to prosper. I could speak for days on this…
Sixth problem, international debt. Hold on a second, it’s not what you think hippy. The problem is they borrowed the money, they don’t pay back the money, NO ONE LENDS THEM ANY MORE MONEY. Getting rid of the debt WILL ONLY encourage nations to LEND NO MORE. Debt forgivness is a sure way to trap Africa in prehistory. Africa need to PAY OFF ITS DEBT.
Hand outs, exactly what these rock and roll stars are asking the world to do, is the seventh problem facing Africa. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution the quality of life FOR THE WHOLE WORLD has increased. However, NOT IN ONE CASE has that been through the redistribution of wealth. The creation of wealth, the creation of products, the creation of ideas, and the creation of labor have been and always will be the root of all increases in the betterment of the quality of life. Wealth redistribution, though it FEELS like a good thing to do, does nothing to help the root causes of economic or social disparities. Free money, free food, free services discourages production. It DISCOURAGES THE CREATION OF WEALTH, wealth that helps everyone. The few African farmers who can grow food, why should they grow more than they personally need if their labor is vastly undervalued because of international (read American) relief? I’m not saying don’t assist those in need, but make sure the need is real and not is not continual. Ask the Indians (red dot, not tee pee) how they went from starving 30 years ago to taking crappy American jobs. It wasn’t until after they stopped taking handouts, I can tell you that much.
There are a lot of problems facing Africa, and I can only guess at real solutions to help that continent. They are big problems, real big. However, the ludicrous “feel good” approach only hurts America AND Africa. The only people who benefit from this approach are U.N. bureaucrats, warlords, and whiny liberals who actually think they are doing someone a favor. The one thing I am sure about, is that letting Africans work out there own issues by supporting themselves is the only real way they will develop.
-Otter, who is now all mad and is all worked up instead of being happy and chill.
However, since I have been promising this for a while, I guess I should post something here on Scaggsville. To be fair to all of our readers, I think it should be something that will piss about half of you off. Keeps everyone involved, lets people feel included.
Thankfully over the 4th of July weekend I was in the mountains and missed all of the Live8 hullaballu. I’ve heard from others that MTV cut away from a fantastic Pink Floyd show to talk about Tom Cruise’s new pimple on his ass or something like that. I read a few articles about how they were going to save Africa by taking .07 percent of our GDP, bla bla bla. Basically I missed it all.
The only bit of Live8 I did see was U2 for about 20 seconds (needed a new beer and the TV was on re-running it when I went inside to get a drink). Bono gave some speech about saving 3 million Africans a week from mosquito bites. Well that just pissed me off (DDT, could save over 100 million kids a year world wide... but hey, lets believe junk science. ) So how did he propose we do that? I’ll tell you how… BY TAKING MY MONEY.
Well that 20 seconds got me pissed off enough to start a thinkin’ about Africa.
What really spits in my gravy (just made that up) about all this Live8 crap is that it perfectly reflects liberal idealism. Lets do things that FEEL right, that make US FEEL better. Africa doesn’t need US to feel better, it needs real solutions to fix it’s real problems. Throwing money at a problem doesn’t make it better and sometimes it makes it worse. Moreover, I don’t wake every morning, go to work, pay my taxes (under threat of violence) and have some corrupt U.N. official can get rich or some tribal Warlord abuse his citizens all so some millionaire rock artists can tell me how Americans are too wealthy and need to give more (while each received a $12,000 “goodie bag”).
Africa is a continent of vast natural wealth. Everything from oil to heavy metals to diamonds to farmland is standing right there looking them in the eyes and yelling “Hello!”. I don’t want to hear jack shit about colonial oppression, because that’s crap. At the very latest most of Africa was free of European control since the 1960’s. Almost 50 years and one of them can get it right, please. The problems facing Africa today are entirely cultural (may have been different cause in the past, but not so much now – read Guns, Germs, and Steel for a decent study on wealth, power, and sleeping with livestock.)
The first problem Africa faced as non-colonel states was that they inherited liberal western idealism and adopted it as their nations were born. Before World War Two, under European command, Africans were not starving. Africans were not killing each other off by the millions. Enter post WWII and the European Empires collapsing. Western educated Africans fed a bunch of hippy crap in Western schools formed governments that couldn’t run effectively. Wacky liberal ideas taught by the college intelligentsia, ideas that wouldn’t work in the best possible cases. Of coarse they failed in Africa. Thomas Sowell explains this pretty well, though I don’t really agree with his river conclusions. None the less, read his article, why reinvent the wheel right?
The second problem Africa has, is it can’t get past its tribal associations. Clan A just can’t expect Clan B to be slaves or cease to exist just because Clan A wants them too. My extended family doesn’t go around killing off other people’s extended families just because I’m from one side of the mountain and they are from the other. It’s called respect for human rights. Not the crap that the U.N. is pushing, I’m talking real respect for life here. Hello, you people have more in common than you think… Who cares if you are a Hootoo or Watutsi… Jesus Man!, you’re both starving to death when you aren’t killing each other with sticks and knives. PUT THE STICKS DOWN and GROW SOMETHING.
Third big problem. Put DOWN THE DICK. Lets think about this. I’m hungry, I don’t have anything to eat. Lets have some more kids. HELLO, DON’T HAVE ANY MORE KIDS, just put down the dick, step away and GROW SOMETHING. This also relates to AIDS. Millions are dieing from AIDS in Africa. No the CIA didn’t create AIDS. Get over that. If you do have AIDS, RAPING infants to death will not cure you of AIDS. I can’t stress this enough, RAPING INFANTS, BABYS AND OTHER VIRGINS WILL NOT CURE AIDS. The best way to not die from AIDS is not to catch AIDS. Fucking around with everyone in the village and in the neighboring villages is a good way to catch diseases. Try monogamous relationships. A real religion helps that. Not that it’s necessary, hell I don’t wanna be called a crusader, but if you believe in one lifelong partner it sure helps your chances of not getting the HIV.
Fourth problem, where the hell is all the food? As a colony, Rhodesia exported food all over Africa and the world. Everybody ate. As Zimbabwe they can’t even feed themselves. Same stretch of dirt, same crops, same people, different culture in charge. The few people who actually could use the extremely rich farmland to produce something were a handful of white farmers. Well, back to the tribal problems, the new “leader” kills or runs off farmers from the only functioning farms and gives them to all his tribal buddies. Now, not only are people still starving as the fields are left to go bare, machinery rusting, livestock dying, but now the economy is crap too . Same deal with the Ivory Coast same deal with South Africa same deal over and over and over again.
Fifth problem, the few countries that do have stable governments are ruled under sharia law. Guess what, that’s not working for the richest nations in the world, it’s not going to work for you dirt farmers. Islam as a form of government is stuck in the 12th century and doesn’t work. You can’t treat half your population as cattle and expect to prosper. I could speak for days on this…
Sixth problem, international debt. Hold on a second, it’s not what you think hippy. The problem is they borrowed the money, they don’t pay back the money, NO ONE LENDS THEM ANY MORE MONEY. Getting rid of the debt WILL ONLY encourage nations to LEND NO MORE. Debt forgivness is a sure way to trap Africa in prehistory. Africa need to PAY OFF ITS DEBT.
Hand outs, exactly what these rock and roll stars are asking the world to do, is the seventh problem facing Africa. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution the quality of life FOR THE WHOLE WORLD has increased. However, NOT IN ONE CASE has that been through the redistribution of wealth. The creation of wealth, the creation of products, the creation of ideas, and the creation of labor have been and always will be the root of all increases in the betterment of the quality of life. Wealth redistribution, though it FEELS like a good thing to do, does nothing to help the root causes of economic or social disparities. Free money, free food, free services discourages production. It DISCOURAGES THE CREATION OF WEALTH, wealth that helps everyone. The few African farmers who can grow food, why should they grow more than they personally need if their labor is vastly undervalued because of international (read American) relief? I’m not saying don’t assist those in need, but make sure the need is real and not is not continual. Ask the Indians (red dot, not tee pee) how they went from starving 30 years ago to taking crappy American jobs. It wasn’t until after they stopped taking handouts, I can tell you that much.
There are a lot of problems facing Africa, and I can only guess at real solutions to help that continent. They are big problems, real big. However, the ludicrous “feel good” approach only hurts America AND Africa. The only people who benefit from this approach are U.N. bureaucrats, warlords, and whiny liberals who actually think they are doing someone a favor. The one thing I am sure about, is that letting Africans work out there own issues by supporting themselves is the only real way they will develop.
-Otter, who is now all mad and is all worked up instead of being happy and chill.
posted by The Management at 3:03 PM
6 Comments:
Your rage just made me laugh for about 20 minutes. Beautiful.
< /slow clap > absolutely beautiful < slow clap/ >
KH
Bono should paint himself black and go live in Africa......full time. If he wants to save them so bad, he ought to go take up arms and fight off the Warlords. How much of the G8 money is going towards terrorist training camps? Message to Bono, Shut the F*&k and start singing.--ASK
GROW SOMETHING? You have got to be kidding me. Africa's issues are slightly more complex than you would like to believe:
-Africa is a continent of vast natural wealth, HOWEVER the problem is that Africa lacks the skills and resources to take advantage of this natural wealth. Money isn't the only piece of this puzzle, but it would certainly help.
-The clan violence you speak of is cultural, however it ties back to a poor economic state of Africa. These clans are killing each other to survive. We need to stabilize Africa's economy to reduce this violence.
-Africa's problem with disease also ties back to a poor economy and a general lack of medical resources. It's not as simple as "abstinence."
All of the issues you point out CAN be solved by increasing aid and forgiving debt. Africa is not going to suddently realize they need to "stop" doing things without an infrastructure to support them. These are issues that need multi-national support and lots of money. Go Bono.
RJR... Well, bite me.
Eeyore... Rabbits out.
RJR - then why didn't the first Live Aid work? Oh yeah, it's because the despots in Africa use the money for themselves and not for the betterment of the people.
Your argument makes you sound like you are pro-globalization. That makes you a bad liberal (though, perhaps, a smarter person). Maybe we should just be complete non-interventionists and do nothing. After all, whatever policy choice we make will later just be used as an excuse for why some segment of the population hates us.
KH
Well generally I have a problem with programs like Live8...but I would rather have a population that pays some $ for a ticket, some of that $ goes to a village in Africa, and that person leaves the show with a slightly less ethnocentric view of the world. That is my measure of success.
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