Is It Morally Wrong Not to Send Thousands Each Year to the Developing World?

People in the stagnant world have had tens of thousands of years to develop technology on par with the Europeans and their descendants. They have failed miserably. It is time the take their place next to homo erectus and the dodo bird.

I wont stop the pope and the imams from giving their vast fortunes back to the ignorant theists they stole it from but do not think for one minute that I am going to dilute my quality of life for the dregs of the our species. These people add nothing to my life so I will add nothing to theirs.

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We aren't a richer nation because we are so much smarter or better looking. Otherwise that argument extends up - the richer you are, the better you are genetically. The owners and employees of AIG, for example, are just about the greatest race of men and women that has ever trod the Earth, according to the common group-think in this country that allows us not to question why we have it so good and 1.5 bn people are on the brink.

It is a system. Just as in this country, the work of the public funnels up to a protectionist, Non-Free Market Elite group, so too does it work in the world. The work and life of the Third Worlder is taken and funneled up that long chain. Some trickles on the people who are higher up on the ladder along the way, tiny amounts, but largely it keeps going up.

There are just far too many of us here not questioning what happens on television, believing in memes like "you deserve it" even though I'm pretty sure no one "deserves" anything like what we have. Certainly not more than Chileans and Peruvians who've had their water privatized and stolen by American, Canadian, European mining companies. Certainly we can't think we deserve water more than the people who actually live there. I don't know though, maybe people will argue that.

Americans call each other stupid at an astounding rate. Recently on her visit to China, Hillary Clinton shared a little irony, I guess you could call it, with Foreign Minister Yang. As the NYTimes reported:

“It would also be fair to say that that many Americans have now come to terms with the fact that saving might be a good habit to acquire,” Mrs. Clinton said.

How droll! How ironic! Yes, because the average American is the one who pumped capital into shows like "Flip That House!" That's your fault, you did that. It's the average American who compelled Big Business to run on debt economy. That's you, that's the average American who made that system, according to her. The average person wiped economics and history right out of our schools. Not people like her, you.

And she isn't alone in laughing at how stupid Americans are. It's one of the top entertainments on television, in print, and radio, in our own country. And sadly - the world news isn't doing it the way we do it to each other. Not even Al-Jazeera news, which most Americans equate with "Death to America" (it isn't, btw) ever calls us stupid, and rarely if ever, that I've been able to see after a lot of research, ignorant. Calling Americans stupid is done more by Americans than anywhere else. It takes patience to cull the data, but it's there.

Until it comes to explaining how the hell we live like this, and 20% of the world's population is living under plastic tarps. Then it's how smart we are, how hard-working we are. Look, I don't really care, it's going to end for us one way or another, the easy way or the hard way. But unless we can bring these corporate media outlets down, as a people, there's no hope for Americans. It is just a daily infection of memes and double-think, and there isn't even a prayer of combating that. Smartest nation in the world, hardest working, supposedly, and we lost more in one corporate account to a Ponzi scheme, apparently twice as much, according to the rest of the world's news, as the shortfall in ending global starvation.

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This article talks about some very good philosophies. But just try telling them to the Republikkkans. They won't even give/suport their fellow Americans. They fight every dollar and dime spent for down and out Americans. Remember Reagans "welfare queens". With that single phrase he turned millions of Americans, Repubs, against millions of Americans, inner city residents. Their poverty and dead family structures were entirely due to Republikkkans and slavery.

Right now the Pope, a Repub, is in Africa telling them they cannot use condoms even when it is killing them. And he is also killing them via his staunch and steady support of the Republikkkan party. When the
Pope wants to have another religious Crusade against Muslims he'll have to do it on his own, because hopefully no more Americans will die for his Theology or the Repub imperialist/colonialist oil/corporate wars. It's amazing how they killed so many birds with one stone/war.

Unfortunately, there will always be poor people whose lives can be bought with the money that Repubs stole from the taxpayer. And that is the greatest reason why we must go back to the draft. Then all of the American people will be forced to take a stand for or against the next Republican wars for profit and theology.

Also, lest we forget, the Repukes left the Katrina victims high and dry. Even this many years later they are still suffering and largely still out of their homes because Repukes, Bush, would not release sufficient funds to help them. Bush and the Repukes actually had to be shamed into releasing as few funds as they did. Most, probably 75%, of Katrina victims are still out of their homes, especially if they are black. And hopefully Obama can/will expedite the Katrina recovery process, which the Repukes will oppose at every turn.We will be watching what they do. Is the social contract broken, you betcha it is.

And lest we forget it was the Bushie Rethugs who prevented the US Army Corps of Engineers from doing their already established basic jobs of the New Orleans levy testing, evaluation and repairs.

Then we cannot forget that Mr. Booosh, that krees-chun(Christian) gintl'min from takes-us(Texas) let the coal companies do their thing resulting in the deaths of their miners( once again, thats Pro-life and Family Values, how!) and the current and ongoing onslaught on the lives of West Virginians water supplies by the coal companies letting their mountain topping wastes, called tailings, slide into the streams that feed the water supplies. And then there is the very recent toxic ash slurry breaking out of the containment ponds to poison many, many acres of surrounding country side.

Yup, that's the Repubs taking care of people, human beings. They even kill for oil/corporate profits. After all to a Rethug war profits are just as good as any other profits.

The GOP party of prostitutes and their pimps, the party of I and me selfishness and immediate profits controls everything because they control the money through their Big Business pimps.

The entire world would do extremely well, with out these Repub scum, and would be a far better place.

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My concern is that there's already too high a birth rate in developing countries (and, indeed, in the U.S. as well) and that contributing money will only increase that birth rate.

If the recipients of my money (and, for the record, I'm not in that "bottom half of the top 10% Singer is talking about) pledge to avoid having more children, and pledge to NOT emigrate to Europe or to the U.S., then I might consider donating some of my hard-earned cash to better their lives.

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My last comment received nothing but insults. Would anyone care to take another stab at explaining why I should care about people in the stagnant world? Maybe you know something I don’t. Sway me. Make the impoverished browns my brother.

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It may be true that more money invested to lift people out of poverty is needed. However, even if one person were to take Peter Singer's advice and redirect some discretionary income toward this noble cause, the 2 questions that person should ask is

1)how will my money be spent?
2)will that approach bring about permanent change?

For the past 50 odd years, more than $1 trillion has been spent on development and yet there are still roughly 1 billion people living in poverty (living on less than $2 per day).

Will this person's money be spent in a similar manner with a very questionable return, a short term, illusionary fix? Will the same communities, villages and people still need life-sustaining foreign aid 50 years from now?

Sustainable development that results in permanent change requires a comprehennsive, multi-faceted approach to poverty, hunger and disease and it requires time and patience (often sorely lacking in traditional foreign aid).

These approaches do, in fact, require greater attention and investment. That investment will come as more people are made aware of the effectiveness and efficiency of these approaches and when they are held up in comparison to how donor money has been spent to date.

One example of a "different" approach can be found with World Neighbors (www.wn.org). Characteristic of people-centered development, its programs have provided a "hand up" versus a "hand out" to more than 25 million people in 45 countries over the last 58 years.

Together with other, like-minded organizations, it has proven again and again that this approach is consistently effective in a landscape littered with good intentions and single focus, silver bullet approaches that "promised" to end global poverty forever.

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What an interesting little conversation you citizens of the USA are having. Top-down as always. How about asking us in the so-called developing world what we want?
We don't want your aid. Aid comes with manipulative strings attached. Expensive stuff that usually ends up raping us in some way. Aid has been destructive over the years, increasing inequality, boosting corruption, at best messing up existing working systems. So my dear bigots, Honky, Vik, keep your dirty little dollars for your next fatty pizza.
We don't want your ill-informed judgement, either. We fornicate no more and no less than the rest of you, thank you very much. We have babies because it's insurance against an uncertain future, and because they are likely to die before age five. The minute life improves for us, we stop having babies so readily. (I seem to remember the average is at 2.7 in my part of the world now, down from 4.something a while back. What's your fertility rate, bunnies?)
Oh, and by the way, don't you dare talk to us about fundamentalism! Our religious beliefs have done far less damage to the entire planet than your ignorant right-wing Christians, dominating policy for decades.
We don't want your interference, either. Keep your hands, guns and military men to yourself.
We want level playing fields. We want your Breton Woods institutions out of our lives, with their dangerous killing advice. We want the right to be as protectionist of our own industries and commodities as you are and always have been of yours.
Oh, and we yearn to get backthat healthy world, the one that isn't going to cause extreme droughts and turn our fields into sand dunes, the one you burnt with your greed, you selfish, whining, flabby mama's babies, want, want, want, me, me, me!
Oh, just go away. Little tinpot gods. Think you're so much better than anyone else, you jumped-up Homo saps? You're destroying my home, you and your technology and your science and your digital toys and your big cars.
In about ten years, I reckon, we might hold you to a charge, not only of crimes against humanity, but against all the vast biodiversity of my green and blue earth. My beloved acacia trees and bat-eared foxes, my blesbok and nightjars, my savannah and yellow-wood, my waterfalls and cool kloofs. My love, my home, my world.
I know there are good people in the north. But they must surely be lonely among the stupid, the selfish and the bigoted.

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You and others are free to give away your assets as you see fit, but if I choose to donate, it will be to a group that helps Americans in need. The Third World countries are overpopulated and still continue to grow without any thought to the future. Why should I subsidize such irresponsibility? It's like giving tax dollars to the greedheads at AIG, et al. The only groups I would donate to in the Third World would be the ones providing free birth control and sterilization and yes, abortion too.

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One of the reasons developing nations are so poor is because they have been exploited by the power-elite in the richest nations. The World Bank and others buried them in loans. Up until limited debt relief, those countries were spending far more in interest to service their loans than they were on education, health care or other social programs. And it is not over. As the people of Haiti eat mud pies with a little vegetable oil, the Haitian government is spending one million a week to service its loans. It is not that those nations can't feed people, it is that they have to grow food for export for the money to pay the loans.

A great book to read if one is interested is Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. It was Perkin's job to finesse studies to convince developing governments to take huge loans for project that would benefit their countries. Except the immediate beneficiary was always the U.S. corporation (including Haliburton) that would get the project contract. Then the country would be on the hook for a huge amount of money. The U.S. wanted it that way to control their votes in the U.N. and their resources. I really recommend this book, it is an eye opener!

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Two years ago my position with the corporation was terminated. It was a learning experience for me.

Firstly, it taught me that most of my neighbours and acquaintences were an incredibly selfish and uncaring lot - "this is my pile and I'm sitting on it". Even though I had done nothing more than exercise the legal requirement for Due Diligence (and that was my thanks for trying to keep the company honest), most people were happy to assume that it was my fault because I had screwed up somehow.

Secondly (and more importantly), it taught me that casting my bread on the water, as it were, did indeed cause it to come back a Hundred-Fold ... Not only did my husband receive an extra labour contract the SAME DAY I lost my job, but work literally came to me when my former clients called me up. In December when the economy was going down the toilet, I actually STARTED a permanent part-time position.

Which is not to say I didn't toss and turn at night for the first few months or that I didn't have to take a menial job to make ends meet at first - but through the entire experience I never gave up on my commitment to my two sponsored children.

I really do believe that education and sustainability are the keys to our future, that all children deserve a chance and that even with our little house and all our monthly bills, we still live like kings compared to most people in the world today. Who could watch Stephen Lewis, special AIDS envoy to the UN - on camera, in tears at the suffering in Africa and indifference of first world countries - and not be moved?

Well, obviously a lot of people were not moved. So I say, do it for YOURSELF. Where are all the whingers whining about overpopulation? Here is your chance to help through education and family planning. If you cannot commit to a monthly sponsorship (which will show you what happens to your money), then I suggest an organization like ACCION USA which provides microfinancing for 3rd world entrepeneurs. You might also enjoy the feeling of inspiring some really good karma - for a change ;.)

(And if you don't believe in "karma" - don't worry, you'll still get what you deserve.)

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WHY FOREIGN AID CORRUPTS AFRICA

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Actually the developing world doesn't need your pennies you absurd self important American asshole. What it needs is for you to get the hell out its territory. The west profits from the developing world to a far greater extent than vice versa. You exist on the blood of the developing world like a parasite yet sit with the buffoonish ignorant audacity to blubber about what conditions will inspire you to part with a few pennies on behalf of the people you rob daily. That is humorous in the way that only an over fed American imbecile is capable of. You might be interested to know that just one of your over fed, over stuffed spoiled brats equals countless babies in the “third world” as you so love to call it. It is Americans and the west and their “way of life” that is at the root of the ravaging of the entire planet hence the solution is not in genocide of “third worlders” halting birthrates does constitute genocide btw, it is in the annihilation of the west and its gluttonous population of self righteous parasites. You might be interested to know btw that no one particularly cares about your precious “way of life”.

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The article seems to be suggesting that individuals should make charitable contributions to new charities in addition to Oxfam, Save the Children, and all the other hundreds of charities that people already make substantial contributions to.

Recently, Comic Relief in England amassed a huge amount of money donated by enthusiastic contributors who somehow think that wearing a red nose somehow makes the lives of recipients in Africa better off. Indeed, the objective was to send 5 million mosquito nets to reduce the instances of malaria.

Imagine a scenario in which the US military, rather than decimating countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, instead airlifted millions of mosquito nets to those who need it, and then travelled the length and breadth of the affected areas distributing mosquito nets to all the villages. Cost wise, you could compare it to the cost of designing and building an aircraft carrier which nobody actually need, but which unfortunately cost billions of dollars to design, manufacture and maintain. Cost wise, there is no comparison to making peoples’ lives better as against killing them.

Wealthy nations never got wealthy by accepting handouts from someone else. Making a country civilised and wealthy requires huge injections of capital that cannot possibly be met by paltry and pathetic voluntary handouts.

The world is driven by capitalist principles, and if the powers that be figured there would be a better profit in not having underdeveloped nations, it would get done.

The world is governed and driven by the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of International Settlements, the World Bank, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and all the other Central banks. It is driven by the location of natural resources, the holders of nuclear weapons, and the ability of people to fight back when their livelihood is threatened.

The African countries as a whole are not that good at defending themselves against invaders, which is why they made ideal victims of the slave trade. Add to that the distinct possibility that the AIDS virus was deliberately introduced, its purpose being to decimate the populations and make them more vulnerable to exploitation.

The whole idea of charity is a fundamental nonsense. The moment you receive a paycheck, a huge chunk of it has already been deducted, and which pays for things that we’d be much better off without. Much of the tax you pay goes to fund chemical and biological research, the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the maintenance of a huge, monolithic military whose fundamental task is to kill lots of people who are otherwise totally innocent of any crime.

Governments do donate millions in overseas aid, amounts that can never be matched by voluntary individual donations. It is true that these charitable donations may bring some kind of light relief to a few individuals who live thousands of miles away, but imagine if someone living in Russia for example gave the equivalent of $10 for someone to paint your front door.

How ridiculously laughable if what you need is for all the roads to be repaired because they are full of potholes, as is the case with many of the roads that lead into Accra, the capital of Ghana.

Civilisation is possible when all the children are receiving free education, which means building hundreds and hundreds of schools near enough for the children to be able to get there. This means training thousands of teachers so that all those children can get an education. This means building Universities so that the teachers can train to become teachers.

But having good roads also means having them clearly signposted so that you know where to go. In Accra and the surrounding regions, there are no signposts, or at least there are, but there are precious few of them.

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They don’t have a very good postal system, something we take for granted. They don’t have postmen, so if you want a letter, you must give a PO Box number. Few if any houses in that region of Ghana are built on streets that don’t have a name.

Nearly everyone alive today who lives in the western world grew up in a town which had fresh running water, good sewers, roads that were in good repair, street lighting, postmen, garbage collectors, schools close by, shops within easy reach, jobs to go to.

You think all this happened by accident, you stupid feckless morons. Just like the mobile phone and the computer which you people all take for granted, you forget the billions of dollars spent in research and development, but the people who put this into motion did so because they knew it would generate big profits eventually.

The western world, and in particular the USA, lives in a cesspit of consumerism driven by mindless advertising created by highly intelligent psychopaths that allows you decide what’s really important in your life – which is whether you’ll hire your movie from Blockbusters, go see it at the cinema, or tape it off Sky TV, and how much better the viewing and listening experience will be if you watch it in BluRay with 7 speaker surround sound, or just put up with a plain old DVD on a non HD wide screen TV with just 2 speakers.

Perhaps you enjoyed the film Crash, that would like to typify all men and women as cheap whores all out for an easy lay, and to hell with AIDS and the pitfalls that easy sex can land us in.

But back to the subject of the article. In England, this so-called economic crisis has resulted in cheap petrol, even cheaper cigarettes, low interest mortgages, and the possibility that gas and electricity prices will come down. We the people have never had it so good.

The banking system alas, is in disarray. The banks are basically all mates. Fractional Reserve Banking means a bank can lend perhaps 10 times more than the assets it actually holds in its vaults (I think I even saw the number 40 mentioned). Of course, when a bank lends money, it does nothing of the sort. So long as the borrower doesn’t actually demand cash, it can create an entry in a book, and when the borrower gets his cheque, well he simply deposits the cheque in another bank.

Thus, banking is a closed shop. No money as such ever changes hands, It’s all book keeping entries. Money created out of thin air and distributed in a virtual environment and recorded in databases on computer disks

This current financial crisis occurred because someone not part of the banks has suddenly become very rich indeed. Trouble is, there isn’t actually any real money to pay him with.

Enough said.

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It's morally wrong for Americans to send money to Israel.


FREE AMERICA

REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY

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... the perverse side effect of helping others is that there's no guarantee their descendants won't be selfish greedy bastards a generation or two down the line when they have 'developed'. Before I get modded down, let me qualify this statement:

Just looking at the western world, children who did not grow up in severe poverty often don't know the value of a dollar (as seen in the averge US households record amount of debt).

Kids who grow up in a rich society take advantage of it and become even more prejudice as their expectations rise, I think the birth rate has to do more with increasing standards and avoiding the expense of children and the hedonistic culture of self absorbed materialistic people, then it has to do with any kind of morality.

Trying to find someone who holds good non-materialistic values and who isn't just all in it for themselves is increasingly difficult.

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Again, if our citizens are going to pretend their intellect had anything to do with the success of this so-called country, if they are going to pretend they actually invented something or have been personally submitted to some kind of test of biological viability, then frankly, the model has to extend to us. You can't just piggy-back onto the real work done by scientists and innovators and murderers and the Pentagon. These people really worked, whether it was in discovery, invention, or subjugation.

On Science - Millions and Billions and Trillions have been spent making it so - using public funds. Every bit of science that ever happens is publicly funded, largely through the Pentagon - Universities system. The Pentagon even funds the 'private' science, which largely works off the stuff that funnels up from Universities. And in turn, this is all handed over to Private Business for Private Profits.

According to the standard 'genetics' view of success in this country, that means that every person in this country paying taxes and working at their robotic job every day is inferior. It's like the old Mr. Show sketch, where David Cross pretends to be a Wall Street type in fancy suspenders, and his motivational new system rates people according to money made. For example, he reveals that Einstein was nearly worthless as a human being! "Way ta go Einstein!"

I've personally always believed that people really know what is happening, just from the crushing logic, and tell themselves all sorts of fairy tales to sleep at night. I've marveled at the system we have of stealing outright from the undeveloped world, after destabilizing them to keep them vulnerable, and then the natural guilt people feel forces them to trickle some of the money back. Rather than just cure the problem once and for all and let people take care of themselves.

This is where socialism and communism are perfect examples, and so telling. This is why our leaders rush in every time sharing breaks out somewhere. An alarm is sounded and troops mobilize. Because there is a very real chance that countries can use this to lift themselves out of the third world, the way the USSR did. Cuba almost made it, but the best they could do was keep from being completely raped by the US. But when you compare Cuba to what we did to the rest of South America, you have to note that Sharingism beats Moneyism every time, if you want to develop your world or even just take care of people.

And then - as happened with the movie "Sicko" - people here start to wonder out loud "Say... why can't that happen here?" And then more of the public's capital has to be used against them, spent to defeat that meme.

That is the sickest conclusion of all - it isn't even fair to be angry at this meme expressed by our friends, neighbors, and the common Douche-Water Drinker trolling this site. There is simply way too much capital spent making people think like this, because the people with all your capital are doing REALLY well at this. I mean, REALLY benefiting. So there is huge public money spent proselytizing, through every available channel, that "we deserve it" and "Communism is Evil" and "Oh my God - one step closer to socialism!" Gallup polls show that if you ask the public a jingoist question about socialism, they freak out and say what they think is patriotic. It even weirds out Gallup. Ask people "Does Capitalism work? Is that system working, and fair?" And people say "YES!" Ask them a deeper question about the actual distribution of wealth, and people say "Oh, no, it's totally unfair, the rich just get richer." Ask them if we should be taking care of the poor, and the answer is a mandate, overwhelming yes. Even deeper, they want government doing it. So - people love Capitalism - but speaking plainly and from the heart, they want the government taking care of people and sharing.

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I think this is an idea whose time has come. Growing up, my mixed background made it possible for me to grasp what incredible privilege and luxury is enjoyed by the Global North and understand finally that this privilege happens at the expense of those in the so-called "underdeveloped" countries. Having been fortunate enough to be able to develop a social justice perspective through travel and exchange, I've long thought that it should be compulsory for all young citizens of the Global North to travel outside their own particular set of circumstances as part of a real education (not indoctrination but schooling for critical thought and 'the bigger picture'). Why don't we extend that idea of giving personal wealth / income to our own human resources and require all citizens to spend a year or two performing civil service in another country? A sort of global exchange, if you like. We are always talking about globalization after all. This could be something like the Peace Corps or Canada's CUSO, but for education credits and with the emphasis upon service, NOT charity. The wealthier the background of the individual, the poorer the circumstances in which he/she should be placed, with very strict regulation so that they are not an imposition or burden upon their hosts, but are using whatever talents and skills they have to enrich the community in which they find themselves. Then we could really see a change in people's minds and their attitudes, rather than simply moving piles of money around. Too idealistic? Too Maoist? Too Robert Heinlein? Let's talk about it!

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Its a myth.

Here's a hint: If you owe more than you have, you are not wealthy. That applies to both people and nations.

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Peter Singers arguments are quite strong from a utilitarian standpoint, although I do believe that more of the aid burden should be shouldered by governments and government aid agencies that can be monitored and held accountable, and the tax burden for this aid should be shared using a progressive tax system.

That aside, I have a problem with Peter Singer. He is well paid, as is (was) his wife, and there was accrued family money. I believe he has homes (or did at one time) in Melbourne, Princeton, and New York City. When asked on a radio show why he wasn't following his own moral philosophy, he is quoted as saying he was admittedly "weak" in this regard.

Now, just because the messenger doesn't follow his own advice does not mean the message is wrong, but I do believe that a moral message must be something that the majority can live with, not just the saints among us, otherwise it may be a great message, but is it is realistically relevant? An example would be turning the other cheek. A wonderful message, but certainly not one being followed by anyone in the region where it was preached. Can it realistically be followed in our world? It appears not unless slavery or death is considered appealing.

Most people would agree that more money should be given to poor nations, but it must be done in a realistic way, with everyone sharing the burden according to their means. Singer's simplistic prescription would mean a few "suckers" would give all, while most give nothing. After some time, the sucker pool would dwindle as the "grapes and cucumber" (see de Waals) reward disparity creeps into the psyche of all but a few saints among us. This method solves nothing. Pushing our governments to do more is realistic, fairly efficient, and the right thing to do.

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Reciting the moral imperative about the need for the better off to aid the less well off, especially the abysmally poor, the more than a million absolutly poor elsewhere in the world, is necessary, and one hopes that it sinks in. But money alone may even have negative effects. Ameleorating conditions in countries with high proportions of poverty is a complicated business. Traditions of leadership, institutions, breadth of trust, gender relatiions, ethnic rivalry, historical trauma, sharing, etc., must be understood and adapted to for any broadly constructive interventions to take root. And local interest and direction must be paramount in almost every case.

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