Posted on 10/02/2010 12:25:30 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
US President Barack Obama said many things at the just-ended UN Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York.
The ones that stuck were his comments that food aid is not development. It’s “dependence,” he said, adding that America’s new approach will be to empower communities to meet their own food needs, rather than receiving handouts for their lunch and dinner.
As the late founding president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere said after the North-South Cancun Summit in Mexico in 1981, it takes someone who has no worries about his next meal — like Obama — to talk sensibly about food.
A man who is hungry cannot think objectively and unemotionally about food. The desperation brought on by an empty stomach will almost always cloud his judgement.
Obama’s statement, quite bold considering that the US draws quite a bit of its power in the developing world from food aid, was just another way of presenting the Chinese — or Biblical — wisdom that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
But there is something else. There is nothing African governments fear like hungry masses. A political group will go to the bush to fight a rebel war after the president steals elections, and the government will happily fight it for years.
Roads will be filled with waterlogged potholes the size of basketball courts as in Uganda, and the government will ignore the public outcry.
But as soon as people take to the streets to protest increases in food prices, as we saw a few days ago in Mozambique, the state will quickly back down. Few strongman regimes in Africa have survived hunger-fuelled upheavals.
It stands to reason, then, that the biggest problem is not that food aid creates dependence. Rather, that it has delayed — even undermined — the progress of democracy.
To begin with, because the people were fed, they became vested in the status quo. No one ever burns down the soup kitchen.
Secondly, nothing undermines our self-esteem more than the inability to feed ourselves. For an African man, food handouts are the ultimate castration.
In Uganda, if someone stands up to you and says, “You don’t feed me” or, “I don’t eat in your house,” run away as fast as you can. That is an expression of a very high level of revolutionary anger.
It also explains why governments that have sensible agricultural policies that enable farmers to reap rich harvests rarely ever lose the rural vote.
Now, Obama is a president set on saving the world; he just cut a deal with the Russians to reduce nuclear warheads, he nudged the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
The best way to help the millions of hungry people in countries that receive food aid get rid of their corrupt and incompetent rulers — and to ensure that their children will never go hungry in future — is to starve them now. That will turn them into raging, unstoppable anti-government regime changers.
I do realise, of course, that it is easy for me to say that because I am not and will never stand for political office, and therefore don’t need anyone’s vote. But someone had to say it.
Says the one-trick pony who never earned an honest dollar in his entire life.
Wow....Barry of all people about creating Dependence... Hey barry how about Less entitlements for your Democrat voters? Stop creating dependence...
He is right. The problem is that the local Obamas don't want to empower the people. It is difficult to become rich(er) from skimming off most of the handouts if the handouts stop and independent people are harder to control. That is why Obama is trying to take OUR independence from us.
Well Africa’s problems come from people like Obama who are Idiots.
My ancestors used to set around and ponder the answer as to why Africans were in such a poor condition. My great, great, great grandchildren will pondering the same issue. Of course, if they’re smart and open-minded like me, they won’t have to ponder this.
Of course Barry is right - at least on this issue - too bad he doesn’t see the same thing is happening in his own back yard!
African countries need stable, honest democracies to support any developement aid - without that you may as well flush the money down the toilet.
Mel
So far so good. Many rational observers, including Africans, have said this in the past. But it isn't enough by itself, as others have noted above, due to the intrinsic corruption of many African states.
Plus, there is a sizable amount of money at stake here at home, with powerful agricultural interests glad to foment "dependence" for the foreseeable future.
It’s “dependence,” he said, adding that America’s new approach will be to empower communities to meet their own food needs, rather than receiving handouts for their lunch and dinner.
My thought: how do you empower communities to meet their own food needs if they are not doing so already? Mandate roof top gardens and require all school children to work in them for school lunches? Clear out empty buildings, build hydroponics, and require all people on food stamps to work a few hours each day or week for their rations?
Actually Obama is right but he phrased it differently. GWB was trying to tackle this problem also. US food aid is actually a gov bill to buy US farm products and shipping it to Africa. GWB pointed out that it was cheaper to buy food from an neighboring African country not starving and shipping it overland to the one that is starving. Agribusiness activated their aid for Africa leftist and pounced on the idea. In the end the common sense more cost effective GWB reforms were squashed. This episode illustrates that the biggest enemy to the people of the US and conservatives is corporate America who have indirectly sponsor all types of groups and use it accordingly if their financial interests are threatened. The Tea Party movement will be an interesting wrinkle in corporate plans because they do not control them and find their small gov ideas a threat to the corporate welfare CEO’s enjoy. Study the environmental wackos and see how much indirect money they get from the Middle East and even oil companies. Oil shortage means higher prices.
How many people are now on food stamps today?
Yeah, the irony, I don’t get with this man. His comments had a fundamental truth as to Africa. But, hello, they are just as applicable here! Does he not view our gargantuan welfare state, that has produced GENERATIONAL POVERTY, as “food aid” and more?
Is the U.S. government facilitating its own citizens to “learn to fish” for their supper rather than stand around with their hand out — year after year, generation after generation?
And is it not for the same reasons that politicians are afraid to cut “food aid” to U.S. citizens — because they will then think about becoming uppity and leaving the plantation?
There is nothing that is wrong with foreign aid to Africa that is not equally wrong with permanent U.S. welfare handouts.
Yeah, the irony, I don’t get with this man. His comments had a fundamental truth as to Africa. But, hello, they are just as applicable here! Does he not view our gargantuan welfare state, that has produced GENERATIONAL POVERTY, as “food aid” and more?
Is the U.S. government facilitating its own citizens to “learn to fish” for their supper rather than stand around with their hand out — year after year, generation after generation?
And is it not for the same reasons that politicians are afraid to cut “food aid” to U.S. citizens — because they will then think about becoming uppity and leaving the plantation?
There is nothing that is wrong with foreign aid to Africa that is not equally wrong with permanent U.S. welfare handouts.
Probably not intentional, but that was worth repeating!
Yes, not intentional, and thank you for your forebearance and good cheer!
Mass starvation is not the most efficient way to topple corrupt regimes.
If it were, Zimbabwe should be a thriving democracy by now.
The most efficient way to topple corrupt regimes is to send a few thousand well-fed, well-equiped soldiers there to shoot the SOBs.
You have to feed the starving while they grow the next crop.
Throw in some freedom and capitalism (and throw out Islam) and that is a recipe most people will figure it out.
He does see it. Here, he is the one exerting control, and he is OK with that.
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