Another touchy subject

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[!--QuoteBegin-Killer+Oct 13 2005, 06:43 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Killer @ Oct 13 2005, 06:43 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Hey, we are 5,000 million humans crawling all over the place! There is no food enough for all. Every time you eat, remember someone is not eating precisley because you are eating. Just think about it. Wake up and smell reality.


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woah. Never realized that before, makes you think doesn't it.
 
There's 6.1 billion people on this earth, and the world is more than enough fertile for all of the population. It's just that Western arrogance has bred an unsustainable population in areas like Africa, so we now feel beholden to feed these people.

I eat food that would never go to Somalia, even if I wanted it to.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-LooseCannon+Oct 24 2005, 06:36 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(LooseCannon @ Oct 24 2005, 06:36 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]I eat food that would never go to Somalia, even if I wanted it to.
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Well we are getting more and more cynical about whether charity will reach the people in need. I wonder how much of those donations go into the pockets of the corrupt leaders oppressing the poverty stricken majority...
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Black Dragon+Oct 24 2005, 08:46 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Black Dragon @ Oct 24 2005, 08:46 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Well we are getting more and more cynical about whether charity will reach the people in need. I wonder how much of those donations go into the pockets of the corrupt leaders oppressing the poverty stricken majority...
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It depends. Who are you donating to? Dubious local charities? Depending on the country, that is most likely so. Christian or international charities (Samaritans, Caritas and all that)? Well, the money is used to help the people alright, but not the correct way.

Let me use this opportunity to get Mother Theresa off her pedestal. Sure, she was a selfless and truly praiseworthy person for what she did, and I will be the first one to admit that. But what did she do? She fed the poor who came to her- she did nothing to end poverty and hunger per se. If you go around feeding people as much as you can, it still won't do enough. You will not be able to feed everyone this way. If you do more fundamental things to fight poverty and hunger, the things you have done will be more sustainable.
Thus: Don't send your waste food to Africa. Send seeds! Don't send your waste water to Africa. Build wells! It's that simple. Of course, if there is a mass famine right now, people can't wait for the crops to grow. In those cases: Send crops and seeds. Get the idea?
 
What they're trying to say is the old saying, give a man a fish, he's fed for a day, teach a man to fish he's fed for life.
 
Yeah, these people would be well able to take care of themselves, they don't want handouts eh? Maybe that reveals a more patronsing side to charity don't you think? Treating certain people like they will never be able to get their lives on track. I forgot about that insightful phrase, very helpful of you to bring it up to refresh my memory, thanks Wicker Man! [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
[!--emo&:D--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/biggrin.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'biggrin.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Black Dragon+Oct 24 2005, 11:33 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Black Dragon @ Oct 24 2005, 11:33 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Give them the means to get what they need, not what they need is that what your saying?
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Read closely- to fight a famine, we must feed the people but also make sure a famine doesn't happen again.

Fact is, if a poor country is being fed by some rich western one, the people will not die anymore, but they will be dependent of that rich country. If we keep shipping our food there, we will rob any economical foundation from that country- thus, the people may not starve anymore, but they will remain poor. Wicker Man's quote pretty much says it all.
 
Well the North-South price barrier isn't exactly fair either now? [!--emo&:(--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
And we're wondering about poverty as a persisting problem while ignoring one of the main causes of it... makes me feel awful how negligent we still are [!--emo&:(--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
We take everything for granted, imagine a few of us being sent out to Ethiopia for a month with no money and no food, when the people came to pick us back up, we would either be dead, or we would have a different view on things, someone should organize something like that one day.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Black Dragon+Oct 25 2005, 12:27 AM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Black Dragon @ Oct 25 2005, 12:27 AM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]And we're wondering about poverty as a persisting problem while ignoring one of the main causes of it... makes me feel awful how negligent we still are [!--emo&:(--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
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Well, you obviously aren't. [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Liberation+Oct 25 2005, 12:30 AM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Liberation @ Oct 25 2005, 12:30 AM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]We take everything for granted, imagine a few of us being sent out to  Ethiopia for a month with no money and no food, when the people came to pick us back up, we would either be dead, or we would have a different view on things, someone should organize something like that one day.
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Maybe that would be the only thing to wake us all up.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Liberation+Oct 24 2005, 08:00 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Liberation @ Oct 24 2005, 08:00 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]We take everything for granted, imagine a few of us being sent out to  Ethiopia for a month with no money and no food, when the people came to pick us back up, we would either be dead, or we would have a different view on things, someone should organize something like that one day.
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[!--QuoteBegin-Perun+Oct 24 2005, 08:03 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Perun @ Oct 24 2005, 08:03 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Maybe that would be the only thing to wake us all up.
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Sadly that will probably be a reality show soon.
 
Maybe it being a reality show would give us piece of mind, we would actually be able to see how harsh it is
 
The problem with that is that Africa is already suffering from overfarming and the direct result - desertification. Africa's terrain just can't support their population, but when we hear that there's a huge infant mortality rate, we send them all kinds of medications to keep the kids alive...even though that's what's murdering all of Africa.

Fact is, we have no business interfering in the direction of African development - for better or for worse. We need to step back and let the people who are supposed to die, die, so that as Africa develops on its own, it'll develop into a mature society wherein people don't feel socially pressed to have 12 kids because they fear only 3 will survive.
 
as a christian, i believe that you will die when its your time, and any time you spend on the verge of death you are still fulfilling some purpose. but with something like the schiavo case....if you are clinically dead with only machines keeping your body alive...well i dont think thats really alive. that being said, im against euthanasia.
i just noticed onhell described what i mean by purpose...
"You never know how many lives you touch. I think all the time that I'm just passing through life with no real impact, then I went back to my old highschool, where I thought I was a ghost and people came up to me all the time asking where I had gone, and why did I just disapear. That's what made me realized, you never go unnoticed, you always influence people (positively or negatively that's up to them.) That's why people that kill themselves have low-self esteem, they don't realize they do matter. That and there is nothing worth killing yourserlf over."
 
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