🚀 go-pugleaf

Kirby Urner wrote:
}
} I think it also begins with a scientific position: the we have the
} means to accomplish this result, have for some time.  That makes
} the current agony neither an 'act of nature' nor an 'act of God
} or gods', meaning willful inaction is starting to supply historians
} with new ways of looking back on our time ... 

 One trusts that historians will look at the data. 

J.W.Rich@xtra.co.nz writes:
>
>Starvation on this planet is an act of man. As Kirby says we have the
>means to solve the problem. 

 That is correct.  We have the food and the distribution system, up 
 to a point.  There are cases where the distribution system has put 
 the food in the country where people are starving, for example. 

>It is politics, politicians, political
>philosophy that gets in the way ... 

 At which point one should identify the politicians and philosophies 
 responsible for halting the distribution of that food. 

>However, if we really want to do something about starvation, after the
>feeling comes a willingness to sacrifice. Then the real issue becomes,
>are we fat cat westerners prepared to take a cut in our standard of
>living so that the starving get fed. 

 The answer is, "yes".  There is a 50-year history of this. 

>It's not just a matter of handing
>out food - long term it must be about allowing free trade on the planet
>so people can feed themselves by being able to sell what they've got,
>even if it is only their sweat and toil. And us allowing them to compete
>in our markets - even if it costs us some jobs locally. 

 It is sometimes difficult to have free trade with people who are 
 not free, since the results of trade may not reach those who did 
 the work.  And, apart from such important details as progress on 
 GATT regarding absurd tariffs in some countries (or cases like 
 ones where their own goods cost more than when export to the US), 
 a key problem is that the leaders of some countries have moved 
 away from self-sufficiency in food to push 'cash crops'.  This 
 is the opposite of the pattern one might deduce from the history 
 of the US and its agricultural policies. 

>But while we scramble for more, while we aspire to be the richest man in
>the cemetery, we don't even see whose back we are trampling over and nor
>do we care.

 I do not buy products from certain companies for that reason.  That 
 means less income for those people in the third world who work for 
 that company, but perhaps another company will do what Ford did 
 at one time in the not-so-distant past. 

>I'll bet more money is spent on the issue of obesity in the US (and it's
>related problems) than is spent on aid to the starving - isn't that
>insane????

 Not as insane as people starving despite food being available 
 for them from the US, but not allowed to go to them by their 
 own government. 

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     | Commercial e-mail is _NOT_ 
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