Topic: Super cool! - Click once a day to feed someone! - FREE FREE (Read 6732 times)

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #20 on:** February 16, 2004, 08:30:31 pm »

Why should the rich be directly responsible for this? I'm not really talking about raising taxes or even creating specific taxes.

JMM already touched on the heart of the issue. Direct aid vs. grants and U.N. control.

The more hands the money passes through the more is wasted in administrative concerns, especially when you're talking about the UN.

Punishers Plan for Food Aid: (Stolen from others and made up bymyself)

1) Stop any and all UN based funding for food, medicine, and aid programs. Is the U.N. even making a dent in the hunger problem? No, they're not so why are we wasting billions of dollars every year in donations to UN aid programs? The U.N. is a political tool used by its member nations and spending decisions are often based as much on political issues as practical need for assistance.

2) Stop any direct assistance to governments. Why are we cutting anyone a check? Akin to giving the homeless man on the street your spare change and then having him go and buy booze with it. For that matter why are we giving ANYONE direct monitary assistance? If they need assistance for specific projects or concerns then let them come to us with those specific concerns and we can decide to help on a case by case basis. I don't trust anyone, that includes ANY nation whoever they may be.

3) Disallow any governments involvement with the distribution of aid or with the construction of infrastructure. Look, if they could build it themselves they wouldn't need us right? So all these 3rd world governments can really stay out of the process. They can provide transport, storage space, power, etc...but in so far as the actual distribution of foodstuffs or the construction of projects they have no say. Additionally the host government recieving any aid cannot under any circumstance do the following:

A) Charge money for construction permits for infrastructure programs. They can still issue permits, but not charge for them.
B) Cannot Levy any tax, fee, or tarrif on imported aid items or construction processes.
C) Any item taken by the host government will be charged back to that government. If they take several tons of foodstuffs from a warehouse then they have to pay for it, or risk having us sieze their assets.

4) Combine the efforts of domestic and international aid programs currently within a nation. If the Red Cross already has programs in the area it would make sense to combine forces with them to establish effective aid programs and infrastructure development. However, we would not become involved with dead-end projects that do not address the long-term solution to the hunger problem.

5) Provide the means to protect ongoing aid projects within a country. I'm not going to send a convoy of food trucks into a disputed zone without armored protection. That means Infantry fighting vehicles, armoured cars, and air support where applicable. Use of deadly force to protect ongoing projects must be used. Employ the people we're trying to help in volunteer militias. I'm willing to bet if you start an irrigation project for local farmers that they're more than willing to help defend the project if we help give them the means. If there is a full scale war going on then pull out. Sorry, but no one gets anything done insofar as rebuilding is concerned when a war is going on. We either protect the projects or don't get involved. No middle ground.

We also need to ask ourselves the question: Can we solve the problem globally? The answer is no. Which is better: Spread out the money among dozens of nations or concentrate among select nations with programs that will deal with the heart of the issue ASAP? We can't fix the whole world at once, but we sure as hell can fix problems one or two at a time and move on to the next nation. We either let ourselves be guilted into handing out checks to anyone who begs, or we grow some balls and understand the fact that we have to solve local problems before we can national and global ones.

We're one nation and after 50 years of incompetent UN bungling we have to go back to individual directed effort. Besides, if our approach works than other nations will catch on to. If all other 1st world nations picked just one other country to assist then the global problems of hunger wouldn't cease to exist....but they would be reduced by a great degree.

Dizzy · « **Reply #21 on:** February 19, 2004, 05:09:09 am »

"These starving people are nothing but cattle. Nothing else to say about it... On second thought, cattle in the U.S are probably treated and fed better. They are certainly 'disposed' of better..."

From an in-law who recently returned from a trip to Africa, among other things he said. (he came with the package... not like I had a choice...)

After listening to him tell me of the horrid conditions over there... made me think he was a sicko nazi genocidal sympathizer the way he shrugged it all off as if he wasn't bothered by it in the least. And I'm not talking about him just telliing me about people suffering from famine. He told me more than I care to remember him telling me, let alone me retyping it here... But then after he was done... and he had left... ignorance is bliss you know... Are they really cattle? Am I any more or less of what I thought of him while he was telling this now that I know it and am sitting here thinking about it?

Hrmmm. Not sure why I am even posting this. I dont even want to get into it. A bit late, but I'll just step out so ya'll know what someone said after coming back from a trip over there... Chew on that a bit...

CHEETAH2003 · « **Reply #22 on:** February 24, 2004, 08:59:40 pm »

Anyone notice there are also "save a rain forest" and other click to help for free links at the top of that site?

Also, you can click around & read some of the neat-o stats of how many people have been helped & by how many clickers & sponsers.

Erik Bethke · « **Reply #23 on:** February 13, 2004, 07:20:39 am »

Click your mouse and feed someone for FREE

762 · « **Reply #24 on:** February 13, 2004, 08:56:17 am »

Neat.

Sirgod · « **Reply #25 on:** February 13, 2004, 09:17:23 am »

Quote:

Thank you! Your click helps feed the hungry with the value of 1.1 cups of staple food. Please click every day and support the sponsors below who pay for your gift.

that is neat. One click and some one get's 1.1 cups of food. well worth the time it takes.

Stephen

Taldren_Admin · « **Reply #27 on:** February 13, 2004, 11:02:32 am »

This needs to stay stickied.
While you are clicking though...

Help fight breast cancer
if you could take 15 seconds to click on this link and click on the pink box it will help fund mammogram

Lurker · « **Reply #29 on:** February 13, 2004, 01:05:42 pm »

Wow, I'll click this everyday! Good find Erik

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #30 on:** February 13, 2004, 06:24:44 pm »

I wonder which is better. Give someone a cup of food and feed him today or spend more and help build an agricultural infrastructure and feed him forever?

Puddleoguts · « **Reply #31 on:** February 13, 2004, 07:53:27 pm »

Build an agricultural infrastructure (not necessarily on the US model), stabilize the political situation and feed the individual.

If I were the individual, I would prefer the above be done in reverse order.

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #32 on:** February 13, 2004, 07:56:49 pm »

We've been donating food for decades...how much longer should we feed these people before we work on infrastructure? And if a given nation cannot support an infrastructure than what's the continued point in supporting a group of people who can never support themselves?

Dash Jones · « **Reply #34 on:** February 14, 2004, 08:24:44 am »

Hmm, this is an easy thing to do each day when coming here...hopefully this can stayed sticky for some time.

Ravok · « **Reply #35 on:** February 15, 2004, 10:20:38 am »

BOTH !!!!!!! The fact that any body on this planet goes hungry is a crime and does not speak well of us as a Civilization or a species.

If we truly cared about each other or this planet we would not be having this conversation.

NannerSlug · « **Reply #37 on:** February 15, 2004, 11:42:56 pm »

its always good to shine a light than curse into the darkness.

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #38 on:** February 16, 2004, 03:47:18 am »

I'm an engineer by trade. I solve problems.

Simply handing someone food isn't any way to solve a hunger problem...it only establishes an artificial method of support for a given population. Without efforts in establishing an effective agricultural infrastructure, including a distribution system for food, we are only encouraging and perpetuating a total dependency by the people we're trying to help. Without the means to feed themselves the people will continue to reproduce and only add to the burden.

Additionally, due to the nature of these 3rd world governments aid organizations must bribe everyone from national leaders to local army officers in order to get vital supplies to the people that need them. Only 2-3% of total aid donated ever reaches the people we're trying to help, and unless we increase the total money spend a hundred times over, won't feed more than a small fraction of the worlds hungry.

How do you think these 3rd world dictators in Nations with no real GDP are able to have Swiss bank accounts with hundreds of millions of dollars? Much of the money is taken from international aid donations or from food aid that was taken and then resold on the black market.

Don't get me wrong. This website is a good idea and an excellent way for the common individual to help the problem. However, I'm looking at the "big picture" and we have to make serious changes in the way we "Aid" developing nations. Simply throwing money at the problem is not going to solve it. We're wasting time, money, and most importantly lives in our current ineffective method.

Erik Bethke · « **Reply #39 on:** February 16, 2004, 04:20:55 am »

Punisher would you care to take the time to take a hungry people of your choice and outline what you feel would be a much more productive long-term solution to the problem instead of merely handing them food?

As an engineer, I too, am most interested in the long-term solutions, but I cannot see the net-good in allowing people to starve to death while people inside the group and outside the group negotiate on a long-term solution.

But perhpas it would be a fruitful discussion to pick a group and lets see where it goes?

-Erik

News:

Topic: Super cool! - Click once a day to feed someone! - FREE FREE (Read 6732 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

SL-Punisher

Dizzy

CHEETAH2003

Erik Bethke

762

Sirgod

Toasty0

Taldren_Admin

Sethan

Lurker

SL-Punisher

Puddleoguts

SL-Punisher

Sethan

Dash Jones

Ravok

Lurker

NannerSlug

SL-Punisher

Erik Bethke

Topic: Super cool! - Click once a day to feed someone! - FREE FREE (Read 6732 times)