Topic: Super cool! - Click once a day to feed someone! - FREE FREE

[NannerSlug]

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

[SL-Punisher]

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]

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
 

[SL-Punisher]

I'm not a civil engineer, I deal with the Milstar satellite network not the effective production of food. There are plenty of people with the necessary education and experience who agree with me and are equally frustrated at current ineffective methods of most aid programs. Hell, even the people involved distributing the aid to the hungry are also frustrated at having to fight both the greed and the indifference from the government of the people they're trying to help.

I can hold an opinion as to the solution to the problem without actually taking the next flight out to Africa (Where 4 out of 5 of the worlds poorest nations are). The fact that I'm not talking directly to these people doesn?t invalidate my opinion. Akin to saying that non-proliferation of nuclear arms is a good idea and then having someone quip that I should be quiet unless I'm out there dismantling the suckers.

Now I'm not saying we should stop feeding these people until we get farms and irrigation established. And even if we did given our currently limited effect on the problem wouldn't more people live in the long run if we helped them build the means to feed themselves rather than only making a dent in the hunger problem? What I'm really getting at is a shift in funding --- increasing emphasis on infrastructure rather than spending most of the money on foodstuffs. Finding and exploiting water supplies and using established methods in getting water to where its needed. Modernizing farming technology in combination with genetics to reduce the crops need for water. Building reservoirs to collect and then store rain water during the monsoon season, as much of the rain water is wasted as run off. Establishing grey water (IE toilet/shower/tap) recycling methods to increase the available water supply and reduce waste. Establishing semi-permanent security to protect ongoing projects in areas that are somewhat unstable and to prevent theft. Constructing desalinization plants where applicable to produce more freshwater. Additionally in order to help pay for these projects we could work out favorable trading policies with the nations we're trying to aid.

Of course to really affect the problem 9 out of 10 governments in nations where there are starving people need to be replaced. But I won't get too deep into that

Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. That is more important than anything else. It out weighs short term "band aid" fixes. We have to ask ourselves a question: Do we want to fix the problem or just make ourselves feel better about ourselves? If the vast majority of our aid is being used to enrich the dictators of these nations (Which increases their stranglehold on the people) then we have to ask to what end are we throwing money at the problem? Without infrastructure development how can they ever improve their situation--- how can they join the even 20th century in terms of an average individuals access to water, electricity, medical care, education, and food?

The cost associated with all this infrastructure is staggering in the short term, but we have to weigh that against the ongoing and infinite cost of handing them finished foodstuffs rather then giving them the means to feed themselves. In the end it may sound harsh to equate the problem to numbers on a balance sheet, but it's what we have to do in order to find effective means to solve the problem, or in the very least make a much bigger dent in it. Some might say I don't have a heart when taking this approach, to that I would respond that you usually have to use both a heart and a brain to solve serious problems.


 

[Erik Bethke]

Punisher,

Thanks for the long post.

It is hard with a text message to imply body language - but I was most specifically trying to encourage you to speak and not to silence you...

I forgot to add, that in the likely event that you do not have a well-thought out outline for a hungry handy of your own creation, perhaps you ran across someone else's ideas on infrastructure that you felt was good...??

A darker thought, a thought that I have harbored for a while 16 or so years now - since I found out that the Reagan Administration cancelled funding for family planning (ostensionably sp? so as to not fund abortion) but also cutoff the distribution of condoms! to teh developing nations from Federal Funds.... is that I suspect that somebody in the western power infrastructure did some power calculus and figured out that condoms in Africa are not in the interest of the western nations.  Nor do I think a hunger-free world is in the interest of the western powers.  Who knows, maybe deep in the bowels of Rand there are some really smart guys who ran the numbers and could look ahead at the offshoring problem and competition from foreign markets and decided to keep the game unfair as long as possible.

Well that is what I am thinking now.  In other words if it was in the interests of the megacorps to free the world from hunger - everyone would would be fed.

So to address the infrastructure issue Punisher, I think we somehow have to arrange that the western powers from the rich class and the middle class (or perhaps just the rich class - I was indulging in a moment of political generosity towards the power of the middle) perceive that it is in their manifest (read short-term) interest (read mo money) to have the hunger on the planet go away.

What do you think Punisher?

-Erik
 

[JMM]

I was at the hotel in El Paso Friday night watching an interesting program on the U.S. and the U.N. Seems the U.N. is the one bent on sovereignity over the world and money and resources, and in the late nineties guess who tried to do the right thing? A Texan named Ron Paul! We need to pull out of the U.N. and use our resources to help build our infrastructure and support the building of other nations so that they may become self sufficient on their own. Most underdeveloped nations in East Africa just need one thing, water, give the people what they need to feed and house themselves, and sooner or later they will see the tyranny they were living under for so many years and rebel and perhaps have a democracy or republic.

http://www.uhuh.com/laws/hr1146ih.htm

http://www.geocities.com/domesticdecay/documents/hr1146.html

 

[SL-Punisher]

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]

"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]

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.