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For all those who say America doesn't do enough to help:



May 2, 2008

Bush Seeks More Food Aid for Poor Countries

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Thursday proposed spending an additional $770 million in emergency food assistance for poor countries, responding to rising food prices that have resulted in social unrest in several nations.

The president’s proposal came only days after Democrats in Congress called for increases, and it received a largely positive response, though some Democrats criticized the fact that the additional aid would not be available until the next fiscal year, which begins in October.

Mr. Bush’s proposal, announced in a previously unscheduled appearance in the East Room of the White House, underscored how quickly the global food crisis had risen to the top of Washington’s agenda.

The administration last month ordered the Department of Agriculture to release $200 million in commodities paid for by a special trust fund, while the United States Agency for International Development promised $40 million more in emergency aid to countries hardest hit by soaring prices and shortages.

“In some of the world’s poorest nations, rising prices can mean the difference between getting a daily meal and going without food, Mr. Bush said.

The $770 million would be included in next year’s budget, increasing total American food assistance to $2.6 billion, the deputy budget director, Stephen S. McMillin, said in a telephone conference. In the current year, the administration has proposed supplemental spending to bring the total to $2.3 billion, he said.

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat, welcomed the president’s proposal “as a sign of the magnitude of this problem. But a fellow Democrat, Senator Robert P. Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview that the administration needed to act with “a real sense of urgency and endorse a swifter increase. Mr. Casey and Mr. Durbin this week asked the administration for an immediate $200 million increase in foreign food aid, on top of a $350 million emergency package the administration had already proposed in a supplemental spending measure.

“The dollar amount is significant, Mr. Casey said of the president’s latest proposal. “The commitment is important. It is way too late.

In his remarks, Mr. Bush also called on other countries to ease trade barriers restricting agricultural imports or exports and to lift bans on genetically modified foods. He urged Congress to give the government greater flexibility in dispersing assistance. He said the administration wanted to use a quarter of all the American aid to buy food from local farmers in foreign countries rather than here in the United States.

“In order to break the cycle of famine that we’re having to deal with too often in a modern era, it’s important to help build up local agriculture, he said. He did not insist on that approach as a condition for increasing aid, though.

The proposal received strong support on Thursday from the charity Oxfam America. “While America provides half of the world’s food aid, this generosity is undermined by legal restrictions and bureaucracy, as food aid must be purchased in the U.S. and transported on U.S.-flagged ships, Oxfam said in a statement.

Addressing growing anxiety about rising food prices at home, the subject of a Senate hearing on Thursday, the White House emphasized that even with the proposed increases, foreign food aid was equal to only a small fraction of the $62 billion the government was expected to spend this year on domestic food programs, mostly for food stamps and children’s nutrition programs.

“The American people are generous people, and they’re compassionate people, Mr. Bush said. “We believe in a timeless truth: to whom much is given, much is expected.

RedGlitter;854228 wrote: For all those who say America doesn't do enough to helpYou have to be deliberately kidding. Nobody could be that naive.

Every ton of this food that's landed and distributed is a nail in the coffin of a local farmer. His prices are undercut, his sales are destroyed because his customers obviously take the handouts in preference to paying. The farmer can't afford to get his farm into next year, there's no seed money, the fields go unplanted and the overall food shortage locally becomes a chronic exponential problem necessitating more and more "charitable" food shipments from abroad.

These shipments are a cause of third world destitution and poverty, not a response to it.

What's more, that mass murderer fronting your current administration is fully and cynically aware that he's yet again saying one thing and presiding over another, just as he has throughout his catastrophic presidency. What the White House administration is doing is buying Republican votes from the US farming community in an election year. The increased destitution of the third world which they bring about is just a bonus.

rjwould;855006 wrote: I was just watching the Newshour with Jim Lerher and I heard a piece of interesting info I didn't know. Two thirds of the money spent in our food programs go to the US growers, shippers and private administrative costs. So, this 770 Million is actually 257 Million. Its a back door way of spending our tax money on private companies here.

In fact the organization "CARE" has decided to refuse the food because it is such a waste. These organizations have been requesting the money instead to spend it locally to teach these third world country people to grow their own food, but the American government does not want them to do that, they prefer to maintain this dependency.


Are you serious? That's disgusting. Ok, please tell me how you found this information out so I can learn more.

RedGlitter;855059 wrote: Are you serious? That's disgusting. Ok, please tell me how you found this information out so I can learn more.


This article goes into detail, I've just taken one paragraph from it.In their 2000 report looking back at the previous year, the Reality of Aid 2000 (Earthscan Publications, 2000, p.81), reported in their US section that “71.6% of its bilateral aid commitments were tied to the purchase of goods and services from the US.” That is, where the US did give aid, it was most often tied to foreign policy objectives that would help the US.It's labelled as foreign aid but it goes to US grain producers at above the international market price in order to subsidize the farmers despite agreements not to do that. It's one of the pressures that's pushed world food prices up to begin with, the inability of third world countries to get access at their production prices into countries with these hidden illegal state farming subsidies.

rjwould;854272 wrote: I wish those who dislike paying taxes would decide what they want, bragging rights as being the global good guys or donate personally. You can't have it both ways..Many Americans are generous, but it isn't the conservatives...They hate parting with their money.
I agree with the first sentence, but the second is incorrect.

LINK

But the idea that liberals give more is a myth. Of the top 25 states where people give an above-average percentage of their income, all but one (Maryland) were red -- conservative -- states in the last presidential election.



"When you look at the data," says Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks, "it turns out the conservatives give about 30 percent more. And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less money."



Researching his book, "Who Really Cares", Brooks found that the conservative/liberal difference goes beyond money:

"The people who give one thing tend to be the people who give everything in America. You find that people who believe it's the government's job to make incomes more equal, are far less likely to give their money away."



Conservatives are even 18 percent more likely to donate blood.

The second myth is that people with the most money are the most generous. But while the rich give more in total dollars, low-income people give almost 30 percent more as a share of their income.



Says Brooks: "The most charitable people in America today are the working poor."



From a thread I started on the same subject:quote=Accountable;855533]

Regardless of what you think about Bush (let's do that debate somewhere else, please), should the US gov't be increasing assistance at this time? Should the gov't be in this kind of assistance at all?

We have plenty of ways to help poverty-stricken countries without spending one tax cent -- ways that are far more efficient than federal gov't bureaucracies.

rjwould;855607 wrote: You and JAB are going to have to understand that I like to pick at conservative values, and that last sentence while not completely meant as a dig, is more rhetorical than anything else.



Tho I still think most conservatives are cheap, money hungry bastards....and bitches.
And each time you project your prejudicial lies as fact you can expect people such as JAB and me to bring forth the truth so that nobody will be mistaken.

rjwould;855613 wrote: LIES, what LIES? Conservative hate parting with their money....Thats a fact!!
It's propaganda, falsely indicating that conservatives hate it more than any other arbitrary group of people. That last sentence also said conservatives aren't generous, which I showed as incorrect.

rjwould;855635 wrote: In the context of paying taxes in order to use as charity for other countries, which is what this thread is about, my statement concerning conservatives is 100% accurate.
citation, please. :rolleyes:

I say again.



We have plenty of ways to help poverty-stricken countries without spending one tax cent -- ways that are far more efficient than federal gov't bureaucracies.

Just because I'm curious, what are some of those ways and why do you think we're not using them? Is it greed on our part?

Spot and RJ stated that the money goes to farmers first and that our *generosity* is the reason the third world is poor, if I understood correctly. What do you think about this, Acc?

RedGlitter;855681 wrote: Spot and RJ stated that the money goes to farmers first and that our *generosity* is the reason the third world is poor, if I understood correctly.As an adjustment of nuance, if I may, there's a world of difference between "the" and "a". What I wrote was that "These shipments are a cause of third world destitution and poverty, not a response to it". I obviously couldn't and wouldn't claim that it's "the" cause.

RedGlitter;855681 wrote: Just because I'm curious, what are some of those ways and why do you think we're not using them? Is it greed on our part?



Spot and RJ stated that the money goes to farmers first and that our *generosity* is the reason the third world is poor, if I understood correctly. What do you think about this, Acc?
I agree, which is why it's comical that RJ still thinks the gov't should be entrusted to do the job right, especially since it's not designed that way.



http://www.forbes.com/philanthropy/2007 ... ove_google is a list by Forbes of the most efficient international charities. Any one of them is a better organization to get your charitiy money to the people that need it.

Ha! I kept clicking and the only one I knew of was PBS. Now why haven't I heard about these other charities? I'm well read and I'm even in the nonprofit world myself so you might think I would have heard of some of these but no.

Maybe off topic a little but speaking of feeding the world, why do we pride ourselves on donating rice? It has little nutrition and is not filling so why do we insist on giving that to hungry people?

JAB;855727 wrote: First it was "the" conservatives are cheap.

Now it's only "most" conservatives are cheap.

Gee, at the rate you're going rj, it's soon going to be "none" and you would have disagreed with yourself in the process.

As for the rest of your sentence, I'll not waste my time with you.I have a better one - every capitalist inevitably degrades the quality of life of the majority of people while rarely enhancing the quality of life of anyone at all as an excuse. George Orwell's Animal Farm was a diatribe against capitalism and it's still an accurate fable of the world we live in.

spot;855746 wrote: I have a better one - every capitalist inevitably degrades the quality of life of the majority of people while rarely enhancing the quality of life of anyone at all as an excuse. George Orwell's Animal Farm was a diatribe against capitalism and it's still an accurate fable of the world we live in.


Sorry, just catching up with this thread, just wanted to say, spot, Animal Farm a polemic against Capitalism? Come now sir, I think there may have been quite a lot of polemic against communism, and espeically the Russian revolution in there as well, Orwell was far too sophisticated to be so one dimensional as you suggest. As for your comments about capitalists degrading the quality of life for everyone, I am pretty sure your communists have also done plenty to degrade the lives of millions, usually by a bullet in the back of the head or a brief but sad trip to the gulag.

Galbally;855770 wrote: Sorry, just catching up with this thread, just wanted to say, spot, Animal Farm a polemic against Capitalism? Come now sir, I think there may have been quite a lot of polemic against communism, and espeically the Russian revolution in there as well, Orwell was far too sophisticated to be so one dimensional as you suggest. As for your comments about capitalists degrading the quality of life for everyone, I am pretty sure your communists have also done plenty to degrade the lives of millions, usually by a bullet in the back of the head or a brief but sad trip to the gulag.


I'd be interested to know in what way it's an attack on communism. It mocks the leaders of the Russian Revolution for being eventually seduced (post-war, and in Orwell's opinion though not in mine) by the lure of capitalism and abandoning the revolution but it's entirely, cover to cover, a lauding of communist ideals and a sustained attack on capitalist greed.

spot;856049 wrote: I'd be interested to know in what way it's an attack on communism. It mocks the leaders of the Russian Revolution for being eventually seduced (post-war, and in Orwell's opinion though not in mine) by the lure of capitalism and abandoning the revolution but it's entirely, cover to cover, a lauding of communist ideals and a sustained attack on capitalist greed.


I've always read it as a parable of how supposedly nobel ideals are used to create horrible distopias actually, and also how revolutions tend to eat their own children and usually result in the most ruthless and violent people in a society gaining power and using it to suit their own ends. I am not sure how you read the capitalist bit into it, other than the system under the farmer was seen to be actually less unequal than the system under the pigs. Of course all of these things have actually happened in real history as well, and usually aided and abetting by gushing intellectual admirers.

Come on, be reasonable. Why do you think the pigs ended up dressed in the old farmer's clothes and stood living in his house and drinking his whiskey on their hind legs entertaining the neighbours? It's the old system returned, it's the old capitalism back again holding down the animals. Is it even possible to misinterpret the book at such a root level?

spot;856086 wrote: Come on, be reasonable. Why do you think the pigs ended up dressed in the old farmer's clothes and stood living in his house and drinking his whiskey on their hind legs entertaining the neighbours? It's the old system returned, it's the old capitalism back again holding down the animals. Is it even possible to misinterpret the book at such a root level?
I saw it as communism becomes as oppressive as monarchy if the leaders aren't kept in check.

spot;856049 wrote: I'd be interested to know in what way it's an attack on communism. It mocks the leaders of the Russian Revolution for being eventually seduced (post-war, and in Orwell's opinion though not in mine) by the lure of capitalism and abandoning the revolution but it's entirely, cover to cover, a lauding of communist ideals and a sustained attack on capitalist greed.


On this one I think you are way wrong. It was a warning about communism and not to be seduced. All you do is swap one set of masters for another just as bad-or indeed worse than the ones you overthrew. It's the obvious flaw of revolutionary communism that took the intellectual left a long time to see through and some of them still can't -if you have a dictatorship of the proletariat. you end with with a dictator. His novel 1984 was also a warning about about communism in particular but also and the totalitarian state that results if you just follow blindly and just believe what you are told by your leaders.

To go back to the topic

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 20855.html

Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis


Actually when it comes to hypocrisy and aid to third world countries it's a tie between the EU and US. Maybe we should stop worrying about political philosophies and start curbing the power of multinationals over our governments. . After all there is nothing in capitalism that allows companies to operate without answering to the people in one way or another. Unbridled power is bad whoever has it.

Accountable;856093 wrote: I saw it as communism becomes as oppressive as monarchy if the leaders aren't kept in check.
Monarchy?

It's wonderful talking here, all the prejudices fed by propaganda pop out so blatantly. They're farmers, for goodness sake. Capitalist exploiters of day labour.

spot;856177 wrote: Monarchy?



It's wonderful talking here, all the prejudices fed by propaganda pop out so blatantly. They're farmers, for goodness sake. Capitalist exploiters of day labour.
I knew monarchy wasn't the word I wanted but it was the only one I could find. GMC said it far better.

Accountable;856182 wrote: I knew monarchy wasn't the word I wanted but it was the only one I could find. GMC said it far better.


I've no reason to think that Orwell was against change, he was certainly himself a cause of a lot over the last eighty years as far as British society goes. I can see nothing in Animal Farm which mocks or derides the ambitions of the revolution, I think he was writing history rather than saying revolution was impossible. It's a treatment of Russia during the first half of the 20th century, pure and simple. I think he misinterprets motives and gets the picture completely wrong but that's only because I interpret the history differently.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

spot;856186 wrote: I've no reason to think that Orwell was against change, he was certainly himself a cause of a lot over the last eighty years as far as British society goes. I can see nothing in Animal Farm which mocks or derides the ambitions of the revolution, I think he was writing history rather than saying revolution was impossible. It's a treatment of Russia during the first half of the 20th century, pure and simple. I think he misinterprets motives and gets the picture completely wrong but that's only because I interpret the history differently.
I think he applauded revolution and warned against complacency. It's easy to fall back into old habits.

spot;856086 wrote: Come on, be reasonable. Why do you think the pigs ended up dressed in the old farmer's clothes and stood living in his house and drinking his whiskey on their hind legs entertaining the neighbours? It's the old system returned, it's the old capitalism back again holding down the animals. Is it even possible to misinterpret the book at such a root level?


Erm, you know I really don't think I am misinterpreting it, its a great work, it probably works whatever our ideological view of it is you know.

Galbally;856476 wrote: Erm, you know I really don't think I am misinterpreting it, its a great work, it probably works whatever our ideological view of it is you know.


Not as good as 1984 IMO. specially the way it gave us terms like newspeak that are so apt for some of the things that go on. The three main power blocs looks creepily prescient

Jester;857335 wrote: Ohkay back to reality guys!

No AC the government of the US should not help with food aide to any country, even if it somehow benifits the US. Let them starve. If a charity wants to send food fine, no one should stop them, but no gevornment should do it.

No more handouts, we either teach them to grow food or give them the tools to grow food or leave them be and let it all be done through charity relief orgs.The liberalss want to take my money and give it to the starving masses, I'd rather decide for myself to give my money to the masses and which orginization to give it through rather than a government orginization who wastes 90% of it getting it there.


Believe it or not I am inclined to agree with you. While people in the US and EU give generously in food aid the world bank is still insisting on countries growing cash crops to pay back the interest on loans rather than feed their people. Effectively our generosity props up the banks. It's just wrong.

posted by rjwould

I was just watching the Newshour with Jim Lerher and I heard a piece of interesting info I didn't know. Two thirds of the money spent in our food programs go to the US growers, shippers and private administrative costs. So, this 770 Million is actually 257 Million. Its a back door way of spending our tax money on private companies here.


Actually the EU does the same kind of thing. Politicians are a bunch of shits wherever you go. (shits is a colloquialism for a politician) I'm sure americans have a similar term of affection.

rjwould;855613 wrote: LIES, what LIES? Conservative hate parting with their money....Thats a fact!!
Fact - I think not, just pure BS and propaganda which contributes nothing relevant to a discussion.



=======================================

rjwould;857346 wrote: I love this argument...The government wastes the money? How?
New Government Symbol

I hear that we are gonna get a new government symbol.



Official Announcement:

The government today announced that it is

changing its emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM

because it more accurately reflects the

government's political stance. A condom allows

for inflation, halts production, destroys the

next generation, protects a bunch of pricks,

and gives you a sense of security while you're

actually being screwed!



Damn, it just doesn't get more accurate than that!

BTS;867876 wrote: New Government Symbol

I hear that we are gonna get a new government symbol.







Official Announcement:



The government today announced that it is

changing its emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM

because it more accurately reflects the

government's political stance. A condom allows

for inflation, halts production, destroys the

next generation, protects a bunch of pricks,

and gives you a sense of security while you're

actually being screwed!





Damn, it just doesn't get more accurate than that!:yh_rotfl