View Full Version : Live Eat: Dead Rot
Heres a challenge to the overfed awareness seeking party goers who are going to converge on Edinburgh for tomorrows festivities aimed at making people more aware about Africas human misery.
Dont eat tomorrow!
Boycott the burgers and for the next few months eat the scraps your cats or dogs leave behind. Watch your children die instead of showing them how to live and battle injustice and tyranny. Do it in silence. Dont complain or fight to change anything in your countries.
That may begin to make you aware of what is really going on for each and every individual African who is dying from inherited ignorance.
I know that is a ridiculous challenge to set a bunch of affluent and egotistical Westerners who can go to the supermarket anythime they want and stuff themselves with enough food to choke a herd of African elephants, but do you really think that this awareness trip the West is on is going to make the people it is in aid of, aware?
Their presidents and generals are rubbing their hands with glee as you guys pack your well worn democratic satchels and polish your plastic as you get ready to have the time of your lives bopping to the beat of a bunch of millionaire poverty busters and awareness gurus.
This whole sad episode in hypocrasy and extravegance is nothing more than a bunch of guilt-ridden Western egos, imagining what it may be like for others whose misery can only be experienced, not imagined.
That being said boycott the burgers and enjoy the experience.
So, my good friend...
To quote the title of another thread on here:
What would you do?
If anything? I assume you wouldn't really eat scraps.
Should we all go off to Africa and educate the masses?
FWIW, my good friend who originally hails from Calcutta would agree with you. He thinks sustainable change in India can only come from within. He has no reason to believe things are very different in Africa.
I have 4 tickets for Live 8 at Murrayfield, so I know what I'm doing. :D
I will probably head off to the Meadows in Ed tomorrow, but I'll keep you placated by declining instant gratification of the Edinburger variety. :p
Hi Doc I will tell you what I would do when I get back. For the moment I have packed the car and with my 11 year old daughter am on my way to Edinburgh to do my bit.
No burgers tho.
Jess says fat chance :~(
It seems that a bunch of us will probably be in the Meadows tomorrow. I have the phone numbers of some of you (you know who you are!) and I'll try to give you a call some time during the day and perhaps we can meet in a public house for liquid refreshment. Keep your phone switched on if you're interested!
I'm not quite daft enough to post my mobile number on here!
George Brims
01-Jul-05, 20:16
Gleeber, your post is a bit confusing.
Are you saying that nothing can be done from within the G8 countries to improve things in Africa? Are you saying that people in Africa can't be helped because they are ignorant? That they don't complain or fight to change things? If so, you are wrong, just plain wrong, on all three counts.
Now I am not unaware of the heavy irony of these "millionaire pverty busters" being so loudly involved, but rather than criticising them, how about criticising people who are wealthy and famous and don't lift a finger to help? There are plenty of those.
The idea here is not to "make the people it is in aid of aware", it's to wake up the government leaders of the G8 countries to the fact their people are tired of seeing dying African children on their TV screens, not night after night but decade after decade. The G8 countries do have the power to help, and it's time they did.
BTW I do like your "Don't eat tomorrow" idea.
I might be off the mark here -but what exactly is Live8 likely to achieve? - forgive me if I am misinformed but the original Live Aid achieved the sum total of Sweet Fanny Adams in terms of lasting impact...
in terms of short term impact, I actually saw on tv 25 years ago after Live Aid a news report showing Aid arriving in Ethiopia - this wee boy was looking at a huge pallet of....horlicks.(this is true - not an attempt to get a rise out of people).
Seriously, what was the point in sending a pallet of Horlicks to starving children? Apart form the obvious fact that they had no electricity, hot water or kettles, what was the thought process that went into sending Horlicks? Trying to get them to sleep through their hunger or what?
Live8 is about watching bands playing and hearing a wee bit of rhetoric from 'politically inclined' musicians.
If Geldof was a politician, he would have been voted out of office long ago - who gets to spend a 25 year term and have zip to show for it?
What will happen after Live8? Not much - as everyone will have done there bit by buying a ticket and easing their conscience for the next 25 years....
What would it take to really make a lasting difference in Africa? Answers on apostcard please.
What would it take to really make a lasting difference in Africa? Answers on apostcard please.
Do we need a postcard? Get rid of the corrupt governments. (easier said than done I know) Finance a program to teach the people how to help themselves. I have been supporting and corrosponding with a family in Zambia for the last 15years. A lot of their methods just do not make sense. they throw poison in the river, then help themselves to the dead fish. Lots of food for maybe a day, no salting or drying of fish so the rest just rot, and it takes about three months for the river to stock up again. I sent her money to buy a goat. Since there already was a few male goats in the village, I suggested she buy a female and breed from them, what did she do? buy another male!
An interesting friend of my aquaintace suggests we should invade and forcibly remove the corrupt regimes and return the countries to coloniol rule
Gleeber, your post is a bit confusing.
You make some good points George and after my chastisement yesterday by non less than Jonathon Dimbleday I will admit to being just a wee bit cynical about the whole ploy although I suspect using the word ploy is cynisicm too.
Its not as straight forward as cancelling debt and all will be well and I know you know that but I accept your point about doing nothing.
The points I raise are valid points too when all angles will need to be looked at to make poverty history.
Capatilism itself is on the block here. Capatilism by its very nature is survival of the fittest. The poor in the Usa the poor in Europe the poor in Africa are but casualties of capatilism or corruption and some would say theres not much difference between the 2.
Your own society has its poverty without starvation being a necessary outcome. John F Kennedy said the strong shall look after the weak and at one level that is what happens. Although the causes may be different in the USA compared to Africa they are still stricly based on a social structure.
Those who have money and power and those who dont.
During the last Famine when Live Aid did so much and saved so many lives the people who lived in the cities of Ethiopia new nothing of the disasters unfolding in the countryside. Either that or they were like the German people during the war who knew nothing of the atrocities in the concentration camps.
If I knew anything about Marx Im sure he would have said something much more appropriate than my remarks about ignorance and fear. Maybe ignorance is not the right word to use although thats what I mean purely as an anomoly to lack of awareness of their situation in life or the ability to do anything about it. Its a well known psychological phenomenon and I take my thoughts from there.
We all have blind spots, some more than others.
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