Re: Live 8 Concert/Happy July 4th! (Long)
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Mon Jul 4 16:33:40 2005
Yes ... I'm sure Mr. Mugabe and his ilk thoroughly enjoyed the concert
... drowned out the cries of their citizens for justice. Happy Fourth
to Americans everywhere and god bless those men fighting to insure our
continued freedom.
art
At Sat, 2 Jul 2005, RModugno@aol.com wrote:
>
>Great article! Happy July 4th. And to the Brits: Sorry you lost! ( But did
>you?)
>Robert Modugno MD MBA FACOG
>Marietta, GA
>***************************************************
>Righteousness comes cheap =20
>***************************************************
>By Jonathan Tobin
>
>Concert is a good party but the cure for poverty it promotes is off the ma k
>
>There is nothing better than combining support for a good cause with a goo
>time. That's the point behind the Live 8 rock concert that takes place thi
>weekend here in Philadelphia.
>
>The event, which will be held simultaneously with similar concerts in eigh
>other spots on the globe, is organized by British promoter Sir Bob Geldoff
>who gave us — and the city of Philadelphia — the 1985 "Live Aid" concert. But
>unlike that extravaganza, which sought to raise money for the hungry of
>Africa, Live 8's purpose is political, rather than directly philanthropic.
>
>Geldoff, along with some other members of the glitterati, such as U2's Bon
>and Sir Elton John, wish to attack Third World poverty at what they believe
>is its root cause: the debts incurred by Third World governments, and the
>perceived failure of prosperous nations like the United States to give enou h in
>aid to the debtor nations.
>MOBILIZED BY ROCK
>Their prescription — supported by former South African president N lson
>Mandela, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Annan's advisor, Columbia
>University's Jeffrey Sachs — is to cancel all Third World debt, and pump in wads of
>cash to these destitute countries. Both measures would, they believe, be a
>major step toward the end of poverty around the globe.
>
>Geldoff wants concert-goers to exert pressure on the Bush administration a d
>other heads of state in advance of the annual G8 conference of industrial
>powers, to be held next month in Scotland. It's simple: Listen to music, an
>then make the rich give to the poor. Self-righteousness comes pretty cheap hese
> days, and you'd have to be an incorrigible curmudgeon to say anything bad
>about it, wouldn't you?
>
>But there's a real problem with this mass-produced activism: It isn't like y
>to help the Third World poor.
>
>As it so happens, the developed nations, including the wicked Americans,
>have already donated untold billions for this very purpose. The United Nati ns,
>the World Bank and the G-8 countries have all tried their hand at it. And y t,
> the result hasn't been what they intended.
>
>Instead of ending poverty, the money earmarked for aid to impoverished
>Africans and expensive development projects has had little effect on the
>availability of clean water, the control of diseases or even the AIDS pande ic. What
>aid to Third World nations has instead done is reinforce the power of the
>small, undemocratic and corrupt elites in those countries, and enrich them hile
>consigning virtually everybody else to despair.
>
>The leaders of these countries gather at the United Nations to cry for hel
>while enjoying the pleasures of New York. Outside of the occasional coup,
>which puts into power a different group of cutthroats, few checks and balan es
>on them or their spending exists.
>
>But past experience with the aid paradigm seems to have had very little
>impact on people like Sachs, whose schemes the Geldoff concerts are intende to
>boost. While Sachs notes past failures in his book The End of Poverty (thou h
>not in a Philadelphia Inquirer opinion piece on the subject published last
>week), his plan for debt relief and targeted aid ignores it completely.
>
>Even worse, Sach's plan is top-down-oriented. Foreign experts and
>nongovernmental organizations will come in to these countries as they have before and
>tell the locals what to do.
>
>But as Wall Street Journal reporter Claudia Rosett wrote in a blistering
>review of Sachs' book, "even if you happen to be the smartest man on Earth nd
>have visited more countries than Santa Claus, you still cannot possess all he
>information dispersed among the individuals who make up a society or an
>economy."
>
>She then makes another telling point: "What stymies the people in poor
>countries, as a rule, is not a lack of aid. It is forms of government, ofte
>corrupt and tyrannical, that do not allow people to exercise free choice un er
>fair law."
>
>But these concepts don't seem to interest Geldoff or even Sachs and Annan.
>What they believe in is the guilt of developed countries for the ills of t e
>poor, whose failings can be variously ascribed to capitalism, colonialism,
>insufficient foreign aid and military spending — anything, that is, but the
>absence of the rule of law or free economies. What they plan to do is to po r
>money down the same corrupt sinkholes as before. But there has been no
>explanation as to why they think the outcome will be any different.
>
>Since Geldoff's platform is built on fashionable notions, who can blame th
>millions who will attend and, no doubt, bombard Washington with appeals for
>support of the Live 8 agenda? The poor won't be helped, but the rest of us ill
> be warmed by memories of a good time.
>A DIFFERENT MODEL
>But there is a model for how a debt-ridden nation can free itself of the
>bonds of foreign economic control. Interestingly enough, it took place rig t
>here in Philly. Some 215 years ago, when the American republic was in its
>infancy, the United States was weighed down with debt, and newly inaugurate
>President George Washington was faced with a bankrupt economy.
>
>But rather than follow the advice of followers of Secretary of State Thoma
>Jefferson and allow debts to be repudiated, Washington listened to Treasur
>Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
>
>Hamilton believed that America could prosper only by establishing a
>government that paid its debts, supported its currency and encouraged a fre economy
>for its citizens.
>
>And that's exactly what he did. To the amazement of the world, the credit f
>the United States was soon good, and the American economic engine was prime
>to take on Europe. If we live in prosperity today, it's because of the visi n
>of Hamilton, whom biographer Ron Chernow aptly described as "the prophet o
>the capitalist revolution in America," and not that of the agrarian
>Jefferson.
>
>Though America faced few of the challenges associated with the Third World
>today, the linkage between the rule of law, free markets and free economie
>remains the same.
>
>Ending poverty is an outcome we should all desire. But you would think the
>20th-century provided enough examples to show us the utter futility of cen ral
>economic planning. But in the world of Live 8, maudlin sentimentality trum s
>history and the laws of economics every time.
>
>So have a good time at the concert, and feel as good about yourself as you
>like.
>
>But this Fourth of July, rather than excoriating America, the poor of the
>world and their sympathizers should look to it for an example of how freedo and
> prosperity are ultimately indivisible
--
art fougner, md
"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."
Lawrence Peter Berra
