Posted on 05/29/2003 7:50:09 PM PDT by Pokey78
Then again, after reading about the Congo, maybe that dollar is the cost of a .45 slug.
First, try to shake them of their belief that AIDS can be cured by having sex with a virgin.
After the experience some of my kids had at the school playground yesterday with blacks, don't ask them for any of their dollars. I need to remind them about loving their neighbors even though their neighbors hate them for being nice white kids trying to ride bikes in their neighborhood. I reminded them that if they went to public school it would be like that everyday.
87?
Darn ... but do I feel old!
Note: We have the same problems here and we don't even have black people.
I keep trying to remind myself of that.
So at a buck a day that's about $250 per pregnancy - not bad.
Too bad only about 10% of the new AIDS cases in Africa are from birth - leaving 90% of the cases untouched and spreading ( to un-infected women causing MORE AIDS pregnamcies )
Can we make access to the drugs contingent upon sterilization ?
Nice try, bub. This is just part of your endless, endless, ENDLESS efforts to convince the rest of the world to keep shoring up these Marxist governments in Africa that keep that country mired in misery. Just keep subsidizing the land redistribution efforts and communal farms, right Bono? Just keep subsidizing dictators, just keep pouring money into the pit so that it won't become obvious to the last handful of 20-somethings who love you that communism can't feed a field full of hippies, much less a continent of superstitious, undereducated, thoroughly cowed agriculturalists and nomads. God I hate this man.
There's an old Chinese proverb: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime. Now, if Bono *really* cared about Africa and HIV (as opposed to furthering a Marxist agenda), there are several things he should be doing:
1) VOLUNTEER AS A CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY. The fact is, HIV spreads through immoral sexual practices like homosexuality, paedophilia, bestiality, adultery, etc. If - and this is a big if - the people of Africa even get their drugs or money from the loony lefties, it will extend their lives but it won't change the problem that causes it: immorality. People have already mentioned the superstitions about acts of paedophilia with virgins being a cure, and it's only when these tribal superstitions are cleared out and replaced with a firm, Christian moral base that any progress can really be made.
2) SUPPORT BUSH'S WAR ON TERROR. The fact is that there are many dictatorial, terrorist reigimes in Africa. Think Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Libya, Somalia, Sudan... even Egypt. And I'm sure that - eventually - every one of these states that harbors terrorism will have their terroristic tribal governments overthrown and replaced with democratic governments stabalized by the US. The sooner freedom and democracy are spread across Africa, the better for Bono's cause. At least this way Bono's dollar a day will be able to get through to the people of Africa and not swallowed by some dictatorial tribal bureaucracy.
3) BOYCOTT WESTERN GOVERNMENTS WHO SUPPORT SUCH REIGIMES. If France has no problems selling weapons to Saddam Hussein, what makes you think that they wouldn't sell weapons to dangerous African reigimes, like the ones run by Robert Mugabe or Colonel Gaddafi? In fact, any money that Bono and his minnions donate will probably end up in French pockets in exchange for weapons falling into the hands of terrorist governments. If Bono really had a social conscience, he would start by boycotting French goods and speaking out against France, not America.
4) WHEN REIGIME CHANGE HAPPENS, SUPPORT FREE MARKETS. Imagine a tribal village. 200 unemployed people, 20 of whom have AIDS. Right now they're living off UN handouts. Now imagine a major corporation (as "immoral" as the left finds them) investing money in the village by setting up a factory there. Each week, how ever many of those 200 people and the 20 who have aids who want a job can have one. You will see a growth in the village economy, with those wages being traded for goods and services. I'm sure that, if the demand is there, an enterprising young villager will come across the idea of supplying AIDS medicine to factory workers.
Sure, the left hates the idea of people being self sufficient like this. Cynically keeping them down under opressive socialist reigimes allows them to say things like "Those poor helpless Africans, free markets don't work, blah blah blah America is evil blah blah blah", which advances their false ideology better. But at the end of the day - again assuming you can get any medicine or money past the corrupt governments - it's a bandaid solution. Free markets are a long term fix.
My Point?
This is another example of how liberal-leftism and socialism either don't fix the problem, or just gives a 'band aid' solution. OTOH, right wing thinking fixes the underlying problem, and gives a real solution.
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