Northern nations have sponsored dictators and supplied arms for vague political goals that have turned out to be erroneous as often as not. We have forced them to adopt policies that pushed them into debt. We have engaged in protectionism at home while insisting that their markets be fully open to us and insisted that our corporations profit from the aid we give.
We, every wealthy nation in the developed world, are at least partially culpable for those crowds of people we see on television. Our solution is largely more of the same, but that’s not really a solution. The real solution is to look at what’s at the base of the problem and deal with that.
The problem we have yet to face is that we have, through our domestic and foreign policies, devastated agriculture in the developing world. We continue to do so and, despite the dedicated efforts of a few, there are few signs that will change.
Farm gate prices, what the farmer gets for the crop produced, have been falling for years. Price increases go to the corporations who process and package the food while producers get less and less. This is a problem for our domestic producers as well, but the results in the developing world where people are already merely surviving are truly devastating. According to the United Nations, cocoa producers get about seven percent of the supermarket value for their crops. Coffee producers have seen their share of the price we pay for a pound of coffee fall to between six and eight percent in this century from about 37 percent in the early 1990s.
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand why farmers in developing nations so readily switch to growing illicit crops such as coca or opium poppies when their profit margins for their legitimate crops have fallen so drastically. Unfortunately, switching to illicit crops leaves them at the mercy of both local warlords and governments that fight the so-called war on drugs with defoliants and brutality.
Genetically modified crops are also an issue. In 1997, genetically modified cotton made up about two percent of the world’s overall production. Genetically modified crops now comprise 25 percent of cotton grown worldwide and almost none of the money from those crops go to local producers because the crops are grown by international cartels.
The spread of genetically modified cotton, combined with US anti-marijuana policy, also curtails the profitability of crops such as hemp, that are better suited than cotton for production in some areas of developing nations. Industrial hemp is a source of seed-oil and a food crop as well as being a textile crop. Its versatility and hardiness makes it an excellent crop choice for developing nations, but lack of any real access to the world’s largest market and resultant lack of processing capability makes widespread and profitable production of hemp a fairly remote possibility.
While hemp production meets resistance from the United States, the production of cereal crops is increasingly unprofitable for small-scale farmers because of subsidies in the US and Europe that keep prices artificially low. Even the food aid that northern countries ship to the world’s trouble spots add to this because instead of purchasing the grain in the developing world we buy it from our own farmers. While this does give a boost to farmers in the developed countries, it deprives farmers closer to the crisis of profits. The transportation costs also rise dramatically, causing aid money that would be better spent on more food or aid workers to be swallowed up in shipping costs.
While the United Nations has promoted the development of non-food crops and multi-use crops like hemp through programs such as United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP), there has been resistance from large corporations and the politicians they fund. The oil and cotton lobbies are major contributors to political campaigns and have lobbied heavily for the zero tolerance rules that keep industrial hemp and many hemp products out of the US market.
Growing usually illicit crops for legitimate purposes is yet another area where political concerns tend to get in the way. Turkey and Pakistan were once major suppliers of opium and heroin to the black market, but by licensing growers in those countries and allowing them to grow opium poppies for the pharmaceutical market, opium production was turned into a legitimate industry.
There is now a similar problem in Afghanistan, largely brought on by the way the invasion and subsequent occupation of that country has been handled. People who need to earn a living have returned to growing opium illegally, an industry which supplies over 50 percent of that country’s gross domestic product. They are at the mercy of drug lords for their incomes and many of these farmers are seeing their crops and their livelihoods wiped out in the name of keeping heroin off the streets of major western cities.
At the same time we are trying to stop an influx of cheap heroin into our cities, there is a shortage of pharmaceutical opiates, especially in poor nations. While some have been pushing for programs to grow opium poppies for pharmaceutical use in Afghanistan, those in power have rebuffed the suggestion citing the length of time that it took to turn the situation around in Pakistan and Turkey as well as the power that warlords presently hold over the areas where poppies are grown. To many, those would seem to be reasons to begin working towards the legal production of poppies as soon as possible, and groups like Senlis are working to develop policies that address the real issues.
There is little profit in increasing the supply of medicinal opiates in the developing world though, so the pharmaceutical companies have shown little interest. Given the power those corporations wield, it is their interest that could make the difference. Current US drug policy and its influence on international organisations is also a major player.
It is long past time for the international community to have a hard look at their policies. It is no single country and no single policy that has brought us to this point. Rather it is the combination of many policies and attitudes– from illegal drugs to pharmaceuticals to agriculture to trade to aid to campaign finance and a myriad of other issues that have gotten us here. Until we are willing to step back and honestly look at the effects of our policies as a whole, we will remain here. Until we begin to develop policies based on whether those policies relieve world poverty instead of whether they further enrich the already wealthy, we will not move forward.
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on August 4, 2005]Note: United Nations source of seed-oil and ... United Nations Fund for... Senlis US drug policy
Stumble It!
The answer is that WE did none of the above. Blame and responsibility are very concrete things and shouldn't be just thrown around. I am personally aware of all my decisions and my culpability in their moral repercussions, however, I will NOT be blamed for the acts of a government I have never supported, have fought against, and have no part in making their decisions.
There is moral culpability in doing nothing, or in doing little, however, I am not responsible for the actions of others. It was a bureaucrat and other lackeys who made the specific decision which resulted in the repercussion. While I can understand the usefullness of social guilt, it can only be stretched so far-because people can only do so much.
We have no power over the decisions of our government, no way to enact change and no way to recall politicians. If this were Switzerland or some states and canadians were VOTING for such conduct then that would be different. In Maine they decided by a very slim margin to not support the rights of gay marriage. That is something which Mainers have to accept responsibility for, although there are still mitigating factors for the almost half of the population which voted for it. When Canada is a democracy and canadians are making their own decisions, THEN I'll accept some communal guilt.
Actually, it could of been a decent article if you handn't kept referencing your favourite UN which is as corrupt as any northern hemisphere country and more so, not to mention the fact these poor countries with starving populations are frequently ruled by dictataors of the Mao Zedong type.
Yet again, your socialism shines through.
Perhaps it is good, that you so vehemently say it isn't you, and that you won't take the blame for the corruption of elected officials, and perhaps if more people got angry and felt the same way, we would have a better turn out at the polls and more accountability in government.
If as you say, you weren't involved, and most of us were not directly involved, then those who are involved, don't represent us. Therefore democracy is not in action in this country. So maybe that is the issue, we have some sort of dictatorship, with foreign and corporate influence.
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
were some kind of curse. They are usually Americans or
wanna-be americans that can't get a green card. The irony
is that the US government is running the biggest socialist
program in the world - DRUG PROHIBITION.
Likewise, the american who fights against Bush is not a party to the crimes-that's why there is war crimes legislation, because individuals are culpable for their own acts. There are people who spend every waking hour trying to bring down the Bush administration, are they as culpable as somebody who watches fox, works as a security guard, and yells racial epithets at people? Nonsense, individuals are responsible for their own acts.
I can understand where that argument comes from, we, as a society, could rise up and force the government to do something. The problem with that reasoning is that its hypothetical....and wrong. In the first instance, moral imperatives can be examined hypothetically, yet moral FAULT, which is what is being referred to, is concrete. We don't put people in jail for 'thinking' about doing something. So that we CAN do something collectively, doesn't mean we must do so individually. I can't be held responsible because others do not act similarly.
In the second place it is plainly wrong. I'll trot out my usual example of the 98% of canadians in THREE polls who also signed petitions to label genetic foods. Clearly we did everything possible politically and it had no effect, we were just ignored. On the issue of blame it is clearly those who who sat in the house and refused to pass such legislation. To me it is clearly THEIR fault, but if people want to wallow in a collective guilt and claim that WE didn't do enough, that we could have had a hunger strike, perhaps started shooting Monsanto executives or something, so it is OUR collective fault, well, go right ahead, but don't pretend to be speaking for US, because you're speaking for YOU and your own personal guilt that you aren't doing enough. Collective guilt is often a means utilized to deal with your own guilt, if you feel bad that you don't do enough, include more people so that it 'spreads out the blame'. Moral imperatives are generally simple-you do what you can.
To soften that up a bit, clearly there is something that is CALLED collective guilt. I personally feel guilty about many things, but what goes on in Indonesia isn't one of them. If people feel guilty about far different things then clearly it's ludicrous to try to define collective guilt as one thing or another, it includes millions of things. I still feel bad about the way I reacted one time when my cat caught a bunny. The bunny might well have survived had I not started shrieking at the cat and grabbing her. Had I behaved differently, as I have since on another occasion, then the animal would have been fine. Obviously I am not crippled with guilt, but I do feel guilty, far more than I do about what goes on in Afghanistan where the government is acting directly opposed to my wishes.
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Dave Ruston
If people were free to pursue their economic interests there would not be the suffering we see today - but socialists think they know what's 'better'(power for themselves)
I get tired of hearing the same old all the time. Never anything offered by the left other than criticism and praise of the dysfunctional UN. The AU is currently meeting to demand seats on the permanent security council. It seems appropriate they should be expending resources on this while the west continues to throw good money after bad into the coffers of corrupt dictators whose concern is not for the welfare of their people but rather the welfare of their Swiss accounts.
I don't know what the answer is to this disgusting state of affairs, but it is their affair and has nothing to do with the 'whiteman' as the author would have us believe.
There's a reason for the adage 'charity begins at home'. It's time for Africa to make the appropriate gestures that they are prepared to do what it takes within their limitations.
While I understand where the author is coming from, like I said, the 'we're not doing enough' only goes so far. The title says it all: "we". There is no we, canadian, like every country is a collection of idividuals and organizations, each with different aims and different actions. Some lobby to save endangered species, other lobby to build strip malls over it. There is also no doubt that if you are part of the 'consumer' culture, then you play a part too. Strip malls have customers after all. Yet those who may occasionally have to go there are not as culpable as those who lobbied to build it, and those of us who never set foot in one should not be blamed in that collective guilt either.
Plenty of people live by the motto 'do no harm', however, we simply have no control over our government, my remarks on GMO's show that. When Canada is a democracy we can revisit the question, until then, send the article to the House of Commons.
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
<a href="http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/con_camps.htm">http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/con_camps.htm</a><p>---<br>If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
Keep in mind it goes further than that, and it's readily apparant. Who chose those people who are running in your riding? You didn't, and your neighbours didn't. At the least it is a small group of party members, at worst the leader of the government simply nominates them. They are NOT your representatives, they are the PARTY"S representatives and you choose among them.
Now, somebody could argue hypotheticals, for example, we could all join the parties and so select the leader. Often Party elections use a far better voting system than our society does, however, that masks some truths as well, namely the power that the party administration holds over everybody. They are free to expel you at any time. Read Scott Reid's website, he is TRYING to get democratic reforms in the parties constitution, but so far, like Patrick Boyer before him, no luck.
The only time this is not the case is when independants run. Take a look at Carolyn Parrish, when they become independant they act RADICALLY different-suddenly they have to think of thier constituents.
Canada, has big problems, as always. Keep in mind that during the sixties the CIA had active agents throughout the country and at universities. The RCMP had spy programs in most organizations, and of course the leader of the communist party was run out of town, so let's not all assume that things are hopeless.
Personally, that's why I choose direct democracy. I don't find people 'close minded' at all. I do find SOME people close minded, yet people are...well, people, they SAY all kinds of things. I recently had an argument about native rights with a gentlemen who was completely racist and on the other side of the issue. As we talked though, his 'ideology' didn't change, but how to solve the problem did. The compromise would have surprised anybody who talked to this man and rejected him outright as a racist and simply walked away.
There is a big difference between ideology and action, this is why democracy is hard to do and takes so much work. The swiss already know that, which is why they have more newspapers per capita than anybody else. Still, they are far from perfect. Once you have democracy, you at least have a tool to use to affect these issues. That is what the CCF did. Now, we can either wait until a depression comes along, or we can copy the strategy they used-which was an appeal that canadians could jump on board, with current reality-which is that the one COMMON thing canadians have is a lack of democracy. Coincidentally, that is also what the government fears and what could potentially solve all the other problems.
We have used and taken advantage of poorer developing "3rd world Countries" for our own greedy benefit for so long. We rip them off by forcing them to sell us their crops at lower and lower prices, and that in turn makes their wages and standard of living decline. This shows how western governments/ corperations are bunch of hypocrits.
The main goal it seems to me is to make money (under the guise of "helping" and allowing some people "photo ops" and companies to say "we help the 3rd world") for large corperations and conglomerates and thats why poorer countries and their workers will never get the higher standard of living they work so hard to try and achieve.
No wonder they sell illicet drugs.(not to mention the huge demand in the west for them) Its the only way to "feed the family". We give these countries (most are corrupt) lots of forgein aid money yet very little, if any is passed down to their citizens.