- We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
The above lyrics are of course taken from the song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie that, in the mid ’80s, received more air play than female flight attendants on Air Force One during the Clinton administration.
“We are the world” featured some of the world’s wealthiest performers attempting to turn the tables on the “decade of greed” to aid – or convince you to aid, rather – the less fortunate in areas of the world that have a tragic lack of food, medicine and pop stars seeking to inject humility into Jupiter moon-sized ostentation.
Giving is something at which Americans excel. In 2006, Americans donated almost $300 billion to charities. Our values are what compel us to help the less fortunate, and the system of government devised by theft is part of what allows us to help.
Too often, however, giving is spoken of as the be-all and end-all without examining the receiver – and it could be about to happen again via another piece of legislation apparently designed to create wealthier thugs.
Enter the “Global Poverty Act.” The Obama/Hagel/Cantwell-sponsored bill that recently passed through a Senate committee calls for another $845 billion of your tax dollars to fight global poverty.
The historical lesson from traditional African aid is clear: No matter how much money you send, if the delivery boy is named Bugsy Siegel, chances are little of the money will reach the intended target.
Not long ago, Nigeria’s “anti-corruption commission” – runner-up in the “oxymoron of the year” competition, second only to “U.S. Senate Intelligence” – found that past rulers of Nigeria have stolen or misused billions of dollars.
The commission discovered that the amount of money “missing” adds up to all the Western aid given to Africa in four decades. Obama, Hagel and Cantwell want to throw more at them. Apparently they won’t be happy until there are trillions of our tax dollars stolen by crooked leaders and warlords.
This is another United Nations-esque grand plan, like the “Oil-for-Food” program that was designed to get medicine and food to poor Iraqis. Oil for Food began in 1996, and the General Accounting Office estimated that Hussein’s regime, not to mention Kofi Annan’s son and who knows how many others, netted more than $10 billion from the scheme. You couldn’t buy a gumball with the amount that was actually spent on medicine and food for the poor.
To truly help cure misery in third-world nations, a capitalist environment is needed on site, but that can only be established after getting rid of the crooks. Obama, Hagel and Cantwell’s plan to give them a salary increase isn’t likely to solve the problem.
Years ago, it was discovered that some leaders of the United Way had embezzled millions of dollars. The news had a devastating effect on donations, and they’re only now starting to make a comeback.
The road to partial recovery for the United Way was, first and foremost, to eliminate the thieves. Obama, Hagel and Cantwell would have left those guilty people in the organization and simply called for people to crank up the level of their giving to make up for the losses due to theft. As a result, the organization would be completely out of business, you’d be out of money and criminals would be on a beach in Barbados laughing at how stupid we all are.
If our billions of dollars go first to establish thug-free zones in third world countries, then our donations might make it to the intended targets – people who will then ultimately be able to create their own independence. But this will never be possible when we insist on trying to make the fruits of our great nation grow on dead trees.
In summer 2005, performers at the Live8 concerts asked, “If we can spend billions of dollars to kill people, why can’t we spend billions of dollars to feed people?”
The sad reality is that sometimes you have to do that first part in order to make the last part possible.
The only thing the Obama/Hagel/Cantwell bill will feed is the problem, and this will continue until nobody, with the exception of politicians and their scheming friends around the world, has any money. But then, perhaps that’s the whole idea.
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