Feckin' Debt Relief for Africa!!!

[TonyEnglish]

I like the way they are having a concert about poverty involving Elton John, who admits to spending £2k per per week on flowers. What next - Bernard Manning on race relations.

Also, Geldof is not doing all this out of the goodness of his heart. Looking at it cynically, if he had not done the live aid thing and kept harping on about the third world, he would simply have been yet another forgotten 80's pop star. Instead he has managed to keep himself in the public eye and so remain very rich.

[NumptyCorner]

Who's he ?

Don't expect to understand what Mailman writes, all sense gets 'lost in the post'. (geddit?)

[clownio]

It's OK everyone. He meant ROBERT MUGABE !

see www.zimbabwesituation.com/jun8a_2005.html#link7

and scroll to "Mugabe's Terror campaign" for more details

....if you can be arsed !

[sasguru]

Here is my solution to the Africa problem:

1. Pay fair prices for their goods.
2. African countries should provide a list of infrastructure projects that would help them to develop like schools, hospitals and roads. Private sector Western companies could then bid for these projects to the Western government aid donors. No money at all should be given directly to corrupt African Governments.
3. Stop all arms sales to Africa.

[ZitMeister]

Here is my solution to the Africa problem:

1. Pay fair prices for their goods.

the problem is the EU dumping our highly subsidised goods on them destroying their local economies. Try telling the French to reform the CAP

2. no way do I want my taxes building roads in Africa when they should be building them here. Blair and Brown should concentrate on sorting this country out before trying to solve the worlds problems.

3. Guns will end up to whoever wants them

[DodgyAgent]

LiveAid

Although I accept to a degree that Geldof, Bono , midge Ure et al do to a certain extaent care about Africa I am convinced that it is their own guilt that they are having to face rather than solving Africas probblems.

Since Live Aid Ethiopia's population gas grown significantly. It is yet again facing famine and all the other problems that go with a dodgy government and poverty. Has the population grown because of Geldof's Live Aid? maybe maybe not. What seems to be certain though is that the country is no better off than it was when Live Aid went to its assistance.

My view is that all these rich stars are so guilt ridden that they have become fanatical about their cause without giving the blindest notice to serious questions about their policies.
They are also unashamadly bullying the rest of us into their guilt zone.
Message to Sir Bob, Bono and the rest of the self righteous, priviliged knob ends:

If you feel so guilty then give up your own vast amounts of wealth instead of heaping your guilt on the rest of us?

[mailmannz]

It's OK everyone. He meant ROBERT MUGABE !

see www.zimbabwesituation.com/jun8a_2005.html#link7

and scroll to "Mugabe's Terror campaign" for more details

....if you can be arsed !

I was probably expecting a bit much for people to be able to work out who I was talking about.

Mugatu = big boss clown from Zoolander
Mugabe = big boss clown from zimbabwe

Mailman

[snaw]

Although I accept to a degree that Geldof, Bono , midge Ure et al do to a certain extaent care about Africa I am convinced that it is their own guilt that they are having to face rather than solving Africas probblems.

Is that your sole answer to everything? Anyone, with money, who gives a sh!t about anything only does so because they are guilt ridden?

Anyone who gives a sh!t about anything, without money, only does so cause they're jealous ...

Jaysus you live in a limited world. You sit and pontificate, and presume to know everyone else's reason's for every action but apparently you never bother to analyse yourself and question why is it you presume to believe you know everything about anyone else.

You take patronising to a whole new level.

[AtW]

money

> Anyone, with money, who gives a sh!t about anything only does so because they are guilt ridden?

I did not hear about those musicians giving their own millions to the cause. Not charging for the gig is not a big sacrifice because that gig would not have paid them anyway, so in effect they did not lose opportunity to make money, in fact they gain by making the press to talk about them.

Cynical explotation of the cause is more like it.

A real solution to the problem is to fund creation of an army that will topple corrupt regimes in African countries and establish democracy there.

[DodgyAgent]

snaw, the reason why you are a propeller head is because you have little or no understanding of human nature. Very few people do things unless there is a reason for them to do it that affects THEM. Few people have statemanlike "qualities" (it is arguable that statesmanlike is a quality). People are driven by self interest; greed, envy whatever. I hope you understand that "self interest" manifest itself in many many different ways, not just a desire for material world.

I manage people and I understand tha in order to manage them one has to appeal to their self interest (not always money) in a way that makes their interests the same as your interests.

This guilt thing is a logical part of human nature. It shows that these people are genuinly kind and caring. However they are (in my opinion) being less than honest with themselves. There are too many cracks in their arguments that they simply refuse to look at. Those that question would their motives refrain from doing so because they have caprtured the moral high ground "We are doing this for Africa how dare you question us"

Bob Geldof's career has prospered as a result of irony whether you like it or not the question remains about his true intentions. Like many others I believe Geldof to be well intentioned but he is no saint, and he is in no position to preach to me; If he wants to give to Africa that is his business.

Guilt is a funny thing. People overcome guilt in many ways. One such way is for victims of crime to be tormented more and more by those who hurt them. They deal with their guilt by humiliating their victims, making their victims inhuman or lowering their esteem in their own eyes and those of others accordingly. Thye de humanise their victims... bullies do this all the time. "He is a nobody, he is a nothing a loser let us all bully him.

You see snaw in your case you have totally given up contesting my points. You have resorted to abuse. You for some reason think of self interest as money... I never said anything of the sort.

The problem with guilt is that it makes people behave in destructive ways.. if that was not the case then socialism would die