Ah, but to die of starvation when there are perfectly good cows to eat is a good thing. Like taking an axe to the head from some pagan you hoped to convert.
do you have dementia or is there is something about following a link that discusses issues of starvation in third world countries impossible? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
then please *** be my ***guest To solve the world hunger crisis, it’s necessary to do more than send emergency food aid to countries facing famine. Leaders must address the globalized system of agricultural production and trade that favors large corporate agriculture and export-oriented crops while discriminating against small-scale farmers and agriculture oriented to local needs. As a result of official inaction, more than thirty million people die of malnutrition and starvation every year, while large industrial farms export ever more strawberries and cut flowers to affluent consumers. Excessive meat production, again largely for the affluent, requires massive amounts of feed grains that might otherwise sustain poor families. Giant agribusiness, chemical and restaurant companies like Cargill, Monsanto and McDonalds dominate the world's food chain, building a global dependence on unhealthy and genetically dangerous products. These companies are racing to secure patents on every plant and living organism and their intensive advertising seeks to persuade the world's consumers to eat more and more sweets, snacks, burgers, and soft drinks.
I have seen much more than you'll ever give me credit for. I have no idea about you and I prefer to remain anonymous. I have heard this argument before. It's a good one. First, what good is it for large business to create a global dependence on unhealthy food? To kill off potential customers?
Chinese have been eating pork for, what, 10000 years - considering there's a few billion I'd say it's fine to eat. If God wanted to help out humanity She would have put a restriction on raising bird next to humans - bird flues are the source of the worse pandemics killing hundreds of millions. Can you image life without bacon? No wonder Muslims want out! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Ever see how FAT most Americans are? I think they can use their corn any way they like! Probably feeding the SUV is the better option Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I thought we were talking about eating meat. I do not support the idea of growing crops to produce fuel for cars. Why do you bring it up?
While we are on the subject .... How Cow Dung Saved the Children of Miwani The mothers explained to me that the major cause in the high rate of infant mortality was the fact that they could not afford the charcoal to boil water. I pointed out the many cows I saw wandering here and there and asked them why they did not use the cow manure as a source of fuel. They responded that they used to use the cow manure some generations ago but they were told by the colonial masters that this was unclean and they should instead use charcoal. So they proceeded to cut down the forests without replacing them and the end result was what we had today. I encouraged the mothers to again use the cow manure as a source of fuel and demonstrated how to mix the cow stool with straw and slap it on the wall of the house to dry, when it falls off it is ready to go in the sigri. Word spread and all the villagers adopted this method. They looked on the cow in a different light with the idea of cow protection a natural consequence of the children being given safe drinking water. Water was being boiled and children were drinking safe water with a massive fall in the disease rate. They stopped killing the cow.
I was part of a group designated to deliver and demonstrate brand new farm tractors to a small country where starvation was a daily concern. The hope was that the recipients would be able to clear more land and thus become more self sustaining and so on. After I trained a few locals, all the tractors were parked in a little lot nearby. Imagine my surprise to return more than five years later to see each tractor right where they were when I left, totally rusted hulks of scrap metal. That experience made me realize something. I can't make a positive difference, I can't redirect the winds of change, I can only put up windmills. In fact I became troubled by the fact I had interfered in the first place. LG, in your example you returned some people to the old way, really no change, just back to what works. Recently I was asked to join Africycle, a program designed to send quality bicycles to Malawi, an impoverished African nation. I can't do it. My experiences in these activities have hardened my resolve to not interfere. My cynical nature was developed thru many of these ventures. DO these people really need bikes? Oh, if you don't have a bike to donate they will accept a $25 donation to help in shipping. Huh? I respect your attempt at aid. However I think it only delays the inevitable.
I would argue that there are a few inevitable aspects to industrial economy in general that you are not factoring in .....
Factor in anything you want. Industrial economy aside, my overall opinion about humanitarian aid is that it doesn't make much difference in the end. Tomorrow I embark on a 2 week crusade thru the north of my home country Canada. I am going to visit some very desolate and destitute areas of mostly indigenous people. I will be visiting some areas where volunteer work was done in order to bring up the standard of living for the people there. I know what I'm going to find, things will have reverted back to where they once were. I'll let you know in 2 weeks whether I'm right. I'm tempted to suggest to those who sponsor me that the best thing we can do is butt out of these people's lives and let things take their course.
Marvin Harris nailed down at least one major factor decades ago, and the book si still available: The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig. The problem was to explain from a utilitarian pov (Harris is Marxist) one of odd apparent irrationalities of human culture, encouraging future investigation along those lines. His take on the sacred cow was essentially that India had few, if any, truly surplus cattle - that their worth as dairy and draft animals in season far outweighed their consumption (which does not conflict much with human cropland) and apparent uselessness out of season, and that killing them for food would impoverish the community as a whole. Not killing cows in India is one of those religious rules that prevent temporary need of the few from creating deeper disaster for the many. And hsi argument is detailed, with data, and considers the differences between different breeds and sexes, in the cattle distribution in India. It's fairly persuasive. His take on the pigs of the Middle East is similarly well-argued: pigs in the drying ME, unlike the cows in India (and unlike the pigs in many other places) compete directly with humans for food. And pigs provide neither milk nor draft labor - all human food fed to pigs is a large net loss. So allowing pigs means the rich dine well at the expense of the poor starving in hard times. So pigs - which are universally admired and appreciated as fine food almost everywhere else on the planet, are intelligent and amiable and at least as clean as a filthy, shit-encrusted cow in a barn, and are perfectly easy to cook and eat safely - are made out to be disgusting and abominable and forbidden. And this prevents what would otherwise be an ugly scene of social privilege and community impoverishment. And this argument too is fairly persuasive. The takeaway might be that people do many irrational and foolish things by cultural tradition, but not involving centuries of food and starvation in a given place. Those cultures don't last.
the inevitable aspects of industrial economy that I was factoring was that sooner or later it will collapse. People have been living for thousands of years without factories and now suddenly life becomes impossible without it? (BTW I agree about most attempts at humanitarian aid)
