Yeah... those tariffs... gotta love them. Especially the illegal ones that have pretty much destroyed my province's economy.
(Message to the American officials who signed NAFTA: Don't fucking make agreements you don't want to keep, assholes.)
Please don't put those people in Africa down. Most of those countries have only been around for thirty years, at the very most, and were ruled by the imperial powers of Europe before then, under laws that prevented them from being educated, and basically ensured that there wasn't anyone properly qualified to lead the country when they were suddenly tossed out on their own. Sure, they wanted freedom, but so does any teenager. They just weren't armed with the knowledge they needed to make it right off the bat. For instance, most of the new countries embarked on ambitious projects like highways linking everything together... projects that drained their economies, and were eventually left uncompleted.
Since then, they've had famines, droughts, and outbreaks of probably every disease that exists in the world today, which naturally has led to massive political unrest, which in turn led to an even worse situation where children were fighting wars in Sierra Leone, and people were being slaughtered at a rate faster than the Holocaust in Rwanda, while the world looked on. (One of my favourite things about Rwanda is that there was an American presence there at the time, but they wouldn't block off the Hate Radio station giving people instructions to butcher their neighbours because it would violate the First Amendment.)
Oh, but there's more. Most of Africa's most valuable resources, such as oil, and diamonds, are being exploited by major corporations from industrialised countries that simply aren't putting anything back into the economies of the nations they are in. One of the biggest culprits is Cameco, based in my home province, providing a full college scholarship as well as an internship to one of my closest friends, and sucking oil out of the nation of Congo without giving them adequate reparations for it. It's to the point where people steal oil from the pipelines for their own use or to sell it to make a little bit of money, and then there's a nasty accident.
And then there's malaria. A disease that's never affected the rich, industrialised nations of the world, and has therefore been almost completely ignored, even though it is a far greater detriment to the developing world than even AIDS. Yes, malaria can be treated with quinine, but the disease has begun to show resistance to even that. Meanwhile, polio, which *did* affect the western world, has been almost completely eradicated.
And the spread of AIDS has little do with being able to properly operate a condom. There's TONS of other factors, number one being that people there are POOR. We're talking about nations where everyone is starving to death, and you expect them to have adequate access to condoms, even if the world is doing their best to provide them?
Secondly, the rampant spread of STD's in our own society should remind us that condoms don't always work. In nations where the spread of AIDS seems to be continuing unimpeded despite their presence, there's likely oodles of myths about them, and about sex in general, including that the west is trying to eliminate all African people by halting the birth rate.
For example, here's a real gem: having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS. I promise you. There are NEWBORN BABIES that are getting RAPED over there because people think that!!! And even when they aren't raped at birth, the average age an African kid loses their virginity is 10. Yes, 10. They are probably thousands of people who've lost baby teeth in the process.
Lastly, we find that depressed teenagers in our society often tend to become, well, slutty. We especially see it with girls; I've even experienced it to some extent myself. Since our lives aren't even a *fraction* as shitty as theirs are, imagine the effect there. And the "it won't happen to me" attitude isn't limited to North America. That's one of main concepts of the education programs: "It CAN and WILL happen to you."
So what needs to be done?
First of all, that superiority complex has got to go. We've just been fortunate enough to be born after that stage in our own society, and it has nothing to do with their intelligence. Remember, our ancestors thought dumping grain and a blanket in a bucket would spontaneously generate a mouse.
Secondly, we must keep track of every single disease in Africa. Contrary to popular belief, we are NOT just helping with the AIDS crisis out of pure benevolence. Any mutation that occurs there could return to bite us in the ass, and then we'd all be screwed. If HIV somehow combined with ebola into some super-disease and we weren't watching... OH. MY. GOD. (Yeah, I realise that particular scenario isn't very likely to happen, or even quite possible, but I'm making a point.)
But the most important thing, in my opinion, is that we have to reduce farm subsidies in our own nations. While the subsidies, which Bush is a big fan of, and one of my biggest problems with him, do allow farmers to continue to produce in times when they wouldn't be able to otherwise, but only because they allow farmers to sell at a lower price without actually losing money. Unfortunately, that drives down the world price to the point where poorer countries can't afford to grow many crops. For instance, cotton sells at 40% of its production cost, meaning the govt must subsidise 60% of it. Most countries can't afford that, and we have to even the playing field.
If Africa as a whole could increase their market share in agriculture by a mere 1%, it would amount to around 70 billion dollars annually. That's something like five times what they get in aid right now. And that's better for ALL of us.
And Corey: I can almost guarantee that the govt will go the tax break route. People love tax breaks. (I still think my idea, which is to raise the standard of living in the rest of the world, which in turn makes it more expensive for corporations to outsource, is the smarter choice. But govts only think in the short-term, because long-term solutions don't help them get re-elected.)
"That girl thinks she's the queen of the neighbourhood, well I've got news for you... SHE IS!" ~Bikini Kill, Rebel Girl
