I’m relatively dismayed by the way in which some of the most paleo-liberal notions of aid to developing countries have gained traction with the antics of Live-8 and other lame pop-star posturing. There’s something actually racist, I think, in arguing that Africans somehow cannot work and trade their own way to prosperity. And there’s something truly dumb in not focusing on one area where the wealthy continue to punish the poor. Anne Applebaum puts it well:
[A]mong those who work seriously on Africa, it has long been clear that what Africans need isn’t only cash, which can be stolen or wasted, but the opportunity to trade their way out of poverty, just as Asians did over the past several decades. Yet the current regime of agricultural tariffs, quotas and export subsidies, whether for American cotton or European sugar, so reduces the price of African agricultural products that African farmers cannot compete. Each European cow costs taxpayers $2.20 a day, while half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. Withdraw the subsidies for the cows, and Africans might even be able to make competitive cheese.
I hope the president is not too defensive at Gleneagles and points out the cheap sanctimony of the Live-8 mentality. I hope also that he revamps his own views on agricultural subsidies, which he has expanded dramatically. Charity for others often begins at home. Let’s cut off wealthy agri-business first, shall we, and then talk about targeted, effective aid.
ZARQAWI ATTACKS MUSLIMS: It strikes me as actually a helpful, if of course also awful, development that the Jihadists in Iraq are now targeting diplomats from other Arab and Muslim countries. The Jihadists are not just fighting us – they’re fighting any Muslims who do not hew to their murderous, medieval ideology. Jeff Jarvis makes the point with his usual eloquence and concision.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I hope when your time comes – I pray for you to die a slow, agonizingly painful, and lonely death due to complications from your HIV. Be sure to thank your pal Ronnie R. for his part in allowing AIDS to become what it did – when you see him in HELL. You are a dangerous AIDS – ridden maggot. – An HIV Negative Guy who is proud to be that way and stay that way – safely.” It’s worth saying that I get my fair share of homophobic emails from the right. Whatever. But many of the most vicious and personal and hateful come from the gay far left. They suffer from what many other parts (but not all) of the left wallows in: an addiction to bad news, a loathing for success, a bitterness that corrodes any ability to talk positively to people who disagree with you. Most depressing. And the intolerance! It’s not like the brutal attacks I endured in the early 1990s – when my espousal of gay marriage earned the ire of the hard left. But it’s still around. And they hate me and other non-left-wing gays with an intensity that is so often the hallmark of those who have lost the argument.
