Hot Air For Africa

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Maybe, good Cyrus, he finished grammar school in Greece?



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What's with the "good Cyrus"?

FYI I'm past the age where a paedophile would take a fancy at me.

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OK, if you don't like to be called "good Cyrus", that can be easily remedied...

...BAD Cyrus. Bad, bad, bad, bad Cyrus.

[Cyrus]

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[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]...BAD Cyrus. Bad, bad, bad, bad Cyrus. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

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Read my post again.

[ChipWrecked]

The Right Woman

According to Duff, Marie-Laure had had a bad war and was laying low. By bad war he meant Marie-Laure had given her charms away to some very good-looking Wehrmacht officers and the Frogs were pissed off. Again, I beg to differ. How could it possibly be wrong to have bedded good-looking Wehrmacht officers? It sure beats bedding some slob American soldier who might even go off with the Fabergés.

Um, OK. He does sound like Mencken.

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Nobody mentioned the c-word. Corruption—as in African leaders’ corruption.

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This is indeed the major problem. Taki's major problem is that he believes it happens without the help and connivance of the major countries of the world. As if Africa somehow lives in a fishbowl.

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The Right Woman

According to Duff, Marie-Laure had had a bad war and was laying low. By bad war he meant Marie-Laure had given her charms away to some very good-looking Wehrmacht officers and the Frogs were pissed off. Again, I beg to differ. How could it possibly be wrong to have bedded good-looking Wehrmacht officers? It sure beats bedding some slob American soldier who might even go off with the Fabergés.

Um, OK. He does sound like Mencken.

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I didn't say he ALWAYS sounds like Mencken. You have to hunt for the places where he does--like a treasure hunt;-)

Actually, I think I wrote that if you like reading Zeno or Mencken, you'll like reading Taki--I should have qualified that as, you'll like reading *some* Taki--he covers a lot of ground, and is not a one-flavor writer. Poke around if you care to; you'll doubtless find more, both that you like and dislike.

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Nobody mentioned the c-word. Corruption—as in African leaders’ corruption.

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This is indeed the major problem. Taki's major problem is that he believes it happens without the help and connivance of the major countries of the world. As if Africa somehow lives in a fishbowl.

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Well, it's easy to see that corrupt U.N. officials, and the "bureaucrooks" in France and the EU, ran the largest fraud in history with the oil-for-food scam.

But, how exactly did the U.S., U.K., and Japan help and connive to enable the despots of Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sudan and Sierra Leone to steal vast sums and murder huge numbers of people?

Taki writes:

"Sudan, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are three glaring examples of this. Ethiopia has spent huge sums fighting Eritrea over a disputed border. Over 65 million Ethiopians can now hardly feed themselves, while the government spends billions on arms. Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, is an impoverished nation because of Robert Mugabe’s greed and disasterous anti-white policies. The psychopathic Liberian murderer Charles Taylor is living in Nigeria with the hundreds of millions he stole from the nation’s coffers, and his protector, Olusegun Obasanjo, presents himself in Davos and lectures us on the need to help Africa. Ditto Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa and the prime mover behind the theory that AIDS does not exist but is an American plot to weaken Africans."

If you know how the U.S., U.K., and Japan are complicit in these things, pray do tell.

[ChipWrecked]

Calling American soldiers slobby thieves sounded like Mencken to me. I was agreeing with you.

[nicky g]

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Nobody mentioned the c-word. Corruption—as in African leaders’ corruption.

[/ QUOTE ]



This is indeed the major problem. Taki's major problem is that he believes it happens without the help and connivance of the major countries of the world. As if Africa somehow lives in a fishbowl.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it's easy to see that corrupt U.N. officials, and the "bureaucrooks" in France and the EU, ran the largest fraud in history with the oil-for-food scam.

But, how exactly did the U.S., U.K., and Japan help and connive to enable the despots of Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sudan and Sierra Leone to steal vast sums and murder huge numbers of people?

Taki writes:

"Sudan, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are three glaring examples of this. Ethiopia has spent huge sums fighting Eritrea over a disputed border. Over 65 million Ethiopians can now hardly feed themselves, while the government spends billions on arms. Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, is an impoverished nation because of Robert Mugabe’s greed and disasterous anti-white policies. The psychopathic Liberian murderer Charles Taylor is living in Nigeria with the hundreds of millions he stole from the nation’s coffers, and his protector, Olusegun Obasanjo, presents himself in Davos and lectures us on the need to help Africa. Ditto Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa and the prime mover behind the theory that AIDS does not exist but is an American plot to weaken Africans."

If you know how the U.S., U.K., and Japan are complicit in these things, pray do tell.

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Here's an example. The most glaring example of African kleptocracy was Mobutu's regime. The West (mainly the US and Belgium) were responsible for undermining the Lumumba regime, killing Lumumba (the Belgians did it, the US planned to but were beaten to it) and supported Mobutu's rise and throughout his rule, pressuring for example the World Bank to loan him tens of millions that they knew he was spending on himself and would never be repaid. The legacy of all this was of course the endless Central African wars that followed his death.

[BluffTHIS!]

During the cold war things seemed a little more black and white to western leaders. In the Congo's case they saw it as allowing a communist to rule who likely would favor the USSR, or a corrupt thug who would be a friend to the west.

[andyfox]

I agree with the general point that problems that some see as simply economic, racial, or technical also have a political component. This is not to say that there are not indeed economic, racial and technical problems, but certainly bad government is rampant in Africa.

Gates seems to believe that technology and money can solve a lot of Africa's health problems. He's probably right. This doesn't mean that he doesn't believe better government will also have an effect. But money Gates has given recently innoculated 42,000,000 African kids against hepatitis. He is powerful enough, well enough connected, and rich enough to have an impact irrespective of the efficacy, or lack thereof, of the African governments.

I do disagree with Taki's point, though, that it is wrong to criticize the rich countries for not caring enough to try to solve Africa's problems, especially health problems. Sklansky made the same point on the philosophy forum not long ago, urging posters to read the New Yorker article about Gates's efforts to combat malaria in Africa. Mosquito nets cost about $4 apiece and, properly treated with insecticides,, can go a long way toward saving lives. Our government could save a lot of lives securing these nets, instead of, for example, building the bridge to "nowhere" in Alaska.

So as not to misunderstand my point, I'm not saying people are starving or dying in Africa only because the rich countries don't care. Certainly they're starving and dying because their own governments don't care either.