it’s ordinary people versus global elites.

Here’s the (heretical?) rub: it is understandable if people are losing faith in aid agencies and even in the idea of “development” itself. Because, broadly speaking, it hasn’t worked. We clearly haven’t solved the problem of poverty. Yet we’ve misled the public for years that poverty will end, if only they’ll give us £2 a month
...

If we want to stop international aid agencies becoming obsolete, and quash the idea that fighting poverty is some kind of zero sum game, we – including my organisation, Health Poverty Action – need to get much better at telling the right stories, making the connections between the lives of people in the UK and abroad. It’s not “us here” versus “them over there”; it’s ordinary people versus global elites.

Done right, this would mean people could begin to empathise with people in the global south, and begin to stem the loss of trust. Doing this would mean focusing less on north-south dynamics, but on the relationship between citizens, corporations and global elites. Stories about multinationals, tax havens, and the privatisation of public services would demonstrate that people around the world are victims of the same process of poverty creation and systemic injustice as we are here. Often it is the same elites that benefit from you being denied your basic rights, wherever you happen to live. Aid would then be less about guilt or power, and more about solidarity. That would be a huge step in the right direction.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:21 pm...cannot possibly end poverty...

eriksank wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:48 pm

The source of all evil is the incessant invention of man-made law. There is nothing that causes more evil than people associating other lawmakers -- false gods -- as partners next to or above the only legitimate lawmaker, the Almighty. However, it is not these false gods that are evil, but the people who believe in them. Hence, it is the followers of false gods who are responsible for all the evilthat befalls themselves and other people. We do not want to reduce the evil that befalls themselves. Let that just be. We just want to prevent them from forcibly imposing their false pagan beliefs onto others -- by grabbing control over the government.

juansweetpotato wrote:

it’s ordinary people versus global elites.

Stories about multinationals, tax havens, and the privatisation of public services would demonstrate that people around the world are victims of the same process of poverty creation and systemic injustice as we are here. Often it is the same elites that benefit from you being denied your basic rights, wherever you happen to live.


Here's why donating £2 a month cannot possibly end poverty
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ate-change

Here’s the (heretical?) rub: it is understandable if people are losing faith in aid agencies and even in the idea of “development” itself. Because, broadly speaking, it hasn’t worked. We clearly haven’t solved the problem of poverty. Yet we’ve misled the public for years that poverty will end, if only they’ll give us £2 a month
...

If we want to stop international aid agencies becoming obsolete, and quash the idea that fighting poverty is some kind of zero sum game, we – including my organisation, Health Poverty Action – need to get much better at telling the right stories, making the connections between the lives of people in the UK and abroad. It’s not “us here” versus “them over there”; it’s ordinary people versus global elites.

Done right, this would mean people could begin to empathise with people in the global south, and begin to stem the loss of trust. Doing this would mean focusing less on north-south dynamics, but on the relationship between citizens, corporations and global elites. Stories about multinationals, tax havens, and the privatisation of public services would demonstrate that people around the world are victims of the same process of poverty creation and systemic injustice as we are here. Often it is the same elites that benefit from you being denied your basic rights, wherever you happen to live. Aid would then be less about guilt or power, and more about solidarity. That would be a huge step in the right direction.

Anchor Moy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 9:14 pm

juansweetpotato wrote:

it’s ordinary people versus global elites.

Stories about multinationals, tax havens, and the privatisation of public services would demonstrate that people around the world are victims of the same process of poverty creation and systemic injustice as we are here. Often it is the same elites that benefit from you being denied your basic rights, wherever you happen to live.


Here's why donating £2 a month cannot possibly end poverty
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ate-change

Here’s the (heretical?) rub: it is understandable if people are losing faith in aid agencies and even in the idea of “development” itself. Because, broadly speaking, it hasn’t worked. We clearly haven’t solved the problem of poverty. Yet we’ve misled the public for years that poverty will end, if only they’ll give us £2 a month
...

If we want to stop international aid agencies becoming obsolete, and quash the idea that fighting poverty is some kind of zero sum game, we – including my organisation, Health Poverty Action – need to get much better at telling the right stories, making the connections between the lives of people in the UK and abroad. It’s not “us here” versus “them over there”; it’s ordinary people versus global elites.

Done right, this would mean people could begin to empathise with people in the global south, and begin to stem the loss of trust. Doing this would mean focusing less on north-south dynamics, but on the relationship between citizens, corporations and global elites. Stories about multinationals, tax havens, and the privatisation of public services would demonstrate that people around the world are victims of the same process of poverty creation and systemic injustice as we are here. Often it is the same elites that benefit from you being denied your basic rights, wherever you happen to live. Aid would then be less about guilt or power, and more about solidarity. That would be a huge step in the right direction.

No, unfortunately, I don't think it works like that. It's a nice idea though. Once upon a time I did believe that the world would be a better place if only we had more real information and more understanding of what it means to be the "other". Now, I think that people are killing and letting people be killed because nobody wants to be the "other".

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:49 pmHere, read this: ... And for God's sake, cover yourself up. Here, take this.

eriksank wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 10:51 pm

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:49 pmHere, read this: ... And for God's sake, cover yourself up. Here, take this.

I don't need to do anything for things to happen automatically as I described them, because there are already 1.6 billion people making it happen. The coordinating force with which this is happening, is very strong. Unstoppable. I am just pointing out the inevitable. This demographic will shut down man-made law, whether you -- or anybody else -- likes it or not. You either take a position in which you benefit from it, or you can also choose to badly suffer.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:02 pm There may well be even more Christian radicals out there.

AE86 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:08 pm

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:02 pm There may well be even more Christian radicals out there.

Seriously? How do you figure?

. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, Aug. 5, 2012. The virulent, neocon-fueled Islamophobia that has plagued post-9/11 America has not only posed a threat to Muslims, it has had deadly consequences for people of other faiths, including Sikhs. Sikhs are not Muslims; the traditional Sikh attire, including their turbans, is different from traditional Sunni, Shiite or Sufi attire. But to a racist, a bearded Sikh looks like a Muslim. Only four days after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh immigrant from India who owned a gas station in Mesa, Arizona, was murdered by Frank Silva Roque, a racist who obviously mistook him for a Muslim.

But Sodhi’s murder was not the last example of anti-Sikh violence in post-9/11 America. On Aug. 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page used a semiautomatic weapon to murder six people during an attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page’s connection to the white supremacist movement was well-documented: he had been a member of the neo-Nazi rock bands End Empathy and Definite Hate. Attorney General Eric Holder described the attack as “an act of terrorism, an act of hatred.” It was good to see the nation’s top cop acknowledge that terrorist acts can, in fact, involve white males murdering people of color.

2. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009. Imagine that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Neocons, Fox News and the Christian Right would have had a field day. A physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:02 pmI presume you're talking about 1.6 billion Muslims. A very small percentage of whom are radicals. There may well be even more Christian radicals out there.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:02 pmA lot of Muslims I have met, don't take the religious laws/ rules at face value.