Limp Noodle Liberals and some costs of Environmentalism

[Tony]

How is that for a provocative title?
As for this Socialist, this is another frustrating example of how bourgeois liberalism makes poor people pay for what, despite a few genuine exceptions, is largely a fad movement that caters to their own personal well-being and comfort. Because lefties everywhere (not just lefties of course) are clamoring for biofuled cars, food costs are rising and more poor people will starve. What ever happened to a left that actually cared abour poor people anyway?
Ok, this is a pretty vitriolic rant, but damn this stuff makes me angry.

Here is the NYTimes article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/world ... ref=slogin

Thoughts? Grievances?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

That article is so full of jingoist, anti-environmental shit that I'd like to slap the author. For one thing, U.S. food aid isn't nearly as much as they pretend (Ireland, for heaven's sakes, gives more than we do) and has largely consisted of dumping corn and other giant agribiz, tax-subsidied, high fossil fuel and water inputs commodities on 3rd-world countries, temporarily lowering food prices but destroying the local farm culture (and driving as many of them as can make it illegally across our border to get jobs). A few NGOs are now refusing to take U.S. "food aid" because of that - the NGOs strongly recommend sending money to buy food from the local farmers instead, to build up the local farmer economy and thus the farming community, so it won't need aid anymore.

Second, corn is one of the least efficient feedstocks for ethanol and the only folks who are pushing it (besides the petroleum industry under the same logic that has the National Republican Party giving Nadar money to run for president) are those same giant agribiz tax-subsidized, high fossil-fuel and water inputs commodity people. Everyone else is clamoring for some other source - sugar cane, switchgrass, etc. My chosen is a process (company name BRI Energy) that produces both ethanol and electricity using garbage, de-watered sewage, chicken litter, ground tires, or any other carbon-based substance. (The latest I heard on BRI Energy, they have 2 "commercial test plants" scheduled to go online next year. With those as evidence of the virtue of the process, they're hoping to get contracts all over the world. I'd love one in Fayetteville, where the test plant has been running for 17 years, but Dr. Gaddy doesn't want to present a proposal to Fayetteville City Council until after the commercial plants are up and running.)

If the MSM in general, and the "Gray Lady" in particular, had any respect for truth or inclination to help us out of our fossil-fuel, foreign-fuel dependent security hole, they wouldn't print crap like that - or at least not positioned like that. Try telling the truth - Corporate America is pushing "food v fuel" corn ethanol to break the back of the environmental movement. See what could come from that take on it.

BTY - Caring for poor people is much better expressed by providing ways for them to get out of poverty (providing farm animals and training like Heifer International does or urban childcare programs so the parents can afford to get jobs) than the self-righteous and sanctimonious feeling gotten for giving the beggar a dime. If there's one thing the real do-gooder wants to do, it's work him or herself out of a job.

[Doug]

BTY - Caring for poor people is much better expressed by providing ways for them to get out of poverty (providing farm animals and training like Heifer International does or urban childcare programs so the parents can afford to get jobs) than the self-righteous and sanctimonious feeling gotten for giving the beggar a dime. If there's one thing the real do-gooder wants to do, it's work him or herself out of a job.

DOUG
Global warming is going to hit poor nations HARD, and India is a good example. They are running out of potable water fast, and the Ganges is 30,000 times over the safe limit for drinking. Caring for the poor involves keeping them alive so that they can eat the handouts we give them.

[Tony]

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:

For one thing, U.S. food aid isn't nearly as much as they pretend

Well, we don't send nearly the percentage of our budget that other countries do, to our shame, but still that leaves our contribution as one of the largest. The point is, all food is necessary, including our contribution, and that is now shrinking.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:

Second, corn is one of the least efficient feedstocks for ethanol and the only folks who are pushing it (besides the petroleum industry under the same logic that has the National Republican Party giving Nadar money to run for president) are those same giant agribiz tax-subsidized, high fossil-fuel and water inputs commodity people. Everyone else is clamoring for some other source - sugar cane, switchgrass, etc.

Well that's a blanket generalization. I agree with you on much of this, but daily I wade through a whole herd of unthinking middle class environmental hipsters on campus who have jumped on the corn ethanol bandwagon without giving a thought to the human consequences of such a policy. Nor have they on using soybeans or anything else that will drive up the price of food. They are contributing to the demand that corporations are flooding to satisfy. That is the target of my anger.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:

If the MSM in general, and the "Gray Lady" in particular, had any respect for truth or inclination to help us out of our fossil-fuel, foreign-fuel dependent security hole, they wouldn't print crap like that - or at least not positioned like that. Try telling the truth - Corporate America is pushing "food v fuel" corn ethanol to break the back of the environmental movement.

This sounds so conspiracy like. Corporations will do anything they think they can make a buck at. From prosthetic legs for returning soldiers, to Che Guevara T-shirts. But there is a demand for this. And that demand comes from people of whom I speak.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:

Caring for poor people is much better expressed by providing ways for them to get out of poverty (providing farm animals and training like Heifer International does or urban childcare programs so the parents can afford to get jobs) than the self-righteous and sanctimonious feeling gotten for giving the beggar a dime. If there's one thing the real do-gooder wants to do, it's work him or herself out of a job.

Doug beat me to this scary bit. Starving people right now don't need the Heifer project or any other bourgeois American do-gooderism. They need food, and now. Yes, we have helped put them into this position, but teaching them our techniques won't do it. Not in the global economic order we have helped create where third world nations are made dependent on resource extraction that profits us. A much more radical approach is necessary to change this system. As a socialist, I might have a few suggestions. However, most of those would most certainly not be welcomed by middle class American environmentalists. Such solutions might actually involve sacrificing some of the comfort and liesure they have, largely due to an exploitative world economic structure that allows such.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Tony, don't confuse Heifer International with "American do-gooderism" - these folks don't hand out a box of dried milk, they give the family a cow (goat, llama, water buffaloe, whatever suits that climate/environment) along with training on sustainable farming. They give the gift that literally keeps on giving, and they "pass on" (give to another family in their community) offspring from their gift to lift up the entire community. American "techniques" are what got them in this situation, but making them beggars dependent on our bounty will not make anything better. Heifer is doing things that will.

Doug's comment was about global warming - which is already doing major bad stuff in the 3rd world areas and potable water is the hardest hit. This is true. But true "caring for the poor" doesn't involve keeping them alive to eat our "handouts", it involves keeping them alive and giving them the tools they need to be independent of our "handouts".

I know there are some brainwashed people out there, but they aren't the ones working on the problem - just the ones blathering about it. Anyone who is paying attention, much less working on the problem (be it engineers, scientists, or just letter-to-the-editor writers) knows we've got to get off petroleum and corn ethanol isn't going to do it. Changing our vehicles to use something besides petroleum is a necessary part of the equation. At the moment there's glut of ethanol and the producers are seeing dropping prices because the petroleum industry is stonewalling on the delivery/infrastructure end. People with flex-fuel cars can't find the flex fuel to fuel them with. That link between the produced ethanol and the car that uses it is unfortunately the "gas station" supplier. Lots of pieces to this puzzle. Attacking one piece because some people can't tell where it goes is counter productive.

[Doug]

Doug's comment was about global warming - which is already doing major bad stuff in the 3rd world areas and potable water is the hardest hit. This is true. But true "caring for the poor" doesn't involve keeping them alive to eat our "handouts", it involves keeping them alive and giving them the tools they need to be independent of our "handouts".

DOUG
Call me cynical, but I think few American programs do that. A lot of them in fact make the country worse off by giving loans that charge interest. Maybe Bill Gates and Bono are actually doing some good, and a few others, but not nearly enough people know how to really help and empower the poor.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Doug, I'm pretty much with you in the cynical department as far as American "aid" is concerned - I was just pointing out that there are a few groups doing it right. (And yes, things like IMF and World Bank do most certainly make things worse. So does dumping subsidized corn in Mexico and subsidized rice in Mexico and SE Asia.)