From: met48546@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Marc E. Talbot)
Subject: Re: If You Want to Feedd Somalia -- You Must Demand Development!!
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 07:02:09 GMT

covici@ccs.covici.com (John Covici) writes:


>                - If You Want to Feed Somalia, -
>                - You Must Demand Development! -

[stuff about Somalia and Africa deleted]

>               - The Development Program -
>   With development, Somalia could be feeding itself today. The
>United States should implement the following action program.
>  1. Food must be brought to people, not the people to the
>food. Special trucks and overland transport vehicles are
>required. Food must be delivered together with the means of
>transport.

Um, who's paying for this?  Trucks are expensive.

>   2. U.S. soldiers must not only deliver food supplies, but
>begin immediate construction of roads and bridges for lasting
>infrastructure. U.S. soldiers must act like a corps of
>engineers, building, not killing. The U.S military deployment
>must not be used as a pretext to set up a new colonial
>protectorate system, nor to establish a new U.S military base in
>Mogadishu.

I agree with the last sentence, but roads and bridges are expensive.
Who's paying?  I have a few other priorities for my tax dollars, as well
as my charitable donations.

>   3. Africa's debt must be frozen or cancelled. During
>1986-91, Africa paid out more money to the International Monetary
>Fund (IMF) than it received! It is like sucking blood to take any
>debt payments from starving people.

All of Africa is not starving.  Once again this is a VERY costly solution.
Is the US government going to bribe banks to cancel loans?

>   4. Feed the 23 million people in the Horn of Africa, not
>only the 4 million people in Somalia. This is the only way to
>prevent mass migrations, leading to further regional
>disintegration. Food reserves must be mobilized now from the
>``surplus'' of Europe, the U.S.A., and elsewhere.

Fine, in principle, but who's paying?  The "world community"?  Who decides
who pays how much?

>   5. Start new development projects. According to the
>United Nations, the area in southern Somalia between the Jubba
>and Shabeelle rivers, with technology, can feed 50 million people
>a year--ten times Somalia's present population.
>   6. The IMF and other bloodsucking financial institutions
>which have bled Africa, as well as other nations and peoples,
>must be replaced with a new just world economic order.

Ok, how  about suggesting an alternative?
>                - Fight for Development -
>   Therefore, to feed Africa on a longterm basis, we must not
>just send soldiers into Somalia, or elsewhere. What we must do is
>create the conditions for Africa to develop, so that it can feed
>itself and grow.
>    Join our fight today--for Africa, for all humanity. Hold
>rallies, vigils, and marches. Call and visit your congressman.
>Call the White House and the President-elect. Distribute this
>leaflet at places of worship, shopping centers, and schools.

It's a VERY misleading leaflet (or perhaps incomplete is a better word
than misleading).

>   The following statement was issued by the Rev. James Bevel,
>former candidate for vice president on the LaRouche independent
>ticket, on Dec. 10.

The LaRouche independent party (?) is not even remotely reputable or
reliable.  In 1986 in Illinois, when two Larouche candidates wormed their
way onto the ballot as democrats, the democratic candidate for governor
removed himself from the democratic ballot because he "refused to run on the
same ticket as Neo-Nazis" (his words, not mine).

>   "Today, we suffer mass destruction, because yesterday, we
>did not lay the foundation for reconstruction. In the midst of
>this nightmare, even the best minds seek magical solutions.
>However, no stable construction, or reconstruction, can proceed
>from anything less than a properly conceived and correctly laid
>base.
>   With the fundamental principles that undergird a working,
>constitutional-democratic republic under attack and uprooted in
>our nation, we as a nation cannot give constitutional, or moral
>leadership. So, we offer brute force, and another form of
>colonial rule.
>   Now in this crisis, if African-Americans do not work for the
>constitutional rights of the African people, I would say they
>were hard pressed to prove they are not anti-African, and
>anti-American. If Christians refuse a Christian economy to
>Africa, are they not anti-Christian?

As a Christian am I obligated to give to every beggar on the street?
It might get difficult to walk through Manhattan.

>   Who are you? And which side are you on? Let it not be said
>of you that ``ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have
>lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth
>good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden underfoot
>of men.''

I start to get in a real pissy mood when people start outlining issues
in black and white, right or wrong.

>I call on statesmen, religious leaders, and labor,
>community, and student leaders, to come together to forge a new,
>constitutional self-hood and nationhood document, that can serve
>as a catalyst and guide to a new thrust for freedom and justice.
>This should use the principles and methods that are in keeping
>with the freedom and justice sought.
>   If we react to the present-day destruction, rather than lay
>a foundation, then tomorrow there will be another reaction,
>rather than reconstruction."

Nice speech.  Totally void of content.  Seems LaRouche hasn't lost his
touch despite being in jail.

>Leaflet of The Schiller Institute.

>----
>         John Covici
>          covici@ccs.covici.com

I certainly hope that you don't believe everything you read.

Marc Talbot