Sunday, March 8, 2009

Hang on, Darfur...no spare change

Nick Kristof is a very passionate man. His Op-Eds for the gray lady are from the heart and head in a nice combination. He writes a lot about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This man has now imposed further sanctions on aid given to the hurt in Darfur. Kristof argues that this is genocide by another method.

I salute the man's passion, but I am compelled to ask, is this the best time for America to be philanthropic. Nothing comes for free, and helping Darfurites is costing dollars. Dollars you don't have. Dollars you are planning to print without having assets to account for them. (Any government which prints currency is required to show assets whose current value amounts to that total amount printed. Sans this, the notes are barely worth the cotton they are printed on.)
The one thing about the US helping in Darfur is that it does not have strategic US interests (which Bill Maher says means 'white people and oil'). So there seems to be true altruism in that.

In the 90's, you walked the walk, so you could talk the talk. Now, the US needs to pull itself up by its own bootstraps, and it cannot afford to drop a quarter in the homeless guy's cup on the way to starbucks. Also, it cannot afford starbucks.

People are having an entitlement complex like the 'rayees baap ki bigdi aulad' which fouls up everything and then expects papa dearest to bail it out. The people here want the government to help them out everywhere, but do not want to cut down on their leisure and luxury expenditures. Why do I see such lines outside movie halls, broadway theaters, malls, jewellery shops etc when everyone claims to be financially crippled right now? (I know you might be wondering what I'm doing at all the aforementioned places, but let's leave that for the moment!)

Sad though it may sound, the US cannot afford feudalistic pleasures like throwing a coin to the serf. So Darfur will have to wait for the Dow Jones to rise. I hate myself a little for suggesting this.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

America is going to dogs and wants to take the whole world with it. If not from its treasury, can it not mobilise funds from various other sources. What the hell is it doing in the Security Council of the UN and as a member of NATO? Drinking oil? It's all 'Oil'itics! Isn't there any other country that can reach out to Darfur?

PS: Have you watched 'Darfur Now'?

Anonymous said...

"Devil Came On Horseback" is worth a watch.. Though I guesss "Darfur Now" is more audience friendly

Liberal said...

I wrote a small piece got two movie recommendations...nice!

buddy said...

trust you to take up something like this and talk your way through .kudos!

notes are printed on cotton? !?

Gradwolf said...

all fine but isn't people spending a good thing for the economy? in a very convoluted way?

Liberal said...

@gradwolf
people spending is good, but them maxing out their credit cards to spend is insane..our greediness to want what we cant afford is also culpable for this mess

Anonymous said...

Whoa! Nice and intense post...got me googling on nick kristoff!
But really well written :)

Srividya said...

Good god! This Sudanese pres is a horror show! Grim post. Grimmer reality. What can I do but hope for the Sudanese people?

Thanks for the post dude.

Liberal said...

@buddy
Thanks man...and yes notes are printed on 100% cotton

@kusublakki & Srividya
Thanks...good reporters like Kristof go where it is not politically/financially expedient to do so and give us the real news..can you believe...entering Sudan is so tough..these people have to go via Chad...movie stars like Brad Pitt, George Clooney & Angelina Jolie are involved in the restoration of sanity at Darfur too

Vivek said...

ha ha ha ha ha
:D
BlogRolled you!
:D

Liberal said...

@Vivek
Thanks! But why the haha? This is certainly not my funniest post!