by Val Germann
The very word, “summit” is so evocative, a leftover from the Cold War era when the leaders of the U.S. and USSR could “go to the mountain” and settle the world’s problems in a day, or so it was thought. Back then there was some justification for the word because for a while those two nations really did have the power, or were thought to have the power, to truly change things. But today the word is a sick joke on the whole planet, spinning as it is toward multiple disasters than no two nations, or group of eight nations, can possibly fix.
The proof of this can be seen today on the TERRADAILY website in an article concerning our Earth’s poster child for disaster, Africa. Once again to the well we go, for the hundredth time (?), with “solutions” to Africa’s problems. But when are we going to give this up? That is, I am old enough to have been down this road over and over again, always with the same result: things get worse than they were before!
And so here we are, decades after “The Green Revolution” and the World Bank were going to put a chicken in every under-developed pot and an automobile in every Third World garage, reading the following:
The leaders of the world’s wealthiest countries vowed to support not only immediate food aid, but also medium- and long-term solutions to the food crisis that is destabilizing many developing countries and driving millions more into hunger and poverty.
Yes, it’s true, we ARE going here again! It’s incredible! As I said, it’s got to be one-hundred times that we’ve read this kind of boilerplate over the last fifty years or so. But with the G8 it gets better:
The crisis is particularly acute for Africa, where the current high prices and food shortages have served to highlight a long-lived “silent hunger” affecting 200 million people, from young to old, and including 33 million malnourished children. In Africa, the underlying cause of this hunger is the longstanding neglect of agriculture on national and international levels.
What? They have to be kidding! How is this possible after the $billions that have been thrown at that unholy continent since World War Two? Can it truly be that there is a “longstanding neglect of agriculture” in Africa? Well, I tell you, I am at a loss for words but not the G8, who once again offer “solutions” to these problems, “solutions” that will turn “crisis into opportunity.” But you just have to laugh:
Their goal is to achieve a uniquely African Green Revolution attuned to the continent’s realities: its wide diversity of crops, environments and farming systems, and a scarcity of resources that leaves millions of smallholder farmers caught in a poverty trap.
Oh, well, there we have it, the “solution,” case closed! Yes sir, that was easy; why didn’t they think of it before? But, ah, wait a minute, I think they HAVE thought of it before, and then dumped $billions into Darkest Africa to back up that thought.
But what’s happened to those dollars, huh? Well, I think we could take a look at the numbered Swiss accounts of those honchos in the Organization of African Unity and find out, very quickly. As for the current round of “solutions” to Africa’s problems, they will no doubt have the same effect as all the others: none.
Well, Val, the problem is that in the past we really only pretended to assist the Third World in developing self-sufficiency in agriculture. It would not have been in our interests to do so, since the Third World was being used as a convenient dumping ground for excess agricultural production in the First World, disguised as “aid” but in fact subsidies to First World farmers. Of course there was all the wonderful rhetoric to which you refer, but in the end it was only a scam and a continuation of colonialization under another name while we continued to loot natural resources and export our industries to places that specialize in the management of slave labor camps.
The message now is, sorry, the soup kitchen is closed for renovation until further notice and you are going to have to fend for yourselves. Here’s an idea — why don’t you start from scratch from almost a stone age economy and build a modern and efficient agricultural base, and, oh yes, you will have to do that by like next week or you’ll all starve? Voila! It’s the Rabbit of Unreasonable Hope, hopping right out of the magician’s hat, holding a big, nutritious carrot and asking the age-old philosophical question “What’s up, Doc?”
What’s up is that the Third World is screwed and so, to a lesser but still significant degree, are we. The trouble that the political leaders of the world face is that the messes have become so serious and the doo-doo is piled up so deep that the problems are far beyond being soluble. When faced with a problem that cannot be solved, politicians are stuck between a rock and a hard place. From one side they are besieged with demands that they “fix” the problems, and on the other there is only the abyss. They cannot admit to their constituents that they can’t fix the problems, lest they be voted out of office, and it is thus that the Rabbit of Unreasonable Hope is constantly being conjured up and allowed to hop around in front of the TV cameras, as it was in Japan this week.
One of the “best” strategies for dealing with insoluble problems is to push them off into the future while pretending to be doing something. That is the process that has gotten us to where we are now, with huge problems looming all around us like Mount Everests. And true to form, the G8 “handled” the climate problem by resolving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by the year … 2050. Perhaps they did not expect us dunderheads to notice that that is 42 years from now, and that the problems are here, right now. I suspect the date was conveniently picked because it is unlikely that none of the G8 co-conspirators will still be alive by then. Meanwhile, they can keep saying, no problem, we’re doing something about it … just any day now., or next decade for sure! These things take time, so be patient … and keep voting us into office because … we’re doing something about it. (Note circular pattern of that argument.) If it turns out that the goal is not attained, why it will be through no fault of our present “leaders,” will it?
The facts are somewhat different, because we need to deal with the problems of climate change and energy resources and other problems on a timetable similar to the one the Third World must strive for in becoming self-sufficient in food, in other words, like next week. Ain’t gonna happen, so the problems will continue to loom higher and closer and more ominous until, in the quite near future I fear, things are going to really go all pear shaped, perhaps within weeks or months.
Oil hit $147 today, and that is as good a measure of the unwinding uncertain future as we have. Sometime later this year we will start to see some serious famine and “civil unrest” in the Third World and perhaps among some of the “emerging economies,” and if the MSM bothers to report it (as being entirely the fault of George Bush and the evil United States), that will become a second benchmark to follow the rapidly approaching decline and fall of civilization.
Obama wants change? He’s gonna get it, but not the way he thinks. If that poor deluded sap should actually get into the White House, he is going to have the experience of being in charge of the most disastrous period in world history. It ain’t gonna look too good on his curriculum vitae when he’s looking for another job. — David