Charity rejects US food aid gift

The international aid group, Care, has rejected a donation of $45m (£22.7m) from the United States government.

Care criticised the way US food aid is distributed, saying it harms local farmers, especially in Africa.

It said wheat donated by the US government and distributed by charities introduced low prices that local farmers are unable to compete with.

But USAid says assessments are carried out to try to ensure that commodities do not disrupt local production.

Correspondents says disagreements have emerged in the US aid community on the best way to use food aid.

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Gus: it has been a long time exposé in these blogs about the damage that some "charity" can do to local economies... I don't remember in which blog I did mention this, but I was in an African country in the 1960s where American surpluses of oats and the likes would have done massive damage had the local priest, bless his mortal soul, not put a stop to it... The locals had a small fragile but working economy that would have been rocked off its foundation by "the American gift"...

from

John Pilger online

 

ON DEMOCRACY:

4. Is democracy possible in a one-party state? (presidentD) Is it possible in a society without an educated electorate? (wkrj)

The question above all surely is: what is democracy? What is fascinating about developments in Latin America is that the old preserve of the western liberal elite of the concept of democracy belonging to them, and them only is being challenged. Rousseau wrote about popular sovereignty; these days we call it participation. In western democracies, especially Britain and the US, there is a crisis of participation. Liberal elites have failed in defending the most fundamental civil liberties. Latin America has long been a source of democratic experiment; and what we see happening in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and other countries is an epic attempt at participatory democracy.

US state pays out $1m in 'monster study' lawsuit

Posted 1 hour 33 minutes ago

The American state of Iowa has agreed to pay out more than $1 million to settle a lawsuit brought by six elderly people who, as children, were used in an experiment that tried to induce stuttering.

Twenty-two children were used in what is now known as the monster study.

Plucked from an orphanage in Iowa, they were the unwitting subjects of an experiment that aimed to prove children developed stuttering and other speech impediments because of psychological pressure.

Over a period of six months they were subjected to harassment and negative treatment by a team of university researchers.

It was not until 2001 that they finally learnt the truth behind their therapy when a Californian newspaper published an article investigating the study.

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Gus: what a sad lot we are... damage done by "experts" to kids to prove a point... A point that's not provable... Stuttering comes from many sources and reasons. I know people who used to stutter until they learned a new language... and they stopped stuttering even in their native lingo. I know of famous comedians who went into stand-up comedy in order to gain control over their stuttering... But some experiments are unethical...  This experiment being one of them... 

When I'm very tired, I sometimes sound like the title of this comment... 

From the Washington Post

The trade in illegal narcotics begets violence, poverty and tragedy. And wherever I went around the world, gangsters, cops, victims, academics and politicians delivered the same message: The war on drugs is the underlying cause of the misery. Everywhere, that is, except Washington, where a powerful bipartisan consensus has turned the issue into a political third rail.

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Gus: The war on drug is a turf war... A war between who is going to control the mind of whom... And in this process, whether one is 'drug free" or under the influence of drugs, they — the mind controllers — do not want you to be "free spirits". Certainly not... They do not want you to think for yourself outside their frame. They will sell you a religion, a political outfit or a mind set to make sure you buy the things they want you to have. Things that make sure you owe them or owe their system, consumer-ily and mentally. There is a certain appearance of chaos in who is doing what to whom, as the forces comes from many different directions, natural and not, including our own willingness to yield and our addictive capability... and yet there are strong sets of society rules mingling with some mighty corruption of these rules by the pedlars of the rules, and other profiteers, because there is a lot of cash to be made. The rise of fundamentalism (Christians included) around the world is also linked to this process ... In this theatre of mind control, there are are few voices who try genuinely to liberate us from these shackles by giving us the power to be whom we should be, with the ethic of not hurting anyone, including our-self — and be without the titillating secret-belonging to ritualised beliefs, an addiction in itself... But these lone voices that bring freedom of the mind are regularly burned to the stakes by those who see "the freedom to seek god (or our atheistic ideals) via one's own device rather than use their system of beliefs" as a threat to their little (big) control games.

Which is worse: blowing one's mind from time to time on drugs (legal and illegal) "for fun"... or being under the sober influence of a belief that turns us into the deadly soldiers of this belief, in which eventually we crank up a notch and abuse medicinal or legal mind-altering substances (include coffee as well here) to maintain this inhuman destructive murderous momentum of illusions...?

From fads to fashion, from prayer to killing in the name of god, we are under the thumb of someone else's want. Sure, there is a certain amount of elasticity and give — and we enact influences on others ourselves — but in the end, we relegate our responsibility to be our own masters of destiny, while being given the illusions of being the master of our own little ship, sailing under strict instructions from the controllers. We also relegate our responsibility to let others exist as they are (including our other natural friends).

In this greater turf war, we are shackled by many things — constant reinforcement through advertising and through fear being sold as a package that includes a belief, presented as a solution... We are often shacked by our own insecurity, should we be really free but unable to understand this extraordinary responsibility of freedom. Yes, freedom can be frightening. And although there is a lot of peddling of "freedom", it's a fake as they know we often only seek freedom not to be "free" by belonging to a mind set and by accepting other people's desires to go to war. The pedlars of wars will sell us the illusions that "our freedom is under threat from enemies" while most often it is their peddling of such a concept that removes our freedom, from ourselves. A person like George Bush is a pedlar of such illusions. A person like Howard is the pedlar of such illusions. They use different techniques, different methods of lying, but the end result of their machinations are to make sure the majority of people are not free to be — and worst of all — that the true liberators, those who know the techniques to give truer purer ethical freedom, thus allowed to operate in whichever system, are burned to the stakes.

Drugs do not give pure ethical freedom, but a degree of separation from the heavy mind control from others — a control that can stifle our lives with boredom and repeat, and with the illusions we buy from the pedlars. Drugs give different illusions, some dangerous some not, but can string along our addictions. The pedlars string along our addictions too — developing our habit of want and mulching it into needs...

Be prepared to be whirl-pooled into other's desires. Pick and choose wisely, because in the harsh reality of life, there is no reset button, no undo button and we are responsible for our choices, and the reactions our actions unleash. This is our true freedom: not to be part of someone else's turf war... We can create our own space.

Use your life with care.