War On Poverty As Senseless As War On Drugs

My favorite reading genre is the mystery novel and I'm a fan of Ian Rankin's work which chronicles Inspector John Rebus' cases in Edinburgh, Scotland. The book I'm reading now, "The Naming of the Dead" was written about the 2005 G8 conference that took place in the Gleneagles Hotel in Aucterarder, Scotland. Rankin describes the arrival of the hundreds of thousands of marchers and protesters holding signs that read "Make Poverty History" and I always marvel at how so many people who have never known poverty think politicians can end it.

Nearly half a million people then showed up to demand that the leaders of the world do whatever possible to end world poverty and hunger. Carrying handmade signs, singing peace songs, the vegan eating, global warming advocates resembled relics of the '60s with elderly men still sporting ponytails on their balding pates and women wearing maxis and beads. The air was redolent with Woodstock yearning nostalgia rather than a serious political agenda. Naturally the naïve marchers were joined by the ubiquitous paid anarchists who taunted and provoked the police standing guard to protect the world leaders.

What a colossal, expensive waste of time these global conferences are. They accomplish nothing noteworthy and are just excuses for celebrity do-gooders like Bono and Bob Geldorf to renew their fading relevance with charity concerts. It's all an exercise in gross naïveté because the underlying cause of poverty is never explored for if it were, these events would become history.

Here in the United States, the 'War on Poverty' which was introduced by President Lyndon Johnson in his State of the Union address in Jan. 1964 has been as ineffectual as the government's war on drugs. According to a study by the Cato Institute $15trillion has been spent by the government on various welfare programs since then without budging the Johnson era poverty rate. A 2013 report released last week found that sixty percent of children in Detroit live in poverty, per the "State of Detroit" report.

This represents a 64.7 percent increase in child poverty in the city since 1999. But the word poverty utilized by the government bureaucrats is a misnomer for the sole purpose of engendering support for entitlement programs. When all U.S. programs like welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, section 8 housing and other income subsidies are factored in, there should not be any reason for Americans to live in poverty. We are not a third world country but one with one of the highest living standards. Yet there is no denying that some children go to bed hungry and live in substandard conditions. The reason is not societal but rather parental neglect and dysfunction due to domestic violence, alcohol or drug abuse.

Globally, poverty remains in place where the government systems are in the hands of corrupt despots kept in power by these misguided foreign aid initiatives promoted by Global Conferences. Over the last 50 years, developed countries have given as much as $2.3 trillion in foreign aid and yet there is still an overwhelming amount of poverty.

My parish in Staten Island has a large African immigrant population and every summer we have mass said by visiting priests from Ghana or Nigeria. I once asked Father Isaac of Ghana what he thought of the G8 conference at the time and he said, "It is good," he said, "that they are talking about debt relief for the poor countries, but as soon as they start to attach conditions, then they are tying up the hands, and nothing will get done." Then he expressed the essential weakness of all foreign aid: "The trouble is that governments and politicians are not really in touch with the poor Africans. They have no connection with the grass roots. What would work better is donating directly to those organizations that are in direct touch with the poor and know their needs. There are Catholic, Anglican, and other missions already in place. Helping them is the way to end poverty."

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, a Kenyan economist, James Shikwati, made startling statements that in effect said, stop helping us: "Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor. Huge bureaucracies are financed [with the aid money], corruption and complacency are promoted. ... In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. ... If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival."

Thanks to the ban on DDT, malaria has resurfaced and millions of Africans have died. Within two years of restarting DDT programs, South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, and Swaziland slashed their malaria rates by 75% or more. Other countries want to launch similar programs, but they are facing opposition from Europe.

The E.U. is warning of possible agricultural export sanctions against Uganda, Kenya, and other countries that use DDT to save lives. Now why on earth would the E.U. object to this life-saving measure for the African nations who rely greatly on their exports to Europe?

According to Roy Innis, the Chairman of C.O.R.E. the E.U.'s trade representative to Uganda explained that the E.U. "has no control" over environmental and consumer organizations that might pressure supermarkets to stop selling agricultural products from those nations.

It may be that celebrities who lend their fame to these causes are well-meaning but woefully naïve but that cannot be said of the environmental militants who are responsible for keeping most of the Third World at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Their attacks on development in these areas is criminal and in many cases, deadly.

Here's a fact that no one wants to admit. Our government is filthy rich but poorly managed. We don't need more taxation; we need an efficiency expert to weed out the waste, fraud and redundancy in the entitlement programs. We need to stop funneling money into lost causes riddled with politically correct regulations. There is only one thing the federal government is good at and that is the military. The Federal government should concentrate on the real wars we're involved in and leave the societal issue wars to the states.

By the way, the 39th G8 conference is scheduled for this June in the United Kingdom. Expect the same cast of characters to show up.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com