Ruminations on the "Green Bubble"

[olyclimber]

sorry dude, can't happen. MJs dead.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Hey, the weather is nice, let's climb!

 

Spray assclown: Naw, I'm too busy spraying out of my ass about world poverty.

 

 

[olyclimber]

African farmers are skilled and knowledgeable and are responsible for the vast majority of agricultural innovation that has succeeded in Africa. The low levels of productivity that are often cited in reference to African agriculture are the result of poverty, displacement, war, colonialism, and environmental challenges. Africa’s small farmers do not need the false promises of genetic engineering; they need concrete measures that will attack the root causes of poverty and enable them to farm according to their capabilities.

 

 

 

http://www.grain.org/briefings_files/africa-gmo-2002-en.pdf

 

Quite the circular non-explanation there. Poverty and war cause...poverty and war.

 

Ending agricultural subsidies and eliminating tariffs that make it next to impossible for them to sell the stuff that they're good at growing - whether that turns out to be GMO crops or organic, GMO-free dreadlock-delousing paste - in the markets where they can secure the highest prices for them would be much more helpful than a set of cloistered first-world activists trying to make these choices for them.

 

 

jeez jay! didn't you get the memo? do you really still think the free market economy is the cure for everything?

[olyclimber]

Hey, the weather is nice, let's climb!

 

Spray assclown: Naw, I'm too busy spraying out of my ass about world poverty.

 

 

what are you doing on the computer? oh...you're like the rest of us assclowns

[JayB]

People in Africa are starving because they can't generate sufficient net output to exchange for the money or goods necessary to lift themselves above subsistence poverty.

 

plus they don't have the $ to buy a tv. one wonders how Africans ever survived before the world economy. they must have been in continual subsistence starvation, which I guess is different than actual starvation.

 

 

It's strange that they aren't clamoring to return to lifestyles they had in the good old hunter-gatherer days when life was much easier and food was always secure and plentiful. They must not understand how good they had it back then.

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Hey, the weather is nice, let's climb!

 

Spray assclown: Naw, I'm too busy spraying out of my ass about world poverty.

 

 

what are you doing on the computer? oh...you're like the rest of us assclowns

 

I'm thinking about climbing and waiting for the weekend

[olyclimber]

well if they are truly starving, then i'm sure they are. not that i would know anything about truly starving. i haven't skipped any meals except perhaps breakfast.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

well if they are truly starving, then i'm sure they are. not that i would know anything about truly starving. i haven't skipped any meals except perhaps breakfast.

 

Last Sunday night I could have eaten my own liver.

[Bosterson]

African farmers are skilled and knowledgeable and are responsible for the vast majority of agricultural innovation that has succeeded in Africa. The low levels of productivity that are often cited in reference to African agriculture are the result of poverty, displacement, war, colonialism, and environmental challenges. Africa’s small farmers do not need the false promises of genetic engineering; they need concrete measures that will attack the root causes of poverty and enable them to farm according to their capabilities.

 

Quite the circular non-explanation there. Poverty and war cause...poverty and war.

 

Um... I believe it's saying that poverty and war are causing starvation via underproduction of food.

[JayB]

African farmers are skilled and knowledgeable and are responsible for the vast majority of agricultural innovation that has succeeded in Africa. The low levels of productivity that are often cited in reference to African agriculture are the result of poverty, displacement, war, colonialism, and environmental challenges. Africa’s small farmers do not need the false promises of genetic engineering; they need concrete measures that will attack the root causes of poverty and enable them to farm according to their capabilities.

 

 

 

http://www.grain.org/briefings_files/africa-gmo-2002-en.pdf

 

Quite the circular non-explanation there. Poverty and war cause...poverty and war.

 

Ending agricultural subsidies and eliminating tariffs that make it next to impossible for them to sell the stuff that they're good at growing - whether that turns out to be GMO crops or organic, GMO-free dreadlock-delousing paste - in the markets where they can secure the highest prices for them would be much more helpful than a set of cloistered first-world activists trying to make these choices for them.

 

 

jeez jay! didn't you get the memo? do you really still think the free market economy is the cure for everything?

 

If I had a nickel for every Asian that wishes they'd relied on foreign aid and central planning instead of trade so that they could live like Africans...I'd be a wealthy man. Hopefully the Asians will see the light one of these days and finally start copying the economic policies that Africa's relied on to get where it's at today.

 

 

[olyclimber]

...and its just the stupid trustifarian hippies with their dreadlocks, Prius's, backyard gardens, and Socialist ideals that have caused the poverty and war. It has nothing to do with corporate interests and stuff. case closed.

[Pete_H]

sorry dude, can't happen. MJs dead.

 

But his music will be with us forever. Maybe if you'd eaten breakfast you would have known that.

[olyclimber]

my comment was "tongue in cheek". perhaps if african could adopt asian policies (Chinese) then they could get their TVs.

[Pete_H]

But how good are the Chinese at winning Marathons? Not so good.

[olyclimber]

yes but they make great affordable stuff you can get at Walmart. and my new Arcatearix windshirt.

[olyclimber]

and pretty much everything else you can buy in a store

[olyclimber]

and johndavidjohn jrs 20 dollar pup tent

[prole]

a set of cloistered first-world activists trying to make these choices for them.

 

Great description for the neoliberal economists at the IMF and World Bank foisting your crap on them for thirty years through mafia debt collection tactics.

 

If I had a nickel for every Asian that wishes they'd relied on foreign aid and central planning instead of trade so that they could live like Africans...I'd be a wealthy man. Hopefully the Asians will see the light one of these days and finally start copying the economic policies that Africa's relied on to get where it's at today.

 

More free-market mythologizing and historical obfuscation here. Every one of the "Asian Tigers" was balls-deep in protectionist policies that got them up and running in the post-WWII era, all endorsed by the USA.

[Pete_H]

yes but they make great affordable stuff you can get at Walmart. and my new Arcatearix windshirt.

 

Last time I was at Walmart they had some pretty sweet Hannah Montana camping gear too. Thanks China!

[Bosterson]

...and its just the stupid trustifarian hippies with their dreadlocks, Prius's, backyard gardens, and Socialist ideals that have caused the poverty and war. It has nothing to do with corporate interests and stuff. case closed.

 

No way. Dreadlocked trustafarians ride fixed gears; it's the white, affluent, middle-aged Americans who are the ones driving Priuses and feel entitled to the road.

 

Didn't you hear about Portland's great/fake "car vs. bike" war last summer? At one point a driver tried to hit a bicyclist who'd told him to slow down and the cyclist had to jump on the guy's hood as he drove down the street.

 

I don't think any Priuses were involved, but I'm sure they would have been if their drivers hadn't been too busy going to yoga...

[Bosterson]

yes but they make great affordable stuff you can get at Walmart. and my new Arcatearix windshirt.

 

Whatever happened to their whole "you're paying more because this is made in Canada, not in an Oriental sweatshop" bit?

[G-spotter]

So Priuses are bad because rich white people can afford them?

[olyclimber]

Oh no! They are only driven by NAIVE, rich white people who wish to crush me when i ride my bike. Join us in scoffing at them Dru.

[j_b]

From 'The New Republic'...tee hee...

 

"Green had moved beyond politics. Gestures that were once mundane--bringing ...."

 

Despite the slight update, this article amounts to the typical conservative tripe about how environmentalism is a short-lived palliative for the modern angst of the well-to-do, and how environmentalists are perpetual naive types that want to take us back to the stone age to live in caves while they deny the poor the means to improve their conditions. Never mind that it's the same liars pablum spewed by all consumerist dead-enders for the last 40 years, JayB thought he'd try again to deny resource and ecosystem limits. "It's all hunky-dory folks, the storm has passed, keep consuming".

[Bosterson]

So Priuses are bad because rich white people can afford them?

 

I don't think they're bad at all. (I was joking about Porter's assertion that dreadlocked hippies were driving Priuses and starting wars.) If I were buying a car and could afford a Prius (and never wanted to drive Forest Roads, I guess), I would get one.

 

I have, however, noticed that a lot of Prius drivers seem really impatient on the road, the way BMW drivers used to be. I wonder if there's some sort of holier-than-thou complex? Like, "I'm saving the world, so you should get out of my way." It's kinda funny...