FUCK your "AIDS in Africa" propaganda bullshit
This Bush Legacy Road Tour is beginning to make me nauseated. If I hear a commentator tout Bush's "AIDS in Africa" efforts ONE MORE TIME, I'm goin' Elvis on my radio...
Little known fact: Bush's "AIDS in Africa" initiative had plutocrat fingerprints all over it, from the very start. That original $3 billion promised had strings attached that were absolutely unacceptable for most African nations. What strings?
Here in St. Louis, Monsanto Corporation is a Forbes 500 heavyweight. In the late 90s and until Bush' initiative, though, their stock price was in the tank. Organic foods and pesticide- and herbicide-free farming were becoming real factors in American diets and buying habits. And genetically-modified plants and foodstuffs were WIDELY REJECTED, not just by the American public, but EVERYWHERE. People didn't need it, want it, or trust it.
But since when has what the PEOPLE wanted EVER mattered to a true plutocrat? To a Boy King like George W. Bush?
Bush and his henchmen threatened Europe with a tariff and imports war if those nations chose to honor their own LAWS, and not allow GM foods into their ports and markets. The EU folded like a cheap suit, and complied. And Bush's "AIDS for Africa" $3 billion's strings attached?
That money, besides the ridiculous 'abstinence only' bullshit it insisted on (which killed more Africans than a sensible 'free condoms' policy would have), would not have been distributed unless the country receiving the money agreed to allow not just GM foods imported from the U.S., but FORCING farmers to use GM seeds in their crops. This information has never made national headlines, but the stories were in the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the weekly alternative rag The Riverfront Times--briefly, and then heard no more.
The sad truth is: Nearly all Africans eating that food felt it was poison. Before it was forced on them, it was anathema to them to eat GM plants. It may have been based on superstition and their traditional values, but before Monsanto got its way, very few African farmers or their customers would have allowed GM plants into their country by way of imports, let alone begin planting them in their own backyards.
We hear about the $3 billion in these propaganda circle jerks...but has the program been a success at all? Have the deaths from AIDS, and the percentages of the population acquiring the illness dropped?
Of course not. If it had, the talking heads would be screeching it from their lapel microphones. Not that they give a flying fuck at a rolling donut that Africans' lives were being saved.
And finally: When, ever, has money given to an African government actually benefited its people? Can you think of a greater waste of taxpayer money than giving billions to African governments? Trying to help its people? Building infrastructure for them? Good idea. Digging wells and building schools? Fine. Building roads and making loans directly to farmers and other small businesses? Sounds like a plan.
But giving them cash and making them promise to propagandize abstinence in order to stop AIDS? It's just more neocon wet dreams, folks. Don't be fooled. George W. Bush has succeeded, in eight long years of 'work', in about half a dozen accomplishments that actually were good decisions.
This is not one of them.
Little known fact: Bush's "AIDS in Africa" initiative had plutocrat fingerprints all over it, from the very start. That original $3 billion promised had strings attached that were absolutely unacceptable for most African nations. What strings?
Here in St. Louis, Monsanto Corporation is a Forbes 500 heavyweight. In the late 90s and until Bush' initiative, though, their stock price was in the tank. Organic foods and pesticide- and herbicide-free farming were becoming real factors in American diets and buying habits. And genetically-modified plants and foodstuffs were WIDELY REJECTED, not just by the American public, but EVERYWHERE. People didn't need it, want it, or trust it.
But since when has what the PEOPLE wanted EVER mattered to a true plutocrat? To a Boy King like George W. Bush?
Bush and his henchmen threatened Europe with a tariff and imports war if those nations chose to honor their own LAWS, and not allow GM foods into their ports and markets. The EU folded like a cheap suit, and complied. And Bush's "AIDS for Africa" $3 billion's strings attached?
That money, besides the ridiculous 'abstinence only' bullshit it insisted on (which killed more Africans than a sensible 'free condoms' policy would have), would not have been distributed unless the country receiving the money agreed to allow not just GM foods imported from the U.S., but FORCING farmers to use GM seeds in their crops. This information has never made national headlines, but the stories were in the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the weekly alternative rag The Riverfront Times--briefly, and then heard no more.
The sad truth is: Nearly all Africans eating that food felt it was poison. Before it was forced on them, it was anathema to them to eat GM plants. It may have been based on superstition and their traditional values, but before Monsanto got its way, very few African farmers or their customers would have allowed GM plants into their country by way of imports, let alone begin planting them in their own backyards.
We hear about the $3 billion in these propaganda circle jerks...but has the program been a success at all? Have the deaths from AIDS, and the percentages of the population acquiring the illness dropped?
Of course not. If it had, the talking heads would be screeching it from their lapel microphones. Not that they give a flying fuck at a rolling donut that Africans' lives were being saved.
And finally: When, ever, has money given to an African government actually benefited its people? Can you think of a greater waste of taxpayer money than giving billions to African governments? Trying to help its people? Building infrastructure for them? Good idea. Digging wells and building schools? Fine. Building roads and making loans directly to farmers and other small businesses? Sounds like a plan.
But giving them cash and making them promise to propagandize abstinence in order to stop AIDS? It's just more neocon wet dreams, folks. Don't be fooled. George W. Bush has succeeded, in eight long years of 'work', in about half a dozen accomplishments that actually were good decisions.
This is not one of them.
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