Thank you, Gavin. Nothing like a little historical fact to put matters into perspective….

Understanding how economies in Africa got messed up may be relevant, but you’re going to have to prove that connection and then show how it undermines my premise. Or offer ideas of your own. The slave trade, for instance, is irrelevant. Present-day Africans are not descendants of slaves, but of people who sold slaves.

No amount of posturing will change the bad decisions made by human beings in the past. However, through informed debate, we may very well inspire better decisions being made by human beings right now.

Gavin’s crime is that he holds a position that’s different from yours. Normally you could lob out a few tangentially related historical facts and pretend that they counted as a rebuttal, but that doesn’t work here because you get called on your lack on genuine knowledge, perspective, and your complete inability to address the actual arguments before you.

In other words, Gavin earns your cheap-shot abuse because he’s considerably smarter than you are and lobbing cheap shots at his back from hiding is the best you’re capable of.

Tell me, you faux-intellectual little poseur, where along the “road to Buchenwald” does your cowardly and uninformed “slavery” comment lie?

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/africa/boers.html

In light of the statement made by Philip Sheridan in the link above, the modern concentration camp most probably began with the removal of Native Americans in deadly forced marches and cattle-car train rides to those often-inhospitable places known as “reservations”. General Sheridan was quoted as saying, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”

If the word “Buchenwald” offends you, then YOU have a problem because the road to the Nazi death camps was not confined to a particular time in history or geographical location. Nor, were the death camps necessarily racist. Those deemed “unworthy” and “useless” didn’t neatly fit into the system were among the first victims.

The paving stones are still around us. It all starts with dehumanizing because, then, “they” can be treated as animals or, perhaps, a root vegetable.

And thank you for stating clearly your, I repeat VIEW, on charity.

These are distinct. I am focusing only on long-term aid that “supports” entire nations. I’m sure if you look at what you donate to, and the fact that you “see” results most of your contributions are aimed at short-term interventions.

As for concentration camps, according to a delightful little book I have called “The book of general ignorance” written by Stephen Fry, concentration camps were invented by the Spanish in their war of independence with Cuba in 1895.

I know charity works because I’ve contributed, seen the results and been involved….you cannot ask decent humans not to put their compassion into action.

When talking about charity to Africa – this is a whole can of different beans. Much of what Gavin raises I receive and agree with. I also think he is too hard line. I doubt, however, it is the Gavins of this world that lead to concentration camps. The British were the first to ‘invent’ this during the days of Empire. Afrikaaners were rounded up (women and children) and held in detention camps in South Africa.

A meritocracy needs to be established in many African countries. Feeding empty bloated bellies and setting peoples back on the road to nowhere has not worked too many times.

…and somehow despotic African governments still manage to get their dirty bloodied hands on military hardware supplied by the West. Where does the money come from to keep these idiotic murderers in control?

One truly great thing about the UK’s capitalist/socialist environment? You have a choice. You can go for broke based on your own knowledge, luck, life experiences, levels of risk taking and see how much dosh comes your way. If you lose there is a net and you can try again.

No one demands of a human go earn thy millions but I am sure glad I live in a society where individuals can and do earn millions. Money buys you freedom because it is the money that sets you free from the herds of 9 to 5 wage earners. And with money comes power and, hopefully, responsibility and philanthropy.

I just wish my

Let me add my voice to Sam’s and Martin’s. I know that Gavin and I are politically rather far apart – but I also know that he’s a serious writer, thinker, and actor in his community and that his solutions to problems like poverty are offered honestly and in good faith as reflections of his deeply held economic and political views. While I don’t always agree with them, I see them argued logically and lucidly.

For you to stoop to smearing him with Nazi and slavery references is heinous and worse, irrelevant. He hasn’t said a damned thing except that he thinks aid would be better if it got into the hands of those who might put it to use to improve the economies – and thus the lives of ordinary citizens in countries in Africa through business means rather than through governmental means. That doesn’t imply slavery or genocide. He’s merely proposing an alternative to what’s usually done. That’s important to an idea forum like this one.

But you don’t seem tolerant of that. At least from Gavin.

Maybe it’s because hes a white South African and you think of him as a secret apartheid supporter or something. Your attack reminds me of the attacks I get from blacks and Southern racists when I write about events related to the Jena 6. What I get from these people are comments that reveal their idiotic closed mindedness.

That’s what Gavin gets from you. Idiotic closed mindedness.

Gavin is a lot of things, but racist is most decidedly not one of them. I was willing to give you a pass because I agree with a lot of what you say, but that’s just a bullshit low blow that proves you can’t argue the substance of Gavin’s points.

You need to ask yourself why you come to this community and post–because I see a lot of self-aggrandizing speechifying mixed in with some valid points, and very little actual engagement of the issues being discussed.

By the way, being a Jew, you couldn’t have done a better job of turning me off to your cause by dragging the Holocaust into this. Nice work.

Wild Turkey Fiends!?

WTF!?