Subject:
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Re: Blame the Victim
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 30 Sep 2002 08:57:46 GMT
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Viewed:
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197 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti writes:
> Did anyone hear Marketplace yesterday? There was this one segment on the
> protest against the IMF taking place in D.C.
>
> What caught my attention was the shift in who was to blame for economic
> hardship. The example or Argentina was raised. Argentina followed ALL of
> the recommendations of the IMF and was the IMF "poster child" for quite some
> time. When things went south, the IMF pulled back and let Argentina suffer
> on it's own -- and this supposedly as the behest of U.S. advisors. When
> things went from bad to worse, those same U.S. advisors went in and asked
> the IMF to help out with the situation in Argentina. Here's the interesting
> bit, the issue was posed as: Should the IMF help out such countries or let
> them suffer the consequences of their own actions?
>
> Huh? Who caused these problems in the first place? Would that be the IMF?
>
> Let's face it, the real question the IMF is asking itself is whether it
> should help out or tell all of it's corporate buddies that the real estate
> feeding frenzy in Argentina has begun!
>
> On a more personal note, my mother once described the soil of her Argentine
> homeland this way: "If you just throw seeds on the bare ground, something
> will grow."
The irony of that analogy is that some Argentinean farmers are selling their
produce overseas in order to get more $$, the result is growing malnutrition.
There was a really good piece in the Observer yesterday about the winners and
losers in Argentina - I shall try to dig it out for you.
Scott A
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> BTW, there is some coverage of the protest against the IMF at:
> http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/26/capital.protests.ap/index.html).
>
> Here's one quote:
> "When the World Bank says they're giving aid and loans for what they call
> development, it's really a handout to giant oil, mining and gas
> corporations," said Patrick Reinsborough, an organizer with the Mobilization
> for Global Justice.
>
> What Reinsborough means is that the IMF isn't helping anyone by suggesting
> to various countries that they should sell their natural resource assets out
> from under the people and hand them over to the likes of Enron and
> Halliburton. That's just like the stories you have heard of people buying
> houses during the depression for a sack of potatoes.
>
> I guess the Swiftian version would be: "Keep the house for a few more weeks
> while you eat your children, or sell me the house for this sack of potatoes
> and die in the streets later on. I'm just trying to help...I'm a humanitarian."
>
> -- Hop-Frog
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Blame the Victim
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| (...) ... and here it is [it looks abridged]: (URL) has also written other reports from Argentina/ S. America; just search for her name on the site. Scott A (...) (22 years ago, 1-Oct-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Blame the Victim
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| Did anyone hear Marketplace yesterday? There was this one segment on the protest against the IMF taking place in D.C. What caught my attention was the shift in who was to blame for economic hardship. The example or Argentina was raised. Argentina (...) (22 years ago, 28-Sep-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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