Live8 and G8

chaos during g8 meets are only expected. gathering of 8 of the world's richest nations. today it has gone beyond the usual protests. terrorist attacks in london cripples the whole city. jitters spreading across to the US. flickr servers suffered from overload. a sad day indeed when harming civilians are deemed the only way to get a point across. al-qaeda and the bombings aside, what do these rich nations owe the rest of us?

live8, to make poverty history. what they claim makes sense. though how all this is supposed to work in the real world, I have no clue. among all these campaigns, live8 had the biggest exposure, thanks to the concerts. live8 only focuses on africa. but poverty is prevalent the world over.

I always thought africa is such a poor continent because of the environment and circumstance. land is not suitable for sustainable agriculture. no reliable water sources like rain or rivers. land is not fertile. too far removed for trade. no natural resources. too many people depending on too few resources leading to stripping of the land and pollution. the dreaded vicious cycle. so I thought, how on earth are the g8 supposed to help out? I thought that live8 is just asking for something that is not sustainable. like the saying 'give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime'. so what if you cancel debt?! they'll just accumulate more. so what if you give them more aid. that will never allow them to stand on their own two feet. to me, it looked like there is no solution to the problem. I being the smart-ass that I am, figured, better for them to sponsor a competition - to come up with the best 'eliminate poverty in africa' economic plan. ok, I suck at making up slogans, but 20 million dollars prize money may help talented economists out there to come out with a plan. like fedex's fred smith with his economics term paper. but of course this is coming from someone who has had no education in economics whatsoever - me!

on top of that, there is poverty in the g8 nations too. and money is tight everywhere. in the US, cuts are rampant. cuts for schools, cuts for the cops, cuts for medicare. social security is 6 feet under. of course that is not the same as those literally dying of hunger every second in the world's poorest nations.

then I read the manifesto from live8, mph, gcap (basically the same aims), and I see what they say poor nations are up against. including things like rich nations subsidizing their own products for cheap export. spoiling the market for other countries that can't afford to subsidize their growers/manufacturers. I did not see that consequence before. not surprising with my poor economic sense, I told you liao. they also state that the worldbank and imf do not have the best interests of these poor nations in their mind. how true is that? I don't know. one thing for sure, it is good that poverty gets the attention it deserves.

sad thing was what I heard on the radio when americans were interviewed before the live8 event. when asked, the reason for live8, the answers were so appalling. most knew it was for charity but it seemed the only reason they went was for the free concert. fight against aids? came up the most followed by - some charity event? someone said - darfur? and of course the - I don't knows. hopefully those answers were the minority, and the producer just wanted to highlight the dumbos. anyway, lucky for them, they were reminded by every performer just why they were there.

in the end, I still don't know if g8 has the answer. I guess blair thinks so.
btw, the poverty cause has a wristband too. a white band.

yellow against cancer
blue against bullying
black and white against racism
pink against breast cancer
red for heart

ok I give up. look here for red, pink, purple, orange, gray, pink and blue tie-dye, blue, light blue, and green.