tomdesigns said:
You know.. its strange, you have no idea and neither did I at one time in my life, actually for most of my life. My help could never help them it is not enough and never will be. I am fully and painfully aware of that. So do not suppose to understand who or what I am.
And yet you think you know who I am? Your arrogance is mind blowing. You don't know who I am or where I'm from and yet you think you can tell me what I do or don't know?
You've seen the poverty of people from "right outside the villa". Well, good for you! So what? I've personally lived in poverty for over 9 years when I didn't know where the next meal was going to come from, literally. Yet I didn't go around blaming anybody for it. Its no one's fault. My dad's investment went bust and everything went downhill from there. That's that. Were we depressed? Of course. But it wasn't the end of the world. We still focused on our education and made it better. And I will repeat it over and over, we did it on our own and so can the rest of the world.
And for your record, I didn't grow up in a first world country, far from it. So get the hell off your high horse. You're not unique, and the whole world is not blind to the reality.
tomdesigns said:
Now.. Nico, lets do a reality check SunShine..
2010 one of my best friends here.. We are very close whole family has supported and helped here. Father goes to vote and gets arrested. I cannot get in touch with my friend he had to go Buenos Aires to help his father in jail. I am like oh my God! I know this man he is a good hard working man, what happened?
So I google his name and the news papers here. Oh my God! He was an officer during the time of the Juntas and accused of crimes against humanity and was trained in the USA during his career. WTF? Land of the Free! Home of the Brave!
Now being an American and seeing the suffering of my close 3rd world friend and his family without a head of the household and no longer having the income of the head of the household.. Where does that leave you? And this is not the sort of place where life goes well without the head of the house.
I missed the detail where the American forces kidnapped the father of this guy and forced him to train in the US as part of the junta. Oh wait, that's right...no such thing happened. He willingly went to the US to train, and then came back and did what he did. So, how's that the fault of the US? Or Americans? I'm not an American, I'm just surprised by this idiotic linking of events and blames.
I went to high school with this very interesting kid, good kid actually, very generous and kind. One day we found out that his father had gone off to fight "the infidels" as a "mujahid". No one forced his father to do that, he just did it on his own. The infidels just happened to be Indians. He went there and killed a bunch of people, and died. And then the kid was left without a father and 7 siblings and a mother who was uneducated. Oh I know, freakin' India is to be blamed for this with their overcrowded trains and U$S 1 billion homes. OR we can just have some common sense and blame the father for being an idiot.
The kid's life turned upside down, and I can imagine his family's too. I saw his suffering too, like I said you're not unique. Where I grew up, plenty of people went to be "mujahids" because they wanted to, not because they were forced to. Plenty of people left their loved ones behind to fend for themselves.
As for poverty and slums and "the first world" to be blamed for everything. Well, I was in Pakistan for a while. If you think you've seen poverty here, you have no freakin' idea what you're talking about. Not that the suffering of people here is not as bad as those in Pakistan (or Bangladesh).
There was this one village in the North Western Province of Pakistan called "Jaulian". Two out of the countless families in that village owned land. The rest were workers on the land and got whatever handouts those families gave them. There's no hint of any presence of a first world government there. This is a feudal system, started by people from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan some 5 to 6 centuries ago.
Anyway, one of the working families decided that they had had enough of this life and sent their kids to school. Over the years, their kids studied really hard and got really good grades. Their oldest son (only men to go school in this village, girls aren't allowed to study) got a scholarship to go to Oxford. Pretty big deal. They celebrated the occasion, of course.
But one of the land owning families heard about the celebration and the reason why they were celebrating (landlords and farmers don't mix so they don't go to each others' parties)...a month later, when the son of the worker family got on the bus to go to the airport to be on his way to London, he was shot to death on the bus.
The worker family was shunned. They were left with no work, and no food. And worst of all, no justice for them because they weren't land owners. You know, the murder of their oldest child was not a serious offense because they weren't an important member of the society.
This is a typical story in that part of the world (including India and Bangladesh). Not always this extreme, but it happens in one form or another.
The family had to pack up and leave the village for Karachi, a city in the south of Pakistan, where no one knew them. Did they go and beg? No way. Did they sit and blame the rich of the world? No! They started all over again. They put their kids in school. Both the father and the mother worked day and night. The mother cleaned houses (a very degrading job in that part of the world) and the father hauled cement up to the masons.
Where's this family now? They're back in the same village where their son was killed and where they were shunned from. And now they own most of the land there. The family who murdered the oldest son is still in the village and there usually are shootings between these families. Women don't go out, and men have both guns on them and body guards with them. The police does not interfere.
I was told this story by the father himself who is now a gray-haired, sun burned man who still manages to stand upright and walks miles every day to and around his fields, he's surrounded by his body guards who are always at the ready whenever they see anyone approach this man.
Why did they go back? The guy only said "pride and revenge". Which is a very integral part of their culture, whether poor or rich.
Him and I started an education program for the people of this village and those in the slums around his fields (the village itself is worse than a villa here, and now imagine the slums).
I've seen the depression in people and the hopelessness. Especially those living in the slums. But when these people were approached by us, half of them were happy to only take hand outs and didn't want to invest in education. They sent out their kids to beg and those kids would bring in enough for their whole families to survive. Who's to blame here, Tommy? The freakin first world that you love to rail against? Nah, its these people themselves who refuse to come out of the rut they're in.
Because there are others as well. Their neighbors or people who live close by. They take the opportunity to send their kids to school (there is free public education available to them, they just don't know about it); and they make their lot better. They do it on their own, once told. Others refuse to take any action unless it means sending their children to beg on the streets.
tomdesigns said:
So tell me SunShine what do you understand? Because everything I thought I understood has been challenged here. Like you said Nico.. Its not on us..its on them! Maybe you should go wash your hands.
What do I understand? I understand that out of the people that claim they know better than the rest, you are probably one of the most narrow-minded people I've seen out there.
Tell you what, if you really want to do something and you think you, as a "first world man", are not doing enough, sell your computer and cut your internet connection that you seem to be paying for (or stop going to the internet cafes) and then use that money to buy books for the kids that live in the slum that you live next to (and don't care enough to go live in the slum). Stop trying to make yourself feel better by posting here about how much you know and how much the rest of the world doesn't know. Oh poor Tommy. Get a grip for once and open your eyes. Just because you've seen your villa in Corrientes doesn't mean you've seen the ends of the earth.
And with that, I'm done. You can go on railing against people all you want. I'll enjoy my rest of the day.
But seriously, do you really think these people are protesting against corruption and other political malfeasance or maladministration, or are they just protesting because it's hitting them in the (dollar filled) hip pocket?
