Too band that the Los Angeles Times has decided to drink from the same spiked Kool-Aid as Bob Geldof and other well-meaning liberal musicians in suggesting that debt relief in itself can do something about the miseries in Africa. In a June 6th editorial, the Times denounced President Bush’s announcement that the U.S. would contribute $674 million for famine relief in Eritrea and Ethiopia as the “diplomatic equivalent of Mr. Wilson giving Dennis the Menace a few bucks to go away and leave him alone.” In the same breath it praised Geldof’s raising $140 million for African famine. Okay, we get the picture, when a cool rocker raises money it’s righteous and when several that amount is being donated by the U.S. it’s an insult.

More important however is that all of this is simply an exercise in liberal guilt because once again no one wants to discuss the most significant impediments to addressing African famine. Nowhere in the twelve or so column inches of the Times’ editorial could it muster up the strength to mention the role of corrupt goverments in the African problem, and this is a problem that is not solved by aid or debt relief.

Instead of focusing on the Afro-political impediments to solving the crisis, the Times’ answer to African hunger is to recruit country and western stars for Live Eight shows in places like Houston and Atlanta because the Times’ believes it is the residents of those pesky Red states that are so tight fisted with our foreign aid. No better way to solve the African problem than stick Ricky Scaggs up on a stage and let them rural folk open up them there wallets.

The Times’ had a chance to point out that “debt relief, aid and trade justice had been a demonstrable failure for decades. Aid has tended to reward failing governments and undermine democracy.”[link]  What is going to be different this time other than we’ll feel good about ourselves as we watch the much anticipated Spice Girls reunion? If papers like the Los Angeles Times’ fail to point out what really needs to be done (like a regime change in Zimbabwe), then does real change in Africa have any chance against watching P. Diddy and Jay-Z on the boob tube?

Check out our other posts on this topic here and here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2005 at 9:53 am by Insider and is filed under Los Angeles Times, Media, Politically Correct ... and stupid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.