Comments on: All you need? Guest post by Pat Zaph

By: Tania

Tania — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:37:09 +0000

err…selfless not selfish.

By: Ciavarro

Ciavarro — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:26:39 +0000

Pat’s not angry.

He’s a pansy.

It’s all posturing. He doesn’t really care about people in Dhaka. He spends 3 months in the mud and thinks he’s Mother Teresa.

My guess is he will say all the right things about the Third World, then spend the rest of his life assimilating himself in to the gears of Western civilization.

Enlightened people are useless if they do not spurn action.

That’s why I don’t bother donating. I get no self satisfaction from doing so, and I need that money to service my “stuff”. The people of Dhaka have made it this long without my help, something tells me they’ll make it a few years more. Hell, who even says they WANT our dinky donation?

I pay taxes. My government donates to multiple causes around the world. That’s good enough for me.

By: Tania

Tania — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:18:24 +0000

It’s actually arrogant of you to think that you know about what the people there live through just because you’re amongst them. Not when you’re getting cheap suits made and will eventually come home. You’re not there for a selfish reason of giving yourself to help the people. You’re there to earn a few brownie points at school.

That aside, you don’t have to go all the way around the world to see these types of living conditions. You can see them right here, in this country, on my First Nations reserves.

And all the garbage on people paying taxes that goes to “Indians” who get everything for free is a joke too. Much like all the talk of giving money to an NGO, when “your” taxes go to an “Indian” it goes mainly to support the government institution.

And that too, is the arrogance and smugness of the western world.

By: Karen

Karen — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:47:44 +0000

I agree with the message, but I – personally – have a hard time living out the change if I’m nurturing the sort of anger that is expressed in this post…sure, it’s a great catalyst for action, and maybe it’s even needed to shock people – but it also distances me from the people I’d try to talk to. I can’t purposefully fault people for not being enlightened, though people certainly shore up their own ignorance or apathy. But there’s room and need for both approaches, so it’s all good.