Hey wil and 17th. It is not that this kind of thing is
bad, although to me it smacks of parentalism, parochialism, patronizing, and patriarchy. 17th illustrated it himself:
17th Angel said:
Is it though? Remeber as a child (or reverse the role) And your father would do something, but, make it seem like it was you...? Such as to pretend to be amazed by your strength or intelligence or something? But he was really the one doing it? BUT He gave you this amazing gift, he allowed you to feel soley responsible for it? I see it as a gift.... They are allowing those who perhaps do not have funds available to give the chance to play a part... I see it as nice rather than creepy, allowing many to get involved..... I dunno, I have grown tired of being suspicious and such and rather look to the good side... Good in -everything-.
It's a matter of perspective, and I can see it both ways. It is good to give food to those that don't have it. But why don't they have it? Might it be because western civilization continues to impose the western ways of technology before life, the western work ethic, the western gods, the western languages, the western way of looking at everything, onto whomever western civilization comes into contact with?
The interaction between western civilization and the so-called third world is one of dominance. We--
not us! No! We would never do such a thing! But the Bushies! and our "forefathers"! Blame them!

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we have stripped the world of its diversity and colonized everyone. We plow down rainforests for farming out burgers. Puritans have buried the indigenous people of America alive, stomped on their heads, dismembered and burned them in the name of "God". The feudal lords of Britain enclosed the common land and burnt witches in order to order everything for greater production and consumption, funneled even in those days towards the top level, the elite. Western civilization has cut down life and replaced it with a fascimile, repeatedly, and hands out rations to the waste spaces from behind the computer screens of sterile suburbia.
Am I spoiling your proud self image? I am not sorry. Yes, click and give. I'll do it, too. Yet it's important to recognize it for what it is: another band-aid solution. We need those, for sure, while we fritter and think up better ways to save the world. The wounds are deep. We need more than band-aids, more than even the skin grafts of ecological restoration. What we need is a profound shift in the way we think about and interact with the world. Indeed, it would be good to stop "interacting with" the world as such and realize that we are the world, that we grow out of it like the rice, and that the conditions for our--and the rest of nature's--continued existence are profoundly threatened by western civilization. Without radical change, we will be giving future generations a desert planet, on which they will struggle to grow rice in a landscape of decaying computer parts and rusting cars.
Remember, seven generations. We are not yet thinking of even one.