[lbo-talk] Happy Xmas, wretched of the Earth

lbo83235 lbo83235 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 21 11:00:03 PST 2011


On Dec 21, 2011, at 7:45 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:
> I'm as critical of apolitical charity as anyone, but that stuff's only
> patronizing as long as you have it.
>
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 6:29 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
>> Worried about what to get the wretched of the Earth for Xmas? Why not
>> patronise them with this Hygiene kit - from Oxfam - a snip at £14.00.

Yeah, there's plenty of criticism to level at Oxfam and similar, but this shouldn't be high on the list. Pending the revolution* - unless you have better idea - this stuff actually does save lives. In our annoyance - and, yes, the paternalism of this is almost blindingly annoying - let's not shrink from the thankless task of discriminating among evils, and choosing our targets-of-ire accordingly. Way too much noise on the list already (IMHO). (Of course, one man's noise is another's epiphanic ἀλήθεια, etc.)

*An aspirational placeholder. The reader will kindly know what we mean.



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