Gay Rights Protest/Poverty

Today, I attended the DC segment of the Prop 8 protest. For me, this was the first time I've showed up at a protest. Not really a whole lot of political controversy worth getting riled up over in Tennessee. Well, I mean, there is, but I'd probably be the only one to show up. You wouldn't get thousands to come out in force like there were in L'Enfant Plaza in front of the White House today. I mentioned this briefly in the comments on Michele's blog post (not going to link to it; most of you all have read it already, and we don't need further activity on that front.), but I didn't show up in front of the White House today hoping to make change. I knew that my presence wouldn't drive anything forward. Yet I stood there in the pouring rain as a show of solidarity with my fellow human being. I'm a realist; I don't expect change to come until there is a widespread alteration in understanding among voting constituencies. Protests in California won't do anything. For me, this wasn't about Prop 8. Throwing money at problems isn't going to fix it, here or in LA. It was a moral imperative that I show up and support a cause I believe so strongly in, one that is the primary reason I am a social liberal.

Epic typos set aside, I felt that class was fairly successful. Prioritization of resources, as discussed in the Copenhagen Consensus, is an immensely complicated process. Obviously, our model was, as stated, a model. There were a lot of things that it didn't even take into account. It didn't provide a means of measuring wealth in a relative sense. But the aim wasn't to show a winner of some kind. It was merely an attempt at displaying the difficulty nations potentially see when they have so many various problems to juggle, whether it be poverty, corruption, or disease, and I felt that was a successful endeavor.

What I do find to be fascinating, though, is how we can fight poverty today in the face of corruption. When I see situations like those in Somalia, I see the abuse of foreign aid and the inability of a state to monopolize force in such a way that warlords don't steal all of the food or medicine. How do you fight corruption on an empty stomach? What is the tipping point? How is it that a nation like the United States could have a revolution over something so simple like taxes, but the means of survival are so lacking in these countries that taxation doesn't even happen? I still struggle with what could be done to provide Africa with the strong, just leadership that it needs, yet still help feed the people there that need it. I'm tired of trying to throw money at the problem. It doesn't work, and it's not enforcing change. It all seems so hopeless. There just seems like there is so little that we can do about the problem, and we almost just have to wait for strong leadership to emerge in Africa in a situation where this leader's adherence to institutional standards is almost required.