Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site teddy.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!teddy!lkk
From: lkk@teddy.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: politics of Oxfam America
Message-ID: <1858@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 28-Dec-85 13:53:13 EST
Article-I.D.: teddy.1858
Posted: Sat Dec 28 13:53:13 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Dec-85 07:44:22 EST
References: <1651@bbncca.ARPA>
Reply-To: lkk@teddy.UUCP (Larry K. Kolodney)
Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
Lines: 45
Summary: 

In article <1651@bbncca.ARPA> rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) writes:
>After donating, I started receiving the Oxfam newsletter, and was rather
>startled to read fairly glowing articles on Mozambique, Nicaragua, & even
>Ethiopia on subjects at best tangential to issues of humanitarian aid,
>& myopic to the point of being immoral, given Oxfam's purpose and probably
>its own self-image as effective and undeluded.

I don't know what the newsletter said about Ethiopia, but the governments
of Nicaragua and Mozambique HAVE done much to eliminate hunger in those
countries.  Remembering the goal of Oxfam (elmination of hunger), it is 
perfectly reasonable for its newsletter to praise a government that
has worked towards that end.  This doesn't mean that Oxfam supports the
political structure in the country, it isn't even its place to make such a
judgement.

Amnesty International (which you mentioned as a "good" international
organization, doesn't protest against government policies which are bad but not
classified as human rights violations.  Does this make Amnesty suspect as well?

Stop

>
>I wonder what's happened since the early 70s?  Have I moved to the right,
>or has Oxfam (or at least, its newsletter) been "captured" by a decidedly
>leftist faction which has broken with the organization's scrupulous 
>traditions?  Or was I blind to similar leanings in Oxfam long ago?

Blind yes, but not as you mean it.



>
>I've decided not to give them another cent until they "clean up their
>act."  Amnesty International, they're not; maybe they should be, that
>is, strictly impartial but morally sensitive.

Well I hope you enjoy basking in your self-righteousness while 
one more person goes starving because you didn't contribute.

-- 
Sport Death,       (USENET) ...{decvax | ihnp4!mit-eddie}!genrad!panda!lkk
Larry Kolodney     (INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa
--------
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
- Helen Keller