It Might Be Bad Here, But In Zimbabwe It's Worse

Not that you'd be surprised by this Zimbabwe update, but while things go bad here stateside, they're getting worse for the onetime breadbasket of Africa.

The BBC reports that since the unity government took over there, scores of white-owned farms have been raided and destroyed, and government officials have been willing participants in the melee. Now, on the surface this may seem like a case of street (or frontier) justice, where the indigenous population is simply "sticking it to the man."

But truth be told, the raids are doing far more harm than good to Zimbabwe, especially at this crucial time. In short, any troubled economy -- as we're finding out more each day -- needs to increase production of goods and services rather than harming it. In the case of the power share led by Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai -- who are facing a cholera epidemic, 231 million percent inflation (so bad that civic workers are demanding to be paid in U.S. dollars) and sporadic violence throughout the nation -- screwing up the means of production is driving a screwdriver through the back of the average Zimbabwean. ...

Remember the L.A. riots back in 1992? Well, for as much damage as there was, certain places didn't get touched. Because Ray-Ray and them, worked at the McDonald's down the street or at the auto shop down the way, those businesses came out unharmed, because people knew that those places were how folks paid their bills.

In Zimbabwe, when white-owned farms get raided that puts black Zimbabweans out of work and adds to the hungry multitudes in a country that already has a reported unemployment rate of 94 percent. It also stops domestic food production in a country that cannot afford to import from other nations.

Mugabe put his own people in a chokehold a long time ago when he became power mad and took everyone else to hell with him. Tsvangirai, in an attempt to gain power from him democratically, has been forced to share power to avoid more bloodshed.

Now, to make matters worse, the nation cannot even feed itself because it is destroying its own farms.

Mugabe has long claimed to give power back to black Zimbabweans through the militant ZANU-PF party, but he has shown that he is little more than a Idi Amin-style despot who is bent on holding on to power until he dies, even if it means destroying the nation he once liberated.

This situation sucks, but here's a suggestion and a quick (but not shameless) plug for giving: donate to AmeriCares. This is an organization that is defying the odds in getting aid to this nation, which is only a step from total collapse. AmeriCares also work in places like Darfur, Haiti, Myanmar and several others, and your kindness will go a long way.

I absolutely believe in people helping themselves and building their own infrastructures rather than relying on the teet of celebrity-driven pittances. But there are cases in this world where the only way people will survive is from outside help.

Lear more about AmeriCares.org here.

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