1 Ha, ha, ha. Are we starting over? Ha, ha, ha. Nobody supports a deleter.

2

Apologies, but I didn't eat the comments.  I have never
deleted a non-spam comment in my life, and I have no intention of
starting.  You aren't required to believe me any more than you are
required to help out with this effort.

For what it's worth, there were a lot of good questions raised, and I'd like to
do what I can to reanimate the debate.  But it's late, I'll do a
half-assed job, but what the heck...



Concern 1:  Why mess about with people on the other side of the planet
when there are poor here at home?



Response:  If one is talking purely about raising money for
something like food, you could make an argument about that.  Personally,
I've never been super comfortable with choosing which set of people in dire
straits are worth my attention, and which ones can be left to fend for
themselves.  But that's just me.

I recall, as a kid, hearing about the Holocaust, and that it
was an unspeakable evil which would never be allowed to happen again.  “Never Again” I was told.  Much to my dismay, however, it seems that
that hasn’t been exactly the case.  The
fine print evidently indicates that one can commit a genocide, provided that
one isn’t too terribly loud about it and kills people retail – like Rwanda – rather
than wholesale – like the Germans.  The
question of what anyone can do about those sorts of atrocities is not really a
question of money, but rather a question of the political will to take direct
action.  Questions of political will are
influenced heavily by what is getting coverage and attracting the interest of
the populace.  In order to do that, one
must first place the issue on the agenda. 
From there, the debate must be frames, and the terms of the debate
chosen.  Given these things, it can then
become politically expedient to do something, rather than making inaction the
default position.  And really, who do you expect to step in, Sweden?

There is not, depending on your semantics, a lot of daylight
between propaganda, marketing, ‘raising awareness’, and engaging the
public.  Those are tools to make sure
that your pet cause gets raised out of obscurity on to page 8 of the newspaper,
or alternately, from page 8 to the front cover. 
Absent attention, the impetus for a change in political will is rather
weak.

One thing that amazes me about folks in the U.S. is their
generosity.  Be it the flooding of the Mississippi in the
mid-90’s, any one of a number of hurricanes – especially Katrina, or Live
Aid/Farm Aid and their like, people here have big hearts.  It is my opinion that people here want to
help out, provided that they a) understand the problem, and b) see some way to
contribute to the solution.  We hope that
we can address those two issues.

A principle reason we’re going after a younger, ‘My, aren’t
I hip?’ audience – at this stage – is that young folks seem to both be more
likely to get wrapped up in a cause, as well as being predisposed towards using
the internet as a default mode of communications.  Given our total market penetration and likely
channels of distribution, we thought it would be better to optimize for the
capabilities we have, rather than failing miserably at trying to be big time
movie producers.

Concern 2:  Is this project, in terms of effectiveness
per dollar spent, anywhere near cost effective?



Response:  If the objective of the film were raising money,
I think one should ask that question. 
However, as I mentioned above, the long-term objective is much less
about raising money and a lot more about influencing debate.  In either case, the model here is similar to
that of a business loan.  We are
expending ‘political’ capital (and money) with the hope of generating a larger
amount of ‘political’ capital for our efforts. 
I guess, we’re doing stuff with skill, knowledge, technology labor type
of thing (but without the Marx Value of Labor Theory stuff).

More broadly, however, is that we’re covering the tickets
and basic equipment ourselves – and frankly, I would probably be financially
better off in clearing existing debt.  In
some cases we’ll be using stuff we have on hand – for instance, I have old
sterile suture and wound kits from previous trips.  In other cases we’ll be borrowing.  But, as in many things, covering the last
little bit is always a problem, and is usually where corners are cut.  Based on experience with places in a state of
chaos, they can go from bad to worse very, very quickly.  And when they go bad, they go very, very bad.  So, much of what we’re trying to get is the
kind of thing that allows a bad situation to get worse, rather than absolutely
catastrophic. 

Concern 3:  Still, this whole thing seems like
you just want other people to buy you toys?



Response: One thing we are trying to do in this trip is to
acquire enough gear to be able to do this again.  I, for instance, have enough work flexibility
that I can take off a couple of weeks, given a few months warning.  If this effort is successful, I would be
quite interested in spending some vacation time working on these sorts of
projects.

Should this effort fall flat on its face, and we give up
altogether, I don’t think it will be spectacularly difficult to find a good
home for this stuff with humanitarian workers, U.S. soldiers or any one of a
number of worthy causes.  Some of the
things we are getting are perishable, so we expect to leave them there with
someone who can use them.  Otherwise, we’re
keeping the gear on hand so we can more easily tackle whatever comes next.

Concern 4:  Look, I already give to charity, why
on earth should I support this too?



Response: If you’re already contributing to a worthy cause,
then I can’t expect you to do double duty or drop whatever else it is you’re
doing.  Personally, I am very appreciative of every red cent of support we get - because I know that every dollar you take home is yours and you've earned it.  While this may be a health and safety issue for me, doesn't give me some sort of right to demand anything from you or anyone else.

More generally, my intent is a little bit
different – first, it’s more a question of changing the debate.  More importantly, is the second bit - the
people we most want to engage are those who aren’t doing much of anything.  Maybe they have other things on their mind,
or aren’t paying attention, or whatever. 
Those are the people that we would like most to engage.  In any case, this whole project is voluntary,
and you can’t be compelled to either support or not support this effort – that’s
your call and not mine.

Since the gear is either going to be used to save my bacon,
or if it gets passed along, save someone else’s hide, then the kit will
actually be put to good use one way or the other.  I would just as soon that, in that process, I
don’t get myself in a heap of trouble.

Concern 5:  What’s with this “Christmas” bit and “Darfur” thing, anyways?



Response:  I’ve addressed a lot of the reasoning and
thematic choices animating this effort in another post and I am not going to
recap that here.  An important detail to
note, however, is that in this kind of effort, the film you’re convinced you’re
going to shoot is only notionally related to the film you end up getting.  Particularly in a volatile situation like
this, you have to remain flexible enough to adapt, and adapt we will.  What we have now is a working concept we
think we can give sufficient coverage.

As far as the Sudan/Chad ‘Darfur’ thing, the region in
eastern Chad is also known
as Darfur. 
More importantly, is that we’re pretty certain we can get in to Chad, and move
about with relative freedom.  We are also
fairly sure that telling the Sudanese government that we want to go film in Darfur is a good way to not get a visa.  If we’re successful, there are overland
crossing points to take us into Sudan.  If not, we don’t want the entire enterprise
to hinge on the interest of the Sudanese government in having folks come and
cover things which will create further turmoil.

==============================================

In Closing:  It seems that this has gone on a
lot longer than I had anticipated, so I suppose that I’ll have to clean it up
and post it.  But in the meantime,
respond and comment as you feel is merited.

3 Bravo: I get so tired of the holocaust analogy. It doesn't apply here. These are countrymen killing countrymen. True there is some outside interference. As there was during our revoluntionary and civil wars. 
 
 
Have to go now anyway. We have taken on much more than we can handle and many of the boys drank too much last night getting things ready. We will be suppling two hundred fried turkeys with oyster dressing and candied yams. These people we are helping are not begging. It's just that the ovens in a Fema trailer aren't big enough to cook in. Barely big enough to eat in. We also wish to remain close.
 
 
 Free breakfast for all and free kids meals all day at the grand opening of  our new McDonalds' Its great to be an American and see my neighbors join in without reservations. We know our Thankgiving meal will be between deliveries. Even the cops are helping.
 
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
 
Puddleduck: May your turkey be raw in the middle. Of course, in your case, eating a turkey would be cannibalism.

4 The real question: are we going to have to look at this SAME self-aggrandizing STICKY post from now until Christmas?
 
Then, after Christmas, are we all going to have to be constantly reminded of your good deed and how praise yourself for it by keeping the post STICKY.
 
Jesus. It is great that you can afford to go across the world and help others. It is even greater that you can guilt people into paying for it so that you can do your good deed on someone else's dime.
 
But not everyone is as fortunate as you regarding your ability to pick up and play humanitarian in Darfur, you do-gooder. Even if someone is paying for it, there are those here who could not afford to get away because of committments that prevent them from leaving.
 
Please don't continue to throw this in everyone's face for the next 6 weeks by keeping the post STICKY.

5 Africa is a money pit that we've been trying to fill for decades now,
and the more we spend, the worse things get, because white people
aren't allowed to say how the money is spent. Oh, I'm sorry, I spoke
the truth; I didn't mean to be so racist. We should leave Africa to
evolve on its own or decide to get serious. If we're going to spend our
money there, we should establish colonial governorships so that we can
see that it is spent well instead of simply to buy Grace Mugabe and her
ilk more European clothes, or her husband Robert and his kind more
Chinese weapons.

6 Puddleduck: May your turkey be raw in the middle. Of course, in your case, eating a turkey would be cannibalism.
Posted by: Greyrooster at November 23, 2006 07:49 AM ======================
Grey,
I don't like the way you constantly insult PD. But hey, at least you got his name right. However, that was funny. lol
BTW what you did for thanksgiving is to be applauded.

7 .My cruel take on helping Africa. (1) If tomorrow morning we supplied them with plenty of food, housing,, medicine, secority, etc: the result would be a population explosion that would create a larger problem for the world. They would all wish to move here. Haven't we enough problems. I say keep our noses out. Let nature take its course. If Africa decides to overpopular and suffer later, There problem. If they decide they cannot live together without genocide, perhaps that's what nature intended. I any case we should just stay out of Africa. Every African nation that was once white controlled and prosperous is now is shit hole after turning it over to the natives. Why bother. Let them self destruct.

8  I say keep our noses out. Let nature take its course. If Africa decides to overpopular and suffer later, There problem. If they decide they cannot live together without genocide, perhaps that's what nature intended. I any case we should just stay out of Africa.
 
Substitute Africa for Iraq and we have a deal.

9 I set the post to be sticky through Thanksgiving and, barring any major unforeseen disasters, I have no intention of passing the hat
around any more.  It is basically our thinking that, once one has seed money, one doesn't go to the next round of investment until we have a proof-of-concept product produced: e.g. a film short.

Should we be able to, I may blog while we're out
there, provided that it anything actually interesting occurs.  We may
post a short segment on YouTube once we have something in hand.  But all of the logistics of that are a ways off and something we'll focus on later.

In any case, we would like to thank all of you that were able to support us, and thank those of you gave us some moral support.  As well as the community of posters here who, whether or not they agree with the project, were gracious while we were chewing up a bit of the screen space.

Happy Thanksgiving, and Happy Holidays to All!!

BRD

10 Greyrooster, I understand your dislike of the Holocaust comparison.  I
guess the thing that I've been trying to drive towards is that any
situation in which people are deliberately targeting civilian
populations, and do so with machetes and assault rifles - to the tune
of hundreds of thousands of people - is a bad thing.  It may not be the
worst thing (and I think the Congo is worse by a long shot).  But I
think this situation is, just barely, within the sphere of things which
can be influenced by the careful application of media and political
attention.



With respect to Maximumus' comment about the merits of spending more money and
the effectiveness of humanitarian operations, I am understand the
questions about the value of focusing additional attention in the form of humanitarian aid.  I'm primarily concerned with the widespread retail slaughter of civilian populations.

I am for whatever politically viable solution can be used to put paid to this.  If the role of the us ends up looking suspiciously like our effort to take down the Taliban in October 2001, that's fine by me.  My objectives are limited to trying to put a break on an activity which is fundamentally no different than blowing up pizzerias full of Israeli teenagers, or blowing up trains full of Londoners or Spaniards.   Deliberate murder of noncombatants purely for the sake of killing civilians - regardless of continent or anything else - is a bad thing.  We can argue about the long term consequences, or the relative merits of the situation, but I feel relatively comfortable in just saying that when folks go off to kill a few hundred thousand non-combatant civilians, that's just bad news.

As regards the impression that some folks have that we are spectacularly rich and are trying to guilt people into satisfying a whim, I kind of take a bit of objection to that.  None of us are what you might call remotely wealthy - or for that matter are particularly secure financially.  The point of this campaign is that we've borrowed camera equipment, people have volunteered to edit the raw footage and produce a finished product.  After saving up for this, maxing out credit cards, borrowing from family and friends, we've at least achieved a basic capability.  I would feel supremely uncomfortable asking for people to support us if we hadn't gotten at least half the money together up front.  But, as it turns out what we can get together is enough to get us there, but not enough to be secure in the knowledge that this will be relatively mishap free.

I understand that not everyone who reads a blog is heir apparent to the Gates fortune.  The contributions, regardless of size, we have received have been emblematic of a sincere desire to help.  Even those who haven't been able to contribute more than a kind word, it's kind of like the parable of the Old Widow, and we are humbled by the support.  Heck, there are people who disagree with us vehemently, but have at least had the courtesy to keep their disagreement private, rather than dissuading others from their support.  And even that is appreciated.

With any luck, before too awful long, we will be able to show you all some product and at least give some demonstrable evidence that we weren't just running off with money, and that we did do what we promised.

In the meantime, have a Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

11 Okay, okay. I send you a few bucks. And when you figure that politically viable solution let me know what it is. Because I don't believe there is one. Africa is this. Black against Black. Tribe against tribe. Country against country. Race against race. Religion against religion. Throw in a few million animals and black people who are being slaughtered by other black people and you have Africa. Oh! I forgot the whites being raped and murdered in Zimbabwe and South Africa.  What to we get from Africa? Lets see. Smallpox came from Africa. So did ebola, aids, Al Sharpton, and Jessie Jackson. Why the hell do you want ot save Africa. Nothing good comes from Africa.

12 No Fear: You ignorant 3 yr old. The muslims do not wish to use Africa as a stageing area and Iraq has oil.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.