Cities in Crisis-Awake April 8 2001

by ISP 5 Replies latest jw friends

  • ISP
    ISP

    Cities in Crisis - Awake 8 2001
    'The growing number of street children is heartrending evidence of the deep poverty that exists in the cities of the developing world. According to some estimates, there are as many as 30 million street children worldwide! Says the book Mega-city Growth and the Future:" Poverty and other problems have eroded family ties so that street children have been forced to fend for themselves." Such children often eke out a miserable existence by scavenging, begging, or doing menial work at local markets.'- (page 5)

    Any answers for these afflicted ones from the article? Well I tried straining through the article to find some 'good news' for such ones. If you thought that the article would never advocate financially assisting such ones you would be quite right! It quotes someone or other 'There is a wistful myth that if only we had enough money to spend…we could wipe out our slums..' and then the article went onto say 'But if money is not the solution, what is?…….The answer……'People must be helped to make dramatic changes in their thinking and behaviour.'

    So these ones who 'eke out a miserable existence by scavenging, begging' can have their problems solved by changing their 'thinking and behaviour'? You are kidding me……but then the article accepted that also by saying 'Effecting such sweeping change is clearly beyond the capability of humans.'

    Then in a perverse fashion the ultimate solution is handed out to such ones….

    'City dwellers the world over can thus take comfort in the Bible promise recorded at Revelation 11:18, that God will "bring to ruin those ruining the earth."….No longer will millions live in unimaginable poverty, deprived of proper housing and basic sanitation, deprived of dignity, or deprived of hope.'

    I wonder if any taking those magazines really know what that means to them…..
    Yes the solution for the 30 million or so street children is not to offer monetary assistance , its not to support preventive programmes for the education of the children, or to encourage major corporations to offer financial aid to projects and employment to street children.

    No the WTS answer is to do absolutely nothing until the whole 30 million street kids get wiped out by the WTS God because only then will they no longer live 'in unimaginable poverty' etc……..because they would have been destroyed forever.

    ISP

  • ozziepost
    ozziepost

    G'day ISP,

    Yes, I found some of the magazines focus a little weird.

    Front cover: If you wanted to show Cities in Crisis why illustrate it with a seemingly affluent guy trying to cross a busy USA street, trying to dodge the Yellow Cabs? What about illustrating it with urban slums such as in Nairobi where millions live in the most horrific circumstances, and even Christian women are forces into prostitution to feed their sick and dying children after they've been abandoned by their husbands? Wouldn't that be more apropos, or is it simply unfashionable?

    What Future for Cities?: We see 3 beautiful cityscapes including Sydney in the magical land of Oz. Is this meant to show that we will have beautiful cities in the new system? That would be a vhange in understanding, wouldn't it?

    Illustration on page 10: The usual picture. Happy faces, a deer on a crag, waterfalls, but no roads! Why does that guy need a wheelbarrow load of food? Couldn't he just pick it when he needed it? He's not being greedy, surely!

    Ozzie

  • ISP
    ISP

    G'day....Ozzie

    Notice the house under construction in the centre of the picture on page 10.......like how do you get all those building materials to the middle of nowhere without any transport?!

    Also I like the caption to the picture 'God's new world offers a solutionto the problems of today's city dwellers.

    Yep we know what that solution was!

    ISP

  • Thirdson
    Thirdson

    ISP,

    There was international uproar when it immerged that Brazilian street children were being shot to get rid of them. The WTS solution is any better.

    Thirdson

    'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing'

  • ozziepost
    ozziepost

    Say Thurdson, have we got the same birthday? We were born in this place on the same day! We're soul (cell) mates!

    After all this time the geriatric GB is presiding over bureaucrats who appraently have no feeling for the non-white Third Worlders. Not surprising, really, since they have failed to grasp what a state they're in (born in sin, needing the ransom of our Lord for forgiveness)

    Cheers,

    Ozzie

  • philo
    philo

    Thanks for the breakdown ISP. It's always worth dissecting an article once in a while. Doing my pre-study, I call it.

    philo

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit