[net.politics] politics of oxfam

rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (01/08/86)

Larry Kolodney can have the last word in this exchange.  If Oxfam America
needs the kind of defense he gave it, then the organization is in really
bad shape.

Our exchange threatens to become another Usenet polemic: an infinite
regression of electronic mail.  Luckily, the central issue is ethical,
a matter of sensitivity to the possibility of abuse, and not factual,
requiring absolute proof of a case.

Whatever Larry claims to know or not know, there exists serious public
allegations, more than mere partisan pleading or malicious rumor, about
Marxist regimes in Latin America and Africa that involve hunger among
other matters.

To effectively ignore such allegations, as Oxfam America does, subverts
the humanitarian premise on which OA is based.  The mere fact that our
exchange was possible says something about OA's ethics, or lack of them.


					Cheers,
					Ron Rizzo