Suppose that anyone, in any country in the world, could walk up to the American Embassy and get a free meal.
It needn't be a great meal: just enough to keep body and soul together. The Ivory Madonna's friend George Meade immediately thought of military MREs, which are a good model.
What are the benefits of this notion? Well, as a means of foreign aid, it's hard to beat. First, it would genuinely help the poor and the hungry of the world. Second, any money that's spent in the target countries would directly contribute to their economies, rather than winding up in the Swiss bank accounts of greedy politicians. Third, it would undoubtedly lead to more jobs for U.S. citizens as support staff, either at home or abroad. Finally, it would generate good will for the United States, and be a great counter to some of the bad will and even hatred that's out there.
Wouldn't this cost U.S. taxpayers a ton of money? Well, how much do spend on waste and corruption in foreign aid now? How much do we spend dealing with the consequences of anti-U.S. feeling? How much do we (still) spend on every day's fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Wouldn't a plan like this be a logistical nightmare? What about crowds, shortages, rioting? What do we do when one villager walks 25 miles to the U.S. Embassy and then asks for meals to take home to all 17 people in her family? Good questions...but somehow, the Ivory Madonna is confident that they won't be much of a challenge to a nation that can reliably ship 37 different brands of sugared cereal containing Star Trek toys to every Wal-Mart and Target store in the country.
Can there possibly be enough food for everyone? Won't billions make their way to the U.S. Embassy to sponge off Uncle Sam? Remember, we're not offering filet mignon here...the meals we're giving away are enough to keep one from starvation. And they'll taste about as good as you would imagine mass-produced prepackaged meals would. We're talking refugee-camp rations here. Anyone who has another source of food will most likely not show up at our embassy gate.
What about the governments of other nations, particularly unfriendly ones? Will they resist having poor, tired, huddled masses surging into their capital cities to get free U.S. meals? Will they blockade their cities to keep the riffraff out? Maybe...but the Ivory Madonna would say that's their problem more than ours.
Isn't it immoral to just give people food? Isn't it socialist? Don't we want them to develop a work ethic? Ah, but you lost that argument the first time we started handing out free rice to relieve famine. The immorality of giving free food to starving people is surely much less than the immorality of letting them starve.
The Ivory Madonna's story is told in Dance for the Ivory Madonna by Don Sakers.
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