Gary Ackerman Quotes
It is not a pleasure to be here. It's an embarrassment that we come so late, and that there are so few of us here.... It's an embarrassment that so much of the media are missing. They are more concerned with someone who drinks too much, when we are trying to deal with the issue of millions of people who are not eating at all.
Oxfam, the international relief agency, had called a press conference to announce the critical starvation problem in the Sudan. Few reporters attended as controversial confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense were ongoing and there were accusations that the nominee, former senator John Tower, was a womanizer and an alcohol abuser:
Gary Ackerman, U. S. Congressman (Democrat, NY), Quoted in The Washington Post, March 12, 1989
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Reflection on the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1850
The president was right. There is enough food to go around. The problem however is logistical, economic, and political. Some countries use food as a weapon to keep their own people under control. The major problem is the distribution of the food. It has to be transported from where it is gown to where it should be consumed. Much food in the third world rots because the transportation system cannot move the food efficiently enough. Even when food is donated to nations, the free or cheap food undercuts the local farmers who go out of business and there is even less food the following year.
England had a high protective tariff called the "Corn Laws" which artificially maintained a high price of grain. Cobden had made a condolence call to a wealthy friend whose wife had just died. In a dramatic call to public service:. The friend joined Cobden and their team traveled throughout England arguing their case. As a result of their efforts the Corn Laws were repealed saving tens of thousands of lives and the friend became one of England's most illustrious politicians.
This is exactly what happened in Scotland, and accounts for the large number of Scottish emigrants who populated many countries of the world.
Gary Leonard Ackerman is a retired American politician and former U.S. Representative from New York, serving from 1983 to 2013. He is a member of the Democratic Party. On March 15, 2012, Ackerman announced that he would retire at the end of the 112th Congress on January 3, 2013 after fifteen terms, and would not seek re-election in November 2012.
