World Hunger and Poverty

I usually oppose government spending. Nonetheless, the way to lower spending is to stop hiring workers, rather than decrease the benefits and pay of workers. I speak here of our brave veterans. I find it highly disturbing how poorly we and our government treat our veterans. While cutting veterans benefits, congress continually decides to raise their own salaries!

The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. And more than half a million experience homelessness over the course of a year. (Information from National Coalition for Homeless Veterans)

On this veterans’ day, let us promise to no longer let our veterans suffer! Let us no longer let our veterans remain homeless, poor, or hungry! Since the government that sent these brave men and women to war fails to fully provide for them, let us help these brave men and women ourselves. Through private charities and other private means we can help the veterans.

Unfortunately, many veterans charities are inefficient or corrupt, with only pennies on the dollar going to help the veterans. Many times, the donated money is wasted on fundraising costs and by paying the hefty salaries of paying the CEOs of these so-called “non-profits.” For example, of the 22 veterans charities evaluated by Charity Navigator more than 1/3 have fundraising expenses over 20%, with 3 charities spending more than 50% on fundraising and 2 charities spending more than 95% of your donations on fundraising!

When we go to give to the veterans through charities, let us make sure we perform due diligence, and verify the efficiency and helpfulness of the charity.

A great way to ensure the effectiveness of one’s funds is by giving locally. In this way, we may even be able to work directly with veterans. Also, if you know a veteran, whether poor or not, why not do something to help them this veterans day, such as making them a dinner or just giving them a call and saying thanks.

Here’s a list of 4 of the most efficient and effective veterans charities:
• Fisher House Foundation
• Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust
• Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society
• Coast Guard Foundation

I agree with Thabile Masuku, who says of child poverty and labour, “give them education, not work.” Masuku says:

The challenge seems to be bigger for Swaziland, a country ravaged by poverty and unemployment – the major reasons children are on the streets selling some wares late into the evening, instead of studying.

The situation is so bad that so many children, as young as seven-years-old, are heading families. What else can a child do but go out to work in order to be able to take care of his or her siblings, in the process sacrificing school. I doubt if it ever crosses a child’s mind that without education, labour would be in vain.

[...]

The biggest disappointment was perhaps the fact that people do not report child labour issues to the police, even though such are very common in Swaziland.

As observed by Dr. Christensen, it would seem we live in a world which possesses wealth on a scale undreamed of by the pharaohs and potentates of old.

“In the golden age of ancient Greece it took seven slaves to support one Athenian citizen. Today, for the first time in human history, our planet yields enough resources to meet the basic needs of every human being. Still, the vast majority of the earth’s population lives in poverty,” said the good doctor.

Now, the question is why this is so why does 20 percent of the world’s population have to subsist on less than one dollar a day? Statistics show that 800 million people go to bed hungry every night and between 30 000 and 60 0000 die each day from hunger alone.

Read the entire Swazi Observer article.

I agree with Thabile Masuku and Dr. Christensen. Often I point to education as the main ingredient in the solution to hunger and poverty. What unfortunate irony that the poor children, who need the wonderful gift of education the most, have to give up education to work for low pay. Even worse, like trying to ice skate up a hill, these children’s attempts to sustain themselves through child-labor can never alleviate the plague of hunger and poverty. What a terrible Catch 22! Only education can provide these children and their communities the resources to change the poor conditions in which they suffer, but those same poor conditions force them to give up education for child-labor.

As communities, both locally and globally, we can solve this problem by investing in education. Not only do we need to invest in our own education, both about this issue and just in general, but more importantly we need to invest in the education of the children, namely the poor and hungry children who would otherwise never receive opportunity. By offering education, we can help these children help themselves. If we include food, clothes, and shelter with tuition costs, then these children can go to school and still sustain themselves. As a net value, if we invest in their education with student loans, then we can essentially solve this problem for free.

What do you think?

Am I happy that Democrats took control of congress? Hell no. Democrat politicians are just as bad as Republican politicians. They’re both owned by special interests. They both support bigger government. Just like the Republicans, the Democrats aren’t going to solve any of our problems; They’ll just make them worse. The Democrats do such things as increase our taxes, increase the enforcement of victimless crimes (e.g. gun ownership), and increase government spending.

Republican or Democrat, I like most people I meet as individuals. In contrast, politicians are all a bunch of multi-faced crooks, and the government is nothing but a mafia.

Why I Didn’t Vote

I want to solve these problems facing, such as hunger and poverty, but we need to do it ourselves. We need to utilize non-governmental solutions and voluntary cooperation. Playing into divisive partisan politics just furthers the corruption of the status quo. Instead of that, we need to use non-governmental organization, such as creating and promoting private clubs, private charities, and grassroots movements based on voluntaryism.
Here’s some quotes:

Malcom X:

“The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is the Republicans will stick a 12 inch knife in your back then the democrats will come along and pull it out 3 inches – I don’t call pulling a 12 inch knife out of my back 3 inches making progress”

Malcolm X had no illusions in the so-called differences between the Democrats and Republicans. “One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.” In the 1964 presidential elections, when the candidates were Johnson (the “peace” candidate) vs. Goldwater (the “war” candidate), Malcolm X exposed the deciet of this phony distinction.

“The shrewd capitalists, the shrewd imperialists,” he said, “knew that the only way people would run towards the fox (Johnson) would be if you showed them the wolf (Goldwater). So they created a ghastly alternative… And at the moment he (Johnson) had troops invading the Congo and South Vietnam.”

Former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega was headed back to power on Monday in a presidential election 16 years after Nicaragua’s voters ousted him to end a brutal civil war with U.S.-trained Contra rebels.

Ortega’s almost certain victory was a blow to Washington and reinforces an anti-U.S. alliance in Latin America led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Ortega, 60, has dropped the hard-line policies of his revolutionary past and campaigned on a center-left platform. He backs a free trade pact with the United States and says he has no interest in clashing with his old enemy.

He stopped short of claiming victory on Monday night, preferring to wait until final official results, but he said was ready to work with other parties to “eradicate poverty and reassure the private sector and international investors”

Read Reuters article.

Many U.S. citizens fear Venezuela and this “Latin American alliance,” due to the so-called “anti-U.S.” sentiments coming from countries such as Venezuela. However, I think it is misleading to consider the sentiments “anti-U.S.” For example, Venezuelan president Chavez offered Oil to Katrina victims, and such. In reality, the peaceful country of Venezuela only opposes the neoliberal philosophy of the American government and mega-corporations, and the international policy of the American government, the IMF, the World Bank, etcetera.

I’m glad to hear Ortega say that he wants to “eradicate poverty.” However, history has shown Marxist and Communist governments have the same capability for oppression as child-killing Contras.

What do you think?

In recent years, the battle against hunger has been placed at the centre of the development discourse in India. This has come about mainly due to the efforts of the Right to Food Campaign and as a direct result of a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court of India.

Despite this, India continues to be the site of the most unconscionable levels of chronic hunger and deprivation. Child malnutrition levels in India (46%; height for age data) have consistently been higher than those of even Sub-Saharan Africa and of countries with lower rates of economic growth like neighbouring Bangladesh (45%). The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (conducted by the National Institute of Nutrition, Indian Council for Medical Research) estimates that nearly 40% of the adult population in India has a Body Mass Index of less than 18.5, which implies chronic energy deficiency of epic proportions, bordering on a national humanitarian crisis.

Read entire OneWorld article.

In contrast to their seeming inability to solve their hunger and poverty epidemic, India has enough money to manufacture, produce, and manage weapons, including nuclear weapons. Of course, this is nothing too unique. For example, both the U.S. and Russia are known for their massive nuclear arsenals, but have not yet solved their respective hunger and poverty epidemics. 14 million children in the U.S. live in food insecure households. I guess this once again demonstrates The Inherent Link Between War And Hunger.

My heart goes out to those poor and struggling people in India.

What do you think?

Anna Ryneer cannot understand how the citizens of one country can develop problems with porky children while those in another literally starve to death.

“How can so many people be starving and yet in the United States we’re fighting obesity?” pondered Ryneer, who recently wrote a paper about the problems the Caribbean nation of Haiti faces with feeding its people. The paper won Ryneer a spot at the World Food Prize Youth Institute held Oct. 19-21 in Des Moines.

Ryneer became interested in hunger issues while living with her family in South America. Her father worked for a gold mining company.

“I would see the poverty out there, kids younger than me out on the street. I’d ask my parents, ‘Can’t we help them? Can we bring them home to dinner?’”

Ryneer believes everyone, even high school students, should do what they can to stop world hunger.

Read entire qctimes article.

I agree wholeheartedly with this teenager. I think we all need to take a step back when we see that this high-school student seems to have her head on straighter than most full-grown adults. I especially agree with her point when she juxtapositions the obesity epidemic with the hunger epidemic. Unfortunately, the hunger epidemic isn’t isolated to the “third-world.” 14 million children in the U.S. live in food insecure households.

What do you think?

Global Citizenship
by Scott Hughes

My favorite philosopher, Diogenes The Cynic, first said, “I am a citizen of the world.” He wanted people to recognize him as a human being and not by his geographic origins or some other trivial grouping.

I like to take that philosophy and apply it to the concerns and problems of our contemporary world. I want to feed the hungry children all over this world. I want to provide clothing, shelter, education, and socioeconomic opportunity to all the children – and adults for that matter – of this world.

I want to see the end of the world hunger that kills 16,000 children every day. Similarly, I want to see food, education, and opportunity offered to those who have it not, namely the 3 billion people living on less than $2.00 a day. I want to proved food, clothing, shelter, education, and socioeconomic opportunity to everyone in the world, not just the people geographically close to me or ethnically similar to me.

I do not want to rob people of another nation so that the people of “my” nation can benefit. For example, I do NOT want to wear fancy sneakers if it leads to the abuse of foreign children in a foreign sweatshop. I do not want innocent Iraqi citizens to die in an ignorant attempt by the U.S. and the U.K. to help and protect themselves. In the same respect, I do not want innocent U.S. citizens to die from collapsing twin-towers in an ignorant attempt by Arabs to help and protect themselves.

I value innocent lives equally – whether they’re the 40,000 slaughtered Iraqi citizens in the Iraq War, or the 3,000 American citizens slaughtered in the 9/11 Terrorist Attack, or the 16,000 innocent children who die every day from hunger, or the 2.2 million Americans rotting in American jails and prisons – most of whom have not been convicted and over 25% of whom are charged with victimless “crimes” – and the uncharged unconvicted children suffering in Guantanamo and other U.S. international prisons, many of which are secret.

I try to be a citizen of the world.

However, I do not think the recent adoptions by celebrities of third-world children exemplifies the aforementioned philosophy. That’s not to say I don’t commend these adoptions, such as that by Madonna. I find the adoptions very commendable; Madonna has not only saved this child’s life, but also brought the child into a whole new environment where the child won’t be deprived of many necessities such as would have happened otherwise.

Despite the incredible commendability of the adoptions, I think the adoptions exemplify a common misconception. They exemplify and symbolize the illusion of a separation between the hunger and poverty epidemic in the third-world and the global problems facing all of us, including working-class America.

It seems we find it easier to treat the terrible hunger and poverty epidemic in these third-world countries as some completely separate issue of unluckiness, rather than admit that that epidemic is just one terrible symptom in a global line of many symptoms of an even worse underlying problem.

So, while what Madonna and these other caring celebrities individually did is commendable, we as a collective cannot solve these problems of hunger, poverty and such if we look at these particular epidemics as separate issues.

For example, we must not just go to Africa like Madonna and see the problem as something only faced there. That’s not to trivialize the terrible epidemics in these third-world countries; they’re serious problems and they need to be addressed ASAP. Nonetheless, we cannot solve those problems unless we recognize and admit that they share the root cause with most of the social problems in our world. I’m not just talking about the 14 million children in the U.S. that live in food insecure households; that’s just another terrible symptom.

Henry David Thoreau said, “there are a thousand striking at the branches of evil to the one striking at the root.”

I commend Madonna and anyone who strikes or even takes out a branch of “evil.” However, no matter how many of us – and we’ll never get everybody – hack away at the branches, we’ll never knock down the tree unless we strike the root. To truly solve these problems, we need to strike the root – social inequality and corrupt politics.

To put this in perspective, look at the following facts: The U.N. says that a $40 billion increase in funding could feed, clothe, and educate the entire world. The U.S. governments alone spend over $50 billion every year on the war on drugs. (Interestingly, the war on drugs not only wastes money that could help, but the war hurts the poor and minorities. It’s poor and black people who end up rotting in jail-cells. For example, in the U.S. more white people take illicit drugs, while more black people go to jail for illicit drugs. Classism is even more of the issue, with rich people using expensive lawyers, bribes, and such to get off.)

Some would say, make the government solve this problem. That’s an arguable solution, but I would argue that the government will never solve these problems. Obviously, the politicians care about their own well-being and their own interests, not ours. The politicians only pretend to care about our interests to gain votes. We need to understand that the government – and the mostly-corporate special-interests that control it – use OUR money, which they steal through taxation and inflation. The government – and the mostly-corporate special-interests that control it – will never spend that money the way we want it spent, and they will never spend it to solve our problems. Indeed, it is these very problems that give the government an excuse to steal the money and freedom from the people. If we want to decide how to spend the money, I believe we can only do that by taking our money and freedom back, and then using it to solve the problems that face us, namely hunger, poverty, and lack of socioeconomic opportunity.

Thomas Jefferson said, “when the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

We want to solve the preventable problems plaguing the citizens of this world, right?

To do that, we need to tell the powers that be that we no longer will allow them to steal our wealth, freedom, or rightful power. We need to tell and show them that we plan to use OUR wealth, freedom, and meritocratically rightful power to solve the problems facing us, the citizens of the world. We can tell them that they can do whatever they want, but from now on they will have to do it without stealing our wealth or freedom, and without the government.

The key of course, we actually need to use our wealth and power to invest in education and development, namely with student loans and business loans, respectively. If we include food, clothes, and shelter with tuition costs, then we can solve these epidemics essentially for free.

About The Author: Scott Hughes runs a Self-Defense, Safety, and Security Blog as well as this Hunger and Poverty Blog. He also owns The Online Book Club, and SpokenWordArt.com. Discuss these serious issues with him at The Hunger And Poverty Forums.

© Copyright 2006, Scott Hughes. All Rights Reserved.

At least 2.9 million Filipino families or 16.9 percent of a projected base of 17.4 million households experienced hunger in the past three months, results of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

Malacañang vowed to work harder to reduce hunger and poverty incidence in the country though officials said economic gains may have only been slow in reaching the people.

Read philstar.com article.