World Hunger and Poverty

Joe De Capua recently wrote a news article about the hidden costs of war. I include an excerpt:

The new UN General Assembly session opens next week, and there’s a call for the United Nations to address what one group calls the hidden costs of war. The NGO ActionAid says that of the food crises facing nearly 40 countries in mid-2006, 25 were caused by conflict.

Thomas Johnny is a policy research manager for ActionAid in Sierra Leone. He’s currently in New York, awaiting the UN meeting. He spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about the hidden costs of war.

“The hidden cost of war I can say one is hunger; two is the increased level of trauma and continuous deprivation of people; and people trying to recover from the loss of relatives, friends and even property. But I think hunger is one of the most hidden costs of war,” he says.

I agree completely. The movement called Food Not Bombs bases its philosophy on the relationship between war and hunger.

Not only does war directly cause hunger and poverty, but it also indirectly contributed to the problem. Namely, the huge expensiveness of war uses funding that could go to anti-poverty measures.

For example, the needless war in Iraq will cost the United States over a trillion dollars (and it has made the United States less safe, in my opinion). With 1 in 8 people in the United States suffering from poverty, imagine if the United States had put that trillion dollars towards funding food, clothes, shelter, healthcare or education, rather than war. Best case scenario, the United States government could have given that money back to the tax-payers instead of wasting it on needless wars. As it goes with all wars.

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks that entailed the murder of about 3,000 people. Additionally, the Bush administration used 9/11 to trick America into waging a needless war on Iraq, which resulted in more American deaths than 9/11 itself, as well as the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Indeed, 41% of Americans still believe that Iraq was directly involved with 9/11, thanks to the deceitfulness of the Bush administration. Common sense tells us that those duped 41% of Americans probably make up the vast majority of Americans who support the current occupation of Iraq–which I believe only increases anti-Americanism and thus increases the threat of anti-American terrorism. In other words, the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists than it is destroying, especially since the U.S. government still allies itself with the country where most of the terrorists came from: Saudi Arabia.

The so-called “war in Iraq” has cost the U.S. about $450 billion so far, and has created more problems for the United States than it has solved. Most estimates say the total cost will exceed $1 trillion, and may even exceed $2 trillion. Imagine what else the United States could have done with that all that money.

Imagine if the United States had used a large portion of that money to end world hunger and poverty. I bet that would have reduced the threat of terrorism, namely in that one of the major ways wealthy terrorist-leaders like Osama Bin Laden recruit new people; they feed people, and use their apparent “good-will” to recruit poor angry kids into terrorism.

Of course, the United States government appears to have no intention to change its course, as my ideas are nothing new. I posted similar points on last years anniversary. I hope next year I can report something different, but I doubt it. I believe the United States government will continue to spend more money on needless oil wars than it does on world hunger and poverty.

In addition to the 3,000 people who died in the horrible 9/11 attacks, 18,000 children die every day from world hunger, just like last year. I say FOOD NOT BOMBS!

Roy Goldenberg recently reported that one third of Israeli children live in poverty. I include an excerpt:

The National Insurance Institute Poverty Report for 2006 states that Israel had 1,649,800 persons living below the poverty line. The proportion of poor persons was unchanged from 2005, when there were 1,630,500 poor.

The proportion of children living below the poverty line rose to 796,100 in 2006 from 768,800 in 2005, although the proportion was unchanged at more than one third of all children. The proportion of children in poverty has risen 60% since 1998.

Of course, non-Israeli Palestinian children also live in shocking rates of poverty. In addition to poverty, these children of both groups often have to face violence and terrorism, especially since both groups often target civilians. Unsurprisingly, these children grow up angry and otherwise distressed, which can lead to more violence and poverty.

Of course, the governments and leaders involved spend billions of dollars on war, while this poverty rages.

The United States gives billions of dollars to Israel for military purposes. If the United States wants to give its taxpayers money away, I suggest that this money go to feed hungry children rather than to war.

I doubt that we will ever resolve poverty while warfare continues, and I doubt we will stop warfare while land remains divided. We need to find a way to allow all people, regardless of race and religion, to move in and out of any country or region and get jobs and housing. So long as land remains divided and certain races or religions get excluded, people will fight over the land and the divisions.

I hope for better days for the poor Israeli and Palestinian children.

Laurie Copoans recently wrote an article about how West Bank poverty spawns child beggars. I include an excerpt:

Israel’s massive barrier of walls and fences separating it from the West Bank has made it harder for adult laborers to enter Israel, so families wracked by poverty are increasingly sending their children instead.

Children as young as 3 stand at traffic lights for hours, in rain or baking sun. They beg for change or sell cigarette lighters and batteries. At night, they sleep in fields, cemeteries, mosques, drainage canals or on streets. Their earnings are often taken by thieves or shady middlemen, and some are sexually abused or forced to sell drugs.

Unfortunately, children in the West Bank not only suffer from poverty, but they have to fear warfare. Quite commonly, Palestinian Children and families fall victim to bombs and missiles.

Both Israeli and Palestinian militaries often aim for civilian targets, and then tally the rest to collateral damage.

We need to end the war and the poverty, not just in the Middle East, but in the whole world.

Uruknet reports on Iraqi children’s malnourishment four years after US invasion:

…malnutrition rates have risen in Iraq from 19 percent before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28 percent four years later.

Caritas says that rising hunger has been caused by high levels of insecurity, collapsed healthcare and other infrastructure, increased polarisation between different sects and tribes, and rising poverty.

Over 11 percent of newborn babies are born underweight in Iraq today, compared with a figure of 4 percent in 2003. Before March 2003, Iraq already had significant infant mortality due to malnutrition because of the international sanctions regime.

“Iraq has the second largest oil supplies in the world, but it has levels of poverty, hunger and underdevelopment comparable to sub-Saharan Africa.

Read enitre Uruknet article.

That comes in addition to the hundred of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed by the war. Of course, Americans die in Iraq also, as a result of this war. In fact, more Americans have died from the Iraq War that in the 9/11 attacks. Why does the U.S. allow its government to wage this needless, expensive, and devastating war? Iraq posed no threat to the U.S. and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. By weakening the military and increasing anti-Americanism, the Iraq War has increased the threat of terrorism and left the United States in more danger than before.

Why do we allow governments to increase violence and poverty with trillion-dollar wars, when we could use that money to reduce poverty and peacefulness?

Answer these questions for me at the Hunger & Poverty Forums by clicking here.

[Muhammad Yunus is the head of Grameen Bank, the winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for it's innovative work on microcredit lending with the poor of Bangladesh. This is an excerpt of his acceptance speech, given on December 10 to the Nobel Foundation in Oslo. The full text can be read here.]

Ladies and Gentlemen:

By giving us this prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has given important support to the proposition that peace is inextricably linked to poverty. Poverty is a threat to peace. World’s income distribution gives a very telling story. Ninety-four percent of the world income goes to 40 percent of the population while 60 percent of people live on only six per cent of world income. Half of the world population lives on two dollars a day. Over one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. This is no formula for peace.

The new millennium began with a great global dream. World leaders gathered at the United Nations in 2000 and adopted, among others, a historic goal to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Never in human history had such a bold goal been adopted by the entire world in one voice, one that specified time and size. But then came September 11 and the Iraq war, and suddenly the world became derailed from the pursuit of this dream, with the attention of world leaders shifting from the war on poverty to the war on terrorism. Till now over $ 530 billion has been spent on the war in Iraq by the U.S.A alone.

I believe terrorism cannot be won over by military action. Terrorism must be condemned in the strongest language. We must stand solidly against it, and find all the means to end it. We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time to come. I believe that putting resources into improving the lives of the poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns.

Poverty is Denial of All Human Rights

Peace should be understood in a human way�in a broad social, political and economic way. Peace is threatened by unjust economic, social and political order, absence of democracy, environmental degradation and absence of human rights.

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. For building stable peace we must find ways to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives.

The creation of opportunities for the majority of people�the poor�is at the heart of the work that we have dedicated ourselves to during the past 30 years.

Free Market Economy

Capitalism centers on the free market. It is claimed that the freer the market, the better is the result of capitalism in solving the questions of what, how, and for whom. It is also claimed that the individual search for personal gains brings collective optimal result.

I am in favor of strengthening the freedom of the market. At the same time, I am very unhappy about the conceptual restrictions imposed on the players in the market. This originates from the assumption that entrepreneurs are one-dimensional human beings, who are dedicated to one mission in their business lives�to maximize profit. This interpretation of capitalism insulates the entrepreneurs from all political, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental dimensions of their lives. This was done perhaps as a reasonable simplification, but it stripped away the very essentials of human life.

Human beings are a wonderful creation embodied with limitless human qualities and capabilities. Our theoretical constructs should make room for the blossoming of those qualities, not assume them away.

Many of the world’s problems exist because of this restriction on the players of free-market. The world has not resolved the problem of crushing poverty that half of its population suffers. Health care remains out of the reach of the majority of the world population. The country with the richest and freest market fails to provide health care for one-fifth of its population.

We have remained so impressed by the success of the free market that we never dared to express any doubt about our basic assumption. To make it worse, we worked extra hard to transform ourselves, as closely as possible, into the one-dimensional human beings as conceptualized in the theory, to allow smooth functioning of free market mechanism.

By defining “entrepreneur” in a broader way we can change the character of capitalism radically, and solve many of the unresolved social and economic problems within the scope of the free market. Let us suppose an entrepreneur, instead of having a single source of motivation (such as, maximizing profit), now has two sources of motivation, which are mutually exclusive, but equally compelling�a) maximization of profit and b) doing good to people and the world.

Each type of motivation will lead to a separate kind of business. Let us call the first type of business a profit-maximizing business, and the second type of business as social business.

Social business will be a new kind of business introduced in the market place with the objective of making a difference in the world. Investors in the social business could get back their investment, but will not take any dividend from the company. Profit would be plowed back into the company to expand its outreach and improve the quality of its product or service. A social business will be a non-loss, non-dividend company.

Role of Social Businesses in Globalization

I support globalization and believe it can bring more benefits to the poor than its alternative. But it must be the right kind of globalization. To me, globalization is like a hundred-lane highway criss-crossing the world. If it is a free-for-all highway, its lanes will be taken over by the giant trucks from powerful economies. Bangladeshi rickshaw will be thrown off the highway. In order to have a win-win globalization we must have traffic rules, traffic police, and traffic authority for this global highway. Rule of “strongest takes it all” must be replaced by rules that ensure that the poorest have a place and piece of the action, without being elbowed out by the strong. Globalization must not become financial imperialism.

Powerful multi-national social businesses can be created to retain the benefit of globalization for the poor people and poor countries. Social businesses will either bring ownership to the poor people, or keep the profit within the poor countries, since taking dividends will not be their objective. Direct foreign investment by foreign social businesses will be exciting news for recipient countries. Building strong economies in the poor countries by protecting their national interest from plundering companies will be a major area of interest for the social businesses.

We Can Put Poverty in the Museums

I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social system that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.

Poverty is created because we built our theoretical framework on assumptions which under-estimates human capacity, by designing concepts which are too narrow (such as concept of business, credit- worthiness, entrepreneurship, employment), or developing institutions which remain half-done (such as financial institutions, where poor are left out). Poverty is caused by the failure at the conceptual level, rather than any lack of capability on the part of people.

I firmly believe that we can create a poverty-free world if we collectively believe in it. In a poverty-free world, the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums. When school children take a tour of the poverty museums, they would be horrified to see the misery and indignity that some human beings had to go through. They would blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition, which existed for so long, for so many people.

A human being is born into this world fully equipped not only to take care of him or herself, but also to contribute to enlarging the well-being of the world as a whole. Some get the chance to explore their potential to some degree, but many others never get any opportunity, during their lifetime, to unwrap the wonderful gift they were born with. They die unexplored and the world remains deprived of their creativity, and their contribution.

Grameen has given me an unshakeable faith in the creativity of human beings. This has led me to believe that human beings are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty.

To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.

Let us join hands to give every human being a fair chance to unleash their energy and creativity.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me conclude by expressing my deep gratitude to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for recognizing that poor people, and especially poor women, have both the potential and the right to live a decent life, and that microcredit helps to unleash that potential.

I believe this honor that you give us will inspire many more bold initiatives around the world to make a historical breakthrough in ending global poverty.

Thank you very much.

[Please note that the above is an excerpt from a speech by Muhammad Yunus, and was not written by me.]

by Scott Hughes

“The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to produce one pound of beef for human beings represents a colossal waste of resources in a world still teeming with people who suffer from profound hunger and malnutrition.” -Jim Motavalli

When studying the factors involved in world hunger, many overlook meat production and consumption.

I turned into a vegan, mainly due to the efficiency of producing a vegan meal in comparison to a meat meal. In other words, with the same amount of resources one can produce more vegetarian/vegan meals than meaty meals.

When raising livestock for consumption, the meat-manufacturer must feed the animal continuously. For example, imagine all the food that a farmer feeds a pig before killing it, and compare that to the relatively small amount of food that actually comes from the dead pig. Instead of that mistreated pig, all those resources could have fed a human being, namely one of the 16,000 children who die every day from hunger.

Obviously, world hunger and the causes thereof extend far beyond inefficient food production. In fact, the world has enough food to feed everyone in the world, even with current inefficiency. Neither vegeratarianism nor veganism can solve this problem alone. Political and socioeconomic phenomena cause the world hunger and poverty epidemic, namely corrupt governments, non-meritocratic social inequality, and disrupted trade routes.

Nonetheless, I myself choose to become a vegan still, because I have a personal principle not to use more than my fair share. For example, if I was walking in a desert with a group of people and we stumbled upon some water, I would only take my fair share of that water.

I’m not a communist. I believe in free-trade and meritocracy. For example, if I worked twice as hard as you and grew twice as much fruit, than I deserve twice as much fruit. Similarly, if you worked twice as hard as I, and you grew twice as much fruit, then you deserve twice as much fruit. That’s fair.

In my opinion, you deserve the fruits of your labor. I deserve the fruits of my labor. Everyone deserves the fruits to their own respective labor.

However, when talking about land, we speak not of the fruits of our labor. Rather, we speak of natural resources. Just like the water upon which we may stumble in the desert, the land is NOT mine, yours, or anybody’s. None of us did anything to produce the land.

Tyrants have often used the claim of land-ownership to justify a non-meritocratic and authoritarian social structure. They claim they own the land to create an illusory economic system in which they have all the pseudo-wealth and power. This is completely historically verifiable. For example these tyrants would say they own the land and other resources, and then would make the land surfs and slaves work on the land to live on the land and eat the food. The so-called “land owner” didn’t work, because he made money with the land, but the so-called “land owner” ate the best food, slept in the best bed, and lived comfortably off the fruits of the workers’ labor. So, in reality, the so-called “land owner” is a thief and a slave owner, but he uses a fraudulent concept of land-ownership and a convoluted economic system to disguise his tyranny.

We see this continue today. The banks charge mortgages, so debtors can buy land. The land lords charge rent to the people on the land. So-called third-world countries are plagued by corruption, because a tiny upper-class claims ownership of the natural resources, namely oil. It’s the poor working class in these countries that do all the work, make and run the factories, and so on, but it’s the lazy tyrants who have all the pseudo-wealth and power, simply because they’ve unjustifiably claimed control of the natural resources. (And, when anyone questions this unjustifiable claim, they get sneered at and called a communist or socialist.)

This is a global problem, and a global issue. The aforementioned situations simply exemplify this form of theft through economic deception.

I feel as much a victim as a perpetrator. I say that because, to convince anyone of this issue and all of the related issues, they need to understand the personal effects of the flaws in the common way of thinking about natural resources. When people understand their own victimization, then they prepare to stop it. Only collective changes in mindsets and voluntary cooperation can change and prevent global issues such as these. I think Lila Watson meant this when she said:

“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” -Lila Watson

Nonetheless, once we realize how these problems negatively affect and victimize us, we need to understand that we perpetuate these problems, if we wish to stop them. Obviously, if we perpetuate the problems, we can only stop the problems by ending our perpetuation of the problems.

Not only do we need to prevent and stop world hunger, poverty, and non-meritocratic inequality, but also we need to stop this misconception about natural resources and the results thereof.

When we buy expensive meat, we perpetuate the socioeconomic problems that both victimize us and contribute to world hunger and poverty. Many Westerners willingly pay more for the luxury of meat than for vegetarian alternatives. For that reason, for example, instead of selling 4.8 pounds of grain, the farmer feeds it to a cattle, which only produces one pound of beef per 4.8 pounds of grain. Often on credit, the Westerns pay for all the excess land, grain, water, and such resources, thus denying those with less money (or less Western credit) the opportunity to use those natural resources.

I’ve often been told that it takes 10 times as much land to feed a meat-eater, rather than a vegan. I’ve also been told that there is not enough land and resources in the world to feed everyone in the world a luxurious Western diet rich in meat.

That’s not my land; that’s not your land; that’s everyone’s land. I’m not going to take more than my fair share. I’d rather see those resources go to feeding the hungry.

That’s why I am a vegan. That’s also why I work with Food Not Bombs, which offers vegetarian food to hungry people.

I’m not telling anyone to become a vegan or vegetarian. I’m not judging anyone who is not a vegan or vegetarian. I’m not going to throw stones, because I live in a glass house. We all contribute to the flawed socioeconomic system. We all have our vices, and we all have our different opinions on what constitutes a vice. To solve the problems plaguing our world, we need to look introspectively at ourselves and find ways to change ourselves.

Here’s a great quote by an unknown monk along those lines:

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn�t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn�t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

With this blog post, I just want to explain why I became a vegan, and similarly how meat production relates to hunger and poverty. I leave with some facts:

“Americans spend $110 billion a year on meat-intensive fast food, and its growing popularity around the world may be a factor in dramatic increases in global meat consumption.” -Wikipeda

“One third of the world’s cereal harvest is fed to farm animals.” -International Vegetarian Union (IVU)

“More than 60% of the grains and soybeans raised in the U.S. are fed to animals, rather than to the world�s 840 million starving people. A mere 10% reduction in our meat consumption would free up the foodstuffs to feed the 24,000 people who die each day of hunger related causes.” -‘Veggies For Ecology’

“It takes 100,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of beef, but only 500 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of potatoes. Water scarcity is a major global problem.” -Compassion In World Farming

“The meat production wastes a lot of foodstuff. To produce one kilogram of meat, one needs 7 – 16 kg of grain or soya beans. When �transforming� grain into meat 90% of protein, 99% of carbohydrates and 100% of fibre are lost. Nevertheless, in Switzerland 57% of grain are being fed to animals for slaughter.” -The Swiss Union for Vegetarianism

“By eating 2 fewer meat dishes a week, the saving in grain would feed 225 million people every year.” -OneEarth.org

“36% of the worlds grain supply goes to feeing livestock and poultry.” – OneEarth.org

About The Author: Scott Hughes runs this blog in addition to The Hunger and Poverty Forums.

The UN says that a 40 billion dollar increase in funding could feed, clothe and educate the entire world. Yet, the United States government spends 400 billion dollars a year on “defense” and spent over $310 billion extra so far on the Iraqi war. While almost half the world lives on less than $2.00 a day, the US people allow their government to waste resources imperialistically covering the globe with military troops:

Basic health, food, and nutrition for everyone in the world could be provided for the same amount that the people in the United States and Europe spend on perfume – about 13 billion dollars. However, that’s nothing compared to the US’s $400 billion military budget and the hundreds of billions more spent on the Iraq war.

Instead of feeding the 18,000 children who die from hunger every day, the US government does this:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a recent video added to YouTube, Stephen Colbert talks to professor Jeffrey Sachs about his book “The End of Poverty“, or why eradicating poverty might be more effective in fighting terrorism than the military. (The Colbert Report, March 2, 2006)

See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUdc7atFiHg

With a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Jeffery Sachs is an American Economist who has done extensive work in the fields of hunger and poverty. He wrote many books including The End Of Poverty. Jeffery Sachs has advised institutions such as the World Bank, World Health Organization, the IMF, the United Nations Development Programme, and the OECD. He is currently the director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and of the United Nations Millennium Project. He works as a professor in Columbia’s Department of Economics, School of International and Public Affairs and Department of Health Policy and Management.

You can buy Jeffery Sachs book, The End Of Poverty, by clicking here

by Scott Hughes

Sure, those who want to end world hunger also happen to often want to end war. Sure, sympathetic activists sympathize with both causes – the fight against hunger and the fight for peace. However, the reason war and hunger are linked is not just that these two movements happen to be motivated by similar sympathy. There is also an inherent link that conflates both war and hunger into an irreducibly complex problem. Although in the abstract these two problems – war and hunger – may seem like separate humanitarian issues, in practice they are just opposite sides of the same two-faced monster.

In our world, almost no social issue can be studied without understanding the context of social stratification. Both war and hunger are no exception.

The international community is an unofficial federation of oligarchies – meaning that most (if not all) of the wealth and power is in the hands of a few. Factually speaking, a few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the worlds poorest 2.5 billion people [1]. While the 200 richest people in the world have over $1 trillion [2], half the world – nearly three billion people – live on less than two dollars a day [3]. Financial statistics such as these just scratch the surface, as the value of paper money is just a social construct. The actual issue is the underlying social system that systemically keeps the power and wealth in the hands of the few. Of course, this oligarchy is enforced by the strong arm of the law – i.e. war.

The tiny minority of people who have the power make the choices regarding war. It’s not surprising that the leaders – the rich and powerful few – choose to go to war, because war makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. For example, the oil war in Iraq cost the average U.S. taxpayer over $2,300 dollars [4], but Big Oil keeps announcing record-breaking profits. (Dick Cheneys partner-in-crime, Halliburton, is rolling in dough.) Unfortunately, that creates a mutually causal relationship: The few are given the power to send the people to war through oligarchic social stratification; And, war further stratifies the social classes.

As if the devastation of war wasn’t enough, social stratification also causes poverty & hunger. The world has enough resources to feed, clothe, house, and employ the entire world. The problem isn’t caused by a lack of resources, but rather by social inequality – the powerful few using war to hoard the wealth, so they can plate their bathtubs gold while children die of starvation.

Of course, war makes the poor poorer in many ways. It’s the working-class – who struggle to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families – that pay for the war, both financially and with their lives. For example, while thousands of United States working-class soldiers have died in Iraq and tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousand) Iraqi civilians died in the Iraqi war, the Bush twins happily swipe their credit-cards in an upscale retail mall.

The victims of war aren’t only abroad. Rather, war makes victims of the taxpayers. Despite the prevalence of hunger, poverty and debt, the leaders have no qualms about taxing (i.e. stealing) the working and lower classes to fund their wars. The U.S. spends $420 billion a year on “defense” [5]; And, that’s NOT including the cost of actual wars, such as the Iraq war which cost well over $300 billion (so far) [6]! (That $300 billion could have fully funded anti-hunger efforts for 12 years!) Thus, when adding in other countries, the world spends well over $1 trillion on “defense” every year. Instead of helping the masses, those taxes are spent to hurt the masses, increase poverty, and increase hunger.

See, the rich leaders don’t care about the working-classes. When these leaders get money (by stealing it from the working-class through taxation), they use it violently, carelessly, and selfishly, which causes harm to the working and lower class. In contrast, when the working-class gets to keep their own money, they spend it in ways that benefit their communities. For example, unlike when rich people steal money through taxation, a working-class person may have opened up a school in a poor neighborhood, or a bank that sells home-loans to local young couples. Working-class people benefit from peace, and thus the hungry benefit from peace. It’s the rich who benefit from war – at the expense of the working classes and lower classes.

As Immortal Technique said, “We act like we share in the spoils of war that they do. We die in wars; we don’t get the contracts to make money off ‘em afterwards! We don’t get weapons contracts… We don’t get cheap labor for our companies…We are cheap labor! Turn off the news and read.” [7]

The expenses on the working-class and lower-class people are horrid; from both the bombs that violently blow people into pieces, to the starvation that tortures people to death.

It seems no one is cold-hearted enough to say that hunger isn’t a huge problem. However, it seems some people may think that war is a necessary evil. These people don’t make sense, because hunger and war come together, and both fuel each other. Justice and peace don’t come at the barrel of a gun. And, as long as the people keep letting their leaders waste their money on wars and “defense”, hunger will still plague the earth.

I always say justice and peace in that order, because justice precedes peace. There will never be peace without first justice. Similarly, I always say freedom before justice. There will never be peace so long as children starve.

In the same way that both hunger and war have the same causes, they both have the same solutions. For example, education is a method to lift entire communities out of poverty. Indeed, there is a direct correlation between education and quality of life. In the same respect, wouldn’t education reduce violence and war? If student loans and quality schools were available to all children – regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, nationality, geographical location, sexual preference, and etcetera – can anyone really suggest that war would ensue? Of course not.

Unfortunately as newint.org points out, less than one percent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen [8]. Perhaps, George Carlin was right when he said that the true owners of this world don’t want an educated populace.

There are many activist organizations working under the name Food Not Bombs. Despite the commendable work of these activists, all the leaders of the world give the people is bombs, not food, not education, not solutions. Our leaders do not care because the hunger and war that plague this world do not plague them.

For those of us that do care, we must remember to attack both hunger and war as one large overarching problem. We must take a radical (meaning literally at the root) observation. Henry David Thoreau once said: For every thousand hacking at the branches of evil, only one is hacking at the root.

Let us find the root of this irreducibly complex problem – both hunger and poverty. Radically speaking, let us rid the world of both poverty and violence, of both hunger and war.

About The Author: Scott Hughes owns and operates Millions Of Mouths – a website dedicated to ending hunger. Read more articles like this at the hunger and poverty blog on MillionsOfMouths.com:
http://millionsofmouths.com/blog/nfblog/

Sources:

[1] panos.org.uk

[2] Human Development Report 2000, p. 82 at hdr.undp.org

[3] povertymap.net

[4] nationalpriorities.org , answers.yahoo.com

[5] http://borgenproject.org/Defense_Spending.html

[6] http://costofwar.com/index-world-hunger.html

[7] From the afterword of the song The 4th Branch

[8] http://www.newint.org/issue287/keynote.html