World Hunger and Poverty

I have posted a lot lately about the apparent recession of the United States economy because it relates so much to poverty. However, today I want to post something more optimistic and inspiring. So I will post one of my favorite quotes. I hope it influences us all in our attempts to alleviate poverty and make the world a better place for all. The quote has been attributed to an unknown monk (circa 1600 A.D.). Check it out:

“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 the 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 have indeed changed the world.”

If you have any inspirational quotes of your own, please post them in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

Today, the shower in my house will no longer turn off. While waiting for it to get fixed (by the landlord or a plumber), we turned off the water in the house, which seems more desirable than leaving the water running all day. Anyway, not having running water is very unpleasant, so it made me think of the 1 billion in the world who do not even have access to clean drinking water–a thought which I decided to share with you all now.

On a different note, I wish you all a great Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

You may want to check out the post I made for last year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Why Do The Good Die Young?

Also, you can check out this other post I made about King: King’s Dream for an End to Poverty Goes Unfulfilled

Finally, let me leave you with a few Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.”

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”

“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

“Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”

“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America ‘you are too arrogant, and if you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I’m God. Men will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore.’ I don’t know about you, I ain’t going to study war anymore.”

“…there is no separate black path to power and fulfillment that does not intersect white paths, and there is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share that power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity We are bound together in a single garment of destiny.”

“We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. … And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It is a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.”

“It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.”

“Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Please discuss Martin Luther King Jr. in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and all viewpoints are welcome.

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” – Indira Gandhi

“The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth, there will
be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known.
Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world
on the day of that great revolution.” – Federico Garcia Lorca, Spanish poet and dramatist, 1889-1936

On June 13, 1942, in his “Four Freedoms” radio address, Franklin D. Roosevelt read a prayer that included:

“Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today that our children and our children’s children may be proud of the name of man.”

At his 1961 inaugural address, John F. Kennedy stated:

“To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required…”

1977, the National Academy of Sciences’ Study on Food and Nutrition, involving some 1,500 scientists, made this statement:

“If there is the political will in this country and abroad… It should be possible to overcome the worst aspects of widespread hunger and malnutrition within one generation.”

1980, the Presidential Commission On World Hunger concluded that:

“Each major cause of hunger could be averted or overcome if the human community were to act cooperatively and decisively.

“Conversely, the persistence of hunger reflects a lack of sufficient political will to eliminate its causes. If decisions and actions well within the capability of nations and people working together were implemented, it would be possible to eliminate the worst aspects of hunger and malnutrition by the year 2000.”

1980, the Brandt Commission, in a two-year study involving representatives of 17 rich and poor countries, concluded:

“Mankind has never before had such ample technical and financial resources for coping with hunger and poverty. The immense task can be tackled once the necessary collective will is mobilized. What is necessary can be done, and must be done.”

Recently issued Unicef report states:

“By the year 2000 the number of infant deaths in low-income countries could be reduced to 50 per 1,000 or less…. [this] goal is realistic in the sense that the principal obstacle standing in the way of [its] realization is the absence of the will and commitment to achieve [it].

The conservative American organization, the Heritage Foundation, has written:

“Hunger is man’s oldest enemy. There is now the scientific knowledge and the institutional arrangement that makes it possible to overcome hunger, not only within the United States but throughout the world. This can be done within the lifetime of people now living, if there is the political will to do so.”

1981, 52 Nobel laureates issued “The Manifesto Against Hunger.” They said:

“We must refute the false idea of reality that accepts as inevitable what is in fact a result of present politics; in other words, of organized chaos.

“Each and every one of us must support measures to save the living.

“If only people are told what is happening, then the world’s dark future, which now seems to threaten everyone ln it, may be changed.

“But only if we take action.

“Now is the time to act, now is the time to create, now is the time for us to live in a way that will give life to others.”

From: http://www.thp.org