Social Inequities

“The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other.
It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural
scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest
of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are
not pitied… but written off as trash.” –John Berger

One human is born every three seconds. Most of course, will die in starvation, disease, and despair. 80% of humanity currently has essentially no housing. Most farm animals in North America live in better housing the most of humanity. One of every three people on the planet earns less than one dollar per day. And 50% - one of every two people on the planet - are currently dying of malnutrition and starvation.

It is interesting to note, that in the richest country in the world - the US - 42% of American children (27,000,000) live in low-income families and another 11,000,000 children live below the poverty line. These numbers have increased dramatically in the last decade. This gives a US child poverty rate that is more than three times that of any other western country. (Source: US census)

Military spending is sufficient to eliminate hunger and most disease worldwide.
Take a look at my calculations here to get an idea of just how much the U.S. and its allies (i.e. subject states) speand on its military.
Military expenditure is more than $100 million every hour or $2.3 billion each day. And it is climbing. Rapidly. The United States (and its main allies) account for almost all of the world’s military spending. U.S. military spending is currently running at roughly $60,000,000 per hour. If the same amount was spent on feeding, educating, and helping others, the need for military spending would be rapidly eliminated. Wars are eliminated by helping others, not by building up an arsenal and then using it to seize the resources of the planet.

Expenditures for United Nations peacekeeping operations from July 2002 to July 2003 equaled roughly $2.6 billion. As of this writing, UN members still owed the organization $1.34 billion for peacekeeping operations. The United States accounted for 45 percent of unpaid dues, or $536 million. (Source: Worldwatch Institute.) The U.S. has allegedly never paid the full amount of what it promised in international treaties to aid others. Britain is a close second in defaulting on aid for other countries (see [Blum(1); Harvey; Parenti(5,3); Chomsky(2,7); Philips; Nash; Negri; UNHCR] for details).

War and occupation are wonderful opportunities for corporations to make billions of dollars in profits,
unchecked by the laws and regulations that hamper their profitability in peacetime. Because of this, in the postmodern global era,
global corporations and the government elites with whom they work have great incentive to sponsor global chaos and the violence it generates.
–Nancy Ries

80 per cent of the world’s population asks: ‘Where’s our share?’

HAVANA (AP) - The leaders of 80 per cent of the Earth’s population called Friday for a New Global Human Order to spread the world’s wealth and power. “One day, humankind will be called to account: how come you never made a connection between growing poverty for the many and booming wealth for a few?” Belize’s Prime Minister Said Musa told a summit in the Cuban capital.

The three-day summit was the first by the Group of 77, which has expanded to 133 countries since its founding in 1964. It saw the group expand from a UN lobbying bloc into a more formal organization meant to negotiate with groups of wealthy countries. Dozens of presidents and prime ministers complained globalization of the world’s economic and information systems has done little but damage their countries, despite great promises.

Draft resolutions called for a shake-up of the world financial system to give developing countries greater say over economic and trade policies, for forgiveness of foreign debts and sharply increased foreign aid. The summit came on the eve of a meeting starting Sunday in Washington of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank: two organizations sharply criticized by many leaders in Havana, who said international financiers force governments to make painful policy changes in exchange for aid.

“They told us these measures would stabilize our economy,” Said told the summit. “Instead, they have stabilized poverty.” The World Bank reported Thursday the global financial crisis of 1997-98 dealt a setback to efforts to relieve poverty. Some 1.2 billion people were forced to survive on less than $1 US a day in 1998, it said. Fifty-seven per cent of the world’s population existed on just six per cent of world income.

If you wonder why this information is under reported or not reported at all -
follow the money. Ask who owns your newsmedia and who decides what you see therein.

Historically, there have been times of much greater compassion and kindness toward others than we see now. It is the opinion of many that humanity took a wrong turn in pre-history - possibly when agrarian patriarchy first became common. We live in a very dark time.