A World Hunger Wake-Up Call!!!

We have, not just the right, but a duty to correct our country and our world whenever it is going in the wrong direction.

The United States, and many rich nations of the world with her, is going in the wrong direction and the majority of the people of these countries don't know it. As it should be obvious to those of us to spend any amount of time on the internet, the world is becoming a lot smaller due to the fact that we can all communicate. Every country is the world is dependent and connected with the rest of the world. Now it is possible to talk to people from countries very far from our own through the internet. We can find out about the cultures of the world and they can find out about us and what do they find?

The countries in the north hemisphere generally make about 30 times the money of what the people in the southern hemisphere make. As a loyal capitalist, you may say that the poor have earned their poverty by not working as hard as the rich and that they should not be rewarded by handouts because of their laziness. However, most people in South America work at their jobs for the time that they are teenagers to the time that they die, never getting ahead and, in some cases, actually falling behind financially. A large portion of the population of the world is actually starving to death!!! Why? Because multinational corporations own the natural resources of the poorer countries and, even though at least the government in these countries should be rich from their resources, the profits from these natural resources actually goes to the multinational corporations and to the people who invest in their stock here in the US and in some other rich countries. Is this fair to the people of these countries who are starving to death? Is this moral or even humane?

There are probably more rights to this and rights to that here in the US than there are rights in most of the world and yet we so freely take away the rights of the peoples of other poorer countries. Would we not frown upon a rich man going and taking the few dollars that a poor man has, thereby causing him to starve to death? So why then, do we stand by and allow our country to be a part of the raping of the natural resources of the world? Certainly the people of the United States and of other rich countries are generous and kind people. We are not bad people. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the majority of the people in the countries that are robbing the poor do not know about what their country is doing or do not understand the ramifications of what's going on.

Most people know that there are starving children in Africa. That is what our parents tell us when we try to waste the food that we didn't like as children and that is what we see so many times in the commercials that say that we can support and hungry child and so on. What the people don't know is that our country has contributed to the starvation and suffering of those poor children that we see on TV. More than 1/3 of the world has a calorie intake that is less than what is recommended. In other words, they are starving. Some may say that there is not enough food for everyone, but this is not the case either. See, the richer people are buying up all the food and getting fat on it. We demand beef and chicken and other meats when it takes 12.5 pounds of grain protein to produce one pound of beef protein. Our registered cats and dogs in the US alone consume more food than ALL of the people in South America COMBINED!!! The grain that we use in beer in the US alone could feed 80 million people on a regular basis!!! 15% of the fertilizer of the world is used in the US for the beautification of our yards alone!!! In other words, we use 15% of the fertilizer that could be used to help grow food in other countries on our lawn!!!

Now you may say, but wait, we are a rich country, but we give a lot of foreign aid. We give 0.017% of what we make as a nation to foreign aid while Saudi Arabia gives 10% of what they make. What is more, we only give aid to countries that are our friends. We basically pay for favors that they can give us. We give to rich countries, not the poor ones. We give to Israel, Spain, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Are these strictly poor countries? What about Africa, India, Haiti and South America just to name a few countries and regions that could really use some foreign aid?

Others may say that we may use some of the natural resources of other countries, but argue that we produce a lot of food and export it. The reverse is actually true. We are actually the 3rd leading importer of food in the world. 2/3 of our imports of food come from the poorest countries in the world. We import over 40% of the international trade in beef. We import 1/3 of the world's trade in fish and seafood. We use up a large portion of the natural resources of the entire world!

While we are an extremely rich country, we fail to use our resources well. It is no secret that the US has a large amount of the latest weapons, as do most of the richer countries in the world. There is actually enough explosive material in the world for each individual person on earth could own the equivalent of 30 tons of TNT and yet there are people who are starving to death...

Think about this for a while. While you have been reading this post, people have probably died of starvation while you and I sit around in our houses full of the latest advances of science and technology. Can we, in good faith as fellow human beings, sit by and let people die of starvation without so much as protesting this travesty of justice? Think long and hard about this because, in end, we are all human beings on this planet called earth no matter where we live or what we believe and we should unite together for the betterment of humanity. United we stand, divided we fall.

Stay tuned for some possible solutions to this global problem and others. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I can only pray that this information has touched you like it touched me.

- All facts and figures from my Non-Western World class from my teacher, Jamal Nassar.