I got interested in the matter of starvation today. I wondered if people still starve to death, and maybe everyone already knew they did, but I didn't know for sure if it was an old problem or an ongoing one. I met a guy who works with food banks in the U.S. a couple of days ago and talked with him and asked him what he thought the situation was like here in the States. Then, for various reasons, I became interested in whether people are still actually dying because they don't have food to eat. They are. I found several current links which I'll post here.
Can't sleep tonight and hanging out with a housemate, so we started talking about world hunger and then I wanted to make a spot for this on my blog. I'd like to expand on this and write something that hits home and makes it more easy for Americans to grasp. Sometimes the problem is so big it's hard to imagine or relate to. I think now is probably as good a time as any for U.S. citizens, including myself, to gain empathy.
What first comes to my mind is waste. How much food is wasted that could be put to use. We recycle a lot of things but just throw food into the trash.
This quote is totally out of place for now, but I found it and love it for free speech more than starvation reasons:
The bourgeoisie's weapon is starvation. If as a writer or artist you run counter to their narrow notions they simplyand silently withdraw your means of subsistence. I sometimes wonder how many people of talent are executed in this way every year.
-Stevenson, Robert Louis
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14032 (on current hunger crisis)
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/07/thank_a_warmist_for_third_worl.html (confidential report leaked re. the idea that increase in biofuels is responsible for higher cost of food)
www.unitedkingdomnews.net/story/515672 (on food waste)
http://oneworldhunger.org/ (1 in 4 children in Afghanistan die before age 5)
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3 comments:
It happens EVERYDAY - even in America; probably in your home town. It's a world-wide pandemic problem. To combat this, some families (e.g. in India) actually sell thier daughters as slave laborers or force them to work in brothels as early as age
11. My plan if I can't get a job as a lawyer next year, is to go to India and work with an NGO and provide legal services to women and girls so they know their rights, and help them attain work skills so they can afford to feed their families, thus saving them from inevitable plight of starvation and the propegation of exploitation.
Now, most people don't have the luxury of going to exotic countries to help, however, volunteering at a local soup kitchen, is a huge contribution!!
Hey, thanks so much for writing this. It's true. I don't think about it happening in the U.S. though, at all.
Thanks to you, too, for your ability to educate yourself and then put your talent to good use. We need a lot of people like you. I wish I could remember the name of this one group...I met a rep at the bookstore Hastings when I was first in Wenatchee and he was part of some special committee in D.C. that specifically follows human trafficking. It's a huge and growing problem. I took his name and number and lost it (I need to get my s--- together and get a real planner and enter stuff into a database or something).
You may already be an organized person, but you'll probably run into a lot of people you'll be able to network with on this issue or your goals, so don't make my mistake and take cards and numbers and forget about them and leave them in the bottom of the purse or wallet.
Feel free to keep me updated on any news and what happens. What kind of law do you want to go into? I wonder if you could do both and travel a little bit. Make some money here and then take it to India for legal work there as well.
I'm really into civil rights education too. Sometimes, people are so down and working so hard they don't have time to think about their rights, or feel inspired, or find loopholes to navigate any system until they might get ahead of it and use it to their advantage until some changes can be made.
I hope to meet a lot more people like you. If you're in Wenatchee, you'll have to let me know.
If I can figure out the name of that committee, I'll make another comment post here with the info.
I am not sure which committee that guy was on. It was a few years ago, I think before I was pregnant, that I met the guy. He flew to D.C. all the time. At any rate, if you type in "committee on human trafficking, washington d.c." you'll pull up some organizations.
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