Showing posts with label Famine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Famine. Show all posts

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Day 257: Charity - Celebration of Human Selfishness







When you take a good look into The Business of Charity it's nothing different than any other business, they have a board, advisers and call their Profit 'Surplus'.
They have image advisers and PR departments and carefully choose which picture to use to be able to stir the most disturbing emotions and feelings and will go for it, they are lucky, they can even justify their behavior because they do it for the 'Good of the Less Fortunate', meaning 'anything goes'.
We are tired to watch starving people starve - give us a break- we want to see them well, recovered, plumped up due to our 10 dollars donations so we know we did make a difference and that we can go back to our privileged lives without remorse.

When I was a kid we already had those picture of starving children showed to us by the Catholic missionaries who would come once a year for fundraising, basically 4 decades went by since I was a kid, and children are still starving. We pledged to put an end to Famine by the year 2010 with Live Aid and then we just forgot about it. 
We can't compute Famine in our world as a product of a society we are a part of and as such equally responsible for.

Yet the guilt comes up when we are shown pictures of those whose lives we wouldn't like to exchange ours for, that's how we came up with the idea of Charity, for the small givers charity is their guilt suppressor, the feel good factor that is well worth the few dollars given and for the big donors, thats a completely different ball game, those actually benefit from Charity, not once, twice, they get tax relief and often times they take the money back as the people behind the foundations to whom the money is given  for charity activities.

Then we have the celebrities fund raising for Charity, we shouldn't even talk about them any longer because regardless of what they set out to do, they didn't achieve anything of substance, we could say amazingly so, because they did manage to raise a lot of money and give temporary relief to many people but they were unable to establish a Solution that was long standing or resolutive. Not their fault, it's a system change we require, not a musicians get together to raise money for the poor we ourselves made poor through a system of abuse and exploitation we call Free Market Capitalism and its 'Management' of Resources.

Much of Foreign Aid -as Charity- was used to help dictators who were keeping a system that we the Rich countries approved of, plus many African countries were covered in debt from loans they were forced to take on through some of the most cunning financial operations ever set forth after robbing their resources and land, namely through the World Bank and the IMF
Those are the current Axis of Evil of our World system, you have to work out the truth of these institutions by yourselves but we must do so, because those institutions are systems that we created either by direct participation or by our acceptance and allowance of the way 'things are' and really, they are NOT working in the interest of the majority but of a selected few who always end up winning in this rigged monopoly game.

And last but not least we have to look at the nature of Charity as plainly immoral, we know what we are doing, we named the game as 'giving back' and that it is, charity is giving back what has been stolen in this surreal game of make belief paper money through which we have managed to get power over others, to make our lives more valuable than others because, apparently, the worth of a life is determined by the assets that are owned, we have become defined by our assets, our goods and we don't see anything unusual in this because we were born into it, we were dissuaded from questioning the system since we were children and as such we accepted that some are rich, like some are tall or skinny, it's a genetic quality because it's determined by in which family 'genies' we were born and what kind of magic bottles we were gifted to stroke at will and make 'all our wishes into someone else's commands'.

We don't notice that "giving back" is an activity of those that have deliberately inappropriately taken from the whole just for themselves, to make extra sure we would not question this inappropriateness we created  system upon system in layers to justify the growing gap between rich and poor. 
One of the most successful is religion, as a justification for the caste system we live in.
Religion was a clever decoy system, because it seemed separated from governments and wealth owners, by giving to the Church powers on the invisible and to the governments power over the visible, we have the religious institution as governance of people's minds and what is acceptable and good because it will be one day rewarded with heaven, while they openly enjoy Heaven on Earth through all the assets and goods they pile up as the fee the mortals are required to pay  to have relief from their anguish, anguishes that were systemically created as imperfection, flaws for which a product to buy has been created and through which we buy the illusion to cure the delusions we bought into as we became trapped into this Consumerist system where everything has gone on sale, including the Right to Life.

"The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars." THE VATICAN BILLIONS by Avro Manhattan

Charity is an act of repentance, too little too late, it serves only those that engage in it and make sure the system that is working for the few owners of the world stays in place as it is, if we were passionate about changing the world we would have done so by addressing the root cause of suffering and poverty, which is the unequal distribution of the earth resources that leave some hungry, homeless, jobless, healthcare-less, and with no access to education.

We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, 1932

What is the 10 dollars we give going to change if not the shifting of the perception of ourselves as good human beings and caring individuals, when in fact what we do apparently for others has plenty strings attached, the strings of all the returns we benefit from by giving, be it tax relief, exposure within out philanthropic community -of this we have many examples among those who organize expensive charity events just to give 1/10 of the cost of the event in Charity while gaining good standing within their society and if possible, some business contacts- or just the good feelings we get to access for 'doing good', those are sometime a reward good enough as we bask in the illusion that we are not 'like the others' that we are in fact better, doing something for real, meanwhile we are born and we die leaving behind a world that gets worse by each generation that walks this planet. What's wrong with us?

It is more socially injurious for the millionaire to spend his surplus wealth in charity than in luxury. For by spending it on luxury, he chiefly injures himself and his immediate circle, but by spending it in charity he inflicts a graver injury upon society.
For every act of charity, applied to heal suffering arising from defective arrangements of society, serves to weaken the personal springs of social reform, alike by the 'miraculous' relief it brings to the individual 'case' that is relieved, and by the softening influence it exercises on the hearts and heads of those who witness it.
It substitutes the idea and the desire of individual reform for those of social reform, and so weakens the capacity for collective self-help in society.
J A Hobson, Work and Wealth, 1914


So, let's get off the Charity delusion, Charity is just another self serving tool of a world that has lost its moral compass and that refuses to see that we are coming off the wrong starting point here, we are starting from our accepted idea that some are more entitled than others to Life, just by validating the Birth lottery that placed us in more favorable positions instead of seeing and realizing that by the very fact that we have more privileged lives we have more responsibility to bring about a long lasting change that will prove that we saw the wrongdoing of our separation, that we are willing to rewrite this world in a way that it may work for all and not just for some, even if we happen to be among the some for which this world is working, we must remember it is not at all for over 1/3 of the people that share the planet with us and that they do not need Charity, trying to substitute itself to what our government as the Will of the People should be providing For All Equally as a certainty, a given and not as a benefit that can be taken away at any time and doesn't guarantee that we have in fact recognized the Equal Value of Each Other, and that is what we need to do to end poverty and charity forevermore.

...large-scale philanthropic activity carries with it serious risks of changing the balance of funding from the public to the private sector, thereby exposing those most in need to the vicissitudes of the market. To the extent that private funding of essential services becomes the norm, the vulnerable become the recipients of (at best) uncertain aid, which is liable to fluctuations and constant reduction.
Neil Levy, Against Philanthropy


Stop Charity for good and stand up instead for a Radical World Change that will consider the Equal Right of All to a Life of Dignity and enjoyment, we don't have to live this way, nor should we give as charity what equally and rightfully belongs to all, the World can change with Equal Money and Your Support. Join us.

  
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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Day 251: Malnutrition for Rich and Poor - Problem, Solution, Reward.




I am just starting a course on 'Fundamentals of Human Nutrition' of the Open University program Coursera, offered by the University of Florida.

I have just watched the first 2 modules, but I am struck by what I read so much that I want to write about it to unfold a point about Malnutrition in the Current World.
We have courses about 'Fundamentals of Human Nutrition for Disease prevention', this means we understand that Poor Nutrition is a source of disease whichever way we look at it, we have the Poor Nutrition of the Rich countries, the McDonald's lifestyles and fake processed foods, and we have the Poor Nutrition of the Poor Countries, those that can only dream of McDonald shitty food as an alternative to starvation.
When I was a kid my mum told me how when the Russians entered the concentration camps in Germany and fed the hungry, they had many die of 'indigestion' as they had not calculated that a starving body cannot just be overfed all in one go to make up for the lack, starvation is a process of accumulation of skipped meals in the case of starvation or poor nutritional meals in the case of malnourishment, and cannot be reversed by a Rich Abundant-calories loaded meal, it will have to be walked in small steps to allow the body to become able again to manage all the metabolic functions, from digestion to assimilation through conversion of nutrients into discharge.

What prompted me to write was the point that it mentioned the fact that most nations are writing 'Nutritional Guidelines for their population, something that we suggest be done within a system of support such as Equal Money and has been contested just for the heck of it, just to put our foot down on our 'imaginary right' to what? The Right to Poor Nutrition to prove our "Freedom of Choice'? We are a still a demented spiteful lot so far, it's really time to grow up.

This point of Nutritional Guidelines shows another truth, that we do know that Food is Fundamental at the moment for the well being of human beings, and yet we have no qualms about turning Food into a commodity we play with for Profit or on the stock market, which will lead to some having access to it and some not, increasing the numbers of the ones that do not because making a stock/share profitable means -its value must go up, even if this will result in some who are already struggling to access this Vital resource to no longer be able to do so.


Malnutrition problem

For the Poor
The problem is self evident, having No Access to Food as a Vital resource leads to sure death through suffering. Malnutrition is a breeding ground for diseases, we Know this, so we do know too that leaving some to not be able to access Food means making them sick first until they die of hunger or of some hunger related diseases. The ones born in Man-Made-Poor-Countries live with Hunger as their Staple State, we send Food Aids, just so we don't have to look at the Why some countries are Poor and unable to access Food -or feel guilty and bad about it and own up to our collective responsibility-, reasons that include speculations done in Third World countries for Food Exports -see Plantation of Rich Countries in the Philippines for example or South America- or for speculative land grabbing through which First world countries secure farming lands for themselves to become the ones who decide what is best to cultivate for profit vs the rights of those that should be able to make decisions for themselves and the well being of their community, and here comes the example of turning food crops into bio fuel crops, just for the sake of a Profit Motive.

For the Rich:
the Guidelines for proper nutrition according to principle of Fundamentals of Human Nutrition should 
  1. determine nutritional needs
  2. prevent malnutrition
  3. prevent disease
  4. Inform the public for
If we take each point and dissect it we will see that due to the Economics System that is actually managing the World Systems, none of these things is in fact possible for the following reasons

  1. determine nutritional needs
  2. prevent malnutrition
  3. prevent disease
  • This would mean to establish what the body really needs to function at its best, of course this would throw out 99% of our industrial processed food. Food corporations wouldn't be able to survive if we addressed these 3 points within our processed food Industry, as that is not just mal-nourishment, but much it's bad for the body, we were not designed for the chemicals added in to prolong food shelf life -for commercial purposes-,  or the artificial colorings to make the food more appealing and whatever amount of salt or sugar is required to make the food more tasteful/addictive, they are simply empty if not harmful components of nutrition and this would then lead to Corporations having to adhere to what is in fact supportive for the body and either shut down or reinvent themselves into something that considers human beings not just as the clients/cattle they are aiming to capture for profit, but as living beings that need food for an optimum life experience and not just to fill the pockets of the few who very possibly would never even consider eating what they produce for the, intentionally, kept dumb masses.
    Incidentally in a trial in China this proved to be the fatal point leading to the death penalty of some food manufacturers who had added melamine to infants milk powder but 'for-got' to feed it to their own children, proving that the malpractice was deliberate and the consequences well known.
  1. Inform the public for
  • Nutritional requirements
  • Nutrient Content of Foods

    AH, this is another sticky point at the moment concerning nutrition in 'Rich First World' Countries, the labeling as Information.
  • The Centre for Science in the Public Interest has published a report called 'Food Labeling Chaos' highlighting some of the problems we face with disinformation about Food.
    Can we trust this report? Of course Not, a report that says that the FDA is trying its best to have Corporations align and provide truthful information to allow the public to make well informed choices - and in over 20 years has not 'successfully' managed to do so, must be as fake as the FDA, or maybe not, can we trust anything in this system when the Corporations that own the Food Industries, as in all Industries so far, are the ones funding basically all 'Independent researches' on the very issues that we seek to inform ourselves on to then regulate for the Public Best Interest?
    NO, but this report gives some pointers on what is wrong that won't be corrected until we in fact, change the system to one where all count Equally and can have a real say in regulations that affect the well beings of All

Solution

For the Poor:
The solution to Malnutrition will have to be approached from 2 sides, one will be the side of the Poor countries, to address that specific problem we must no longer accept the existence of Poverty and Famine as 'the way things are'.  Things are this way because we have accepted and allowed the consequences of our abusive collective World Systems to run amok unchecked and create Poverty and Famine in ever increasing numbers.
Poverty is Not Natural, it did not grow on trees, people expropriated from their land for profit didn't 'happen to them' like a natural disaster, someone actually sat down and planned economic/financial moves without considering the outflows of the consequences on All -let's put it this way because saying someone actually sat down, saw very well the consequences, decided that some were not worth anything and were disposable and proceeded at their best speed to implement what was thought out to maximize the wealth of some that are already 'Filthy Rich', would be just too disheartening and since the point is to just seek a solution we can stick to -from where we are - let's skip the finger pointing about whose self interest was 'the biggest an therefore who should have the biggest slice of Blame" - our very same self interest would have led us to the same place had we been 'lucky' enough to be born in their shoes - we were Socially Engineered for the Abuse and Exploitation of Each Other in the Name of a game of Survival, some just did it better, the Excess Capital in their hands allowed for a seat at the exclusive table of players who are designing World Systems to benefit just a few, but they would not have been able to do it without our complacent acceptance and allowance. We are the 99% of what is wrong in the world, the 1% just stands as the pinnacle of Abuse and Exploitation on top of a Mass of Fear-Full, Spineless Humans.
We have to take self responsibility for how this World turned out and stand as a Point of Change, finger pointing has taken us nowhere, violence and revolutions many of which were started when access to Food was denied to many -and we are approaching another of such times, Beware to not stand as part of the problem through believing in what has not worked in the past but to seek solutions that Unite us All for the Common Good to no longer play the Game of the Divided Dis-Empowered.
To solve the Poverty of Man-Made-Poor countries and the resulting Malnutrition once and for All, we have to redesign a system of Resource management that will include All Equally into the Equation of Life support, we are doing that with a new way to look at Capitalism, a way where the Capital of the World becomes Life, Equally shared by All, we don't have to reinvent the wheel, we have to acknowledge the existence of the wheel as the wheel of Life vs the wheel of Fortune we are now using to distribute the bounty of the Earth to just a few.

For the Rich countries.
Interestingly the solution is the same, the Poor starve due to no access to Food, the Rich -by comparison but still system cattle- are malnourished due to poor access to nutritious life-supporting food resulting from manufacturing and processing that is geared for Profit and not considering the priority of supporting Life and the Equal well being of All.
You can rest assured that the 1% is not eating what they manufacture and process for the rest of the World, they are not that dumb, how many obese have you counted among the Elite so  far? They have access to the best, the freshest, the organic, the non GMO that they know in some cases is not good for living beings consumption and this is superfine, because we can take their standard and apply it to All, what they have already found out is the best, most supportive food for the body can become the future guidelines for human nutrition -minus the delicacies that are just eaten to show a status of exceptional wealth and endanger the Animal World or are a source of unnecessary cruelty and Suffering-, we can recycle the ones who never did a day of work but only leeched on the shoulders of those born into an imaginary 'lesser position' into the Food Industry as Advisers, once they'll be eating what everyone will be eating we can be sure no one will be fucking with the World's food supply anymore.
To give to All what is their share of this Planet to benefit from, starting from Food and Nutrition, we need a new system where everyone is accountable and policy making is in the hands of the public, making politicians the executioners of the will of the people within the principle of  Life as Capital vs Money and What is best for All.


Reward

Building a World where everyone is supported to have access to the best possible nutrition is the Reward we will share Equally, there will be no starving people nor malnourished ones on both sides of the Inequality divide.
We will always have access to real reliable information about nutrition to support ourselves and our health, to prevent food related diseases and addictions, because food is one of the foundation of our Health and Health Care is a Human Right that will be given to All, for free.
We won't have to worry about Food anymore, we will be able to stop our underground researches and guessing about Food and Nutrition; once the Profit Motive will be removed from the Food Industry, the Truth of what is good for the Human Body can finally emerge, and on that we can Re-align our system of support, Prevention is the Best Cure, using Food as support to prevent diseases will reward us with a healthier society where many Food related illnesses will be defeated for good and Everyone will benefit from a longer life expectancy to finally enjoy this planet for Real in Equality and Oneness as The One Body of Human -finally-Kind.



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Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Day 232: Capitalism Caste System - Better than the Indian One?


Sisters Savitri and Sarita learn the alphabet together.  They are Musahars, a community of two million known as the Dalits of the Dalits.  The Musahars are a landless people, 99 per cent illiterate and often close to starving.  Their diet has earned them the name of 'rat-eaters'.The Indian press has often highlighted their plight, but they face ridicule and derision from others around them.  In a nearby Musahar community, 'high' caste villagers disrupted our visit and told the Dalits that this photography would be used to mock them.  Bhojpur District, Bihar.


I have watched a documentary that I really enjoyed called "India Untouched".
The first time I read about the Caste system in India, spelling out clearly the limitations of the 'Untouchables' within society. it was in a book by Arundhati Roy called 'The God of Small things, where she told a story of "Bygone India' and how  the 'Untouchables would have had to leave a room walking backward with a broom in their hands to make sure they would brush their footprints clean, least the LandLord would step on them and get 'polluted' by sharing the space with such a lesser being.
In some ways in my Mind I put that image back into the Past, as something that we have overcome.

This is because in our Minds we don't like to admit that there is something very wrong still going on with the world, even less having to admit the fact that is getting worse by the day as that would be a clear sign of our failures and we would have to abandon all ideas and beliefs about our evolutionary process, to come to face with the fact that we have in fact gone no where but deeper into deceiving each other about how well we have -pro-gressed, just because we made our phones smaller and our TVs flatter.

When I went to India over 10 years ago and read the local Newspaper I saw many Marriage ads where the Caste of the one proposing was not only specified but the caste of the one they were looking for was clearly openly indicated, it was not hinted or left for guessing, still I brushed that off as just some people who didn't want to let go of their old tradition, we were over the Caste system, now Untouchability was Illegal based on the New Indian Constitution so what I read was a quirk, not the rule, not the norm.

Watching this documentary shot in 2011 I had to realize what a load of crap I have been telling myself about the Caste system, I don't want to be part of a world divided in Caste, I was born in The World that resolved Apartheid, the separation of Black from Whites, the taboo of interracial or inter-religious marriages and we were the ones that were going to Change the World, we were above such pettiness as we were the children of the Flower Children, we could not be any further from World Injustices by birthright, having been born from people who themselves fought injustices.

In India the caste system is alive and kicking, you can make something 'Illegal' but the point is that the Caste system works for the Rich and Powerful and they have the means to enforce what works for them with the Power of Money, through the Power of fear, by making sure they teach the children their place in the world, passing on to the children their Mental Dis-eases in the form of knowledge, strengthening their arguments with ridiculous, preposterous claims based on books written by 'Gods' who were equally demented if they ever existed, disowning the Constitution for what serves their interest best, while they pretend to be devout to some Higher Power, that gave them The Right to Abuse others in the name of God.


"There are an estimated 170 million Dalits or ‘Untouchables’ in India, despite the fact that the country’s constitution prohibits the formalised discrimination inherent in India’s traditional caste system. Even the British tried in vain to overcome this situation during the Raj.The current Indian government has endeavoured to advance Dalit rights, including giving them quotas for university places. And indeed some Dalits hold high public office or are MPs. Yet the everyday reality of most of their fellows is miserable, even disgusting. One task performed by many is so-called ‘manual scavenging’, whereby Dalit women, usually, have to clean public toilets with their hands, taking away human excrement in baskets on their heads. Dalits are also often the victims of violence. A powerful small exhibition of photographs by Marcus Perkins – which opened this evening in St Paul’s Cathedral, London – documents the suffering of those who have been beaten, abused or had their pitiful homes burned down or who live with leprosy. There is one particularly striking image of a seven-year-old girl, Kamlesh, who received horrendous burns to her right arm and leg when she was pushed into a burning pile of rubbish for daring to walk along a path reserved for higher castes. No wonder some Dalits have rejected Hinduism, which they feel has rejected them, instead turning to Christianity or, more recently, Buddhism." Jonathan Fryer


Unfortunately, when you land back on Earth the reality you face is quite different. No matter what I did to escape reality, one thing we can count on is that reality is going nowhere and it has time and patience to wait for All to Real-Eyes the Truth of this Existence of Abuse, there is nowhere to go, reality sayd' 'you'll come around soon or later, and I will be Here'.

The separation between races has not ended, ever, South Africa is still plagued by the aftermath of years of abuses and has not found successful solutions for integration of all the members of its society, the USA has taken away the 'White Only' signs, but still has a White only policies, a black man is transiting to reinforce the delusion of Change, yet he sits in a WHITE house that has not changed its colour just because he lives there.
Blacks in America are still segregated in projects, in neighborhoods where whites fear to go, they are discriminated through the Education system, in the working force, in the weight they have as political voices, they have the highest chances to go to jail and end their lives in despair.

While the Indian caste system or Slavery are blatantly in-your-face-abusive, we are not doing better. 
We have divided the world in Classes, we'll soon need to add a 4th Class, a 4th World, because as we dump the middle class down, we'll have to squeeze the ones already down lower and the third world won't be enough anymore, we are expanding down, we are progressing in a downward spiral in repression and abuse.

Our Caste system is more devious, more subtle, because we don't have the balls to face our own abuses, we call our sceptre for abuse 'Money' and we move it around, bestowing Power on Some through Money and taking it from Other through Lack and then justify what we do in the name of 'Economy', we write 'Sciences' to prove the whys some have it harder while some pile up disgraceful amounts of Money they'll never need in many lifetimes, to prove why some have to leave a Fear-FULL live of misery, why they have no rights to health care, an education, a Life of Dignity.

We turned Economics into the Jack of All Trades to design Models of Explanations of what is clearly a system of Exploitation, and we expanded it and keep doing so to explain the increasing number of lawless things we set out to do, such as create Imaginary Debt and through it push people out of their homes, out of a chance to access food, water, some security for themselves and their families, we talk about Poverty and Famine as if they were a Natural Disaster, while we hide our hands behind our backs to avoid to see the blood we are all responsible for, for having allowed this system we created to go so far as to delete the Right to Life for All to replace it with The Right to Profit, meanwhile we set up divisive distractions that keep people occupied, battles for which who is in power couldn't care less 'Gay Rights' 'Women Rights' 'Right to religious Freedom - an oxymoron in terms' 'Right to our Free Choice (?)' while we hold on tightly to the Right to exist as Slaves of an Invisible deceitful system we have lost the ability to see, as we shun away from our own deceit and dishonesty as the abdication of our individual self responsibility as those who could do something about it, but do nothing at all.

The Indians were religiously duped, they may not be clear on Whom to blame, they had an interfering God meddling with the businesses of Humans - apparently. the God of Small Things.

The Capitalist Caste System was not created by Gods, we were the ones who let it go so far.
What's our Excuse?

Inform yourself on a New System that will change the World we live in, we created this Caste system as a result of our illusion of Separation, we exist as Separation and Self Interest only in our Minds, so we'll have to overcome our Fears and Limitations, our Self Interest and Greed to move on.

The World belongs Equally to All and we all belong to it, Equally, Cast your Vote for Life vs the Caste System of separation and Abuse.
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