Reply #86: Since September 10, 2001..... [View All]

[Zan_of_Texas]

How many people died in the terrorist attacks in this country?

Under 3000

How many people STARVED in this country?

over 3000 EACH YEAR!

most of them were elderly

--WHO statistics -- latest year (1995: over 3300, 1997: over 3600)

So, should we spend umpti-billion dollars a year to fight terrorism, and lose our elderly to malnutrition? About 10,000 since 9-11?

Shall we read their names, one by one? Shall we wave flags, and stand over their graves?

Why don't we have a damn "war" against people starving?

Ask Boeing, or Northrup, or Raytheon. Because war is profitable. Highly profitable. Feeding people is less so.

We're spending our money, our kids, our global good will on weapons and Heil Bush. Not on things people need. Food. Start with food. A decent wage. Then people can buy stuff. Like plywood.

Parade Magazine -- not known for its leftist tendencies -- even noticed.

April 27, 2003 -- Parade Magazine "Won't You Help Feed Them?"

"In 2001, according to the US Dept of Agriculture, 33.6 million Americans were "food insecure," the government's term for people who sometimes are foced to skip meals or to survive on a diet not nutritious enough to keep a child healthy. Of those Americans, 13 million were children...

...The nation's nutritional safety net is being stretched beyond the breaking point. In 2002, the US Conference of Mayors reported that demand for emergency food had increased in every city surveyed. And more than half of those cities reported that shortages have forced them to reduce the amount of food they provide to each needy family.

The most severe surge in child hunger is striking rural Western states. Oregon leads the nation, with 22% of its children facing food insecurity last year. "From here it feels like we're seeing the beginning of our generation's Great Depression," says Rachel Bristol, executive director of the Oregon Food Bank, a sprawling complex suplying 800 emergency food outlets. "Every day we hear from families that had good jobs last year now living in cars and motels, trying to patch together enough part-time work to feed their children."

Boston Medical Center's Grow Clinic for Children director, Dr. Deborah Frank
"If you're wondering which refugee camps these little guys came out of, most of them live just down the street," Dr. Frank says. She explains that these childen exhibit such problems as decreased attention spans, delayed language development, impaired motor skills and recurring infections. "In the medical mecca of the world, in one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world," she points out, "we running this program like a mission in Africa." "We have the resources, but we don't have the political will to make the most helpless Americans our priority. Our failure to do that is being written on the bodies of children." -- Dr. Frank