Internation Effort on Global IMRs

[minto grubb]

I found this community via internet friends, and would like to raise the question of global IMRs.
Let me explain what an IMR is;
Sweden is a country where something like 6 babies in every 1,000 will die before they are a year old. In the UK, where I live, its about 12 per 1000. Its called the Infant Mortality Rate. in some countries it can be as high as 200- that means that one in five children in that country will die within 12 months of birth.
It is noted by experts that the IMR in a country can fluctuate, sometimes wildly, but any country that has gone below 50 never returns to previous levels. This is because getting that low requires certain things to happen. You don't get IMR 50 without infrastructure, proper sanitation and welfare programmes.
Let me repeat- IMR 50 is a watershed. Once a country achieves it, there has never been a return to previous conditions.
We in the West do an awful lot to keep poor countries poor. we control the markets that developing countries try to use to sell their produce. we dump our surplus on them and kill any hope for their local economy. we even sell the arms that prop up the military dictatorships that oppress them.
I just want to say that it is high time that those of us who live in the Western Democraciesstarted to use our ballot papers and our shopping baskets to redress the balance.
We should be supporting Fair Trade, not Free Trade. We should consider the global implications of what we buy.
A long time ago, someone told me the exact figure of what it would cost to give everyone on earth a decent standard of living- clean water to drink, sanitation, healthcare and education- things that most of us take for granted. the igure ran to Billions of US dollars.An astronomical amount. the speaker then said " It sounds a lot, but it is less than the UK spends on chocolate in a year. Its about what Europe spends on alcoholin a month, and it matches what the USA spends on armaments In a day"....
You tend to remember things when they are put to you like that.
My point is that Homeland Security is not going to be achieved by Military means alone. If we (and I include my own government here) stopped supporting the military juntas around the world, and supported democratic movements like those in Burma, if we got the worlds poorest people out of poverty, if we gave the women of the world an equal chance in life, it would not just be America, but the whole world that would be a safer place.