Has anything been done about this? For these people???

Hi Simpac

I know how frustrating it is to realize that these things happen. I still find it difficult to even comprehend because I live in Denmark, where we take everything for granted.

I hope I'm not writing too much about things you already know. Since I don't know you I have to dig deep. Also others might find it interesting, even though you find it boring.

Here we go :)

I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but there is no such thing as rights. Rights are only thoughts of how things should be. To have a right doesn't help you. It is a dangerous illusion. Instead, what helps people is actual ACTION and tangible solutions. We have to make the rights/thoughts become reality instead of talking about it.

It is a very good question. We have had a lot of improvement in technology, so why can't we provide such a basic thing as food to all people? It surely can't be that difficult, when we have so much in the Western world that we actually destroy some of the crops to keep the prices high. And there you have a small clue.. "to keep the prices up".

Well, you see, the answer lies in history and how the world economy is structured. An economy is everything related to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.

6000-10000 years ago (I don't know the exact estimation, but it's around that time: long ago :P), we went from being hunters and gatherers to farmers. This is called the agricultural revolution.
As hunters and gatherers we all lived in tribes of about 70 people. In these tribes everyone would share the food because that was necessary to keep everyone alive. During evolution humans has learned through culture to share, because it was only the tribes that shared and took care of each other that survived. At the same time, they could be some of the most hostile and aggressive people you can imagine, but only towards people of other tribes. This was because they were fighting for the same resources, since there wasn't enough for all.

But now we became farmers and organized ourselves in cities. During the course of time, people started coming up with inventions and innovative new ideas. This was because the cities provided and abundance of food, so that some people didn't have to spend all day working in the fields. Some people had time to think. So they invented a lot of stuff and some of the most influential things were algebra and writing. Ill get back to that.

Since people now organized in cities with large populations some people took advantage of our age old tendency to follow/look up to/obey the leader(s) of our tribe. Just like you see Alfa males in a lot of mammal species. In some ancient civilizations these people claimed to be messengers of god or even gods themselves. The simple reason they did this, was to have a better standard of living. No hard work, plenty of women and all the food they could eat.

In the beginning people traded things by barter. That is an egg for a bowl of corn for instance.
With the invention of algebra and writing, trading could develop unlimited because it was now possible to do accounting. Later money was invented to make it even easier to trade.
Years went by and merchantilism grew very big. In the meanwhile some people had learned how to earn money simply by lending money out (watch "Money as debt"), this is what we today call banking. They could earn interest on their loans. A lot of people spoke against this and in some religions it was totally forbidden to earn money this way. However the temptations of earning easy money was too great and bankers kept accumulating money this way. And consequently, the more they got, the more they could reap interests from, and hence they found themselves in a business of exponential growth.

So how is all of this relevant to your question?

Well you see, we are still in this ancient system of trade and competition. It is, and always has been, a system where you get more money, power and sex the more you egoistic and corrupt you are.

Also, the more you own, the more money you make. Through time the wealthiest families in the world have accumulated more than 80% of what is obtainable. They live luxurious lives that you couldn't dream of and the only thing they have to do is make sure that the current system of trade never stops. They have secured this by buying the media corporations and thereby controlling the information flow to a large degree. This way they can make people believe what they want them to believe. For instance that there is a big threat of evil fundamental Muslims who only want to kill Americans. Of course there is angry Muslims. There is also angry Venezuelans, Indonesians, Danes, Ethiopians, Colombians, Bolivians, Englishmen, Norwegians etc.. They are not mad at the ordinary American though. They are mad about how the American government has been overthrowing democratically elected leaders through 60 years now. They feel resentment for all the bombing occupation that has been going on for many years. All of this in order for international corporations to exploit the resources and people to earn a lot of money. Because money is what everyone needs to get anything they want in this system.

The bottom line is that we have a system of competition and "every man for himself". This creates the incentive for corruption, war (big business), lying, secrecy and so on.
You can't make money by taking care of people, therefore you will always have big problems in this system.

There is only one real solution, that is seeing all of us as one big tribe. One big family of life on earth and whose only enemy is problems that affect humans and our environment.
If we want to take care of our planet and thereby ourselves we need to declare the earth as common heritage of all the worlds people. We have the technology and resources to provide for all people, the only thing holding us down is the current system and the ignorance of most people.

If you want to learn more about why we need to abandon this current system of trade and competition and how we can actually accomplish this, please check out The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project.

peace and love
Jeppe