[Dialogue] Democratic volunteerism

[Karl Hess]

I quoted this from memory and it is more like 250/hour.  Sorry.  I 
got the number this way.  I've never seen any serious effort to 
quantify it.  It just is too horrible to contemplate.

The UN estimates 20,000 deaths from hunger per day.  About half of 
these are in Africa and most are children.  That comes to 500/hr from 
hunger.  Assuming no deaths from US trade policy in South Asia, I 
estimate that half of all deaths of children from hunger in Africa 
are from US trade policy.

There are several policies which make major 'contributions' - debt 
and other WB/IMF policies are the major ones.  I can expand on this 
if anyone would like, probably off the list. (see www.jubileeusa.org) 
Most poor countries have enormous debt due to careless loans and 
support for dictators from the 70's and 80's.  Since they have not 
been able to pay interest, the principal conntinues to mount.  The US 
Treasury insists on maintaining the status quo and although other 
countries are willing to eliminate the debt they are not going to if 
the US doesn't do its share.  These debt payments are in most of 
these countries more than they spend for education or health care. 
Those
countries where the debt has been reduced - Uganda particularly - 
have increased school attendance and health care substantially.


Then there are agricultural subsidies.  Rich landowners in MS, for 
esxample, get subsidies so that they can sell cotton at prices so low 
that poor farmers all over the world cannot make a living.  When a 
fammily is existing on $1/day, it doesn't take much of a cut in 
income to devastate them.  There are lots of crops like this.

Then there is AIDS policy, etc, etc.

But even if I'm off 50%, and it is OHLY 125 children dying every hour 
from the policies of our government, who is going to defend that?

Like I said, this election is life and death.

Karl

>On 8/1/04 5:44 PM, "Karl Hess" <khess at apk.net> wrote:
>
>>  For example, as far as I can calculate, the US trade policy kills
>>  about 500 kids in Africa per hour.  Some of us are horrified by that.
>
>The question about the focus of this list and now Karl's posting above,
>suggests to me a very, very important function of this list that is closely
>aligned with my values.
>
>If we sight sources for information like '500 kids per hour,' and if we link
>our political commentary to value declarations and faith statements, we'll
>simultaneously ground and deepen a conversation that sometimes does stay
>just ten feet off the planet and sometimes does reduce history to politics.
>
>David
>
>
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