The Right To Food
By Steve Hynd Wednesday Dec 24, 2008 5:00pm
Via my Newshoggers colleague Anderson comes this:
By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. (See Annex III.)
The Bush administration, speaking for the U.S.A., therefore must consider it tolerable that 6 million children die every day - children who could be fed if we weren't wasting billions on stealth fighters, littoral combat boondoggles and non-effective defense against non-existant ballistic missiles from Iran.
Just so you get that, here it is again:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Against: United States.
Merry Christmas to the World from Dubya and his chums - who are currently geeing up the notion that an increase in defense spending (say, to 4% of GDP) would be a great economic stimulus package! Actually, it wouldn't - defense spending "drains resources from the productive economy" and costs more jobs in other sectors than it creates.
How much better an economic stimulus - both for America and the world - it would be to mobilize American might for good instead of destruction, Dubya and his fellow travellers remain silent upon.
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America's days are ending, even our lenders say we are near insolvency and they are floating discussions of debt forgiveness (like 3rd world countries sometimes receive)
We will need every bit of food production we can manage here in the US.
Yeah, you'd better run out and hoard all you can. People are in danger of slimming down to a healthy weight. It might put your $20 billion diet industry out of business.
I find it disturbing that children here are starving.. It is not the job of the US to feed the world.. We do send f__loads fo food abroad.. Which is why I have to pay $3.00 for bread..Also, It's smart to feed countries that are intent on our destruction.. Let's send weapons too..
May these bastards rot in the hell that their disgusting base claims to believe in.
While we're at it, there's a few other statements we can add, just to get ahead on our new year's resolutions.
Our government also overwhelmingly supports:
- kicking kittens
- raping car accident victims in body casts
- stabbing terrier puppies with letter openers (unsharpened)
- shaking newborns until they get brain damage
- laughing at old women who break their hip slipping on ice
- protecting child molesters (oh crap, we already did that)
- inserting razor blades in random pieces of candy
- poisoning cat and dog food (crap, did that one too)
That's amazing. The Bush Crime Family would make Hitler proud.
If it wasn't for the workings of the Bush crime family, via Prescott, Hitler and Nazi Germany might have had a harder time rearming.
Kennedy might still be alive too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnkdfFAqsHA&fe...
JFK's "secret society" speech was about Communism. The speech had nothing to do with any bogeymen that conspiracy theorists like to trot out.
The Hitler Project
this might be too much for some here, but you seem capable of handling this kind of information...
by virtue of the US domination of the world economic model over the last, say 50 years since the end of WW2, the lives lost unnecessarily have been about 180 million per decade. At roughly 6 decades past that event, it is over 1 billion lives lost as a result of the exploitative nature of US led capitalism. Not to mention the wars that the US has entered into, 3 million Vietnam...and the others...to the present Iraqi conflict of roughly 1.5 million Iraqi deaths...
and how many did Germany kill in direct action in comparison to our method of exploitation and neglect?
Germany was amateurish compared to what we've done.
"Germany" from the early 30's on was ruled by Hitler & his minions, financed and provided propaganda by the American Fascists who got rich playing both sides against each other and establishing the Anglo-American Military Industrial Complex as a by-product of the War.
It's been the American Fascists running the show from at least the mid-30's on.
We've all been taught the US won WW2, defeating Fascism. But in fact it was the American Fascists who won WW2.
This is a big problem. The US, all by itself, has food issues. Our own emergency food supply for the nation is practically nonexistent. It obviously doesn't seem to be important.
in the GW Bush Legacy wall of shame!
they don't want there to be surpluses. When the next engineered crisis hits, the scarcity of food - and those who control it - will be able to extort anything they want from the masses for a days meal for themselves, or their family.
a hungry man, is a controlled man.
The complete blasé attitude of the power elite towards the impending crises is either the result of unbelievable folly, or exactly what you say, part of a plan to control dwindling resources for use as political capital later. Which possibility is more destructive remains to be seen.
...does this mean I can write off all my food expenses on my income tax return?
Do I have a right to house myself too?
Clothing?
Medical Care?
If you lived in France you'd have a right to housing.
The French mobilized & won that right from their government last year.
But reflect, how are "Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness" possible without food, clothing, shelter, education & health care?
And aren't these the "unalienable rights" of all - Americans & non-Americans alike?
Or shall we tear up our Declaration of Independence and live like slaves?
here is something else to reflect on...
Halliburton hires truckdrivers from the U.S. (err...they moved operations to Dubai recently but....)
They feed the drivers, clothe them and house them, ...and get to write it all off as business expenses...
make one wonder why we couldnt write off all those things ourselves on our own income tax returns huh?
I guess the best we can do is move to N.J. where there is no sales tax on food...
Because it's also considered a basic necessity of life. New York suspends the clothing sales tax only 1 or 2 days a year.
Obviously the Bush administration is in favor of "Personal Responsibility" to the point of treating life like an "Every man for himself" situation. They have no empathy or compassion for anyone, not the average American and certainly not poverty stricken foreigners who starve. A lack of empathy is the hallmark of the psychopath. We are being led by the insane.
But you must be careful what you say.
I was not allowed to post on here for a while for saying; republican=insanity!
But facts are facts and if you look at the things these reichwingers do you can come to no other conclusion!
These people are whacked out greedy fascists. I heard one of them call in to the Ed Shultz show the other day and his opinion like many other reichwingers I have heard say. He got everything he has on his own, no one helped him.
You see he didn't get public education? He didn't use the street and roads? He didn't use the bridges, or any electricity or drink any water? He didn't live where there is a fire department, or police protection? He didn't eat inspected meat and other food products? He never took any perscription drugs approved by the FDA?
The next point he makes is that he will never be like those people that can't make their mortgage payments. Why? Because he has skills! God damn he is the only fucking person in the world that has skills?
How stupid can you get?
He like every other CONservative I ever met never bothers to think about what will happen if he get injured and is unable to apply his skill? What then?
The narrowness of the CONservative thought process is astounding. But when you understand that it starts with greed and selfishness coupled with a lack of Ruth! You get the GOP of today. All the problems this particular brand of insanity has brought to the world since the days of the Roman Empire to now. Greedy and ruthless people without vision will always do for themselves without concern for anyone else. The day he cares for someone other than himself he will no longer be a republican.
There is a difference between what you just said though and making a simple blanket statement such as "republican=insanity" because not all republicans are insane. Religious or political so called "conservatives" of nearly every stripe have a tendency for compartmentalized thinking. They hold and speak about beliefs that are not necessarily expressed in their everyday lives. This isn't just hypocrisy it's an expression of unreevaluated and unrealistic ideologies which long ago have proved not to work but are maintained anyway. As we move through our lives it is always good to take stock of what one believes to be true and evaluate them based upon current information and who one is at a given point in their life. People who use compartmentalized thinking do not do this. For whatever reason they insist upon keeping these ideas even in the face of absolute and overwhelming evidence or opposition. And when confronted with irrefutable evidence about these ideas "The Backfire effect" often takes place where the person holds on even more tightly to the ideas that have been compartmentalized. This is likely happening with many people in the Bush administration.
?
never have to say "sorry."
Various US governments (both Dem and Rep) have been on the wrong side of numerous UN treaties, agreements, and basic human rights agreements. Doesn't seem to matter what party is in power, they always think everything could blowback on them. It's really sad. Shows just what reality they live in.
Not that surprising giving the U.S.'s voting record in the U.N.
if six million children died a day from starvation, over 2.1 billion children would die from starvation, something I seriously doubt.
6 million children die each YEAR of starvation related illnesses, not each day.
http://www.michigandaily.com/content/un-repor...
That's still over 16,000 children per day.
And 684 children per hour.
and about 11 children every minute.
I think this was just a typo, they probably meant to type year and put day instead.
ya, its a major inaccuracy and one they should fix.
A more reliable estimate is 35,000 children a day, or about 13 million per year. Between 100-150,000 people die of starvation every day.
is that we shouldn't be sticking our noses in, trying to change conditions in other parts of the worl . . . OOPS! Never mind!!
This is just abysmal. Sometimes, I really hate this country. But it does make me feel good for donating anything and everything I can to those who are homeless and needy. Wish I knew how to send things to Africa though...
I can't say I agree with the sentiment. In a few years, when unsustainable water usage takes its toll on the world's agriculture, these treaties will all seem laughable. It's pretty easy to agree with these kinds of resolutions when you're not one of the very few remaining net exporters of food left. It's your moral righteousness, but someone else's responsibility. But, the problem of meeting basic human needs isn't even about growing enough food, it's about prolonged religious civil wars. When the rest of the world stands up together and condemns religion, I will be duly impressed. But these kinds of resolutions are pretty much pathetic.
Whoops. Never mind!
What exactly do we mean by being able to grow enough food for 12 billion people? Is that taking into account the decimated jungles of South America, dust bowls of Asia, desertification of Africa, and depleting groundwater of North America? I would say that we can't grow enough food for 6 billion in a responsible manner, much less 12. There are just much bigger problems for humanity than a relatively small amount of starving kids. As a whole, the world's poverty levels have been trending downwards, not up. We better worry about making it sustainable before we go after the Utopian visions.
The bush administration hasn't killed enough "brown" non-xtian people in the Middle East and Western Asia, I guess. Now they want to expand their murderous actions to other countries, by promoting the starvation of other "brown" people in food-poor countries around the world.
Used to be that the US had a reputation as a caring country, who shared some of its wealth with those less fortunate around the world. Not any more.
Unbelievable! Every other country supported the initiative, save 2 who abstained (Israel for obvious reasons [American tool] and Canada [Stephen Harper = bush lite]). Simply unbelievable.
These Fools believed the could create a new Roman Empire, complete with slaves. Instead they hastened the decline and fall of the USA. In the last 40 days of their Rule, this administration are exceeding their previous felonies and crimes.
Yes we have been wittness to and victims of the biggest heist in the history of the world! The last eight years was a planned robbery, Planned by the neocons with the aid of the religious right abortion crowd.
In the past 50 years the CONservative movement neocons have been busy with their lobbying/bribery efforts in all parts of our government, Have been buying up and getting control of all the media, tv,radio,print, they own it all.
They controlled the message for the not so curious, the people that get their new from TV and radio.
They did a good job of keeping all important items off the TV and radio and the front pages of the paper. All the important things were burried in the back of the paper.
They even put out false stories on a regular basis and are still doing that trying to start thing or cover up other things.
They have hidden all this from people that wanted to believe.
The bankers, haliburton and the oils companies, the companies making weapons, (a very small group of people in comparison to the number of people that have been killed, wounded, displaced, or in other ways injured)have done very well very well indeed! At everyone else's expense!
I think people are begining to wake up to the fact that when bush came into office we were looking at a three trillion dollar surpluse in our government. Money that could have been used to pay off the national debt and therefore not have the interest payments as well as the debt pilling up. Now we have according to David Walker, the presidents appointee, we now have a 12 trillion dollar debt! That means bush and the republicans have burned through 15 trillion dollars in less then 8 years!
Now we have the economic melt down, they caused! and they blame you! For not working cheap enough for them to make even more money! They blame you for wanting clean air and water without paying them for it.
No matter what happens it will always be your fault because you are not smart enough to have as much money as they do.
It all comes back to the same thing everytime greed and selfishness is what it takes to be a good republican!
Greed and selfishness is the root cause of most of America's problems, and therefore the Earth's problems. Conservatives talk all the time of people being responsible for their own quality of life. They believe if your poor then it is your own fault. Conservatives are more than OK with declining wages for working Americans, the lack of affordable housing, and the poisoning of the environment. They are more then OK with it, it's what they desire.
A man, woman, or family can work hard being employed full time and still live in poverty here in America. The working poor are being used by the corporations, and the wealthy so those with so much already can have more. It's more than senseless that people can work their whole lives and still never be able to afford to buy a home, and that the people they work for can be millionaire. It's more than senseless, it's an obscenity, and it's criminal. For many Americans they can't even afford their rent along with their other basic needs. This is the America, and the world that conservatives want.
Life for the working poor here in America is not my only concern. I'm also concerned for all of my brothers, and sisters who live in poverty. We may have different mothers, and fathers, they are still my brothers and sisters. Our struggles unite us as a family. For myself, and for my brothers and sisters here in America we have a responsibility to make our voices heard not only for ourselves, but also for our brothers and sisters worldwide.
The Bush administrations vote against the Right to Food is criminal. George Bush for all of his claims to know God, doesn't know God at all.
Neglect and genocide are entirley different things....but anyway, 6 million a day? I don't think so....
It is silly that we voted against it. Or so says my nine year old. From the mouths of babes.
to give credit to the Bush administration for standing on principle to the very end. Completely shitty,morally bankrupt principles it is true but when your mind is as small as the still-president consistency is all you have to hold on to.
there is hope, the all powerful Bush must have been so embarrassed he had the UN website and all public records of the food resolution scrubbed
thanks for picking up on it [end sarcasm]
btw, as has been oft repeated ... USA has 5% of world's population, uses 25% of worlds energy
the rest of the #s ... US produces 25% of the world's goods, 57% of the world's grain (we feed the world, if the UN doesn't sell the shipment to some other dictator for oil or guns before it reaches the hungry people)
It was a stupid, feel-good, vague resolution anyway.
The world declares all have rights to food, so what happens when those "rights" (which leads to more of a philosophical argument) are abridged? Or neglected?
Enter the Right to Air?
This is EXACTLY what conservatives stand for. "You're on your own, even when your and your children's lives are at stake. Even when you're dying like flies."
Is John Bolton still the UN ambassador?
The United States has become alienated from the entire world thanks to the Bush regime -- voting FOR starvation is what this is!
...at this point, the only atonement they could make would be to volunteer to become SOYLENT GREEN.
So what was the Bush crony's rationale for voting against this motion? I'm sure there is some pseudo, cyptic legal argument that he/she used to appear like the US was forced to vote against something that would benefit humanity.
but not the U.S.? This is the sadest time in our nation's history.
People who think that it's good to go around feeding everybody should read Malthus first.
I mean, it is only natural for some one who grew up wealthy in the British Empire, never missing a meal to say who else should not get food.
Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834)
Yeah, let's run the planet, in 2009, like it's still the British Empire. Good thinking. I mean it's not like agriculture has been modernized, has it?
(it double posted-- see below)
It's probably becuase the Israelies want to starve Gaza till they're on their knees. They have vowed to break Hamas. If people had a right to food, the Palestinians could go to the UN. That's how these guys think.
American foreign policy and American interests are all that matter. That's been made crystal clear time and time again.
No one has mentioned that many African countries (for example) could feed themselves, but the farm subsidies, and tariff policies of rich nations have bankrupted their farming sector. If they could export to Europe and N. America, for profit, they'd be able to expand agriculture, and take care of their own. As it is, they've haven't the money for seeds and a stable water supply/irrigation. Meanwhile, we destroy food to keep prices stable (high).
No one has mentioned Monsanto. Google it, for their many crimes.
It is not just the Bush administration. Despite Roosevelt’s inclusion of economic rights in his ‘Four Freedoms’ speech in 1941, the US government has been very consistent on its stand against any economic and social rights since Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the drafting committee for the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. In 1996, for example, under the Clinton administration, the US delegation at the Habitat 2 conference voted against the inclusion of housing rights in the final document. They have taken the same stance against for quite some time and they are usually listed with the likes of Somalia or other such human rights-defending nations in the votes against column. The US and Somalia have been the only nations voting against the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Why has this been such a consistent stance?
First there is that ever-present fear of ‘socialism/communism’ on the part of many Americans. This gets consistently reflected in US policy from Truman on down to the present whether Democrat or Republican. Look at the embargo against Cuba.
Second, American delegations to the UN have always put forward the argument that if the US were to agree to any economic or social rights it would put the government on the hook to provide them and failure to do so would result in lawsuits by citizens against the government for its failure to provide housing, health care, food, education. Can’t have that.
Third, neo-liberal economic policies, expressed by the privatization of all social services, have been all the rage since Thatcher and Reagan. The notion of the ‘ownership’ society did not change under the Clinton administration, nor did the policies of the WTO, IMF and the World Bank, organizations that have been shoving this economic ideology down the throats of borrowing nations for longer than I care to remember.
Monsanto announced it will give away free licenses to use its patented technology for so-called "golden rice" and other genetically engineered rice varieties that advocates say could save millions of Third World children.
The St. Louis biotechnology company made the announcement Thursday at a symposium in Chennai, India. It means the company will not exercise its patent rights if another researcher develops the rice.
Along with the new licensing plan, Monsanto said Thursday it will release its rice genomic sequence database on a new Web site.
"We want to minimize the time and expenditure that might be associated with obtaining licenses needed to bring golden rice to farmers and the people in dire need of this vitamin in developing countries," Monsanto Chief Executive Hendrik Vefaillie said.
Golden rice, which is enriched with vitamin A that could save malnourished children from blindness or death, was developed by scientists in Switzerland and Germany...
Yeah, that Monsanto. Real bastards, they are.
OK, they did something nice. Good for them. It's about time. Look at their track record, not one news release!!
They've been under heavy fire from many of the world's leaders/planners of late. Not for no good reason!
Bear in mind that these engineered rice strains often displace traditional crops and take them over. Also many of these engineered crops are engineered to not reseed and so have to be bought from Monsanto new every year - you might think that giving away drugs is a kind thing for a dealer to do, but the dealer has a real motive - in the long run, after people are hooked, they have no choice but to buy the stuff. This is what I think is happening here. In a few years the countries that accept this "aid" will be told that now, if they want it, they have to pay. And by then, their traditional strains of rice will be mostly gone. Talk about cutting into a new captive market! Maybe I'm wrong, I sure hope I am.
No. I think you're right. That's Monsanto in a nutshell.
Crops that do re-seed themselves, often see these seeds being transported by natural means to other fields. If Monsanto finds even one (Monsanto-engineered) stalk growing in another field, where the owner didn't pay for Monsanto seed, they take the poor unsuspecting farmer to court for theft. Yes, like some poor Indian farmer with a family rice paddy, and a seed blew into his field, or it came through a bird dropping.
Bush legacy gives new meaning to republican greediness. It is shameful and disgusting to vote for starvation but the GOP always stands up for idiocy and retarded thought and deed. Real Christianity starving children--keep it Bushies!
There's a special place in hell for Bush and his cronies...
And if Ole Scratch himself should find them too revolting to be around, than perhaps they shall stay earthbound with no chance at personal peace...
Grim thought, but I can't help it!
I hope that Shrub and his Nazi family are proud of themselves. "Call him drunken Georgie Bush, he's an old men's bathroom whore, he's been on the floor in Congress and his asshole's getting sore..."
And women and men should have the right to acquire birth control without the intervention of a doctor, religious fanatic priest, or any darned one else, to keep from making babies who will later die of starvation.
The Bush administration doesn't like that one, either.
Are the wrightists breeding babies for tender meat, or for pedophile pleasures?
I hope that Shrub and his Nazi family are proud of themselves. "Call him drunken Georgie Bush, he's an old men's bathroom whore, he's been on the floor in Congress and his asshole's getting sore..."
And women and men should have the right to acquire birth control without the intervention of a doctor, religious fanatic priest, or any darned one else, to keep from making babies who will later die of starvation.
The Bush administration doesn't like that one, either.
Are the wrightists breeding babies for tender meat, or for pedophile pleasures?
If not, as Americans, then you must agree with the Bush administration's expression of pure, unadulterated evil.
You own this.
It's your responsibility; waiting for Obama to make everything all better just won't cut it.
The U.S. is, currently, the most evil regime in the world; this vote proves it. So my question is:
What are you, who claim to disagree with Bush, GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
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