The always-present gap between Haves/Have-nots.. lately accelerating in the direction of larger and larger disparity in who has the wealth/$/power of the world.

Most everyone knows many numbers - wherein the US uses 25% of this, 20% of that - of all the stuff there is. We're ~5% by number. Add-in the rest of the rich nations -- and divide up the remaining amount: down to the folks who subsist (!..) on US 50\ufffd/day.

*Many* of us spend $25,000 for a car! vs using camel- cow- dung for fuel to heat rice with occasional protein as garnish. Waste and Excess for its own sake, is what we represent at the #1 position.. whereas in Vietnam today: many cooking pots in daily use are made from our discarded ammo-boxes, other similar detritus.

Root-cause? I wonder if we've ever been further from - wanting to assess the prospects for the world / our role in that, in any truthful way. We would have to be willing to alter some of our habits, to even begin to plot some course away from the present consumption habits and the theology-wars.

And even these are not really about any God: they are about Having/Not-having the means for a decent life, not an extravagant one. The God-stuff is merely the habit of centuries: an excuse to kill for vengeance of forgotten ancestors - because you lack the honesty and guts to say:

I want a little of what *You* have too-much of, in exchange for *My* not making your life hell in the ways which (even.. I) *Can*.

Is it any more complex an unfaced root-issue than that?


Ashton

for all the posturing and Jingoism rampant everywhere - I'd look for that simpler one. It might just be the variation ~ when you possess enough force to not need to* reign in unrestrained greed for It All, you get Billy n'Bally as your local model of Success and: Machiavelli incarnate.

* because no one Else can force you to.

I do realize that, none of the stuff in these forums is likely to have any effect at all on the 3% who, via Corporate overall organization: determine our fate, next.

But occasionally, words have indeed those famous consequences. If we live in a milieu where daily slogans substitute for anything like earnest solitary thinking.. then Slogans can work as much for sanity as for conserving the status quo, their usual function.

Maybe somewhere out in the soup, are some Slogans coalescing.. as counters to the current US direction of Ashcroftian Fundamentalist doggerel + massive nuclear firepower = the forming of the US Empire Worldwide (via Space, it seems).

I hope that is the case, but the momentum is growing for 'conserving' 20th century rationalization: the century of the most hideous wars yet.




Good luck to us all,

Ashton
I've lived ~ long enough, but most here: haven't. You'll have to work to keep the chance, as always.

Seems there is to be something of a 'summmit' regarding the increasingly stark plight of (much of the world but esp. Africa) - about money, AIDS, etc. UN Gen. Sec, Bush and many others to attend.

(He tactfully omitted the US's non-payment of dues to the UN, BTW)

Annann spoke of creating occasions for face-to-face with businessmen of the world, of the emergent? 'standard' of IIRC "0.7% of GNP of the rich nations" - a number which reflects the "all in it together" (I paraphrase) fact of the effects upon everyone.. if many more billions --> head further down the toilet into chaos and blind rage.

It seemed that Murican businessmen were quite sparse (or nonexistant?) on that list - but both of them mentioned and praised Bill Gates' recent massive donation re childrens' medicine.. [even I have to *gulp* over that conscience-transplant.. which seems to have taken? How Nice if I have been wrong-wrong, and he has matured actually..!]

It wasn't a recitation of a list.. but, seems that several Euro countries are meeting this arb.'tithe' - the US is not even close (I think he refrained from mentioning exactly how un-close). It may be <1/10th of that. Have to hear more about this planned conference and its agenda..

Believe one factoid was, "2 billions earn <$1 USD/day"; x-hundred millions of [women natch] must walk increasingly long distances - even to get barely potable water. Noone can afford drug costs - not only re AIDS. Some figures given on the AIDS toll in Africa [1][2]

He made the case of (even mere) self interest of the wealthy nations - demanding much more than lip service and (I inferred: often later delayed or diluted) .. aid to arrest a trend which is gathering momentum downward.

He also spoke candidly of the requirement to create means of preventing the hijacking of funds.. in the usual Swiss-bank manner. (Can't recall if a plan or a Wish) -- recovery of some of the funds already in these havens for the rich and also unconscionable. Dunno if there is a plan afoot for some 'worldwide' actions on behalf of the people whose wealth was stolen in the (?) (My thought: however difficult.. about time.)

Despite Rose's occasional prodding, Annann refrained from dissing the US - didn't even mention the Fundamentalist/Ashcrofian recent withholding of family planning = even birth control funds worldwide, along with much else we regularly promise - then fail to deliver (like our UN dues). I note that this last action - has long been a Far-Right aim: to force all beneficiaries of 'aid' to join Right theology or - drown.

Rose and Annann both referred to "this wall" prior to 9/11 - between the rich nations and the majority of world's population living on a fraction of that standard. And the arguments about ~"why it is not charity but enlightened self-interest" for us all to finally act towards some efficient upgrading (my words not theirs) - were cogent and some seemed positively wise (to me).

Possibly 9/11 shall prove to have had some beneficent effects, in time and despite the horrors and subsequent local rewriting of the Constitution.. yeah, maybe we'll get lucky and then again...



Ashton

[1] Jon Carroll - prolly the widest-read SF Chronicle columnist since Herb Caen died.. had a few wry comments on the Bush determination to fund 'abstinence-only' as a substitute for sex education. YAN theological intrusion into US policy, with the obvious criticisms of defunding the other marginally effective approaches. He mentioned the 3 million AIDS deaths in sub-Saharan Africa by example:

The Giants drew about 3M to Pac Bell Park last year. Imagine slaughteing everyone in the stadium; stacking bodies in Union Square. Now do this for an 81 game season. The bodies will be higher than the buildings surrounding the Square. Etc.

[2] From 2/21 Chron: Sen Jesse Helms (!) Article was headed, Helms apologizes for not joining AIDS fight sooner.

"I have been too lax too long in doing something really significant about AIDS", Helms told hundred of Christian AIDS activists gathered for a conference in Washington. "I'm not going to lay it aside on my agenda for the remaining months I have" in office.

What more can one say?