The USA pushed for twenty-five years to get this war against Russia, but now with America deep into a decline as a superpower, the war and climate change is breaking the backs of America’s people, especially its children.
“Let’s be clear. The most important economic and political issues facing this country are the extraordinary levels of income and wealth inequality, the rapidly growing concentration of ownership, the long-term decline of the American middle class and the evolution of this country into oligarchy,” wrote US politician Bernie Sanders in the Guardian on 2 September 2022.
“During this terrible pandemic, when thousands of essential workers died doing their jobs, some 700 billionaires in America became nearly $2 trillion dollars richer.
“Today, while the working class falls further behind, multibillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are off taking joyrides on rocket ships to outer space, buying $500m super-yachts and living in mansions with 25 bathrooms”, adds Sanders.
America has “…the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any developed nation on Earth and millions of kids, disproportionately Black and brown, face food insecurity,” wrote Senator Sanders.
With American households suffering food insecurity, was this a good time to start a war with Rusia? Is this a disaster distraction?
“The combination of the West failing to act during Russia’s financial crisis and ignoring their strongly-held views on NATO expansion, reinforced a prevailing Russian belief that we didn’t take them seriously,” former Secretary of Defense and Stanford University Professor William J. Perry wrote Monday in a featured article of Outrider.
David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said mid-summer that after the economic crash of 2007-09, riots and other unrest erupted in 48 countries around the world as commodity prices and inflation rose.
This could be much worse, says the UN agency man.
“The economic factors we have today are much worse than those we saw 15 yers ago,” he said, adding that if the crisis was not addressed, it would result in “famine, destabilization of nations and mass migration”.
“We see riots in Sri Lanka and protests in Tunisia, Pakistan and Peru, and we’ve had destabilization take place in places like Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad,” said Beasley. “This is only a sign of things to come.”
“Indeed, many in the West saw Russia only as the loser of the Cold War, not worthy of our respect.”
“There is no excuse for this absurd war,” says Katie Alsop, executive director of The RINJ Foundation.
“Why now, following a pandemic and massive global climate change crisis? For twenty-five years America has pushed the limits in weapons-spending. Each American taxpayer has a share in enough weapons such that every American could destroy a huge piece of the planet if they had control over what they have bought and paid for,” the global women’s rights activist added.
“Millions of American children suffer poverty, the worst numbers among developed nations around the world, dirty is water coming from their taps—if they have them—and a monstrous bill awaits at the grocery store and gas pumps for families,” she added during an interview.
“America’s sagging infrastructure is failing but there’s enough weapons to supply the dwindling Ukrainian population with arms to fight Russia in the proxy war the USA/NATO started,” she said.
DOD Goodwill Ambassadors bring food to other countries.
Part of the USA defense budget goes towards providing food and community services in countries America needs to befriend for strategic reasons.
The picture and its story. 2 September 2022—US Marines, Goodwill Ambassadors, do much appreciated charity work in Singapore Soup Kitchen.
Top Left: U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeremy Blythe, the chaplain of 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, exchanges gifts with Tony Tay the founder of Willing Hearts, in Singapore, Sept. 2, 2022. Willing Hearts is a charity organization that distributes over 11,000 meals to 70 Locations Island wide. The 31st MEU is operating aboard ships of Amphibious Assault Ship USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group in the 7th fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Christopher R. Lape)
Bottom Left: U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Mitchel Kehoe, a civil affairs specialist with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, cuts chicken for soup during a volunteer event in Singapore, Sept. 2, 2022. Marines with the 31st MEU volunteered at Willing Hearts a charity, organization that hosts a soup kitchen. The 31st MEU is operating aboard ships of Amphibious Assault Ship USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group in the 7th fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Christopher R. Lape)
Right side: U.S. Marines with 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, and Willing Hearts volunteers, stacks and organizes boxes of food onto a trolley during a volunteer event in Singapore, Sept. 2, 2022. Marines volunteered at Willing Hearts, a charity organization that runs a soup kitchen. The 31st MEU is operating aboard ships of Amphibious Assault Ship USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group in the 7th fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Christopher R. Lape)
A report (2009) has shown that a record high of 15 percent of Americans are having dificulty putting food on the table. This number shot up to 17 million households in 2019 the government reported, and in 2021 as the pandemic continued to wail on US families, that number is nearer 20% of American households by estimates. Meanwhile a large percentage, perhaps one in ten households are not just food-insecure, these American families have no food at all to eat on many days of the week.
America and NATO waited 25 years for this war. Could they not have waited longer?
“Many have pointed to the expansion of NATO in the mid-1990s [doubling its membership eastward,] as a critical provocation. At the time, I opposed that expansion, in part for fear of the effect on Russian-U.S. relations. But the larger issue was not just NATO expansion but what it represented: a general failure by Western governments to respect the vital importance of this nuclear power to the world order.”
“Before NATO expansion, our two nations were on track toward developing a relationship that could have resulted in a true global partnership. When I was Secretary of Defense in the early and mid-90s, I had a cooperative and cordial rapport with the Russian Minister of Defense, Pavel Grachev. We both made a concerted effort to build on this emerging relationship,” Secretary Perry wrote.
“Millions are at risk in South Sudan as Ukraine war slashes foreign aid to the country,” says David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
“It has been a long time without food,” the woman told CBS News correspondent Debora Patta. “I last ate two weeks ago.” Credit: Screen capture from Live CBS News Video
Photo Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine