Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
Inspired by the Kony 2012 video, I’ve decided WE need to do something about an even greater children’s tragedy that’s unfolding right now. That’s the one not in Uganda, but in the United States.
It’s time to save the kids of America. Millions of American children in the grip of a pandemic of poverty and poor health.
According to UNICEF, more than 20% of American children live in households with incomes less than half of the median, the highest number in the industrialised world. According to a US report, 17 million American children are living in households without enough food to eat.
More than 10% of American children have less than 10 books in the house, the third lowest in the OECD. The United States also has the third-lowest number of late teens in education. This situation looks like it will get worse: Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have both promised to cut education funding and the Tea Party wants to end federal education funding altogether, because the Founding Fathers didn’t explicitly refer to it. The goal, apparently, is to return the US to the education levels it achieved in 1787.
And, tragically, the mortality of children under five is higher in the US than in countries like Serbia, UAE, Cuba and Belarus. For African-American children it is much worse — they are twice as likely to die before they are 20 as white children. UNICEF shows the US has the highest number of overweight teens in the industrialised world, at 25%. It has the second highest number of deaths of children from accident and injuries, and the highest number of teen births.
The United States is one of the most dangerous places in the industrialised world to be a child.
But there are other threats to kids in the United States. Sinister religious groups brainwash children.
Others, supported by the US government itself, try to turn children into soldiers. There’s even a truly sinister religious group that urges “revolution” and threatens to “fight … in the most remote corners of the world” using young people lured into its clutches by slick YouTube videos.
And hundreds of thousands of kids are taught bizarre ideas such as “intelligent design” that equip them poorly to function in the 21st century. Disturbing religious propaganda fills the public airwaves …
We need armed intervention in the United States, to send in military advisers and help authorities there round up those guilty of these crimes: the politicians who won’t spend on health and education; the food companies and media giants who play a role in the unhealthy lifestyles of American kids, the evangelical churchmen who brainwash kids, the people who give children semi-automatic weapons.
We need to send this intervention force into America immediately. Children are suffering.
How can YOU help?
First, “like” this story on Facebook. Facebook is a vast privacy-destroying monster that will stop at nothing to accumulate information about you to sell to marketers. Liking an article will install software enabling it to track you better, strengthening Facebook’s revenues and thus the American economy.
Second, retweet this story. Retweeting shows that you care enough about the kids of America to move your cursor over to a word and click on it.
Third, buy a wristband. It will be made in China. But China is America’s biggest creditor, so what’s good for China is good for America. Put it with your other wristbands. Ignore the cynical criticisms of “wristband fatigue”.
Most of all, reject the allegations of “slacktivism” and “clicktivism”. Just knowing about the terrible condition of children in America automatically helps, no matter where you are in the world.
And added to this, we get comment from presidential hopefuls like Mitt, who say “I’ll make the American military so powerful, no one will dare opposes us” From memory, America spends 29% of its GNP on its military, an amount which corresponds to the addition of the next 23 odd countries. That is, you need to combine the 2nd-23rd ranked countries budgets to get the same amount. Disgraceful.
In the past, when such inequality was evident, it was time to lop of the kings head and have a revolution. My question is, with the constant bombarded/ownership of MSM, is a revolution even possible in today’s political climate? The 0.01 percenter’s are more then willing to murder children to make a buck, and sadly, I cannot see anything but a violent revolution as the answer, but hope I am wrong.
Very clever article. Thanks.
Mind you, as much as I smiled and chuckled (and at times felt a bit sad) all through it, there are places in the world where kids are stolen from villages and put into child armies; there are places where young girls are sold into the sex trade by desperate families; there are places where whole villages, and areas of countries fall victim to famine and mass starvation; there are places where one doctor services 10,000 people and there is no health care subsidies of any sort there ….
There really is a very big difference.
That does not deny the problems of the US, and the pathetic attitude many of them have towards the poor and the relatively poor, in their own land – but at the same time, there is the reality of “degrees of severity” that needs to be added to the mix.
And the Muppets! You forgot the Muppets, Bernard! The heroes in this “war” against ignorance. The wristbands could be Cookie Monster blue(TM), Kermit the Frog green(TM), or Big Bird yellow(TM). You get a choice in this free market economy, after all.
Seriously, though, it is shocking how easily distracted we are from humanitarian crises in our own backyard. After all, it’s much, much worse when brown people in foreign countries are the ones who are enacting those crimes.
This whole Koni affair is not only hypocritical as Bernard so aptly points out but is also very suspect given that that area of Africa has sizable reserves of oil on it. Makes one think that Koni is nothing but an excuse to invade and appropriate.
I don’t thin Australians can take too much of the high moral ground on this issues. Take look at our aboriginal communities.