Progressive Wednesday

This Wednesday: “One Love — We Get to Share It”

The facts and only the cold hard facts:

1. According to the United Nations, “about 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes.”
2. 36.9 million Americans live in poverty, and that’s more than the population of California. 13 million of those Americans are children, and that’s more than the populations of New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New Mexico combined.
3. A study conducted by Tufts University indicates that “mild under-nutrition experienced by young children … may lead to reductions in physical growth and affect brain development.”

So let’s do something from the relatively wealthy comfort of our computers.

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• Watch
• Quiz
• Click

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Watch:

Below you’ll find a video of Bono, the front man for the band of bands, U2. In case you weren’t aware, this Nobel Peace Prize nominee (2003, 2005, 2006) has dedicated a huge chunk of his life battling poverty throughout the world. A large portion of his efforts has to do with eradicating so-called “third world” debt, and the organization he founded with Bobby Shriver, DATA, recently joined forces with 10 other groups to form the ONE Campaign, whose motto is “The Campaign to Make Poverty History.” ONE, we ought to mention, is a grassroots organization partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

So we’ve found a video of Bono speaking about AIDS, poverty, and other pandemic diseases at the 2008 World Economic Forum. We find his words, though at times critical of the Western world, ultimately inspiring, as they were the impetus behind this week’s Wednesday. We hope you have a similar reaction to his words of innocence and experience.

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Quiz:

Okay, I’ve got to say it: this is the weirdest way to combat poverty that I’ve ever seen, but it’s fascinating and effective nonetheless.

Here’s how the site works: you take a vocabulary quiz, and for each correct answer you give, “20 grains of rice” are donated to poor people through the United Nations World Food Program. You might be thinking: “20 grains of rice? Seriously guys? That’s it?” Well, consider this, buckaroo: in the four months of Free Rice’s existence, “the site’s creator has given over $250,000 to the [World Food Program].” Keep this in mind, as well: that’s one billion grains of rice. And this sucker is a non-profit raising money through advertising.

So, the benefit here is twofold: you increase your vocabulary, which can only help you at work, or help you land a job, or help you ace the SAT or GRE; you donate food without doing much more than exercising your brain. (Just click the logo above to start playing this game that helps save lives.)

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Click:

Okay, people. This one's easy as a fried egg given one spatula flip. All you've got to do is give two clicks. First, click this sentence to be taken to the Hunger Site (you can read more about this organization here). Then click the button that reads “Click Here to Give — it’s FREE!– on that page. There – ” you've just help feed those suffering in poverty you generous little devil you. According to the site, over the past seven years “more than 300 million visitors have given more than 500 million cups of staple food.–

This website is run by the good folks over at Charity USA, a for-profit organization that funds health care, animal, literacy, and ecological reform through advertising. If you purchase gear, you can help raise even more of the green. We’ve previously written about the Rainforest Site, Breast Cancer Site, and Literacy Site, and trust us when we say that we’ve researched the hell out of this, vetted it more than a Vice Presidential candidate, and it's completely legit.

It’s so much more than money, but it’s money, too.

3,927 American soldiers have died serving us during Operation Iraqi Freedom (also known as the illegal occupation of Iraq). 477 American soldiers have died serving us during Operation Enduring Freedom (also know as the War in Afghanistan). This is a greater loss than anything that can be calculated in dollars and cents. This is a loss that devastates entire towns, devastates small families in the most urban and most rural patches of America, devastates husbands, wives, children met and those, even more tragically, never met.

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the current national debt is $9,210,856,011,325.78. So you don’t have to count the digits between commas, let me just tell you that that’s 9 trillion freaking dollars.

Why mention this last statistic? Check this mother out from the Congressional Research Service and Office of Management and Budget Data: In 2007 dollars, the illegal occupation of Iraq and the War in Afghanistan have cost American taxpayers $695.7 billion. How does that compare to other wars fought by this here United States of America? Well, I wouldn’t ask this question without answering it myself, my friends:

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To be perfectly honest, I’ve lost sight of the answer, but I’ll offer this one up: if we come to the United Nations with humility instead of hubris, maybe we can get a peacekeeping force in Iraq. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, if we come to the United Nations with diplomacy instead of despicability, we can get a hand in Afghanistan against the Taliban, since they still hold so much power and influence:

Attacks by the Taliban in Afghanistan surged last year, according to previously unpublished figures from allied military forces fighting insurgents.

Statistics compiled by the multinational International Stabilisation Force in Afghanistan show attacks on international troops and the Afghan government have gone up by between a fifth and a third.

Maybe we can do something. Call your Senators (just click here). Call your Representatives (just click here to get your full 9-digit zip code, then just click here). Demand that we go to the U.N. and ask for the help we require. It makes a difference. It does.

Health Care v. Who Cares?

Last week, after the President’s State of the Union address, there was a photo taken of Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. She is reaching over either to shake his or Ted Kennedy’s hand. He turns away just as the picture is being taken, making it look as though he is rejecting her handshake.

But you know that already. The reason I know that you know that is because you are reading this blog which means that you are probably interested enough in world events that you turned on the tube sometime that week, and regardless of whether you were watching FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, or Nickelodeon (OK, maybe not that one), you saw pundits discussing it, analyzing it, and doing whatever else they could do to it for nearly three days. It was Christmas in January for the media.

If you’re like me, you were more than a little irritated that this got so much press coverage. That 99% of voting-age Americans knew about the “handshake snub,” but hardly any could tell me about the differences in their health care plans, is enough to make me want to throw my 38″, 300-pound television through my window. But instead, I decided to even those numbers out, if only a little bit. So below are the health care plans of Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Take a minute to read them over.

But most importantly, VOTE! And when you do, base your decision on who you think has a better health care plan, who will strengthen America’s middle and lower classes, and who will improve our standing in the world. Don’t make it based on a picture of a handshake.

• Barack Obama’s Health Care Plan
• Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Plan

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This pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole thing.

Back, baby. As in: “We are…”

Hey folks, please allow us to be the first to wish you all a happy Groundhog’s Day! (Note the requisite groundhog photo.) We’re sorry for the long hiatus, but thanks for sticking around and being so patient: it seems like a progressive quality to us. We’d go into all the hullabaloos, brouhahas, and general “schtuff” that’s gone on for the past couple of months, but we’re rather just get back to business.

So welcome back, yo, just in time for our one-year anniversary.

And here’s a note or two on format. Henceforth (man, I’m not sure I’ve ever written the word “henceforth” and now I’ve written it twice), we’ll be featuring posts about progressive news, actions, organizations, photography, and other art Monday through Friday. We’ll take Saturdays off because we like to stay up late on Friday nights, and we’ll take Sunday off because we’ll still be recovering from Friday. As in the past, Wednesdays will still be Wednesdays, and we’ll offer up about a trio of actions each week on one topic or theme.

You might notice that we’re now featuring ads on our site. We hemmed and hawed, but it was a necessary decision in order to keep paying the bills associated with maintaining your favorite site on the Web (it’s world wide, by the way). Please note that we have little control over what kinds of ads will run, and we’ll take a page from the magazine The Nation to explain our position a bit further:

We accept [advertising] not to further the views of The Nation but to help pay the costs of publishing. We start, therefore, with the presumption that we will accept advertising even if the views expressed are repugnant to those of the editors. The only limits are those that grow out of our interest in assuring that the advertising does not impede our use of the editorial columns of The Nation to say what we want.

Blatantly misleading ads, or ads purveying harmful products, will fall into a gray area of discretion, but as a general principle, we assume that our readers will have sufficient knowledge to judge for themselves the merits of commonly known products (such as cigarettes).

(You can read the whole enchalada by clicking this sentence.)

I’m sure there’s something we’re forgetting, but we’ll get to it eventually. In the meantime, enjoy your Saturday, enjoy your Sunday, and meet us back here come Monday. It’s good to be back.

Peace,

Eric and Matt

Picture clicked by this friend of marmots.