Monday, February 27, 2023

DATELINE POVERTY: “…. Neither predestined nor Unconquerable….”

Wisdom met with Demonization:
USA Violence Abroad is USA Violence against America

“Through (China's) continuous efforts, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents in China had all been lifted out of poverty. 

“All 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages had been removed from the poverty list by the end of 2020.” Reporting by Xie Jiang, Zheng Xin, Chen Yongrong, Cheng Jing, Zhang Yiyi, Guo Xiaoyu, Zhao Yang and Wu Qiong; Video editor: Yang Zhixiang, Xinhuanet reports in 2021 “How China has lifted nearly 800 million people out of poverty”Xinhua| Editor: huaxia, April 6, 2021 http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-04/06/c_139862741.htm
“China’s experience in poverty alleviation indicates that courage, vision, sense of responsibility, and the eagerness to take on challenges are the most essential.”

 

Poverty USA (no data taken during pandemic)


The United States of America comprises five percent of the world population; takes in 20 percent of the world’s total income; and in its population of 331,449,281 (2020), 11.4 percent (2020 data) languish in poverty, and more than 580,466 people are homeless.

USA Facts, “American poverty in three charts,” USA Facts published January 21 ([dated January 26), 2022, https://usafacts.org/articles/american-poverty-in-three-charts/; United States Census Population April 1, 2020: 331,449,281, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221

Drugged USA
Drugs of Choice

Eight categories of drugs are most commonly used in the United States, according to the U.S. National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics (NCDAS): alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, fentanyl, opioids (mainly referring to psychotropic substances under control), prescription stimulants, methamphetamine, and heroin.

Percentage of Americans under influence of Drugs (Reported)
  • Cannabis and prescription stimulants: 40 percent
  • Opioids and methamphetamine: 36 percent
  • Prescription stimulants: 31 percent
  • Heroin: 15 percent
  • Cocaine: 10 percent
2021 Findings
Substance abusers (including alcohol and tobacco): 165 million.
  • Drug use among the Young 31.9 million (ages 12-plus of 280 million)
  • 11.7 percent illegal substance users
  • 2020 Americans overall: 19.4 percent “consumed illicit drugs” or “misused prescription drugs”


USA Betrayer at Home, Violent Aggressor Abroad


USA against Afghanistan

When U.S. officials ordered the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan, after some 20 years (in contemporary times not including Cold War US-mujahedeen era), the U.S. compounded the years’ long injury by freezing this war-weary country’s “assets worth more than 9 billion U.S. dollars.” The U.S. pattern used against many nations of the world is known as “sanctions,” another act of aggression.

The sanctions have caused price hikes and poverty;” worsened the “already-broken economy of cash strapped Afghanistan;” and having reduced the people to poverty and broken their institutions by war and conflict, the sanctions have also blocked free flow of needed “humanitarian aid to …this ravaged country.” GLOBALink “U.S. sanctions add to Afghans’ pain, poverty during freezing winter,” Source: Xinhua Editor: huaxia, February 23, 2023 https://english.news.cn/20230223/1f1432a3b468498ab7e9c719b47f11a8/c.html

USA against People’s Republic of China

“Why USA manufactures malicious tales about China’s “gateway to the rest of the Eurasian continent, Xinjiang” (excerpt)
“Xinjiang is a place with a diversity of ethnic groups, cultures and religions, which the U.S. has exploited to provoke unrest in the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

The USA, a ‘factory and dealer of lies,’ cleverly employs “the labeling strategy to discredit its rivals—i.e., deliberately fabricating rumors and using these as excuses to contain other countries. In the boastful declaration of former U.S. CIA and State Department officer Pompeo, “‘We lied, we cheated, we stole.’”
In 2018, a retired U.S. Army Colonel and former Chief of Staff to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson, proffered that “the U.S. would want to destabilize China; and that the best way to do this—is to foment unrest, and to join with those Uyghurs in pushing the Han Chinese in Beijing from internal places rather than external.”
The relentless “Xinjiang-related” fabrications “concocted by the U.S. have nothing to do with human rights per se,” The practice is rather a demonstration of malevolent intent on the part of the United States “to defame and contain China.” 
Xinhuanet “Why Does the United States Keep Spreading Lies about Xinjiang?” Opinion by Xin Ping Xinhuanet Editor: huaxia, August 26, 2022,  https://english.news.cn/20220826/1cb9096e43a141e9b9a4e45a4cbec05b/c.html

USA against Iraq – Ukraine

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and since that time this country “has been reduced to the status of a ‘colonial state,’ says US former politician and soldier. Moreover, the U.S. “occupation of Iraq will continue, indefinitely,” as its aim is to intensify hunker the United States’ “hardened command and control center” in Baghdad’s ‘Green Zone’ from which to wield influence over the entire Middle East. (Emphasis added)

RT “US started both Iraq and Ukraine conflicts”—former state senator to RT: “Richard Black claims Washington overthrew the legitimate governments in these countries to turn them into puppets February 23, 2023, https://www.rt.com/news/572004-richard-black-ukraine-iraq-parallels/

Countries in the “Middle East” 2023

Always included

Bahrain

Kuwait

Saudi Arabia

Iran

Lebanon

Syria

Iraq

Oman

Turkey

Israel

Palestine

United Arab Emirates

Jordan

Qatar

Yemen

The sixteen most often included countries in the category “Middle East” have strategic importance in bordering a large body of water (Mediterranean, Red, Arabian seas, or the Persian Gulf).

Usually included: Egypt                                                     

Sometimes included 

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Akrotiri and Dhekelia*

Sudan

Cyprus

Tajikstan

Kyrgyzstan

Turkmenistan

Libya

Uzbekistan

“Middle East Countries 2023,” World Population Review
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/middle-east-countries

*[Akrotiri and Dhekelia are two British overseas' territories bordering the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus.]

Britannica dates the “Middle East” to the period leading into the Second World War and cemented during that war “when the term ‘Middle East’ was given to the British military command in Egypt.”

Within that construct, the designated countries were “Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine (now Israel), Jordan, Egypt, The Sudan, Libya, and the various states of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman [now United Arab Emirates].” Subsequent events and dominant powers enlarged the “Middle East” designation to include the North African countries Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco; and Central/South Asian countries Afghanistan and Pakistan; occasionally Greece in earlier “Near East.” The Middle East is considered an unsettled notion and some entities, such as the U.S. Department of State and certain bodies of the United Nations, employ the term Near East. “Middle East.” (2008). Encyclopædia Britannica. Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

Interviewed by RT, Richard Hayden “Dick” Black is a Virginia-born American attorney and career soldier (Alma mater U.S. Army War College, JD University of Florida); a former member of Virginia House of Delegates, a Virginia State Senator who also held the rank of Colonel in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps (all retired).


China and China


BEIJING, April 6 (Xinhua)— “Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the world’s largest developing country has achieved a complete eradication of extreme poverty, raising more than 770 million poor people from poverty since its reform and opening up in the late 1970s.”


China reports five poverty reducing measures:

  • Boosting the economy to provide more job opportunities
  • Relocating poor people from inhospitable areas
  • Compensating for economic losses associated with reducing ecological damage
  • Improving education in impoverished areas, and 
  • Providing subsistence allowances for those unable to shake off poverty through their own efforts alone
Beyond the boundaries of the People’s Republic of China, its programs and actions in eliminating extreme poverty 
“have deepened human understanding of poverty reduction trends, enriched the theory of international poverty reduction, and boosted the confidence of other countries—especially developing countries—in eradicating extreme poverty.”
Xinhua “How China has lifted nearly 800 mln people out of poverty,” June 4, 2021 Editor: huaxia, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-04/06/c_139862741.htm

China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Xinjiang 2023

In fostering competitive industries in light of local conditions, this region last year “supported 35 counties, which have been lifted out of poverty.”

This year, Xinjiang’s focus will be on
  • “Building industrial clusters for grain, oil, cotton, textile and clothing, green organic fruits and vegetables, and high-quality livestock products;
  • Strengthening economic exchange and cooperation between areas that have escaped poverty in Xinjiang and other provincial-level regions; and
  • Fostering new growth areas in rural areas"
Xinhua, “People lifted out of poverty in Xinjiang see income increase,” XinhuaEditor: huaxia, February 27, 2023—URUMQI—“Per capita net income of populations lifted out of poverty in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region increased rapidly last year: up 12.1 percent to nearly 15,000 yuan (about 2,156 U.S. dollars)” (information office of the regional government). “The number of people lifted out of poverty with per capita net income of less than 10,000 yuan dropped by 72.9 percent from 950,000 at the end of 2021 to 257,100 at the end of 2022. https://english.news.cn/20230227/0735b5652ce249449b1bd81e63de9819/c.html

China and Africa

Burundi
Kenya
Senegal
Zambia
A centerpiece of the China-Africa cooperation has been “agricultural cooperation with a view to reducing rural poverty in Africa.”
In Burundi, known as the “heart of Africa,” “Chinese experts have helped establish the first demonstration village of rice cultivation for poverty alleviation in Ninga village” (a village in the Commune of Gihanga in Bubanza Province in northwestern Burundi) “where hybrid rice was grown for five consecutive seasons. Since hybrid rice was planted here, the village has increased its rice production by 1,661 tonnes, resulting in improved income for local households.

China’s work with the Burundians goes back to 2009 when China began “implementing technical cooperation programs in Burundi;” and since then has sent “a total of 45 experts to the African country in five batches to help develop agriculture.”

In Kenya’s Nakuru County (Matangi Tisa village), China’s advanced farming technologies are helping boost “agricultural production and reduce poverty.”

At a conference (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) in Senegal, China announced further implementation of “poverty reduction and agricultural development programs with Africa.”

In Zambia’s Lusaka Province (Shimwengwe Village), a “Demonstration Village for China-Africa Agricultural Development and Poverty Reduction was set up; and through the project, “villagers will be equipped with the knowledge and small-scale technologies to improve their productivity, especially in the chicken-rearing business.”
Xinhua “China aids Africa’s poverty fight through agricultural cooperation,” November 28, 2022, Editor: huaxia, https://english.news.cn/africa/20221128/4493d608874e46429f900ad4fcd4940a/c.html
GLOBALink “Chinese-aided poverty reduction project to benefit Zambian villagers,” XinhuaEditor: huaxia, February 11, 2022,  https://english.news.cn/20221102/3a43a68df1714764b320336bc29f8781/c.html


USA: A Nation among Nations


The United States of America is the world’s largest economy and Number one capitalist country, and “the most economically polarized among Western countries.” Polarization between rich and poor cries out for attention, and is ignored.

“Income and wealth inequality is higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country—and it is rising”; Life expectancy … declined by nearly a year (from 2020 to 2021, driven by the pandemic), reaching its lowest since 1996; Firearm-related deaths increased by 15 percent (45,222 in 2020), the highest ever recorded.

The United States’ “increasingly unequal, split and violent society has laid bare the malfunctions of American democracy.”

Sound Advice, Warning from a much older civilization 

“The yawning wealth gap” in the United States “has become a chronic malaise of American society, leaving an indelible stain on the country’s democracy and human rights record.

“The United States should face up to the grim reality of the ever-widening wealth gap at home. Reach out to the people at the bottom, and take earnest measures to solve the problem.
Xinhua, “A more unequal, divided, violent United States is seeing its democracy decay,” XinhuaEditor: huaxia, October 4, 2022, https://english.news.cn/20221004/ff695f94d03049188a6398194abc3963/c.html; Xinhua, “Rising Economic Polarization in the United States: Truth and Facts,” February 23, 2023, https://english.news.cn/northamerica/20230223/6eff3bfdaf264300bec46170d1c1b202/c.html


Poverty Hurts whether of Body or Mind 

If one is unable to think or see with the mind—beyond the self—he is impoverished. Such as person is bereft, deprived, missing something that is absolutely essential; nourishment that is vital for place and movement among the living, among society.

Just as the physically impoverished are rendered incapable of taking care of basic personal (and if applicable family) needs and fully functioning in society. So, too—and with even more devastating consequences—are the impoverished who are seated or employed in public office, major media, state leadership and related contenders rendered unfit: incapable of carrying on with a sense of stewardship and studied diligence, caring, courage, honestly, accountability and responsibility.

Great challenges faced by the world need all hands on deck. The course of the status quo must be corrected. Great challenges are not met with arms and squabbling, division and disparaging, fighting against and killing one another—at home or abroad.

The United States of America, through its leaders—able and ethical public servants—must face America’s problems. Stop creating distraction, casting blame, and causing irreparable, unconscionable harm.

Social and economic problems, mental and physical health problems, diseases of various kinds; problems within the cyber sphere—all of these require honest and able and mentally fit hands, hearts, and minds actively attending together, cooperatively with the world’s peoples and cultures.

Instead of extremism, arrogance and antagonism; instead of trading in weaponry and addictive substances, and even people—United States’ leaders and public servants must join the human race of men and women across the world who are intent on curing illness; bridging the breach and mending brokenness; seeing clearly and addressing core conditions; keeping watch and continually solving problems together.


Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images
Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett

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