I am obviously not thinking of those success stories of my glorious civilization, those shining exemplars of ingenuity and enterprise, for whom salesmanship lies at the heart of human relations, those precious and superior beings to whom we are all beholden and for whom we hold such veneration, because for these immortal souls 10 million a year is probably not a sufficient remuneration. No, I am thinking of persons somewhat regrettably at the other end of life's wonderful spectrum, persons so unsuccessful as to be almost correctly described as non-persons, who doubtless have only themselves to blame.
10 million children die a year. 10 million. Apparently it corresponds to an aircraft full of them falling out of the sky every 15 minutes. Is it bird flu, or swine flu, or Aids? Why is it not on national television every night? Where are the mobilizing forces of righteous international corporate action? No need to worry, it is just plain old-fashioned starvation and the comfortable cannot catch it.
Indeed the comfortable contribute considerably to starving 10 million a year by protecting and subsidising their own products while subjecting those of the uncomfortable to tariff and exploitation. In the name of free market globalisation - which does not apply to the United States or the European Union - the comfortable insist upon flooding the uncomfortable with the surplus goods of their own comfort, destroying the indigenous production of goods. Having played a significant part in creating poverty the comfortable send in the United Nations to assist the economies of the uncomfortable while having no intention of buying anything from them that is subsequently produced unless completely on their own terms. The uncomfortable are not allowed to compete against the comfortable in any genuine free market.
These sick values are exemplified in the capitalistic horror that is the United States. It goes right back to the founding of that peculiar nation. Reading those wonderful stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder's pioneering family to my six children in succession, even then we read of proud Pa who is independent, who does not need anyone's help and who does not need to help anyone else unless he chooses. (This does not stop Pa taking off when they are starving and forcing wheat from someone else who was not choosing to share it). This phoney philosophy of choice was mysteriously laid down from the start. The ultimate logical end of this attitude is that the final 'choice' may just have to be starvation and death. In the current United States debate on health care reform one conditioned pawn in the game stated proudly that he would rather die poor and free - presumably in preference to living in a civilized nation which looked after those who for whatever reason were unable to do so themselves.
This is one way I can rationalise why the United States can carry on the way it does with a supposedly clear conscience. Then I get some understanding of copycats, for example, how the United States and its little buddy Israel can behave toward Gaza without a blush. How the United States and its despicable crony the European Union has behaved toward Iraq the way they have with economic sanctions and military war.
In my idle luxury, living in the eye of empire, I used to wonder how the world kept going, why it did not come to a grinding halt and fall apart. The people in charge did not seem to have a complete picture. Now I know that for the families of 10 million different children every year, and for hundreds of millions more like them, the world is not working, it is falling apart. But here in a country like New Zealand we can sleep on. What will wake us up will be that time when the centre of empire decides to really take over New Zealand. Warships in the harbours and helicoptors in the skies will be the time when we discover the implacable ruthlessness of the United States, the time when the false mask of benignity begins to slip off. Then we will begin to know what the vulnerable in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East are now experiencing.
