Word Up!

“In the year 2000, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. allocated just one percent of its gross national product to foreign aid—or about one dime for every hundred dollars in its treasury—whereas Canada, Japan, Austria, Australia, and Germany each contributed two to three times that much. Other countries give even more, some as much as ten times the amount we do; they view this as a contribution to the world’s stability and their own peace. But our country takes a different approach to generosity: Our tradition is to forgive debt in exchange for a strategic military base, an indentured economy, or mineral rights. We offer the hungry our magic seeds, genetically altered so the recipients must also buy our pesticides, while their sturdy native seed banks die out . . . Even now, in what may be the most critical moment of our history, I fear that we seem to be telling the world we are not merciful so much as we are mighty.”
#Barbara Kingsolver, excerpts from a speech given to the World Congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

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