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I remember the first singing of "We Are The World." It was written, sung, and released in a very sincere and moving attempt to relieve the famine victims of Ethiopia. That was 25 years ago and the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti has revived those feelings and urges to give. The song, though simple, is moving and what else is moving is to see so many stars sing in such a heartfelt manner for victims they do not and will probably never know. This should be appreciated.But there is also a hitch here. Including the Haitians and their children in the world that we are a part of comes too little, too late. Before this horrible earthquake, Haitians suffered tremendous poverty. Much of that poverty was because of American foreign policies. But that was not enough to cause people to sing "We are the world." That might be because this horrible earthquake illustrates what the Left has been complaining about all along. The Left has been saying that we have two kinds of victims, there are worthy victims and unworthy victims. When Haitians, including their children, were suffering from our foreign policies, they were unworthy victims who were not a part of the world. Now that the earthquake, which is dramatic and natural, has come, the Haitians have become worthy victims and are now included in the world. Unfortunately, the Haitians' transition from unworthy to worthy victims comes at way too high of a cost.
But a problem still exists. That problem is that the world we are is just too small. We can show just how small our world is by looking at victims who are not sung to or about by an all-star cast. We can do this by first visiting Palestine. It was not too long ago that Israel invaded Gaza and killed approximately 1,300 people including around 400 children. And despite the fact that most Palestinians, along with their children, have lived in poverty and under constant attack for years, no one sings to and thus includes them in the world.
And no one is singing to the Iraqi children despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of them died during the sanction years and we can only guess that possibly almost as many have died because of the invasion. In fact, up to 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of our invasion, approximately 4.7 million have been displaced, and the country has been decimated. In the meantime, our contractors have received much from our tax dollars and returned little back to Iraq.
Now the Palestinians and Iraqi children should not feel alone when not included as being a part of the world, Afghanistan's and Pakistan's children join them as not belonging to the world as well. Even now, when the war is being directed by the Nobel Laureate President Obama, more and more Afghani and Pakistani children are dying as a result of American drone attacks. We should note that, like Saddamn Hussein and our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, at one time, received a tremendous amount of support when they were making victims out of children. The United States and others created, recruited for, and supported the groups that became the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the Northern Alliance. These groups conducted their own terrorism against Afghanis when we used them to draw the Russians into Afghanistan. And when we kicked the Taliban out of Afghanistan, we gave control over most of the country to the Northern Alliance who continued to terrorize the Afghanistan.
And though there are many more who do not belong to the world, we must also note the growing number of American children whose families are now living in poverty are not sung to either and thus do not belong to the world. These children are the victims of corporate policies that have moved manufacturing and even service jobs out of the country and they are also victims of our own government's policies that allow our nation's wealth to be transferred to the corporate sector.
As honorable and inspiring as it is to see and hear the large number of artists who participated in the singing of "We Are The World," we see that this new version comes too little and too late. It comes too late for those, especially children, whose past sufferings never merited being sung too and thus will never be thought of as being a part of the world. And it is way too little for today's people, especially the children, from other countries than Haiti who are not being sung to, who will never be given too who also will be never be a part of the world. Thus "We Are The World" only proves that the world that merits our charityis much too small.
