Oscar Heck: As long as archaic old-boy's clubs such as the UN exist, solutions will always be based on the symptoms rather than on the cause!

VHeadline commentarist Oscar Heck writes: I've been thinking about hunger. In fact, I've been thinking about hunger since I was very young because I was born into a very poor family. When I was seven years old, I began to work because I was fed up of eating rice and chicken and pasta. I did not have to work, for there was always food on the table ... it was just that the food was always the same.

Bread was a luxury and food stamps a must. I wanted to work and hated being indoors, so I'd leave the rented flat about one hour prior to the school being opened to collect bottles, cash them in, and with that buy two small "baguettes" from a local Portuguese bakery.

Mmmm ... I can still recall the smell.

Eventually I collected enough bottles to buy a little cart and opened my first mini business. With my cart, I walked over to the local grocery store and began soliciting old people, offering my personal home delivery service, free of charge, tip expected. I was "adorable," so I had many clients. I'd deliver their heavy groceries to their homes and bring them in, up the stairways and directly into their kitchen. With the money I made, I'd buy juice, baguettes and candies for my brothers and my mother. I also started a small gambling club, and later, at about the age of 12, in high school, I started a bigger gambling club. I also sold Regal from door to door, sold my drawings and paintings and did magic shows. What a great life I've had.

Anyways, back to hunger. Except for one period in my life, I never experienced extreme hunger ... but because I've spent most of my adventurous life outdoors, on the streets, hopping trains, traveling through deserts, shields and mountains ranges, I have witnesses extreme hunger, poverty and sickness first hand. I've lived in the jungles, the deserts, the Gulf War ... in slums and far-away villages ... I've spent time with the Crees, the Bedouin, the Berbers, the Mujahedins, the Yupka, the Hell's Angels, with ex-cons, street people, drug addicts and alcoholics. I have seen and experienced misery, from self-inflicted to atrocities committed by the likes of the Americans against innocent people in Iraq.

But what is this thing called hunger?

Before the advent of so-called civilization, there was no such thing as hunger (unless you were really unlucky). Most people belonged to small tribes or medium-size tribes such as the Incas or Aztecs. Most tribes were like gypsies, traveling from one place to another, hunting, fishing, playing and making babies.

If one bases one's view of tribal life on existing tribal life, such as the Crees or the Yanomami, it is evident that no one goes hungry, for any reason.

Furthermore, within tribal life, no one is excluded from the tribe unless the person has committed an unforgivable crime. However, there exists almost no such crime within tribal life, thus few, if any members are excluded. From the time a child is born, the child is taught about nature, about respect, about love and responsibility ... all this in a world where money does not exist, where materialism has not cancered the tribe. Where the respect for life and nature is primordial and evident, where true life is lived on a base level and on a daily level without the interference of man-made religions, man-made systems of measure or man-made philosophies of segregation and superiority.

Suddenly, "civilization" appeared ... well, not so suddenly. If one reads the Bible, particularly the old testament, one can find many references to slavery. Slavery implies domination, it implies inequality, it implies a deep lack of respect, and by association, dishonesty.

"Civilization" is based on capital, on capitalism, on profit. "Civilization" goes hand in hand with slavery ... it implies that some members of society are "worthy" of more whilst others are "worthy" of less. It also implies that some members of society are "unworthy," a word used often in the Bible.

Embargoes are one of the things that perpetuate this concept of "worthiness" and the United Nations, and especially the USA, use this tool of "civilization" to coerce "unworthy" nations into compliance and eventually, its people into complacency. This is not fiction. It is fact.

This same technique is used by learners and emulators of "civilization," by us, by parents who use this technique against their own children ... "Because you did such and such, you will go without supper" ... "Because you did such and such you will not be allowed to see your friends for one week."

You are embargoed.

This is what "civilization" teaches ... and so, when that child grows up in that "civilized" world, it becomes only natural to accept embargoes against other nations as "only natural."

One of the most evident proofs of this lack of conscience on behalf of the "civilized" world is the "Summit for World Hunger" which took place in the last few days in Rome ... I bet that the summit didn't take place in one of Rome's shantytowns. Oh ... I was right, the summit did indeed not take place in a Roman shantytown.

FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy, will host the High-Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy from 3 to 5 June 2008.

One article states:

A UN summit yesterday vowed to halve global hunger by 2015, and to take 'urgent' action to tackle the global food crisis

This is such poppycock ... for under the conditions in which we live today, and since it is more than evident that the "civilized" world rules the world (with coercion and embargoes and exploitation of "cheap labor"), poverty will not be halved, but rather, it will be doubled or tripled by 2015. As long as we "civilized" people continue to buy Made in China, Made in Mexico, Made in the Philippines, Made in Guatemala, Made in Indonesia, Made in Mexico, Made in Cheaplaborlandia stuff, hunger can only increase because we are taking away other peoples' ability to live an honest and dignified life.

Amongst a whole lot of blah-blah coming from this summit, another article, states:

"The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation called the summit to discuss the impact of poor harvests, high fuel costs and rising demand, especially from fast-growing Asian countries, and there was a row over biofuels. ... 'We firmly resolve to use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by the current crisis, to stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture, to address obstacles to food access and to use the planet's resources...,' the declaration said."

(They also talk about biofuels.)

Increase investment in agriculture? What kind of garbage is this? These wise-ones at the summit, sitting, eating, drinking, crapping and making babies in plush hotel rooms with full water and electricity and maid supplies, people who have probably never lived in misery are suggesting an "increase investment in agriculture?" Who is going to invest? Who can invest? Not the poor exploited farmers, that's for sure. Who then? Guess who. The giant multinationals who have been exploiting the "cheap" laborers for decades ... the same ones who promote, propagate and perpetuate poverty ... and in consequence, hunger.

"Live long and prosper."

As long as the system remains the same, poverty can only increase. As long as archaic old-boy's clubs such as the UN exist, "solutions" will always be based on the symptoms (hunger, for example) rather than on the cause ... because the cause is precisley the foundation on which the maid-filled mansions of elite are constructed.

One simple example is that stuff about biofuels ... fuels produced from edible foods (grain alcohol, for example). This food-summit-thing does not want to eliminate bio fuels, but rather wants to find ways to continue producing bio fuels whilst trying to not jeopardize the human (and animal) food supply.

That is, again, all garbage ... and I will tell you why.

There exists, and has existed, for over a hundred years, methods of producing power which do not in any way depend on the use of polluting substances (such as oil and coal and uranium). Two meager (and highly deceptive) examples are hydro-power (power dams) and wind energy (as we know it today).

However, hidden away from the "civilized" system in which we mostly blindly live are other methods which are even more efficient than the present wind contraptions we are familiar with.

I won't get into the subject here ... but this stuff really exists. The problem is that our "civilized" system is based on coal, oil and uranium ... and it is a for-profit system ... thus ... there is no way that the UN or any other "civilized" organization would promote anything but for-profit operations, implying ... coal, oil and uranium (for now) .. where the greatest profits are.

The other problem is that our "civilized" system is based on intellectual protery rights ... where one can own information (often stolen) ... where one can own knowledge (often stolen) ... information and knowledge which is kept out of the mainstream, hidden away within secret profit-making recipes.

In other words, no gadget which positively enhances the well-being of the People or Nature will in general be developed or produced unless profits can be made from such.

This is truly unfortunate ... and has led to the increase in poverty and pollution ... two man-made circumstances based on man-made religion and man-made systems of for-profit-only exploitation.

There are lots of things happening today which escape the eyes and ears of most of us. Please read the following ... if you have time:

http://politics.nationmedia.com/inner.asp?sid=1953

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=566276

Why the dollar still reigns in Chavez' Venezuela

http://www.kommersant.com/p896400/r_527/arms_sales_Colombia/%A0%A0

The things that are happening today are the beginning of the end. These things, brought on by the non-tribal mentality of the "west," brought on by the specter of "civilization" ... brought on by the concepts of for-profit, will increase exponentially in the years to come.

As embargoes continue to destroy the lives of billions of innocent people, as highly profitable arms-production is allowed to exist, poverty will only increase. "Hey partner, wanna buy my latest intellectually-protected high-tech weapon?

It can kill as many people as you wish without leaving a trace of evidence, then you can take over the land and resources and enslave whatever is left of the local population by offering them politically-correct minimum wage jobs.

I mean, you'll have to pay some of them a little more, like accountants, scientists, media people, etc., all the ones who are gonna do the dirty work for you.

Get the point? It works every time. It's a proven method ... but it will cost you.

Anyways, think of it this way … less people, less mouths to feed, right? Let's go for supper now. I'm sure you've been to the Vivendo at Saint Regis ... they make the best filet mingon on the planet ... and if you want, we can go visit the baths of Caracalla, which are just down the road … and we can visit my friend Joe at the Vatican too. I got connections."

Meanwhile, outside the summit conference in Rome ... "Uh ah, Chavez no se va!"

Oscar Heck
oscarheck111@yahoo.com

• Late minute update (just out, as I finish the article): Please read this if you can ... it furthers the points I make above. Thank you.