Anti State Annie

"What we want [Anarcho-Leftists]... is the complete destruction of the domination and exploitation of man by man; we want men united as brothers by a consensus and desired solidarity, all cooperating voluntarily for the well being of all; we want society to be constituted for the purpose of supplying everybody with the means for achieving the maximum well-being, the maximum possible moral and spiritual development; we want bread, freedom, love and science -for everybody."
~ERRICO MALATESTA, Il Programma Anarchico, 1920
Poverty keeps rising, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The number of Americans now living in poverty is 35.9 million, up 1.3 million from last year (2004). Forty-five million are without health insurance. The figure in both areas goes up every year. Five million more lost health insurance in the past five years.
Not since the 1930s has the gap between rich and poor been bigger. Between 1979 and 1992, for instance, the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans raked in an amazing 98 percent of all household income. Eighty percent shared the remaining 2 percent. Top executive salaries are now 411 times higher than the average worker's salary. In 1980, it was 42 times bigger. In terms of total wealth, the top 20 percent controls 83 percent of the wealth while the other 80 percent make do with 17 percent. This trend is widespread and replicated - in some instances even more starkly - on the global scale.
...with the top portion largely made up of U.S. and Western European citizens - it's being syphoned from the mass's of people at the bottom, and concentrated into those living higher up.
..Half the world — nearly three billion people
live on less than two dollars a day.
20% of the population in the developed nations,
consume 86% of the world’s goods.
The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
The top fifth of the world’s people in the richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade and 68% of foreign direct investment — the bottom fifth, barely more than 1%.
A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth
as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.
51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred
wealthiest bodies are corporations.
The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap
between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.
300,000 children die every day because money in the capitalist system CAN NOT "trickle down" far enough to reach them.
37 million Americans live below the poverty line (and require more than healthcare, not in charity but equalization of opportunity etc).
Another 15 million live below half
of what the poverty level is set at.
The speed of concentration of wealth into
the hands of the TOP tier increases year by year.
According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year.
"Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate."
---Bertrand Russell
Unplug it...
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One proud and unapologetic protest. Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. Right handed representing black power, left handed representing black unity. *Martin Luther King was murdered just four months earlier.