Shouting Silent...

I watched a documentary this morning called 'Shouting Silent' and it was about children in Africa orphaned by the HIV/AIDS deaths of their parents. It broke my heart, children were wandering the streets begging for food, many without anyone to count on or turn to. The documentation of such poverty and loneliness made me sick. It's such an unthinkable kind of life there. You see it and you hear about it, but then one day it becomes real, and what you've seen and heard gains meaning and reality. If we are sending $1 billion a day to Iraq, A DAY, then why can't we send help to not just Africa, but other countries affected by poverty? People try to make the answer to that question out to be so complicated. It's simple, we all know it's simple, and we all know why it's not happening. Aren't the lives of our brothers and sisters who are struggling in this life with us more important than the material things? If we sent $1 billion to Africa to help fight poverty, children would not have to beg on the streets for food, they would have a chance at a descent life. The kind of life we all wish for our own kids. But isn't it the responsibility of a race to look out for it's members. The human race. There's all this money spent on killing more people, where there is a bigger killer among us. One that doesn't discriminate. Should we not stop picking our battles, where there are battles that have been infecting us without choice? We never had $1 billion to help end world poverty, but a war comes along with alterior motives, and the money flows. Ending lives. If all this money went toward helping to end poverty, lives could be saved, the seeds of a better world could be planted. Don't we want that for our kids? If we sent a $ 1 billion to a different country each day for 4 years, which is what we have done for the last 4 years sending all this money to Iraq, we could END world poverty, or come close. All the lives that would be saved would make the record numbers of our national debt WORTH something. If we are going to be in debt for the next couple hundred years, why not be in debt because we tried to make a difference in the world. Tried for something good, not because there was something to gain. The world is so unbalanced. Money seems to be the only thing that has any meaning anymore. Billions are spent on war each DAY, yet every year only a meek $1 million is sent to Africa to help fight poverty, disease, provide education, and fight HIV/AIDS. Our government isn't even improving the education and lives of OUR kids. There's money for war, but no money for our kids. Something is not right in this world...