We the living

We the living have to be a non-profit organization that serves other nonprofit organizations and information consumers worldwide. We should focus on serving non-religious organizations involved in Education, Environmentalism, Humanitarian Relief, Fighting Disease, Homeless Issues, Crime Control, Political Freedom, Government Reform, Consumer Protection, Youth Issues, Addiction, and other like-minded, non-legislative causes. By providing free services to charities we can help them save money and become more efficient all around. In turn, they can provide additional benefits to their constituents. Our opinions and ideas are not influenced by any corporate, political, or religious affiliations. We should also have nothing to sell and should not accept any advertising. On most organizations you can’t count on that level of objectivity. We should have no interest in being politically correct, only factually correct to the extent possible. When faced with no other options, we have to believe in aggressively promoting a solution, which is the “lesser of two evils”. We the living’s work is benefiting hungry, oppressed, uneducated, and other ailing people more and more each day. A central issue We the living seeks to address is education. We must believe that formal school education is the best route to educate the masses. However, informal education, such as reading reliable information in print or online, also greatly enhances ones ability to understand important issues facing society. Armed with knowledge, citizens can then take action to improve their lives and the world around them. Every ailment in the world can be lessened if educated people commit themselves to the task. If you want a government that is more responsive to the needs of common citizens you can read about civics and government reform initiatives. If we want to assist with humanitarian relief worldwide, we might want to study international economics and culture, so we can be of more use in the field or in the nonprofit office. If one needs a good job to pay for health insurance and housing they need to be able to read and write well enough to fill out a job application effectively, not to mention to manage their jobs. The point is that education is ultimately the only sure answer to reduce global suffering, whatever its cause. Humans face an increasing threat of extinction due to mismanagement of the environment. The pace of environmental harm is unlikely to take the lives of the current generation. But, if left unregulated, global corporate interests are certain to cause us additional harm and perilous risk. We must enact tougher environmental laws in the world, employ the best environmentally friendly technologies, and perpetually push the global community towards environmental preservation. Using more renewable resources, like solar energy, and fewer fossil fuels, like oil, is a good start. Moreover, we must further limit the harmful byproducts of industry. Enacting more financial advantages for good corporate citizens and additional financial disincentives to large polluters will further improve the environment. If the custodians of the Earth (us) were to sit on the sidelines during this critical struggle it would be negligent. Many invisible chemicals in the air can cause lung disease or possibly cancer. These poisons readily get in to our food and water supply and harm every form of life. And sewer overflow and runoff from farms and city streets threaten our waters, wildlife, and our health. You should promote strong federal laws and regulations to lessen polluted runoff, raw sewage discharges, and factory farm wastes. Electric power plants and automobiles are the largest source of the pollutants that cause acid rain, poisoning in our lakes and rivers, and global warming. Regulating their discharges and promoting newer and better technologies is the best bet to improve the quality of our air and water, and to lessen environmental harm from global warming. Please learn more about current and threatening environmental hazards and work for a cleaner, healthier Earth. Unfortunately, the lesser developed parts of our world are plagued by famine, malnutrition, poor water quality, and poor sanitation, as well as AIDS, TB, malaria, and other deadly diseases. These problems frequently overlap in the poorest regions of the world. In many cases, corrupt government leaders and civil war significantly contribute to this suffering, since it prevents third world economies from developing and therefore prevents the building of self-sufficient, healthy nations. Plus, corruption and war often keeps humanitarian workers away from many of the worlds neediest areas. And prospective aid donors will often shy away from regions with governments that are unwilling or unable to protect their humanitarian relief investments. Corrupt militants and government officials frequently steal aid destined for the poor to fund their own causes – even if their cause is plain greed. Also, extreme weather conditions greatly harm the global poor. A region with drought or flood conditions will be unable to effectively grow crops and oftentimes the starving citizens will even resort to eating their seed stocks – hurting the next year’s planting season, and reinforcing the cycle of poverty and suffering. Weak educational systems also greatly contribute to suffering. People who lack a basic education will generally remain poor and will be unable to contribute to the well being of their society at large, since they will likely have trouble merely feeding their own families. They may lack sexual education or nutritional education, which could be contributing factors in acquiring AIDS or becoming malnourished, for example. If they lack civic education, they are unlikely to be able to support the reform of their governments. If they lack math or language education their illiteracy will likely prevent them from gaining meaningful employment. Education for all is key to global survival, and its costs are vastly lower than the cost of ignorance. The Western world for the most part only reads about or sees these horrific humanitarian situations on TV – but they are everyday reality for many millions of our fellow humans. And these people suffer real pain, the same as all other humans. Therefore it is our responsibility to take assertive action in attempt to lessen this suffering. One can try to ignore the suffering but it will still exist. The world can not realize its positive potential unless we commit ourselves to working on behalf of the least fortunate among us. Humanitarian relief is an extraordinarily complex subject and therefore we can’t address it in great detail in this forum, but please decide how you can best help. However, if we lack time, we can all donate at least a small percentage of our earnings to some of the organizations below, who are in the field every day saving current or at-risk hungry people, diseased people, war victims, and/or the uneducated masses. Famine, malnutrition, poor water quality and sanitation plague many parts of our world. This often leads to terrible diseases such as TB, malaria, cholera and AIDS. New but deadly diseases such as SARS remain in the minds of people worldwide. We must remember, however, that diseases are not caused by a single factor but by many. These factors fuel each other and interact together in such a way that not one solution can possibly solve or eliminate a disease altogether. Nevertheless, as global citizens we need to take an active part in the fight to eradicate disease. The cost puts pressure on healthcare, social support, worker productivity and profit margins. Of course the most dreaded cost of disease is death which is why we should never give up in our fight. Overpopulation leads to overcrowding which also fuel disease. When there are too many people, basic necessities such as food, water and housing become scarce. These resources become expensive and unaffordable. Children are even more susceptible to disease where clean water and sanitation are serious issues. Due to poverty and the widening income gap, many poor families often choose paying utilities over spending money on basic necessities such as food, clothing and medical care. Air pollution contributes to disease causing asthma, bronchitis and lung cancer. Household cleaning agents contain pollutants such as solvents that can cause dizziness.
Abundant exposure to asbestos has been found to lead to lung cancer. These are everyday dangers that we take for granted or of which we may not be aware. We should let our voices be heard by writing to our elected representatives, urging them to work together with leaders worldwide to control pollution and educate global citizens of its dangers to health. The destruction caused by war also often results in disease. War brings damage to essential infrastructures that provide electricity, water, food and employment often plunging its victims into poverty and displacement. In crowded refugee camps, poor sanitation, lack of water, food, clothing and electricity make these camps breeding grounds for all kinds of diseases. In addition, medical supplies and medicine are often not easily attainable. War diseases such as TB, leprosy, malaria, cholera took the lives of many. Countries in war devote much of their monetary budget to the war efforts, depriving funding to areas such as healthcare, housing, disease prevention and education. In war, our volunteers brave the war fronts by delivering medicines and administering medical care to war victims. To those of us who can afford to, support such organizations through your donations. Healthcare access is an ongoing concern that affects our fight to eradicate disease. For those living with financial hardships, not having access to medicine and medical care makes them more prone to poor health. Quick treatment and strong prevention measures are important factors needed to stop disease and having easy access to healthcare facilitates this. Some cultural practices lead to disease. Many of the blood donors are not told of the health risks associated with selling their own blood. Antibiotics continue to be used in animal and plant farming in three ways: treatment, disease prevention and growth promotion. The concern is that if the use of antibiotics outside of treatment is prolonged, the drugs will lose their ability to fight disease as bacteria gains resistance to the medicine. Lobbying at the expense of people. This causes financial hardship for those living in poverty, many times denying them access to badly needed medicines. Consequently, diseases often go untreated and continue to spread and bring hardships to people all over the world. To repay loans borrowed from the IMF and World Bank, through structural adjustment programs, debtor countries are required to make a major shift in their spending budget. Cash-ready resources become the focus of spending instead of socio-economic programs such as healthcare, job creation or disease prevention. Countries spent more in repaying their foreign debt than on spending money on healthcare, disease prevention and education on their own people. When healthcare and disease prevention takes a back seat like this, disease will continue to flourish. Global warming continues to pose many problems to our environment, which contributes to disease.
Call for action
You can see how the interaction of critical factors contributes to disease and sickness. There is no one solution that we can undertake to eradicate disease but a collective global effort is needed to suppress it to the best of our abilities. For those of us who can afford to, funding is always needed for hospitals and medical laboratories across the world in order to continue research so that our medical doctors and researchers can find new cures to battle and defeat disease. Please donate, if you can, to foundations and relief agencies. Let your voice be heard, speak out and urge our elected representatives to give healthcare to the people that don’t have it. This will help in our fight to both prevent and eradicate disease. We need to take notice of the power and influence that lobbyists have over our elected representatives and understand how this affects our health and us. We need to let our representatives in congress know how we feel about this alarming trend. Remember that one person cannot do this alone. It needs to be a collective effort! Let us help promote the knowledge of disease. Many diseases such as STD’s, heart disease and flu can be prevented. By learning about the disease and its causes, we can refrain from activities that place us at greater risk of acquiring these diseases. This way, we are able to proactively prevent the disease from spreading and help the push towards its eradication. Homelessness can be caused by a variety of problems. The main cause is unaffordable housing for the poor. Secondary causes include mental illness, physical illnesses, substance abuse, lack of incentives to work, poor work ethics, and, like most social issues We the living seeks to address, lack of decent education. A missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill can easily push poor families over the edge into homelessness. It has been reported that the types of assistance homeless adults felt they needed most were help finding a job, help finding affordable housing, and help paying for housing. However, the main types of assistance they usually received were clothing, transportation and help with public benefits. Few homeless actually receive help finding housing, likely because caregivers know it’s unaffordable or otherwise unattainable for people of their social status. A minority of the homeless population is capable but unwilling to work – they may resent the minimal wages they would receive if they could find work. It would be irresponsible if we did not consider that a minority of the homeless may be inherently “lazy”, or substance abuse has made them so. In these cases the there is little help the system can offer that will bring about positive social results. In general, we recommend a “tough love” approach wherein able people must work in some capacity to receive the benefits they seek. There is often a gray line between those who are mentally ill, substance abusers, and other disabled homeless. Therefore it is not easy to classify them in to benefit categories or to understand their labor capabilities. Moreover, there is no one comprehensive system to manage the myriad of services for the homeless, their benefits, and their reintegration in to society. We recommend the states move towards a fully integrated computerized system, which would make delivering benefits and getting people off the streets more cost effective. Even though documenting people’s’ lives in detail verges on an invasion of privacy, we feel if the taxpayers need to foot the bill, which they ultimately do, there is no alternative but to build an efficient system with subjective inputs, in order to provide benefits and opportunities based on need. Most people, including the homeless, are not inherently lazy. But the economic system does not adequately support those at the lowest skill levels, even if they are willing to work – leading to unemployment and millions of “working poor”. For mayors, city councils, and even homeless providers it may seem that placing homeless people in shelters is the most inexpensive way of meeting basic needs. This is deceptive. The cost of homelessness can be quite high, particularly for those with chronic illnesses. Because they have no regular place to stay, people who are homeless use a variety of public systems in an inefficient and costly way. Preventing a homeless episode, or ensuring a speedy transition in to stable permanent housing can result in a significant overall cost savings. Hospitals, prisons, lost opportunity, and emergency shelter is all very inefficient. Crime is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law. Laws are designed to protect us and ensure our safety in all aspects of our lives: physical, financial, psychological and social.
Yet not a day does go by that we don’t hear of crimes taking place in our city or state. When a crime is committed, public safety becomes endangered and specific individuals or groups may feel violated. While we would like to avoid such events, they take place all too often. Corporate crime exists on both ends of the continuum, where the workers continue to be victimized and their rights violated. Another major type of crime is terrorism.
Social and Economic Problems Caused by Crime.
Our social and economic problems are often a direct result of crime. In a vicious circle, these problems can fuel crime even more. For example, those who commit theft and burglaries often do so because of their need for money. These individuals may be unemployed, incapable of finding work, homeless, sick or impoverished. These crimes become a tempting way to quickly acquire money. Unfortunately, when left unpunished, these individuals get the misconception that crime pays. It is this thinking that encourages some individuals to continue their criminal ways, discouraging them from finding other activities that would give them some normality and stability in their lives. This way of thinking reinforces crime. Another crime, prostitution, is frequently associated with drug addiction. Many prostitutes find it difficult to change their work because of their drug addiction. Drugs require significant cash and prostitution provides this, faster and easier than legitimate work.
Prostitution often will lead to other crimes such as people trafficking, sexual abuse, and rape. Those who exploit women often have no regard for people’s lives. This disregard often leads to physical abuse and even murder. In addition, prostitution can increase the spread of diseases such as AIDS, other STD’s and hepatitis. On a larger scale, drug addiction fuels the illicit drug industry. In organized crime, you will find other violations related to drug trafficking. These include money laundering, smuggling and illegal sale of weapons, credit card fraud and counterfeiting. Poverty often leads to the problem of homelessness. Those who live on the streets often experience hunger and disease making them more likely to resort to committing theft and burglary as a means to eat or to obtain medicine. Out on the streets the homeless are exposed more to the risks of drug addiction and other unwanted social behaviors. All of these factors fuel crime.
Solving the Root Causes of Crime
In order to eradicate crime, we need to address the root causes. These include, but are not limited to, greed, inadequate corporate oversight, poverty, lack of education, homelessness, drug addiction, racial hatred, and lax gun laws. Education is one of the biggest factors that play a role in what becomes of an individual in their adulthood. Those who have an education possess the training and skills needed to make them marketable to potential employers. Indeed, even for jobs that pay only a minimum wage, employers likely will prefer interviewing candidates with a decent education over those without. Thus, many of the uneducated may find themselves unemployed, living in sub-standard housing and in impoverished conditions. And as money becomes scarce, many of them might be tempted to engage in criminal activities. At We the living, we encourage everyone to pursue formal education and stress the importance of governments and universities helping make it accessible to all. We strongly believe that every citizen deserves an education and it’s especially important to make it more available to those families who are not able to readily afford it. Education can help eradicate poverty, which will in turn reduce the crime rate. Poverty often pushes children to drop out of school. Those children who do not attend school may end up roaming the streets, exposing themselves to criminal elements and activities. This is why it is imperative that communities provide safe places where children can gather inside, away from street life. These include school clubs, youth clubs, and sports and recreational centers where children and youth are given support and supervision through educational and developmental programs.
Without alternatives to schools, children can easily get involved in petty crimes such as shoplifting, residential break-ins, car theft and vandalism. After the petty crimes, these children may graduate into the more serious crimes of drug trafficking, sexual offences and gang violence. Crime can also be related to the probability of being caught and the extent of possible sentencing. On our Sexual Abuse Journals, we present information showing that most rapes and most acts of sexual abuse are committed by individuals with whom the victims are related or otherwise acquainted. Such relationships can discourage victims from reporting incidents to law enforcement agencies, thus failing to bring the culprits to justice. Part of the underreporting problem is the social stigma that is attached to these victims. Although they are victims, they are often blamed for the crime, labeled as being promiscuous and loose. This allows the real offenders to get away unpunished, leaving them free to offend again. As citizens, we need to adopt laws and reporting procedures that will give full physical and psychological protection to victims who report crime. Let us not allow offenders to get away with their crimes, giving them an opportunity to repeat. Corporate crime is becoming increasingly global and its consequences can be devastating. Consumers are defrauded. Our environment (soil, air and water) is often compromised. Our personal safety can be placed at risk by lobbyists who buy influence but do not have the interest of the greater majority at heart. We must also work to curtail corporate greed. The practice of “influence buying” needs to be stopped. We call for greater transparency as well so that irregularities in accounting practices can be detected early to mitigate any damages. The practice of corporate disclosure needs to be widened. This will allow consumers and shareholders to become fully aware of corporate records on the environment, human rights, worker safety and financial matters. It will also allow us to know about corporate criminal records and litigation records. Multiple functions within consulting firms need to be severed and made independent from each other to prevent conflicts of interest.
As law-abiding citizens, it is imperative that we live our lives according to the rules of our land. It is also our civic duty to report any crimes that we witness. The reasons are simple: our laws are meant to preserve the quiet and peaceful enjoyment of living in this great country. Anytime a law is broken, it can compromise the safety of our citizens. What makes our nation so great is the freedom given to us by our forefathers: our freedom of speech, of religion, of protest, to vote, to get an education, to go to work, to information and many more! These freedoms are valuable and precious to all of us.. Although the costs of these battles are plenty, the rewards are worth it.