“What If It Was Your Family Starving To Death?” UN World Food Program Director Asked Musk and Bezo

“Our lives are now shaped by the pursuits, products and priorities of the world’s wealthiest people.” … “Like it or not, we are now in Musk’s world.”

TIME Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief

TIME Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief in his explanation of why Elon Musk was chosen as TIME’s 2021 Person of the Year mentions quite insightfully that to Musk

“steering capital allocation away from the government to those who will be good stewards of it, is progress. To others, it is testament to capitalism’s failings as staggeringly wealthy, mostly white men play by their own rules while much of society gets left behind.”

“In 2021, Musk emerged not just as the world’s richest person but also as perhaps the richest example of a massive shift in our society. From Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to Facebook turned Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, the year brought home the extent to which, at a time of rising protest over ever deepening inequality, our lives and many of the basic structures around them are now shaped by the pursuits, products and priorities of the world’s wealthiest people.” … “Like it or not, we are now in Musk’s world.” [1]

On Oct. 26, David Beasley, the director of the UN’s World Food Program, which in 2020 won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, citing “a perfect storm” of conflict, climate change and COVID-19.

had told CNN,

“it was time for the ultra-wealthy to step up now, on a one-time basis.” “Six billion dollars to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated,”

Beasley said, specifically mentioning Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the two richest men in the world.

“What if it was your daughter starving to death? What if it was your family starving to death?

( As of November 2021, Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, had a net worth of $335 billion, making him the richest man in the world, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire index.)

On November 1st Elon Musk Offered the $6 Billion On One Condition

On November 1st, Elon Musk tweeted he is willing to spend $6 billion to fight world hunger – on one condition. Explain how $6 billion will fix the problem, and he’ll sell Tesla stock “right now.” Elon Musk said he is ready to sell $6 billion in Tesla stock if United Nations representatives can show how it will “solve world hunger.”

The 50-year-old billionaire, who is the wealthiest person in the world, said he would make the donation in response to comments made by United Nations’ World Food Program director, David Beasley.

“But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent,” [2]

Beasley replied to Musk’s tweets, assuring him that systems are in place for transparency and open source accounting.

“For him to even enter into this conversation is a game-changer because simply put, we can answer his questions, we can put forth a plan that’s clear,”

Beasley told CNN.

“Any and everything he asks, we would be glad to answer. I look forward to having this discussion with him because lives are at stake.”

The director of the UN’s World Food Program said that before the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s hunger crisis was already exacerbated by climate change and conflict. The pandemic compounded the existing issues leaving

“42 million people that are literally knocking on famine’s door. This is a worst-case scenario. $6 billion would help save 42 million people who are “literally going to die if we don’t reach them”

On Nov 17, 2021, the United Nations’ World Food Program responded again to Tesla founder Elon Musk’s asking for a plan to tackle world hunger with a US$6.6-billion pitch. … “This hunger crisis is urgent, unprecedented, AND avoidable,” tweeted David Beasley. “@elonmusk,

You asked for a clear plan & open books. Here it is! The WFP proposes dedicating $3.5 billion to buy and deliver food directly, $2 billion “for cash and food vouchers (including transaction fees) in places where markets can function,” and spending another $700 million to manage new food programs that are “adapted to the in-country” conditions and ensure “the assistance reaches the most vulnerable.”

Another $400 million would be used for “operations management, administration and accountability” and supply chain coordination.

The world is on fire,I’ve been warning about the perfect storm brewing due to Covid, conflict, climate shocks & now, rising supply chain costs. IT IS HERE.”

“This hunger crisis is urgent, unprecedented, AND avoidable,” Beasley wrote in a separate tweet, tagging Musk,

“You asked for a clear plan & open books. Here it is! We’re ready to talk with you – and anyone else – who is serious about saving lives. [3]

Spokespeople for Musk’s companies did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for Bezos, Angela Landers, declined to comment on the WFP’s proposal but pointed to other philanthropic donations Bezos has made to combating hunger. It’s not clear if Musk or Bezos have seen the plan and will ultimately decide to lend their support.[3]

Since Musk made his offer, seven weeks have past, during which time one would like to hope that no one has died for the UN World Food Program having insufficient funds, however, we already know otherwise by way of one dramatic example: On December 22, 2021, Middle East, News, UN, WFP, Yemen, reported

Funds shortage forces UN WFP to cut food aid to Yemen

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) today said it will reduce food assistance to war-torn Yemen as of January due to a shortage in funds.WFP said it is running out of funds to provide food aid for 13 million Yemenis. In January, the UN body will provide a reduced food aid ration to eight million people.

It pointed out that, as a result, five million people will be vulnerable to “famine conditions.”

“Every time we reduce the amount of food, we know that more people who are already hungry and food insecure will join the ranks of the millions who are starving,” said Corinne Fleischer, the WFP regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

She pointed out that the available resources will be directed to those in “the most critical state,” and that 75% of Yemeni children already suffer from acute malnutrition.[4]

Personal Power To Save or NOT To Save Lives

It must be quite a feeling of power to be told you can save 42 million lives of fellow human beings with just 2% of your wealth. The power to save many millions praying to God for food for their starving children. This power includes the power WHEN to save them and of course, incredibly, the power NOT to save them at all.

Allowing a child to starve to death or die of malnutrition will bring a charge of homicide, but in this world dominated by Western capitalist and colonialist ‘de-civilization,’ allowing millions of children to starve to death will not bring a charge of genocide upon anyone. Reflects a modern adage “Kill one fellow human being, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of human beings, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god.

It Would Appear That Allowing Millions of Children to Starve to Death is Not a Crime.

For many years, Bill Gates was the richest man in the world during which time the United Nations would frequently announce without result that $30 billion could basically end hunger on Earth. Gates, with $75 billion owned at least twice as much wealth as the poorest 1/10th of humanity – 750 million fellow human beings suffering hunger throughout the year and watching millions of their children die of starvation. If Bill had given the UN the $30 billion it needed to end hunger everywhere for one year, he would have dropped to fourth richest person in the world. Gates or someone of influence like a US President could have had the 540 American billionaires raise that $30 billion among themselves equitably. Why has this not happened?

In ‘Billionaires Not Morally Qualified to Shape Civilization,’ Caitlin Johnstone writes,

The United Nations has estimated that world hunger could be ended for an additional expenditure of $30 billion a year… According to Inequality.org, America’s billionaires have a combined net worth of $5.1 trillion, which is a 70 percent increase from their combined net worth of under $3 trillion at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So, we’re talking about a class which could easily put a complete halt to human beings dying of starvation on this planet by simply putting some of their vast fortunes toward making sure everyone gets enough to eat. But they don’t. [5]

Multi Billionaires Musk Bezos Zuckerberg Gates et al. Play God With the Lives of Starving Millions

(There are of course multibillionaires who are citizens of other countries, however, Forbes lists only one non-American (French) within the nine wealthiest men in the world.)

There is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families. Those who have entrapped them in severe poverty have committed genocide, which normally is a punishable crime.

What about the rest of us? Some of us, made aware of this unbearable situation, are moved to assuage conscience by arranging a monthly contribution to some charitable organization. A few of us become angry enough to talk or write about it in their extreme old age, as is the case of this writer. Most of us are busier with personal affairs and are quick to shut down attention and personal discomfort, and let their own personal preoccupations slam forward in priority.

Why is this unspeakable and massive tragedy of multi Holocaust proportions not in the headlines?

It might be reasonable to expect that death and tragedy on this scale would be prime time headlines news, yet these issues only surface when there are global meetings of politicians, bankers and UN officials at the various G20 or G8 summits, or at fund-raising concerts for charities, that produce a drop in the bucket of what is needed.

This has to be a CIA overseen mainstream media cartel [6] near blackout of news of children dying by the millions.(End Note [7] gives other examples of news and information blackouts meant to protect profitable genocide arranged by the criminally wealthy of the colonial-neocolonial First World.)

Since it’s the money that is lacking to feed millions of our children, seems a question of world economics, but if we turn to the preeminently knowledgable person in world economics, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, we find something chilling – as ghastly as thinking of dying children. In his Globalization And Its Discontents, Stiglitz confesses that during his time as Chief Economist of the World Bank, policies were genocidal. In the higher echelons of world economics, genocide figures in only as a “discontent.” And please note that Stiglitz has at least often battled against those who starve people for profit. He was fired by the World Bank for expressing dissent with its policies.[8]

Our guy Stiglitz, to this historians knowledge, has never called for investigation of World Bank polices as a genocidal crime. Though Stiglitz argues against starving people quite a bit,[9] they continue to die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.

If starving people is profitable, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark dictum is prosecution for ‘If crime pays it will continue.’

At a UN food summit attended by dozens of world leaders in Rome, Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said wealthier nations are doing little to help the developing world face the problem and were cutting back on agriculture programs for the world’s poor and ignoring deforestation — while spending billions on carbon markets, subsidies for farmers and biofuel production.

So if the lives of our children are not a first priority, what is? The answer flares up immediately: World wars and preparing for bombings and invasions! That is where the greatest expenditure of financial and human resources are allocated by those who rule us in order to accumulate for themselves the wealth that sustains their power over us. Martin Luther King said as much in his Earth shaking sermon ‘Beyond Vietnam a time to Break Silence’ [10]

What happened to the moral imperative? Our clerics and philosophers are supposed to remind us of what is right. For centuries organized religion has provided just the amount of help to look good, while being solidly in league with the criminally wealthy of the status quo. As humanity confronts a Götterdämmerung for millions of children and their families, churches confront us with the ultimate apostate palliative, ‘God will open a high place in Heaven for the [murdered] tiny tots’ souls.’

The year in year out continuation of this suffering and loss of life contravenes the natural human instinct to help in times of disaster. Imagine the desperation we would feel if a major earthquake were to occur and people stood by and watched without assisting the survivors!

The multi–billionaires and/or all of us, are cruelly allowing millions of children to die this year, as every year, without reacting to the information as normal human beings should. Does the reader know anyone who brings up the subject of millions of starving children in conversation?)

With so many alternative solutions left unconsidered, it would appear that the poverty of those starving to death is matched or exceeded by the unfairly wealthy knowingly letting them being tortured to death for lack of food, who appear to be suffering from what psychiatry has termed ‘poverty of thought.’

In case some readers are feeling more comfortable as this tract seems to be pointing a finger away from the rest of us who are eating well, consider that most everyone one of us aware of the kids dying for lack of food must be somewhere lower down on the responsibility list, on which Must and Bezos hold the top spot. Citizens in the First World, to some degree or another, benefit from the calculated mass murder of children in Africa and India as the colossal profits from land-acquiring multinational corporations that create food insufficiency ‘trickles down’ to the lower classes of the First World.[11]

Very few of us are not well aware that millions of children of the poor in many nations of non-Caucasian populations are dying of hunger and malnutrition. We know it is a crime, but our consumer media diverts our attention and instills egotistical, selfish even anti social desires. Since we are used to our highest officials getting away with all kinds of crime, including murder, even the mass murder of the many US-NATO regime change wars, we feel our silence (albeit shameful) might be forgivable. Not very often, but once in a while we sense the cruelty of our indifference toward the indescribable suffering of the parents, siblings, relatives and friends of the millions of darling and precious (non-white skinned) children of African, Asian and Latin America children dying unnecessarily.

Former US Attorney General Ramsey reminded us that there are laws on the books against causing the death of human beings, even against causing the death of certain animals, laws against causing the death of men and women in certain situations punishable by execution, the taking of a child’s life being most opprobrious crime of all. The international, national, and community laws on the books regarding homicide and genocide have been written and codified with common law within societies in mind. Canonical law in scriptures of every major religion and of every culture on Earth is quite similar or identical to the instinctive behavior of most of the more highly evolved species of animals, which give priority to the protection and nurturing of young offspring instinctively, often even sacrificing their own lives to do so.

It’s intriguing how selectively the common law based Accessory After the Fact law is used – “Anyone knowing that an offense (crime) has been committed and does not report the crime with intent to help a felon(s) avoid arrest and punishment can be charged as an accessory after the fact.” [12] Certainly, the great majority of us have not had such an intention by merely being silent, but there are millions, who are silent because they are profiting from their government causing millions of children to die for lack of food. In India where usually half of the world total of hungry children deaths occur, the government spends billions upon billions of dollars on weapons of mass destruction for its military, and gives multinationals license and official help to destroy human habitat in excavating minerals, with little and highly insufficient reaction within the Indian polity.

All this investigating the tragedy of the starvation of millions of us cries for an immediate solution and the most obvious solution augers from our knowing that according to CNN Business January 4, 2022.

“The world’s 500 richest people became $1 trillion richer last year”

The director of the UN’s World Food Program publicly challenged the two richest of them to give $6 billion (approximately1% each of their combined wealth) to save 42 million fellow human beings, who last year had become dangerously poorer. Elon Musk responded offering the $6 billion (approximately 2% of his wealth) and ever since then his inaction and silence has been in the front of many millions of concerned minds wondering if and when Elon Musk’s offered $6 billion shall be realized.

End Notes

1. Time Magazine, Jan. 1, 2021, https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk-choice/

2. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/01/elon-musk-tells-un-food-chief-hell-spend-6-billion-to-fight-hunger.html

3. “UN to Elon Musk: Here’s that $6 billion plan to fight world hunger

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/tech/elon-musk-world-hunger-wfp-donation/index.html

4. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/funds-shortage-forces-un-wfp-to-cut-food-aid-to-yemen/2454353

5. https://consortiumnews.com/2021/11/03/billionaires-not-morally-qualified-to-shape-civilization/

6. “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A,” December 26, 1977, New York Times

7. The whole five centuries of European and American savage racist imperialism’s genocidal plundering of civilizations and cultures, many wealthier and more advanced, through blackout of the truth, has been ludicrously portrayed as progress beneficial to humanity. The genocidal truth of Columbus is riveting to read in the first chapter of Howard Zinn’s, A Peoples History of the United States.

The super heavy investment and joint venturing by most all the top US corporations to build up the Nazi Wehrmacht of a prostate Germany up to #1 military power in the world during the first five years of Hitler’s rule in violation of the Versailles Treaty that forbade German rearmament, was by fake news and blackout of real news presented as creating only a ‘bulwark’ against the Soviet Union, but these investments facilitated the Second World War, the multination Holocaust and the desired destruction of half of the Soviet Union’s cities and loss of 27 million Soviet lives (almost half of the total of lives lost in both Europe, Asia and Africa during WWII), and left only the US industrial plant intact, making Wall Street owned America the world’s single superpower for all the enormous amount of $billions earned from the war. No one will regret the time spent in reading Anthony Sutton’s Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler 1976, [https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Sutton_Wall_Street_and_Hitler.pdf]
OpEdNews has published through documentation regarding media blackout of the truth and historical context of American invasions of Korea and Vietnam.
Fake News Laundered 1950-53 US Slaughter of 3 Million Koreans to Maintain US 1%’s Rule of South 40 yrs after Prez Teddy Roosevelt gave Korea to brutal Jap Empire in return for its recognition of Philippines as US Territory, US invaded Korea long AFTER Jap surrender, overthrowing its Korean gov., cutting it in two parts, installing a US dictatorship in its south now documented to have murdered 100,000 of its own citizens before the North Koreans unified the peninsula in four weeks.

That Rev. Martin Luther King Held All Americans Responsible for Atrocity Wars for Lucrative Predatory Investments. Everyone under the age of fifty, does not know (for it having been suppressed in media for more than a half-century, Rev. King condemned “atrocity wars and covert violence on 3 continents since 1945 meant to maintain unjust predatory investments” and held all Americans responsible for these atrocity wars for “not being willing to give up the pleasures and privileges that come from the immense profits from those condemnable profits.

8. Greg Palast (October 10, 2001). “multi-day interview with Greg Palast”. Gregpalast.com, October 29, 2013.

9. Stiglitz made early contributions to a theory of public finance stating that an optimal supply of local public goods can be funded entirely through capture of the land rents generated by those goods (when population distributions are optimal). Stiglitz dubbed this the ‘Henry George theorem’ in reference to the radical classical economist Henry George who famously advocated for land value tax. The explanation behind Stiglitz’s finding is that rivalry for public goods takes place geographically, so competition for access to any beneficial public good will increase land values by at least as much as its outlay cost. Furthermore, Stiglitz shows that a single tax on rents is necessary to provide the optimal supply of local public investment. Stiglitz also shows how the theorem could be used to find the optimal size of a city or firm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz

10. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

11. AGROPOLY – A Handful of Corporations Control World Food Production http://www.econexus.info/sites/econexus/files/Agropoly_Econexus_BerneDeclaration pdf

12. Someone who assists another 1) who has committed a felony, 2) after the person has committed the felony, 3) with knowledge that the person committed the felony, and 4) with the intent to help the person avoid arrest or punishment. An accessory after the fact may be held liable for, inter alia, obstruction of justice.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/accessory_after_the_fact

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents in 67 countries; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Kerala, India; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, Uruknet; Voice of Detroit; Ethiopian Review; Palestine Chronicle; India Times; Ta Kung Bao; China Daily; South China Morning Post; Come Home America; OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News have published his articles; 400 of which are available at: click http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html ; China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign : (King Condemned US Wars) http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/ and website historian of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/ featuring a country by country history of US crimes and laws pertaining.