Poverty sucks

Here's my letter to the G8 fellahs next week. I filled it in at the global call to action against poverty site. You should go fill one in too, unless you're in favour of exploiting poor people.


Dear G8 World Leaders,

We all know that 'a child dies every three seconds from extreme poverty'.
Statistics are so often quoted and mis-quoted that they lose their impact. Which is sad, because that's an atrocious fact. Even if it's not correct (I have no idea where it comes from, it was just written on this form letter) and it's out by a factor of 100, that's still atrocious.

Words and numbers aren't going to provide any benefit to alleviate the problems plaguing the worlds poor. What's needed is action. Collectively,as a species, we have the resources and the skill to solve this problem. What we lack is the resolve.

I ask that you listen to the voices of other people around the world and ensure that at the summit, you will make decisions that lead to action to help bring people out of poverty.

I urge you at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland on July 6 to:
- Commit to and set a date for the 0.7% aid target
- Cancel 100% of the debts owed by the poorest countries. It's crazy for us to ask these people to re-build their own nations while we're taking more money from them than anybody else.

On the other hand, if you feel pressured into comment from all these rock stars and regular folk urging you towards an outcome that you're not really committed to, I'd like to ask that you not promise anything at all. False hope is ultimately worse than none. Oh, and if you choose this option, let me also take the opportunity to point out that you suck donkey balls.

Sincerely,

Gordon Taylor,
Australia