Well that was predictable
Well that was predictable
According to the debate, they had their reasons. But still -- when one hundred and eighty six nations say one thing, and two say another, you have to wonder about the two.
Their reasons will not be valid, I'm not going to even entertain reading them.
We make more food than we consume on this planet—in the absence of scarcity, food security is obviously a human right, it's aggressively malignant to be against this.
Whilst we're at it, shelter is a human right too, we have several times more empty houses than homeless people in most developed nations—that's fucked.
we destroy excess food. hire armed thugs to keep people moving into empty shelter.
that's what your taxes are for.
They also hire armed thugs to keep people from eating edible food that was thrown out
This is something that's starting to get to me.
For the last 30 years EVERY excuse that has been made about America's inhumane corporate toadying has been utter empty and meaningless bullshit but everyone just pretends it's real words.
I mean the justifications for things like denying children free breakfast aren't even rational on the surface, even without going into it.
But FUCKING PEOPLE just nod their head like 'It'll prevent them from being independent' is even close to being a rational statement when we are talking about seven year olds that get all of their food given to them ANYWAY?!
I don't understand how as a country we have gotten to the point that words literally have no meaning anymore but it is going to take us to a dark place very quickly.
I don’t understand how as a country we have gotten to the point
I hate to inject politics, but this is very much state by state and locale by locale. NOT “as a country”.
Take the recent issue with summer lunch program for school kids. As far as I know, it was no strings attached free money from the federal government, yet some states used it and some didn’t, and pretty much on party lines. This is not a singular example, but repeated over and over: how are basic rights turned into political posturing at the expense of citizens?
But FUCKING PEOPLE just nod their head like 'It'll prevent them from being independent' is even close to being a rational statement
I suspect that whole line of reasoning is in service of, and/or a consequence of, this country’s aversion to giving people help they didn’t “earn” or don’t “deserve.” I can hear the conservative relatives now… “yeah it’s just $1.50 to feed a kid each day, but that’s another couple hundred dollars in their welfare mom’s crack budget for the year, and WE shouldn’t pay for that!”
For anyone who actually wants to know, here is the U.S. Explanation of Vote on the Right to Food
For the following reasons, we will call a vote and vote “no” on this resolution. First, drawing on the Special Rapporteur’s recent report, this resolution inappropriately introduces a new focus on pesticides. Pesticide-related matters fall within the mandates of several multilateral bodies and fora, including the Food and Agricultural Organization, World Health Organization, and United Nations Environment Program, and are addressed thoroughly in these other contexts. Existing international health and food safety standards provide states with guidance on protecting consumers from pesticide residues in food. Moreover, pesticides are often a critical component of agricultural production, which in turn is crucial to preventing food insecurity.
Second, this resolution inappropriately discusses trade-related issues, which fall outside the subject-matter and the expertise of this Council. The language in paragraph 28 in no way supersedes or otherwise undermines the World Trade Organization (WTO) Nairobi Ministerial Declaration, which all WTO Members adopted by consensus and accurately reflects the current status of the issues in those negotiations. At the WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in 2015, WTO Members could not agree to reaffirm the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). As a result, WTO Members are no longer negotiating under the DDA framework. The United States also does not support the resolution’s numerous references to technology transfer.
We also underscore our disagreement with other inaccurate or imbalanced language in this text. We regret that this resolution contains no reference to the importance of agricultural innovations, which bring wide-ranging benefits to farmers, consumers, and innovators. Strong protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, including through the international rules-based intellectual property system, provide critical incentives needed to generate the innovation that is crucial to addressing the development challenges of today and tomorrow. In our view, this resolution also draws inaccurate linkages between climate change and human rights related to food.
Furthermore, we reiterate that states are responsible for implementing their human rights obligations. This is true of all obligations that a state has assumed, regardless of external factors, including, for example, the availability of technical and other assistance.
We also do not accept any reading of this resolution or related documents that would suggest that States have particular extraterritorial obligations arising from any concept of a right to food.
Lastly, we wish to clarify our understandings with respect to certain language in this resolution. The United States supports the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including food, as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Domestically, the United States pursues policies that promote access to food, and it is our objective to achieve a world where everyone has adequate access to food, but we do not treat the right to food as an enforceable obligation. The United States does not recognize any change in the current state of conventional or customary international law regarding rights related to food. The United States is not a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Accordingly, we interpret this resolution’s references to the right to food, with respect to States Parties to that covenant, in light of its Article 2(1). We also construe this resolution’s references to member states’ obligations regarding the right to food as applicable to the extent they have assumed such obligations.
Finally, we interpret this resolution’s reaffirmation of previous documents, resolutions, and related human rights mechanisms as applicable to the extent countries affirmed them in the first place.
We also underscore our disagreement with other inaccurate or imbalanced language in this text. We regret that this resolution contains no reference to the importance of agricultural innovations, which bring wide-ranging benefits to farmers, consumers, and innovators. Strong protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, including through the international rules-based intellectual property system, provide critical incentives needed to generate the innovation that is crucial to addressing the development challenges of today and tomorrow
"We're fighting to protect John Deere profits..."
Some of these seem quite valid, but I really hope “intellectual property” isn’t the real reason. Poorly written regulations are too easily invalidated or ignored, so the feedback to “stay in your lane” seems important. However our corporate masters should not be able to dictate the basic right to food
I started looking into this further and the tweet is misleading. To start with, the graphic is totally inaccurate. This was a vote by the UN Human Rights Council, not the full general assembly. The US was the only country that voted against, with one abstaining. Israel wasn't involved. It's also worth emphasizing that the right to food has been established in other international agreements, which the text cites extensively and the US justification refers to near the end.
Edit: I was somewhat incorrect on the vote, there was a later general assembly vote, which the Instagram account that created this links to. However, their effort to imply that the US somehow hates people being fed is still misleading.
As a US citizen, it is a point of great shame that we have so many struggling to eat enough (and/or healthily enough), as well as pay their medical bills.
We are a nation with great influence and military might, but the richest Americans are often a direct reflection for what this nation as a whole truly is... It's a wealthy place that doesn't take care of its own citizens.
In this country
We believe
Guns are a right
Food is not
Let them eat guns?
Can't afford food? Eat a bullet pleb!
I got banned from face book for sugesting this.
might have to eat the gun the way the world is going
The United States
We believe guns are a right
Food is luxuryWell, you do use the luxury bones to eat it
Plutocracy, Oligarchy, Bootlickers, all the same: America.
Land of the fee home of the billionaire.
while in this country
a gun is your right to have
so it is to starve
IWGF
imagine voting against food.
some people really miss the guillotines
Can we talk about what defining things like this as a "right" means?
Otherwise voting to call it a "right" seems super performative. What's the consequence of making this a right?
What’s the consequence of making this a right?
Just for starters, it implies certain acts intended to deliberately deprive people of access to food constitute a crime. So embargos of regions like Cuba, Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, and North Korea would be de facto illegal under international law.
Of course, then you have to start asking questions like "What does it mean to be in violation of international law when the ICJ is so toothless?" But that's the UN for you. Issuing generally progressive proclamations through a general assembly while a handful of economic heavyweights get to decide how it all gets enforced.
Imagine being the only 2 places on earth that go out of your way to be afraid of a toothless organization.
I'm sure they'll be offering everyone in their respective countries free food as is their newly given right! Right?
Nestle in every country is getting right on that...
Russia: sure
China: okay
North Korea: all right
USA: NNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Sir, That is the cost of Freedom 🦅 /s
Capitalism invents scarcity where it doesn't already exist in the name of wealth.
If the authority declares food a right, it complicates the artificial scarcity required to profiteer.
Next up, air and water.
I was struggling to believe this. I mean Turkey, China, North Korea, really? But yeah, I read a little about the reasoning on a .gov website, but there was a lot of, let's just say language there. Someone on stack exchange broke it down and regrettably the reasons aren't good. Mostly it was along the lines of, if people just decided to stop working, we don't want to have to provide them with food or it would infringe upon our intellectual property if we were forced to help others with their right to food. It would also did into our food profits. So yeah... Shit.
Shithole countries
This is an "are we the baddies?" Moment for the USA.
USA! USA! USA!
We ARE the bad guys
reductive and meaningless statement, every goddamn country on the planet are fucking bAd GuYs. Newsflash, the majority of humans with power are horrible selfish trash, every country is guilty of disgusting shit. Every country is controlled by their richest assholes.
All true, but begs the question: why did every other country vote yes? The oligarchy knows they only need to control the US vote to stop something like this?
look at the map again
Try not to cut yourself on that edge...
triggered
What's the rationale from the US? Where's the ruling?
The resolution said some stuff about pesticides the US didn't like.
The resolution encroached on other trade agreements the US would rather pursue.
The US doesn't want to transfer technology and wants to keep its own IP rights.
The US doesn't want extraterritorial obligations that the language of the resolution suggests. It thinks all countries should manage their own shit internally.
The US claimed that it domestically supports the right to food and promotes policies to further that goal but doesn't want it to be an enforceable obligation. (Pretty language that basically says the US doesn't think food should actually be an international right.)
There won't be one publicly. But considering the pairing and the president in December 2021 I'm going to go with Israel asked for it.
Israel is the US's puppet
Oh honey
Okay, we can hate on Israel all day long for their many crimes, but let's not entertain "Jews run the United states" jokes. They are the US puppet. A very beloved puppet but still.
let’s not entertain “Jews run the United states”
Large financial institutions run the United States. And those institutions have a vested interest in controlling trade through the Mediterranean Sea, specifically by way of the Suez Canal. This creates a socio-economic incentive to back a heavily armed ethno-state with strong ties to the US/UK financial system. And - after the holocaust - the Jewish diaspora just happens to be the group that fit the bill. (The large Arab community in Saudi Arabia does, too, but its okay to be racist towards Arabs so we don't complain quite so much about that).
So we run into a problem. Saying "AIPAC is manipulating our elections with enormous sums of cash laundered through the MIC into mass media social manipulation" is true, but quickly gets you labeled antisemitic by people who want to conflate billionaire shipping magnets with your elderly aunt from Queens. Trying to draw a line between plutocrats entangled with the MIC and random synagogues in Chattanooga or Cleveland becomes difficult when you've got real actual nazi fucks screaming slurs on one side of you and cynical mass-murdering shits insisting anyone anti-war is anti-Jew on the other.
Neither one is a puppet. Each one uses the other. Israel has an outsize influence on US foreign policy, but the US also has an outsize influence on Israeli foreign policy. Israel tries to sway US elections, and US interests try to sway Israeli elections. They share many of the same enemies, which keeps them tied together even when things aren't necessarily in their shared interests.
In this particular case, the two probably voted "no" for different reasons.
The US voted "no" because they wanted John Deere to be able to remotely shut down a combine harvester, or so that Monsanto can sue people for misusing seeds, things that probably be illegal if food were seen as a human right. Israel voted no because they wanted to be able to keep denying food to Palestinians.
Associating Judaism with the genocidal state is anti-semitic, we don’t do that here.
The actual 2002-12-18 vote: Yes: 176 | No: 1 | Abstentions: 7 | Non-Voting: 7 | Total voting membership: 191
UNITED STATES was the only No
The map is for the 2021 vote, not the 2002 vote.
The map is for 2021
Right, the vote for 2021-12-16 were: Yes: 186 | No: 2 | Abstentions: | Non-Voting: 5 | Total voting membership: 193
ISRAEL, UNITED STATES were the only No
The United States is such a monstrous entity. Fuck this entire country. Someone hurry up and start the Second American Revolution, I'm fucking tired of this shithole.
I mean, there are folks trying, but I don't really like what they're trying for.
Surely Americans above anyone else would want guaranteed access to food? Imagine them going a day without a hamburger?
(I'm poking fun, not being serious)
This is America, land of the free - as in you are free to fuck off and die, here's your bill. Capitalism won't allow for equitable distribution of basic resources because then line don't go up. We live in hell and claim it's a privilege, and I hate it.
That's part of the problem. Obesity and malnutrition go hand-in-hand in this country because healthy foods are more expensive and more difficult to procure and prepare for people who are just scraping by. People will rant and holler about how poor people are so stupid for buying and eating fast food when buying ingredients and cooking can be cheaper and is definitely healthier, but that does not account for the people who are working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet and they simply do not have time for grocery shopping and cooking. There's also the astonishingly dystopian reality of "food deserts" where there are people who don't have access to actual grocery stores that sell fresh produce and meat. There are plenty of neighborhoods and even entire towns in America that do not have a store where they can buy fresh food, and even more where they don't have access to affordable fresh food. It's abominable.
As a medical professional, I see patients with tons of health problems including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome...the list goes on...and they simply do not have reliable, functional access to the healthier diet that would go a long way towards fixing those health problems. There are morbidly obese children with diseases like pellagra because of vitamin deficiencies, or obese people with muscle wasting because the food they have access to is mostly carbs and fat with very little protein. It is so frustrating and appalling to me that people on the outside of these situations look down on people struggling with obesity and diabetes and whatnot as if those people had any meaningful control over their situations.
One of my attending physicians in the family medicine clinic described it as "regular, small-town Midwest problems". Often, the best we can do is recommend that they try to get more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fish or chicken instead of red meat....but we also prescribe multivitamins and weight loss, diabetes, and hypertension medications because insurance will at least help pay for those. Honestly, health insurance companies could save literal billions of dollars if they offered rebate programs for healthy food and supported local farmers' markets or something. Diet and exercise will lower someone's high blood pressure 5 times as much as most of the medications will.
joke, got it, but actually 🤓☝️....
the US is #10 among countries ranked by obesity rate: https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/
1 American Samoa 70.29%
2 Nauru 69.65%
3 Tokelau 67.05%
4 Cook Islands 66.05%
5 Niue 63.71%
6 Tonga 63.37%
7 Tuvalu 57.73%
8 Samoa 52.83%
9 French Polynesia 47.02%
10 United States 41.64%
alt source with slightly different rankings, where US is #14: https://www.worldatlas.com/society/the-most-obese-countries-in-the-world.html
American Samoa isn't a country. It's a US territory.
A lot of those others aren't countries either. Tokelau "belongs" to New Zealand. Niue and Cook islands are legally shaky as well.
The population for all combined above the US, compared to the entire US population is ridiculously low, and I feel like this is to distract from how massive the obesity issue is in the US. When excluding what are basically territories and at most micronations, the US has the most severe obesity issue.
Ok, now take out every country with a population smaller than 10.
Americans are too busy wasting food to consider others could eat it.
Time to block the access to food for every single politician who voted against until they change their vote.
We all know the US is a piece of shit country. Sometimes, I hope Trump wins (I hate him with a passion), so he can just definitely send that shithole down the drain, thus making those idiots learn about the meaning of consequences.
Lol.. Not an American, but stood for democrats theoretical ideologies. But as an outsider it does make sense to put Trump on the presidency again to let him finish the screw up he started his last term.
One of the downfall is the global gag order that comes online about abortiom whenever Republicans win.
I was about to say this smells like disinformation. Cherry picking a more nuanced issue? Unfair portrayal since the USA may face the most significant consequences? Maybe. But ultimately, it still seems to boil down to shareholder primacy and US agricultural lobbies (my interpretation). That’s heartbreaking and everything that is wrong with the world currently.
https://geneva.usmission.gov/2017/03/24/u-s-explanation-of-vote-on-the-right-to-food/
Colonists donating money made from stolen property be like:
Look at me. look how generous I am. 💪
Wow more anti-US propaganda from Lemmy.ml truly shocking
If an abusive husband refuses to let his wife have a bank account, should we celebrate his generosity for all the spending money he "gives" her?
Now do per capita
You sure you don’t want it as a percentage of GDP?
I was going to ask what countries the aid goes to, and what classes as aid.
Americans HATE this one trick
People don't like the Jews any more?
I think they're OK.
I'm Jewish and I think it's an obligation of every Jew to critique the Israeli government.
Criticising the actions of the Israeli government doesn't equate to hating all jews.
Arguing in bad faith that the two are the same is a known Zionist trick to avoid accountability for their authoritarianism.
I'm an American jew who is absolutely appalled and disgusted by Israel's conduct as of late.
OK but the other bad country in this post is the states.
Everything has value in, and of itself. It isn't not my place to care about every sentient thing in reality. If being practical is being fuct, then that's me. Have fun caring about everything you can't do anything about. When you have a fight worth fighting, I'll sign up again. In the mean time I agree with everything you say. Whatever that's worth.
You're not being practical. You're just wrong
And an asshole.
We produce more food than we can eat in the US alone. We export a lot of it and throw another 40% directly in to the garbage.
Food is scarce only because there's money in making it scarce. It doesn't have to be, and it shouldn't be.
Have fun caring about everything you can't do anything about.
Isn't that what you're doing right now? Caring about the opinions of others that you won't change?
Not really. You have to wonder about countries that think it's ok to reward people with the work of others for doing... What again? Just existing? Seems like free food leads to confined circumstances. That is something the US knows all too well. The US currently gives food away simply because you exist. Guess what that, without competent education, has led to. Drug epidemics, mass poverty, mass murder, and partridge in a pair tree. Them that work, eat.
Not starving to death is not a "reward" and judging ones worth by their ability to provide labor is a disgusting point of view.
Fun fact, universal basic income leads to more people improving their lives and getting educated, working better jobs, reducing homelessness, and strengthening the job market, etc.
That's more than just free food! And yet it reduces all the bad things you blame on free stuff!
Then they should have talked about universal basic income. You gotta dig deeper than that. I'm responding to the bait that I saw. And UBI reduces all of the bag things for drones. Who's paying for this again? Btw, I grew up in it, and fought my way out. The depressing truth is that if the situation you are in isn't enough motivation to get yourself out, then I have to believe that you don't want to get out. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm not saying that we don't get out heads, and hearts stepped on by all the crabs wearing timberland boots over here. The tendency ought to be to look to our own, as opposed to others. Others keep us in bag life situations. They didn't put us there. Out own did that. All of this is general stuff. Something for nothing isn't a lifestyle I can abide.
Friend, I'm sorry but you're fucked up in the head.
Ask yourself the question: does human life have value by itself? (independent of everything, including age, race, employment, etc).
If your answer is yes, then every human life should be protected, and we as a society need to be organised in a way that provides the minimum necessities for survival (like food, water, etc). This is what the whole world, except the US, just said.
On the other end, what you're saying is that life in itself is worthless and that value is given by some other factor (like being employed). This means that, until proven otherwise, everyone is disposable. If you think through the implications of this, you'll realize you can do whatever to them - kill them on the spot, harvest their organs, cut them to pieces to feed your pigs, ... Is this the world you want to live in?
For the sake of completeness, let's explore the implications of #1, where people get "money for nothing". What's usually tested is giving people just enough money to cover their most basic needs. Would some people stop working, if they didn't have to worry about starving? I'm sure some would. But would you?
Because I, for one, like to be able to afford my luxuries, and will keep working to not give them up.
Let's go another way with this.
I don't know if you have any kids or not -- this is entirely hypothetical. But I have discovered people think more about a topic the less abstract it is.
You have two kids, aged 4 and 5. Then you get hit by an asteroid that kills you. No one else can take them in.
Wouldn't you like for the state to look after them? To at least give them food, water, shelter and care until they grow up until they are eighteen? To do all this whether they can earn their way or not? To do it just because it is the right thing to do?
Not because they believe the kids will pay them back or be worth something when they grow up, but because they believe the kids have worth now simply because they are living, sentient human beings?
Or would you rather that your kids are left out on the street to die? forced to make their own way in the world at the age of 4 and 5? that they will only be fed if they can show they have worth?
Just curious.
Education is a right, does it mean that teachers are not paid?
...what?
I don't agree with the comment you are responding to, but they're not talking about teachers not getting paid they're talking about reward for not doing anything, and that reward having to come from somewhere (workers who pay their taxes). Asking if teachers get paid doesn't work here, they're paid by the taxpayers but that has nothing to do with having a fundamental right to something (the US offers a public education as a right to all citizens). Teachers don't have a fundamental right to a teaching job.
What a dipshit
Regards
A person from the Nordic welfare states