REVOLUTION 86

This system of perpetual atrocity—killing hundreds of millions of children

This system of perpetual atrocity—killing hundreds of millions of children.

This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number Eighty-Six.

With Kamala Harris and Donald Trump bitterly clashing over who will be the head of the system of capitalism-imperialism that rules in this country and dominates in the world as a whole, there is this very real horror that brings to light once more the truly monstrous nature of this system: More than 500 million children have needlessly died, from starvation and preventable disease, just since the end of World War 2 (in 1945), because of the way the world has been dominated by this system of capitalism-imperialism and the effects of this on masses of people throughout the world, especially in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. During this time, the U.S. has occupied the most powerful position within this whole monstrous system, and bears the most responsibility for this truly horrific crime against humanity.

This is the reality of this so-called “greatest country in the world”—as much as they try to keep this reality hidden from people.

Take a minute to think about this: Over 500 million children—more than half a billion—dying at an early age because of this system and its domination of the world, with the U.S., the most responsible!

And so many people want to get caught up in voting to decide which group of mass murderers will head up the government of this country and this American empire of mass plunder of people as well as the environment!

Really? Is this a system, and a world, that any decent person should want to be part of—or put up with in any way?

No! Even if we put aside all the other horrors caused by this system—which, of course, we cannot in real life—the terrible figure of needless child deaths caused by this system would itself be reason enough to sweep this system off the face of the earth, and replace it with a much better system, through an actual revolution, at the earliest possible time!

(A final note: on the calculation of the numbers of children killed. Previously, I had used the conservative figure of 350 million children dying from starvation and preventable disease since 1945—which, of course, would be truly horrific itself. But, in looking into this further—and taking the definitely low average of 7 million children dying each year since 1945— this actually comes out to over 500 million. And, even while, according to the World Health Organization, the number has been reduced over the last three decades or so—from more than 12 million children under the age of 5 dying in 1990—it is still the case that about 5 million children are needlessly dying each year now. And, again, the total number, since 1945, is actually more than 500 million.)