Abstract

Editorials

The article focuses on issues related to politics in the United States. News that the United States has been voted off the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN International Drug Monitoring Board has elicited vows of revenge from conservatives in the U.S. Congress. They threaten to withhold payment on the long-unpaid dues owed the UN. At the last session of the commission, the United States stood virtually alone as it opposed resolutions supporting lower-cost access to HIV/AIDS drugs, acknowledging a human right to adequate food and calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, while it continued to resist efforts to ban landmines. U.S. President George W. Bush pledges to leave no child behind even as he touts his tax cut as coming from the surplus funds left after one has met one's needs. But a report released by the Institute for America's Future, joined by Senators Edward Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and Jon Corzine, shows how deceptive Bush's bookkeeping is. One could draw up a ledger to illustrate this. On the left side of the ledger are the disgraceful numbers: One in six children in the United States are raised in poverty.