From Africa to the Middle East to the United States, the unmentioned continue to suffer.

In These Times, By Noam Chomsky, January 9

[...]

The African appeal can be found in the Indian journal Frontline, but was mostly unheard in the West. That comes as no surprise: Africans are “unpeople,” to adapt George Orwell’s term for those unfit to enter history.

And on April 10, the Arab League reverted to unpeople by calling on the U.N. also to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza and to lift the Israeli siege, virtually ignored.

That too makes good sense. Palestinians are prototypical unpeople, as we see regularly. Consider the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs, which opened with two articles on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

[...]

The strange breed of unpeople can be found everywhere, including the United States: in the prisons that are an international scandal, the food kitchens, the decaying slums.

But examples are misleading. The world’s population as a whole teeters on the edge of a black hole.

We have daily reminders, even from very small incidents–for instance, last month, when Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives barred a virtually costless reorganization to investigate the causes of the weather extremes of 2011 and to provide better forecasts.

Republicans feared that it might be an opening wedge for “propaganda” on global warming, a nonproblem according to the catechism recited by the candidates for the nomination of what years ago used to be an authentic political party.

Poor sad species.

Via Americablog.