Wednesday, April 23, 2008

On Rising Food Prices

Kissinger made a chilling 1970 comment that explains a lot about what's happening now - "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." Combine it with unchallengeable military power and you control everything, and Kissinger likely said that, too.<Global Food Crisis: Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World by Stephen Lendman>


Hugo Chavez is calling the food crisis a "Massacre of the Poor". As Raj Patel puts it: "What gets to me is that even in a good year, 850 million people were going hungry, thousands of whom died. Was that not a massacre too?"

George Monbiot reminds us that despite the problem is not about production, but distribution: "There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), will feed people." The rest mainly feeds animals and cars (and landfills).

Go, read those articles.

I know I have been remiss in my blogging, but my real life duties have had to take priority. Yes, I know, you all miss me so much. ;) By early May I should be able to blog again.