greenerthanthou,

Well said. All we can do is spread the word in what's happening and maybe the "masses" might actually participate in real democracy. One day at a time.

I read a book a long time ago called "Acid Dreams" by Martin Lee which addressed the LSD experiments. Unfortunately, my memory is poor.

I have a coworker who went to work for Homeland Security getting ready for bird flu and other things. I kept trying to tell her it was a biological warfare weapon, but she said she didn't care where it came from, her job was to contain it.

Now she quit that job, and told me that they did spend a lot of time talking about the bird flu.

It is a shame that so many black people choose the military. But divide and conquer is a traditional tactic for the ruling class.

greenerthanthou,

I thank you! We are both right on testing us. Which reminds me of two things. I saw a documentary about 5 or 6 years ago on either LINK TV or FREE SPEACH TV about government LSD experiments on unknowing citizens in the 1950's. Are you familiar with that?

Also, When I was in the Army, we had classes several times a year on CBR (Chemical, Biological, and Radiological)
#'s 1&3 were always discussed but hardly anything about Biological Warfare. Most officers, when I pressed them, who conducted the classes, said it was too scary to bring up because nobody could fathom what might happen in the event bio agents were used.

Fort Detrick, Md. does some sinister stuff behind closed doors. The Soviets had their programs too.

After Katrina, so many black people still risk life, limb, and sanity in the military, for the same group who abandoned them in New Orleans. When there is no self-worth, there is no need to rebel against injustice. The tyrant wins and his subjects struggle for crumbs from his (or her) table.

Thanks, peaceman. You are right about testing us, and probably about watching others drop like flies. For instance, the US went from 500,000 prisoners to over 2,000,000 in 20 years. Where's the rebellion? There isn't even much discussion of this.

But much worse was Katrina. The entire country watched on television as a city was depopulated. Many people have heard bits of the truth. Roads were blocked so no rescuers could get in, or people get out on foot. Rescuers already there were told to stop. The Red Cross was told they couldn't feed the people in the Superdome "or they won't leave". Blackwater was allowed to patrol. Children were separated from their parents. Prisoners and old folks were left to drown. Hospital patients were doomed to die. Communications were blocked. Guns were confiscated. People trying to get together and help each other were harassed by the police. After starving the people for 3 days, they came in with buses and the people willingly lined up for deportation. Within 4 more days, they were gone. We're told they were dispersed around the country, and I have no reason to believe they were not, but how would we know otherwise?

They got away with that one. They can only be emboldened.

undobush,

Very good! You have talent! Isn't Lennon's song 'Imagine' a timeless composition?

Stonecutter,

Good one also. Dr. Mercola has a wonderful web site.

greenerthanthou,

I'm sorry if you misunderstood me about Rebel Farmer's statement. You were not offensive or insulting. Please don't take offense.

As for a pandemic, no telling what the ruling class has in store for us. Many experiments are conducted in biological warfare which are classified top secret, and the general public would be shocked and perhaps frightened if they knew what kind of research has taken place over the years. The Washington Post article is indeed scary and an indication of how far they will go in their program. Same with the bird flu article.

I think they test us occasionally, to see the public's level of tolerance before reacting to whatever situation is concocted without our knowledge. In Chalmers Johnson's book, 'Blowback', he has a small passage pertaining to the infamous "Kristalnacht" ( check spelling) incident of 1938 in Nazi Germany. Hitler was testing the waters of the European and American democracies and whether or not they would intervene on behalf of the Jewish citizens of Germany. When the world (capitalist controlled) looked the other way and basically said it was an internal problem, the nazis interpreted this as a green light to proceed forward. You know the rest.

I may be wrong, but Americans wouldn't rebel in large enough numbers and could still be easily conned by the ruling class while they watch others around them drop like flies. Look at the "rice shortage" last week. CD had an article on it. Was it a test? If food was withheld from the public for various reasons, a rebellion might start and stores and supermarkets would be empty in a matter of days. What happens afterwards? When the ransacked food items have been consumed and hunger pains set in? I think this was the point Rebel Farmer was trying to make about starvation.

Enormous profits for the oil companies and we silently pump the gas with hardly a wimper. A nation of masochists, ready and willing to bow to the master.

Time will tell. One thing we all agree on is your last sentence. "They are up to no good."

We're on the same side, greenerthanthou.

Wow, peaceman, I didn't think that my post was offensive or insulting to Rebel Farmer. I just had a minor disagreement with her. I think that the ruling class will use biowarfare as well as starvation, and I think that it will kill more people.

Rebel Farmer used "ultimate answer". I used "final solution" as a reference to the previous incarnation of fascists getting rid of "useless eaters".

Some people quietly starve to death. I don't think that Americans will. We are heavily armed and used to eating well. Just cutting off our food would cause massive rebellion. I don't think that the ruling class wants that. But a pandemic, oh yeah, that's the ticket. They wouldn't even need martial law, although it's planned.
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0227-32.htm
Who would want to get out into the streets if there's a risk of a deadly disease? Everyone would stay isolated.

Plus, you can kill a lot of people with a pandemic. WW1 lasted for years, but millions more people were killed in the flu that followed. And why did the US dig up a 1918 flu victim and replicate that virus? They are up to no good, I tell you.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/09/AR2005100900932_3.html

I thought you'd like to check out the political allegory of mine that I just found a literary agent for. It's a story set in the context of a teacher discussing with his class all of the evidence that the Bush administration is as corrupt as it is incompetent...and how to rectify the Constitutional crisis we face. It's couched in a discussion about the urgent need to stop abusing Mother Nature. I wrote in 3 dozen celebrities to play the students, so it's very funny despite how infuriating it is. You can read it at www.stoplittering.com/theswitch.htm and, yes, StopLittering.com is my site.

A good article by Amy Goodman

Also, Good comments and poignant points by Madhoosier, Abuelito, Stonecutter, Rebel Farmer, Kayaker, and OldStone50.

greenerthanthou,

With due respect, I do agree with Rebel Farmer's statement about "starvation" and after rereading the post, you may have misanterpreted Rebel's words. And I just looked at your link. RF didn't use the words "final solution" in any of the sentences but whether it's bombed out arable land for growing crops, chemically induced crop failures, "bird flu" as you suggest, or even the 'aids virus" that some investigative researchers think was manufactured in the laboratory, they All lead to starvation and death, one way or another. I sincerely believe the other Common Dreamers, like Rebel Farmer, have valid comments on their posts.

I remember Reading something by Henry Kissinger along time ago regarding "over-population" and the need to reduce certain segments of people throughout the world. These ways and means mentioned above can be infered to as an ultimate answer to the "insatiable" appetite of Capitalist greed in getting rid of "excess people."

Right on, Kitty. Francis Moore Lappe pointed out in Diet For a Small Planet 30 years ago and again in Hope's Edge that the problem is not that there isn't enough food, it's that poor people can't buy it.

And kayaker points out that part of the problem is that subsidized food from the US is dumped on 3rd world markets, pushing small farmers out of business. This, coupled with World Bank loans for dams, tourist destinations (and golf courses) and export farms of commodities that the people can't eat, throws the people off the land and into these slum cities that have sprung up over the world.

I disagree with Rebel Farmer that the "final solution" is starvation. I think it'll be the much touted "bird flu" that the US is busily producing
http://www.sunshine-project.org/ibc/bb21.html
and making martial law plans for. Watch it spread through the super cities like Lagos and Bangok, killing millions before it head to the poorer parts of the USA.

In the next 40 years world population size will likely increase by almost 50% to around 9 gigapersons. In the US, currently still the heaviest per capita consumer of resources, the population will likely rise by almost 40% to around 420 megapersons. This is a /very/ short time frame. While there is something of a bubble in food prices due to speculation and diversion to other uses, optimism that the, "technology exists to feed the planet in an organic, locally based, sustainable manner" is seriously misplaced. Consider that more than 50% of the population is already urban - that alone suggests the impossibility of "locally based" and strongly undermines "organic" and "sustainable."

Food prices will continue upwards and very inorganic production and distribution solutions will be sought and used. There seems little likelihood - even if there is enough land and water locally for it to be sufficient - that "organic" could be propagated quickly enough to deal with population size growth.

Just as a particular weather event cannot be attributed to climate change, the current food price increases cannot be attributed to population size growth, but population size growth is a prime cause in the social and other environmental changes that we are seeing - including the increase in hunger and food prices - and it will be at least as disastrous as climate change. It is time, at last, to get seriously serious about our choice of population size - if this is left to chance, the results will be uglier than any but the most vicious would wish.

Monsanto is systematically proprietizing multiple crop seed around the world, and has already adopted various totalitarian methods of "investigation", threats and control to keep farmers in line and reap millions in profit from the simple growth of crops year-to-year. Meanwhile, their GMO crop technology is as safe as driving a Harley 100mph over cobblestones without a helmut! I watched a brilliant online French TV documentary on this subject that made my hair stand on end. Click this link to view--

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/01/this-company-may-be-the-biggest-threat-t...

Realize that since the advent in this country of private patents for food seed and other "nods to innovation" in a 5-4 1980 Supreme decision, the global food giants--with the tacit assistance of the 8-year Clinton presidency and the perpetual rocket boost of GWB's rapacious policies--have laid waste to the centuries-old concept of simply growing food to live, to sustaining rural families on various continents by allowing them to feed themselves with their own harvest.

The ONLY WAY this ship can be slowed, let alone turned around, is to elect a progressive president and a filibuster-proof Democrat Congress, and then demand changes through dramatic civic action. If this doesn't happen, then maybe we'll have to go through another paroxysm of civil chaos and protest that will make the '60's look like a PTA meeting. Talking about it, or trying to convince lobbyists to be good, moral citizens through "debate", is a recipe for dumbed-down paralysis and maintenance of the status quo.
We've already got the present Congress for that.

Biofuel has caused the "food prices" to go up? Really? And so we should what, stick with oil and cook us all? I don't think so. Here's a clue: if the demand generated by biofuels is taken away, the agribusiness companies will just contract supply to keep prices where they want them. It's the same thing with meat production, it's just something to blame. People want to say there's not enough food for everyone because of this or that, and it's a load of bollocks. If biofuel or meat production or whatever else on the list were to be eliminated, the food still would not go to the starving hungry, period. The problem is not a lack of food, it's a lack of money. If the poor starving third world masses had money, they would have food. The companies would make sure they had it to sell them, so long as there was money to be made. These companies may ignore starvation and suffering, but one thing they will not ignore is a paying customer.

But it's easier to find scapegoats than to attack the capitalist system at the root of the problem.

Let's not forget, there is no money to support the hungry in the world, Washington blew more than 500 billion in Iraq aleady to kill and destroy. After that is where the priorities are!

I have read articles before on this site which claimed that U.S. exports of subsidized agriculture products to third world nations competed unfairly with small farmers in those nations who would otherwise be able to charge a fair price for their produce and be able to make a decent living. So, as the U.S. sends less and less subsidized food out of the country this will enable small farmers all over the world to begin feeding their neighbors again with locally produced agriculture without having to compete with the unfair subsidized agriculture from the U.S. And of course eating locally and not with food transported from far away is a key way to combat the discharge of greenhouse gases. Looks like a win win situation for everyone. Yes?

Thanks Amy- you're still the best. when you see something like this, Crgill and ADM happiy raking in the huge profits they are making off the hungry, and now desperate poor people in the Global South, doesn't it make you think maybe it's time to ditch the WTO, cancel all third world "debt'shut down the world bank and imf and find something else to do that is not global capitalism?

thanks for the cartoon frethemedia

IanB- it's not too many people, it's too much consumption in the North, and too much hunger in the South. what you and i consume every day would take care of 200 people in Uganda

This starvation of the poorest in the world is all part of the American plan for empire. Genocide by bombing them out of existance was just the beginning. Starvation will be the ultimate answer. That's what the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO were all designed to do. We Americans just didn't notice before because we still had enough money to put fuel in the ol' SUV and go down to the local fast food joint.

I guess you could call me a cynic at this point. But Master has been at work for a very long time to subjugate the masses. The redistribution of all wealth to the uppper 1% in America is no accident. Master did the same thing just before the crash in 1929. Only difference today is that Master did a much more thorough job this time. It's going to take more than an FDR to get us out of this one.

As active as the zero population growth (ZPG) movement was during the 1970's, ZPG became a treasonous offense when Reagan was inaugurated in 1981 because the neocon global economic model depends upon increasing the population of destitute people to provide an ever cheaper labor pool.

So the deal is that banks and financial institutions will take back the money they lost in the housing bubble from the bellies of already poor people? Sweet, very Christian.

Speaking of ticker tape, it's going up. Dow 13000 as this is typed. What is it saying about oil and food? About American political future? About Iran? About housing crisis? (Or would we be as well off to try to relate it to the outcome of Dancing With The Stars?)

One of the greatest problems facing the planet is the growth in human population. It is increasing by 70-80 million people per year!!!!

People are not made out of moon beams. People are made from food.

Increased global food production fuels population growth.

On a global basis, more food = more humans.

Want to find out more? Read Daniel Quinn's speach on this matter:
http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/kentstate.shtml

Solid article as usual Amy.

Check out this editorial cartoon:

http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/borgman/uploaded_images/borg-fri-080502-784755.gif

By the harvest of 2008 there will be enough ethanol distilleries built in the U.S. to convert every bushel of corn the United States now exports into ethanol. The U.S. accounts for over 70% of the world's corn exports. By pegging basic food inputs to energy prices over a billion of the worlds poorest will not have enough money to afford enough food to avoid starvation.

In six of the last seven years world grain consumption exceeded world grain production. Today there is less than 60 days worth of grain stocks. Given these circumstances I'm amazed that grain prices aren't higher than they already are. There are basic economic forces of supply and demand that are fueling to surge of food prices, the roll of speculators is just one factor in many.

As consumers are forced to spend higher percentages of their income on food, energy and health care they must reduce spending on other items, with the credit crunch resulting from the sub-prime lending fiasco, the plummeting value of the dollar, two wars dragging down the economy, real unemployment around 13%, real estate values crashing and a government overstocked with corporate shills it's going to get a hell of a lot worse before it starts to turn around.

Frankly having three of four years worth of food stockpiled along with other survival supplies sounds like a sound investment to me.

Quoting the article; "The report states: "The amount of speculative money in commodities futures … was less than $5 billion in 2000. Last year, it ballooned to roughly $175 billion."

While this number is probably accurate remember that a lot of the stuff traded in the commodity markets is not food, these markets also include items like gold, silver and petroleum. Given the volatility of the stock markets in the U.S., the crash of real estate prices, the meltdown of the sub-prime lending fiasco and the stress on the financial sector the flow of money into commodities is to be expected.

I think it's time to dust of Marx and Malthus and brush up a little.

The food shortage has hit the US but it won't reach the doors of our government. Dylan was right when he said the times are changing. But unfortunately they are changing for the worse, not better. Our empire is in rapid decline.
Hoa binh

Yahoo! Nice one, Amy. All that Liquidity me and the boys are getting Injected is goin' straight into food futures! You can't bid the prices up like this in the local markets, and we know there'll be hungry buyers at whatever price we cause! Yahoo! Think we lost big on the CDO's and SIV's? Think again! We won a chance to try again and we're going to make a killing!!