Hitting People In The Gut

Recent research examined the cost per calorie of the food available here in America, A High Price for Healthy Food. The result is not only that junk food is much cheaper – $1.76 per 1000 calories versus $18.16 per 1000 calories for nutritious food &ndash but also that inflation is much higher on nutritious foods. The price of healthy food increased by 19.5% during the two-year study. In the same period, junk food prices dropped by 1.8%.

A doctor who led the study summarized the results quite well: "Vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods."

And throughout the world, where junk food isn't yet as readily available, people are facing a similar problem – World Food Supply Is Shrinking, U.N. Agency Warns. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization's food price index increased more than 40% over the previous year. And last year's increase had already been 9% over the previous year. Storage supplies are dwindling for all varieties of staples.

The article attempts to put much of the blame on global warming. In some sense, this begins to explain why it is that governments are now being vocal about climate change – it makes an excellent scapegoat. The article avoids a serious discussion of food speculation, which has been egged on by pushing crops into biofuel creation. It also avoids any discussion of the agricultural industry, which favors monocultures that are highly vulnerable to changes in conditions as well as dependent upon fertilizer imports and continual seed purchases.

Research of historical peasant conditions demonstrates that droughts don't kill people, the concentration of food wealth to a centralized elite does. Famine can only happen in an isolated bubble, and under modern conditions, this isolation is imposed upon people. There has not been a shortage of food for at least a couple hundred years, simply a refusal to redistribute food to meet human needs.

Limbo Lower Now

The article Guantanamo suicide attempt confirmed reports on a man held at Guantanamo who tried to kill himself with his own fingernail. Guards stepped in and "saved" him.

This speaks volumes. How depraved must conditions be to drive someone to such lengths? How low must humanity sink?