"Hungry people are angry people . . .

[Brigid]

and angry people bring down governments."

So says David Frum in this chilling article about how the droughts and resulting bad harvests of 2012 are setting the world up for trouble in 2013. I think the accompanying photo says it all.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/03/opinion/frum-food-price-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

[Betsy Ross]

1. First feed the face, then talk right or wrong.

Bertold Brecht said that.

[HopeHoops]

2. I usually get foul when I'm hungry, but then I don't eat that much anymore.

The one thing beyond anything else in taking off weight is limiting portions. Yes, there is too much of a good thing. I'll be hungry sometimes, but if I'm not hungry enough to bother, I'm obviously not "hungry", right?

[Webster Green]

3. "A hungry mob is an angry mob"

-Bob Marley

[ananda]

4. He's right and ..

.. I'm afraid that the political parties will try
to ignore it during the election.

[CrispyQ]

5. Damn. That photo. Stunning.

Here's a link to a DU post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1256523

and the article referenced, which is from last October.

More Americans than Chinese can’t put food on the table
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/more-americans-chinese-t-put-food-table-132752601.html

This is certainly not going to get any better. Humanity better wake up. Personally, I think it's too late. There is zero political will to address the issue to the degree that needs addressing.

[iemitsu]

12. i agree about the photo.

if corn could snarl, this would be the picture that caught it in the act.
we need to pass some global resolutions on fresh water resource allocations now so people can eat clean healthy food in the future.
these resolutions need to address no only H2O allocation but also environmental regulations.
fracking and mineral extraction are polluting water resources. their methods of extraction and refinement need to be changed to avoid contaminating the water.
let the mineral resources become more expensive while leaving food prices affordable.

[CrispyQ]

13. I don't have any hope at all that our species is going to come to it's mind

in time to avoid unbelievable suffering.

[iemitsu]

17. i don't have much confidence that people will recognize and address these issues

any time soon either.
partly because most people spend too much time just trying to survive.
it takes leisure time and extra energy to ponder problems and develop solutions and it takes altruistic individuals, who aren't trying to profit from policy decisions, to enact and enforce good policy.
i'm afraid that these conditions can not exist in a cut-throat, capitalist society.

[Fumesucker]

6. "A full wallet often complains more loudly than an empty belly." -Anon

That's a quote I remember reading long ago, I've never been able to find any attribution at all but it strikes me as remarkably close to the truth..

[doc03]

7. I was thinking how do they explain all those fat assed teabaggers then? n/t

[smirkymonkey]

8. K&R!

[jsr]

9. The bread riots started the French Revolution

[Brigid]

10. Yep.

A few generations earlier, Louis XIV tried to prevent this by urging the French people to start cultivating potatoes, saying that he ate them himself. The potato was much more suitable for the harsh climate of the time (the so-called Little Ice Age) than top-heavy cereal crops like wheat and barley that people had grown used to in the milder climate of the Middle Ages. People in the British Isles, Holland, Germany, and other places were growing potatoes and surviving. But the French refused to do the same, and disaster followed.

[Odin2005]

11. And the liberal revolutions of 1848.

[jonthebru]

14. "Them belly full (But we hungry.)"

The great Jamaican poet Bob Marley

[reformist2]

15. First thought: El Rushbo.

Second thought: Governor Krispy Kreme.

[HiPointDem]

16. how goldman sachs created the food crisis

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis

Don't blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street's at fault for the spiraling cost of food.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis


I have learned through experience to take media justifications/explanations of prices with a heaping grain of salt.