How the news looks...

[nadinbrzezinski]

from the centers of power in the US... the effect on oil prices every time we have a disturbance in the force matters. Insert reason here, regarding the economy.

Our nooz wil not, mostly, focus on why people are revolting right now.

Things like a complete lack of social services, and extremely high not just unemployment but YOUTH unemployment, will nto enter the discussion. Nor will things like price of food. Like any Imperial capital we are fixed on how the story (insert here, it goes the same every time we have a major disturbance in the force) will affect US. We are pretty insular as a people. So being shocked that the nooz is pushing the line that oil will go up (it is already going up) is to be expected. To speak with the DC head of AL Jazera about actual freedom of the press in Cairo right now is not... thanks Rachel for going there.

Now thinking that it was because of Wiki leaks is also a variation of US and how we are the center of the story. This has been cooking for at least ten years. There is more, a lot of this story is not just about freedom and jobs, and safety nets, but about food. We started to see the LEADING EDGE of this oh in 2008, when we started seeing things like this:

Food price rises threaten global security - UN
Hunger riots will destabilise weak governments, says senior official

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/09/food.unitednations

It's been building.

So as much as we would love to make this about us, a very colonial attitude... it is not. It is far more complex, but our media is mostly incapable of asking the right questions. The reasons for that are systemic, but also a nature of who we are as a people. We might be an Empire, a declining empire, but our insularity has accompanied us all the way. Some historians in the future might even refer to this as a reluctant Empire, since the people were dragged kicking and screaming.

Oh and given how food has gone up in price... the fun has just begun. People who are close to the edge will do this, when there are no pitas to eat, or tortillas, or bread.

[dkf]

1. If it's about food, what will the protests solve?

Are Governments going to be the purchaser and distributor of food from now on? Or will the unrest destroy economies and leave people starving and worse off?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. This is about globalization and monoculture for export

many countries will have to start growing, again, for national consumption before export... that I can almost smell coming.

Regional alliances wil also be likely for regional food security. Planting Cotton (in the case of Egypt) for export to the European market, will have to give way to wheat and rice for internal use.

Food security is a concept that will be coming back in fashion, if not this year... very soon.

That will see the beginning of the unraveling of the Globalized economy, since that is the basis for it in some ways.

[Catherina]

3. [phone] n/t

[dkf]

8. Makes sense.

You are a fountain of knowledge as usual. Thx.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. You welcome... food security came to my

consciousness when I learned Mexico IMPORTS corn. Well BEFORE NAFTA Mexico produced enough to feed itself and a small surplus.

Yes there is a population growth, but the way agriculture works in the Bajio is not like it was. And many of those people were forced off the land... they are many of our illegals as well.

Here for the geography

[Catherina]

4. Rec'd n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Thanks I expect the fun to expand outside the ME

if trends continue in the next five years. This year may see more fires as well, not just in the ME.

[Catherina]

6. I don't think people get it.

Mexico barely produces any more corn. Poor people all over the world can barely afford food and investors are *speculating* like they're in a casino and driving the prices up. Down where I am, the price of rice, beans just go up everyday. I asked a guy who does some work for me how he manages to feed his family and pay rent on $200 a month and he almost cried.

It's now a world of hurt and hungry people don't have much of a sense of humor.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. And twenty years ago Mexico produced enough corn

to feed itself and to export some... I know.

A lot of people are trapped in the old paradigms... and they do not understand what we have now is not Capitalism... but something else... with far more in common with mercantilistic relationships and consumerism.