Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger

[FourScore]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.

Haiti's Hunger Pains Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.

Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”

That anger is palpable across the globe. The food crisis is not only being felt among the poor but is also eroding the gains of the working and middle classes, sowing volatile levels of discontent and putting new pressures on fragile governments.

In Cairo, the military is being put to work baking bread as rising food prices threaten to become the spark that ignites wider anger at a repressive government. In Burkina Faso and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, food riots are breaking out as never before. In reasonably prosperous Malaysia, the ruling coalition was nearly ousted by voters who cited food and fuel price increases as their main concerns.

“It’s the worst crisis of its kind in more than 30 years,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and special adviser to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. “It’s a big deal and it’s obviously threatening a lot of governments. There are a number of governments on the ropes, and I think there’s more political fallout to come.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?ref=world

[scarletwoman]

1. Tough time for the Ruling Class -- the poor aren't dying fast enough.

Were Their calculations off?

k&r
sw

[BeHereNow]

3. No, their calculations were not off...

It's part of their design.
Assures them that they ARE the SPECIAL people
who deserve to live...

"Poor" is the result of bad choices, don't ya know.
:sarcasm:
BHN

[scarletwoman]

5. What I mean is that They may not have calculated for the possibility that there might be enough

angry people left alive to possibly threaten Them. The culling hasn't kept pace with Their greed.

[BeHereNow]

8. Angry people, too hungry to fight, don't really worry them...

And besides, all they have to do is label them as terrorists-
problem solved!

BHN

[scarletwoman]

11. I think it pays to remember that while THEY have the power, WE have the numbers.

You can be sure that THEY never forget that WE outnumber them. Neither should we.

[tom_paine]

13. I think they believed their own bullshit on the environment.

They thought they had all the time in the world to more gently manage the coming deaths of billions.

They believed their own multi-billion-dollar-denial industry.

Now, they have to play catch up. Those billions of death are coming much faster than expected.

Which is why the Bushies and their tyrants pals all over the world are moving swiftly to globally shut down democracy, republics, and replace them with the fake BushPutinist Model, which on it's surface carries all the characteristics and institutions of democratic-republics, but is a hollow shell and a stage set. Really, Amerika, Russia and China now have the same form of government.

They HAVE to move swiftly because the Crunch Time they though they had the luxury of easing into is now at their doorstep.

This is essentialy a crahs program for the global shutting down of democracy and the replacing of it with what I call BushPutinism. The New Totalitarianism and it doesn't have a name yet because it is still quite successful in camoflauging itself in the corpse-skin of the old democracies and republic, now dying or dead, like our own United States of America (1776-2000, RIP)

:hi: scarletwoman. Long time, no speak! :hi:

[Cresent City Kid]

2. We are lucky

Hunger here hasn't reached those depths, but struggling families who cut back to the basics of rice, bread, and milk still have sticker shock on those items. When bellies are empty, outrage should be full.

[Codedonkey]

14. I don't think we'll ever have it as bad as those tiny island nations...

Even in the worst of worst cases...

[AteAlien]

4. and here we sit

watching our candidates answer questions about lapel pins and other such nonsense.

I know there are many who are doing what they can to help, and for that

:patriot:

[bdamomma]

6. how long before our bellies are empty then the anger will come

[kineneb]

7. The revolution -will- be televised. nt

[scarletwoman]

9. Gonna take awhile before the revolution reaches THIS fat-ass country. (nt)

[nam78_two]

10. These stories are so sad

It is really heart-breaking-the human toll of this food crisis is really heart-rending.

[Matariki]

12. I'm told that in Haiti people call the pain of hunger 'Klorox'

I can't imagine the level of hunger that burns your insides like that.

I know a person who distributes food to people in Jacmel - which reminds me I need to send her some money for my Haitian brothers and sisters.

Thank you for posting this...

[4_TN_TITANS]

15. In steps American capitalism...

When US companies can get top dollar by selling our food overseas, they will - causing higher prices and shortages here.