Is it feasable that the majority of the American population in the future could starve to death?

[IDHow]

As the class-war from above intensifies and big business propaganda succeeds in making people apathetic about their situation, some say that people will only start protest once they realize they need their guns to hunt squirrels for dinner. How far could this war from above possibly go in your opinion before regular people become fed up with being shafted by big business and their propaganda and start revolting?

[leftstreet]

1. $15.00 a gallon gas. Tomorrow morning. Revolution.

Sadly

[TBF]

22. +1 yup - that would do it. nt

[Terry in Austin]

26. Actually, $15.00 might be on the high side

We saw food riots in the third world during the last oil price runup, where gasoline prices were in the $4.00 - $5.00 range.

[leftstreet]

29. It's the only thing they couldn't get us to blame on each other

Making minimum wages?
Should have gone to college

On food assistance?
Get a better job

Lost your house?
Shouldn't have gotten a loan you couldn't afford

Don't like the tax structure?
Should have voted for the other guys

As long as a certain percentage of the Peon Class can afford to walk 6 miles in a snowstorm without shoes and throw down a handful of quarters for a Big Mac, we will continue to eat our own.

:-(

You make a good point though, it might not take $15 a gallon!

[BrklynLiberal]

2. not just America...the entire planet.

[ck4829]

3. You'd need serious sabotage of the infrastructure and government

Even in the great depression, actual starvation was rare.

Is it possible? Certainly. But you'd need someone to actually aim to destroy infrastructure and government programs to get it done.

[jberryhill]

32. Sudden shortage of critical path raw material should do fine /nt

[aikoaiko]

4. What's so bad about eating squirrel?

:shrug:

[Lars39]

5. Woods get "hunted out" of game when times get that bad

in some places.

[Hestia]

8. Exactly Lars - if you read from people's journals back then, the woods were

completely depleted of any game and took decades to get to the numbers we have now. It is also the reason the Park Service came into being, rich didn't like the game being hunted out nor did they want to see the homeless so hear their palaces, ergo, the Park Service was created.

[JVS]

10. It's not really a good staple

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

[Juche]

6. No

It takes something like 5-10 calories of grain or corn to make 1 calorie of beef. If there ever was a food shortage, the first thing to happen would be we would all switch to vegan diets. That alone could probably feed everyone on half the farmland currently used.

Failing that, I think 1200-1500 is the minimum calories most people need to survive. So you could cut most people's calories in half and they'd live. It would suck, but people would survive until things are better.

Plus you stop using corn to make ethanol. So just by those three things you can feed everyone and have them live on 1/4 the farmland we currently use.

You start expanding farmland (this is already happening. After the food price spikes of 2008 farmland is being expanded in eastern europe & north africa).

etc.

Basically no, we won't starve to death.

But on to your original op, the sad part is the business interests have turned so many working class people into their pawns. They use racial, ethnic, cultural, etc. divisions to divide & conquer. I have no idea when people will get sick of that. It is hard to be angry at 'lazy mexicans' when you can't take your (white) kids to the doctor anymore.

[kestrel91316]

27. No grain or corn is necessary to produce beef. Those are used in factory farming.

Cattle don't have to stand in a feedlot to become edible.

[shraby]

7. When the lower 3/4 of the population sinks to very little to

eat and no money to buy anything with, the upper 1/4 will very soon come tumbling down with no money but their own keeping them up. What happens when you take the legs off the stool?

[Edweird]

9. Not unless there's a nuclear war, comet impact or volcano eruption from hell.

We have everything we need.

[aquart]

11. Yes.

But the class war will be a tiny part of it.

[w8liftinglady]

12. unfortunately,Texas has over 50% uninsured and Medicaid-we voted Republican (75%)

it will take removal of cable and cell phones before we really get peoples' attention

[Desertrose]

13. Better to plant a garden than think you're gonna "shoot" your dinner.

Even a few plants in pots on a patio can provide food.....

[jberryhill]

33. ...and easier to steal plants than plant a garden /nt

[yurbud]

14. if hedge fund managers can profit from it, yes.

[sally cat]

15. After reading the rural/farm forum here, I would say no. They've got it figured out.

[jwirr]

18. But there are not enough of us to feed the whole USA let alone the

whole world.

[sally cat]

19. Check out that forum. They feed themselves, not the whole world.

[jwirr]

21. I am aware of that as I post there. The OP was asking if people in

general might starve. The forum does not address that issue.

[sally cat]

28. No, not in general, is says Americans. Not the world. Not in general. Thus individuals in America

will not starve. Capiche?

[Nikia]

16. I doubt it

There are so many crops grown here and so many food companies that I can't imagine that the majority of Americans would starve. I know that some people are unable to afford enough food or a nutritious diet. There are government and community problems to help and I can't imagine them shutting down to the extent that many people would actually starve if were trying to get food. Big business as we know it would probably end before that would happen.

[jwirr]

17. Interesting post with almost everyone completely ignoring climate

change and oil depletion. These two issues coupled with the business practices and divide between haves and have nots. There is already starvation all around the world. I used to have a link to a site that would show me the pictures and locations of people who died anywhere in the world. I wish I had that link for this post.

As to the USA - if our government continues to help people then probably not BUT what if it is not working anymore? Oh, yeah, it isn't.

[Terry in Austin]

23. The Carbon Twins - oil decline and climate change

We basically eat oil, given our fuel-dependent industrial agriculture setup. Ten calories of fuel yields one calorie of food, on average.

When there's not enough oil, there's not enough food. We already saw food riots in the third world during the last oil-price runup, and at $148/bbl, that was just a mild preview!

[kestrel91316]

20. IMHO, yes. At least those who survived the riots would. Too few Americans have

the first clue about how to grow their own food or rear livestock. And too few have and interest in learning, or getting their hands dirty. They are too busy watching teevee.

[RZM]

24. Probably, but not for the reasons you stated

It would take a cataclysmic event or rapid climate shift. Even then, we wouldn't be the first to go. Much of the rest of the world would starve first.

[Blue_In_AK]

25. Funny you would say squirrels.

We used to eat those when I was a kid. Tastes like chicken. No, seriously.

[Radical Activist]

30. When climate change has bigger impacts on the food supply,

maybe then people will stop thinking that it's an issue we can put off. Americans don't know what food shortages are like. Of course, once that happens we may have already crossed the tipping point.

[billlll]

31. Population reduction plan of the Elite -- K A Fitz

On amcoasttocoast.com radio show
She was undersecretary of housing. Very sharp at economics.

Said the idle rich only need 300
million people worldwide to produce their
luxuries. The rest would just cause trouble. So the rest of humanity
will be eliminated somehow.

So yes the OP can happen since
big money will be used to find a
way. If Fitz is accurate. Any opinions on that?
PS from the radio conversation I gathered that the plan is usually labeled "Population Reduction" by people who study the activities of the elite.

Similar to the way "Peake Oil" is the semiofficial label for that topic of study.

What evidence exists that this is actually a plan of the elite?

Eliminating 6.7 billion surely would be a hellish prospect. Is the elite that coldblooded?

The show is not RW talk...it is "the sense of wonder" themed --UFOs,
Astronomy, physics, biological frontiers etc.
http://www.coasttocoastam.com

[billlll]

34. Above reply- corrections to

Ok, I looked up some data and here are corrections

Catherine Austin Fitts

Former Asst secretary of housing
Found her blog--no time yet to find a precise part dealing with the idea mentioned on the radio show.

http://solari.com/blog/

Another fix to the reply above--
Url should have "am" at the end of coasttocoast, as I put it at the bottom of the reply, not as I have it at the top of the reply.