Food Riots: Starving Makes People Bitter By: Mark W Adams

Bringing to mind a scene from a twisted script based on Soylent Green meets 1984, but lacking the genius of Brazil, or cool special effects of V For Vendetta -- people across the planet are taking to the streets in Food Riots.

That's right, food riots.

As shocking as it should be to see such a headline in the 21st century, memorandum reveals that this is a story barely making it into the consciousness of the blogosphere, let alone making a dent in the corporate media.

Food costs are rising as fast as they were in 1991 -- during the first of three recessions that bear the Bush family name.

In fact, the cost of everything spiked last month, the wholesale inflation rate surging 1.1% in March alone, three times the expected rate, the second highest increase in 33 years.

And folks, there are still some experts in denial about whether we're in a recession, which only means they expect things to get even worse and this is just the beginning. Even rabid libertarian and staunch free marketeer Mark at Publius Endures fears "mass starvation looms on the near horizon. This is a tragedy of potentially unspeakable proportions."

Now I don't know if Krugman is right, that "demon ethanol" is to blame, but it's getting blamed, that's for sure. And in one of the most surreal developments effecting the economic dynamics of this hemisphere, in just a few decades Brazil, which has emerged from from the gloom of poverty and overwhelming debt to become nearly energy independent -- primarily due to a national push to switch from oil to renewables like ethanol and other biofuels -- has just discovered they are sitting on a sea of oil, the third largest in the world.

Want a better life for your grandchildren? Tell them to learn Portuguese and remember the sun block.

The Democratic Daily relates this anecdote that really should just scare the bejeezuz out of you, cuz "With a full stomach, people will put up with even grave injustices. Facing starvation, any minor event can be the spark that sets the planet on fire."

The world largely depends on India and Thailand for rice exports, and India just put a moratorium on selling rice outside the country, to make sure that it can feed its own people. This move caused rice traders in Thailand to push the market price up by 40% in one week.

This is bad, blood in the streets bad, toppling governments bad.

In America we bitch about gas prices and working harder to get further behind -- and our only real interest in the politics that affect us all is when our candidates trade sound bytes that resemble a Britany/Lindsay catfight more than thoughtful deliberation of the future of our world. Meanwhile one of the Four Horsemen just saddled up.

This New World Order brought to you and yours by your friendly neighborhood Bush Crime Family and his neocon kleptocracy.