There was a time when full tables signified prosperity and thick waistlines were considered attractive. The ability to eat one's fill was what separated the gentry from the peasant making do with a few crusts and salted leftovers. Fat was in because it represented leisure and wealth. Thin meant you were on the road to the poorhouse or to consumption, which meant your body was being consumed, not that you were the one doing the consuming.
Then feudalism went the way of the dodo, agriculture was revolutionized and starvation went extinct in the West. Between the widespread availability of cheap food and social welfare programs covering everything from soup kitchens to food stamps, it became hard to starve. Not only was the availability of food no longer associated with prosperity, but even the poor had begun to eat so well that fat began to carry working class and lower class associations.
Fat was no longer wealth, instead conscientious fitness became a mark of prosperity. The laden table made way for micro portions and exotic but barely edible foods. Thin was in on the plate and the waistline.
In Third World countries where feudalism never ended and the agriculture revolution never mattered, the values often never flipped. Instead of anorexia, teenage girls suffer from being force fed to make them more marriageable. The wealthy are fat and the feasts at the top never end.
In the West, weight stands in for class, at a time when explicit classism has become politically incorrect. When Europeans sneer at how fat Americans are, and American coastal elites sneer at the rest of the country for being fat, it's a class putdown that dressed up longstanding contempt in the colors of the welfare state.
Just because the left and its class warfare worldview, which pretends to be concerned about the plight of the underclass, dominates Western societies does not mean that it is not classist. The left is elitist and its underclass protectionism creates a new wave feudalism with a vast government funded upper and middle class dedicated to caring for the underclass, subsidizing it, caring for it and taxing it to pay for all those services.
The obesity concern trolling is a combination of classism and nanny statism that brings to mind the days when their ideological forebears thought that the way to deal with the poor was to sterilize those who seemed less capable than the rest to improve the breed. There is something equally Darwinian in the sneers aimed at Paula Deen. The breed being culled while the elites try to teach their less evolved cousins to survive by eating their arugula.
The nanny state is built on a technocratic confidence in the ability to create one size fits all solutions, overlaying that on a map of the current medical wisdom leads to the creation of single standards, which often have less to do with health than they do with the status symbols of the leisure class. 19th century popularized medicine created so many of these fads that some of them are still around today. The 20th century created even more.
Death though is not only inevitable, but it cannot be dodged with a one size fits all standard. Fitness guru Jim Fixx who helped kickstart the running craze died in his early fifties of a heart attack. Fixx had quit smoking and lost weight, and still died at an early age. Jackie Gleason who spent his life looking like a walking health attack, smoking and drinking, outlived him by nearly twenty years.
Medicine is individual and the collectivization of medicine is a technocratic solution that leads nowhere except to few doctors and ranks of unionized medical personnel nudging patients into following the script handed down to them by professors who have never actually practiced medicine a day in their life. This is the outcome of a nanny state outlook that sees individuals as dispensable, that is concerned only with group outcomes.
This view requires seeing all people as endowed with certain problems that require broad stroke solutions, like adding calories to menus and other rats in a maze tactics designed to modify human behavior on a national level. The targeting of fast food restaurants, public school meals and food stamps reeks of the same elitist arrogance that drives the nanny state.
The politicization of food by the elites of the left always comes down to class, no matter how it may be disguised in liberal colors. From exotic to locally grown, the trajectory of food politics follows the upselling of food prices The only difference is that the dominance of the left has wrapped the added cost with no added value in their own politics. The more affordable food becomes, the more the left finds ways to add cost to food, without adding value.
But the politicization of food goes beyond the fair trade and locally grown fetishes of the politically correct elites, the more politics ends up on your plate, the more the elites are driven to involve everyone else in their food fights. What begins as a way of raising prices while diminishing value to assert wealth and privilege becomes imposed on everyone in the name of their political morality. Once everyone else is paying more and getting less, then the classist left demands new ways to set its superior moral eating habits apart. Instead of everyone ending up with more food, everyone ends up with less.
The cultural ascendance of the left has meant that instead of conspicuous consumption, the consumption has to be disguised with conspicuous political pieties. The food may cost twice as much, but it's locally grown on a farm run by handicapped union workers who visit Cuba to receive free health care or by the indigenous peoples of Tuba-Tuba with the proceeds going to a complete sonic library of their chants and ceremonies. The entire thing is meaningfully meaningless, but it disguises the consumption in a hairshirt, which is the entire point.
Conspicuous consumption is now for the poor while conspicuous conservation is for liberal elites. Al Gore may live in a mansion but he still has the carbon footprint of a mouse. The problem is the truck driver whose vehicle emissions are killing the planet. Whole Foods is just fine, but we need to do something about McDonald's.
Conspicuous conservationism has made America a poorer country, destroyed millions of jobs and outsourced them overseas. Now it's beginning to make America a hungrier country. In a moment of horrifying tone deafness that makes Marie Antoinette seem enlightened, the left is cheering that fewer Americans are eating meat, without seeming to understand that it's because fewer Americans are able to afford it because of their economic policies.
What the left's food police can't accomplish with nudges and shaming, they can finish off with policies and regulations that end up raising the price of food or by making it too difficult to sell. As the left tries and fails to sell the general public on conservation as a status symbol, it moves in the heavy bureaucratic artillery.
It isn't unusual for elites to use the legal system to enforce their own values on the general public, though it was the kind of thing that the universal franchise was supposed to put a leash on, but there is something grim about their growing preoccupation with the habits and mortality of the population. It's the kind of concern that has a habit of ending in eugenics and the more medicine is universalized, the easier it is to start cutting off access to medical treatment for those who haven't been nudged far enough in the right direction.
Social medicine politicizes food consumption and a globalized economy politicizes food production. And the politicized American plate has less on it and at a higher price. While the left obsessively pursues its mission of destroying fast food in the name of lowering social medicine costs and being fairer to farmers, what they are truly accomplishing is to take affordable and filling food off the shelves, as they have done with countless other products that they have targeted.
By the time the left was done with Russia, it had gone from a wheat producer to a wheat importer and many basic food staples were hard to come by even in a country filled with collective farms. Finding modern day examples of that isn't hard. We only have to look as far south as Venezuela to see empty store shelves under the weight of government food policies. But one day that may be the local grocery store if the left gets its way.
I read two very troubling posts today and I feel I have to comment. If they are true (and I have no reason to believe yet that they aren’t), then things are speeding up and it sends a cold shiver down my spine. Never a good sign.
In short, the Feds went to a Mormon cannery in Tennessee and wanted the list of all those who had purchased bulk food. When the proprietor informed them that no such list exists, they asked for credit card receipts or anything else that would give them info on the customers who did business there. The owner then told them that it was a cash-and-carry business and they would not give them that info either. Good for them. It is none of the Feds business who is buying or how much. From Oathkeepers:
A fellow veteran contacted me concerning a new and disturbing development. He had been utilizing a Mormon cannery near his home to purchase bulk food supplies. The man that manages the facility related to him that federal agents had visited the facility and demanded a list of individuals that had been purchasing bulk food. The manager informed the agents that the facility kept no such records and that all transactions were conducted on a cash-and-carry basis. The agents pressed for any record of personal checks, credit card transactions, etc., but the manager could provide no such record. The agents appeared to become very agitated and after several minutes of questioning finally left with no information. I contacted the manager and personally confirmed this information.
I believe this is a precursor to accusing Americans of ‘hoarding’ food and passing regulation both prohibiting bulk food purchases and the seizure from homes of such food caches. This would be blatantly unconstitutional and fascist. It is a level of tyranny we have not seen in our lifetimes in the Land of the Free, but I fear it is almost upon us. Be very careful who you tell that you have stockpiles of food. Keep your private life quiet and protect your family and their future by being discrete.
The next troubling part of the report:
And here in Tennessee, we just learned that Nashville Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health are conducting “door-to-door assessment of disaster preparedness … using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are. .. in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County [TN] that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.” I have confirmed that that is a state run effort.
This sounds like government and state reconnaissance of individual households to find out if they are hoarding food and/or weapons. Not good. The local government claims that they have good intentions – I don’t believe it. You cannot trust the government and the Feds. They are not doing any of this out of concern for you. I smell a rat, big time here. Oathkeepers states it flatly and correctly:
“Deprivation of food has long been a weapon of war and oppression, with millions intentionally starved to death by fascist and communist governments in the 20th Century alone.
Accordingly, we will not obey or facilitate orders to confiscate food and other essential supplies from the people, and we will consider all those who issue or carry out such orders to be the enemies of the people.”
If those who carry out such orders to confiscate food are enemies of the people, then that same label also fits anyone in the government compiling lists of Americans who store food. There is no legitimate reason for the Department of Homeland Security to compile such lists. Al Qaida suicide bombers are not known to store powdered milk and buckets of wheat. Nor are they known to store away dehydrated carrots and instant potatoes, or fruit punch mix for the kids. But the Mormons are known to do so, and so are many other Americans who have the common sense and maturity to take personal responsibility for ensuring that their families will have food, come what may.
It is part of Mormon Church religious doctrine to store food for hard times and emergencies, with a recommendation that each family store a year’s worth of basic dry goods along with three months worth of store-bought canned and boxed foods. To facilitate that practice, the Mormon Church runs its own food storage canneries selling powdered milk, wheat, flour, rice and beans, sugar, salt, and various other dry goods either in bulk 50 lb bags or in #10 cans for long term food storage (up to 30 years for some items). These Church canneries also often sell food storage items to non-church members, seeing it as both morally right and prudent to help their neighbors store food, whatever their faith. The cannery in Tennessee that was “visited” by federal agents follows that practice of helping the general public become better prepared.
On to the second post of interest. This is rumor and has not been confirmed, but where there is smoke there is usually fire. This is said to have occurred in the National Guard:
He just got home from a EDRE (emergency deployment readiness exercise) at the armory. He said that during the exercise 3 companies of infantry were polled by questionnaire about the drill and it’s purpose. One of the questions was, will you as a member of the Nat. Guard use lethal force against the American public if ordered to do so? One of the men stepped forward and refused to take the poll and explained that it was a moral judgment on his part and that he could not do so. He then placed his weapon on the ground and fell in behind the formation. Devon said it was like a waterfall, Every member laid their weapons on the deck and fell in beside the one lone specialist. This included ALL NCO’s, STAFF NCO’s and SENIOR NCO’s. The only people left in front of the original formation was 3 Capt’s. 2 Lt’s and the BN Commander who was so upset he started having chest pains from yelling and screaming about court martials and disbandment of the unit into other units.
The Specialist who first laid down his weapon was held in county jail by the Bn CMDR, awaiting a hearing under the UCMJ. He was there for a few hours and has been released. An investigation is being conducted into those who started the poll and no charges against the soldiers are being filed.
If this turns out to be true, it is very disturbing. I am gratified the soldiers behaved as they did, but why was this EVER asked of them? From Oathkeepers:
Again, this is unconfirmed, and we are working on confirming it. Please keep that in mind. But this is certainly the kind of mass, whole-unit stand-down that may well become necessary, especially in light of the treason of the US Senate, which voted 93-7 to authorize military detention and trial of U.S. citizens — claiming the power to apply the laws of war to the American people in the same way as they are used on a conquered, enemy population, like Iraq or Afghanistan. While National Guard units can, and have been used for riot control without violating their oath, we suspect that this survey was asking them about whether they would do something far worse than just keep the peace during riots. We will do our best to get to the bottom of this, and provide all details once confirmed.
If accurate, this is reminiscent of the stand-down during Katrina by SSGT Joshua May’s Utah National Guard Unit, where the whole unit let their commander know, in a peremptory refusal, that they would not participate in any gun confiscation.
The young man who originally posted this on Facebook will not be posting on it further out of respect for his friends and the fact that the military is now investigating this internally. I would really like to know for certain whether this happened or not, because if true, it is like the canary in the coalmine and baby, she’s blasting for all she’s worth if this occurred. I read the comments on this and people are upset and very concerned over it and rightly so.
There is soooo much going on that I can’t keep up with it. But I sense things are beginning to spiral out of control and next summer should be a doozy. Store food, get items to barter and buy guns and lead. Keep it to yourself and get ready for one hell of a ride. I’m sure we’ll hear much more on Feds and rumors of Feds…
Can you feel things intensifying? Does it feel like there’s more going on than meets the eye? The things you’ll read about in this article are out in the open – available for all to see – and their disturbing and destructive nature are consistent with the transformation we’re experiencing. Let’s first start off by calling it what it is.
Jürgen Osterhammel defined it best in Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview:
“Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.”
Research into many of the actions, goals and objectives of the United Nations (UN) and President Obama lead to one very clear conclusion…
The UN is colonizing America and Obama is aiding and accelerating that colonization.
The “distant metropolis” in Osterhammel’s description is the UN and this article exposes the correlation between the UN agenda and what is happening to America.
Why is it important to understand who and what is behind the transformation we’re experiencing? To ascertain what they have in store for us. As you will see, the goals of the “colonial rulers” (i.e. global elites) are destructive to our way of life and if they are successful, freedom as we’ve known it will be extinguished. That is their goal and it’s our job to know the enemy, raise awareness and fight back until we’re victorious.
Focusing our time and energy on politicians in D.C. is important, but knowing what’s driving them and where they’re taking us is crucial. Who is driving them? If you think it’s “We The People,” guess again. For example, we didn’t want Obamacare, yet they pushed it through. We didn’t want Obama to plunge us deeper into debt, yet he’s overspent by $5.15 Trillion in just 3 short years. To put that in perspective, it took 218 years for all prior Presidents to accumulate $5 Trillion in debt, but Obama did it in 3 years. We don’t want our children and elderly to have their private parts touched, yet our government is expanding their TSA forces with VIPR units that will operate in many venues. Consider even the smallest things we once took for granted… As kids, we used to be able to sell lemonade; kids today are being told they cannot. And the list goes on and on.
So who is driving our politicians in D.C.? The “colonial rulers” in the UN – and Obama is one of them, as were Presidents before him. What’s different now is that Obama is thrusting the globalist agenda right out in front for all to see. Previous Presidents masked their implementation of portions of the UN agenda, but not Obama.
For example, which U.S. President openly refers to us as “global citizens?” Who places international law above America’s laws? Who talks about global governance? Who openly nationalizes entire U.S. industries? Which U.S. President presided over the UN when it’s illegal to do so? Who reports a State in the U.S. (Arizona) to the UN for “human rights violations?” Who starts a war in Libya per UN direction, without any threat to American interests whatsoever, and violates U.S. law by claiming Congressional approval is not required? This list goes on and on too.
Take a look at the UN Conferences and Observances from February of 2008 at this link and notice the parallels between this and what Obama has done in the past 2½ years. Don’t let the innocent wording fool you… Try to imagine Iran or North Korea willingly addressing, funding and implementing these things in their country. America is clearly their target, the most free and prosperous nation the world has ever known. Colonize and rule over America and the rest will fall like dominoes.
Listed below are a few UN items correlated with some of what’s been happening to America in the last 2½ years.
UN Treaty on the “Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” (UN resolution 62/37)
· Obama signs the New Start Treaty placing control of critical components of America’s national defense in the hands of Russia.
· Russia, China and Venezuela support Iran in their efforts to develop nuclear capabilities.
· Obama and Hillary Clinton support the UN Small Arms Treaty which jeopardizes our 2nd Amendment rights.
· Obama, Clinton and Holder devised a program (Fast & Furious) to arm Mexican drug cartels and criminals with guns from the U.S. When people on both sides of the border were killed by the cartels/criminals and the program was exposed, Obama’s minions were at the ready to decry lax gun laws in America.
UN Education for “Sustainable Development” (UN resolution 57/254) (2005-2014) and International Year of Planet Earth (UN resolution 60/192)
· Visioning Workshops are taking place in communities throughout the U.S. to solidify the UN Sustainable Development plan (Agenda 21 – their term, not ours) now that ICLEI/Sustainable Development is embedded into every local community.
· Obama enacts EO 13575 and begins buying up flooded farmland (see “Natural Fibres” below).
· At the Rio Earth Summit, Maurice Strong (UN) said, “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
· “Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced – a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.” — UN Agenda 21 (signed by G. H. W. Bush, 1992)
· “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”–Al Gore, Club of Rome executive member.
UN International Year of “Natural Fibres” (UN resolution 61/189) (2009)
· Obama signs S.510 Food Safety Act into law to take control of America’s food supply.
· Obama enacts EO 13575 to place 95% of U.S. land area (rural America) under government control (and he brings the word “fibre” into the language of the EO).
UN International Human “Solidarity” Day (UN resolution 60/209)
· Is it coincidence that the term “Solidarity” is being promoted by Obama, his administration, Union Leaders, radical far-left groups in Wisconsin and across America and even in Egypt and throughout the Middle East?
UN “Natural Disaster Reduction” (UN resolution 44/236)
· Promoting a “global culture of natural disaster reduction – including disaster prevention” presupposes that humans have control of natural disasters. Do you find that as interesting as I do?
· DHS and FEMA happened to be in New Zealand when a major earthquake hit.
· Major “preparedness” operations occurred in many states this year, directed by FEMA.
UN International Year of “Biodiversity” (UN resolution 61/203) (2010)
· According to the UN Global Biodiversity Assessment, “A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible.” (An estimated 6.93 billion “world society” are alive today).
· When Obama was asked, “Do you support maintaining the strong protections of the Endangered Species Act, and do you think the Act is fundamentally sound?” his answer was “Yes”.
UN “Solidarity with the Palestinian People” (UN resolution 62/81)
· Obama threw Israel under the bus when he called for a return to the pre-1967 borders – which would leave Israel unable to protect their people from the barbarians who surround them and want to kill all the Jews.
UN “Education for All” (UN resolution 61/140) and UN World Day of “Social Justice” (UN resolution 62/10) (2009)
· Under the façade of literacy, educational curriculum is focusing on the indoctrination of all children on climate change, worship of mother earth, being a global citizen and social justice. For example, Obama’s Federal Department of Education, consistent with Al Gore’s preaching, is moving forward to teach all children about climate change, instruct them to teach their parents about it, call out and ridicule “deniers” and loathe capitalism and humans as the oppressors of “mother earth.” No mention will be made of Al Gore’s private jets, SUV’s and energy-sucking mansion in classrooms throughout America.
· “Social Justice” diversity manuals have made their way into at least 13 school districts across America and 3 school districts in Canada. The manual “asserts the government and other institutions create advantages that “channel wealth and power to white people” and calls on educators to “take action for social justice.” The Omaha World-Herald states, “Only those educators who acknowledge the existence of white privilege in America, that ‘white’ is a culture in America and that race ‘is a definer for social and economic status’ can reach proficiency.” Those who don’t are asked what they will do “to align yourself with the values expressed… The book says teachers must overcome irrational fear of homosexuality and reject the “color-blind” approach to teaching in which teachers treat all children the same. Instead, the group identity of students of color should be recognized and esteemed, the authors say.”
Behind closed doors the UN is now planning to implement a global tax to suck more out of the pockets of Americans and into the hands of the colonial rulers.
Although Obama and his base of radical far-left comrades accuse America of colonialism and imperialism, the agenda that Obama is implementing is the UN agenda designed to overtake and rule America. Global governance, by its very nature and intent, is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of UN control over territories (i.e. countries) – and that’s “COLONIZATION.”
The cast of characters who set the agenda that Obama is imposing in the U.S. are the same “colonial rulers” who craft the UN’s agenda. George Soros, Maurice Strong, Al Gore, Henry Kissinger, Bill and Hillary Clinton and other Progressive global elites – including Barack Hussein Obama. They are the force behind the transformation, globalization and colonization of America.
Even Vladimir Lenin knew that it was the “colonial rulers” who were in control when he said, “The state does not function as we desired. The car does not obey. A man is at the wheel and seems to lead it, but the car does not drive in the desired direction. It moves as another force wishes.”
For the first time in American history, we have a President who is openly moving our country at an accelerated rate in the direction that another force wishes. That force is the UN, led by the “colonial rulers” who are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.
As W. Cleon Skousen wrote in The Naked Capitalist, “Power from any source tends to create an appetite for additional power… It was almost inevitable that the super-rich would one day aspire to control not only their own wealth, but the wealth of the whole world. To achieve this, they were perfectly willing to feed the ambitions of the power-hungry political conspirators who were committed to the overthrow of all existing governments and the establishments of a central world-wide dictatorship.”
Obama has opened wide the door to UN control of America under what these UN colonial rulers call the “New World Order.”
“As documented in a recent series of reports, the sustainability doctrine is infesting all of higher education. “It emphasizes maximal conservation of resources and government regulation to the near exclusion of other approaches.”[9] Every single student must be knowledgeable and engaged in sustainability.
The analysis there of the movement emphasized its economic and political imperatives. At one level this is largely accurate. The sustainability movement is heir to the disappointments of European socialists and ex-communists. It sprang into existence in 1987 with the report of the UN Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Norwegian prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The connection to land-use planning, the commitment to extra-territorial regulation, and the readiness to by-pass democratic procedure are in the DNA of the sustainability movement. A great deal of its mischief, as in the persistently misleading pronouncements from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stems from the grounding of the sustainability movement in attitudes far removed from American political and cultural traditions.
But the traction that the movement has gained in the United States doesn’t have much to do with spontaneous admiration for UNESCO bureaucrats or international elites who jet around the world promoting massive transfers of wealth to impoverished nations. Those ideas eventually find welcome in the minds of students who have worked their way deep inside the concept that they are now ‘citizens of the world.’ The movement’s mass appeal lies elsewhere.
Sustainability is first of all an emotional summons—one that combines elemental fears with hopes of salvation. It draws heavily on Judeo-Christian imagery and a secularized, but not very deeply disguised, Christian narrative of a good creation corrupted by human sin and headed for disaster, which might be staved off through sufficient acts of penitence—like giving up the internal combustion engine, not to mention bottled water and cafeteria trays.
The religious narrative is interwoven with other strands of Western mythology. It isn’t hard to find Rousseau’s imaginary picture of man uncorrected by civilization filtering into the dreams of sustainatopians. The movement expresses a longing for lost innocence, for the “re-enchantment” of nature as one of its proponents puts it, and for an easily captured high ground on which alienation from mass consumerism can be played out as though it had positive content. Somehow we can feel better about ourselves if we believe the world is going to wrack and ruin because of the heedlessness and greed of others.
And it thrives because it is a substitute religion that demands a manageable degree of expiation, self-sacrifice, and guilt.[10]
Not that any of this is anything new. The ancient agenda has always been, and will always be, the vie for total global domination. The only thing that changes is the excuse used to put fear into the population, in that they would go along.”
If I told you that your tax dollars (130,000 of them) went to buying a “diversity” manual that asserts the government and other institutions create advantages that “channel wealth and power to white people” and calls on educators to “take action for social justice,” what would you do? And if I told you that such a manual was required staff reading in Omaha, NE schools, what would you say? Don’t believe me? Read on to learn about “The Cultural Proficiency Journey: Moving Beyond Ethical Barriers Toward Profound School Change.” The book is a manifesto on cultural awareness. But what it…
by Cathie Adams Eagle Forum International Issues Chairman
When United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced his plan “to fundamentally transform the global economy — based on low-carbon, clean energy resources,” few realized he was calling for a new global tax to be designed without public scrutiny, but that is exactly what he meant. To thwart it, the UN’s flawed process and its tax design scheme must be exposed.
The UN’s one nation, one vote system has been used since its founding to render the U.S. impotent, regardless of the fact that we are its major financial donor. It is credulous to think that UN reforms could fix its flawed process. Banning the press and global tax opponents from its July 13-14 tax design meeting in Tokyo, Japan, for example, is anathema to a democratic process, but the UN is not a democracy. Rather, its unelected bureaucrats use a “collaborative decision-making process” to reach “consensus” with no debate or expressed opposition. The UN calls it “global governance” and Ban Ki-moon describes how it works: “While we are all in the same boat, not all have a say in how to steer it.”
EXECUTIVE ORDER - -ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WHITE HOUSE RURAL COUNCIL
FOOD FIGHT - June 9th Executive Order: ALERT -- RURAL AMERICANS -- FARMERS -- ANYONE WHO EATS: BEWARE "We are from the Government and We are here to Help!"
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 9, 2011 EXECUTIVE ORDER - - - - - - -
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WHITE HOUSE RURAL COUNCIL
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America and in order to enhance Federal engagement with rural communities, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. Sixteen percent of the American population lives in rural counties. Strong, sustainable rural communities are essential to winning the future and ensuring American competitiveness in the years ahead. These communities supply our food, fiber, and energy, safeguard our natural resources, and are essential in the development of science and innovation. Though rural communities face numerous challenges, they also present enormous economic potential. The Federal Government has an important role to play in order to expand access to the capital necessary for economic growth, promote innovation, improve access to health care and education, and expand outdoor recreational activities on public lands.
To enhance the Federal Government's efforts to address the needs of rural America, this order establishes a council to better coordinate Federal programs and maximize the impact of Federal investment to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in our rural communities.
Sec. 2. Establishment. There is established a White House Rural Council (Council). Sec. 3. Membership. (a) The Secretary of Agriculture shall serve as the Chair of the Council, which shall also include the heads of the following executive branch departments, agencies, and offices: (1) the Department of the Treasury; (2) the Department of Defense; (3) the Department of Justice; (4) the Department of the Interior; (5) the Department of Commerce; (6) the Department of Labor; (7) the Department of Health and Human Services; (8) the Department of Housing and Urban Development; 2 (9) the Department of Transportation; (10) the Department of Energy; (11) the Department of Education; (12) the Department of Veterans Affairs; (13) the Department of Homeland Security; (14) the Environmental Protection Agency; (15) the Federal Communications Commission; (16) the Office of Management and Budget; (17) the Office of Science and Technology Policy; (18) the Office of National Drug Control Policy; (19) the Council of Economic Advisers; (20) the Domestic Policy Council; (21) the National Economic Council; (22) the Small Business Administration; (23) the Council on Environmental Quality; (24) the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs; (25) the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs; and such other executive branch departments, agencies, and offices as the President or the Secretary of Agriculture may, from time to time, designate. (b) A member of the Council may designate, to perform the Council functions of the member, a senior-level official who is part of the member's department, agency, or office, and who is a full-time officer or employee of the Federal Government. (c) The Department of Agriculture shall provide funding and administrative support for the Council to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations. (d) The Council shall coordinate its policy development through the Domestic Policy Council and the National Economic Council. Sec. 4. Mission and Function of the Council. The Council shall work across executive departments, agencies, and offices to coordinate development of policy recommendations to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in rural America, and shall coordinate my Administration's engagement with rural communities. The Council shall: (a) make recommendations to the President, through the Director of the Domestic Policy Council and the Director of the National Economic Council, on streamlining and leveraging 3 Federal investments in rural areas, where appropriate, to increase the impact of Federal dollars and create economic opportunities to improve the quality of life in rural America; (b) coordinate and increase the effectiveness of Federal engagement with rural stakeholders, including agricultural organizations, small businesses, education and training institutions, health-care providers, telecommunications services providers, research and land grant institutions, law enforcement, State, local, and tribal governments, and nongovernmental organizations regarding the needs of rural America; (c) coordinate Federal efforts directed toward the growth and development of geographic regions that encompass both urban and rural areas; and (d) identify and facilitate rural economic opportunities associated with energy development, outdoor recreation, and other conservation related activities. Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) The heads of executive departments and agencies shall assist and provide information to the Council, consistent with applicable law, as may be necessary to carry out the functions of the Council. Each executive department and agency shall bear its own expense for participating in the Council. (b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: (i) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals. (c) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. (d) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
On Thursday June 9th, same date as the EO above, Glenn sat down with legendary investor and author Jim Rogers, to talk about what he thinks is in store for America. What, if anything, can be done to save her and keep her competitive with the rest of the world in the future? And more importantly, what can you do to prepare for what could be coming? He talks quite a bit toward the end about the woes of Farming in the U.S.. How the average farmer is 58 years old, nobody is majoring in agriculture and how nobody has been able to make money on farming in the US for years. Japan is in the same situation.
Awareness of Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development is racing across the nation as citizens in community after community are learning what their city planners are actually up to. As awareness grows, I am receiving more and more calls for tools to help activists fight back. Many complain that elected officials just won’t read detailed reports or watch long videos. “Can you give us something that is quick, and easy to read that we can hand out,” I’m asked.
So here it is. A one page, quick description of Agenda 21 that fits on one page. I’ve also included for the back side of your hand out a list of quotes for the perpetrators of Agenda 21 that should back up my brief descriptions.
A word of caution, use this as a started kit, but do not allow it to be your only knowledge of this very complex subject. To kill it you have to know the facts. Research, know your details; discover the NGO players in your community; identify who is victimized by the policies and recruit them to your fight; and then kill Agenda 21. That’s how it must be done. The information below is only your first step. Happy hunting.
What is Sustainable Development?
According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. Sustainablists insist that every societal decision be based on environmental impact, focusing on three components; global land use, global education, and global population control and reduction.
Social Equity (Social Justice)
Social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people “to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.” Redistribution of wealth. Private property is a social injustice since not everyone can build wealth from it. National sovereignty is a social injustice. Universal health care is a social justice. All part of Agenda 21 policy.
Economic Prosperity
Public Private Partnerships (PPP). Special dealings between government and certain, chosen corporations which get tax breaks, grants and the government’s power of Eminent Domain to implement sustainable policy. Government-sanctioned monopolies.
Local Sustainable Development policies
Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, STAR Sustainable Communities, Green jobs, Green Building Codes, “Going Green,” Alternative Energy, Local Visioning, facilitators, regional planning, historic preservation, conservation easements, development rights, sustainable farming, comprehensive planning, growth management, consensus.
Who is behind it?
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (formally, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives). Communities pay ICLEI dues to provide “local” community plans, software, training, etc. Addition groups include American Planning Council, The Renaissance Planning Group, International City/ County Management Group, aided by US Mayors Conference, National Governors Association, National League of Cities, National Association of County Administrators and many more private organizations and official government agencies. Foundation and government grants drive the process.
Where did it originate?
The term Sustainable Development was first introduced to the world in the pages a 1987 report (Our Common Future) produced by the United Nations World Commission on Environmental and Development, authored by Gro Harlem Brundtland, VP of the World Socialist Party. The term was first offered as official UN policy in 1992, in a document called UN Sustainable Development Agenda 21, issued at the UN’s Earth Summit, today referred to simply as Agenda 21.
What gives Agenda 21 Ruling Authority?
More than 178 nations adopted Agenda 21 as official policy during a signing ceremony at the Earth Summit. US president George H.W. Bush signed the document for the US. In signing, each nation pledge to adopt the goals of Agenda 21. In 1995, President Bill Clinton, in compliance with Agenda 21, signed Executive Order #12858 to create the President’s Council on Sustainable Development in order to “harmonize” US environmental policy with UN directives as outlined in Agenda 21. The EO directed all agencies of the Federal Government to work with state and local community governments in a joint effort “reinvent” government using the guidelines outlined in Agenda 21. As a result, with the assistance of groups like ICLEI, Sustainable Development is now emerging as government policy in every town, county and state in the nation.
Revealing Quotes From the Planners
“Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by EVERY person on Earth…it calls for specific changes in the activities of ALL people… Effective execution of Agenda 21 will REQUIRE a profound reorientation of ALL humans, unlike anything the world has ever experienced… ” Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet (Earthpress, 1993). Emphases – DR
Urgent to implement – but we don’t know what it is!
“The realities of life on our planet dictate that continued economic development as we know it cannot be sustained…Sustainable development, therefore is a program of action for local and global economic reform – a program that has yet to be fully defined.” The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide, published by ICLEI, 1996.
“No one fully understands how or even, if, sustainable development can be achieved; however, there is growing consensus that it must be accomplished at the local level if it is ever to be achieved on a global basis.” The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide, published by ICLEI, 1996.
Agenda 21 and Private Property
“Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore contributes to social justice.” From the report from the 1976 UN’s Habitat I Conference.
“Private land use decisions are often driven by strong economic incentives that result in several ecological and aesthetic consequences…The key to overcoming it is through public policy…” Report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, page 112.
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.” Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s Earth Summit, 1992.
Reinvention of Government
“We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions, more rapid change, and more sensible use of human, natural and financial resources in achieving our goals.” Report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development
“Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.” Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chairman, ICLEI. The Wildlands Project
“We must make this place an insecure and inhospitable place for Capitalists and their projects – we must reclaim the roads and plowed lands, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres or presently settled land.” Dave Foreman, Earth First.
What is not sustainable?
Ski runs, grazing of livestock, plowing of soil, building fences, industry, single family homes, paves and tarred roads, logging activities, dams and reservoirs, power line construction, and economic systems that fail to set proper value on the environment.” UN’s Biodiversity Assessment Report.
Hide Agenda 21’s UN roots from the people
“Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy- fixated groups and individuals in our society… This segment of our society who fear ‘one-world government’ and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedom would be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined ‘the conspiracy’ by undertaking LA21. So we call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth.” J. Gary Lawrence, advisor to President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development.
Food and Water storage, along with your current food, shelter, clothing, fuel, and other basic needs, are necessary for human life. We currently live in a civilization of unimagineable prosperity and ease of access, both in terms of affordability, and in terms of proximity access. The vast majority of us can literally drive a few blocks, in some cases, or a few miles, at worst, and purchase all of the above, then return to our place of shelter from the elements.
The vast majority of human history has been a story of scarcity of at least two or more of these essentials, and our current prosperity IS THE EXCEPTION.
Sadly, we're about to see this time of plenty and ease become a fond memory, if the plans of the radical left continue to be realized.
I have family members who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and they remember the scarcity of food and the poverty of choices available to those in a top/down government control society; the current paradigm of plenty and affordability can literally vanish overnight.
Store shelves can be cleared in a matter of hours, within the entire radius of the fuel tanks of your vehicle, should something go awry. And much can go wrong.
With rising food, fuel, clothing, and other prices on the brain, should another terrorist attack, or other such event take place, you can count on bottled water and convenience foods (frozen foods, etc.) to literally disappear before the sun goes down on the day you read this.
If this happened, today, are you ready to weather what may come?
And beyond the time when you would run out of comfort foods and convenience foods; are you prepared to make due with long-term food storage you have available, right now, in your pantry/basement/cold storage/cellar? Do you even have a place to store food in your current residence?
What would you do if you needed to call upon such resources beginning tonight? Would you be kicking yourself for not thinking ahead?
And if you DO have food storage, do you have enough water? Do you have enough grains, legumes (beans), powdered/freeze-dried milk and other dairy/protein sources to last the first year of scarcity, should things go really wrong? Could you make it a month with what you have?
If you have enough, do you have sufficient home defense resources to hold off starving masses searching for something to fill their painfully-empty stomachs, and do you have the requisite training/will to use it?
Do you have a family depending upon you to provide for and protect them? Are you prepared to do so, in such a circumstance?
Do you have life insurance to last years, if necessary, but no food storage, water storage, clothing (especially underwear/socks & other items you wouldn't want to trade for used items from others), fuel, and other essentials to last even a single year?
Please think about what's coming, and how you can prepare; time appears to be running out. Are you ready? If not, will you begin to prepare...today?
Here's some food for thought:
This first video clip is from November 4th of 2010:
This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," February 15, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. GLENN BECK, HOST: Welcome to "The Glenn Beck Program."
Tonight, forget BMWs and iPads and jewelry. Do you want to know what the next luxury item is? Believe it or not, orange juice.
So, I want to ask you this question -- what did you tell Washington to do in November? Did you tell them to increase or decrease the debt? Did you tell them to increase or decrease taxes? Increase or decrease spending?
It was pretty clear what Americans said last November. Have Americans forgotten? Or has Washington?
I'll explain. Come on, let's go.
(MUSIC)
BECK: Hello, America.
There is something I want you to consider tonight, the president's budget. Has the country or any country ever devalued it's a way to economic prosperity? That you have to answer. I hope so -- because that is the path our government is taking us down.
I've been warning for years that our current fiscal path is unsustainable. I said this under George W. Bush and I was mocked and called a fearmonger. And conservatives told me, oh, you're just trying to lose the election for George W. Bush, and it was innocence then now and it's nonsense now from the left.
It's an unsustainable path. People in Washington on the left used to say it until they got into power. People on the right used to say until they got into power.
It's political talking point. It's not. It's reality. And you get that. The American people understand that.
Another thing I've been harping on is to prepare for the worst but hope for the best. I know it's controversial. It's almost like what our grandparents used to do. By the way, did you see the New York City and state has released an entire guide onto -- on what to do in case of a total meltdown? Do we have it here nor not?
We'll show it to you in a minute. It's pretty amazing. Yes.
Oh, the fearmongers -- or are they just preparing on what to do in case?
How about the governor of Wisconsin? He's now telling the National Guard to prepare for civil unrest in Wisconsin. What a fearmonger. Or is he being responsible in preparing? More on that coming up in a few minutes.
All the experts and politicians keep trying to soothe Americans over with warm tales of recovery and winning the future. I'd love to share those, but the reality on the ground isn't matching the -- hey, we're in the beginning of the recovery, you know? It doesn't. Talk about dangerous rhetoric. That would be it.
The fed can keep playing tricks to mask the real problems but not for very long. Inflation, there's no masking the rising cost of inflation, is there? I mean, have you been to the grocery store?
Here's what inflation is -- a persistent substantial rise in the general level of prices related to the increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency. Got it? First part, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to the increase in the volume of money supply.
So, if they weren't printing anything and this orange juice was a dollar and then they started to print more money, the orange juice would cost more because there are too many dollars out there now trying to buy that one glass of orange juice. Well, is that happening? The experts say, of course, not. Really?
Well, let's look around the world. U.K.'s inflation levels hit 4 percent. Eurozone's inflation levels jumped to 2.4, and that isn't it. Experts -- experts are now predicting -- try this one on for size -- that the new, and I'm quoting, the new luxury item in America will be this -- excuse me. Orange juice?
They say factory prices and problem with drought -- factory prices could rise as much as 80 percent for orange juice and 60 percent for apple juice.
Let me show you what is happening, the six-month price percentage moves. This is six months. This isn't over a year. Six months, with just a few of the necessities.
Here they are. Cotton is up 125 percent. Six months, sugar 82; corn,59 percent; coffee, 41 percent; rice, 40 percent.
Let's look at some others -- oats, if you're a horse, panic; copper, 36 percent; lumber, you want build a house, up 33 percent. Put some gutters on it, why don't you? Or just have that old-fashioned thing called electricity. Oil, 25.1 percent.
During that same six months stretch, what has the dollar done? The dollar has dropped by 6 percent. Every time we print more money, the value of your dollar that you have earned at work goes down, making the price go up. By the way, we are now the number one buyer of our own debt.
Oh, do you remember the old days? Old days when I told you -- it was about a year ago, I told you this and everybody said, "Glenn Beck is a fearmonger." Oh, there I am. Here I am. A year ago, showing who's buying our debt -- who's buying our debt and what's going on. "He's a fearmonger, that's crazy!" Hmmm!
Number one, tell you about cotton. Let me show a real life example. This is cotton. Just in the last six months, cotton has gone up 125 percent. So, you have to go out and buy a new shirt.
It's a great shirt. This is a non-iron Brooks Brothers shirt. These are fantastic shirts. This shirt was six months ago, $79.50. Today, it is $88. Here it is.
But the real hidden trick is the hidden value of your dollar -- it's like a hidden tax. The value on the same time of your dollar has dropped 6 percent. So, you need to add another 6 percent to the cost of this, because it takes more of your dollars to buy them. So, it makes it not $88 but actually $93 for this shirt. Does that sound like a recipe for success? Especially when the government continues to spend and print.
Again, did you tell Washington in November to increase or decrease the debt, taxes and spending? Do you remember?
Let me go back to the president's budget announcement today which basically amounts to pouring gasoline right onto the fire. It is $3.73 trillion budget. It is greater than the combined GDPs of France, Italy and Ireland. Those three countries, everything they spend, everything they buy, everything they sell for an entire year is what this budget is.
It will also be the biggest one year debt jump in the history of mankind, $2 trillion of debt. For the man who said we have to get our deficits under control, he's not doing it.
He's -- maybe it's like -- it's like golf, Mr. President. You play a lot of that. Low score wins, low score, not high score. He's tripled -- tripled -- the deficit in two years.
But now, he says he's ready to slow it down. He wants you to believe that he's no longer going to spend. No, those days are behind him. Remember -- this is the same administration that spent the last two and a half years arguing and arguing and arguing that you had to spend in order to save the economy -- stimulus or debt, it's the only way.
And those -- may I quote-- those Tea Party people will destroy the country if they get in there and start cutting spending. Now, all of a sudden, he wants you to believe that he has the virtue of spending cuts down. I'm going to go way out a limb here and say -- I don't think he believes that. Something in my tummy says, I don't think so.
Let's look at some of the real cuts, because today is a new day, maybe the president -- the sky has opened up and all of a sudden, he's seen the light. Here he is today. Listen carefully.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: What my budget does is to put forward some tough choices, some significant spending cuts so that by the middle of this decade, our annual spending will match our annual revenues. We will not be adding more to the national debt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: That is fantastic -- our spending to match our revenues. That is great. And all you have to do is go to President Obama's budget page 171 to see him tell the truth.
Here are the receipts. These are the things that are revenues and these outlays are our spending -- receipts and outlay. What we take in. What we put out.
All right. Here's our deficit. Woo, bad one, $1.6 trillion and then $1.1 trillion. Uh, 2013 we're up to the middle of the decade yet, $768 billion, 2014, $645 billion in deficit.
Well, OK, here's the middle of the decade. We're still $607 billion away from that. Here's what we're taking in and here's what we're spending, this should be zero and these two must match.
Well, he must have meant 2016. No, it's actually going up here. 2017, no, it's down from the year before, but -- OK, 2018, 2019, 2020 -- oh, boy, it's getting bad again, 2021.
Mr. President, I mean, I could be missing something or maybe you're just -- oh, what's that old-fashioned word, lying. Which is it? It's deficits every year through 2020.
Now, his explanation for this obvious discrepancy was well, I'm not counting the interest on the debt -- oh, I know. Here I thought we were being honest. Oh, my goodness, that is so great. Isn't it great you just not count an entire category? But even if you do that -- still deficits every single year.
He also promised to cut $1 trillion over the next 10 years. Whew, that is an average of $100 billion every year. That is two Joe Biden high speed trains. Whoa! That's California's pension losses. That's insanity -- in the scope of the entire budget, that's nothing. We're spending $3.7 trillion this year.
And our national debt now has grown bigger than our economy. Every dollar spent on clothes, advertising, food, services, airplanes, products, slap chops, jails, roads -- you name it -- it's now equal to our debt. And we haven't even begun sending money to the state to bail out their union pension funds. And that's coming, my friends.
If that wasn't good enough news for you -- Glenn, I'm -- I can't believe your show. There is some happy news. Yes, I know. Wait, there is more.
Obama's budget also projects that the interest on our debt as a percentage of GDP will triple to an all time high of $554 billion by the middle of the decade. Yes, let me show it to you. Let me show you. OK?
Here's the interest in 2010. Our interest was 1.3 percent of our GDP. That means all the money that we spend and make in the United States, OK? Here it is.
Now, let's look what happens with our budget. Uh-oh, red is bad. Must be like the golf thing. Now he's confused because that was like high score wins -- no, Mr. President. Low score wins.
Here's what it means -- if your salary stayed the same -- actually, the government says it's going up -- we'll be lucky if our salary stays the same. But your credit card interest goes up, that means the percentage of your credit card interest is growing a bigger portion of your salary that you to have pay. And this is just the interest to keep the loan sharks at bay.
You're not paying the credit card off. You're not getting anything new. You're just paying the interest on that debt. And we haven't even talked about the rising interest rate yet.... --------
Global food prices tracked by a U.N. agency hit their highest level on record in January, a problem set to worsen after a massive snowstorm in the United States and floods in Australia.
The United Nations said on Thursday its Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index rose for the seventh month in a row to reach 231 in January, topping the peak of 224.1 last seen in June 2008. It is the highest level the index has reached since records began in 1990.
"These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come," FAO economist and grains expert Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement.
Wheat underscored the problem affecting commodity prices around the world, settling on Thursday slightly lower after hitting a 2- year high earlier in the day. Corn and soybeans, which also have been hovering near long-term highs, also declined. Global food inflation is a mounting worry for world leaders. It has contributed to political unrest in countries with high poverty rates and unemployment, as evidenced in the toppling of Tunisia's president in January. That unrest has spilled into Egypt, Yemen and Jordan.
In response, some countries are increasing food imports and have built stockpiles to meet their domestic needs. Among them is Algeria, wary after food riots in early January. It has made huge wheat purchases to avoid shortages, and on Thursday it announced plans to lift a 19-year-old state of emergency in a bid to avert spreading protests.
In Central America, Honduras has frozen prices on many basic foodstuffs despite complaints from farmers. El Salvador is increasing anti-poverty programs by 30%, and Guatemala is considering slashing import tariffs on wheat and is handing out food and cash vouchers to landless peasants.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick in a Reuters interview urged world leaders to "wake up" to the dangers of rising food inflation, a problem said he sees no relief from.
"We are going to be facing a broader trend of increasing commodity prices, including food commodity prices," he said.
SUPPLY THE KEY Catastrophic storms and droughts have slammed the world's leading agriculture countries in recent months, including flooding and a massive cyclone in Australia and a powerful winter storm that swept across the United States.
Dubbed "Stormageddon," one of the biggest snowstorm in decades dumped up to 20 inches of snow in some parts of the U.S. grain belt this week, paralyzing the shipment of grain and livestock.
A deep-freeze forecast for the Midwest, the bread basket of the United States, threatens the region's winter wheat because it may lack sufficient insulating moisture to withstand the cold.
Sugar prices also have surged to three-decade highs on fears of damage Cyclone Yasi would bring to the Australian cane crop. Prices for Malaysian palm oil, a cooking staple in the developing world, hit 3-year highs on flooding.
Big companies have had to adjust to higher raw material costs. Kellogg Co, the world's largest breakfast cereal company, said on Thursday it has boosted prices on many of its products to offset rising costs for ingredients such as grains and sugar.
"Today's announcement by the Food and Agriculture Organization should ring alarm bells in capitals around the world," said Gawain Kripke, a policy and research director for Oxfam America, an international development group.
"Governments must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when countries reacted to spiraling prices by banning exports and hoarding food. This will only make the situation worse and it is the world's poorest people who will pay the price," he said.
Janis Huebner, economist at Germany's DekaBank said inflation partly fueled by increasing food prices could in turn trigger interest rate rises in several countries this year.
"This could mean a slowing down of growth in the countries which raise their interest rates," he said. "This could involve Asian countries and other regions, this would somewhat brake growth but I do not expect a hard landing."
STOCK BUILDING Some countries, particularly where food prices loom large in household budgets, have been building up food stocks to contain prices -- and to limit the political and social fallout.
During the last food price crisis, the World Bank estimated that some 870 million people in developing countries were hungry or malnourished. The FAO estimates that number has increased to 925 million.
"2008 should have been a wake-up call, but I'm not yet sure all the countries in the world that we need to support this have woken up to it," the World Bank's Zoellick said.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy, last week bought 820,000 tons of rice, lifting rice prices, while suspending import duties on rice, soybeans and wheat.
Algeria last week bought almost 1 million tons of wheat, bringing its purchases to at least 1.75 million since the start of January, and ordered a speeding up of grain imports.
On a day of bloody confrontation in Egypt, where protesters are demanding an end to the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, the U.N. World Food Programme's Executive Director Josette Sheeran said the world was now in an era where it had to be very serious about food supply.
"If people don't have enough to eat they only have three options: they can revolt, they can migrate or they can die. We need a better action plan," she said. -------- WORLD BANK: FOOD PRICES APPROACHING ‘DANGEROUS LEVELS’
Posted on February 15, 2011 at 6:02pm by Meredith Jessup
WASHINGTON (AP/The Blaze) — The World Bank delivered a stark warning of the impact of the rising cost of food Tuesday, saying an estimated 44 million people had been pushed into poverty since last summer by soaring commodity prices.
The group’s president, Robert Zoellick, says global food prices have hit “dangerous levels” that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries.
“Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people around the world,” Zoellick said. “The price hike is already pushing millions of people into poverty, and putting stress on the most vulnerable, who spend more than half of their income on food.”
The bank says in a new report that global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. According to its Food Price Watch, the World Bank’s food price index was up by 15 percent between October 2010 and January 2011, is 29 percent above its level from just a year earlier, and only 3 percent below its 2008 peak.
Wheat prices have been hit the hardest, doubling between June last year and January 2011, while maize prices were up 73 percent.
“Measures to address the recent round of food price spikes include expanding nutritional and safety net programs in countries where food prices are rising fastest, avoiding food export restrictions, and finding better information on food stocks,” the group noted. “More investments in agriculture, the development of less food-intensive biofuels and climate change adaptation are also needed.”
Zoellick said the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food and suggested rising global food prices were an “aggravating factor” for protests which have toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia in recent weeks.
Additionally, Zoellick said he expects food prices to continue to rise, and that export bans and weather disruptions are partly to blame. --------
By K.E. Campbell | Posted January 20, 2011 Two years ago today, Barack Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States. Are you better off today than you were two years ago? Numbers don't lie, and here are the data on the impact he has had on the lives of Americans: -------- * This number is going to increase significantly within the next several weeks due to food and assumed food and gasoline/heating oil increases. ♦ This increase is a fraction of what it will be if the current budget is passed, and Obamacare isn't totally repealed. -------- WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
I agree with you completely! Already started since we live in Southern California. I'm still getting tomatoes off of last years plants even after a few mornings of freezing temps and lots of rain. I'm already planning to increase what I plant and I'm finally going to learn how to can or "put things up" as my Grandma used to say. We have to be self-sustaining as much as possible!
Research Wheatgrass juicing and understand the benefits/limitation of the food value of it. Store extra wheat berries to support this method of nutrition.
Extremely handy for those who know not how to till the soils....
I just received an email from efoodsdirect.com. They make bulk canned & pouched foods as well as water purification. You can get free shipping: http://www.efoodsdirect.com/free-shipping.aspx
And this my dear friends is why i have learned too hunt, learned too chop fire wood, learned how too make stream water into drinkable water, this is why I have learned too grow my own food....in MY basement! Anytime a sale hit's the store...we buy wayyyyyy too much. Is it too much...uhhhh NO. ;) We have all the wheat and grains and sugar that we could need for three years lol. TP, paper towels, meds that don't go bad for a long time. all of that stuff.
We are Americans remember? We are strong. Look at how the Founding Fathers lived, the people before them, the American Indians. We are the Non-government Dependant people...remember? We Can survive on our own. All we have too do is learn, teach ourselves. We will be the ones too survive...not the Liberals. Remember that liberals depend too much on others. Sadly this will be a time of survival of the fittest....No one will have enough too share or help others. This is dangerous! We need too be prepared! Not scared. Go online..learn the secrets on how too grow your own stuff in the Basement of your home, Trust me it is the best thing that you can do! :) We must prepare for this! It is coming we are going too have an egypt type thing going on. But it is us! We can do this without fighting!
Permalink Reply by Karen on February 16, 2011 at 12:44pm
Katie, Did you take a class to learn how to grow foods in your basement? Do you recommend any books on the subject?
I did take a few classes on how too do this. :) I have a few books at home lol I have too get back there to remember the names! I'll post them here asap! ;)
Katie, how an you grow in the basement without alot of sunlight. Grow lights are too expensive to use for the 15hrs of light source plants need and we will not be able to rely on having electricity unless you generate your own.
Sounds like you have prepared well. Good for you. I do worry about being able to help others. I know every few that have made any attempt to stock up on supplies.
I live in Illinois and my worry is heat in the winter (no fireplace available).
I think it would be wise for each one of us to learn a skill to barter with, such as soap, candle, cheese making, shoe repair, sewing, butcher etc.
I would like to start raising chickens but it is not allowed in my town. I thought of saying they are pets if I have a problem. But then I would not be able to slaughter them anyway and having feed for them would be another problem - I guess if you are hungry enough anything is possible.
Does anyone know what happens to the chickens in the winter time? Do they stay outside or do they come in? I have thought about keeping them in my basement, but worry about criters, smell etc. Does anyone out there know if it is possible to keep chickens in a basement in winter conditions?
Sounds so silly and immature but we have gotten so far away from all this stuff.
Grow sprouts, this is nothing more than seeds. Google it, go to book stores. Seeds do not need light of any kind they only need heat 70 degrees or higher to grow. It is done in a jar. You put the seeds in a jar rinse well, soak, drain, and put up in a cabinet or closet. They need to be watered a few times through out day till they sprout, then place them in the fridge. Must be eaten with in three to four days, they are a good source of vitamins, higher volume not like when they grow into a plant and produce the vegetable. I got a book from grandmas country.com
*** We would highly suggest that you put together a plan. It is later in the day than you might think. ***
Put in a garden
Get Chicken
Work toward having 6-months+ canned and dehydrated food on hand for everyone living in your household plus extra.
Store water
Dig a well if you can
Invest in a short wave radio system
Partner up with neighbors
Be ready and able to defend yourself
Have Bug-out-Bags for everyone in your household and include supplies and food for pets
Ammunition, food and water will be worth more than gold, silver or jewelry for bartering
Have plenty of candles and matches on hand
Learn to make your own ammo
Learn the basics of hunting and fishing to help feed yourself and your family
On Thursday June 9th, same date as the EO above, Glenn sat down with legendary investor and author Jim Rogers, to talk about what he thinks is in store for America. What, if anything, can be done to save her and keep her competitive with the rest of the world in the future? And more importantly, what can you do to prepare for what could be coming? He talks quite a bit toward the end about the woes of Farming in the U.S.. How the average farmer is 58 years old, nobody is majoring in agriculture and how nobody has been able to make money on farming in the US for years. Japan is in the same situation. 
