Revolution of the hungry

And why do Clinton, Obama, and the moronic media focus on comments (reasonable ones) on guns and religion? So that no one will think about the repercussions of inequality and desperation?  (And in related news absence--why didn't the NYT mention White House torture planning in the Sunday paper?)

Link: Amid mounting food crisis, governments fear revolution of the hungry.

The closer integration of the economies of the oppressed countries into the world market has been accompanied by their increasing concentration on specialized export crops, while tariff barriers have been demolished, opening the way to subsidized agricultural staples from the more advanced countries capturing local markets.

Now, attempts by individual national governments to remedy the problem within their own borders—often taking the form of commodity producers erecting barriers on exports—have served to exacerbate the crisis internationally, driving food prices even higher, while triggering protests by farmers in countries stretching from India to Argentina. According to a recent World Bank survey, at least 58 countries have implemented at least some form of food-trade protectionism.

What is emerging in the crisis over food prices is a tumultuous manifestation of a breakdown of the global capitalist order. The catastrophe facing billions of people around the globe cannot be resolved within the confines of a system based on private profit and the nation state.

The revolutionary implications of this crisis are beginning to dawn on elements within the ruling establishment itself. In an article published Monday, the influential US magazine Time noted: “The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War... And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world.”

Comments

[IndieFaith]

This is a reoccurring theme in my recent reading . . . hmmmm may be worth paying a little attention to.
I just posted on reading Grapes of Wrath for the first time and came across strikingly similar language there as in accounts that I have been reading similar to the one you posted.
I amazed at how insightful Steinbeck is in this area.
http://indiefaith.blogspot.com/2008/04/r-word-and-grapes-of-wrath.html