Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
“The Paradise of the Rich is made out of the Hell of the Poor.”
--Victor Hugo
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
--Matthew 25:35
The Benefits of World Hunger
by C.A. Matthews
There have been so many
upsetting stories in the news lately that it's difficult to know what to write
about and what hasn't been written into the ground already. But one article I
encountered in my readings this past week hit me out of the blue, and I
couldn't shake it. I decided to borrow its title and explore some of the aspects
of what those five words mean.
The title? The Benefits of World Hunger.
You can learn more about how
this intriguing article came about from this article:
United
Nations Scrubbed Article Heralding Benefits of World Hunger from Website After
It Went Viral https://www.globalresearch.ca/united-nations-scrubbed-article-heralding-benefits-world-hunger-from-website-after-it-went-viral/5786053
The original article written by George
Kent is now archived here: https://archive.ph/zKzzH
To give you a flavor of what
the thesis of Professor Kent's article is, here's an extended quote:
The non-governmental
organization Free the Slaves defines slaves as people who are not allowed to
walk away from their jobs. It estimates that there are about 27 million slaves
in the world, including those who are literally locked into
workrooms and held as bonded laborers in South Asia. However, they do not
include people who might be described as slaves to hunger, that is, those who
are free to walk away from their jobs but have nothing better to go to. Maybe
most people who work are slaves to hunger?
For those of us at the
high end of the social ladder, ending hunger globally would be a disaster. If
there were no hunger in the world, who would plow the fields? Who would harvest
our vegetables? Who would work in the rendering plants? Who would clean our
toilets? We would have to produce our own food and clean our own toilets. No wonder
people at the high end are not rushing to solve the hunger problem. For many of
us, hunger is not a problem, but an asset.
The last two
sentences really grabbed me. No wonder
people at the high end are not rushing to solve the hunger problem. For many of
us, hunger is not a problem, but an asset.
Hunger… an asset? When you put it that way, I guess it
is. Those who have everything necessary for a healthy and comfortable lifestyle--such as a lovely home, easy transportation, an excellent education, a satisfying
career, plentiful food, adequate medicine/healthcare, travel opportunities, entertaining
hobbies, etc.--don't have to worry about the little details in life. They just happen. They happen because those with material
wealth believe they deserve the wonderful things that
happen to them, too.
Why are designer vegetables so cheap and abundant in the
upscale supermarkets? How do posh meeting haunts magically keep themselves so sparkling
clean? The answers are simple. These things are the way they are because those
who have wealth typically don't share much of it with those who have little to
none. The threat of starvation is enough to get the Haves what they want from the “slaves to hunger.” The threat of starvation forces the Have-Nots to do all the grunt
work/dirty work the Haves never have to do for themselves.
The threat of starvation--The Benefits of World Hunger--is
what makes capitalism go 'round--and 'round and 'round and 'round!
Why do so many people put up with capitalism and its constant threat of
starvation? Commentator Caitlin Johnstone paints the picture perfectly:
Things are getting worse
and worse because the systems that are in place are designed to exploit and
oppress rather than to uplift and help thrive. Those systems will protect their
own ability to continue to exploit and oppress until the people use their
numbers to replace them with something healthy. The people will never use their
numbers to replace abusive systems with something healthy as long as they are
successfully propagandized away from doing so.
This is why our
political and media institutions act the way they act and why our systems are
set up in the way that they are: to keep us from realizing how easy it would be
to shrug off the old mechanisms of oppression like a heavy coat on a warm day
and build something new that works for all of us.
Things will keep getting
worse until we find a way to cut through the propaganda brain fog and rise like
lions. -- Our Entire Civilization Is Structured
Around Keeping Us From Realizing We Can Do This
So, hunger is a great motivator to keep the vast
majority of us working for meager wages, a.k.a. slave wages. Constantly
toiling, we laborers never have the time or strength to come to the realization
that we as a group might actually be able to end this oppressive system. We've
been brainwashed by our “superiors” to think that we can't do
anything, and that's the way it is. We've been made to feel inferior by those
who have it all and can't be bothered to share any of their wealth with us.
The Benefits of World Hunger…
It explains so much. We The People are controlled by our stomachs and our
minds, through the threat of starvation and through an insipid indoctrination
into an economic system that can only exist by keeping those who labor constantly
worried about the threat of starvation.
How do we escape this threat?
How do we take away the benefits that the well-to-do, a.k.a. the
bourgeoisie, expect from this corrupt, exploitative system? How do we keep them from threatening us with hunger by buying up all the arable farmland, such as billionaire Bill Gates is currently doing?
First, we the workers must learn to feed
ourselves without outside interference. Feed ourselves with food grown in our backyard gardens and community gardens. We need to food bank together with
our neighbors. Food co-ops and other organizations that take care of
the nutritional needs of the working people are essential. Mutual aid groups are a necessity.
Secondly, we must feed our
minds and our souls with uplifting, nourishing praise and rhetoric that teaches
us that we are indeed capable of creating a fair and just society. We can
create a society where none are made to starve or live in fear because of
the threat of hunger.
We must free ourselves from
the bondage of The Benefits of World Hunger and all who believe the threat of starvation must continue.
“The only way to deal
with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence
is an act of rebellion,” said Albert Camus. We must become rebels. We must
become free to act and to think for ourselves. We need to feed each
other with the confidence that no one will ever be able to use a essential element such
as food against us ever again.
In a moral and just world, hunger
should never be thought of as a benefit
to any person, place, or thing. We need to resist any government or leadership that insists that it is.
 |
The mayor of L.A. getting rid of homeless people.
|
Related articles:Corporate Billionaires Are Wrecking the Supply Chain https://popularresistance.org/corporate-billionaires-are-wrecking-the-supply-chain-just-look-at-the-railroads/
Mutual Aid Groups That Arose During COVID Gather to Build Power Regionally https://truthout.org/articles/mutual-aid-groups-that-arose-during-covid-gather-to-build-power-regionally
Our Entire Civilization Is Structured Around Keeping Us From Realizing We Can Do This https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/our-entire-civilization-is-structured
Stagflation and Global Hunger Are On the Horizon. Neoliberalism Needs To End https://truthout.org/articles/stagflation-and-global-hunger-are-on-the-horizon-neoliberalism-needs-to-end/
Dutch Farmer Protests Inspire More Actions Amid Food Shortages https://popularresistance.org/dutch-farmer-protests-inspire-more-actions-amid-food-shortages/
Pushed To The Brink https://jesseventura.substack.com/p/pushed-to-the-brink
Why Capitalism Loves Disasters (video) https://youtu.be/v2ZVx8QiEUg
The People RISE UP! (video of Sri Lanka uprising) https://youtu.be/SnXGnQVHdIc
The Benefits of World Hunger by George Kent: https://archive.ph/zKzzH
United Nations Scrubbed Article Heralding Benefits of World Hunger from Website After It Went Viral https://www.globalresearch.ca/united-nations-scrubbed-article-heralding-benefits-world-hunger-from-website-after-it-went-viral/5786053
Seen on Twitter:
***
In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...
Zonta’s
world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at their village's community garden to
investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she
persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist
fighters) take action?
Available now: https://www.extasybooks.com/Where-the-Bodies-Lie
Please
buy direct from the small publisher and not via Amazon. Why? Amazon
takes a huge percentage of the book's price and leaves very little for
the publisher and author to share. Thanks.
