Nobel Peace Prize 2020

Pass the popcorn please.

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Certainly. But feeding people is an industry and a significant part of trade. Canada, USA and Australia are number 1, 2, and 3 among global wheat exporters. If trade is the answer, surely feeding people is part of that equation? And has been since Joseph was made chief under Pharaoh.

You know that the British forced them onto those small plots, right? And that the high yields of potatoes made them the only crop that would fend off starvation in a normal times with those small plots?

It’s pretty rare for someone to make such a slam-dunk argument against themselves as defending the British role in the potato famine

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Jughead=troll.

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Or they wait in line for their new Obamaphone.

Ever head of food stamps?

Yes. If people start trading, they feed themselves from their own labours.

Can’t you read?

From the front page: “Virus Outbreak Halts Shipbuilding at Norwegian Yard”!

Coincidence or did the Trump’s visit Norway in advance because he just knew he was going to win?

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Do me a favor really quick. Go back and read the rest of your post. Just to be clear, I’m talking about the part where you say “the famine wasn’t caused by Britain”. That’s the part I quoted, and that’s the defense of British policy that impressed me so much.

Sure, without the blight there wouldn’t have been a famine, but without the English-imposed system of tenant farming that led to an export-based agricultural system with poverty-stricken workers there wouldn’t have been one either.

Good. We agree that Britain didn’t CAUSE the famine.

Perhaps. But the tenant farmers system wasn’t necessarily a British ‘policy’ imposed by a government. It was just the way things were. It existed in many places throughout the world and still does. The landlords tended to be English because they had the money but there were rich Irish landlords doing the same thing.

I’m not taking the British side. I was simply replying to a comment to the effect that this was more or less done deliberately by the British. It harmed them too and the government changed significant laws as a result, but too late to save the starving.

No, we don’t agree. Proximate and ultimate causes don’t invalidate each other. If I set a pan of gasoline in a shop and a stray spark ignites it, I’m still a cause of that fire.

As for your argument that it wasn’t a deliberate policy, the English expropriated over 3 million acres of Irish land in the seventeen century alone. That didn’t happen on accident. And neither did the legal system set up to legitimize and enforce the arrangement.

How much land got expropriated in the Americas? Australia? China? Africa? Europe? It was the way it was. That’s all. We’ve all learnt since then … I hope.

Well, why not talk about Wales…

How about giving them for farm equipment, irrigation equipment, and ways to clean water?

Most importantly, how about banning the export of Monsanto seed that’s been genetically modified to no reproduce?

Nobody’s arguing that emergency food is bad but the world food program does as much to support big agricultural interests as it does to support hungry people which creates a huge dependence on crappy food.

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It’s the fact that not even 50% gets to the people in need. And the money that is donated via ridiculous music festivals goes directly to bribes and Swiss bank accounts.

Very little gets to the people in need. When what little arrives to help, there is always a camera crew filming the event, making it seem that it’s more than it really is.

Yes and the huge amounts of grain we shipped to Russia via the world food program was used as collateral for big banks to give loans to the Russian defense contractors who were supplying Vietcong.

I’m all for helping hungry people and the world food program would deserve the peace price if they had done that without lining the pockets of bankers and big agricultural companies that sell harsh chemicals and seeds genetically modified so they can’t reproduce.

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Nope, it’s gotten worse:

The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man https://amazon.com/dp/1626566747/

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I’m still betting Donald Trump has another four years to win the Nobel Peace Prize … and that he’ll then tell them where to shove it.

I presume you are referring to “The Great Grain Robbery” of 1972?:

Nothing said about WFP being involved, nor that this had any connection to Soviet weapons sale to North Vietnam. (Or to Viet Cong. They got a lot of their weapons and ammo from ARVN deserter and corrupt US supply line personnel)

Are WFP responsible for this?? They buy much of the food that is distributed locally, or it is donated by countries that have a surplus due to subsidies paid to farmers:

As to the harsh chemicals that is used in industrial high-intensive farming in the developed world and the companies that manipulate seeds and plants, you can check where they are from and who profit from their activity.
Hint: It is NOT WFP or any of the developing nations. (AKA “sh*thole countries”)

Just about everything you touch or use daily cause harm to human beings somehow, somewhere., but mainly in developing countries.
Main consumers of “stuff” lives in the developed world.

The main reason for WFP is hunger, while main cause of hunger is wars and civil conflicts, which again is caused by big power rivalry and weapons sales.

There is so much wrong here, where do I begin?

From your link “ WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency, assisting 100 million people in 88 countries. Each day we have up to 5,600 trucks, 30 ships and 100 planes on the move, delivering food and other assistance in some of the most remote and challenging parts of the world.” there aren’t 88 countries at war.

Your right but agricultural is still done “mainly” in first world countries. Factories are bad but we don’t force the world to eat cheap electronics.

Of course the WFP does not profit, but the companies they buy the food from profit immensely!

Oh so because wikipedia mentions it it’s not true. Look at the date of that. 1972. What else happened in 1972? We started pulling out of vietnam and the vietcong stopped buying russian shit and Russia stopped getting secret grain shipments and stopped distributing them for profit to run weapons factories.

Did you read that book I suggested or are you just assuming I am wrong?

Yeah from big businesses that compete with local farmers.

From the NYTimes:

Yet the agency has met with criticism that its food sourcing methods hamper already weak local food markets. The organization buys most supplies on the global market, and development experts have criticized it for offering contracts to major donors — like the United States — in what has come to be known as “tied aid,” or the practice of tying humanitarian donations to purchasing contracts. In response, it has pledged to eventually 10 percent of its supplies from smaller local farms.

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