Starvation as a Weapon

Ever since the centralization of food production and distribution, tyrannical and murderous governments have used it as a weapon against its own and other citizens. Some examples of mass starvation can be found in 1921 Communist Russia, late 1950 and early 1960s China, and 1845-1849 Ireland.
While, historically, the US and other governments have also been guilty of killing off or otherwise oppressing large swathes of people, any groups who had hunting and gathering knowledge, local production and distribution and some property with which to use it were much more likely to avoid famine.
When a)private property/farming/distribution is controlled by the government b) imports/exports are mismanaged, any disruption in the supply chain, be it due to natural or man-made disasters results in starvation, famine, and death.

Nothing has changed in the morality of man since the aforementioned times of famine; however what has changed is that we are much more reliant on centralized food production and distribution and on imports and exports now than ever before. As a result of many years of grocery stores, trucking, and shipping, most industrialized people rely heavily on these functions and thus have less knowledge of production and hunting/gathering.

The good news is this knowledge, like any, can be acquired and shared. We've been disempowered through decades of reliance, but we can break free starting today, and reacquire any survival skills in a matter of years. I'd recommend starting with foraging (in case of an immediate emergency; one can sustain a family on local edibles if needed. No one would thrive but most would survive), gardening, fishing, and preparing.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

a reply to: zosimov

That's true for communism, as I can personally testify to having lived somewhere that it happened back in the day (though in that case it was incompentance rather than malice), but in the US it's due to the consolidation of large companies, and the interdependant nature of the processing and distributon system. It's not a weapon, it's not the govenrment doing it, and I'd argue that the vast majority of people aren't actually starving. Nore will they starve.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

Thanks for the comment. I disagree with your opinion that it isn't being used as a weapon, as well as its efficacy when fully employed, but think you make some interesting points.

originally posted by: AaarghZombies
a reply to: zosimov

That's true for communism, as I can personally testify to having lived somewhere that it happened back in the day (though in that case it was incompentance rather than malice), but in the US it's due to the consolidation of large companies, and the interdependant nature of the processing and distributon system. It's not a weapon, it's not the govenrment doing it, and I'd argue that the vast majority of people aren't actually starving. Nore will they starve.

From one of your favored MSM sources:
dailyNK article

a reply to: zosimov

How was starvation used as a " weapon " in Ireland ? You do realise famine was rife throughout Europe in the 1840's.

The Irish clearly suffered worst during the Hungry Forties, but many people elsewhere in Europe faced severe distress as well. The impact of the crisis varied widely depending on the local and regional social, economic and political circumstances

Whether national governments in the middle of the nineteenth century were able to address a crisis of this magnitude is doubted. The governments of Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain tended to adhere to free trade, and developed only a limited interventionist policy.

www.rte.ie...

Irish Americans have this romantic notion that the terrible British starved the Irish deliberately. Which is total bollocks.

The linked article is written by Irish historians by the way.

originally posted by: zosimov


The good news is this knowledge, like any, can be acquired and shared. We've been disempowered through decades of reliance, but we can break free starting today, and reacquire any survival skills in a matter of years. I'd recommend starting with foraging (in case of an immediate emergency; one can sustain a family on local edibles if needed. No one would thrive but most would survive), gardening, fishing, and preparing.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Water is important. I'd suggest rainwater collecting barrels or tanks. Should probably get those set up and start using them soon. It is currently the best water source around and probably cleaner than the stuff coming out of your pipes or in local streams for many reasons (pesticides, prescribed drugs, aging water pipes, etc...)

The important thing that has been mentioned many times here in the survival forums is to gain the skills and to practice them now, when you don't need them.

Nice thread Zos...

Thanks,
blend

a reply to: alldaylong

Oh, so Irish were allowed to own land, join the government which chose to export wheat rather than feed the starving Irish tenants in their own homeland, and apply for hunting and fishing licences?

I don't see how we're going to starve when there's 8 billion sheep on the planet.

The answer is Soylent Green.

originally posted by: zosimov
a reply to: alldaylong

Oh, so Irish were allowed to own land, join the government which chose to export wheat rather than feed the starving Irish tenants in their own homeland, and apply for hunting and fishing licences?

The British did that to other European Countries who suffered famine at the same time. Britain had complete control of Europe don't you know. We starved everyone.

a reply to: blend57

Excellent points, and it's lovely to see you, blend

a reply to: zosimov

Been busy doing this very thing...this thread fits nicely into my current project. I'll be following the thread and I'm interested in what ideas people have.

Nice to see you as well Zos...

a reply to: zosimov

Its not a bad idea to buy a nice big chunk of salt and a sturdy fishing net.

If you find yourself starving in the near future, you can attract all deer/moose whatever to the salt, then net it so you can trap and kill it in a silent manner.

There are other ways to capture the animal, but they all come for the salt.

a reply to: XipeTotex

These are very useful suggestions.

Thanks for adding some good info to the thread!!

Know when it isn’t a good weapon? When the targets are not starved enough beforehand and realize they are being played early.

The four major meat companies in the U.S.—Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS, and National Beef Packing—control 55% to 85% of the hog, cattle, and chicken markets.

Source

That means there are still little companies out there. Farmers can always sell direct to people or groups skipping the big auctions. We also have quite the menu of edible flora and fauna in the US with the means to procure it. The local butcher/slaughterhouse may be all but gone in the US but it isn’t a super technical skill to learn, like commandeering military aircraft would be…

a reply to: zosimov

We've been lucky in the west. Abundance, variety, and at a cost almost anyone can eat better than all of our ancestors (though, we are feeling a pinch now, with a negative trending direction).

My only gripe and concern for the future is that our profit model has fixated on monocultures. Corn and hyper specific grain varieties with a questionable amount of nutrition given how commercialized the industry has become.

The concern part comes into play with vulnerability. A specific blight or environmental condition could render majority of agricultural output null and void for a season or indefinitely. It also wrecks the soil since there isn't crop rotation or variety in a large area.

Concerns aside though, we are truly blessed that obesity is a larger concern than who is fed and who isn't. It's not too late for us to find balance either, and it's easy to place blame on the "system" when it only produces what sells... Perhaps a mirror is in order to find the answers.

a reply to: alldaylong

Government mandated it may have not been but the fact is most of the food imports such as grain at the time were for feeding cattle.

The cattle weren't sold in Ireland, the owners may of occasionally lived in Ireland but I'll guarantee if you had a time machine and went back and asked?

They'd say I'm British... Maybe a slant existed in the person who taught me a bit about this (I'm no expert on the matter) yet I seemed to get a feel of a systematic approach of what the English and Scottish did in Ireland, I'd love to read contrary information too.

Trade is used as a weapon (or lack of) and food for most is sourced via trade.

I would add, if food gets scarce, pretty much everything else, will.

I have a couple thousands matches, but I also have a couple of flintstones. With the energy crisis, if you can't make a fire, you're a done deal, on the long run.

To clean water, my two favorites way are to add a couple drops or bleach into it, then wait 24 hours, and the one I like best, you add argile in it, stir it profusely, then, again, wait 24 hours and clean water from pretty much everything.

Iodine needs to be stored en masse too. Lugol's one is the best. You apply on your skin the iodine to cover the surface of the plant of your foot. You can do it pretty much anywhere on the body.
If you need it, it will be absorbed in a few hours. Otherwise, it will remain on the surface of the skin, and be washed off after a while.

Starvation as a weapon?

I'll need to come back to this thread as I have a book, stored deep in lots of boxes, so unavailable to me at the moment, that came to be when university students, in the 70's, decided their thesis theme would be; Why is there still hunger on Earth in the 20th century.

It turns out that enterprises like Del Monte hold all possible arable lands in the world, and they don't use it. People in the countries where this mostly happens are forced to use unusable land to try and grow crops, which precipitates, and accelerates, environnment destruction...
In the book, I learned that at the beginning of the 60's, Vietnam announced to the world they were now 100% self relient for food production. They had no need for importation anymore...

What happened afterwards? US got involved in the Indochine War, which made France leave not understanding what the US had to do with it...

And then we saw the birth of the infamous Agent Orange, composed of pesticides, herbices and other vile chemicals... used on Vietnam's land. Some of those lands are said to be unusable for at least 10 000 years... Who's still self relient? Apparently not Vietnam anymore.

The book is a testament of the weaponization of hunger. Look at African countries. We throw away so much every year to keep markets stable that Africans are being decimated by hunger since long ago... No other reasons can explain what has been done to the people of these countries.

Paul O'Neill, secretary of the Treasury under W. Bush wrote a book about his time as a cabinet member of Bush.

In his book, he said the UN said an African country needed about 1.5 billion dollars to bring water to everyone of it's citizens. O'Neill made some verifications and said that with 25 million dollars, he could do the job, at which point he was told to just STFU, because the price WAS 1.5 billions... Sorry for not remembering it's title or the African country at the center of that affair... Now just imagine how much African countries need to put on the table just to get access to water... Let alone food...

I have a few things to attend to, but I also plan on returning to respond/read to all the great comments on here so far.

a reply to: zosimov

I guess anything is a weapon if it's beating you down!

I try to look at the wider picture and I think one thing stands true quite often. The initial investment for self-reliance is often too expensive for the ones who could do with it most.

There's a bitter irony in the fact that things will become cheaper if you learn to forage, hunt or grow food or even become an aspiring apothecarist.

I'm not the one to give advice on beating poverty or hunger but I would advise to be scrupulous on your investments if these things could potentially matter to you, don't go buying hunting rifles if you'll never be able to hunt for instance, fishing is useless in the desert kinda stuff. Stick with things you can actually learn and have success at would be my reasoning.

The struggling and starving rarely come up with viable plans do they? Same happens to us all in that kind of headspace, well most anyways. So learn the basics, have the basics and invest in things you can actually do because if the shtf and you fail? You probably won't have the opportunity to learn anything else.

That same circular dilemma which I think is the issue. We used to rely on god's, often we rely on governments but the downtrodden are often ill-equipped to rely on themselves. I didn't want to touch on the malicious side of things... Just the learning, potential and realistic capabilities.

I could be wrong, another thought provoker non the less!

As a sort of addendum, In the book about starvation I mentionned, It has been going on for AT LEAST, 150 years.

This book is a brutal revelation about companies, and people, that do not care about human life, at all, but that are viewed as good companies, due to the quality of what they offer.

But, they cheat producers at every turn. Fruit juice production being a good part of it. They use whatever reasons to have the price of a fruit lowered when they buy because it is deemed "only good for juice, not sellable as is..."

Our specie could be SO MUCH MORE... But, we let psychopaths lead us... We have been trained to accept the idea of less and cheaper being the only way, while it is a blatant lie, and that it is very difficult to manage.

We are considered sheeps, and treated as such.