"In the sprawling slum of Haiti’s Cité Soleil, Placide Simone, 29, offered one of her five offspring to a stranger. “Take one,” she said, cradling a listless baby and motioning toward four rail-thin toddlers, none of whom had eaten that day. “You pick. Just feed them.” "Yesterday Greenpa posted a compilation of media articles about food shortages around the world. The above excerpt is from one of them. When I read this I was absolutely horrified and I couldn't read any further. Can you imagine this? Can you imagine having to do this? To offer your child to a stranger because you can't feed them, and to give them away is better than keeping them? Imagine the hopelessness, the impotence, the desolation of being in that situation!!
Why is this happening?!?! For the SAME REASON IT ALWAYS DOES: GREED!
With barely contained fury, Greenpa has been posting over the last week or so about the obscene practice of speculation on basic food commodities:
"What a great idea. Let's add to the cost of food- by adding food speculators to the scenario. Those are people who buy "futures", which are a bet, basically, that it'll be worth more than the experts are guessing. If they're big enough, they actually "hold commodities". Waiting for the price to go- up.
Guess what? Add a couple thousand "investors"- all buying- and.. hey, the price goes up!"
So essentially, if I've got this right, there are people and corporations out there who buy these commodity futures, and then use their influence so the commodities are not available for sale or distribution. This results in a shortage of these foods, causing the price to go up because of it. When it does, the speculators and investors sell and make a profit, and then brag about the money they've "earned." This is pure EVIL. This profit is made by intentionally causing food shortages and people STARVE! And mothers give away their children, once they can't afford to feed them even dirt anymore.
This has to STOP!!
Greenpa has asked everyone to spread the word about this horrible practice. Tell everyone you know and write to your local, provincial and federal governments that the practice of food profiteering must be outlawed immediately!!
Please, be thankful for every bite of food you have.
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4 comments:
thank you for raising awareness about this theresa! how incredibly horrible!
Do check out Greenpa's site (Little Blog in the Big Woods) for more info - it is horrifying alright!
Sometimes I hear these horrible things on the radio and I think I'm not understanding correctly because surely if it were true the situation would be remedied. It makes it more real when when someone else hears it too and then writes or talks about it too. Thank you. I'm not going crazy. The world is mixed up.
I know what you mean. It seems like this just can't be happening. I just can't fathom how as a species we can distance ourselves so much from others that we can live ourselves after making money off of other people's hunger and starvation.
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