Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site psc70.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!decwrl!decvax!dartvax!psc70!tos From: tos@psc70.UUCP (Dr.Schlesinger) Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics Subject: Re: The role of America in world hunger & red spread Message-ID: <150@psc70.UUCP> Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 06:55:21 EDT Article-I.D.: psc70.150 Posted: Thu Aug 15 06:55:21 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 03:44:58 EDT References: <295@SCIRTP.UUCP> <10996@rochester.UUCP>, <143@unc.unc.UUCP> Organization: Plymouth State College, Plymouth, NH Lines: 20 Xref: linus net.flame:10684 net.politics:9838 Of course hunger & poverty couldn't be reduced in the direct sense by stopping the use of tropical lands to grow crops for ourselves. The people who were once growing their own food on those lands and were driven off it by the huge agribusinesses or their own larger landowners are now in the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Guadelajara, Monterrey, etc. and will obviously not return to the land that easily. That doesn't change the fact that they were once "subsistence-level" peasants, i.e. people who didn't really take part in the cash economy, but basically fed and clothed themselves. But because we like bananas, and e.g. we like to eat tomatoes year-round (something that was unheard of when I was a youngster in the 20's) such people were either driven up into the hills trying to cultivate rockpiles (and hence more amenable to recruitment by guerrilla bands) or went to the nearest big city and squatted and built a shanty. Tom Schlesinger Plymouth State College Plymouth, NH 03256