Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!floyd!whuxle!pyuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!mhuxm!mhuxl!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!renner From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: More Joy of Starvation - (nf) Message-ID: <5182@uiucdcs.UUCP> Date: Fri, 27-Jan-84 22:27:27 EST Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.5182 Posted: Fri Jan 27 22:27:27 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 31-Jan-84 02:41:55 EST Lines: 32 #R:ihuxl:-85800:uiucdcs:29200065:000:1575 uiucdcs!renner Jan 27 10:46:00 1984 I just finished reading Phil Polli's latest "contribution" to the discussion on the "joys of starvation." He flames *me* for something that rabbit!jj wrote! Amazing. I would like to bash his brains out. Not in anger, for I feel none. Not in anger, but merely to *see*. That is all. [1] I have already responded to all of the points, such as they are, in Polli's previous article. This new one contains only one thing new, a reference to Stalin, starvation, and the Ukraine. Stalin *took* food from the farmers and exported it. (This is the only instance I have found of mass starvation when there was sufficient food; it occured under a system where the government decided who "needed" food.)[2] Obviously, Polli's analogy doesn't hold up. On to a different topic. Some people have written in favor of food shipments to impoverished countries in times of disaster, not as a general, continuing policy. I think this is an excellent idea, but it is important to remember that it will not *solve* anything. Many places grow enough food on the average, but don't know how to store extra food from the good years in order to eat during the bad years. To solve this problem, we need to teach them ways to store food and to keep rats from eating it. Sending food may be emotionally satisfying, but if we do nothing else, we only perpetuate the problem. Scott Renner {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner ------------------------------------------------ [1] Mark Twain wrote this, of course. Wish I had thought of it myself. [2] David Freedman, The Machinery of Freedom.