Food As A Weapon - Russian Turnabout

Shortly after explicating the USA agricultural policy of "Get Big or Get Out" (a fascist slogan if ever there was one) Sec Ag Earl Butz announced the USA policy included "food as a weapon."  Not just food as coercion, but food as a weapon.

 As Earl Butz told TIME: "Food is a weapon. It is now one of the principal tools in our negotiating kit."
Time magazine (November 11, 1974)

(I have tracked down the original on microfiche and he indeed is quoted thus.)

Food: Potent U.S. WeaponInterview with Earl L. Butz, Secretary of AgricultureU.S. News & World Report, February 19, 1976

Agripower, as defined by Mr. Butz, is the dependence of an increasing world population on an uninterrupted supply of U.S. food.

Now that has been our policy over the last forty years.  Take a look around the world.  How is that working out for us?  In both foreign policy and domestic policy?

As is well established, going off the "gold-standard lite" in 1971 allowed us the ability to create credit and lend it with virtually no rational limit.  Any and all ideas could be "funded" and generally they were.  There was no practical check on any idea.  So we are now drowning in wacky ideas that no one can pay for.

To sustain the game, we need to prove to creditors we can come up with the payments.  The Ukraine game is to seize that plum, what with its gas pipelines through and fecund fields of grain within, under USA hegemony.  We keep hearing disparaging talk of Russia having an "economy the size if Italy."  But we are way outclassed with relentless USA military defeats by farmers and a political structure that weeds out any reformers.  (It is ironic USA uses "food as a weapon" and then is defeated by farmers.)

All this cuts both ways.  Russia is now banning Polish imports of fruit, which is Poland's big market.

(Reuters) - Russia announced a ban on most fruit and vegetable imports from Poland on Wednesday and said it could extend it to the entire EU, a move Warsaw called Kremlin retaliation for new Western sanctions over Ukraine imposed on Russia a day earlier.

Now the funny part is this will open up Russia to the next best source, USA. It will be amusing if EU cooperation on USA sanctions ends their markets but opens for USA exporters.  Do we have anyone who thinks any policy through?  Well, no.  Because no matter the cost of a bad idea, with unlimited credit to lend, there are no consequences to bad ideas.  There are no price signals in USA, the problem that ended the Soviet Union.

A more likely scenario is as apples in Russia grow more expensive for the Poland ban, Russian entrepreneurs will find it economical to produce Russian apples and end the need for Polish apples.   Who knows, but Polish apples are about to get a lot cheaper elsewhere in the EU.

At the same time, China is stepping up its "investigations" of foreign companies.  After Microsoft was raided in several cities at once, so was Mercedes Benz and others.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top planner, is investigating the industry amid domestic media complaints that foreign carmakers, using a dominant market position, are overcharging Chinese customers on products and spare parts.

We are not allowed to know history in USA, and Marxists tend to get their facts straight.  The big 20th Century USA historical event was the civil rights movement.  We are told change was from legislative action, that is government can do good.  Fact is, the Jim Crow laws were laws, government action.  And as Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy points out in his book "That Walls Came Tumblng Down" the USA apartheid changed when the movement appealed to business which welcomed the new customers previously forbidden by law.  (Abernathy and his book disappeared rather quickly after being accurate.)

China and Russia know exactly what they are doing.  By speaking directly to business people, Russia banning imports to match sanctions, and the Chinese calling in people making money in their country, one at a time, the powers that be will find their business base rather unexcited about economic sanctions, and who knows, "food as a weapon."  Arrogance: not bothering to ask questions.  We are outclassed, and haven't the slightest idea of consequences.

Get some real USA history, read Abernathy -



And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography

Update:  Ooops.. ban of USA products too... Chile wins.  

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post