Marianne Fuller wrote:
>
>
> >humans.  They even profit from aid programs that foster dependency on them
> >and the totalitarian regimes that depend on them ) at the expense of native
> >food producers

> With all due respect, I hope there won't be anti-American diatribe on this
> mailing list.

This isn't just American government food aid, the Europeans, Japanese
etc. do the same all the time. I saw exactly this in Guatemala, the
local farmers received wheat flour and whole corn from the US, canned
chickens from Holland and Denmark, cooking oil from somewhere in
Europe, don't remember which country, etc. etc.. I believe virtually
every person in the country was getting something, on occasion at
least. This was in Guatemala, a country with a succession of
governments so nasty that most aid donors wouldn't touch the place. I
always wondered what was going on in more PC countries.

There is a steady flood of "food aid" coming out of the west. A lot of
it goes to waste, rotting in ships because transport doesn't exist, or
the local governments can't organize well enough to move it. The donor
countries do not much care, they simply wish to dump unsellable food,
anywhere is OK. In any case, third world governments often enough do
not want their people, or certain groups of them, well fed. Those
countries where we regularly read of food shortages are invariably
places with the totalitarian governments. The last thing they want is
well fed people, so they work to impoverish the farming class, and outlaw
food imports except for donated food, which distribution they control.