Brown people starving again? Yawn. Starving brown people having the gall to riot about dying? Impudent buggers. Why don't they choose leaders wise enough to create food stockpiles when harvests fail? What's this you say -- they did? But you say the First World's shock troops in the World Bank, IMF, and WTO botched up and destroyed those last national reserves against global starvation? What rot!

How dare you call our success a "botch-up"? What part of "trade liberalization" don't you understand? Blazing the trail for globalization and free markets -- it's all part of the White Man's burden.

Some people -- leftists and Colonials -- have just lost the plot:

One of the reasons that you're seeing food price riots right now is because all the countries that you listed, from Haiti to Senegal to Burkina Faso to India, they are largely hitched to an international economy where they have to import grain in order to be able to consume it. And this is a consequence of the US pushing a so-called free trade agenda, where countries are being forced to lower their tariff barriers, to stop protecting farmers. And as a result, what you're seeing is that the countries that are worst affected by this are the ones that have most enthusiastically been forced to embrace free trade.

And even a week later, they still were blundering about in the dark:

[Third World] countries have been forced to abandon their support for farmers and to abandon things like grain supplies and grain stores. And this is a longer-term story, and it involves organizations like the World Bank and the World Trade Organization that have a fairly iron control over the economies of most of the poorest countries in the world. And what the World Bank and what the WTO and, to some extent, the International Monetary Fund have done is force these countries to tie their hands behind their back, effectively, and to bind them very firmly to an international economy in food. And the consequence of that is that when the price of food goes up, these economies have very little recourse and very little possibility of defending themselves economically.

Of course, what could we expect from a couple of ignorant colonials like Amy Goodman and Raj Patel?

Globalization works precisely the way we intended it to: for the upper 0.1% of the First World. So why are all those pesky hungry brown people putting up such a fuss? What did they expect -- sharing in the wealth? Piffle!

Cargill -- the second-largest privately owned company in the US - their latest profits are up eighty-six percent, my good man. Yep -- a cool $1.3 billion in the third quarter. And they deserve every penny, right? None of this rooting about in the dirt for them -- nope, Cargill is productive:

Cargill makes food ingredients, moves commodities around the world and runs financial commodities trading businesses.

In a hungry world, what could be more important than moving around and selling the food those grubby farmers make -- and selling it at the best price? That's business, man -- not that eco-crap the do-gooders keep nattering on about. Bloody good business, too:

Wheat futures have soared 93 per cent in the past year while soybeans climbed 86 per cent and corn gained 54 per cent.

That's the beauty of globalization, man -- take all that food sitting about that some sod grows so some other nasty peasant can fill their brood's brown bellies with it -- and instead do something useful with it: make it into a commodity! Then the free markets can really get going with it. That's the beauty of free trade, man -- breaking down those pesky local barriers, and finding the highest and best use for the fruits (and grains) of our someone else's labor.

Look how it fuels growth in profits, man:

Cargill Inc., the largest agricultural company in the U.S. and a major player internationally, has announced a massive jump in their second-quarter profits of 34 percent on the back of gains in shipping, trading and processing grains and oilseeds. Net income in the three months to November 30 was up to $662 million....boosted by record demand for corn-based ethanol, and soybean-based biodiesel.

Would those Third World whiners get around to that? No -- the lazy wogs would let all that food go to waste by eating it.

Vision, man, vision -- that's what keeps the First World first.

That -- and subsidies: the divine right of corporate kings.

Last year subsidies for ethanol and biodiesel reached between $5.5 and $7.3 billion. We are paying to have our food prices go up! (how'd those bloody do-gooders from Food First! get in here?)

Left-wing buggers can't even get the money right. You won't see any of those poncy vegans hanging about the feedlots - what do they know about ethanol and food? The meathook boys at Big Slaughterhouse know the real value of ethanol subsidies:

Last week, a study funded by American beef, pork and chicken producers estimated that the total cost to taxpayers of the corn ethanol mandates now exceeds $33 billion per year. That's equal to about $106 per American citizen.

Subsidies are bad for the Third World -- they waste them on bread and clinics and letting kids go to school without fees (imagine that -- the little buggers learn to be on the dole before they learn to read -- poppycock!). The Third World just doesn't know what to do to make their economy grow -- and keep people happy. Well, the right people happy.

In the First World, we know who matters -- the owners! And we know who doesn't matter: the mewling workers and the proles dumb enough to eat our crap. Damn it all, that's why we're in charge!

And being in charge means we write the rules for the rest of the world: the rules the IMF, World Bank, WTO, NAFTA, and the rest carry out.

The rules those pesky starving brown people keep making their tiresome complaints about. Peasants -- what do they know? Why, in Haiti, they're wasting perfectly good dirt feeding it to children! Talk about ignorant: they could be using the same dirt for biodiesel.

We First Worlders don't waste our subsidies, by Empire! Nope, we use subsidies the way God and Corporation (sorry -- got redundant there -- must need more gin. Where's that blasted servant?) meant them to be used: to help the people that matter get more matter: cash and stocks.

Of course, there's a trivial investment -- Cargill tosses in a few thousand here, ADM tosses in a few million there -- and jolly good, we've got billions to harvest.

Sure beats pushing seeds in the ground. That just grows grains -- the free market grows money.

And that's what the free market is all about -- buying the right pols at the right price. So what's all this worry about supply? There's always a Bush Ranger or a DLC/K Street type with their hand out. When Mark Penn's demand falls, the Hamilton Project's demands rise (and they've got ex-Treasury Secretary Rubin to know just who to tap). Just like those clever blokes at Monsanto knew who to tap with Clinton - and knows who to tap with the Bushes.

Just like ADM and Cargill know who to tap when they want something: like ethanol subsidies, or Farm Bill subsidies, or keeping child slavery alive in the fields. And what better way to honor the Anglo-American Empire and keep the pesky little buggers from learning to read the labels on pesticides?

With the right contribution purchase, ADM and Cargill and the other Ag brokers buy the voters that matter: Congress! [Only thing the carping voters who "choose" the Congress are useful for is paying for the whole thing. Bloody good thing, too -- the carping sods whine even more than hungry brown people.]

Now you see the splendor of our free market in politicians -- and the "free trade" rules we purchase. The sun never sets on the globalization empire!

Prejudice? Pish-posh. You just haven't had enough gin and tonics. Which reminds me -- where's that bloody servant? And why did the pansy do-gooders ban flogging? What do they know about running a proper club -- or world? Don't those fools know the purpose for the global club's rules is to keep money happy? Don't they know the purpose of flogging is to keep the rulers happy (and give President Torquemada his stiffy)? What do you think the First World leaders studied in boarding school, or Yale -- ethics?

Back to the topic at hand. [We'll arrange a flogging for later. Black tie: optional. Old school ties: renewed.]

Now where were we? Oh, the bloody starving masses -- don't they even have the grace to slip away quietly? As long as there's nothing to chew, you'd think they could practice keeping their upper lips stiff.

Ultimately, even the peasants will finally show decorum: rigor mortis will stiffen those upper lips.

Speaking of stiff, Col Blimp and I are taking out the crops for our daily ride -- time to shoot some small furry animals and ride down a few peasants. Or is it the other way 'round? Remembering how to kill what is such a bother -- but all part of the White Man's Burden.

Good fun, what?

And if we see that Patel fellow, we'll give him a good "what's for" over his filthy screed Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World's Food System.

Bloody peasant, indeed.

Carry on!