News across the US has shown videos of people fighting over toilet paper, spaghetti, and other items in a frenzied panic to “prepare” for the spread of COVID-19, and Shoebat.com went to local Wal-Marts and grocery stores to witness the chaos and see the Soviet-like shelves stripped of all items. It was an amazing thing to see, and an omen of what the future holds.
But forget for a minute about the US and Wal-Mart, for now according to Bloomberg by way of MSN Money, whole countries are starting to hoard food as the virus spreads around the world and concern grows about how to feed people.
To be perfectly clear, there have been just a handful of moves and no sure signs that much more is on the horizon. Still, what’s been happening has raised a question: Is this the start of a wave of food nationalism that will further disrupt supply chains and trade flows?
“We’re starting to see this happening already — and all we can see is that the lockdown is going to get worse,” said Tim Benton, research director in emerging risks at think tank Chatham House in London.
Though food supplies are ample, logistical hurdles are making it harder to get products where they need to be as the coronavirus unleashes unprecedented measures, panic buying and the threat of labor crunches.
Consumers across the globe are still loading their pantries — and the economic fallout from the virus is just starting. The specter of more trade restrictions is stirring memories of how protectionism can often end up causing more harm than good. That adage rings especially true now as the moves would be driven by anxiety and not made in response to crop failures or other supply problems. (source)
This is not as much of a concern for the US, for remember, the US is the world’s largest food exporter and who uses food as a means of social control. I have noted this many times before, making special reference to the pork and soybean markets in China that she so depends on to prevent a revolution, and which you can read about in detail in the Shoebat archives.
If there is a real food shortage in the US, it will likely be politically manufactured for social control by the US because of the abundance of food that we produce.
Food is a political thing. It always has been, since men need food to eat, and he who controls the food supply controls how people behave because of this. It is as important as money, because while money communicates value between people, food communicates the sustenance of life between man and the Earth from which he was created and no matter how far he goes from it, which he is always connected to by way of his being.
A man always depends on God for his sustenance. But when it comes to other men, true independence from the yoke of another man begins with food, for if one can feed oneself, so long as one can control one’s desires, he will be able to remain a free person.
This would seem to be part of the reason why the restaurant business has been so heavily promoted, because while restaurants are not bad things and they do provide delicious food, they also rely on another person to cook the food, and if done enough, one can be in a situation such as today, where there are a lot of people who do not know how to cook basic meals, which creates food dependence.
This is another reason why Ted and I have written about gardening, because the ability to care for oneself is not an end, but a part of freedom, personal responsibility, and a philosophical orientation towards one’s creator and all the things which God has revealed in Sacred Scripture. It is not about power over another, but power over oneself, mastering one’s desires, learning balance and control, and caring for others while being grateful for what one has.
Gardening is as much a task as it is about a way of life, and one that is alien to the abberation of the last century because of the ability for man to live a life separate from the roots from whence he came. This does not mean that “everybody needs to garden”, but that man has lost connection to his roots and the effects of this are visible.
Countries are starting to hoard food because they are more dependent than the US is on imports, and more vulnerable. Expect to see this trend continue, but at the same time, take a lesson from those nations. Do not run to Wal-Mart, but instead, learn to become a producer of food so that you can reduce your dependence on others and help improve your philosophy of how you relate to yourself and your neighbors. If the best time to change society is in the middle of a crisis, than take this opportunity for yourself, and consider changing or modifying your own behaviors, that by exploiting this crisis you do not exploit others, but use it to bring out the best in yourself to till the soil of your own soul that will bear fruit now and in the afterlife.