Food as a Weapon

The Ukrainians Call It Holodomor

In 1932 and 1933, Joseph Stalin killed 3.9 million Ukrainians. He did it on purpose. He did it because he didn't like them. He didn't like them because they weren't obeying him. And yes, there are strong parallels to the relationship between Ukraine and Russia today. 

Anne Applebaum has described what it's like to die in a famine:

"The starvation of a human body, once it begins, always follows the same course. In the first phase, the body consumes its stores of glucose. Feelings of extreme hunger set in, along with constant thoughts of food. In the second phase, which can last for several weeks, the body begins to consume its own fats, and the organism weakens drastically. In the third phase, the body devours its own proteins, cannibalizing tissues and muscles. Eventually, the skin becomes thin, the eyes become distended, the legs and belly swollen as extreme imbalances lead the body to retain water. Small amounts of effort lead to exhaustion. Along the way, different kinds of diseases can hasten death: scurvy, kwashiorkor, marasmus, pneumonia, typhus, diphtheria, and a wide a wide range of infections and skin diseases caused, directly or indirectly, by lack of food. ... 

"Sooner or later, hunger made everyone listless, unable to move or think. People sat on benches in their farmyards, beside the roadside, in their houses - and didn't move. Bustling villages grew quiet, recalled Mykola Proskovchenko, who survived the famine in Odessa province. "It was a strange silence everywhere. Nobody cried, moaned, complained ... Indifference was everywhere: people were either swollen or completely exhausted ... Even a kind of envy was felt toward the dead." 

(Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, 2017, pp. 241, 250-251. For the 3.9 million number in the first paragraph, see p. 280.) 

Joseph Stalin did this. He didn't have to. But he wanted to, and he had the power to make it happen.

This is why the Ukrainians will never give in to Vladimir Putin.

I'm not convinced that anyone in the White House is aware of this history, but they do seem to be blundering down the same path. Trump is already responsible for the excess mortality in the Covid epidemic, and the idea that he cares about anybody's death except his own is fanciful.

And now, with the suspension of SNAP funding, he's taking food away from people who will be immediately hungry. I doubt that we'll get to 3.9 million dead, but with this crowd you never know.

You say it can't happen here. Well, with the demolition of USAID, they have already done it in Africa. And, frankly, they've gotten away with it. How do you propose to stop them from bringing hunger home?

(The flag above is an authentic pirate flag that is about 200 years old. It is currently located in the Aland Maritime Museum in Finland.)

See also The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office.