crankymessiah wrote:
] Whenever someone says that this or that government program is
] absolutely necessary, I always wonder, "What did people do and
] how did they survive before the program?"
]
] If someone says food stamps are absolutely necessary for poor
] people's survival, I wonder how America's millions of poor
] immigrants made it. Unless I missed something, mass starvation
] is not a part of our history. Was there a stealth food stamp
] program during the 1700s and 1800s?

It may or may not be helpful, but here are some statistics on (current day) global starvation:

 http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/Overview/famine.pdf

RE: Nashville City Paper