Surviving Capitalism (Not) : U.S. Investors, Government Policies Leading Global Land-Grabs

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, May 29, 2014

U.S. Investors, Government Policies Leading Global Land-Grabs

Click here to access article by Carey L. Biron from Mint Press News.

Biron bases most of his article on a longer report published recently by Action Aid International that found an "epidemic of 'land-grabbing'" to secure lands from small farmers (for example, see this) all over the world for Western corporations. The article focuses mainly on one program sponsored by the Group of Seven capitalist nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) which are aided and abetted by the World Bank. They mask these efforts using Orwellian type ethical guidelines--entirely voluntary-- furnished by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.