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

Showing posts with label farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farming. Show all posts

Friday, May 21, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, May 21, 2021

  • The Skew in Science That Feeds US EPA Regulation by S. Stanley Young and Warren Kindzierski from American Institute for Economic Research. (Note: John Ioannidis in the first paragraph is a top Stanford epidemiologist. Use my search engines to find out more about him.) My reaction: Science is skewed to favor the billionaire ruling class who are addicted to power and profits. They rule, and we suffer.
  • Wearable “Solutions” and the Internet of Incarceration by Jeremy Loffredo from Unlimited Hangout. My reaction: As technology, controlled by capitalists, discover more and more methods of population control and tracking you, you can expect that the methods will be designed for the greater panopticon (under the "Great Reset") to ensure the ruling class's access to profit and power. Of course, technology is neutral, but the way it is used can give the ruling billionaire class more power and control over you while amassing wealth for themselves. Everything about the capitalist system impels them to use technology in this way. Or it can be used to enhance and protect your health and welfare. Which do you see it used for under the current system?
  • New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato featuring the latest discussion (27:20m) by Corbett and Pilato regarding three subjects: 1) AT&T In ‘Advanced’ Talks To Combine HBO, CNN, Discovery And Other Media Assets; 2) Palestinians Stage Historic Strike Over Israeli Abuses, Gaza Bombing; 3) OSHA Tells Employers They May Be Liable For Adverse Reactions’ Over Vax Mandate from The Corbett Report.
  • 💥Propaganda and the Media — Part 3 – Establishing and Controlling the Narrative by Larry Romanoff from "The Saker Blog". This is a best post. The article represents a sophisticated exposure of the concentration of ownership (and wealth) occurring since WWII that has shaped mainstream news that most Americans follow. Because the latter have not been conscious of this concentration of wealth (mainstream media have long hidden information related to this fact), they have been so filled with propaganda that has served the wealthy instead of serving their own interests.
I stated earlier that the US media function as the microphone of the US State Department, full partners in scripting propaganda campaigns to achieve foreign policy objectives. But it is crucial to understand that the Americans are not leading these international geo-political, social, and moral assaults. They are merely functioning as the Bankers’ Private Army to accomplish the objectives of a group of European-UK elites who are always in the shadows and led by one who ... is “he who must not be named”.
 
I have described the slow and deliberate rise of fascist-capitalists and a summary of their efforts to groom the American population for their project to construct the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire since WWII.
  • Peasant mobilizations against backdrop of agrarian crisis by Sushovan Dhar from International Viewpoint. (Note: I need to magnify the text in order to read it, but if that doesn't help, you can read the article in its secondary source from CDTM.) My reaction: This is profoundly relevant for people who want to become informed about the farmer's massive protests against the government of India and their recent agricultural "reforms". Otherwise this post may interest you because it seems that the transnational capitalist frequently tests out their self-serving plans in foreign countries before they implement them here in the USA, the center of the reality of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.
The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act allows farmers to sell their products outside the mandis (markets) of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) without paying taxes. The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act allows farmers to sell their future products to agri-food companies at a predetermined price, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act eases the centre’s control over the production and sale of agricultural products.

The Indian government wants us to believe that these laws are a decisive moment for Indian agriculture because they free farmers from the influence of intermediaries. But farmers’ organizations see it as a measure that increases the level of participation of private companies. There are two concerns about the laws. First, their content is seen as a threat to small and marginal farmers. Second, the haste with which they were passed in parliament is seen as a threat by states and regional parties. Let’s examine why the laws have met with strong opposition from farmers’ associations, opposition political parties and state governments ....

  • Explained: Burke et al. 2018 featuring Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist who has for many years focused on the climate crisis--from his YouTube channel (01:50m).

Friday, February 19, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, February 19, 2021

How can media be relied upon to report honestly on these industries or hold them to account if that media is being directly funded by them? Should we really expect journalists to be breaking stories about pharmaceutical price gouging, the enormous power of Silicon Valley, or the devastation caused by fossil-fuel company pollution if those companies are essentially paying their wages?

Advertising works, not only on consumers, but on outlets as well.
  • Millions will die if world fails on climate promises by Tim Radford from Climate News Network. My reaction: As long the international class of capitalists drive policies, we will not see them keep climate promises. Furthermore, the nations (especially their governments) that they reside in will not suffer any significant consequences for their failures, but the people who reside in them definitely will.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, February 17, 2021

  • The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot by Glenn Greenwald from his weblog on Substack. My reaction: What Greenwald misses is that the Deep State has taken over completely what honest journalism ever aspired to be throughout the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Only getting rid of capitalists, and all other hegemonic social-economic classes, can there ever be an honest media.
  • The Empire Attacks BDS For The Same Reason Nixon Started The Drug War by Australian Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. My reaction: Nixon's anti-(illicit) drug policies were well understood by activists in the early 1970s, but the public completely bought the lies. Now mainstream politicians, who are employed by the capitalist ruling class, are trying to profit off of marijuana sales to the consternation of the older-age public--the same people who bought the lies of the ruling class in the 1970s and beyond.
  • News Anchor Suggests Using Drone Strikes on Trump Supporters featuring Ben Swann of ISE trying via a 13 minute video presentation to correct the lies of contemporary "journalists" that have contributed to actual terrorism using the actual history of lies spread by ruling class media corporations. Such sociopathic "journalists" will still be hired by media corporations and will enjoy comfortable careers in the future, and a gullible public, while also pursuing comfortable careers, will continue to believe them. This self-reinforcing phenomenon will continue until sufficient numbers of the public will not accept such lies because they have been exposed to independent media.
I have posted numerous articles from the latter organization, but I've only recently discovered GPE. This video features Lynn Fries of the Global Political Economy (GPE) conducting an interview with Nick Buxton of TNI. This essential post points out the subversion of the United Nations by corporations. Previously, I've posted articles that have explored the ways that secretive capitalist agencies like the CIA have subverted governments to promote Empire interests, but now they are corrupting the UN with their class-based motives of profit and power.
My impression of TNI was of a do-gooder (def) type of organization that believes that capitalism and a meaningful democracy were not incompatible. Reflecting on Buxton's remarks, I believe they are waking up to their contradictions. (See my remarks about this organization a year ago.)
(Note: Every time I consider retiring from maintaining this website, I encounter an excellent article that I want to spread far and wide. As long as this keeps up, I won't retire until forced to by ill-health. If there is someone out there in the blogosphere that can help out, I would greatly appreciate it.)

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, February 9, 2021

  • Trust the Science by Dave Cullen, an Irishman, in a satirical 9:37m video from his Bitchute channel Computing Forever.
  • The (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror by CJ Hopkins from his satirical weblog Consent Factory, Inc. My reaction: No doubt the NY Times triggered this response by calling for a "Reality Czar". I think Hopkins could be put out of the satirical business by reading/watching mainstream media. They increasingly write/show their own self-targeting satire.
  • Joe Biden and the Revenge of the Behaviorists (Why Statistical Thinking Can Get You Killed) by Matthew Ehret from FRN (Fort Russ News). My reaction: This post reveals how scientists can, and often do, serve the capitalist ruling class, who are already corrupted by wealth and power, by manipulating data to support ruling class policies. Such scientists are rewarded with comfortable careers for the benefit of themselves and their families. The necessity of preserving their privileged life-styles is often too alluring for scientists, especially when they already have sociopathic tendencies.
  • Canadian Government Delays Mandatory Traveler Quarantine featuring an interview with John Carpay of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which appears to be a non-profit center that is independent of the government, conducted by James Corbett, a Canadian, from The Corbett Report. (Note: Canada is very much a part of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire being a former member of the British Empire. Many of Carpay's comments apply to Americans. Of course, we are both citizens of the same imperialist Empire.)
The Canadian government announced it was going to subject Canadian residents to mandatory quarantine, at their own expense, after returning from international travel, regardless of their negative COVID status. After public backlash and the threat of legal action, the government is now delaying those plans, but some are alleging that the government has already arrested Canadians arriving in the country by air and transported them to a secret hotel location. Joining us to discuss this developing story and what Canadians can do about it is John Carpay of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.

The plan to radically restructure agrifood in the country is being sold to the public under the guise of ‘modernising’ the sector. And this is to be carried out by self-proclaimed ‘wealth creators’ like Zuckerberg, Bezos and Ambani who are highly experienced at creating wealth – for themselves.

Monday, February 1, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, February 1, 2021

  • Why the US Will Continue to Meddle in Thailand... by Brian Berletic from his weblog Land Destroyer Report. (Note: Berletic explains why a different administration will make no difference in US interference in other nations political affairs. He goes on to explain that corporation funded "think tanks" or corporate policy committees fund this interference to influence other nation's policies toward neoliberal policies, or policies that open their countries to make it easier for international corporations to exploit the cheap labor and resources that these nations possess.) My reaction: Although he explains most bills that are introduced to Congress originate in the corporate-funded "think tanks", Berletic doesn't address the ongoing propaganda and disruptive efforts by Deep State agencies like the CIA, NSA, etc. to sponsor and train political movements recently seen in Hong Kong, and now in Russia with riots that back Navalny using outrageous propaganda as Bartlett, an independent journalist, explains in this video.
  • Biden Attacks Farms – Comprehensive War on Global Food Supply – Engineered Famine by Christian from his weblog Ice Age Farmer. My reaction: I cannot agree or disagree with many of the things he says in this 27:39m video, and that is because I don't know farm problems. He is an independent reporter of farmers' concerns about the food supply, and as such I am posting this. I do agree with him about his negative comments in relation to bio-engineering of food and Monsanto's engineered seeds. But on other topics such as cutting back on meat in our diets and his cynical views of ruling class's concern about the climate crisis, I cannot agree with him. In relation to the last topic, I think that the ruling class is trying hard to not let the real climate crisis interfere with their preoccupation with wealth accumulation. Regarding his general view of the Biden administration, I agree that the administration's policies are putting small farmers out of business and promoting Big Ag as would be expected from a capitalist ruling class.
An academic critical media literacy conference warning of the dangers of media censorship has, ironically, been censored by YouTube. The Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas 2020 took place without incident online over two days in October and featured a number of esteemed speakers and panels discussing issues concerning modern media studies. 
Weeks later, however, the entire video record of the conference — estimated at around 24 hours of material — disappeared from YouTube.
  • Just A Bunch Of Goodfellas THAT LOVE YOU! featuring Jason Bermas on his channel on Rokfin in a 23:32m video satirically commenting on each of the "Goodfellas" loving us so much! (Note: The video starts at about 25 seconds.)
  • Don’t be Fooled that Corporations’ Motives are Moral by Leonard C. Goodman from CounterPunch. (Note: Although at the end of the article, CounterPunch states that "This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.", I could not find it on either website or any piece on those websites that was authored by Leonard C. Goodman. However, there were an abundance of articles on CounterPunch's website that were by this author.)
This essay is an introduction to the topic of Mass Propaganda and, perhaps more importantly, to a brief series of articles detailing how the US has been for more than 100 years the most propagandised and brainwashed nation in the world. The history of thbis has been buried for generations, but the facts are indisputable. One of the most important elements in this tale, as we shall see, is the employment of propaganda in American war marketing.
This short film, written and narrated by political consultant Jeffrey Peel, compares the UK death toll of January 2015 with this month just past, and asks are we truly in the middle of a pandemic? Or has mass PCR testing simply created a monster with no body?
While you may not agree with every position he takes, there’s no ignoring his figures, or his concern about the personal liberties of every British citizen.
The might of Israel, the power of Washington’s interventionist alliance, the horror of war, the poverty of sanctions, nothing can erode this belief in their ability to withstand the darkness and to find the inextinguishable light that is at the core of their resilience. This is the impenetrable wall of resistance that has enabled Syria and Syrians to survive ten years of collective and devastating war and economic punishment and it is built on the ancient foundations of history, heritage, culture and refusal to kneel or capitulate to external, hostile influences. This wall will never fall.

Friday, January 29, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, January 29, 2021

  • Contradictions of Finance Capitalism by Richard Peet from Monthly Review. My reaction: You will learn about the evolution of industrial capitalism into finance capitalism that began around 1950 and accelerated in the 1980s and beyond. They added finance to their wealth and thereby increased their power over the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. They sought cheap labor all over the world, invested in, and loaned money to, companies that exploited this cheap labor. The also bought many homes in foreign lands which added to their neoliberal outlook (trans-nationalism). The de-industrialization of the USA was the result.  The author reveal that he had an education in North America by ending his article with an affirmation of democratic socialism and a rightward move for the Monthly Review. Democratic socialism in the USA commonly means a welfare-state type of a capitalist economy. In other words, a fake representation of socialism.
I have followed this ex-Marine for the last 10 years, and I've always found his reports about political issues, whether they were about Thailand or some other country, to be absolutely spot-on (to use a British expression). Thus I trust his presentation and analyses of issues.
As Caitlin Johnstone frequently and convincingly writes, "Whoever controls the narrative controls the world." This is never more true than in today's world because the communication of ideas has become under such tight control by a relatively few capitalists than ever before. This point is driven into our consciousness no better than this article by Berletic. The solution is obvious: take away their ownership/control of communication properties. But that would be the ultimate evil of communism, you declare in an angry voice! The thorough indoctrination of your mind by capitalist ruling classes who control all institutions is the problem preventing any future progress and ensuring our ultimate doom.
  • Solutions: Survival Currency featuring James Corbett of The Corbett Report giving his introduction and recommendations for a survival currency. (Note: Although I have only listened to 25 minutes of his one hour talk, I think it is worth your time.) 

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, January 27, 2021

  • The Great Reopening featuring James Corbett from The Corbett Report reporting on the beginning of a worldwide reopening of small businesses.
  • Science Update: January 27, 2021 featuring Dr. Guy McPherson reviewing the latest scienfic findings in peer-reviewed science literature (via his channel on YouTube).

Monday, December 21, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, December 21, 2020

  • AOC Interview Signals She's Unwilling to Fight Pelosi For Medicare 4 All featuring Jimmy Dore from his YouTube channel. My reaction: Here is Dore trying his damnest to use the existing democratic machinery to pass legislation that has some semblance to univerisal health care. I wish him luck because his efforts are futile because the capitalist ruling class rules the USA behind their facade of "democracy", and they don't want Medicare for All. If AOC and the progressive members of Congress vote for universal Medicare, they will not return to Congress mainly because they depend on the rich ruling capitalist class for re-election campaign funds. That's the "beautful" secret of liberal democracy (also see "bourgeois democracy").
As we discussed yesterday, Americans will not be given Medicare for All despite overwhelming public support because an immense amount of power depends on keeping them in a state of financial struggle so they don’t interfere in the affairs of a nation which serves as the hub of a global empire. The US political system does not exist to serve the interests of Americans, it exists to serve the interests of the empire. No part of that system is there to protect the people from the powerful; it’s there to protect the powerful from the people.
Some of the most pressing questions now being raised by thinking citizens watching the unravelling of their worlds include:

Why are so many highly educated people willing to give up their innate power to think in order to have shadowy experts tell them what is true and how to behave?

Why are so many of our fellow citizens so willing to give up their rights and freedoms to protect themselves from invisible threats like viruses with a 99.9% survival rate or changing climate which used to be called “the weather” having little to do with human activity?

Why are so many people incapable, and unwilling to accept the idea of conspiracy, or intention as an efficient, existent phenomenon in world affairs when such things as “Great Reset” are being spoken allowed by misanthropic billionaires on a daily basis?

The dominant narrative calls this ‘globalisation’, a euphemism for a predatory neoliberal capitalism based on endless profit growth, crises of overproduction, overaccumulation and market saturation and a need to constantly seek out and exploit new, untapped (foreign) markets to maintain profitability. 
In India, we can see the implications very clearly.

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, December 17, 2020

  • Barbarians at the barn: private equity sinks its teeth into agriculture from GRAIN. Note: I am posting this lengthy article to show you that investors and managers of worker and government pension funds are taking over farmland all over the world and causing many problems for humans and the environment to add to their wealth. This is how capitalist practices serves the food needs of humans the profits and power needs of a tiny minority of capitalists and associated professionals working in Wall Street.
It is disconcerting that the biggest players in the private equity industry are people’s pension funds, followed by governments’ development finance institutions. They are responsible, yet there is zero connection between them and the people whose money they are investing, much less between them and the communities impacted by these investments.
  • Year Zero by CJ Hopkins, a political satirist, from his weblog Consent Factory, Inc. 
2020 was GloboCap Year Zero. The year when the global capitalist ruling classes did away with the illusion of democracy and reminded everyone who is actually in charge, and exactly what happens when anyone challenges them. 
In the relatively short span of the last ten months, societies throughout the world have been transformed beyond recognition. Constitutional rights have been suspended. Protest has been banned. Dissent is being censored.
  • New World Next Year 2021 featuring James Corbett and James Pilato offering an-end-of-the-review and some hopeful predictions about next year. It lasts nearly 34 minutes and is posted on The Corbett Report.
  • Life Without Lies from the YouTube channel of Journeyman Pictures, a one minute preview entitled "The Troublemaker". This is a best post because it is so urgent.
Facing up to the climate crisis on a journey of self-discovery
It is in times of crisis that we find out what really matters to us, that we get to discover who we really are, as individuals and as a society. The Troublemaker delves deep into the ideas and emotions behind the international wave of civil protest, born in the face of the unfolding climate crisis. Through the eyes of a visionary leader who co-founded ‘Extinction Rebellion’, and a previously law-abiding citizen inspired to take action, The Troublemaker aspires to stir the audience from passive resistance to a life-affirming defence of our future. Now that we understand more about what a ‘global crisis’ feels like, it can no longer be ignored.

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, October 29, 2020

  • Election Special: Pre-Planned 2020 Election Chaos and the “New 9/11” (Part 1) from The Last American Vagabond. (Note: I am posting this because Whitney Webb joins Ryan Cristián in discussing the topic in a two hour and 27 minute discussion. I have in the past resisted posting the latter's "Daily Show" because he has a case of "diarrhea of the mouth" in which he takes so much of our time to review current events. I have only listened to about 20 minutes, but I intend to listen to the rest of the discussion later. However, I view Whitney Webb's knowledge as a veritable encyclopedia of Empire's Deep State agents (CIA, Israeli, other secret government agencies, and/or outsourced to private corporations) events, and her statements are all based on extensive research.) 
General Note: Because of the many deceptions by the ruling class in their Great Reset project, I have neglected one of the main themes of this website--climate destabilization. This selection of posts will only partially make up for this interruption.
  • Post-doom with Michael Dowd from Dowd's YouTube's channel "thegreatstory". (Note: Michael Dowd discusses with Paul Beckwith, a Canadian climate scientist, in an approximately one hour interview, the latter's take on future events relating to the climate crisis that we may expect happen. You should not miss this best post.)

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020

  • Kamala Is A Cop Except For Billionaire Banksters! featuring Jimmy Dore ranting and Max Blumenthal offering his observations about the Democratic Party candidates, via YouTube. (My reaction: Can you imagine a worse election that are facing the people of the USA in November?! Our masters in the ruling class are both extremely corrupt and extremely cynical about the American people.)
  • Consent Rescinded. By Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. (Note: She rescinds all the themes with which ideological agents of the capitalist ruling class infected her mind much like a virus when she was younger and more naive. Can you join her?)
  • A quick update on Belarus by "The Saker" from his weblog A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. (Note: this is an update to yesterday's re-post about the subversive efforts of the US Empire to change the government of Belarus.)

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, July 28, 2020

  • WHO Hired the PR Firm Behind the Kuwaiti Incubator Babies Lie by Kevin McCauley from Anti-Empire. (Note: At first I was skeptical of this post because there was no supporting link to its allegation in the headline. At first, I thought it may be in the original post from a trade website O’Dweyer’s PR News. I then went on a hunt for supporting documentation for about 20 minutes to uncover the supporting link which should have been included in this post.)
  • WATCH: The Face Mask Debate from Off-Guardian. (Note: I am posting this re-post from the original source because it offers more links about the debate.)
While these narratives have asserted that China, Russia and/or Iran will be to blame for such attacks, it is worth noting that a tight-knit web of Israeli state-owned and private companies tied to Israeli military intelligence now run the software controlling key parts of the power grid in New York, California and elsewhere in the U.S.; are the main global producers of deep fakes; and the main providers of “security” software for self-driving and semi-self-driving cars, the quantity of which on U.S. streets has grown dramatically as a result of the coronavirus crisis. 
With Cybereason’s newly announced push to run its software on critical U.S. government networks at both the federal and state levels, the company’s history of simulating terror attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure and their openly admitted and on-going ties to Israeli military intelligence deserve more scrutiny than ever as the U.S. election draws closer.

Friday, April 5, 2019

Can We Feed the World without Destroying It?

Click here to access article by Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First

The author clarifies how the capitalist system affects food production, but has unrealistic hopes about the Green New Deal's ability to transform the present system into one that empowers all of humanity instead of capitalism which serves the needs of a tiny minority of "owners".

 He writes:
The food movement has been very good at developing alternatives, but it hasn’t been good at addressing the systemic barriers to good, clean, fair food for all. Some even seem to think that we can transform our food system in isolation of the larger, political-economic system in which it is embedded. That system is capitalism and it has co-evolved with our food system, so clearly we can’t change one without changing the other.

The good news is that the food system has always been a pivotal pillar in capitalism, so if we can push systemic changes within the food system, it will influence the rest of the system. That’s why things that seem utopic, like insisting on the human right to food and food sovereignty, are so important. To the extent we can ensure these rights, we dismantle capitalism.
But pins his hopes on the Green New Deal:
... whatever you are doing—studying, gardening, in a CSA [link], whatever—thank you, and keep doing it. Now, you need to do something else: change everything! Let’s catch the momentum of the Green New Deal to build a powerful, broad-based, working class and people of color-led movement for transformation. Let’s create the political will not just for reforms, but for transformative, structural reforms that put us solidly on the road to food sovereignty and to cooling the planet. [my inserted link]
Like the New Deal under the Roosevelt administration, the Green New Deal won't be allowed to empower people at the expense of capitalists. Only an organized revolutionary people can do that. The Green New Deal, under capitalist controlled political system, likes its predecessor, will only protect the present ruling class from any substantial changes. He essentially admits that in the first paragraph.

Friday, February 22, 2019

Growing power: Mega-Mergers and the fight for our food system

Click here to access article by Katie Sandwell from the Transnational Institute (TNI).

Download this PDF document and learn about how mergers of agricultural corporations are leading to just a handful of corporations that exercise almost total control over what we eat. Yes, it's corporations über alles under capitalism!
Giant corporations have taken control of our food. Today, just a few companies control what we eat and how it is produced. For them, food is money: companies and their shareholders aren’t interested in what food means to the people who grow and eat it, or what farming means for the environment. They are interested in the profits they can make from it.
The situation is not good, and it is getting worse: since 2015 a number of “mega mergers” have been proposed, or taken place. Six companies controlled most of the international trade in seeds and agricultural chemicals in 2015. In the last two years, these companies have begun the process of merging and re-arranging themselves into just four colossal corporations. The larger these companies grow, the less we can control them. And the less control we have, the harder it is for us to build the kind of food system that more and more of us want: one that recognizes the value of people, respects the planet, and provides decent, dignified work.

Thursday, November 2, 2017

The Russian Revolution: Chapter 2: The Bolshevik Land Policy

Click here to access article by Rosa Luxemburg from her book The Russian Revolution that was written by her in prison in 1918. (Note: I will be running the important chapters in this book over the next days.)

In this chapter she cites the socialist problems related to delivering the Bolshevik promises of land to the peasants.
The seizure of the landed estates by the peasants according to the short and precise slogan of Lenin and his friends – “Go and take the land for yourselves” – simply led to the sudden, chaotic conversion of large landownership into peasant landownership. What was created is not social property but a new form of private property, namely, the breaking up of large estates into medium and small estates, or relatively advanced large units of production into primitive small units which operate with technical means from the time of the Pharaohs.

Nor is that all!

Friday, July 7, 2017

When Will Co-opted Figures and Board Members Be Hauled into Court?

Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from his blog East by Northwest. (See especially the comments section. Also notice in the sixth paragraph there is one typographical error. The first sentence should read "The integrity of public institutions is compr[om]ised due to the political influence and financial clout ....")
The public is being poisoned, disease rates are spiralling, waterways are contaminated, soil is being degraded, insects, birds, invertebrates and plant diversity are in dramatic decline. Humanity and the planet are being poisoned for profit.

We are experiencing an assault on life by the agrotoxins industry, which is in fact contributing to a sixth mass extinction. Armed with a harmful chemical cocktail of highly profitable agrotoxins, ranging from disease-causing glyphosate to bee-killing neonicotinoid insecticides, biocide manufactures are waging biological and chemical warfare on us all under the guise that they are serving humanity by helping to feed the world.
The answer to the question in the headline is thus: they will not be hauled into court as long as the tiny capitalist class rules the world. There is no kind of good capitalism simply because like cancer wherever capitalists attain a critical level of power they will begin to devour the rest of society and the environment until all of humanity is threatened with extinction. And, like cancer, the best chances of a cure is in the early stages, but it is never too late to fight for survival.