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Today's
Stories
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
December
11, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
What's Really Happened During
the Surge?
Diana
Johnstone
The Next Kosovo War
Paul
Craig Roberts
It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution
David
Macaray
Impasse in Hollywood
Ralph
Nader
Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result
Martha
Rosenberg
No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers
Steve
Champion /
Anthony Ross
Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams
Kim
Nicolini
Tangled Up in Dylan
Michael
Dickinson
Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent
Website
of the Day
A Charming (and Worthy)
Pitch
December 10, 2007
Uri
Avnery
How They Stole the Bomb From Us
Debbie
Nathan
The Perils of Journalism and Child
Porn
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Is There a Left Here Left?
If So, What Can It Do?
Steve
Kelly
Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness
Donna
J. Volatile
Welcome to the Revolution
December
8 / 9, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
Brenda
Norrell
Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists
Saul
Landau
The Ruins of Empire
R.
F. Blader
A Rape in Every Drink?
Ray
McGovern
Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
Allan
Nairn
Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in
Indonesia
Linn
Washington, Jr
Spotlight on Death Row
Paul
Craig Roberts
When Will Bush Come Clean?
December
7, 2007
Sean
Penn
Piano Wire Puppeteers
Arthur
Versluis
Mining Water in the Desert
M.
G. Piety
Racism and the American Psyche: Some
Thoughts on Race and Intelligence
Pam
Martens
Banksters Gone Wild
Alan
Farago
Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia?
Sprawl and the Credit Crisis
Allan
Nairn
It Takes (Out) a Village
Col.
Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday
Alice
Slater
The Iran Opening
Robert
Weissman
The Story of Stuff
Website
of the Day
Something
About Mitt
December
5, 2007
Mike
Whitney
Why the CFR Hates Putin
Sharon
Smith
The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden
and the Dead End Democrats
James
Petras
Venezuela in the Aftermath
Ron
Jacobs
The Iran Charade
Dave
Zirin
Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor
John
V. Whitbeck
Two States or One? Time to Choose
Peter
Zinn
Covered in New Orleans
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Impeach Pelosi Instead
Alan
Farago
The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida
Heather
Gray
US Meddling in Australian Politics
Website
of the Day
A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas
December
4, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in
Ann Arbor
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme
Court
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Lies at the End of the American
Dream
Ray
McGovern
No-Nuke Iran
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are
Too Small
Allan
Nairn
The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just
Want Food"
Russell
Mokhiber
The USA v. Al Arian
Nikolas
Kozloff
As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American
Left
John
V. Walsh
Peace Movement Paralyzed
Ghada
Ageel
Will Peace Cost Me My Home?
Stephen
Soldz
The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist
Involvement in Interrogations
Website
of the Day
Hands Off the People of Iran
December
3, 2007
Tariq
Ali
Venezuela After the Referendum
Bill
Quigley
New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor,
Tax Credits for Developers
Eric
Walberg
The Bible and Middle East History
Uri
Avnery
After Annapolis
Marjorie
Cohn
Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed
Dave
Lindorff
Vengeance Isn't Sweet
Stephen
Fleischman
Homeless in Paradise
Martha
Rosenberg
Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile
Website
of the Day
So Just Lead!
December
1 / 2, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift
in a Sea of Booze
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and
the Future of the Rocky Mountain West
Mike
Whitney
"Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir
Rosen
Shemon
Salam
A Visit From the FBI
Roger
Burbach
The Battle in Bolivia
Benjamin
Dangl
New Politics in Old Bolivia
Brian
M. Downing
The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to
the Surge?
Greg
Moses
Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story
Sonja
Karkar
The "Never-Never" Peace Conference
Saul
Landau
Ethics and Evil in South Boston
Margaret
Kimberley
Black America Left Behind
John
Ross
What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution?
Reza
Fiyouzat
Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran
Judith
Scherr
Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays
Lance
Olsen
Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy
Christopher
Brauchli
Mr. Bush and the Despots
Robert
Fantina
Iraq as U.S. Colony
Dan
Bacher
Fish Triage on Prospect Island
Michael
Donnelly
Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency
Website
of the Weekend
Appalachian Voices
November
30, 2007
Peter
Stone Brown
The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan
Wajahat
Ali
The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's
Former Minister of Information
Allan
Nairn
Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers
Alan
Farago
The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash
John
Ross
The Death of Latin America's First Revolution
Corporate
Crime Reporter
America's Corporate Crime Capitals
Lucia
Alvarez
Diego Gonzalez
Argentina's Political Future
James
Rothenberg
The Iraqi Miracle
Website
of the Day
Bio-Bling?
November
29, 2007
R.
F. Blader
The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe
Ismael
Hossein-Zadeh
Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran
Stephen
Soldz
War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire
Sheldon
Richman
Iraq 3.0
George
Wuerthner
Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws
Felice
Pace
Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis?
Col.
Dan Smith
The Meaning of Annapolis
Harvey
Wasserman
Terror Target Nukes
Nikolas
Kozloff
Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08
Paul
Krassner
Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike!
Dave
Lindorff
News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela?
CP
News Service
The One State Declaration
Website
of the Day
A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
November
28, 2007
James
Petras
CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces
on Venezuela
Jeff
Halper
Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One
Way Street
Pam
Martens
Crashing Citigroup
Peter
Morici
Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession
Mohammed
Khatib
Separate and Unequal in Palestine
Helen
Redmond
The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America
William
S. Lind
In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm?
Ben
Tripp
We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges
Jeff
Berg
Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran
Website
of the Day
The Lies of Joe Klein
November
27, 2007
Joe
DeRaymond
On the Road to the Torture School
Paul
Craig Roberts
Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary
and Rudy
Marjorie
Cohn
Remembering Victor Rabinowitz
Mike
Whitney
A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp
Ron
Jacobs
The Myths of Military Progress
Col.
Dan Smith
The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work
Ralph
Nader
Family Learning
Karim
Makdisi
Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut
Christopher
Ketcham
Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop
Ronan
Bennett
Martin Amis Does a Coulter
Website
of the Day
Celebrating the Uncensored Media
November
26, 2007
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Heading for Annapolis
Paul
Craig Roberts
The End of All That
David
Macaray
Enter Mediator
Sameer
Dossani
Pakistan's Wounded Dictator
Roger
Burbach
The Final Battle in Bolivia
Mark
Scaramella
Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire
Brian
McKinlay
Howard's End
Rick
Kuhn
The Fall of a Racist Union Buster
Binoy
Kampmark
Ruddslide and Dull Alec
Monica
Benderman
What Do You Know of War?
Brenda
Norrell
Return to Alcatraz
Website
of the Day
Ghostworld by DJ Spooky
November
24 / 25, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson,
MD
Robert
Fisk
Darkness Falls on the Middle East
Saul
Landau
Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P.
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal
Environmentalism
Rannie
Amiri
Beirut's Black Friday
Christopher
Brauchli
Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace
Daniel
Gross
The Gap and Black Friday
Mike
Whitney
"A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions"
Marjorie
Cohn
Iran and the 2008 Elections
David
Rosen
Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans
David
Michael Green
If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom ....
Kenneth
Rexroth
When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in
Afghanistan
Muhammad
Iqbal
Trans. Shahid Alam
Ghazal
Website
of the Day
Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill
November 23, 2007
Gary
Leupp
Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat
Valley
Laura
Carlsen
Coming to Terms with Diversity in
Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP
David
Macaray
Keeping Labor Unions Out
Andy
Worthington
Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden
Clifton
Ross
Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant
Seth
Sandronsky
Battling Sodexho
Dan
Bacher
Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation
William
A. Cook
The Myth of Middle East Peace
Website
of the Day
Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short
Film
November
22, 2007
Alan
Farago
Who Lost America's Everglades?
Greg
Moses
A Thanksgiving Basting
Dave
Lindorff
Impeachment is Back on the Table
Mike
Ely
Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving
Omar
Azfar
Gore for President of Pakistan?
November
21, 2007
Vijay
Prashad
Our Dictator, Their Democracy
Martha
Rosenberg
Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Epiphany on the Glacier
John
Ross
The Last Days of Mexican Corn
Brian
McKenna
Cancer Terrorists Unmasked
Stephen
Soldz
Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo
Monica
Benderman
Needing Peace
Ben
Terrall
Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar
Website
of the Day
Mercy for Animals
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December
20, 2007
Resisting the Globalization
of Food
The
Return of the Bread Riot
By ASHLEY DAWSON
On September 13th, 2007, Italian shoppers,
led by a confederation of consumer organizations, staged one
of the country's first pasta strikes. In the elegant but rather
grimy deindustrialized city of Turin where I'm currently living,
erstwhile home to the FIAT auto factories, there were few signs
of consumer anger boiling over. No pickets of irate housewives
dressed up in inflatable spaghetti costumes outside local groceries,
no sign-wavers at the local farmers' market. Was this simply
another risible example of the famous Italian proclivity to strike
over virtually everything?
Italian consumers were encouraged
to boycott pasta for the day in order to protest against price
rises of up to 27% over the last year. Pasta was, however, simply
a symbolic target. The consumer organizations that masterminded
the strike asked shoppers to stay away from markets in general
in order to protest against price run-ups in everything from
gasoline to rent to the cost of a cup of espresso in the local
café. Carlo Rienzi, head of one of these organizations,
called on the Italian government to pass a decree opening markets
on Sundays for special direct sales of food by farmers to consumers,
which, he argued, would help lower prices in general.
Italy is not the only country
experiencing growing political turbulence over the cost of staple
foods. Last January, 70,000 people marched through the streets
of Mexico City in a protest that has become known as the "tortilla
riot." In response to these demonstrations, president Felipe
Calderon signed an agreement to stabilize tortilla prices, which
have skyrocketed more than 700% since 1994, the year that the
North American Free Trade Agreement became law. After NAFTA
took effect, many Mexican peasants were pushed off their land
as cheap U.S. corn flooded the now tariff-free domestic market.
Now that many American farmers are turning over significant
portions of their corn harvest to the production of ethanol,
Mexican consumers have no hedge against rising international
corn prices.
Where are such apparently isolated
protests leading? It might be useful to get some historical
perspective by considering one of the world's most famous bread
riots. On the morning of October 5th, 1789, a small girl began
banging a drum and chanting a protest in one of Paris's markets.
According to the historian George Rudé, this protest
quickly drew a large crowd of sympathetic women, who set out
together on a march to make their complaint heard to the royal
household in Versailles. Their numbers grew quickly to six or
seven thousand; as they marched, the town guards were disarmed
and their weapons were handed to men who followed the crowd of
enraged women through the streets. We all know where this protest
led ultimately.
Yet the march on Versailles,
like the storming of the Bastille earlier that year, was motivated
not by anger over the conspicuous consumption of royals like
Marie Antoinette, but rather by the far more immediate issue
of the cost of bread. A laboring family of four in Paris ate
1.2 tons of grain a year in this period, 80 percent of which
had to get to the city from the surrounding Paris basin on a
poorly maintained road network. In the 1780s a series of floods
in this area led to poor harvests, provoking soaring bread prices.
By 1789, a worker's daily bread took nearly 90 percent of her
or his income. The demand for bread was central to practically
all the journées, the popular insurrections and demonstrations
that broke out repeatedly in Paris between 1789 and 1795. Women,
on whose shoulders the crushing burden of domestic economy rested,
were pivotal catalysts and participants in these demonstrations.
Of course, nothing like this
could happen today, right? The past decade and a half has seen
a global wave of democratization, a vital hedge against famine
according to the economist Amartya Sen. In addition, we're blessed
with a highly flexible food production and distribution system,
the product not simply of a few decades of globalization but
also of the thoroughgoing transformation of agriculture wrought
by the Green Revolution following the 1950s. There are signs,
however, that the energy-intensive practices of industrial agriculture
spread around the world by the Green Revolution are not sustainable.
As Michael Pollan recently argued in the New York Times,
the mysterious disappearance of bees over the last year and the
growth of drug-resistant Staphylococcus bacteria (which is now
killing more Americans each year than AIDS) are both signs of
the precariousness of the vast monocultures on which our current
food system is based. According to Pollan, "whenever we
try to rearrange natural systems along the lines of a machine
or a factory, whether by raising too many pigs in one place or
too many almond trees, whatever we may gain in industrial efficiency,
we sacrifice in biological resilience."
As important as these symptoms
of a brewing crisis are, however, one doesn't have to go as far
as a hospital ward or an almond grove to get a sense of the unsustainability
of the global agricultural system. A trip to the local supermarket
to buy pasta will suffice. The rising cereal prices that drew
protests in Italy and Mexico this year are the concrete harbingers
of a calamity in the making. Over the last year, the food price
index of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization
rose by more than 40 percent, adding to a significant increase
of 9 percent in 2006. According to the head of the FAO, Jacques
Diouf, prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs; wheat
prices have risen by $130 a ton, or 52 percent, since a year
ago. In tandem with this inflation in the cost of staple cereals,
reserves have become severely depleted. World wheat stores declined
11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds
with 12 weeks of the world's total consumption. There are only
8 weeks of corn left.
Joachim von Braun, the head
of the International Food Policy Research Institute, recently
pointed out that crises have not materialized despite these dwindling
supplies because states have literally eaten into their national
grain stocks. According to von Braun, this situation may change
soon because China, in particular, has nearly exhausted its supplies.
In a speech in Beijing, von Braun stated that "over the
next 12 to 24 months we are in a fairly risky situation. Large
consuming nations, particularly China, will feel pressed to enter
international markets to bid up prices to unusual levels."
Chinese consumers are already facing galloping food inflation.
According to a local paper quoted by the Manchester Guardian,
three shoppers died recently in a stampede at a supermarket that
was offering discounted rapeseed oil. With its massive foreign
exchange reserves, China could potentially buy the global food
crop many times over, driving international commodity prices
through the roof.
Just as was true in late-eighteenth
century Paris, rising food prices are also related to climatic
conditions. The early and still relatively mild
effects of global warming have seriously damaged crop yields
in breadbasket regions such as Australia and Ukraine in recent
years. As S. Mark Howden of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific
and Industrial Research organization pointed out recently, "If
there's a significant change in climate in one of our high production
areas, if there is a disease that affects a major crop, we are
in a very risky situation."
And, just as in the days of
the French Revolution, it is the poor who will suffer the most
from the spiraling cost of food. International aid agencies
are having trouble keeping up with their shipments of food not
just as a result of the inflated price of basic foodstuffs, but
also because it has become far more expensive to transport food
around the world given the surging value of petroleum. High
oil prices also directly affect agriculture and, with it, food
stocks, because petroleum is a vital ingredient of both fertilizers
and pesticides, as well, of course, as being necessary to run
the tractors and diesel pumps that are essential to industrial
agriculture the world over. In addition, the threat of climate
change is affecting poor countries in another way: as bio-fuels
have been embraced as an important alternative to petroleum,
food and fuel have entered into direct competition. According
to a recent article in the Guardian, for example, Bangladeshi
officials report that the price of cooking oil - of which it
imports 1.2 million tons a year - has almost tripled in the past
two years because it is now valued as an alternative to diesel
oil.
Of course it's hard to say
exactly how these disturbing trends will work out, but it's unlikely
that there is going to be an easy resolution. The rising cost
of oil, one of the central catalysts of the crisis, is not a
product of a political showdown as in the 1970s, but rather of
speculation prompted by increasingly tight supplies. Moreover,
short-term thinking is not likely to resolve our problems. The
specter of famine may, for example, lead farmers the world over
to expand crop production to ecologically sensitive or otherwise
marginal areas. Yet although this may solve a potential crisis
in the short term, it obviously does not represent a viable solution
to the gathering crisis of the global industrial agricultural
system. A more sustainable approach is suggested by FAO head
Jacques Diof. With oil and food prices at near record highs,
Diof recently argued that rich countries should stop sending
food aid to poor nations and should instead concentrate on helping
farmers grow food locally. Mr. Diof's plan echoes the call of
the international organization Via Campesina, which has
made food sovereignty a cornerstone of its battle for peasant
rights.
Until now, however, such an
approach has fallen on deaf ears in the halls of powerful international
institutions such as the World Trade Organization, which have
been dominated by the notion of food security advanced by the
US, which argues, as always, for free trade since its industrially
produced food products have until now been able to undercut the
prices of all competitors on international markets. The result
has been policies of food dumping, slashing of price supports
that keep small farmers solvent, privatization of credit, and
the patenting of crop genetic resources that have combined to
push millions of farmers off their land and into the metastasizing
mega-cities of the global South. Agriculture is now one of the
most monopolistic of industries, with a handful of giant transnational
corporations like Monsanto controlling both ends of the production
process. Mr. Diof's call for food sovereignty thus implies a
wide-ranging transformation of the central institutions of globalization
and, indeed, of the entire system of globalized industrial agriculture.
With the contradictions of
the industrial food system piling up to potentially deadly effect,
it is high time we rejected this unsustainable model of globalized
food and turned instead to the more sustainable model of local
production and food sovereignty championed by organizations like
Via Campesina. Organizing a local pasta strike might be a good
if humble way to make this point. One can only hope that it
will not take bloody bread riots and large-scale famines to push
the world down a more sustainable path.
Ashley Dawson is the author of Mongrel Nation:
Diasporic Culture and the Making of Post-Colonial Britain
and co-author with Malini Johar Schueller of "Exceptional
State: Contemporary US Culture and the New Imperialism".
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of the Crossroads:
HOW THE IRISH
INVENTED SLANG
By Daniel Cassidy
WINNER
OF THE
AMERICAN BOOK AWARD!
Click Here to Buy!
Cassidy
on Tour
Click Here for Dates & Venues
"The Case Against
Israel"
Michael
Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
Click Here to Buy!
Saul Landau's
Bush and Botox World
with a Foreword by Gore Vidal
Click Here to Order!
Grand Theft Pentagon
How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism
The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont
CITY BEAUTIFUL
By Tennessee Reed
Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh
The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"
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