Onward Corporate Soldiers! Colonizing the poor for their own good
A passage from James Michener’s historical novel The Source, dramatizes the Fourth Crusade in which Christian armies from Europe invade the Holy Land. One of Michener’s protagonists is an ambitious nobleman whose main religious motivation is the acquisition of a fiefdom for himself (It seems there were no more to go around in Europe.) In his zeal for empire, he massacres thousands of native eastern Christians (as Crusaders actually did in their siege on Jerusalem). So much for the noble goals of crusades…
Perpetuating the Eternal Food Fight
January 25, 2011
By Eric Holt-Giménez, Huffington Post
In his January 10 New York Times blog spot "Beyond the Eternal Food Fight," Andrew Revkin appeals to whom he considers to be the Alpha and Omega of food and disaster experts, Lester Brown and Vaclav Smil. He asks whether the current food prices spikes are "the edge of the cliff of just another bump in a long, climbing road?"
That witch, inflation, hurts us more without protection
Soaring food prices will make many go hungry, but austerity-driven policies will make the suffering even worse
By Raj Patel, Food First Fellow
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 January 2011
Food Rebellions: Mozambicans Know Which Way the Wind Blows
The Observer, September 5, 2010
By Raj Patel, Food First Fellow
Bust the trust to take back control of our food
By Siena Chrisman, WhyHunger
There are 2 million farmers and 300 million consumers in the U.S. Standing in the middle are a handful of corporations who control just about everything that happens to our food between the farm and our plate ... how much it costs, how it's grown, where it comes from, what's in it, and who sells it. Most of what probably matters to you about why food isn’t healthier, safer, tastier, or all around better is affected by that narrow bottleneck of power standing between producers and consumers.
Aftershocks: Psuedo-Tsunamis and food insecurity in Hawai'i
A couple of my young and highly talented friends were winding down in the wee hours after their snapping GO LIVE! REAL FOOD performance in Waikiki when they got the news of the Chilean earthquake.
They 'stood fixated on the flat screens, drinks in hand' as real time images of Chilean destruction were quickly followed by an official tsunami warning and a barrage of historic Hawaiian newsreel footage documenting the devastating tidal wave that hit Hilo back in 1947. After ordering an evacuation of coastal areas, the government advised people to stock up on a weeks worth of food.
Haiti: Roots of Liberty--Roots of Disaster
January 21, 2010
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt-gimenez/haiti-roots-of-liberty--...
"In overthrowing me, you have cut down in Saint-Domingue only the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep."
Toussaint L'Ouverture
Global Markets and Biotech: Nominating Rajiv Shah to run USAID
December 7, 2009
Contact Eric Holt-Giménez at eholtgim (at) foodfirst.org or call 510-654-4400.
By Eric Holt-Giménez
Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule--
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!
H.M.S. Pinafore (Gilbert and Sullivan)
Response to an article by Dennis Avery titled "Cubans Starve on a Diet of Lies"
Dear Mr. Dennis Avery,
I have read your article “Cubans Starve on a Diet of Lies,” written last March 23, regarding Cuban agriculture. At first, I hesitated to respond to such fundamentally flawed claims. However, because the misinformation propagated in your piece is unfair to Cuba and Cubans, I am doing so now.
