Rights Fight: Local Democracy vs. Factory Farms in Pennsylvania

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On August 22, 1996 in the Rose Garden of the White House, President Clinton signed into law the Orwellian-sounding Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, better known as Welfare Reform, the most sweeping change in our welfare system in sixty years. With his signature, Clinton's talk of "not punishing or preaching" became indistinguishable from the Republican Party's poor-bashing Contract with America. How Mr. Clinton slid from a welfare plan that would have added about $10 billion more in spending to embracing one that would cut $54 billion is a sad tale of American politics. Furthermore, it raises the specter of systematic violations of basic human rights here in the United States of America, if we are judged by the international standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted fifty years ago by the United Nations General Assembly.

In this report we tally the impact of welfare reform, expose seldom reported corporate profit-taking, and conflict of interest in privatizing parts of the system, and examine the human rights implications of current policies.

By Walden Bello

Here at home, just as in the Third World, hunger is an outrage precisely because it is profoundly needless. Behind the headlines, the television images, and superficial clichés, we can learn to see that hunger is real; scarcity is not.

As food insecurity has increased in the United States the demand for food banks, pantries, and shelters has also developed and expanded. Although food banks are a vital emergency and safety net that keeps the hunger crisis at bay by providing food to people who would otherwise go hungry, they cannot address the root causes that perpetuate and exacerbate hunger in America today. Instead, our growing reliance on food banks may distract us from finding lasting solutions to the hunger crisis.

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by John Feffer

"There is no other way for Slovenian agriculture except sustainable agriculture."

-- MARTA HRUSTEL MAJCEN,

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Food Sovereignty: Global Rallying Cry of Farmer Movements

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Peter Rosset*