Episode 1232
On the war industry / Christian Sorensen
Sep 22
If people can become more aware of what food actually is - where it comes from, who grows it, what they go through to grow it, what climate change means for production - if people can begin to understand what the producer needs, and the producer can understand what the people they are provide food for actually want, and have discussions about what's possible and what's not possible... That I would not describe as 'going back' to something old. I would describe it as very potentially a major development, a 'going forward' for all of us.
Helena Paul examines the disasterous consequences of global capitalism and its industrial food system - on the environment, humans and the relationship between us - and explains how a massive shift to the sustainable practices of radical, democratic agroecology.
Helena wrote the article Looking beyond the pandemic: Agroecology, and the need to rethink our food system for Radical Ecological Democracy.
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Posted by Alexander Jerri
Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
As founding and sole member of the Socialist Leisure Party, I’m always looking for a way out of working at dreary jobs or having to perform irksome tasks. Unfortunately, I have a work ethic, though not much of one. I have trained myself by now, in the third trimester of my life, to actually do a job when I have one. I discovered long ago that time passes more quickly when you’re engaged in an activity rather than avoiding one, but it’s taken me some time to actually put it into practice.
And then the pandemic comes along and I’m pretty much confined to quarters. And all that great self-motivating attitude goes out the window. I’m predisposed to staying away from people anyway, even on the best of days, even when I’m doing something I feel is wonderful onstage with a group of people I’m energized working with. So I easily slipped into the habit of cringing away from the fetid breath of my fellow denizens of the neighborhood, and the city, county, state, nation, and world.
Then the protests started. I have a probationary sentence from the Burbank Superior Court that prohibits me from having any run-ins with the law, so joining in with the current historic uprising is out for now. Then the Nazis got involved, but I’m prohibited from street fighting due to physical limitations I won’t get into. Then came the fires, and I happen to suffer from flammable off-gassing, so I can’t pitch in. Hurricanes blow, polluters are liberated, the final Norquistian nails are being hammered into democracy’s coffin as an election destined to be followed by some form of major civil conflict grows ever nearer, and on top of all of this I have hypertension, a bruised kidney, bipolar disorder, male pattern baldness, shortness of stature and temper, and fear of day-walking vampires. All of which is conducive to hiding from everything and gradually sliding into Miss Havisham-style decay.
So, how you guys doin’? That’s what I say to the group of coffee clubbers on Zoom every other day. And they all seem to be muddling along okay. The elderly socialist couple in New Zealand assures us that if we can make it to their farm we’ll all have a place to stay.
The two weeks just after David Graeber died, I felt I’d accomplished a good deal. I encapsulated the case for abolishing money, with the... read more