Saturday Links of the Week – May 12, 2007

Photo: The Canadian Shield near Thunder Bay by WB Skinner

The Opposite of Poverty is Self-Sufficiency: That brilliant quip is from Sharon Astyk. Read why it’s so. Excerpt:

We need to recognize that our food dependence affects not just what we eat, but the fundamentals of our democracy and our political power. We should not owe our lives to entities we deplore. And the only possible escape from that bind is to declare food independence – to meet as many of our basic needs as possible ourselves, and through small, sustainable farms with which we have real and direct relationships. And that means not just growing food, but ensuring a stable food supply, reasonable reserves and a dinner that depends on no one.

Sharon also explains the paradox that the first sign of acknowledgement of Peak Oil may be an increasing exodus from rural areas to the city. Thanks to David Parkinson for the link.

All the Plastic Ever Manufactured is Still With Us and Always Will Be: Plastic, the garbage that never goes away, is aggravating the already horrendous crisis in our oceans. Thanks to Craig De Ruisseau for the link.

Mothers’ Day’s Roots in Feminism: Long before it was co-opted by Hallmark, Mothers’ Day was created as a rebellion by women against the elite of war-mongering, hate-mongering, heartless, pro-slavery males. Some women are trying valiantly to make it that again. Here’s what they stand for:

We will be standing for the world’s children and grandchildren, and for the seven generations
beyond them. We dream of a world where all of our children have safe drinking water, clean
air to breathe, and enough food to eat. A world where they have access to a basic education to
develop their minds and healthcare to nurture their growing bodies. A world where they have
a warm, safe and loving place to call home. A world where they don’t live in fear of violence–in
their home, in their neighborhood, in their school or in their world.
This is the world of which we dream. This is the cause for which we stand

The Globalists’ Rush to the Bottom Forces Us to Eat More Poisons: Despite recent US lip-service to the need for social and environmental protection in so-called ‘free’ trade agreements, the clauses of such agreements continue to require dismantling of such protections. The latest casualty — Canada’s prohibitions on toxins in foods imported from the US. The US has some of the weakest regulations on pesticides and other poisons in food in the world, and Canada is not much better. Under NAFTA, both countries will have to lower their standards to those of the lowest country in the agreement, or face massive fines and penalties. Current limits are up to 1400 times higher than those in Europe. Now, they will become worse still.

…But We Still Can’t Match the Chinese as Deliberate, Deadly Poisoners: Every week it seems there is more and more evidence that the ‘free’ market in China is willing to do anything — even kill — for a profit. After last week’s report on deliberate spiking of food with toxic melamine, a zero-nutrition fake substitute for protein, comes a report of Chinese corporatists’ deliberate substitution of cheap and deadly diethylene glycol (antifreeze) for glycerine in medicines, killing thousands of unsuspecting patients, most of them children, most of them in struggling nations. We now have yet another reason to haltall imports from China.

1 Response to Saturday Links of the Week – May 12, 2007

Catnmus says:

May 14, 2007 at 13:52

I too am appalled at this news of Chinese adulteration of food ingredients and medicines. And doubly appalled because of the REASON for spiking with melamine. What these pet food companies purchased from these Chinese supplier(s) was wheat gluten, a vegetable protein also used by many vegetarians and vegans to replace meat (and maybe dairy – I’m not sure). What the Chinese actually provided was wheat FLOUR, a very low protein food, spiked with melamine to fool the protein-content test. That is unconscionable. Add to that the issue of the medicines, and I’m trying to figure out what all I need to do to perform my own personal boycott of China.And I’m in general a globalist. I cannot feel bad for the loss of jobs in this country, when those jobs lift other countries out of poverty. I cannot feel bad for loss of medical patent protection in this country when the goal is for those drugs to be used to save lives elsewhere. But providing food that’s not food and medicines that are toxic, that’s just wrong.