When I asked Alfredo, a dairy farmer and president of the Prolesa milk processing co-operative in Tachira state, what food sovereignty meant to him, he said: “Food sovereignty is not only about being able to produce enough food to feed ourselves, it also means getting to a point where we can export food to other countries.
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The historian William Cronon has been in the news recently in the US because of assaults on his civil liberties and academic freedom by the Wisconsin Republican Party.
This story is likely to be of interest to Green Left Weekly readers because of the collision between university research and powerful corporate interests.
However, Cronon's work as an environmental historian since the 1970s means that he deserves to be read by all those who take an interest in environmental issues and ecosocialist politics.
The death of KG Kannabiran (1929-2010) on December 30 came as an anti-climax to an eventful and often turbulent life; in accordance with his wishes his family conducted a private, secular cremation within an hour of his death.
For four decades, KG Kannabiran was the most prominent public face in the struggle for human rights, both as a lawyer and activist ― in his home state of Andhra Pradesh and across India.
Palestinians have upped the stakes in their struggle for freedom and justice on the anniversary of al-Nakba (“The Castrophe”), as Palestinains refer to the ethnic cleansing that accompnied the founding of Israel in 1948).
Israel responded with lethal repression.
Live at Babeville
Ani DiFranco
www.righteousbaberecords.com
In recent times, there’s been some conjecture over the quality of US singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco’s music.
The much acclaimed, fiercely political folk singer and poet appeared to some to have “mellowed” in topic and tone of her work after having a baby and getting married.
The singer’s latest DVD, Live at Babeville, puts those qualms to rest.
When the 548 delegates to the Seventh National Convention of Portugal’s Left Bloc came together in a vast sports hall in Lisbon onver May 7-8, they had two big questions to answer.
The first was what alternative should they propose at the June 5 Portuguese elections to the €78 billion (about $103 billion) “rescue package” negotiated between the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (the “troika”) and the Socialist Party (PS) government of prime minister Jose Socrates?
The United States' gross domestic product (GDP) has returned to its pre-financial crisis levels of about US$14.3 trillion. However, this figure obscures a grim social reality.
Fareed Zakaria reported in a May 19 Time.com article that while the economy is “producing the same amount of goods and services as in 2007”, it is doing so “with 7 million fewer workers”.
Zakaria said: “Usually, productivity gains translate into higher economic output, higher incomes and thus rising employment. That was the experience in the 1990s.
Locked Out
Directed by Joan Sekler
www.lockedout2010.org
Locked Out, a film by Joan Sekler, documents the struggle of workers at the Borax mine in Boron, California, against the mine's multinational owner, Rio Tinto.
The mine is integral to the towns economy, employing 570 workers ― about a quarter of the population of Boron.
In September 2009, Rio Tinto revealed it intended on scrapping the workers' contract. The pay, benefits, and conditions set out in the contract had been negotiated for with workers over the past 40 years.
Colombian daily El Espectador reported on May 18 that the Colombian Supreme Court of Justice ruled the infamous “FARC files” as inadmissible evidence in court, as they were obtained illegally.
The ruling refers to supposed documents acquired from the laptops of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leader Raul Reyes who was killed in the March 2008 Colombian military bombing raid of a guerrilla camp in Ecuador.
“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began," Michelle Alexander told a packed meeting at the Pasadena Main Library in California on April 13.
Alexander, a law professor at Ohio State, was discussing her bestseller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
The following statement was released by the Socialist Alliance in Australia. For more information, visit www.socialist-alliance.org .
* * *
In 2007, it was all about Kevin Rudd. Well … not so much the man, but the campaign slogan. Kevin07 was streamed from the rooftops, plastered on ALP propaganda and adorned the T-shirts of young and old alike.
It was a brilliant, fresh campaign.
But the joy was not to last. Three years later, the bandwagon that everyone had so merrily jumped upon had lost its wheels, its driver demoted and dejected.
The campaign was just that, a campaign. Right for the time, but ultimately short on distance.
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