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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, Market Farming <marketfarming@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Monsanto versus Steve Marsh: First GM legal battle in Oz
  • Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:28:45 -0500


Similar things happening to other sectors of out industrial economy:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9368519.stm

"Youngstown was the crucible of the American industrial revolution. The
great Mahoning river valley that runs through the city used to be lined
with steel mills.

Youngstown steel made the railways that opened up the West and built the
skyscrapers of New York and Chicago, and the fortunes of America's first
great tycoons."

"Bulldozed

The steel industry in the Youngstown area used to employ 50,000 men.
Just a few thousand jobs are left.

George Calko is lucky enough to have one of them. He is the fourth
generation of his family to work in the industry.
Disused mill in Youngstown
The steel industry was the lifeblood of the local community

George and his wife Sheila took me on a tour of their community.

We drove along roads where entire blocks have been bulldozed - just
grass and telephone poles remain.

Youngstown, Sheila told me ruefully, is now famous not for steel but as
one of the drug and murder capitals of America.

We stopped at a mill that closed a couple of years ago. The vast works
buildings are shuttered now and weeds grow in the yard.

George explained how Chinese businessmen buy up the machines in
factories like this and ship them back to China.

"Now they are making what we used to make and selling it right back to
us," he told me bitterly.

Lots of people in America blame China for the decline of great American
industries like steel but George discerns a deeper malaise abroad.

"This is going on all over America's industrial heartland," he said as
we sat in his car outside the silent factory.

"Places like this are going out of business left and right.

What's most unsettling about China to Americans is not their communism,
it's the capitalism
Thomas L Friedman

"What we're losing is much more than just a product that can be found in
a store. We're losing a culture and a way of life, a culture of hard
work. We're losing a culture of people that knew how to get things done."

I looked over at Sheila who was sitting beside George. Tears were
streaming down her face.

I asked her why she was so moved.

"I teach in schools and I think about all the problems that come from
losing a job," she told me, choking back a sob.

"I just think about all the people that can't provide for their families
any more.""


On 1/22/2011 7:35 PM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
On 1/22/2011 6:06 PM, Douglas Hinds wrote:
Saturday, January 22, 2011, Lawrence London posted a disturbing news
item.

For Western Australian Government's Agriculture Minister Terry
Redman, coexistence signifies contamination and anything less he
calls "unrealistic".

Form and sustain a new and separate agriculture movement and community
of farmers and gardeners, regardless of size.

And a new community of tradesman and skilled workers, business
entrepreneurs (think Edwards Deming and Bucky Fuller) and green
financiers and bankers (Permaculture Credit Union).

Socially, Ecologically and Economically Responsible Business and
Manufacturing. SEERnet.

Market Farming
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/marketfarming
Permaculture
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
SERAnet
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/seranet
Seed Keepers
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/seedkeepers
Soil Ecology
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/soilecology





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