permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 5:56 PM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>wrote:

>
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Carolyn Anderson 
> <cschampagne@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Wow!  Yay Colombia!  I've posted the article on my facebook page to share
>> the news around.  Do we, in the US, have the courage to implement this
>> kind
>> of pushback to the overlording pressure of Monsanto and other megacorps?
>>  Perhaps it will take an act like that which happened in northern Colombia
>> where the government stole and destroyed all the seeds saved by local
>> farmers and implemented a law stating the government controlled all seeds,
>> that no seed could be saved for any purpose, forcing farmers to buy
>> patented seeds.
>>
>> Carolyn
>>
>
More:

*Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch**
on:
the Trans Pacific Partnership's (TPP)*
intent to further rig economic and legal rights
in favor of investors and the corporate world
and stymie democratic process.

Please consider registering, and carpooling to Raleigh
September 26 for a special lunchtime talk
by Public Citizen Global Trade Watch director
Lori Wallach, on a threatening new economic
and environmental time bomb coming soon
for Congressional action.

*Crucial Conversation: Worse than NAFTA?*
*Lori Wallach discusses the “Trans-Pacific Partnership”*
Join NC Policy Watch on* Thursday, September 26th* for next
Crucial Conversation luncheon featuring Lori Wallach, Director of the
Global Trade Watch Division at the national advocacy group Public Citizen.

*Few American states have experienced the devastating impact of global
“free” trade more directly and painfully than North Carolina. Our shuttered
manufacturing plants and record unemployment rates both serve as powerful
daily reminders of the lasting impact of NAFTA, CAFTA and other alphabet
soup trade deals negotiated by far-off politicians and corporate giants.*
*
*
*Now, amazingly enough, yet another such trade agreement is being
negotiated in secret, and it could be the worst one yet. As you read this,
trade officials from the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations are negotiating
something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership in hopes of reaching
agreement this fall.*

*Lori Wallach* thinks this is a big mistake. Wallach is the Director of
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division. A Harvard-trained lawyer,
Wallach has promoted the public interest regarding globalization and
international commercial agreements in every forum: Congress and foreign
parliaments, the courts, government agencies and the media.

She’s also been described as “Ralph Nader with a sense of humor” by the
Wall Street Journal, “the trade debate’s guerrilla warrior” in the National
Journal and “Madame Defarge of Seattle” by the Institute for International
Economics.

This special event is co-sponsored by AFL-CIO of North Carolina, Witness
for Peace, and BAJ

Event hosted by NC Policy Watch as part of
their Crucial Conversation lunch series.
Cosponsored by Witness for Peace SE,
AFL-CIO NC, and BAJ.



> My Facebook reply to a friend saying I might be naive regarding the power
> of multinational corporations:
>
> Not naive, just standing my ground as all my fellow independent gardeners
> and farmers need to. I am fully aware of hypothetical collaborations of GS,
> Monsanto & other biotech/chemical ag, private sector "nonprofits" and the
> best government money can buy - dominate and control the food supply,
> eliminate the competition: organic, sustainable, independent micro to large
> gardens, small farms, family farms. This is NOT what I had envisioned at
> the beginning of the natural/organic/sustainable agriculture movement. They
> are as slick as lizard dung the way they have eroded our access to our fair
> market share over the decades and they did it with plenty of help. They
> began their magic with large farming, Earl Butz: "get big or get out" and
> go into debt then face depressed market prices then go bankrupt. Then came
> government takeover of organic labelling and certification, beginning the
> process of undermining the entire independent natural farming community,
> and it just goes on from there, the ones who are bankrolled (and corrupt)
> control the marketplace, the rest have to struggle to survive even though
> many if not most have committed themselves to a career of producing high
> quality farm products; they do all the work and few hire any help.
>