Global Harvest Initiative Seeks Not to Feed People, But to Bolster Big Ag Profits

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Saturday, October 31, 2009

an elder i met north from the Story Nation - Natural Man Origin al Plan's MySpace Blog |

an elder i met north from the Story Nation - Natural Man Origin al Plan's MySpace Blog |

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

NOW and THEN
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

NOW and THEN

ancient greeks

greece

ancient marble

rectangles

in a row

Thermals

Water

2000 degrees

barefoot

ancient trail

Temple dieties

Sphynx Veiled

Icons

new/old

deception

Epsilon

Erdős

distress call

Prairy 10272009

1:45 AM

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Israel Rations Palestinians To Trickle Of Water
Category: News and Politics

Israel Rations Palestinians To Trickle Of Water By Amnesty International 27 October, 2009 Amnesty International Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies. These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there. “Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT. In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water. Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent. The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River. While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much. In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations. Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater. In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools. Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million. In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza. Stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point. To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price. Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development. “Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera. Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them. It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays. Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even just to distribute small quantities of water. Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water. In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers. In comparison, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun in nearby Israeli settlements, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground. In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds. “Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Donatella Rovera. “Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.” http://www.countercurrents.org/ai271009.htm

1:17 AM

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Monday, October 26, 2009

Global Harvest Initiative Seeks Not to Feed People
Category: News and Politics

Hybrid seed and $9 million a day to create newer, more expensive hybrid seeds and technology didn't help those farmers in India who saw no way out to pay back the "Money Boys" after their crops failed, so they committed suicide.

Frankly, I don't see how this "New Green revolution" will help those farmers in Africa either. Unless these "New Green Revolutionary" corporations want to be heroes for once in their life and donate seed instead of charging the farmers literally to death if their crops fail. I just hope the seed isn't spliced with hog and human genes. Why would we want to eat people anyways....I don't.
Prairy Commentary 10252009
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Published on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 by Civil Eats

Global Harvest Initiative Seeks Not to Feed People, But to Bolster Big Ag Profits

by Paula Crossfield

The Global Harvest Initiative, founded by agribusiness interests DuPont, Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, and John Deere, will meet today beginning at 9:00 am for a daylong symposium at which the focus is said to be on finding “ways to sustainably double agricultural output to meet rapidly growing global demand as anticipated by the United Nations.” Are big corporations finally seeking to do what is right by the nearly billion people who are currently food insecure in the world, or is this another instance of corporate green washing bought into by our politicians? Indeed, this so-called initiative needs a bit of parsing.

Hunger looks on the surface to be the most bipartisan policy issue on our collective plates. We can all agree that the fact that hunger persists today is a global tragedy and that something needs to be done about it. But from there the discussion diverges into two distinct schools of thought.

The thinking that has been dominant since Norman Borlaug was sent to Mexico with his hybrid wheat in the 1940s has been that hunger is related to a lack of food supply. Those who espouse this thinking believe that through research and technology taking place behind the closed doors of corporations, this crisis can be solved. But despite a lax regulatory environment, bucket loads of marketing that confuses the public on the issues, a revolving door bringing former private sector employees into positions of policy making, and control over the research of their techniques and products — corporations still have yet to find any long term solutions to our global hunger woes. In fact, more people are food insecure today than they were when Borlaug (who died just over a week ago) took up the hunger gauntlet, and the argument could be made that it was his work was a short term solution that directly contributed to growing the population, increasing and pushing off the inevitable suffering to the future.

The Global Harvest Initiative falls squarely into this first category. DuPont, Monsanto, ADM and John Deere realize the days of jaw-dropping profits are numbered if they don’t change tactics. So under the guise of humanitarianism, these giants have come together and invited receptive politicians like Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) with the distinct strategy of furthering their aims worldwide: to these corporations, the US has been conquered by industrial agriculture (it may be worth noting that 40 million US citizens are currently food insecure) — so now they must spread what isn’t working here abroad to continue to make ever larger profits.

The opposing ideology on creating food security in the world is to place the focus on equity — when food is first a right, not just a commodity, we stop thinking about it solely in economic terms. Therefore the focus shifts to creating the pathways for access to food — because right now there is enough food grown in the world to feed the world, it is just not getting into mouths.

By their own admission, these four companies are spending “$9 million a day in research and development.” After all the money that has been spent on shiny new technologies, we are still far from feeding the hungry. In addition, the USDA’s grants for research almost always require matching funds of 50% or more, meaning a grantee often goes knocking on the doors of the private sector, which is willing to invest in research that suits its interests. We must ask ourselves: has leaving research up to the big corporations historically resulted in an equal share of wealth?

A reliance on technology alone means that local, not-so-profitable means of addressing hunger are ignored. Most often, farmers in developing nations cite infrastructure, like new roads, and access to markets as the biggest barriers to food access. The Green Revolution assumed that genetically modified seed would save the day, but in fact it has only created the conditions that increased soil and environmental degradation, contributed to health issues in local populations, and produced more dependence on petroleum and corporate products. Is it fair for one country to come into another with the products of its economy and thereby create future dependence when there are more self-sufficient, locally adapted answers on the ground?

Lugar has been in the Senate for over 30 years, and serves as the ranking Republican member of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms, and is also a ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. In that time, he has become the go-to person on hunger issues. Everyone in the Senate defers to Lugar on hunger, and most have been unwilling to stand up to him, even when he is making a bad decision — like prioritizing GMO technology in the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security bill. (Check out Elanor Starmer’s take on the bill here.) Lugar is also a big recepient of agribusiness campaign donations — he received $376,000 from agribusiness (dwarfed only by the catagory ‘other’ $594K, finance $587K and lawyers & lobbyists $482K) between 2003-2008 according to OpenSecrets.org. And today, he will be the keynote speaker at the Global Harvest Initiative symposium, further displaying his support for the industrial agriculture complex.

Another speaker is Dan Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture under Bill Clinton who originally signed off on GM seeds as “substantially equivalent” to other seeds, and who continues to be a GMO apologist a decade later. To that end, he will be giving a speech entitled, “The Politics of Agriculture: Breaking the Commercial Vs. Small-holder Myth.”

Also look out for former Gates Foundation ‘New Green Revolution’ pusher Rajiv Shah, who now serves as Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics and as Chief Scientist at the USDA speaking about the role of technology in food security, and then stay tuned for what promises to be a boilerplate CEO panel discussion.

You can watch the meeting yourself on the live webcast, beginning at 9am today and going through 5pm. Then, contact your senators and tell them to take on Lugar’s status quo, agribusiness-as-saviour-for-starving-masses ideology.

2:45 AM

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Sunday, October 25, 2009

Today's Signs
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

POTUS says, National Emergency

Doesn't "feel" right, this Urgency

Cranes calling as they flew

West was the wind that blew

Smoke at times was dense

Sun was out in the "Past" tense

The iron lungs breath for the corn

Moon is bright but she mourns

Today's Signs

Prairy 10242009

2:56 AM

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Gary Null Speaking Out at the NYS Assembly Hearing | 10-13-2009
Category: News and Politics

Gary Null Speaking Out at the NYS Assembly Hearing | 10-13-2009

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Friday, October 23, 2009

'Threat assessment' sought in Indian tax dispute
Category: News and Politics

From "Big Tree."

From The Buffalo News

'Threat assessment' sought in Indian tax dispute

Paterson issues query on unrest by Indians

By Tom Precious

News Albany Bureau

Updated: October 21, 2009, 8:21 AM

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has asked the U.S. Justice Department for a "threat assessment" about possible violence if he were to try to collect taxes on cigarette sales by Indian tribes, including the Seneca Nation.

In a letter to top federal prosecutors, the governor also suggests he might need help from Washington in dealing with any unrest by Indian tribes.

The unusual request, dated Sept. 23 and sent to the U.S. attorneys in the state, including Buffalo, seeks the federal government's assistance to determine the "likelihood of violence and civil unrest" if he began enforcing the collection of state taxes on cigarette sales.

"Furthermore, I would appreciate your operational commitment to help mitigate any disturbances that might occur in each of your districts if implementation were to occur," Paterson wrote, without elaborating, to U.S. Attorneys Kathleen Mehltretter of the Western District of New York, Andrew Baxter in Syracuse and Benton Campbell in Brooklyn. Mehltretter could not be reached Tuesday to comment.

Sources said that Paterson's office had told the Seneca Nation about the letter last month. Word about it began circulating a day after a combative meeting in Albany at which Seneca representatives threatened the political careers of three state senators. The Seneca representatives, according to those in the meeting, said they would raise $500,000 to help defeat the lawmakers, including Sen. William T. Stachowski, D-Lake View, for trying to end

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Friday, October 23, 2009

CONFUSION BETWEEN KAIANEREH’KO:WA & HANDSOME LAKE CODE
Category: News and Politics

Okay, I'm still here Peoples. Going to catch up on posting a few articles. This one is from Mohawk Nation News. My apologies I'm running behind. Prairy
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CONFUSION BETWEEN KAIANEREH’KO:WA & HANDSOME LAKE CODE

MNN. Oct. 16, 2009. PART I. Kaianereh’ko:wa, our way, is meant to help us regulate our lives and resolve issues peacefully to everybody’s benefit. It isn’t a law. There are no police, jails or judges. It’s not a religion. Everything is scientific and based on natural law, which is provable. Handsome Lake followers are lead to believe they are traditional. They are unaware their ideas come from a foreign ideology on how a people behave that is not based on natural but on the unproveable supernatural.

The Kaianereh’ko:wa provides that everyone is equal and has a voice. The opening thanksgiving outlines the relations between all elements of the natural world. People are the power base. Issues are resolved through a complex system of consensual decision making.

The longhouse is a symbol of the Kaianereh’ko:wa and the world around us, which covers all of Great Turtle Island. The Rotinoshonni’on:we are the people who make the longhouse. The ceiling is the sky, the four directions are our walls and our mother the earth is our floor. The people are sacred. Literally longhouses are shelters to live in, places to meet or where we put away our stuff. It is not a place to worship a god up in heaven that has created us!

We have stories about our creation to connect us to the natural world. We will not know the face or place that the power of creation dwells, only the evidence of that power which we acknowledge. Everything was based on what we could see and observe, not blind faith and control of information by a few.

Has anybody listened closely to the thanksgiving rituals being done? Predominance is given to one creator, a god, who made us, before thanking the rest of creation. Has anybody noticed some of our speakers now talk about going to heaven instead of returning to our mother the earth?

Our people have a lot of mental and physical energy. We don’t want to fight because we care about each other. Our energies are being redirected against each other instead of strengthening our family ties.

What happened to the excitement of a few years ago when the longhouses were full of people, activities, socials and fun. Why aren’t people attending?

Is there a disagreement between those who stick to the Kaianereh’ko:wa and those who follow or are influenced by the Handsome Lake Code? Does anybody wonder why young people aren’t going to the longhouse for answers to political, social or economic questions? They go there to have their babies named.

What is stopping us from standing up for our true way? Young and old need the Kaianereh’ko:wa to keep us on the right path. Handsome Lake Code seems like the easy way out through pacification and avoidance. When the Kaianereh’ko:wa is defended, questioners are called trouble makers by self-appointed leaders.

In the early 1800s Skaniatario, or the Handsome Lake Code, was created using native culture combined with Christian undertones. Skaniatario is a Seneca family title in the Confederacy. He was an alcoholic and committed wrongs against his people. He used witch hunts and other superstitions to scare the people. He forfeited and alienated himself and was banished. When he left he had no name, no clan and no birthright.

The Handsome Lake Code is a hierarchical order of spirits. They even arrange nature according to some idea of power reflecting the colonial system where a few are on top while the rest are left in the dark.

The conflict is between the inner directed people who are guided by the Kaianereh’ko:wa and the knowledge we have to figure things out. The Handsome Lake followers base their decisions on faith and prayers like a religion. The beauty of listening to a speaker is to hear their words coming from their mind, not just to hear a recital. Discussions are avoided about the violations of the Kaianereh’ko:wa.

Religion weakens, confuses and controls people. After every so-called native resistance the colonists push religion to pacify us. After the War of 1812 it was the Handsome Lake Code. After the American Revolution it was the Quakers. At Lakota it was the medicine power of Wovoka and the Ghost Dance. White people became afraid and murdered the people during the ceremonies. Since the 1990s the religion has been the healing circles.

The Kaianereh’ko:wa advocates co-existence as a separate nation. The Handsome Lake Code advocates integration and compromise.

The main issues are always sovereignty, respect for our nation, land claims and Indigenous jurisdiction. US and Canada know that any legitimate agreement has to be made with us. The colonial band and tribal councils are working with longhouses that will validate the band council’s authority.

Elder Karonhiaktajeh always said that we’re always trying to stop them from putting a steeple on our longhouse, which, he said, makes it comfortable for Christians to come in and take it over.

Maybe we should all refresh our memory of the Kaianereh’ko:wa. Weren’t we taught to question everything and ask for proof? Remember that the Handsome Lake Code is highly influenced by foreign dogmas. The Two Row Wampum is very clear that we can’t have one foot in the canoe and one in the ship.

Kahentinetha MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com

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Thursday, September 17, 2009

National Bio and Agro-defense Facility Breaking News
Category: News and Politics

"the region from Manhattan, Kansas, to Columbia, Missouri, including the metropolitan Kansas City area and St. Joseph, Missouri, as the ‘Kansas City Animal Health Corridor’ has been approved by the House of representatives.
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H. Res. 317

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

September 15, 2009.

Whereas 34 percent of the $16,800,000,000 annual global animal health industry is based in the Kansas City region;

Whereas more than 120 companies involved in the animal health industry are located in Kansas and Missouri, including 4 of the 10 largest global animal health companies and 1 of the 5 largest animal nutrition companies;

Whereas several leading veterinary colleges and animal research centers are located in Kansas and Missouri, including the College of Veterinary Medicine and the $54,000,000 Biosecurity Research Institute of Kansas State University and the College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources’ Division of Animal Sciences, the $60,000,000 Life Sciences Center, the National Swine Resource and Research Center, and the Research Animal Diagnostic Laboratory of the University of Missouri;

Whereas Kansas City, Missouri, is centrally located in the United States and is close to many of the food animal end customers;

Whereas the Department of Homeland Security selected Manhattan, Kansas, as the future location for the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF);

Whereas the $750,000,000 NBAF project will provide area economic development opportunities by employing 300 people, with an annual payroll of up to $30,000,000 and over 1,500 construction jobs;

Whereas NBAF enhances Kansas’ leadership role in the Nation as the animal health research and biosciences center for the United States;

Whereas more than 45 percent of the fed cattle in the United States, 40 percent of the hogs produced, and 20 percent of the beef cows and calves are located within 350 miles of Kansas City;

Whereas there are nationally recognized publishers in the animal health industry located in Kansas and Missouri;

Whereas Kansas and Missouri have historic roots in the livestock industry, including the cattle drives in the 1860s from Texas to the westward railhead in Sedalia, Missouri;

Whereas Kansas and Missouri are home to many prominent national and international associations within the animal health industry; and

Whereas retaining and growing existing animal health companies, attracting new animal health companies, increasing animal health research capacity, and developing commercialization infrastructure will create quality jobs and wealth for Kansas and Missouri: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the region from Manhattan, Kansas, to Columbia, Missouri, including the metropolitan Kansas City area and St. Joseph, Missouri, as the ‘Kansas City Animal Health Corridor’;

(2) recognizes the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor as the national center of the animal health industry based on the unmatched concentration of animal health and nutrition businesses and educational and research assets; and

(3) expresses its commitment to establishing a favorable business environment and supporting animal health research to foster the continued growth of the animal health industry for the benefit of the economy, universities, businesses, and young people hoping to pursue an animal health career in the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor.

1:20 AM

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