[D]e EU is een markt van bijna een half miljard mensen met de hoogste gemiddelde levensstandaard ter wereld. Alleen al voor Nederland is de Unie goed voor tweederde van onze totale export, eenvijfde van het nationale product. We hebben nu een open toegang tot die markt. Gaan we die deur echt dichtgooien? Sterker nog: moeten we niet ook zonder de EU duizend-en-één zaken als Europeanen gemeenschappelijk regelen, variërend van visserijquota tot financiële afspraken en het energiebeleid? En dan zwijg ik nog over de klimaatvraagstukken die in deze 21ste eeuw in rap tempo op ons afkomen. Is de wereld niet zelf allang de nationale verbanden ontgroeid? […]
Kortom, hoe verleidelijk het nationale thuis ook is, de context waarin we werken, denken, dromen, politiek bedrijven en het leven vieren is in toenemende mate Europees. Dat valt niet meer ongedaan te maken. Of we het nu leuk vinden of niet, we moeten voor die overal aanwezige Europese ‘ruimte’ bepaalde, democratisch gecontroleerde, vormen zien te vinden. Dat is lastig en zeer problematisch, maar we kunnen onmogelijk terug naar 1956.
Geert Mak. Abel Herzberg-lezing. 2013
The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Thomas Friedman. New York Times. 28 maart 1999.
Dit laatste feit wordt zwijgend geaccepteerd en zelfs ondersteund door de westerse mainstream opiniemakers, zoals ondermeer blijkt uit Geert Mak’s opmerkingen zoals dat de VS
decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde],
en
decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde],
en
Ik vind Friedman altijd wel leuk om te lezen, lekker upbeat, hij is zon’n man die altijd wel een gat ziet om een probleem op te lossen.
Het zijn de 'optimistische' zogeheten 'oplossingen' van massaal geweld waarvan de slachtoffers worden gekwalificeerd als 'bijkomende schade.' Maar kennelijk onwaarneembaar voor de mainstream slaat de agressie uiteindelijk altijd weer naar binnen. Het was de grote zwarte intellectueel Aimé Césaire die hierop wees toen hij in Discours sur le colonialisme (1955) schreef dat
de kolonisator, die om zijn geweten te sussen de gewoonte heeft de andere mens als een beest te zien, zichzelf eraan went om hem als een beest te behandelen, en de neiging heeft om zichzelf in een beest te veranderen […] Ze dachten dat ze alleen maar Indianen, of Hindoes, of bewoners van Zuidzee eilanden of Afrikanen aan het afslachten waren. Maar in feite hebben ze één voor één de verdedigingswallen vernietigd waarachter de Europese beschaving zich vrij had kunnen ontwikkelen.
Of zoals Hans Magnus Enzensberger in zijn essaybundel Oog in Oog Met De Burgeroorlog in 1993 diagnostiseerde:
Het begin verloopt zonder bloedvergieten, de indicaties zijn onschuldig. De kleinschalige burgeroorlog begint onmerkbaar, zonder gemeenschappelijke activiteiten… Al snel wordt met duidelijker signalen lucht gegeven aan de hang naar een getto… In spontane acties wordt de woede op het onbeschadigde uitgedrukt, de haat tegen alles wat functioneert, haat die met de zelfhaat een onscheidbaar amalgaam. vormt. De jongeren zijn de voorhoede van de burgeroorlog. Dat ligt niet alleen aan de normale fysieke en emotionele energiestuwing van de adolescentie, maar ook aan de onbegrijpelijke erfenis die ze aantreffen, aan de onoplosbare problemen van een troosteloze luxe. Toch is alles wat ze uitvoeren ook latent bij hun ouders aanwezig: een vernielzucht die nauwelijks voldoende gekanaliseerd wordt in maatschappelijk gedoogde vormen als autogene, werkverslaving, vraatzucht, alcoholisme, hebzucht, procedeer-woede, racisme en geweld binnen het gezin…
Steeds meer mensen worden in de draaikolk van angst en haat gezogen, net zolang tot er een toestand van complete a-socialiteit is bereikt.
Het lijkt allemaal sluipenderwijs te gaan, maar dat is slechts het resultaat van de vergroving van de burger en de vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee de commerciële massamedia over het westerse grootscheepse geweld bericht. Het geweld is een dagelijks fenomeen geworden. De berichtgeving over het vernietigen en martelen van hele volkeren is normaal geworden, altijd is er wel een aanslag van fundamentalisten of een NAVO-bombardement. Bovendien zijn 'Door de industrialisering van de massacultuur in de toonaangevende landen geweldcultus en nostalgie de la boue volledig gemeengoed geworden,' aldus Enzensberger, en is 'Intussen het bloedbad massaontspanning geworden.' Toen ik begin van deze eeuw weer eens getuige was geweest van de wijze waarop Israelische scherpschutters van grote afstand Palestijnse jongeren neerschoten, zei een Nederlandse journalist tegen mij: 'Het lijkt wel een film.' Hij had gelijk, voor de buitenstaander was het moeilijk een onderscheid te maken tussen de realiteit op straat en de fictie op de beeldbuis. Maar nog surrealistischer zijn de verklaringen van de politici en hun spreekbuizen in de commerciële massamedia wanneer die weer eens met hun 'retoriek van het universalisme' beginnen. De grootste moordenaars hebben de mond vol over mensenrechten en democratie, over 'humanitair ingrijpen' en 'responsibility to protect.' En dat terwijl
Het universalisme geen verschil [kent] tussen dichtbij en ver weg, het is onvoorwaardelijk en abstract. De idee van de mensenrechten legt iedereen een verplichting op die in principe geen grenzen kent.
En juist daarom zwijgen de goed betaalde mainstream opiniemakers over het grootschalige terrorisme van de VS of van de 'Joodse Staat' om tegelijkertijd verontwaardigd met een beschuldigende vinger naar 'meneer Poetin' te wijzen. 'Al snel is de grens met objectieve huichelarij overschreden; dan blijkt het universalisme een morele valstrik te zijn,' aldus Enzensberger. Maar dat negeert de 'vrije pers.' Haar belang ligt elders: hoge oplages en hoge kijk- en luistercijfers, die de winsten van hun opdrachtgevers omhoog stuwen. En zo is de 'burgeroorlog een tv-serie' geworden. 'De krijgslieden presenteren hun misdaden aan het publiek. Ze ontlenen daar kennelijk prestige aan… de media zorgen ervoor dat ze deze erkenning krijgen. De verslaggevers verzekeren ons dat ze alleen hun informatieplicht vervullen,' maar weigeren ondertussen de keten tussen oorzaak en gevolg in een bredere context te plaatsen, waardoor de consument in toenemende mate een gefragmenteerd wereldbeeld bezit, waarin alles een strijd lijkt te zijn geworden tussen goed en kwaad. Wie tot de laatste categorie behoort inspreekt voor zich: De Ander. En 'Zo verheft zich het corruptste van alle media, de televisie, tot een morele instantie.' Met andere woorden: de immoraliteit bepaalt de moraal. Maar nagenoeg niemand ziet dit aangezien alleen al de 'overstelpende hoeveelheid informatie een zinvolle verwerking onmogelijk [maakt],' aldus deze gerenommeerde Duitse intellectueel, die door Mak werd afgedaan als een ‘grumpy old,’ man die ‘alles heeft opgegeven,’ en wel omdat Enzensberger zich kritisch over de EU van 'Geen Jorwert zonder Brussel' heeft uitgelaten. In tegenstelling tot de pathologisch naar 'hoop' zoekende domineeszoon uit Bartlehiem beseft Enzensberger dat een
pedagogiek die denkt haar schaapjes ontvankelijk te maken door een steeds hogere dosis, op zijn zachtst gezegd naïef [is]. De adressanten worden integendeel immuun gemaakt voor iedere prikkeling van het geweten. De psychische en cognitieve overbelasting slaat terug. De toeschouwer voelt zich onbevoegd en machteloos; hij zet zijn stekels op, draait de knop om. De boodschappen worden afgewezen of ontkend. Deze vorm van innerlijke zelfverdediging is niet alleen begrijpelijk, maar zelfs onvermijdelijk. Hoe een 'juiste' reactie op de dagelijkse massamoord eruit moet zien, kan namelijk niemand zeggen.
Maar ook dat is nog niet alles. Het begrip paradoxale reactie is bekend uit de farmacologie: een verkeerd gebruikt of verkeerd gedoseerd geneesmiddel kan de tegengestelde werking hebben. Morele eisen die in geen verhouding staan tot de mogelijkheden die iemand heeft, leiden er ten slotte toe dat de uitgedaagden het volledig laten afweten en iedere verantwoordelijkheid ontkennen. Daarin ligt de kiem van een barbarisering die kan uitgroeien tot razende agressie.
Dat laatste wordt weer eens aangetoond door de dreigende gevolgen van de 'global warming.' Dat het leven van ieder mens op aarde binnen afzienbare tijd ingrijpend zal beïnvloeden, wordt voor kennisgeving aangenomen. Op wat do-good-acties na wordt het massale geweld tegen de natuur gelaten geaccepteerd. Sterker nog: de hele neoliberale consumptiemaatschappij is juist gebaseerd op optimale milieuvernietiging. Het massale geweld, de oorlog is allang uitgebroken en voltrekt zich wereldwijd op elk niveau. Wat de westerse mainstream opiniemakers orde en gezag noemen, is in de praktijk niets anders dan de claim op het geweldsmonopolie van de heersende elite. Geert Mak's bewering dat de VS 'decennialang als ordebewaker en politie-agent [fungeerde,]' en Hoflands bewering dat er sprake is van 'het vredestichtende Westen,' zijn uitspraken die in werkelijkheid symptomen vormen van een zieke 'civilisatie', en erger nog, verraden het onvermogen om deze stoornis onder ogen te zien. In The Unsettling of America. Culture & Agriculture (1977) beschreef Wendell Berry, de gerenommeerde Amerikaanse hoogleraar die boer werd, deze pathologie als volgt:
We can understand a great deal of our history — from Cortés's destruction of Tenochtitlán in 1521 to the bulldozer attack on the coalfields four-and-a-half centuries later — by thinking of ourselves as divided into conquerors and victims. In order to understand our time and predicament and the work that is to be done, we would do well to shift the terms and say that we are divided between exploitation and nurture…
We are all to some extent the products of an exploitative society, and it would be foolish and self-defeating to pretend that we do not bear its stamp.
Let me outline as briefly as I can what seem to me the characteristics of these opposite kind of mind. I conceive a strip miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the old-fashioned idea or ideal of a farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health — his land's health, his own, his family's, his community's, his country's. Whereas the exploiter asks of a pieve of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order — a human order, that it, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, 'hard facts'; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind.
Hoewel Geert Mak in vage termen praat over een vermeend 'cultuurconflict' met Rusland, beseft hij geenszins welk wezenlijk 'cultuurconflict' bestaat binnen de westerse civilisatie, zoals zij door de 'Amerikaanse' macht al sinds 1945 wordt vorm gegeven. Niet voor niets begon de propagandist van 'Geen Jorwert zonder Brussel' in zijn boek Reizen zonder John (2012) met de mededeling dat 'Voor ons, kinderen van de jaren 50, was Amerika een droomland.' Het 'droomland,' waarvoor hij al zijn hele leven lang een 'geheime liefde' koestert, een 'liefde' voor het land van 'Donald Duck… California soep' en 'platte pakjes kauwgom.' Kortom, 'liefde' voor dezelfde materialistische cultuur die doorklonk in Mak's Abel Herzberg-lezing in 2013, toen hij zijn grijsharig gehoor er allereerst op wees dat
de EU een markt [is] van bijna een half miljard mensen met de hoogste gemiddelde levensstandaard ter wereld. Alleen al voor Nederland is de Unie goed voor tweederde van onze totale export, eenvijfde van het nationale product? We hebben nu een open toegang tot die markt. Gaan we die deur echt dichtgooien?
Dit materialistische zelfvernietigende marktdenken van het neoliberale bolwerk 'Brussel,' kenmerkt zo treffend hoe de westerse culturele deprivatie zich op elk niveau manifesteert, ook, of beter nog, juist bij de zogeheten 'politiek-literaire elite' van het polderland. De 'exploitative' kern van het marktdenken staat lijnrecht tegenover wat Wendell Berry 'nurture' noemt. Bij totaal gebrek aan een serieuze discussie onder de Nederlandse intelligentsia, citeer ik deze Amerikaanse denker nogmaals:
The exploitative ways always involves the abuse or the perversion of nurture and ultimately its destruction. Thus, we saw how far the exploitive revolution had penetrated the official character when our recent secretary of agriculture remarked that 'food is a weapon.' (een beleid dat eveneens door de toenmalige minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, Henry Kissinger, werd toegepast. svh) This was given a fearful symmetry indeed when, in discussing the possible use of nuclear weapons, a secretary of defense spoke of 'palatable' levels of devastation. Consider the associations that have since ancient times clustered around the idea of food — associations of mutual care, generosity, neighborliness, festivity, communal joy, religious ceremony — and you will see that these two secretaries represent a cultural catastrophe. The concerns of farming and those of war, once thought to be diametrically opposed, have become identical. Here we have an example of men who have been made vicious, not presumably by nature or circumstance, but by their values.
Food is not a weapon. To use it as such — to foster a mentality willing to use it as such — is to prepare, in the human character and community, the destruction of the sources of food. The first casualties of the exploitive revolution are character and community. When those fundamental integrities are devalued and broken, then perhaps it is inevitable that food will be looked upon as a weapon, just as it is inevitable that the earth will be looked upon as fuel and people as numbers or machines. But character and community — that is, culture in the broadest, richest sense — constitute, just as much as nature, the source of food. Neither nature not people alone can produce human sustenance, but only the two together, culturally wedded…
To think of food as a weapon, or of a weapon as food, may give an illusory security and wealth to a few, but it strikes directly at the life of all.
The concept of food-as-weapon is not surprisingly the doctrine of a Department of Agriculture that is being used as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation. This militarizing of food is the greatest threat so far raised against the farmland and the farm communities of this country. If present attitudes continue, we may expect government policies that will encourage the destruction, by overuse, of farmland. This, of course, has already begun. To answer the official call for more production — evidently to be used to bait or bribe foreign countries — farmers are plowing their waterways and permanent pastures; lands that ought to remain in grass are being planted in row crops. Contour plowing, crop rotation, and other conservation measures (om gevreesde dustbowls te voorkomen. svh) seem to have gone out of favor or fashion in official circles and are practiced less and less on the farm. This exclusive emphasis on production will accelerate the mechanization and chemicalization of farming, increase the price of land, increase overhead and operating costs, and thereby further diminish the farm population. Thus the tendency, if not the intention, of Mr. Butz's confusion of farming and war is to complete the deliverance of American agriculture into the hand s of corporations.
The cost of this corporate totalitarianism in energy, land, and social disruption will be enormous. It will lead to the exhaustion of farmland and farm culture. Husbandry will become an extractive industry; because maintenance will give way to production, the fertility of the soil will become a limited, unrenewable resource like coal or oil.
37 jaar nadat Berry deze visie opschreef, anno 2014, blijkt hoe juist zijn voorspellingen zijn geweest. Nadat Earl Butz, de Amerikaanse minister van Landbouw, in 1974 verklaard had dat 'Food is a weapon,' veroorzaakt het 'overmatig gebruik' van landbouwland een steeds groter probleem, niet alleen in de VS, maar wereldwijd. Een willekeurige greep:
Overuse of water in California's Central Valley has caused a landmass twice the size of Los Angeles to sink 11 inches per year.
Revealed: How Frankenstein 'superweeds' have swamped 60 MILLION acres of US farmland - and can't be killed
• The weeds have so far covered 60 million acres of US farmland
• They can now withstand certain powerful and commonly used weedkillers
By SEAN POULTER
PUBLISHED: 17:54 GMT, 11 December 2013 | UPDATED: 18:04 GMT, 11 December 2013
A plague of superweeds, created as a result of GM farming, has swamped 60million acres of American farmland, it has been revealed.
A policy briefing issued by America’s Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep the weeds in check.
The plants have developed as an unintended result of growing crops that have been genetically modified to withstand spraying with certain powerful weedkillers, such as Monsanto’s Roundup Ready, which is also known as glyphosate.
The idea was that the fields could be repeatedly sprayed with these chemicals on the basis they would kill the weeds but allow food crops such as soya to thrive.
More...
However, the reality is that the weeds have mutated to become immune to the chemicals with the result they can take over fields.
Biotech companies have suggested the way to deal with the problem is to develop new strains of GM crop and switch to different, even more powerful, chemical weedkillers.
Colorado River
Photograph by Peter McBride, National Geographic
This story is part of a special National Geographic News series on global water issues.
March 22 is World Water Day, a time to reflect on the state of the world's freshwater. The Colorado River is one of the most used and contested waterways on Earth. It provides water for 30 million people, and has many dams and diversions along its 1,450 miles (2,333 kilometers).
Because it is so heavily tapped for agriculture, industry, and municipal uses along its course, the Colorado River rarely reaches its delta and the Gulf of California. About one-tenth of the river's former flow now makes it to Mexico, but most of that is used for farming and cities south of the border.
Texas blast draws attention to overuse of fertilizers
Posted by Julie Grant on Apr 27, 2013 | 2 comments
NOTE: A reader alerted me to the disconnect between the nitrogen fertilizer at issue in the West plant explosion, and the problematic phosphorous runoff I discuss later in the post. To clarify: Most fertilizer used on farm fields contains a blend of nitrogen and phosphorous, and both substances are known to run off the land and lead to harmful algae growth in waterways.
The investigation continues into last week's fire and explosion at West Fertilizer Company that killed 15 people and injured 200 in Texas. The blast destroyed the fertilizer facility and nearby houses, and devastated the small town of West, Texas.
The company sold ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia, both commonly used as fertilizers. Investigators have said they're not sure how much was on site at the time because plant records were destroyed in the explosion.
Nitrogen-based fertilizers make today's industrial-scale farming possible. But the West explosion has people questioning the broadening use of them. Tom Laskaway, head of the Food and Environment Reporting Network, wrote this in grist.org:
'But while the explosion last week was spectacular and tragic, the lives lost there and the pain the community of West, Texas, is suffering offer a window into a much larger battle concerning the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers on American farmland.'
U.S. farmers apply over 11 million tons of nitrogen fertilizers to farm fields every year. Most of that is ammonium nitrate.
While New York isn't a leader in planting fertilizer-hungry commodity crops, the value of corn, soybeans, and wheat has "increased greatly" in NY over the past five years, according to the NY Corn and Soybean Growers Association. So we have reason to pay attention.
Problems of possible explosions aside, more fertilizer is often applied to on farm fields than plants can absorb. It washes out of the soil and into nearby streams and other waterways. Laskaway writes, 'or evaporates into the atmosphere in the form of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas.'
He describes the main environmental and health risks:
'They include threats to climate, to human health through nitrate pollution in drinking water, to fish and other wildlife through fertilizer run-off causing low-oxygen 'dead zones' throughout the U.S and the world, and to soil health and thus long-term agricultural productivity.'
Through my career, I've heard most about the water quality issues.
It's been well-documented that fertilizer and other substances runoff farms into Mississippi River, end up in the Gulf of Mexico, and cause dead zones.
In 2010, the Ohio Lake Erie Phosphorous Task Force wanted to find out what was causing massive algae blooms, which were using all the oxygen, and choking off other living things in the Lake. It was also dangerous for people and animals to touch it.
The Task Force found that agriculture runoff was the key contributor of phosphorous - and the majority of that – 66-percent – was fertilizer.
So while the people in West, Texas are now living with the sudden impact of the West Fertilizer plant explosion, the rest of us are looking at a slower, less direct impact of these products. And while its use is ubiquitous on American farms, and won't be eliminated, there is good reason to use it more carefully.
Maar omdat het proces van vernietiging van landbouwgrond zich wereldwijd voltrekt, wordt desondanks voor het Westen onder leiding van de VS 'food' een steeds belangrijker 'weapon':
Quarter of world's landmass 'highly degraded': UN
Published on 28 November 2011 - 7:12pm
The UN food agency warned Monday that a quarter of the world's landmass is 'highly degraded,' making it difficult to meet the food needs of a booming population.
'Humankind can no longer treat these vital resources as if they were infinite,' said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) based in Rome.
'The time for business as usual is over,' Diouf told reporters, calling the FAO's assessment of the planet's resources, a first for the organisation, a 'wake-up call.'
The survey found that 25 percent of the world's land is 'highly degraded' and 44 percent is 'moderately degraded,' while only 10 percent was classified as 'improving.'
The categories in the report entitled 'The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture' (SOLAW) included classic soil and water degradation, as well as other aspects like biodiversity loss.
The report said land degradation was worst down the west coast of the Americas, across the Mediterranean region of southern Europe and north Africa, across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa and throughout Asia.
Hungry people will do anything for food, which means that those who have control over food can use it as leverage. In 1974, Henry Kissinger suggested using food as a weapon to induce targeted population reduction in a previously classified 200-page report, National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests. The primary tactic to be applied is that food aid would be withheld from developing nations until they submitted to birth control policies:
There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.
So, food was to be used as just another method of imperial colonization to force countries to conform their policies to those desired by the controllers. Notably, this tactic only works as a blunt weapon on territories enduring a severe economic collapse and with little resources for food production. Today, however, it appears that the entire globe is receiving an arsenal of food bombs as there appears to be a multifaceted attack on people's access to food. In other words, what has been an admitted tactic for nearly 40 years of controlling food aid for regional population reduction has now grown more complex and expansive.
Because of massive corporate consolidation of agriculture, centrally
coordinated global regulations, a devalued commodity-dollar and
unrestrained commodity speculation, chemical and genetic modification,
and real or manipulated food shortages; there is indeed a war being waged
-- with food as the primary weapon. Understand, this is a not purely a war
on food, but rather a war on the general population. Therefore, it is crucial
to understand these tactics in order to defend against them.
Here are six ways food is being used to wage war against the population:
1. Food inflation: Crippling food inflation is now affecting every corner of the world with the poorest feeling the worst pangs. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food price index increased by 3 points to 234 points in June – a 39% increase on the year. These increases are causing mass starvation and rioting in many poor regions of the world, but they are also beginning to punish the middle-class in the Industrialized nations. The price of food is inflating primarily because of a devalued commodity-dollar from excessive money printing and Wall Street commodity speculation. Perhaps it's more appropriate to call it commodity manipulation, not speculation. As William Engdahl recently pointed out: 'The ability to manipulate the price of essential foods worldwide at will -- almost irrespective of today’s physical supply and demand for grains -- is quite recent....Up until the grain crisis of the mid-1970s there was no single ''world price'' for grain, the benchmark for the price of all foods and food products.'
What fuels commodity speculation is not just the obvious decline of the dollar and a flight to something tangible, but also genuine supply concerns based on a variety of factors that cause crop shortages like extreme weather or disease. Regardless of real or manipulated food shortages, food prices will continue to rise because of increased demand and an incrementally weaker dollar. Luckily, there are many ways to protect yourself from food inflation and the food war in general.
2. Shortages: Through supply controls, food shortages have been used as a weapon to create regional conflicts, to encourage peacekeeping missions, and as a foreign policy carrot -- as clearly outlined in Kissinger's 1974, Memorandum 200. The most recent examples can be found with the current and ongoing negotiations with North Korea who perpetually holds a nuclear gun to the West's head in exchange for food. Somalia, who was food self-sufficient until the 1970s, has become a 'failed state' because of food shortages. Significantly, the situation in Somalia and other large-scale famine are usually caused by a manipulated economic collapse. In fact, many have reported that the lack of food was an underlying factor of the Egyptian revolution.
Because of corporate consolidation of staple crops such as corn, soybeans, and wheat -- and the central control of food aid -- it is now easy to manipulate food shortages. But, clearly, there are also catastrophic weather events that destroy production in entire regions such as the heat wave in Russia last summer that caused them to restrict wheat exports in what some referred to as food wars. Many countries who had contracts with Russia were not happy, and their protectionist move had global effects on the food prices. In other words, imminent food shortages are typically a localized problem, but because the food system is so interconnected, local problems now affect the global community.
3. Chemical Additives: Chemical additives, from pesticides to preservatives, can only be viewed as a weapon in the depopulation agenda. Clearly, laboratory-concocted chemicals were never meant for human consumption. Therefore, they can only be attributed to an effort to deliberately and slowly poison the population. Many food and drink toxins like fluoride, aspartame, or monosodium glutamate (MSG) are now well-known to have negative health effects. Other lab creations like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are also beginning to prove very unhealthy with tests showing mercury in corn syrup. Incidentally, we dare you to find any sweet food that doesn't contain either aspartame or HFCS. Even wholesome Campbell's Tomato soup has HFCS, as does Heinz ketchup -- while nearly every candy or gum contains aspartame. It's estimated that the average American consumes 12 teaspoons of HFCS per day, while the younger population consumes nearly double that. 'Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered,' said Dr. David Wallinga of the Agriculture and Trade Policy whose study found about a third of brand-name foods with HFCS had measurable amounts of mercury.
Pesticides fall into the chemical additive category -- GM pesticides especially (called Bt toxins). They are found in the blood stream of nearly all North Americans, and even in 80% of their unborn babies. It is presumed these toxins are acquired by eating genetically modified corn or soy, and from the livestock that feed on it. A recent study proved that the chemical found in best-selling pesticides, glyphosate, causes birth defects among other ailments. We must understand that although all of these toxins, and a host of others, are approved for consumption by the FDA, it doesn't make them safe. And even the ones that have exotic names but have yet to be proven to have ill effects surely have a cumulative impact on human health. They're so pervasive that it seems impossible to evade them, but there are still ways to eat like a human.
4. Regulations: By restricting food freedom, regulatory agencies purposely increase dependence on the Big Ag monopoly cartel that fully controls the basic building blocks of food. Simply put, those who control the corn, wheat, soybeans and rice, control all food, since all livestock and all processed foods are dependent on those food sources. In America, and increasingly around the world, this cartel places their cronies in government regulatory agencies like the USDA to weed out their competition through excessive regulation. Furthermore, this restriction of food freedom is happening in concert across the globe, precisely because it is a top-down globalist initiative driven by international regulatory agencies such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. It is a complex, interwoven agenda that takes into account everything from health safety to land use rights in order to force independent food producers to conform in ways that only benefit a global corporate structure. Regulatory agencies are one of the primary weapons deployed against independent living.
5. Genetic Modification: There are many reasons to avoid eating genetically modified food, from health concerns to supporting a fundamentally evil food cartel. Genetically modified foods are the path to monopolies over human life through patented technology and environmental destruction by chemical-heavy monoculture practices. GMOs are so pervasive in the United States that it is estimated that 70% of the average American diet contains them. Many European countries, and other regions, have rejected GMOs. Hungary recently destroyed illegal GM corn crops and plans to make distributing seeds a felony offense. However, because of corporate/political pressure, most resistant countries are being forced to adopt them. All of this despite the fact that environmental infection and contamination are proven effects of transgenic plants. Meanwhile, the control is being implemented under convoluted patent laws, where the mutation itself signifies originality and control over the natural organism it imitates.
6. The Weather: Weather undeniably affects food access and food costs. One glance at maps across the globe reveals that food production areas are being especially hard hit, and we are seeing prices rise accordingly. These natural events can be exploited both by speculators and governments. However, with the introduction of weather modification, invested in by those such as Bill Gates and openly promoted by elite globalist think tanks, concerns have been raised over the possibility that governments could use weather as a deliberate weapon to create food wars. Accusations have already been leveled charging exactly that. While some might dismiss the various possibilities of 'steering the weather' for malevolent purposes as conspiracy, it is much more difficult to ignore the 1996 document presented to the Air Force titled Owning the Weather 2025 (PDF), which explicitly states as a heading on page 10: Applying Weather-modification to Military Operations. One key section states that weather control could be virtual, as well as literal:
Offensive abilities could provide spoofing options to create virtual weather in the enemy's sensory and information systems, making it more likely for them to make decisions producing results of our choosing rather than theirs. It would also allow for the capability to mask or disguise our weather-modification activities.
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Also key to the feasibility of such a system is the ability to model the extremely complex nonlinear system of global weather in ways that can accurately predict the outcome of changes in the influencing variables.
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Conceivably, with enough lead time and the right conditions, you could get 'made-to-order' weather.
This would certainly be the ultimate endgame for anyone wishing to use food as a weapon of control and profit. This possibility should not be easily dismissed, but rather it warrants open-minded investigation and research.
As we can see, food control is full spectrum, with wars being declared on the individual, states, and sovereign nations simultaneously. Food controllers utilize health, politics, and economics to integrate their agenda. Only full spectrum solutions can be employed as protection. There is much hope to be offered through alternative markets, barter systems, and local co-ops. We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below about other creative ideas we can implement to preserve our independence.
'True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.' -- Franklin Roosevelt
Please visit Food Freedom for Rady Ananda's contributions to this article, as well as for the latest information about health news, original commentary, and activism.
In verband met de lengte stop ik deze aflevering. In elk geval neem ik aan dat het voor u inmiddels duidelijk is dat Mak's 'cultuurconflict' met Rusland een te verwaarlozen detail is, gezien vanuit de bredere context waarmee niet alleen Mak's 'Geen Jorwert zonder Brussel' wordt geconfronteerd, maar de hele mensheid. Pas wanneer het provinciaals denken wordt losgelaten, kan men het universele van de situatie ontdekken. Later meer daarover.
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