Tuesday, June 28, 2022
China And The US Response To Covid-19
https://popularresistance.org/china-and-the-us-response-to-covid-19/
Covid deaths in the US (over 1 million) and China (about 5000).
“History Should Judge Us” – and it will.
In May and June of 2022 two milestones were passed in the world’s battle with Covid and were widely noted in the press, one in the US and one in China. They invite a comparison between the two countries and their approach to combatting Covid-19.
The first milestone was passed on May 12 when the United States registered over 1 million total deaths (1,008,377 as of June 19, 2022, when this is written) due to Covid, the highest of any country in the world. Web MD expressed its sentiment in a piece headlined: “US Covid Deaths Hit 1 Million: ‘History Should Judge Us.’”
Second, on June 1, China emerged from its 60-day lockdown in Shanghai in response to an outbreak there, the most serious since the Wuhan outbreak at the onset of the pandemic. The total number of deaths in Mainland China since the beginning of the epidemic in January 2020 now stands at a total of 5226 as of June 19,2022.
To put that in perspective, that is 3042 deaths per million population in the US versus 3.7 deaths in China due to Covid. 3042 vs. 3.7! Had China followed the same course as the US, it would have experienced at least 4 million deaths. Had the US followed China’s course it would have had only 1306 deaths total!
The EU did not fare not much better than the US with 2434 deaths per million as of June 19.
When confronted with these numbers, the response of the Western media has all too often been denial that China’s numbers were valid. But China’s data have been backed by counts of excess deaths during the period of the pandemic as the New York Times illustrated in a recent article. Actually this is old news. The validity of China’s numbers, as shown by counts of excess deaths, was validated long ago in a February 2021 study by a by a group at Oxford University and the Chinese CDC. This was published in the prestigious BMJ (British Medical Journal) and discussed in detail here.
What about the economy?
Clearly China put the saving of lives above the advance of the economy with its “dynamic zero Covid policy.” But contrary to what was believed in the West at the time, saving lives also turned out to be better for the economy, as shown in the following data from the World Bank:
During the first year of the pandemic, 2020, China’s economy continued to grow albeit at a slower rate. In contrast the US economy contracted dramatically, dropping all the way back, not simply to 2019 levels, but to pre-2018 levels!
Interestingly the plot also shows the year that the Chinese PPP-GDP surpassed that of the United States, 2017, heralding a new era for the Global South.
The World Bank has not yet released data for 2021, but the IMF has PPP-GDP data for 2021 shown here. The U.S. economy grew at 5.97 percent and China’s at 8.02 percent. Unlike the World Bank data shown in the graph above for the years up to 2020, these data for 2021 are not corrected for inflation which for 2021 ran at 4.7% in the U.S. whereas China’s was 0.85%. So China’s growth would be even greater in comparison to the US, were inflation taken into account.
The bottom line is that for the first two years of the pandemic through 2021, China’s growth was always positive and greater than that of the US. China’s policy not only saved lives but protected the economy. Win-win, one might say.
Is China’s dynamic zero Covid policy “sustainable”in the face of the Omicron variant? The Shanghai Lockdown.
The period of the recent Shanghai lockdown which we can date from April 1, 2022, ended on June 1, and was the second largest outbreak in China since the original outbreak in January, 2020, in Wuhan. Each resulted in major lockdowns, the first in Wuhan lasted about 76 days and the second in Shanghai about 60 days. The first in Wuhan was due to the original variant and the second was due to the much more infectious Omicron.
During the recent lockdown in Shanghai, the Western press was awash with proclamations, all too many laced with an unseemly Schadenfreude, that China’s dynamic Zero Covid policy was not sustainable. This is all too reminiscent of decades of predictions that China’s extraordinary success in developing its economy to number one in the world in terms of PPP-GDP was a passing phase, a Ponzi Scheme that was – what else – “not sustainable. Recently the same press has gone silent, always a sign that China has met with success. So what are the results?
The Shanghai Lockdown ended on June 1 and from that day until today, June 19, there have been no deaths due to Covid on the Chinese Mainland. Cases nationwide are also way down to 183 per day from the peak of 26,000 on April 15. That was the largest number of cases in a single day for the entire period of the pandemic in China. For comparison, the peak in the US was 800,000 in a single day.
Both the Wuhan and Shanghai lockdowns demanded sacrifices and patience over the roughly two-month period for each. However, these difficulties are generally exaggerated In the West and based on anecdotes of the worst of the difficulties encountered. Such sordid journalism reached rock bottom in a NYT piece equating China’s hard working health care workers to Adolph Eichmann!
As an antidote to this kind of hit piece and to gain a feeling of life in the cities that were under lockdown during the Wuhan outbreak, Peter Hessler’s March, 2020, account in the New Yorker, “Life on Lockdown in China,” is enlightening and will dispel many misconceptions. Hessler was living and teaching in Chengdu, Sichuan, at the time.
For the moment China’s approach has succeeded although we cannot say what the future holds. But the public health measures that have worked so well in Mainland China should not be lightly dismissed let alone be the subject of mean-spirited attacks. Such measures may be a means of saving millions of lives when the next variant or the next pandemic strikes.
The US Needs a People’s Tribunal On the Handling of Covid-19.
Turning again to the US, what does it say when the US, one of the richest nations in the world, spending over $1 trillion a year on its “national security” budget, could not muster the means to deal with Covid-19 and ended up with more deaths than any other nation on earth? China’s handling of the pandemic certainly shows a completely different outcome is possible. The US death toll was not an inescapable act of nature.
That being so, should there not be a People’s Tribunal to investigate those in charge in the US government over the course of three administrations? That, and not an official white wash, is certainly needed? And should not punishment appropriate for a crime against humanity be meted out? The one million dead deserve no less.
The Pacific Northwest Has Defeated Dozens Of Fossil Fuel Projects
https://popularresistance.org/the-pacific-northwest-has-defeated-dozens-of-fossil-fuel-projects/
The fossil fuel industry, smarting from a string of defeats in Oregon and Washington, is hoping to continue to expand in the face of the climate crisis.
But without arousing opposition.
New large-scale fossil fuel projects have become mostly unworkable in the Pacific Northwest, with dozens canceled over the past decade due to fierce opposition from local communities. But the industry’s blitz is not yet over. Instead, rather than building new pipelines, it is seeking to expand existing infrastructure in a way that will provoke less pushback.
Since 2012, an estimated 55 coal, oil, and natural gas projects have been proposed for the Pacific Northwest — encompassing Oregon and Washington, as well as British Columbia. But more than 70 percent of them have been defeated, according to a recent study from the Seattle-based Sightline Institute.
“The fossil fuel industry really was trying to turn the Pacific Northwest into a coal, oil, and gas export hub,” Emily Moore, a senior researcher at Sightline Institute, told DeSmog. “We could be looking at a really different picture right now if all of those had gone through.”
The Pacific Northwest was targeted by the fossil fuel industry because it is situated between the massive reserves of coal, oil, and gas in interior North America and fast-growing Asian markets.
“We could be looking at a really different picture right now if all of those had gone through.”– Emily Moore
As Moore notes, the proposals came in waves, largely the result of whims in energy markets and changes in federal policy that allowed for more exports. First, developers proposed a series of coal train projects in the early 2010s, as domestic coal demand went into decline but was soaring overseas. Then, when the Obama administration lifted the ban on crude oil exports in 2015, new oil export projects were in vogue. Finally, the glut of natural gas led to a wave of proposals to export liquified natural gas (LNG), as well as for related gas products, such as propane and methanol.
But coalitions of environmental groups, landowners, and tribes fought back — and more often than not, they won. Forty of the 55 projects were canceled, six were completed, and nine more are either under construction or on the drawing board.
“It’s really hard to underestimate the climate devastation those projects would have had,” Moore said.
If all had gone forward, the Pacific Northwest would have added more than 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. That is roughly equivalent to 30 percent of the United States’s greenhouse gas emissions or nearly three times the emissions of Canada, the world’s tenth largest emitter.
A few high-profile defeats for the fossil fuel industry stand out. Longview, Washington, could have been home to Millennium Bulk Terminals, the largest coal export hub in the country, but that project was denied a permit in 2017. A little upstream on the Columbia River could have been the Tesoro Savage oil export terminal, which would have also been the nation’s largest at the time, in Vancouver, Washington. Then there was the saga of Jordan Cove LNG, a project that sought to take land from private landowners in southern Oregon in order to build a long-distance gas pipeline, transporting fracked gas from the Rocky Mountains and British Columbia to the Oregon Coast for export.
Those projects, along with dozens of others, fell by the wayside. On each occasion, grassroots activists, tribes, and local communities, faced long odds, and often had little help from elected officials. So “I think it’s important to celebrate these wins,” Moore said. “We do need to dismantle the dirty legacy of our existing fossil fuel infrastructure, but I think it’s a positive story that we didn’t become a major fossil fuel export hub.”
British Columbia remains more friendly turf for oil and gas companies. The massive Trans Mountain expansion and the Coastal GasLink pipelines, which are currently under construction, would pump oil and gas across Indigenous lands to the Pacific Coast. A handful of additional LNG projects are on the drawing board, and both the provincial and federal governments are supportive of a further expansion of oil and gas.
“The projects that remain in BC – LNG projects in the Trans Mountain oil pipeline – would also be in place for about 30 or 40 years,” Moore said. Canada, like much of the world, is aiming to hit net-zero emissions by 2050, but these projects could conceivably operate well into the second half of the century. “We have very limited time to meet the 1.5-degree goal and even to meet the 2-degree goal, so we don’t have any wiggle room in the carbon budget to be locking in decades more of fossil fuel infrastructure,” she added.
Expanding Under the Radar
Even though many projects ran aground in the Pacific Northwest, the fossil fuel industry is not giving up yet. Recognizing that building new long-distance pipelines will face opposition, a new strategy could be afoot.
TC Energy is hoping to expand its Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) system, a large pipeline that carries gas from British Columbia to Washington, Oregon, and California. The expansion project, called GTN Xpress, would add 250 million cubic feet of gas per day to the system’s capacity, equivalent to around a quarter of Washington state’s entire annual gas consumption, according to a separate report from Sightline.
TC Energy says that its pipeline expansion would go to meeting new market demand. However, regional gas demand is set to shrink, not grow. In fact, the region is making deliberate moves to reduce gas consumption. Washington and Oregon both have 100 percent renewable energy targets, and the states also have emissions reductions targets specifically for gas utilities.
In addition, Washington State has banned gas hookups in new commercial buildings, and could follow that up later this year with a prohibition on gas connections for new residential construction. More broadly, a growing movement in much of the country to ban gas in new construction is gaining momentum. More than 50 cities, mostly in California, have banned gas, and the trend is gathering pace in the Pacific Northwest. Bans on new connections all aim to stop the growth of the gas system.
Utilities are pushing back with misleading advertising and propaganda, but the trend away from gas is clear.
TC Energy is likely aiming to push out other gas companies from the Northwest to gain more market share, according to Sightline. But the risk is that more infrastructure would lock the region into decades of gas use, despite the desire by policymakers and the public to break free of gas. Moore likened it to “someone opening a smoke shop in your house when you’ve just quit smoking.”
“While you might have every intention of never having another cigarette, having it at your fingertips makes achieving that goal all the more difficult,” she wrote.
“We are seeing a shift today where fossil fuel companies are more sneaky in how they frame new projects.”– Brett VandenHeuvel
TC Energy’s regulatory filings suggest it is pursuing a subtler strategy that could prove more successful than the long list of fossil fuel projects shelved over the past decade. Rather than apply for a big increase in capacity, it has filed for a series of small increases, which could arouse less regulatory scrutiny and public outrage if deemed to be separate projects. And because it is expanding along an existing pipeline route, the company will confront fewer landowners, or other opposition groups.
Two non-profits, Columbia Riverkeeper and Crag Law Center, are formally opposing the federal request.
“Our region has defeated some of the nation’s largest coal, oil, and fracked gas projects over the last two decades. We are seeing a shift today where fossil fuel companies are more sneaky in how they frame new projects,” Brett VandenHeuvel, outgoing executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, told DeSmog. “They attempt to piecemeal projects to make them look smaller, focus on expanding existing infrastructure, and claim projects are needed for reliability but redact the data as classified.”
“For GTN Xpress, the scope of the project involves upgrades and modifications to existing compressor stations,” TC Energy said in a statement to DeSmog. “It is preferred to use existing rights-of-way for energy infrastructure projects, as possible, for many reasons, including the location of existing energy facilities and land rights.”
The company added that its work aims to “provide reliable service and meet customer demand,” adding that “[s]pecifically, for natural gas, our role is to move supply to existing and new markets for those who contract our service via energy infrastructure.”
But VandenHeuvel added that the industry is fighting hard to keep its grip on the region as Washington and Oregon are clearly trying to move away from gas.
“Unfortunately, fracked gas companies can pass on the costs of building unwanted and unneeded projects to their customers by increasing their rates,” VandenHeuvel said. “This is the behavior of a dying industry.”
British Army Chief Tells Troops Prepare For World War III With Russia
https://popularresistance.org/british-army-chief-tells-troops-prepare-for-world-war-iii-with-russia/
UK Army chief Patrick Sanders told his troops to prepare for World War III with Russia.
Benjamin Norton discusses how Western imperialists are threatening nuclear apocalypse to try to save their declining empires.
The chief of the United Kingdom’s army, Patrick Sanders, told his troops to prepare for World War III with Russia.
Mainstream British media outlet and radio station LBC published a report on June 19 titled “British soldiers must get ready to fight Russia in Third World War, army chief warns.”
General Sanders just took over as commander-in-chief, and he told his soldiers to prepare “to fight in Europe once again.”
According to LBC, the UK military chief said, “There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle.”
The British media outlet added that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had just visited Ukraine and warned his country, “I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war.”
In this video, Multipolarista editor Benjamin Norton discusses how Western imperialists are threatening nuclear apocalypse to try to save their declining empires.
The Neocon’s Dream – Decolonize Russia, Re-Colonize China
https://popularresistance.org/the-neocons-dream-decolonize-russia-re-colonize-china/
On March 26 U.S. President Joe Biden called for regime change in Russia:
Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday, President Biden said of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
The White House immediately rushed to talk back that call for regime change and a day later Biden himself denied that he was calling for regime change:
President Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday he was not calling for a regime change in Russia when he said a day earlier that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” a surprising comment the White House quickly tried to walk back Saturday.
When a reporter asked if he was calling for Putin’s removal from office, Biden replied “no” as he walked out of church Sunday afternoon, according to Bloomberg pool reporter Courtney Rozen.
However, other parts of the U.S. government makes unmistakeably clear that its aims in Russia go even much than regime change. Tomorrow the US Government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) will hold a briefing on the “Moral and Strategic Imperative” that makes it necessary to “Decolonize Russia”.
As Nicolo Saldo points out:
What is notable about this panel is the shift from “spreading freedom and democracy” to the need to “decolonize” Russia.
The neo-conservatives are back using a new narrative to push their old agenda.
Russian officials will love such talk:
Today’s panel is a further step forward in that it tells ordinary Russians that even regime change and democracy is not good enough for them. They require the partition of their country into smaller (more easily controlled) polities, so that they can be free. Needless to say, this is a propaganda coup for Putin and the Kremlin as it allows them to paint the conflict in Ukraine as an existential fight.
The Kremlin has no need to ‘paint’ the conflict as an existential fight. The Russians know that it is such a fight.
Biden’s haplessness continues to tank the Democrats chances to keep house majority.
In a meager attempt to tackle the high fuel price he will today call on Congress to suspend the tax on fuel for three month. It is just a gimmick which would have little effect at the pump and has no chance to pass Congress:
GOP lawmakers have been hammering Biden and Democrats on the campaign trail over inflation and fuel prices. They argue that such measures are political theater that will do little to make long-term dents in oil prices. The best way to reduce oil prices, they say, is to loosen regulations and increase U.S. oil production.
The real reason for high fuel prices is Biden’s misguided foreign policy. Three of the biggest oil producers on the globe, Venezuela, Iran and Russia, are under U.S. sanctions that limit their oil exports:
The sanctions have made it more difficult for Russia to sell its oil. Biden has also banned the import of Russian oil, and last month Europe announced it was imposing a partial embargo on it.
As of 2020, Russia was the world’s third-largest producer of petroleum, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As the New York Times correctly headlines:
Western Move to Choke Russia’s Oil Exports Boomerangs, for Now
That move will continue to boomerang. Russia sells it oil to China and India where it gets refined. The resulting gasoline and diesel is then exported to the U.S.. That is good for India and China as they buy the oil with a rebate and sell the end products with a substantial margin. It is a ‘win’ ‘win’ ‘win’ for Russia, India and China with the sole loser being the ‘west’. Whatever NYT hope of sanction success is expressed in its ‘for now’ addition to the headline is not going to change that.
Meanwhile Russia is announcing the next target of its campaign to counter ‘western’ misbehavior – the reserve status of the U.S. dollar and the Euro:
MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. The issue of creating an international reserve currency based on currencies of BRICS member-states is under consideration, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday in the welcome address to BRICS Business Forum participants.
“The matter of creating the international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries is under review,” the Russian leader said.
BRICS currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Together those countries represent 3.2 billion people and a third of the world’s purchase power GDP. The new international reserve currency would therefore have a much larger backing than the U.S. dollar or the Euro.
The U.S. is moving too but in the wrong direction.
Some in the Biden administration are pushing to lower Trump era tariffs on Chinese goods. M.K.Bhadrakumar interprets that as an attempt of a new détente with China. I doubt that lowering the tariffs would have much effect on prices in the U.S. as a new law that became applicable yesterday will raise prices of goods from China even more. The U.S. is slowly waking up to the consequences of such stupidity:
The Biden administration has said it intends to fully enforce the law, which could lead the U.S. authorities to detain or turn away a significant number of imported products. Such a scenario is likely to cause headaches for companies and sow further supply chain disruptions. It could also fuel inflation, which is already running at a four-decade high, if companies are forced to seek out more expensive alternatives or consumers start to compete for scarce products.
Failure to fully enforce the law is likely to prompt an outcry from Congress, which is in charge of oversight.
“The public is not prepared for what’s going to happen,” said Alan Bersin, a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection who is now the executive chairman at Altana AI. “The impact of this on the global economy, and on the U.S. economy, is measured in the many billions of dollars, not in the millions of dollars.”
As Bhadrakumar acidly comments:
When Russia attacked Ukraine and the West imposed sanctions against Moscow, Washington threatened China that any move on its part to help Russia circumvent the sanctions would trigger severe punishment. Now the wheel has come full circle and the US needs China’s helping hand to salvage its economy. This is Thucydides Trap turned upside down — an emerging power rescuing an entrenched great power, whose extravagance pauperised it.
I doubt that. Tariffs or no tariffs China will not help the U.S. in anything. It knows that the U.S-Russian proxy war is about much more than Ukraine.
The current U.S. aim may well be to decolonize Russia, but its real geopolitical aim is a re-colonization of China.
Food Insecurity Increases In The US While It Declines In Nicaragua
https://popularresistance.org/food-insecurity-increases-in-the-u-s-while-it-declines-in-nicaragua/
Whose Socialist Government Has Defied U.S. Regime Change Designs.
In 2018, 48% of U.S.-based churches had their own food-distribution ministry or supported efforts run by other churches or organizations such as food pantries or food banks. These faith-based ministries, unlike government programs, provide immediate help to hungry people with no requirements. And more than two million people volunteer at a food pantry, soup kitchen, emergency shelter or after-school programs in the U.S., working more than 100 million volunteer hours a year—according to Hunger in America 2014, a study conducted by Feeding America.
Expansion Of Public Sector In Nicaragua Has Improved Quality Of Life For Everyone
In 2018, 48% of U.S.-based churches had their own food-distribution ministry or supported efforts run by other churches or organizations such as food pantries or food banks.
These faith-based ministries, unlike government programs, provide immediate help to hungry people with no requirements. And more than two million people volunteer at a food pantry, soup kitchen, emergency shelter or after-school programs in the U.S., working more than 100 million volunteer hours a year—according to Hunger in America 2014, a study conducted by Feeding America.
This wave of charity recognizes a serious problem in the United States: Despite being a wealthy nation, food insecurity remains high.
People In The U.S. Are Not Food Secure
In the U.S., the average percentage of households with food insecurity stayed between 10% and 15% from 1995 until 2020, when the numbers shot up. Despite volunteer and government food aid, hunger grew 9% from 2019 to 2020, when 38 million people were hungry.
According to recent research by the Census Bureau from the week before Christmas 2021, 81 million people experienced food insecurity, and 45 million reported not having enough food. Families with children have suffered most: The rate of hunger has been 41% to 83% higher for households with children than adult-only households.
In 2020, one in seven (14.8%) households with children could not buy enough food for their families. The prevalence of food insecurity was much higher in some states than others, ranging from 5.7% in New Hampshire to 15.3% in Mississippi from 2018 to 2021.
Twice as many Black households experience hunger than white households. During the pandemic, 19% to 29% of Black homes with children have reported not having enough to eat; 16% to 25% of Latino homes and 7% to 14% of white homes reported the same. Black families go hungry at 2 to 3 times the rate of white families.
Some 43% of Black households with children have experienced food insecurity during the pandemic—the highest rate in recorded history. Children get sick more often if they are not consuming enough nutritious food, and hunger impedes learning.
Thus, one in four people in our nation, the richest nation on Earth, did not have adequate access to sufficient nutritious food needed for a healthy life.
In the face of this pervasive food insecurity, families turn to a variety of sources for help.
More than 42 million people rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. During the Covid pandemic, the USDA increased the purchasing power of the plan—by 21% —for the first time since 1975. There were also emergency allotments that increased the value of food stamps people received. This part will likely end soon.
In 2019, 35 million people relied on food charity, another sign that millions of people do not earn a living wage.
Undocumented immigrants are more dependent on food pantries because they are excluded from government programs. Church-related food programs make a big difference for these people’s lives, especially for their children.
One in eight families have reduced their food spending to pay for health care. And Black families are twice as likely to be unable to afford health care. Impoverishment in the United States includes food insecurity, lack of decent housing, lack of health care, poorly paid employment or no employment, and poor quality public education.
Approximately 80% of households receiving food stamps had at least one worker, indicating that millions of people do not earn a living wage.
In 2019, unemployment of Black individuals was double the rate of whites and Blacks were much more likely to only earn minimum wage or less.
In 2020, the average Black family had $1,500 for emergency spending, while white families had $7,500. Only 10% of Latino families had savings to last six months, while 36% of whites did.
In January 2020, at least 580,466 Americans were without a home, and 30% of those were children. Marginalized racial groups are more likely to be without homes as a result of segregation and discrimination in housing and employment as well as in many other areas of life. Hunger is not universal among unhoused people; however, it is much more frequent than among the housed population.
“Vehicle residency is one of the fastest-growing forms of homelessness,” said Sara Rankin, Professor of Law and Director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at the Seattle University School of Law.
U.S. foreign policy has had a major effect on hunger and nutrition in developing nations for many years. U.S. agricultural policies aggressively promote creating markets for our farmers by promoting international reliance on U.S. food exports.
U.S.-Related International Food Insecurity
U.S. loan policies are never aimed at the food security of the population of developing nations; instead, they promote production and export of products such as bananas, sugar and coffee to the point that many developing nations are producing and exporting the same things. Thus, the international price stays artificially low, and the countries benefit little from these exports.
Small and medium-scale farmers plant the food that local people eat, like corn, beans, rice, vegetables and fruits, and they also raise farm animals in a more healthful way than large corporations. But U.S. policies have contributed to placing that land into the hands of large landowners and corporations.
The U.S. influences national policies of developing nations such that it is very difficult for small and medium-scale farmers to get loans or any other kinds of government support.
The U.S. subsidizes its own farmers to the point that products like corn and rice are actually sold below what would be the real price.
In this way, we put small and medium-scale corn and rice producers out of business in developing nations—they simply cannot compete with the large-scale subsidized farmers. So, most end up having to sell their land, leading to more large export-based farms—many now owned by U.S. corporations.
This whole process also leads to more migration out of these countries.
Dependency on food imports from the U.S. also undermines the international goals formulated at the 1974 UN World Food Conference to encourage food self-reliance and security from hunger.
An Example Of Food Sovereignty For The United States And Other Nations
The small nation of Nicaragua in Central America has worked on ending poverty for the last fifteen years. One of the most important strategies has been to develop food security, and today they have reached approximately 90% food security.
This means that small and medium-scale farmers are producing 90% of the food that Nicaraguans eat: corn, beans, rice, plantains, vegetables, fruits, chicken, fish, pork, beef, honey, sugar, etc. Their population is much more food secure in times of crisis, whether it be a climate-related crisis or a political crisis. There are no factory farms of cattle. There are large and corporate producers of export crops like sugarcane; but even coffee production for export is held more in the hands of small and medium-scale producers.
Along with this, they now have almost 100% electricity coverage, more than 90% of people have potable water in their homes, and there is good universal health care and education including technical and university education. The government subsidizes transportation, electricity and water for their more vulnerable population.
Since petroleum prices skyrocketed in March 2022, the government is covering all the increases in electricity, gas and gasoline. Since 2007, amazingly, they have increased renewable energy from 20% to almost 80% and are in third place worldwide.
They had a major land reform in the 1980s that put land into the hands of nearly a million people. During three governments by and for the wealthy from 1990 to early 2007, much of that land returned to the hands of the wealthy. But government policies have helped nearly 600,000 families legalize their property. The government also makes technical assistance, training and low-interest loans available to micro and small-scale farm families.
It is interesting to note that, during the years of the Somoza-family dictatorship, supported by the U.S. from the 1930s to 1979, there was much concentration of land in a few hands. That impacted what was grown and how. In the western Pacific area, there were so many pesticides used for production of cotton that, even today, pesticides are found in the breast milk of women from this area.
Because of current Nicaragua policies that benefit the people instead of U.S. corporations, the U.S. has been doing many things to destabilize Nicaragua politically, and even directed and financed a coup attempt in 2018.
Although it didn’t fly, it cost the economy billions of dollars, and the U.S. continues to try to destroy the excellent example Nicaragua is giving to the world. Just visit Nicaragua and you will see that another world is possible and that we could be employing similar policies in our country.
Corporate Profits Limit Food Security And Health In The United States
Monoculture production of grains on a corporate scale is not good for the land and requires enormous amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. Whereas sustainable farming practices control weeds, insects and other pests with ecosystem management, farmers who monocrop are dependent on pesticides. Pesticides are linked to multiple health problems, including neurological and hormonal disorders, birth defects, cancer and other diseases.
Production of cattle, pigs and chickens on a corporate scale is terrible for the environment and there are many cases of water sources being polluted.
Corporate-raised animal products such as beef have lower levels of important nutrients and are higher in LDL (the “bad”) cholesterol. Grass-fed cows eating in a field produce milk and meat higher in omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality fats, and precursors for Vitamins A and E.
The volume of animal waste produced on factory farms is much greater than that of human waste. Household waste is processed in sewer systems, while animal waste is often stored in lagoons and applied, untreated, as fertilizer to farm fields. That excrement stored in lagoons has pathogens such as E.coli, residues of antibiotics, animal blood, bedding waste, cleaning solutions and other chemicals. Manure pit gases with hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and methane fill the air, along with dust and irritants.
Factory farming is especially threatening to ground water supplies. Bacteria, viruses and nitrates can enter the supply and the community can be exposed to disease and nitrate poisoning. Nitrate poisoning is dangerous to infants and fetuses and can lead to birth defects and miscarriages. It has also been associated with esophageal and stomach cancers.
There is substantial overuse of antibiotics on factory farms—80% of antibiotics sold in the world today are for corporate farming. Antibiotic overuse leads to the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Then with mutations, these bacteria can jump to humans, causing pandemics. Pandemics are also associated with viral mutations promoted by the large number of animals in very small spaces. In recent years, we have seen an increase of zoonotic diseases; these are infectious diseases caused by a pathogen such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion that has jumped from an animal to a human. Examples are salmonellosis, Ebola, influenzas, and bird and swine flu.
In the United States, along with food charity, it is essential for us to become involved in changing food production policies that support more small and medium-scale farmers who can be encouraged to use sustainable practices through loan policies, for example.
We also need an agrarian reform plan and laws to limit how big a farm can be so that we prioritize the health of our population instead of prioritizing the profits of corporations. And, of course, we need good jobs that pay a living wage so that everyone can enjoy good nutrition—and we must recognize this as a human right.
One last point as food for thought. The U.S. has already sent $13.6 billion in arms to Ukraine and it appears on the verge of sending $33 billion more in arms. To end world hunger would only cost $45 billion. Why do our lawmakers so easily spend billions on war but do not even consider spending money on peace?
Lessons From Colombia: A Victory For The People
https://popularresistance.org/lessons-from-colombia-a-victory-for-the-people/
By Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG.
June 27, 2022
Featured Campaign, Podcast
On June 19, Colombians elected the first leftist president and the first Afro-Colombian vice president in history. This was possible, despite being in a repressive state, because of a strong national social movement that organized an effective national strike in the spring of 2021. Clearing the FOG speaks with Charo Mina Rojas, an Afro-Colombian human rights defender and leader in the 2016 peace process, about this victory, the obstacles they faced and how they will counter efforts by the wealthy class to prevent further progress. Activists in the United States have much to learn from the Colombian people’s movement and an important role to play in preventing interference by the US government.
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Charo Mina Rojas is an Afro-Colombian human rights defender with more than two decades of experience in activism at the national and international levels. Ms. Mina-Rojas is the National Coordinator of Advocacy and Outreach for the Black Communities’ Process (Proceso de Comunidades Negras- PCN) and a member of the Afro-Colombian Solidarity Network.
Ms. Mina-Rojas was extensively involved in the Havana peace process, serving on the Gender Committee of the Ethnic Commission. The Ethnic Commission was composed of the Afro-Colombian Peace Council (CONPA) of which PCN is part, the National Indigenous Orgarnization (ONIC) and Consejo Mayor Indigena.
The Ethnic Commission was formed to advocate for the inclusion of Afro-Colombian and Indigenous rights and perspectives in the agreement. Their collective advocacy led to the landmark achievement of an Ethnic Chapter within the Peace Accord, which contains protections for Indigenous and Afro-Colombian Peoples, including for their gender-based human rights. Ms. Mina-Rojas was instrumental in guaranteeing that Afro-Colombian and Indigenous women’s rights were included in the final agreement.
Ms. Mina-Rojas is now a member of the Special High Level Body for Ethnic Peoples, and is working to ensure the Colombian Government’s peace implementation plan fully adheres to the provisions of the Ethnic Chapter and other relevant provisions of the Peace Accord, including its gender rights protections.
Ms. Mina-Rojas has worked for many years to educate grassroots Afro-descendant communities on Law 70 of 1993, which recognizes their cultural, territorial and political rights. It was PCN, the organization that she works for that successfully advocated for the enactment of this law as well as the development of the Observatory of Racial Discrimination in Colombia, and the addition of specific statistics on Afro-descendant people in the Census 2005. Ms. Mina-Rojas raises awareness about gross human rights violations against Afro-descendant women at national and international level, calls for accountability and provides protection for Afro-descendant women leaders and women human rights defenders.
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