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From Toxic Food to Agrarian Disaster: Dirty Deals Done Dirt Cheap

Colin Todhunter

During the early days of the coronavirus lockdowns, in some quarters there was a certain degree of optimism around. Although millions of people were suffering, the hope was that the Covid-19 crisis would shine light on societal and economic systems across the world, exposing some of the deep-rooted flaws of capitalism.

There was a belief that people working together with their respective governments could start building a fairer capitalism and more sustainable economies.

However, we see exactly the opposite taking place. In the UK, we now witness a post-Brexit trade deal being negotiated behind closed doors with the US that could see a lowering of food and environment standards, despite the Conservative government pledge that it would not compromise on standards in these areas.

The government now proposes that chlorine-washed chicken, beef treated with growth hormones, pork from ractopamine-injected animals and many other toxic foods produced in the US will be allowed into the UK.

Sanctioning the entry of (chemical-resistant) GM crops and GM food are also likely to be part of any deal.

It would effectively mean sacrificing UK farmers’ livelihoods, the environment and the nation’s health to suit the bottom line of US agribusiness corporations.

The UK isn’t the only country that US agribusiness has set its sights on. World Bank Group President David Malpass has stated that poorer countries will be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet after the various coronavirus lockdowns.

This ‘help’ will be on condition that neoliberal reforms are implemented and become further embedded. Ranil Salgado, mission chief for India at the IMF, says that when the economic shock passes, it’s important that India returns to its path of undertaking such long-term reforms.

But haven’t ordinary Indians already had enough of these ‘structural adjustments’ and their impacts? Rural affairs commentator P Sainath has highlighted the desperate plight of migrant workers in India. He notes that millions of rural livelihoods have been deliberately snuffed out over a period of many years, sparking an agrarian crisis.

As a result of lockdown, tens of millions went back to their villages but there is no work there because rural jobs have been extinguished – the reason for urban migration in the first place.

The US has been pushing to bring Indian agriculture under corporate control for a long time. Further ‘reforms’ would serve to accelerate this process. US agribusiness wants to force GMO food crops into the country, further displace peasant farmers thereby driving even more people to cities and ensure corporate consolidation and commercialisation of the sector based on industrial-scale monocrop farms incorporated into global supply chains dominated by transnational agribusiness and retail giants.

Like the UK, India is also involved in trade talks with the US. If this deal goes through and India capitulates to US demands, it could devastate the dairy, poultry, soybean, maize and other sectors and severely deepen the crisis in the countryside.

India could also see GMO food flooding the country and the further corporate consolidation of the seed sector. The article ‘Perils of the US-India free trade agreement for Indian farmers’ published on the grain.org website highlights what could be in store.

In the wake of India deciding to not participate in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, another trade deal that would have had devastating consequences for farmers and the food system. the article concludes:

It would be inconsistent, and a slap in the face, to now start US-India trade talks that will pose much bigger challenges for India’s rural communities and agriculture sector. Such a deal would greatly compromise India’s huge diversity of local seeds and plants which are conserved and reused by millions of Indian farmers year after year. It will also destroy India’s hope for food sovereignty.”

Any such trade deal will be for the benefit of powerful agribusiness giants and will reinforce the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of these corporations. It would also send millions more to the cities in search of jobs that are just not there. This will be the result of the ‘reforms’ demanded by the World Bank and IMF.

If lockdown has shown anything, it is that many of those who sought better lives in the cities have failed to establish a firm foothold. They are marginalised and employed in the worst jobs working long hours for minimal wages. The fragility of their position is demonstrated by the reverse migrations we have witnessed and the callous treatment they are used to was demonstrated by the government’s attitude to their plight under lockdown.

The various lockdowns around the globe have also exposed the fragility of the global food system, dominated by long-line supply chains and global conglomerates – which effectively suck food and wealth from the Global South to the richer nations.

What we have seen underscores the need for a radical transformation of the prevailing globalised food regime based on a system of agroecology which reduces dependency on external proprietary inputs, distant volatile commodity markets and patented technologies.

It would help to shorten chains, increase crop diversity, improve diets, regenerate soils, support food sovereignty, re-localise production and consumption and boost local economies, which in India would stem the flow of people moving to the cities and would even create livelihoods for those who have returned to the countryside.

It is the type of system that Prof Michel Pimbert and Colin Anderson of Coventry University in the UK advocate.

In contrast to corporate-driven trade deals, centrally controlled hi-tech innovations, people-free farming, drones replacing bees, genetically engineered crops and a future of synthetic lab-based food, the two academics argue:

Agroecological innovations… are being driven largely from the bottom up by civil society, social movements and allied researchers. In this context, priorities for innovations are ones that increase citizen control for food sovereignty and decentralise power.”

Instead of trade deals hammered out behind closed doors above the heads of ordinary people by elite interests, the authors state that deliberative, inclusive processes like citizens’ juries, peoples’ assemblies and community-led participatory actions are urgently needed.

It is these types of processes that should guide all economic sectors, not just agriculture. Processes underpinned by a vision for a better, more just world that can only be delivered by challenging capitalism’s dispossessive strategies which fuel India’s agrarian crisis and the types of human and environmental degradation and exploitation we see across the globe.

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Antonym
Antonym
Jun 24, 2020 2:25 AM

June 20, 2020:
Two Virginia attorneys pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to federal extortion charges over their roles in trying to extort a chemicals company in litigation against Monsanto Co. over health risks associated with Roundup weed killer.
According to the Department of Justice, 38-year-old Timothy Litzenburg, of Charlottesville, and 41-year-old Daniel Kincheloe, of Glen Allen, each pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting interstate communications with the intent to extort in the Western District of Virginia.
They both admitted their roles in the extortion scheme, which the Justice Department says threatened to inflict substantial financial and reputational harm on the company if their demands for a $200 million payment disguised as a purported “consulting agreement” were not met.

Globe
Globe
Jun 20, 2020 1:40 PM

Hundreds of billions and even trillions of dollars are being poured to fight the new Coronavirus. The largest target of the new virus is the population of over 50s and having one other or more health condition.
 
How much of the hundred of billions and trillions being spent to prevent those chronic conditions?
The answer is Nothing, Zero dollar is spent to clean the food chain, the air or water, or to improve building code to protect the health of residents (for example).
 
How on earth they call the situation a monumental health crisis for the over 50s while all the money is given to airlines,, bankers and others to (they say) stabilise the economy?? Nothing is invested to get rid of the poisons from our foods that compromises our immunity and resilience; they haven’t even mentioned any plan that is ‘HEALTH’ related.

Nixon Scraypes
Nixon Scraypes
Jun 20, 2020 11:40 AM

People’s assemblies are “somehow” put together by private corporations. See the shabby situation in Britain. Phoney “environmentalists” demand Ipsos Mori “randomly” selected citizens to assemble and get mentored by professional change agents into a preselected decision. Ha bloody ha.

Objective
Objective
Jun 20, 2020 1:51 AM

Admin, what is it with this sudden rudeness & hostility really dragging this site down, with immature threats, trolling & name calling?
 
Especially this growing trend calling everyone intelligence agency shills etc. Its really ruining your site, especially those telling others to leave in a much nastier tone.
 
Bye

David G. Horsman
David G. Horsman
Jun 20, 2020 5:35 AM
Reply to  Objective

Where ya goin sissy. Come back here! 😉

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 20, 2020 11:51 PM
Reply to  Objective

Objective, there has always been a hardcore of people calling others intelligence agency shills. It’s the main insult levelled at people they disagree with. It’s not uncommon on alt media blogs. I don’t like it either, it gives me the creeps.

RobG
RobG
Jun 19, 2020 8:56 PM

Over the coming months hundreds of millions are going to starve to death in poorer parts of the world – repeat, hundreds of millions – as a direct result of the deliberate crashing of the global economy. Think about that next time you sneeze or have a cough, or crap yourself while hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.
 
This Guardian piece downplays it, yet still manages to give the general picture…
 
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/21/coronavirus-pandemic-will-cause-famine-of-biblical-proportions

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 9:01 PM
Reply to  RobG

The irony being socialists are the ones pushing hardest to keep us all in lock-down. There are worrying times ahead, it puts face mask debates (either way) into perspective!

RobG
RobG
Jun 20, 2020 1:24 AM
Reply to  Objective

There are no socialists still remaining in politics. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.
 
Either grow-up or stop taking the corporate/fascist pay check.
 
Whatever you do, you’ll have people like me to deal with, and I can guarantee that you won’t find it a pleasant experience.

Objective
Objective
Jun 20, 2020 1:46 AM
Reply to  RobG

Whatever you do, you’ll have people like me to deal with, and I can guarantee that you won’t find it a pleasant experience.

 
Why has this place been invaded with arse-holes all of a sudden? I ask you because you appear to be one.

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 20, 2020 11:53 PM
Reply to  RobG

No need for that. I didn’t see a problem with Objective’s comment.

RobG
RobG
Jun 21, 2020 12:59 AM
Reply to  John Pretty

Fair do, John. If you don’t yet realise that we are at war, that’s your problem, not mine.
 
 
 
 

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Jun 21, 2020 1:16 AM
Reply to  RobG

There are numerous self-styled ‘socialists’ and socialist groups supporting the lockdown. We may all think they are betraying the real principles of collectivism by doing that, but it doesn’t alter the fact that this is happening.

Blubber
Blubber
Jun 20, 2020 9:59 AM
Reply to  Objective

The face masks are purely a visual cue to remind us that everyone is a threat and normal isn’t happening. Once masks become normal background noise people will be manipulated into wearing / doing something else.
Give a man a mask and keep him (pseudo) protected for a day. Teach him how to grow food and he can protect himself (and others) for a lifetime.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 19, 2020 9:51 PM
Reply to  RobG

We flew from Cleveland, Ohio to GB in ’97, June for a choral singing tour of several cities, Oxford, Cardiff, Birmingham.

My whole family had developed bad allergies to dairy in the US, all of us, beginning around ’85. Struck me as environmental, agribusiness-based. I had not been able to even put a small creamer in my coffee for 10 years.

Our group was booked into hotels, first at Swindon, where breakfast buffet was included. There was a huge selection. I tried it all. I hadn’t had a tiny cup of milk in USAmerica in many years.

I waited for the worst, hoped for the best.

As I expected, I had no reaction of any kind, other than feeling better and better. As it should be. They say here dairy is bad for singing, the conventional wisdom, but my voice got so much better, my sinuses got so much clearer, then suddenly on day 8 or 9 my whole sinuses emptied all at once, like a plug pulled on a drain. The taste was almost like swilling something radioactive, but it passed. Everything opened up.

That hadn’t been thus in 20 years. Well, as a matter of fact, not since I’d last lived in France. Wonderful, I felt good for the first time in years, and better and better every day there.

Finally we had to go back to Ohio. It took about 6 hours to really kick in, but my sinuses started swelling, as siin as we git back, and by the wee hours sealed shut. In just hours.

That dramatic, and completely measurable! Back home the raw opened passages closing like that, in hours, made me cry out that night loud enough I woke my housemate downstairs. Over days I adjusted to that, but I soon felt as bad as ever again.

And so it goes. I had tried the dairy in England because I had heard on L.A. radio before our trip that England and France only allowed 6 preservatives to be used in the countries. Sweden, zero.

Back then, the tally for USA INC. was:

TWO HUNDRED+ !! I don’t know what it is now.

Keep them from Americanising your “standards” and your gatekeepers (or just buying them, easier today than a generation or two ago). We need to look to Europe and South America now, and really the world over for that leadership, since this country has almost none…

Battles to be fought every day, or we all lose.

Cleveland is a sewer from steel mills that aren’t regulated much at all, forever, and poison the atmosphere.

California seems to have come a long way, as I can even get away with drinking milk, now and then, and many health problems calmed down with our greener mindset here, with super-majority Democratic leadership. EVEN on that military base known as SoCal.

One big benefit of Blue.

RobG
RobG
Jun 20, 2020 12:29 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

John, howabout a link to some choral music. I’d be fascinated to hear anything you’ve been involved in. If not maybe give us a link to your favourite piece of choral music?
 
I give loads of music links on this board, and I realise why many people won’t understand why I do this.
 
I’ll get into why they don’t understand it – in the context of what’s happening – another time.

RobG
RobG
Jun 20, 2020 12:43 AM
Reply to  RobG

This seems very appropriate with regard to what’s going on at the moment…
 

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 19, 2020 11:50 PM
Reply to  RobG

Millions have always been experiencing famines , going hungry and people have been starving while some nations waste 50% of food.Guardian is the right msm, and both left and right want you to have fear and anxiety.
The same players(neonazi-socialist/Marxists) that casues the economic crash( Psyop COVID) also control the majority of food supply, transport and retail .
Why put in right wing Guardian articles here at the left Guardian?
 
 

RobG
RobG
Jun 20, 2020 1:28 AM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

Calamity (good name!) perhaps you should bugger off back to Cheltenham.
 
And you can tell your bosses that the pitchforks will be out soon.

Objective
Objective
Jun 20, 2020 2:13 AM
Reply to  RobG

That’s an unpleasant attitude, perhaps if you can’t be sociable you shouldn’t post your opinions on social media sites where others may offer replies that don’t fit your socialist values & offend you so much!
 
There’s certainly no need for the baseless & unwarranted paranoid accusations which seems to be bringing this site into disrepute. You are destroying the very thing you claim to value with your anti-social behaviour.
 
Its always incredible to witness the hypocrisy of the left (socialists) demonstrate such bitter venomous hatred towards others in such an unpleasant manner, simply for having an opposing view.
 
I’m over it!

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 20, 2020 11:56 PM
Reply to  RobG

Rob, rather than posting abusive comments why don’t you tell the commenter that you disagree and explain why.
 
 

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 20, 2020 11:53 PM
Reply to  RobG

I don’t have a cupboard under the stairs. And I use the toilet.

Ort
Ort
Jun 19, 2020 8:07 PM

The article reminded me of the title of British economist E. F. Schumacher’s famous book: Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered.
 
If the author/editor were inclined to choose a more optimistic headline, it might be “Small Is Beautiful: A Proposal for Agriculture As If People Mattered“.
 
I’m not faulting Todhunter for avoiding discussion of the nature and origins of the lockdowns he frequently references. I’m reminded of the period after the still-mysterious events of September 11, 2001, when investigative journalists attempted to continue reporting and analysis on topics arising in their chosen area of investigation, aka “beat”, without being drawn into the boiling quicksand of the controversial hot topic du jour.
 
Still, since he does mention the lockdowns, and their significant impact and lessons, I think it’s worth remarking that the overclass-imposed New Abnormal is designed, or in any case has the effect, of facilitating top-down neoliberal “reforms” and impeding bottom-up efforts to reform international agriculture as if people matter.
 
The official Megadeath Virus of Doom and its pervasive and pernicious “public-health” regime proceeds upon the paradox of pretending that “people matter”– that the draconian “remedies” are all about keeping ordinary people healthy– while wreaking havoc, economic destruction, misery, and death upon the majority of the populace.
 
I hope that Todhunter realizes that resisting Big Ag’s depredations necessitates resisting the COVID Big Lie that created the ruinous lockdowns.
 

Andromon
Andromon
Jun 19, 2020 7:02 PM

Just for you information despite trenbolone steroid treated meat being illegal in the EU. Testing has found its illegal use being rampant in cattle inBelgium and Spain. And frozen chicken products from chicken raised in Thailand and Brazilcurrently sold in Britain is chlorine washed.

gordon
gordon
Jun 19, 2020 6:30 PM

in the future
why not now
gates foundation microsoft,amazon,google,apple,boots the chemist,g4s and serco will work with you from your Caesarean section birthed microsoft baby milk on
until flat pack death burnings or virgin dyson composting.
goy the revolution is here now
 
all technologies worked out perfected in china available in the homo kneeling lands
 
your birth certificate means state owner ship you did not opt out so your organs belong to the crown. you will be ventilated until organ harvesting until you are processed into pringles and vegan meat pies for tesco corpse inc and gregs soylent pie store
 
amazon microsoft google in schools now have your medical records now
 
 
the rainbow the rainbos not somewhere here
you are a product
you integrate and consent prop up the beast machine
 
get out
and close the door gently

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 9:05 PM
Reply to  gordon

Your birth certificate isn’t proof of identity (it states that on it) so they can’t prove they own you. LOLs

gordon
gordon
Jun 19, 2020 9:31 PM
Reply to  Objective

the state take thousands of children every year for blood family
 
even children from foreign parents
where the child was born and city of london certified bonded here
the birth certificate ownership
secret courts
 
you keep lol lol
what you going to do take the corporations to court if the council dead entity corporation takes your kid?

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 10:42 PM
Reply to  gordon

Thankfully for my kids & the planet i don’t have kids!
 
We’re all property of the state no one gives a toss about bits of paper anymore they moved on from that nonsense long ago. Catch up we’re all slaves to the elite.

gordon
gordon
Jun 20, 2020 11:44 AM
Reply to  Objective

nobody gives a toss A
eat your chicken
and plenty of pork

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 20, 2020 11:59 PM
Reply to  Objective

You speak for yourself.

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 20, 2020 11:58 PM
Reply to  Objective

That is true. That’s because you can’t prove that it’s your birth that it refers to.

Gwyn
Gwyn
Jun 19, 2020 4:31 PM

A highly altruistic and advanced progression of the pre-elites hunter-gatherer world.
 
This is a definition of real communism/socialism which has stuck with me since I first read it many years ago. There’s so much to love about it, not least the fact that it points out the backwardness of our current way of doing things.
 
Capitalism is a failed system. It will never serve humanity as a whole.

BFBF
BFBF
Jun 19, 2020 7:13 PM
Reply to  Gwyn

No….Corporatism has failed. We have not had real capitalism since the 50s & 60s.

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 19, 2020 8:47 PM
Reply to  BFBF

Absolutely right BFBF this article just repeats the mainstream anti capitalism meme as to switch to a global draconian totalitarian system they will call” socialism”.As thought the economic monopoly of the Central bankers that runs corrupted corporate govts is not a problem .
Its a spin for the same banksterism(with a corporate mindset) rebranded.
 

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 9:13 PM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

Socalism/capitalism is no better or worse they rely on the same premise of land control, socialism is based on the same principle, exploitation of the majority for the benefit of a minority. Any form of society leads to corruption, because leadership provides power, power always corrupts.
 
I challenge anyone to offer an example of modern socialism or capitalism that wasn’t corrupt. i’e leaderless.

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 20, 2020 12:01 AM
Reply to  Objective

As I said with the same economic system it matters not what people call the banksterism. “Capitalism and socialism” are fictional( just concepts and theory’s).Nazi said they had ” socialism” but they did not and as we have an economic monopoly we don’t have capitalism.
Those that run the economic and political system are putting out anti capitalism memes.
 
Power does not corrupt.
Greed and “wrong thinking” is in the egoic human mind , people who desire power and get into power are in a better position that others to exploit their positions and do so.But its the same corruption as a cab driver that rips people off its just on a larger scale.
So I would say the corruption( or ” evil”) is in their minds before the power.
 

Objective
Objective
Jun 20, 2020 12:07 AM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

I’d agree with most of that, the human condition can be expressed concisely in 2 words, greed & ego (i’d qualify that by saying not everyone is equally as bad).

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 21, 2020 12:02 AM
Reply to  Objective

No, the human condition is neutral. “Good” and “bad” are judgments, not objective reality.

David G. Horsman
David G. Horsman
Jun 20, 2020 5:48 AM
Reply to  Objective

Given that corruption is an intrinsic trait of humanity you will not find institutions without it. You have to manage it.

George Mc
George Mc
Jun 19, 2020 9:07 PM
Reply to  BFBF

We have not had a real boom since the 50s and 60s – this boom dependant on unrepeatable circumstances. And that’s how capitalism works.

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 20, 2020 12:03 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Banking is a big ponzi scheme. The booms they create go in cycles.

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 9:07 PM
Reply to  Gwyn

Capital = property ownership, is a fictitious concept to control us.

BFBF
BFBF
Jun 19, 2020 9:49 PM
Reply to  Objective

Money goes to money unless you have union representation of the workforce.
That was the 50 & 60s then the unions went to far resulting Thatcher / Reagan backlash and the rise of Corporatism.

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 10:47 PM
Reply to  BFBF

I defend neither & attack almost both equally (socialists have really pissed me off over this corona thing). Everything is centered around a fiction “money” the law is only there to protect wealth (property) & those that hold it, but the only true currency is human labour. that was until AI & automation. So in the next few decades humans will be freed from their slavery because they will become obsolete & we wont have to worry about scoilaism v capitalism only about starvation whilst the elite watch us die.

BFBF
BFBF
Jun 19, 2020 11:00 PM
Reply to  Objective

Thats the plandemic for you

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 20, 2020 12:04 AM
Reply to  BFBF

Unions have been corrupted.

Jill
Jill
Jun 19, 2020 2:49 PM

Everything you write about is true. I want to ask a genuine question.
 
In the US, local authorities and members of small communities (which I live in and around) have been VERY willing to commit the same atrocities of the larger entities such as fascist state governors and the federal government. Where I live, the local govt. does not have any concern whatsoever for the well being of our people. If you point out the long line at the food bank, they just glare at you. They are dead to learning anything and have no intention of making anything better in their community.
 
Meanwhile, local people who are not in govt. are calling govt. “health” authorities as a way of punishing their “enemies”. There is an incredible amount of Stazism happening here. For me, at this point, local simply means evil.
 
What you write about is predicated on a group of local people who have good will towards one another, who are willing and able to learn about many different ideas and who want their community to thrive. What happens when this isn’t the case?

Thom
Thom
Jun 19, 2020 2:49 PM

So, a bit like Brexit then. ‘Some quarters’ who voted Leave and then voted Johnson thought they would have freedom and prosperity.
Instead, Johnson gave them incarceration and poverty, under orders of his bosses/blackmailers in Washington.

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 9:16 PM
Reply to  Thom

Yet it is socialists of all descriptions so ardent about maintaining lock-down. You honestly believe starmer or corbyn would have not done the same?

Howard
Howard
Jun 19, 2020 2:36 PM

We’ve turned the world into our very own Lab Rat. You name it, we can make it: food (will that be with glyphosate or with BT?); clothing (flame retardant or cancer free today?); shelter (tiny home or McMansion?). We can even clone ourselves (with or without designer jeans?) or any part of ourselves. There’s one thing, however, that cannot be manufactured in a Lab.
 
A New Continent, replete with pristine soil bursting with microbes ready to grow crops. We’ve played one too many rounds of Russian roulette with the planet – ah, make that “Our Planet!” si vous plait. And in doing so, we’ve all but depleted the Ozone Layer; which in turn has all but killed Earth’s soils, along with the microbes which used to inhabit those soils.
 
Anything we do at this point is “Too Little, Too Late.” No amount of fertilizers will bring back the soil. Pesticides and herbicides will soon enough become superfluous because there will be no “pests” or “weeds” left to kill. And no people to kill everything else on Earth for.

Objective
Objective
Jun 19, 2020 9:18 PM
Reply to  Howard

Thats the inevitability of breeding like rabbits & subverting natural process.

Gary Wilson
Gary Wilson
Jun 20, 2020 1:58 AM
Reply to  Howard

It’s easy to restore soil. Simply increase the ability of the soil to produce protein and get out of the way allowing nature to do her thing.

Howard
Howard
Jun 20, 2020 2:47 PM
Reply to  Gary Wilson

If – and granted it’s a pretty big IF – our attempts at Full Spectrum Dominance of the planet really has damaged the ozone layer to where soil microbes are being killed faster than they can replicate, then nature can no longer “do her thing.”
 
Besides which, getting people “out of the way” is a truly Herculean task. So long as people continue believing the planet’s soil is “Our Soil,” nothing will change.

Gary Wilson
Gary Wilson
Jun 21, 2020 1:54 AM
Reply to  Howard

The reason I said that it’s easy to restore soil is because I am doing it. So far the damaged ozone layer and global warming have not inhibited the improvement in the native legume plant I am growing nor have they prevented the stream of bumblebees coming into the yard for pollen only from the legume when it flowers. Bumblebees of course, are much smarter than humans when it comes to determining the nutritional value of their food.
In fact, when it comes to determining the nutritional value of food, there is only one dumb species.

gordon
gordon
Jun 19, 2020 1:52 PM

foods have to be like this it is important…
heavy metals round up ready toxins man adjusted bacteria fungals chlorine
vaccines 5g the internet of everything
the flouride the chlorine,sugar and corn syrup acts as mega booster agents
5g israel invented phased array military weapon is trigger cooker
called it masonic talmoodick synergy

neil kneel nial take the knee
before moloch giant owl

the goy must burn
is it not
bot out

chicken and pigs are vector weapon
do eat for

how can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 21, 2020 12:02 AM
Reply to  gordon

Original except for the last bit you’ve got from Pink Floyd!

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Jun 19, 2020 12:00 PM

The opening two paragraphs came as a shock, literally. So I clicked the link and, of course, the panglossian nonsense was from the World Economic Forum, hardly a body likely to indict neoliberalism, no matter how authoritarian, despotic, murderous. What “some quarters” saw in the coronavirus hysteria was an opportunity to exploit it, to ramp up neoliberalism, to extend its reach and entrench it more deeply. And, the icing on the cake, an opportunity to shutdown all organised opposition.

sabelmouse
sabelmouse
Jun 19, 2020 11:35 AM

some quarters were/are delusional. like those who think that doing the bidding on the 1% will mean real change toward equality :))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Mikeb
Mikeb
Jun 19, 2020 10:29 AM

I think and this is just my opinion.
I don’t think that we, wherever and whatever country we’re from can do much against a determined monster business such as monsanto etc..
Thats not to say that I think they’re right because they’re not, plain and simple.
Companies that know that the products they make has a detrimental effect, controls farmers etc to buy their products because its sterile and can’t reproduce or know by having to spray their herbicide on its crops it destroys the farmers crops next door who doesn’t use their products, seeds or whatever is just plain evil.
The trouble is because people are just so plain greedy, it’s like fighting a hydra, cut off one head there’s still more there.
And when finally you think, “thats it, that’s the last head!”
They were busy growing a new one in the lab to replace that one and off you go again.
I think while the world is the way it is we have literally no chance.
Sounds defeatist I know but look at the farmers in India that commited suicide because of it.
Did they care? Did it make a difference? Maybe, for now.
The Indian government saw, didn’t like it much and yes they’ve cut royalties to monsanto, again.
For now they seem wise to it.
How long will that last?
All it will take to reverse that is another corrupt official that wants a nice house in mumbai or some such.
Then all that works gone again, all for nought.
It’s like a self repeating cycle back to the three monkeys, no speaky, no hear, no see.
The fact that theres an agenda everywhere with pretty much everything.
Mainly greed, I want this I want that, I want my fifth house to be in L.A. Even though I’ve never even been in the other four.
And then you have the other level, the your in my way and you suddenly have a family member find they have cancer or been suicided by being locked in a holdall or crashed into a tree to make you comply or back down.
What shadowy figure gave the order? It’s like the cloud for all the worlds information or clintons deleted emails, good luck finding the order in the email or the cloud.
Circles within circles, like ripples on a pond.
Sorry for rambling but its like the new agroforestry where crops are grown under the canopy in forests, they’ve found it to be very good and beneficial for the crops, trees and seems to be the way forward for us as a species if we stop deforesting and see that not everything has to be super modern, or super genetically engineered to be good.
We all know what would happen if this really took off don’t we?
Amazingly the forests would repeatedly burn down, be accidentally sprayed with agent orange from an ahem, russian plane, or maybe chinese…
My long point being, I think as a species the only way to get rid of those in charge that keep us from evolving and becoming something better for ourselves AND this planet is for something bad to happen the world over and for us to learn from our mistakes and restart as we mean to go on.
But again, some of those in power would survive and try and reinpose their will again.
Self repeating cycle on and on it goes, someone always wants, needs more don’t they.

rachel
rachel
Jun 19, 2020 1:25 PM
Reply to  Mikeb

nobody bad is in power. think before you give power to dark forces. that is what the three monkeys means. i see it, i like it, i want it, i got it.

Mikeb
Mikeb
Jun 19, 2020 2:26 PM
Reply to  rachel

Honestly, nobody bad is in power?
you can’t seriously believe that?
heres just one examole of bad people in power…
https://www.rt.com/news/492170-berlin-pedophiles-foster-children/
you can rip these off the net all day long.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 19, 2020 10:07 PM
Reply to  Mikeb

Are none of them psyops?

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 19, 2020 10:06 PM
Reply to  Mikeb

This: Boycotts. With major perps, boycott everything they touch.

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Jun 19, 2020 10:14 AM

The author’s analysis is right but the conclusion is not as easy as setting up citizen juries. We need something much bigger.
 
Here’s the problem: A small group is trying to seize control of the global economy but they must use force; they can get no further by peace. The resource wars are no longer about land but about human resources: the people are no longer consumers but a cost base to be exploited or solved. The Great Reset: Eliminating the points at which populations cost money and find new ways to monetize the masses.
 
There’s a problem: it won’t work. A market economy is no longer possible once the same interests control more than X% of the market. You get Dirigisme, Gosplan, the banks/corporations/interests supplant the economy. The corporation IS the government IS the corporation. All dominant interests serve the same interests.
 
The winners have to win so you get managed outcomes. Those interests censor information contrary to their own interests resulting in a filter bubble: the narrower the sources of information, the more they gain authority. Information is reinforced as it becomes detached from reality. Knowledge is replaced by a model of the world outside.
 
Here’s the evidence: Look at the proposals at the World Economic Forum and the World Wildlife Fund revealed this past month. No! Not the cozy panda or the claims that it’s to ‘save the climate’. That is all a front, like Covid, like vaccines, like the offer of a techtronic future where your fridge tells your car to go collect groceries. Read the proposals from WEF and WWF: you won’t have a car and you will be content with your ration.
 
Look the Commodity Traders, Industrial Chemicals, GM seeds and fertilizers, Amazon and UN2030 and Agenda 21… DNA-altering Big Pharma working together with Big Tech to map your DNA, trace contacts and work with the Banks to determine your social credit and digital wallet… Now interpret: what does those elements working together mean for the world you are going to live in?
 
If you need convincing that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have always been a Trojan horse for banks and corporations and the vested interests behind them, watch the documentary Princes of the Yen.
 
Look at the narrow strata of interests behind them. Who owns them? Then look at the tax-exempt foundations and the future they are discussing. What do they use their philanthropy to promote?
 
They will Map the Future but it will not work. The best analogy is from plants. Back in the 1930s the dust bowl was largely man made. So was the Irish famine of the 1840s. In both cases farmers had abandoned diversity and planted the same few high-yielding varieties of corn and potatoes. When the blight came it spread rapidly through identical varieties and the bulk of the crop got wiped out. Managed outcomes have a habit of backfiring.
 
The famous Soviet technocrat Trofim Lysenko claimed that wheat could be modified, forced to adapt to the environment, and that he could grow winter wheat to solve the problem of Russia’s short growing season. Biology was a social construct. Plants, like people, are created by their environment. They can be modified in real time.
 
Lysenko’s words were like music to the ears of the Marxist establishment because the had caused one famine already, in 1932-33, by repressing the successful farmers and centralizing control of agriculture. That killed an estimated 10 million people.
 
Winter wheat was to be a managed outcome, a technocratic solution to a human problem: the need to close the market economy and remove political opposition by repressing the small farmers and small business. Out with the old science, in with the new: Lysenko captured political minds, censored research he didn’t agree with, imprisoned geneticists and banned whole fields of research. The result was more famine.
 
Centralization and globalization by the same interests behind the same banks and corporations cannot work except by force and enslavement. Even then it will not be sustainable.
 
Innovation does not happen in totalitarian economies because by definition the outcomes must benefit a specific interest group. That is why the fascists and the Bolsheviks both worshiped Ford! He’s right there in Brave New World: Our Ford. They loved his ideas but they could not make them work. They had to import innovation from the USA. They bought whole production lines, entire factories from Ford. The same thing will happen with the glorious Globalist, One-World, Carbon Neutral, Climate Friendly, Soylent Paradise. Except we won’t have the USA.
 
We are being sold a lie: That we’ll get our digital comforts in a controlled society – yet wealth is rationed… … … Equity for all: everybody gets what they deserve – yet everyone gets the same… … … Surveillance and social control – yet with the freedom to innovate.
 
These goals are not compatible. Technocracy = corporatism = fascism = reactionary. We are being sold a lie in the guise of the need to “save the planet” or “save the environment” or “rebel against extinction” or “fight the carbon” or “fight the virus” but the answer is always the same: give up your liberties, close down the market, centralize control.
 
The cult around Elon Musk is cultural programming to convince us that some brilliant guys have all the answers. Strangely he’s also a carmaker like Henry Ford. Talk about history repeating itself! We don’t need to innovate because Musk/Ford has done it for us. They’re just so incredible we can trust them to save the planet, solve the energy crisis and give us every imaginable high tech toy.
 
Technology as a gift from the gods is a central part of the lie. Hollywood and the media sell the myth that our digital age was invented by those bespectacled geeks in white coats at MIT and Stanford and Silicon Valley and DARPA… … All that good stuff comes from the liberal technocratic elite. Yet look how they treated Dr Shiva Ayyadurai – launching a coordinated slander in the popular mechanical press – all because a guy from a poor background in India can prove he invented email.
 
Innovation has never come from the top. Let alone from a small group at the top. Innovation has always come from mavericks outside the system. But an interest group can only dominate by repressing the majority — especially the mavericks and individualists, and the awkward, introverted sods who don’t wear masks and have no social distancing skills and don’t even hear the orders because they don’t watch TV.
 
Links and more at: https://moneycircus.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-elite-technocrats-are-lying-about.html
 
 

Oggy
Oggy
Jun 19, 2020 8:32 AM

The Author tells of a way forward, inclusivity,peoples assemblies,participatory actions,sounds to me like Anarcho/Socialism as practiced in Greek villages at the end of WW2 after kicking the Nazis out,only for themselves to be eliminated by the British and Amercan Military as dare I say it too Commie for Capital interests,also in Spain under Repuplican controlled areas until that was dispensed with by the Stalinist’s helping the Falangist’s.My main point is that if people are left to decide themselves on a way forward it can be done.The flip side is the weaponry and highly trained Mercenaries will be employed by the Ruling Class to suppress this like in the past.

Arsebiscuits
Arsebiscuits
Jun 19, 2020 10:08 AM
Reply to  Oggy

Basically they don’t want a ruling class

They want to be the ruling class.

Eddie John
Eddie John
Jun 19, 2020 11:02 AM
Reply to  Arsebiscuits

Basically they want the planet for a chosen few.

gordon
gordon
Jun 19, 2020 2:00 PM
Reply to  Eddie John

i am semite
and you are being anti ashkanazim
which is in fact worse than anti semitism

ohhhh ohhh ohhh how the khazar the friends of jacob frank and zvi

have suffered throughout eternity

let them b
already
my life

Glenda
Glenda
Jun 19, 2020 4:49 AM

Some years ago a New Zealand couple went to India to teach farmers how to go back to traditional methods using heritage seeds and compost as there were so many suicides caused by exorbitant cost of seeds and pesticides from Monsanto. Yields increased dramatically and costs went down. So sad that regardless of that small success nothing has changed. And the images of the poor villagers walking for days to return home because of the COVID lockdown so depressing as these villagers should have been able to stay home and work the land. Maybe if people cut down meat consumption and demanded grass-fed instead of buying meat from feedlot raised animals there would be less production of monocultures for feed – not their natural food anyway. Surely Professor Lang can do something? I think he has been fighting this battle for quite some time. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/22/tim-lang-interview-professor-of-food-policy-city-university-supply-chain-crisis

Dors
Dors
Jun 19, 2020 11:26 AM
Reply to  Glenda

I suggest avoiding posting links to the guardian’s wesbite, for the reasons you can read here: http://archive.is/oGNYB#selection-513.0-513.21

 
 

Glenda
Glenda
Jun 19, 2020 11:56 PM
Reply to  Dors

Apologies Dors. Thank you for the link.

rachel
rachel
Jun 19, 2020 2:17 PM
Reply to  Glenda

it was in a film you can find called one man, one cow, one planet i believe. biodynamic agriculture. interesting but i dont think the cow is exactly needed. you could play with your own doo doo:)

Matt
Matt
Jun 19, 2020 4:46 AM

https://www.dw.com/en/georgians-death-in-berlin-was-a-russian-ordered-assassination-prosecutors-believe/a-53860911

Poor, poor Russia.

Russia is always the victim.

Russia didn’t do anything wrong.

Must’ve been a CIA/NATO/Mossad false flag lol.

Why isn’t this fake news website covering this incident as it did with Skirpal? Maybe it’s because the criminal behind it was actually caught, leaving no room for plausible deniability on the part of Russia? The criminal was actually in prison up until recently. He was then suddenly released and his name cleared from criminal records. Russian intelligence has a bad habit of recruiting prisoners to do their dirty work in exchange for light sentences/freedom.

Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Jun 19, 2020 7:49 AM
Reply to  Matt

”In any German response, the main question will be whether Berlin decides to respond by itself or if it calls on allies for support, according to Andras Racz, a senior fellow for Russia and Eastern Europe at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
 
Racz said the UK chose a multilateral response following the murder of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, which resulted in over 150 Russian diplomats being expelled from all over Europe. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, chose a bilateral response when a Russian diplomat was accused of trying to murder a Czech diplomat. That led to tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats from each country.”
 
Part of the Report in a German publication Deutsche Welle. Please note it is almost a year out of date, reference is made to the ‘unimpeachable’ source ”German Council on Foreign Relations” any relation to the US Council of Foreign Relations by any chance? Skirpal’s ‘‘MURDER” they can’t even get that right, and the alleged demise of the ”Chechen Rebel” translation ‘Jihadist’.
 
Looks like off-Guardian has become a target for spooks, illiterates, trolls and neo-con crackpots

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Jun 19, 2020 8:28 AM
Reply to  Matt

So…. Matt. If this site is ‘fake news’, can you point me to sites that are purveyors of real news, and don’t try to hoodwink their readers.
Give me 3 or 4 names, and I’ll check them out.
Also, you seem to have a bit of an issue going on with Russia and its blood drenched tyrannical dictator.
I mean, we here in the freedom loving, democracy loving, human rights loving West must defend our ‘values’ at all costs. Aye.
Maybe that’s why we’ve helped to destroy entire countries like Vietnam, Libya, Syria and Iraq. Oh, and let’s not forget what was done to Fallujah. Or Cambodia. Or Chile. Or Guatemala. Or Nicaragua. Or the death squads in El Salvador, or monsters like Mobutu, Rios Montt, Pinochet. I could go on all day.
Maybe also take a close look who was behind the Jihadist headchoppers in Syria.

aspnaz
aspnaz
Jun 20, 2020 1:10 AM
Reply to  Matt

You call this site fake because of Skripal? You really believe the UK government’s Skripal story? How does that work? Russia is competent enough to assassinate someone in Berlin but is totally inept when it comes to assassinating someone in the UK?
 
How do you get your brain to believe both that Russia assassinations are both totally inept and also thoroughly efficient? Please explain how this lack of logic works.
 
I am sure that to readers of OG, it is not possible to be both totally inept and totally brilliant at the same task, life doesn’t work that way. Personally I think the Skripal story is bunk because I am certain that countries such as Russia do not put so much money into training their security services just so that their operatives assassinate like little children. There are lots of very efficient killers out there and I am sure that Russia employs its fair share.

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 21, 2020 12:05 AM
Reply to  Matt

Don’t worry Matt, I still think I hold the record for downvotes for saying something nice about Laura Kuenssberg.

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 19, 2020 4:13 AM

We don’t have capitalism .
This article is BS spin for some NWO socialism ( like nazi socialism) with digital coinage.
We have banksterism as private bankers LOAN money to the govt in your name ( debt slavery system).
Yes we should look at the systems as none of them work as they are all corporate( mind set) and they are the bankers monopolies.
Food, Medicine,Transport . Education,social engineering, media…
https://eyreinternational.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/the-new-world-order-part-1/

George Mc
George Mc
Jun 19, 2020 7:40 AM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

We’ve always had capitalism. Capitalism has been the new world order since the peasants were thrown off their land to starve or serve in hellish slave factories.

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 19, 2020 8:54 PM
Reply to  George Mc

No we haven’t .We have a economic monopoly, we have central banking and they also run your corporate govt.The govt deosn’t work for you nor does the bank.
The govt tells you you have ” capitalism” .
Go try and create money or ask your govt why they can’t.

George Mc
George Mc
Jun 19, 2020 10:45 PM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

“We” do not have an “economic monopoly” – whatever that means. There are numbers of businesses and some of them have become bloated monstrosities who, as they get bigger and bigger, have more and more control.
 
Ever since the rise of capitalism, the govt has provided the framework for capitalism to operate by e.g. providing public services that businesses need to operate (road system, law and order to uphold private property rights etc.)
 
The govt doesn’t “tell me” I have capitalism. Indeed “capitalism” is a word not normally voiced at all. (The gentleman who doesn’t like to hear his name mentioned.)   
 
And as those corporations get bigger, they gain more power and can rewrite the law, which was already in their favour, to suit themselves even better. And yet they still have to maximise their profits on a competitive basis.

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 21, 2020 12:07 AM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

I tend to think that “capitalism” and “socialism” are subjects that a lot of people have opinions about without really understanding what the words mean.

rachel
rachel
Jun 19, 2020 2:34 PM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

it is function of oneness. seeing value in the good of all that makes money work.

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 19, 2020 8:58 PM
Reply to  rachel

rachel no it doesn’t. its the mass indoctrination from childhood ending in a belief in the value of a piece of paper.
Its paper.
Or belief in a digital number .
The Banksters have tricked you into believing .
And only they can create it.
Thats not capitalism its banksterism.

aspnaz
aspnaz
Jun 20, 2020 1:15 AM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

It has nothing to do with “belief”. To get your daily food you either buy it with the pieces of paper, grow your own or get given it. Everything else is illegal and property rights are enforced. You make it sound as if the prison bars are all in our imagination and don’t really exist.

John Pretty
John Pretty
Jun 21, 2020 12:08 AM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

Hmm, just lets see how we go if suddenly everyone loses confidence in the concept of money. Stalin thought he had the answer.

steadydirt
steadydirt
Jun 19, 2020 2:29 AM

Mr. Todhunter must be thanked for his work such as this.

Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Jun 19, 2020 4:13 AM
Reply to  steadydirt

“Thanks for nothing”

Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Jun 19, 2020 8:00 AM
Reply to  Calamity Jane

This is a piece regarding Deutsche Welle from the Guardian of all places.
 
Jad Salfiti in Berlin
Published on
Tue 14 Jan 2020 12.49 GMT
 
Sexual harassment, racism, antisemitism and severe bullying have taken place at the state-funded German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, staff members have told the Guardian.
 
Mid- and top-level managers ignored, targeted or silenced staff who spoke out, dismissing them or restricting their shifts, according to former and current staff members.
 
Deutsche Welle, which is financed by tax revenue, has around 1,500 employees and is comparable to the BBC World Service. It launched in 1953 and produces content on TV, radio and online in 30 languages.
 
“DW is a swamp,” one staff member said. “The irregularities are systemic: journalistic, political, ethical. There is no way to clean this system from within. The financier of DW, which is the German parliament, must take responsibility and investigate what’s happening.”
 

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Jun 19, 2020 7:56 PM
Reply to  Donald Duck

We can only be grateful that such things have never happened at the BBC.