Here is another example of how we have allowed “The Market” to subvert Humanity into working for it, rather than “The Market” working for Humanity.

“Thanks to market distortions, public subsidies and tax avoidance, corporate oligopoly power in the food system actually results in a massive transfer of resources from farmers, workers, and consumers into the coffers of an ever-smaller number of transnational companies.” — Vern Grubinger

Sounds about like the energy system too!

Bright Future for Farming: Vermont Can Lead the Way

By: Vern Grubinger

The commerce of food, and therefore farming, is dominated by oligopolies. At every level—from sales of agricultural inputs, to purchasing of raw commodities, to processing of food into branded products, to retailing of food to consumers—a handful of enormous corporations control a majority of the transactions.

For example, major suppliers of chemicals and seeds for farmers are Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta. Purchases of raw products produced from farmers are dominated by Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, ConAgra, Smithfield, and Tyson/IBP. Food manufacturing giants that create most of the branded products on store shelves are Coca-Cola, Mars, Nestlé, Pepsico, Philip Morris, and Unilever. And finally, a huge share of these products are sold to consumers at stores owned by Ahold (Stop and Shop, Giant, Tops), Albertsons (Hannafords, Shaws, Star Market), Carrefour, Kroger, Wal-Mart, and a few others.

The clout of the top food retailers in the world staggers the imagination. Wal-Mart has 5,760 stores in 13 countries with $285 billion in sales. Carrefour has 11,080 stores in 37 countries with $90 billion in sales. Ahold has 7,078 stores in 15 countries with $65 billion in sales. Kroger operates 4,169 stores in the U.S. with $56 billion in retail sales. By comparison, the 120 food co-ops in the national cooperative grocers association have annual retail sales of $625 million.

The situation is not unique to farming and food; a similar scenario exists in banking, books, hardware, movies, music…you name it, even beer. A handful of multinational corporations dominate in many specific market categories where new companies rarely succeed; those that do are purchased or run out of business.

Some people say that it is precisely this economic system that brings us abundant and cheap food. But the problem, according to the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative, is that “far too few consumers realize that they actually pay for their ‘cheap food’ three times: at the check-out counter, again through their tax bill, and finally by assuming the long-term social and environmental costs of unsustainable production methods. Thanks to market distortions, public subsidies and tax avoidance, corporate oligopoly power in the food system actually results in a massive transfer of resources from farmers, workers, and consumers into the coffers of an ever-smaller number of transnational companies.”

Read the entire essay here.

By Dr Farooq Hassan

The Nation 8 March 06

The strategic implications of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of the cartoons blaspheming holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are spreading in several directions. It has caused great anger and hurt the Muslim world. One fundamental implication is clear. The public furore has assumed an antagonistic posture towards Western political interests and those of its supporters. Even Condoleezza Rice was constrained to note publicly that this “severe” Islamic condemnation of caricatures was getting out of hand and threatening to block “the progress that the US was endeavouring to achieve” on many international fronts.

As a result, worldwide agitation and protests have evidently become a terrifying prospect for policymakers of countries such as Pakistan where democracy has been held hostage by the army. So much is the government shaken that it had to vote for a condemnatory parliamentary resolution. A countrywide protest and strike resulted in severe destruction of public property. The government agreed to participate in the national anti-blasphemy protest on 3rd March, the day President Bush came to Islamabad. The reason for the government’s dilemma is obvious. It is petrified that if it supports even by lip service the Islamists’ call, it gets doomed in the eyes of its Western benefactors including Washington. If it does what it wants to really do, it is doomed to an unceremonious ouster as it has no political base among the people. Besides, it loses credibility in Washington and elsewhere that he can turn the screw at will against fundamentalist forces.

Read the whole essay here.

That is the question.

I recently stumbled on an essay by Thomas Keane in the The Boston Globe Magazine of March 19th: Strings Attached .

Keane does a marvelous job of articulating a particular and very conventional point of view on municipal wireless projects: They are a bad idea as they represent government competing with the private sector. He even makes the tired, old joke about “Hi! I’m from the government, and I am here to help you.

This is, of course, only one possible point of view. There are more innovative points of view that I would have expected a venture capitalist, as a taker of risks in the name of innovation, to articulate and embrace.

My essay on Wireless Civic and Economic Development is an example of such another point of view. It supports the new joke going around: Hi! I’m from the private sector, and I am here to help you.

… So, look for more than just catchy lyrics, look for the singer-songwriters of the political process, those that are encouraging the audience to sing along. Then, join in, make your own music. Let’s make democracy a beautiful thing again.

Why have we not heard of the 300,000 to 500,000 people who demonstrated in Chicago on Friday?

“300,000 to 500,000 people marched in Chicago to protest The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005.”

Or this major development:

“Now comes the conservative American Bar Association–400,000 lawyers–whose House of Delegates has overwhelmingly approved a task force report accusing President Bush, in polite legal language, of violating both the Constitution and federal law. ABA President Michael S. Greco sent it to Mr. Bush with a cover letter dated February 13, 2006.” — Ralph Nader.

Why is the Mainstream Media [MSM] failing to report these stories? Google these stories and you will see that the MSM are missing in action. A conspiracy of silence.

Is it because they fear the restoration of the primacy of the people over Mammon’s market?