Should The Greedy Control Our Food??

    It is obvious that climate change is happening, floods, droughts, extreme storms, along with rising temperatures is no longer a prediction, it is here and now. Of course, as is always the case in this capitalist world, when things go wrong it is always the poor and the low waged that pay the highest price. The adverse conditions are creating havoc with our agriculture, which transfers into higher prices for our food. It is symbolic of the insanity of this greed driven capitalist system, that as food prices are rising across the planet, and people can't afford the food the help to grow, or serve in restaurants, governments across the world are dismantling social services.

     One problem that we don't hear much about is the drought in California. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 67% of the state of California is classified as “extreme”, a further 9% is “exceptional”, this means wells running dry, no where for cattle to graze, forcing farmers to sell off their livestock, creating a shortage of dairy produce, glut of meat and then a shortage meat. Some scientists claim that 2013/14 is the driest season for 434 years. California is the top agriculture producer in the U.S. And one of the largest in the world, producing beef, dairy produce, wine, and some of the largest fruit and vegetable crops.

      Why should we worry if California goes dry? Well America is a large, rich and powerful country, when it runs out of food, it starts to suck in more from an already suffering world, creating greater shortages and higher prices. Europe is not exempt from the effects of climate change, scientist state that in southern Europe, from southern France through Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and to the Balkans, stream and river minimum flow could fall by as much as 40% and in periods of drought that could increase to 80%. This of course would result in food shortages in this area, being exacerbated by the the mighty dollar sucking in food from this and other areas.

      It is also very obvious that if we continue to let “market forces” sort things out, a group of rich people will make a killing from the food crisis, the rich will feed very well indeed, as they usually do, and the poor will go hungry and increase in numbers. Tackling climate change is only one part of the solution, but is to little avail if we don't sort out the system of distribution of the world's food. At the present the food is there to see to our needs, the problem is who owns it, and who decides its distribution method. The “market” is no more than a euphemism for a “bunch of greedy rich bastards”, do we really want them to be in control of OUR survival? 

 

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NECESSARY HASTE.

       While we the public slowly try to organise against cuts here, there and everywhere, the millionaire cabal is racing ahead with its plans to demolish the NHS as we know it. Of course the Cameron/Clegg duo rhetoric, may not sound like that of wreckers, but what they are doing is wrecking a public service irreversibly and leaving the pieces to be picked over and devoured by greedy profit seeking corporations. The introduction of market forces and competition into the NHS will make it subject to EU competition law and the Gatt free trade agreement, which suits the big corporations but removes any form of control away from representative and volunteer bodies. Fair dealing between the faceless corporations will be the aim, not the health and well being of the people it was set up to attend to, it will be another product to be milked for the benefit of shareholders.

     The same process is being carried out with considerable haste, in education, penal system and defence, with market forces being in the driving seat. Higher education has more or less been privatised with university grants cut by up to 80% and students having to fund the shortfall.

     Of course the millionaire cabal are not unduly worried about the anger of the people as we have a mainly right wing media that does not inform but spits out the free market ideology, the mainstream media is the propaganda unit of the free market millionaires and should be ignored.

      We should, with necessary haste, try to grasp the truth behind the smooth, “all in this together” and “fair and necessary austerity cuts” rhetoric, once all has been privatised, public services, health, education, penal system and anything else that can be turned into a profit, what control will we have over any aspect of society? If it doesn't produce a profit, it will wither and die. How long will it take to get back some semblance of control over the things that matter in our lives? Remember, it took us hundreds of years to get some of the benefits that we currently enjoy, relinquishing them into the hands of the corporate world will turn us into slaves of the corporate beast. A beast more ruthless than most slave masters of the past.

      Nothing short of a pan-European general strike will halt this daring dash of the free market ideology. It is not a country wide problem, it is a pan-European problem and will only be solved when we bring an end to the corporate fascism that is infesting every aspect of societies across the planet.

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