WHY???
Originally posted on Filosofa's Word:
41 million people in the United States alone do not have enough food to eat. That’s more than 12% of the population in a nation that sells itself as a “great” country, and where… Continue reading WHY???
Tag: Agriculture
Must the Poor Always be With Us?
Yesterday, fellow blogger Sha’Tara, aka Burning Woman, posted up a collection of “Anarchist memes, facts and headlines”. I challenged one of them in the comments. Another demands a longer response. The world spent $1735 Billion dollars on war in 2012. It would take approximately $135 Billion dollars to totally eradicate (systemic) poverty. For the sake of complete transparency I must admit a few things so that my readers can understand any bias I might bring to my analysis. First, I used to be a pacifist. I gave that up after giving serious consideration to the need to overcome tyranny – … Continue reading Must the Poor Always be With Us?
Community vs Individualism
The post from Felicity Sidnel about cohousing that I re-blogged recently reminded me of something I read whilst researching the Irish famine of 1845-51. Prior to this traumatic event there existed in parts of the North West of the island a system of communal land occupation and cultivation known as rundale. It had remained unchanged for many centuries¹. It continued even though legal ownership of the land might be vested in a landlord with ties to the British mainland. The people resided in a cluster of homes called a clachan. The adjacent land radiated out from the cluster and was … Continue reading Community vs Individualism
Final Solutions: the road from Scapegoat to Genocide
A recent article in the Irish on-line newspaper thejournal.ie, reporting on calls for the annual commemoration of the 19th century potato famine to have a fixed date, drew an inevitable spate of comments pointing out that this event was really an example of genocide. Are such claims fair? The starting point for my response is to look at motives. If you believe that the responsibility for the economic and/or social problems being faced in a particular place or time can be laid at the door of a specific group of people you are embarking on a journey that certainly can … Continue reading Final Solutions: the road from Scapegoat to Genocide
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