The term industrial revolution, commonly used to describe the period between 1750 and 1850, is a pure bourgeois lie, symmetrical to the lie about the political revolution. It does not include the negative and flows from a vision of history as uniquely the history of technological progress. Here the enemy deals a double blow, legitimizing the existence of managers and hierarchy as unavoidable technical necessities, and imposing a mechanical conception of progress, which is considered a positive and socially neutral law. It is the religious moment of materialism and the idealism of matter. Such a lie was obviously destined for the poor, among whom it was to inflict long lasting destruction.

In fifteen months at the beginning of the second decade of the last century a movement of craft workers and their supporters declared war on the then emerging industrial society.
The movement spread across the Northern counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire , Cheshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It smashed thousands of machines, looted markets, burned down factories and spread hope of a way out of the bleak future being offered the majority of the British people. It was a movement that, in the words of the late radical historian E.P. Thompson; 'in sheer insurrectionary fury has rarely been more widespread in English History,".

When examining the historical phenomenon of community gardening, one quickly learns that urban gardening projects have traditionally been initiated due to a local or global economic crisis. The modern presence of community gardening is no different. The catalyst to the contemporary utilization of community gardening projects can be contributed to the neoliberal corporate restructuring of society and has evolved into a social movement seeking alternative ways of developing a new vision of what society ought to be.

By Ron Drouillard

We are all being pushed, at breakneck speed, toward a future that promises catastrophic global climate change, depleted natural resources, environmental degradation and human chaos and suffering on an apocalyptic scale. One hundred and twenty species of life are erased from the planet each day.

By Dahr Jamail

"It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself, when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks."
-Malcolm X

If someone broke into your house, pinned down your loved ones and began pouring poison down their throats, would you stop that person?

Resistance Is Fertile:
Smashing Green Capitalism & Letting Green Anarchy Grow

By Luna’s Light Warrior

At first, the numbers don't seem to add up. The world produces more food than ever—enough to feed twice the global population. Yet, more people than ever suffer from hunger; and their numbers are rising. Today, 854 million people, most of them women and girls, are chronically hungry, up from 800 million in 1996. Another paradox: the majority of the world's hungry people live in rural areas, where nearly all food is grown.

By Yifat Susskind
Special Contribution
The Seoul Times
October 23, 2007

Hunger becomes a global issue

We would like to bring attention to an amazing website, gleantheplanet.org

Launched in February 2007, the site is a resource of information about free food and free society. Please visit:

http://www.gleantheplanet.com

[WGGC Note**
This article demonstrates how the artificial needs of industry is taking precedence over the food security of people around the world. It shows how american corporate globalization is dependent on state subsidies while boasting itself as a champion of "free trade". It also shows how biofuels are in fact helping to ruin the environment.
**]

By Noam Chomsky

As the world population swells to nine billion by 2050, global biodiversity will be under extreme pressure unless new ways to grow food are developed, experts say.

By Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, May 2 (IPS) - As the world population swells to nine billion by 2050, global biodiversity will be under extreme pressure unless new ways to grow food are developed, experts say.

There must be an earnest effort in sustaining the health of oneself. Anyone who does not do this is to all extents insane, there are plenty humans who consciously do not preserve their own health. To accomplish this feat a person must put forth an effort in sustaining their environment by preserving biodiversity. This should be accomplished not for the sake of humankind, but for life. A shift must occur from preservation for the purposes of exploitation and infantile self gratification towards the purposes of an integrated community and a strong sense and love for place.

Destructive behavior can be sustained for long periods of time. A self destructive empire may endure for thousands of years, in time though, today's empires will undoubtedly become tomorrow's ashes. In the promotion of sustainability it is useless in the practical sense of the term to speak of States responsibilities and choices, using such harmless words as should and ought to. The choices lie with the people and it starts with education. The States obligation lies in the peoples enforcement of accountability. The bosses must fear the factory floor.

by Richard Heinberg

MuseLetter 175 / November 2006

Note: This is the abbreviated text of a lecture by Richard Heinberg delivered
to the E F Schumacher Society in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on October 28 2006.

There was a time not so long ago when famine was an expected, if not accepted,
part of life. Until the 19th century - whether in China, France, India or
Britain - food came almost entirely from local sources and harvests were
variable. In good years, there was plenty - enough for seasonal feasts and for
storage in anticipation of winter and hard times to come; in bad years,

Famine in Somalia
It's not a natural disaster : It's murder

THE FAMINE in Somalia has once again focussed attention on the problems of the less developed countries. Much of the response to the crisis is a short term one in the form of food aid. However in order to understand the causes of this and other famines in Africa it is necessary to race back the roots of the problem to colonisation and imperialism. It is necessary to focus on the political economic and social policies pursued in post-colonial times which perpetuate recurring famine and crisis. The role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are crucial in understanding what is really happening.

Thought for food
From http://www.worldsocialism.org/

The food industry under capitalism is part of the problem of starvation and malnutrition, not its solution.

Of all the ways in which capitalism means extremes of poverty and privilege, deprivation and excess, none is greater than in the production, distribution and consumption of food. According to Oxfam, 800 million of the world's 6.5 billion population are malnourished, while two billion have a diet which is lacking in essential vitamins and minerals. At the same time obesity in the industrialised countries is on the increase. Obesity is not usually the result of eating too much good food - it is a working-class condition stemming from cheap food that adds bulk but not nutrition.

Private property is one of the three things all anarchists oppose, along side hierarchical authority and the state. Today, the dominant system of private property is capitalist in nature and, as such, anarchists tend to concentrate on this system and its property rights regime. We will be reflecting this here but do not, because of this, assume that anarchists consider other forms of private property regime (such as, say, feudalism) as acceptable. This is not the case -- anarchists are against every form of property rights regime which results in the many working for the few.

Anarchist opposition to private property rests on two, related, arguments. These were summed up by Proudhon's maxims (from What is Property? that "property is theft" and "property is despotism." In his words, "Property . . . violates equality by the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism . . . [and has] perfect identity with robbery." [Proudhon, What is Property, p. 251] Anarchists, therefore, oppose private property (i.e. capitalism) because it is a source of coercive, hierarchical authority as well as exploitation and, consequently, elite privilege and inequality. It is based on and produces inequality, in terms of both wealth and power.

No one should ever work.

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.

That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a *ludic* conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive. Doubtless we all need a lot more time for sheer sloth and slack than we ever enjoy now, regardless of income or occupation, but once recovered from employment-induced exhaustion nearly all of us want to act. Oblomovism and Stakhanovism are two sides of the same debased coin.

Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create anarchy, "the absence of a master, of a sovereign." [P-J Proudhon, What is Property , p. 264] In other words, anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control - be that control by the state or a capitalist - as harmful to the individual and their individuality as well as unnecessary.

In the words of anarchist L. Susan Brown:

"While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent, anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced tradition then a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary for society, and instead advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical forms of social, political and economic organisation." [The Politics of Individualism, p. 106]

With the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and its economic support in 1989 as well as the tightening up of the US economic embargo, Cuba suddenly plunged into its worst economic crisis since the 1959 Revolution. Officially dubbed the Special Period in Time of Peace, the ongoing economic crisis has had a devastating impact on Cuban food security. Cuban agriculture, which was highly dependent on chemical inputs from the Soviet Union, suddenly confronted a reduction of over 50% in oil, fertilizer, and pesticide imports. Meanwhile, food imports also dropped off as Cuba's total import bill shrank by up to 70% between 1989 and 1993. As Fidel Castro himself stated in 1991: "The food question has the number one priority."