D4net Netwerk voor Dromers, Denkers, Durvers en Doeners

By Peter Staudenmaier

In June, 1910, Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, began a speaking tour of Norway with a lecture to a large and attentive audience in Oslo.  The lecture series was titled “The Mission of Nati

onal Souls in Relation to Nordic-Germanic Mythology.”  In the Oslo lectures Steiner presented his theory of “folk souls” or “national souls” (Volksseelen in German, Steiner’s native tongue) and paid particular attention to the mysterious wonders of the “Nordic spirit.”  The “national souls” of Northern and Central Europe belonged, Steiner explained, to the “Germanic-Nordic” peoples, the world’s most spiritually advanced ethnic group, which was in turn the vanguard of the highest of five historical “root races.”  This superior fifth root race, Steiner told his Oslo audie

nce, was naturally the “Aryan” race. 1

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Esther Vivas is lid van het Centrum voor de Studie van Sociale Bewegingen (Centro de Estudios sobre Movimientos Sociales) aan de Universidad Pompeu Fabra van Barcelona.

Een nieuwe voedselcrisis slaat toe. De voedselprijzen zijn volgens de index van voedselprijzen van de FAO, de VN-organisatie voor Voedsel en Landbouw, van februari 2011, opnieuw tot recordniveaus gestegen. De FAO analyseert maandelijks wereldwijd de prijzen van basisvoedingsproducten zoals graan, olie, zuivelproducten, vlees en suiker. Esther Vivas analyseert de voedselspeculatie.

De index bereikte een nieuw historisch maximum, het hoogste sinds de FAO de voedselprijzen in 1990 begon te analyseren. De prijzen zijn tijdens de laatste maanden gestabiliseerd, maar analisten voorspellen in de komende maanden nog meer schommelingen.

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How European Financial Reforms Ignore Developing Countries and Sustainability

I went to the Occupy Wall Street march last week, as part of the NYC food justice delegation. We carried baskets of farmers’ market vegetables and signs reading “Stop Gambling on Hunger” and “Food Not Bonds.” Food justice advocates came out from around the city—urban farmers, gardeners, youth, professors, union members, and community organizers. The vegetables attracted a lot of attention. Food so often attracts a lot of attention—the New York Times is just one of the outlets to focus in recent days on the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park. What was more surprising were all of the puzzled looks we got from the bloggers, photographers, and other marchers who wanted to talk to us. “What’s the connection here with food?” we were asked many times.

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Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Aric McBay call for new strategy to stave off environmental catastrophe. August 6, 2011  |   Environmental groups are trying to build a critical mass around issues like global warming to inspire public action and encourage legislators to get their heads out of the sand. The Sierra Club is working to block new coal burning power plants, a new coalition is organizing actions against a tar sands pipeline, and folks in West Virginia are sitting in trees in an attempt to halt destructive strip mining. It's great work, but what if it's not enough? What if it's too little, too late? What if we never get enough mass for it to ever reach that critical point?

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De grootschalige en industriële manier van voedselproductie in ons huidig systeem bedreigt onze voedselveiligheid, vormt een enorme milieubelasting en het vermindert de biodiversiteit.
De voedselproductie is in handen van een klein aantal grote agrobedrijven. Het landbouwbeleid is geliberaliseerd en de overheid heeft er nauwelijks nog invloed op. De grootschalige voedselproductie is sterk afhankelijk van de aanwezigheid van goedkope fossiele brandstoffen en van mineralen zoals fosfaat. Deze grondstoffen raken op.
Het huidige voedselsysteem is niet alleen zelf niet duurzaam, maar de grote multinationale agrobedrijven bedreigen actief alle andere vormen van voedselproductie.

Given the overwhelming harm being done to the world’s environment and to its people, it is essential today to consider how we might organize a truly ecological civilization—one that exists in harmony with natural systems—instead of trying to overwhelm and dominate nature. This is not just an ethical issue; it is essential for our survival as a species and the survival of many other species that we reverse the degradation of the earth’s life support systems that once provided dependable climate, clean air, clean water (fresh and ocean), bountiful oceans, and healthy and productive soils.
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By Tina Chadwick

Crop Mob Atlanta is a new grassroots organization that’s going a step further than buying and eating local food – they’re actually going to the farms and volunteering on the weekends. From pulling weeds to watering, this group of all-ages and all-backgrounds team up every month or so to, literally, “mob” a local farm.

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