Women need to take the initiative in asking for a raise, Associate Professor Hannah Riley Bowles at the Harvard Kennedy School explains in a New York Times article published May 14. Her studies show that women need to take the initiative to ask for more pay and need to employ a negotiating approach that helps them get the compensation they deserve while maintaining good relationships at work.
To read the full article, click here.
AGRA Watch’s third film night is Saturday April 3rd at Cascade People’s Center! Join us for a compelling film about Lake Victoria and discussion. 5 – 9pm, free.
Please RSVP to [email protected]
About the Film: Darwin’s Nightmare is a tale about humans between the North and the South, about globalization, and about fish. Some time in the 1960’s, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the world. Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest catch in exchange for their southbound cargo… Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the continent.
This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots.
Bus Routes to Cascade People’s Center: 8, 25, 70-73, 74, 77, 79, 304, 317, 355, 377
Saturday, March 27, 6:30 – 9:00 PM
Hidmo Eritrean Restaurant, 2000 S Jackson St. Seattle, 98144
Come to hear from Kenyan Farmer & Community Organizer Joshua Machinga, Director of Common Ground in Kenya, and Heather English Day, CAGJ’s Director, who will report back on travels to Kenya and Uganda, where she was learning about the new “green revolution” in Africa and the alternatives, including a visit to Joshua’s program. You can read more about Heather’s experiences on her blog.
Common Ground Program works in many areas, with a special focus on increased food security, crop diversification and the protection of natural resources. Their sustainable agriculture projects provide families and communities with vital technical and material resources for improving nutrition and increasing income generation. The projects also enable rural farming communities to adapt and survive in the face of challenges to their livelihoods, including globalization, commercialization of food production and climate change.
Heather had the opportunity to meet over 50 farmers in their visits with Common Ground and four other programs around the country. She will share images and stories from the thriving organic farming movement in Kenya, as well as the ongoing push for GMO’s and chemically dependent agriculture by the Gates Foundation and others.
Co-sponsored by Village Volunteers. Event is free. Eritrean food available for purchase, full bar available. All ages welcome to attend! For more info, contact [email protected]; Or call 206-405-4600.
Article by Reid Mukai, CAGJ Co-Chair
On January 13, Michael Taylor was officially named deputy commissioner for foods, making him in effect the Food and Drug Administration’s new food safety czar. Last July Taylor was appointed as senior adviser to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg, but that wasn’t his first job in government. His long “revolving door” path began as counsel to the FDA before moving to King & Spalding, a private-sector law firm representing Monsanto. In 1991 he returned to the FDA as Deputy Commissioner for Policy and three years later became an administrator of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. After another stint with King & Spalding he returned to Monsanto as Vice President for Public Policy in 1998 serving as their chief lobbyist. Throughout Michael Taylor’s career working for Monsanto and within the government food policy bureaucracy, Taylor has played a key role in getting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) approved for release into our food supply (despite having access to early research showing potential health risks associated with GMOs) in addition to bovine growth hormones (rbGH/rbST). Bovine growth hormones are banned in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union but were approved in the US largely thanks to Taylor’s efforts. Monsanto’s own research from 1987 showed a link between rBGH milk and increased risk of breast cancer and according to a European Union scientific commission, use of rBST substantially increased health problems with cows.
Just prior to joining Obama’s transition team last year, Taylor was a Senior Fellow at the D.C. think tank Resources for the Future, where he published two documents on U.S. aid for African agriculture. These papers were funded by The Rockefeller Foundation who also financed the first Green Revolution in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s, and in 2006 teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Not surprisingly, Taylor’s recommendations included a “market-oriented approach and the promotion of thriving agribusinesses”, “applied agricultural research”, “markets for agricultural inputs and outputs” and increased agricultural export capacity. So what’s wrong with a second Green Revolution in Africa? As pointed out by Paula Crossfield in the Huffington Post, “…there is broad consensus that the Green Revolution in India has been a failure, with Indian farmers in debt, bound to paying high costs for seed and pesticides, committing suicide at much higher rates, and resulting in a depleted water table and a poisoned environment, and by extension, higher rates of cancer.” So the Green Revolution hasn’t been very helpful to farmers, but it has been extremely profitable for corporations such as Monsanto.
Michael Taylor’s appointment to FDA food safety czar is the second major setback for food activists from the Obama administration, following their choice of Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack is also a proponent of the biotech industry and is famous for taking rides on jets provided by Monsanto while serving as governor of Iowa. One could speculate that Michael Taylor realizes his past mistakes and will seek redemption by maintaining the highest level of food safety standards in his new role, but, given his track record, would you trust him?
Update: On January 21 the US Supreme Court eliminated all limits to corporate campaign spending and reversed the McCain Feingold law preventing corporations and unions from running ads within a certain date before elections. This ruling further reinforces the power of corporations to influence elections and to ensure that elected officials continue giving us more corporate-friendly legislation and corporate-friendly appointees.
Sources:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18866.cfm
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20060.cfm
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-08-monsanto-FDA-taylor/
http://biointegrity.org/list.html
http://www.preventcancer.com/press/releases/july8_98.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paula-crossfield/g8-promises-20-billion-in_b_229526.html
Article by Ashley Fent, Co-Chair of CAGJ’s AGRA Watch Campaign. The first part of this article, including ways you can take action, was published in CAGJ’s February 2010 newsletter, and is re-printed below the list of citations.
Pou w konprann sa k pase joudi a, fók ou konnen sa ka pase anvan, “To understand today we must know the past”
Although known today as “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” Haiti’s history tells the story of an enduring—and costly—resistance to some of the world’s most powerful forces. Following Columbus’s bumping into the island of Hispaniola, the Taino people forcefully resisted their enslavement and extermination by the Spanish conquistadors. Their queen Anacaona was martyred in this opposition and remains a legendary Haitian heroine today (6).
The French created of Saint-Domingue their most lucrative colonial possession, the “Pearl of the Antilles (7),” whose sugar and coffee plantations were the envy of aspiring colonial powers and whose profits were made through the unpaid labor of African peoples shipped across the Atlantic. The marrons—escaped slaves who formed communities in the mountains—resisted by attacking and often killing their former masters. Inspired by the French and American revolutions but dissatisfied with their hypocrisies, the charismatic Toussaint L’Ouverture led the Haitian people from slavery to individual freedom. In 1804, under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti became the first post-colonial Black nation (8).
But Haiti has long terrified the United States. The Founding Fathers were entirely aware that an ostensibly free nation could not depend on slavery, and that, in Jefferson’s words, they were holding a “wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go (9).” Out of fear that the successful and violent slave rebellion would galvanize insurrections on their own plantations, they refused to recognize Haiti (10). Independent Haiti persisted, through many decades of French and American embargoes (11). The Haitian people dared to celebrate their independence, even when their ostracization forced them to pay an egregious cost that would cripple their economy for generations.
That cost was a debt of 150 million francs to France, for the loss of its colony, commodities, and human capital. Until the last payment was made in 1922, Haiti held up its end of the bargain, using 70 percent of foreign exchange earnings and taking out loans from American and French banks to service the odious debt it owed to its former colonizer (12). The current value of the money Haiti repaid to French and American banks totals over $20 billion (13).
In 1915, the Wilson Administration sent US Marines to occupy Haiti. For nineteen years, the US controlled customs, collected taxes, ran governmental institutions, and rewrote than Haitian Constitution to open land to foreigners and secure American access to resources (14). For nineteen years, Haitians revolted against their occupiers, and were massacred in response.
As part of its Cold War mission to “contain” the spread of Communism, the United States bolstered the regime of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, even as he terrorized his people and extorted large sums of money. Over 40 percent of Haiti’s $1.3 billion debt was accrued by Papa Doc and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who succeeded his father in 1971 (15). Meanwhile, priests like Jean-Bertrand Aristide used liberation theology to challenge the Duvalier regime. As a result of the Haitian people’s struggle for democracy, in 1986 Baby Doc was forced into exile in France.
Through the structural adjustment and trade liberalization policies foisted on Haiti by US, IMF and World Bank in 1995 (16), Haiti was transformed from a country self-sufficient in rice production to one that imports nearly all of its rice—from the sugar capital of the Caribbean into an importer of sugar (17). Earlier, in the 1980s, Haitians had been forced to slaughter the Creole pigs upon which 85 percent of rural households depended for subsistence—international agencies insisted that the pigs were sick and promised new and better pigs from Iowa (18). The new pigs required highly selective feed and habitat, and their meat didn’t taste as good. This “development” program cost Haitian peasants as estimated $600 million dollars, not to mention high social, health and environmental costs (19).
The US has continually destabilized the progressive governments of Haiti, as it has done throughout the world. When the US-backed candidate in the 1990 election, a former World Bank official, overwhelming lost to Aristide (20), the US shifted its strategy to destabilizing Aristide’s government—although after three years of tyranny led by the Duvalier’s paramilitary Tontons Macoutes, Clinton did send troops in 1994 to reinstate Aristide for the completion of his term. so long as he implemented structural adjustment programs, known in Haiti as the “plan of death (21).” Aristide’s pursuit of “poverty with dignity” and his attempts at progressive reform were continually quashed by the United States, until he was taken out of the country under questionable circumstances in 2004. Yet even now he is considered too pro-poor, too progressive, and too “political” to have any role in Haiti’s future (22). President René Préval—considered in the eyes of the US a reliable and level-headed leader because of his adherence to neoliberal policies and his characterization as a pragmatic technocrat, spent the first few days after the crisis drafting agreements with foreign officials rather than addressing his people (23).
In the meantime, as explained by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, the US can win the “hearts and minds” of the Haitian people such that they consent to being denied their right to self-determination. The ultimate goal, of course, is to extract corporate profits from Haiti, and to counter the “Castro-Chavez camp (24).” Among the assets to be gleaned through disaster capitalism include mining contracts and the privatization of Haiti’s deep water ports (25). As well, Bill Clinton, the UN Special Envoy to Haiti who is now responsible for reconstruction, has long put faith in garment manufacturing and tourism to “develop” Haiti (26). Bill Gates too has called for long-term investment: “Haiti was the poorest country in the region before this… There’s a lot to be done there. I hope this is not just a one-time thing (27).” Haiti needs long-term investment in justice and in equality… not in sweatshops and tourist resorts.
Please note that the first five sources listed are from an article posted in CAGJ’s newsletter, which is re-posted below these sources.
(1) Bell, Beverly. Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance. 2001.
(2) http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/21/haiti.reform/
(3) http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15330453
(4) http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2010/01/18/catastrophe-in-haiti-the-natural-and-not-so-natural-factors/,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122530936&ps=rs
(5) Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. Eyes of the Heart.2000.
(6) Bell, Beverly. Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance. 2001.
(7) Ibid
(8) Waweru, Kimani. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55997
(9) Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. 1993.
(10) Waweru, Kimani. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55997
(11) Ibid
(12) Beckles, Hilary. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61811
Quigley, Bill. “Why the US Owes Haiti Billions – The Briefest History.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/17-6
(13) Quigley, Bill. “Why the US Owes Haiti Billions – The Briefest History.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/17-6
(14) Ibid
Toler, Deborah. “Harvest of Hunger: The United States in Haiti.” Food First Backgrounder. 1996.
(15) Quigley, Bill. “Why the US Owes Haiti Billions – The Briefest History.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/17-6,
Waweru, Kimani. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55997
(16) Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. The Eyes of the Heart. 2000
(17) Quigley, Bill. “Why the US Owes Haiti Billions – The Briefest History.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/17-6
(18) Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. The Eyes of the Heart. 2000.
(19) Ibid
(20) Waweru, Kimani. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55997
(21) http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2010/01/18/catastrophe-in-haiti-the-natural-and-not-so-natural-factors/
(22) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/international/americas/20haiti.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/world/americas/18policy.html
(23) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/17/AR2010011703370.html
(24) http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/13/things-to-remember-while-helping-haiti/
(25) McKinney, Cynthia. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61809
(26) http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2010/01/18/catastrophe-in-haiti-the-natural-and-not-so-natural-factors/,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122530936&ps=rs
(27) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010890341_billgates26.html
***
Posted in CAGJ’s February 2010 Newsletter:
Pou w konprann sa k pase joudi a, fók ou konnen sa ka pase anvan, “To understand today we must know the past” (1)
On January 12, 2010, an earthquake shook Port-au-Prince, with casualties in the hundreds of thousands of people. CAGJ sends our deepest condolences to the people of Haiti, and to the Haitian and Haitian-American people in the US who have lost loved ones. Without diminishing the devastation in Port-au-Prince following the earthquake, we also note that this tragedy is one piece of an ongoing catastrophe that implicates the United States, France and international financial institutions in under-developing and de-stabilizing Haiti. Rather than paying back the outstanding debt the Global North owes to Haiti, our government is taking advantage of the crisis to illegitimately extract even more money from Haiti. Former US envoy James Dobbins has stated that Haiti “has undergone shock. Some of the institutional and social obstacles to reform may now be more movable. The Haitian system itself may be more malleable (2).” Part of this “malleability” comes from the strong US military presence now in Haiti indefinitely. The Global North claims that because of a governmental vacuum—which it has helped create—the Northern countries themselves should administer Haiti’s reconstruction. An article in The Economist announced that “Haiti’s government cannot rebuild the country. A temporary authority needs to be set up to do it.” The Economist suggests that this coalition be led by Bill Clinton or Brazil’s Lula (3). Clinton, the UN Special Envoy to Haiti who is now responsible for reconstruction, has long put faith in garment manufacturing and tourism to “develop” Haiti (4). With the Haitian economy and infrastructure in “shock” following the earthquake, Haiti may finally become the acquiescent and well-behaved country the United States has always wanted it to be.
200,000 human lives and counting is too heavy a loss for any country to have to bear. When added to the casualties of slavery, colonialism, military occupation, tyrannical regimes, structural adjustment, and gross global inequality, the death toll is a catastrophe that should sit heavily on our collective conscience and inspire us to take action in solidarity with the long and enduring struggle of the Haitian people for dignity, equality, and justice. The words of Jean-Bertrand Aristide may guide us in this pursuit: “This is our challenge for the new century…Our faith makes us certain it will come to pass. This faith, this certainty, may be the most valuable export we can offer the world. I invite you to share in it. You and I together, fingers of the same hand, are called to build a more human world in this new century, to bring the thumb and the little finger closer together, so that the hand may be strong and whole. I am certain that we can and that we will (5).” May we show with our actions that we honor Haiti’s lesson to us: that humanity and hope can indeed prevail.
How you can act:
• Donate to relief and health agencies who maintain long-term and community-based relationships in Haiti, including but not limited to: Partners in Health, Grassroots International, Doctors without Borders
• Also donate to Haitian organizations that work within marginalized communities and should be empowered in the process of rebuilding infrastructure, communities, and hope. These include but are not limited to:
Konbit pou Ayiti: http://www.konpay.org/splash/
Via Campesina, in solidarity with Haiti: http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=859&Itemid=31
Honor and Respect for Bel Air & Coordination Régionale des Organisations de Sud-Est (CROSE) vis a vis Avaaz: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti/
• Use your political voice to demand that the US government repay its debts to Haiti, that it shun disaster capitalism and transnational corporations’ reckless profiteering, and that it support instead political and social demands of Haiti’s poor.
• Learn more:
Jean-Bertrand Aristide—The Eyes of the Heart
Beverly Bell—Walking on Fire
Paul Farmer—The Uses of Haiti, Pathologies of Power
CLR James—The Black Jacobins
Edwidge Danticat—Krik?Krak! (novel)
Aristide and the Endless Revolution (film)
CAGJ joined the farmers of Island Meadow Farm – Chandler Briggs, Caitlin Henry and Roby – in an awesome heart wrenching, gut wrenching chicken slaughter during the September Teach out to Vashon Island. Here is a juicy snapshot of our journey.
By CAGJ Intern, Valentina de la Fuente
Something I learned about chickens today is that they live in the present moment. They show no fear or dread as their sisters and friends are snatched by the feet and vanish from their chicken tractor home. They continue naively clucking and scratching and preening themselves until their moment of fate also comes. Perhaps they unconsciously understand their fate. The variety of chicken that Chandler, Caitlin and Roby choose are bread specifically as meat birds. Instead of maturing in several months, they mature in several weeks, and their breasts are significantly larger and juicier, though they’re significantly more lethargic and sedentary. They choose this chicken for several reasons. Because the farm is on an island, the price of imported inputs such as grains is significantly higher. Though the wild, “chicken-like” quality of the bird is sacrificed, killing the birds in a few weeks rather than a few months cuts down significantly on its cost per pound. It’s a decision that is challenging to make.
The killing process is a fascinating, emotional, gruesome spiritual experience. Chandler grabs two birds by their gangly feet as they frantically thrash about, and puts them upside down in a traffic cone like structure nestled in the crotch of a tree. He pulls the head taut through the cone so the neck and jugular are exposed. In a humble act of gratitude, he ceremonially thanks the bird for giving life and nourishment. With a sharp metal blade, he slits the jugular. Bright, neon red blood pulses into white waiting buckets. It bleeds for a minute, then with a sharper and bigger knife, he saws off the head and drops it in the bucket. The bird is dead, but it thrashes violently in the cone, its muscles and nerves continuing to shoot adrenaline through its rigid body. About 15 birds are killed this way. We watch like children, as if seeing death for the first time. People hold each others hands, squeezing harder at the moment of death and violence. Eyes close, blink, and tears work their ways down cold cheeks. Our minds our blank, dull, and numb. All we can do is stare, and feel a little more grown up with each moment, with each death. There is a sense of awe and silence.
The dead body is extracted, instantly dipped into scalding water to loosen the feathers, and then put into a machine that de-feather’s the bird by bouncing it around with rubber suckers. It is hard to imagine that a few moments earlier, this pale yellow piece of meat was a living, feeling, clucking, scratching being. What the machine does not take off, an eager team of volunteers plucks by hand. At a nearby table people stand with sharp knifes extracting livers, gizzards, hearts, and kidneys, for soups and stalks.
The experience of the chicken deaths lives imprinted on my mind for the rest of day, and the weeks following. I feel I have earned my right to eat this meat. This meat holds no lies. Its life and death is not a hidden secret that lies buried, invisible in dark cramped warehouses of shit and stink. It lived fully until its moment of death, offering its metabolism to produce nitrate rich compost, its body to nourish, its death to educate, and its revenue to help sustain the farm.
SEE LINKS TO PHOTOS & VIDEOS BELOW!
On November 30th, 2009, 10 years after the historic shut-down of the WTO meetings in Seattle, people again made their voices heard on many of the pressing issues we face today. As protests, teach-ins, and civil disobedience took place around the country on Mobilization for Climate Justice’s Day of Action at Westlake Park in Seattle multiple groups rallied, demonstrated, and took action at noon for climate justice. Street theater lampooned the current regime’s failure to include or empower people in solutions to the climate crisis, as the COP15 climate talks in Copenhagen loom large, highlighting the need to organize globally and make those voices heard.
Much of the focus was on Chase and Bank of America, two of the major funders of the coal industry and the controversial practice of mountain top removal mining, and two were arrested after a lock-down civil disobedience protest at the Westlake branches of each bank, calling out both banks as “Climate Criminals” (for more information, see Rainforest Action Network’s great resources here). The Yes Men supported an action exposing the truth of Bank of America’s stance on coal and mountain-top removal funding, as two official-looking bank representatives addressed the cameras and the crowd promising clean coal while reaffirming a commitment to their shareholders’ bottom line.
At 1:30, a contingent of fair trade activists marched to Rep. McDermott’s office with hundreds of signed postcards from constituents, encouraging him and other congresspeople to take a stand for workers’ rights worldwide by supporting the TRADE Act. The TRADE act is an alternative to the failed NAFTA model of free trade, envisioning what a truly just trade agreement might encompass.
After more music and performance from the stage at Westlake, the Washington Immigrant Rights Action Coalition held a march to Pacific Place mall in support of about 100 janitorial workers who are being unfairly treated and fired by Seattle Building Maintenance. People entered Pacific Place to chant, sing, and express their disgust with the mistreatment of workers, and were escorted out by mall security.
You can see video of the climate justice actions here, here, and here, and some great pictures of the whole day’s events can be seen here and here.
Westlake Plaza, south end of park, 12 – 5
12noon-1245: Cimate! Justice! Assembly Street Theater
1245-1pm: Jack Chernos, Singer, Songwriter
115-130: WA Fair Trade Coalition
130-2pm: Climate Justice speaker
2-230: People’s Assembly
230-250: Jim Page, Folk Troubadour
250-320: Street Theater
4pm-5pm WA Immigrant Rights Action Coalition
Eric Holt Gimenez, Director of Food First, ally in our AGRA Watch campaign, speaking about his new book, co-authored with Raj Patel & Annie Shattuck, “Food Rebellions: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice”.
Eric is an incredible speaker – don’t miss this chance to hear him in person!
Gould Hall at University of WA, Seattle
On the corner of NE 40th St and 15th Ave NE
Admission free of charge