Tom,
>Yes. More food means more people. *no matter what*! You have to break that
>cycle.
Not sure what cycle you're talking about. But more food doesn't always mean more
people. You live in a country with huge amounts of excess food and fertility seems
relatively low.
Stan,
>Petroleum deplection is likely
>to be the first problem that will de-stabilize existing power structures.
Right. But it will maybe not be the first problem that will destabilize the food
supply. I
say this because 1)I'm not that convinced that petro-fertilizers are that great (I'm
pretty ignorant on this) 2)I think that the supply of oil will go down slowly and that
savings of oil can be made in other areas than agriculture for a while.
>Here's where we keep talking past each other. ONe side wants to stay wiht
>the issue of what the changes will look like, and the ohter wants to know
>what we DO to make the changes. The subject of historical conjuncture
>relates to the latter. Change does not spin out of people's heads. It
>emerges out of real, concrete, existing, material conditions, wiht real,
>concrete, existing, material structures--economic, social, political,
>military, ideological. Simply positing alternatives does
>NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to make the material changes in those existing
>conditions to move them toward those alternatives.
No, we're not talking past each other. I'm with you on that one. I wasn't trying to
posit
alternatives. What I was doing was talking about the diagnosis of the problem.
Specifically, I don't think that the problem lies only with the rich countries.
>No argument. What do we do? What do I do, right now, today, tomorrow?
>What's the first step?
If I had good answers to this I would not be discussing this with you but applying my
solutions or publicizing them. I may have a few leads but they're not original: 1)You
can support initiatives to develop alternatives where the problems hurt the most.
Lots of people are already doing that. Some commie icons like Sankara were
involved in this. 2)Same things on the distribution/consumption side of things where
people are rich enough to afford the luxury of eating "clean" food. Both these
initiatives provide opportunites to develop and refine alternatives. It would be great
to have an international organization federating all those which are working in these
aeras and everything but I don't think that it's a priority at this stage. For action,
local
organizations are far more useful and for spreading of ideas, the networks already
exist. At some point, the ballot will also be a useful strategy in many democratic
countries. Mabye it is already a useful strategy in a some countries. I certainly
don't
know what YOU can do because I don't know much about your life.
I also know about something which is a step in the wrong direction. You're not
gonna like this folks, but liberal immigration policies and food relief for those
countries where the life-giving infrastructures are deteriorating the most are not an
incentive for the people there to take charge.
>IF, IF, IF... If a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass so much. In a
>profit-driven system (can we agree that we are in a profit-driven system?),
>if alternatives were more profitable, they would ALREADY BE USED.
This is not a far fetched "if", Stan! What's profitable and what's not changes all the
time. It changes when the price of oil changes, when the price of land changes,
when interest rates change, when the price of labour changes, when the
governement intervenes in those matters like in most countries of the world and
especially in yours, when international organizations intervene in these matters like
they have done for a while, when consumers' habits change like they have been
changing lately (at least in Europe), etc.
>Hello! Without coercive force, none of it happens. "Power concedes
>nothing without a demand." -Frederick Douglass
I guess it depends what you call force. I'm not a native English speaker. Let's say
those things can happen without coercive violence.
Power also concedes things it doesn't value much. Sometimes it even chooses to
concede things because it figures out it might benefit by doing so.
Not everything is a military matter.
>The alternative practice that will be used--so long as the same class
>structure prevails--will be what they've always used as an alternative. War.
Frankly, I don't understand what you mean. This looks like the worst kind of
marxism determinism. Do you argue that agricultural practices have never adapted
to changing conditions and/or perceptions since the beginning of capitalism and
that war has been used to kill "excess populations" instead? Sorry, but history tells
another story. Plus, not all capitalist countries are as much prone to wage wars as
yours nowadays. Stuff like bombing Sudan or Yugoslavia is OK but real wars that
kill are another matter.
Oh, and on thermodynamics and stuff, we agree.
Julien
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