Stephan: If you have been reading me regularly you know I am increasingly concerned about the terrorism of White christofascist militias. Trump has encouraged and supported these people and, as a result, they have come out of the shadows and are increasingly assertive and violent. And I am not the only person with this view. Here is a report on the thinking of someone who studies insurgencies. What is clear to me is that we have to get the Republicans out of the Senate and the White House, and start building a society based on wellbeing
Members of far-right militias and white pride organizations rally near Stone Mountain Park in Stone Mountain, Georgia, on Aug. 15. Credit: Logan Cyrus/Getty
David Kilcullen is one of the world’s leading authorities on insurgencies. For decades he has studied them. As an infantry soldier in the Australian army and an adviser to the U.S. Army, he’s fought against them. His latest scholarly work has focused on their role in urban conflicts.
So when Kilcullen says that America is in a state of “incipient insurgency,” it’s worth sitting up, taking notice, and trembling just a little.
The official definition of an insurgency is the “organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control” of an area. An “incipient insurgency” might be happening when “inchoate actions by a range of groups”—followed by organizing, training, acquisition of resources (including arms), and the buildup of public support—lead to “increasingly frequent” incidents of violence, reflecting “improved organization and forethought.”
Kilcullen argues that this is what we’ve been seeing the past few months in the waves of provocations and street violence that have blown through American cities since the May 25 […]
Corby Kummer, Executive Director of the Food and Society Policy Program at the Aspen Institute and a Senior Editor at The Atlantic. - The New York Times
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for years that industrial chemical monoculture agriculture was destroying the earth's ecosystem, and was going to ultimately create a food crisis that would affect us all. Here is an excellent assessment describing where this trend stands today.
Tom Philpott Credit: Gabriel C. Pérez
PERILOUS BOUNTY The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It By Tom Philpott
In a world where it’s impossible to keep up with the urgent and awful stories that seem to get worse by the week, it’s easy to lose track of all we worried about in before times — little stuff like whether food-borne illnesses were killing hundreds of people. Is that still going on?
The answer is of course: Yes. As I write, more than 900 cases of salmonella have been linked to onions. And in our time of lockdown, there has been no end to stories of fields of ripe produce being plowed under, millions of gallons of milk dumped and millions of chickens slaughtered for lack of ways to bring them to the supermarkets and food banks that need them. We’ve lost track of just how badly served the planet has been by the agriculture and distribution systems that evolved in the name of efficiency and price competition.
Shutting your eyes may be presidential policy, but the journalist and blogger […]
Stephan: Here is another take on the American food system. Please take this very seriously; I am seeing more and more research on the emerging food crisis trend. This fall I predict we are going to see a significan increase in grocery prices, and that is going to have a very distressing effect on low income families, and the elderly.
Man’s hands wearing rubber gloves holding product in a supermarket during an epidemic of an infectious disease
For many Americans, grocery shopping has become an intensely stressful experience. To maintain social distancing, people must queue before entering stores. Once inside, they must scramble to find increasingly scarce products, including household staples from milk and eggs to pork and beef. Others can no longer afford to go to grocery stores. Instead, they wait for hours to get goods from food banks that are also running short on supplies.
But in a seeming paradox, farmers are destroying their products—including many of the same goods that stores lack. Dairy Farmers of America, the country’s biggest dairy co-op, has called many of its members and instructed them to dump their milk. The cooperative has estimated that farmers are now dumping up to 3.7 million gallons of milk per day. Sanderson Farms, a chicken processor, smashes 750,000 eggs each week. Farmers have been plowing their produce into the ground.
How is it that Americans can face shortages, and in some […]
Stephan: The negative food trends are not confined to the U.S. Humanity has got to change its fundamental values to recognize that wellbeing must be the primary social value. The alternative, as this report spells out, is a disaster of epic proportions, and climate change is just going to make this worse and worse.
Hashem Mahmoud Atin, a 10-month-old displaced Yemeni child suffering from acute malnutrition and who is unable to reach a hospital for treatment, is held by his mother at a camp in Abs in northern Yemen’s Hajjah province on September 3, 2020. (Photo: Essa Ahmed/AFP/Getty
The convergence of socio-environmental “disasters, economic shocks, and public health crises, all compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic,” has magnified the risks of famine, “endangering the lives of millions” of people living in Yemen, South Sudan, northeast Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official warned in a statement obtained by the New York Times over the weekend.
“It is critical we come together as one united global community to defeat this disease, and protect the most vulnerable nations and communities from its potentially devastating effects.” David Beasley, World Food Program
In a letter to members of the U.N. Security Council, Mark Lowcock, under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, warned of the looming intensification of malnutrition, starvation, and death in all four areas—encompassing some of the world’s most destitute regions, each one further hampered […]
Clara Moschini, Editor-in-Chief - European Food Agency
Stephan: I see the growing food crisis as a worldwide trend that is going to destabilize a number of countries, and there is far too little discussion and planning about how to respond. The United States should clean up its own act, and then act as a world leader.
North Koreans eating grass
Strict containment measures due to Covid-19 and a sharp decline in funding, bring the economy already abundantly at risk of North Korea to its knees. Now more than ever, the food crisis afflicts a large part of the population, so much so that the head of the World Food Program (WFP) David Beasley has made an international appeal for humanitarian assistance. During the Korea Global Forum for Peace, organized annually by the Seoul Unification Ministry, the director general of WFP clearly expressed his confidence in cooperation between all states and called for it to be put into practice: “I am confident that the international cooperation is the key that will unlock a brighter future for children in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). This is our opportunity to create the better world we all want to see. “
Today the living conditions of the civilian population in North Korea are becoming more and more serious, just think that 60% of North Koreans risk hunger every day.
