May 22, 2013
Chris Hedges - Rise Up or Die! - YouTube
Published on May 21, 2013
Chris Hedges, Truthdig, joins Thom Hartmann. The AP scandal is just the latest example of an ongoing - and often corporate backed - assault on our most basic democratic rights.
A March against Monsanto is a March for Life and Freedom - 25th May 2013
VIDEOS --> A March against Monsanto is a March for Life and Freedom - 25th May 2013
PLEASE GET INVOLVED IN ANY WAY YOU CAN TO FIGHT THIS COMPANY'S TAKEOVER OF OUR FOOD.... Monte & Eileen Hines
Resources:
www.march-against-monsanto.com
www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto
May 21, 2013
1992 to 2009 Pesticide Use Maps
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Full Link -Select year for map - pesticide - 1992 to 2009 Pesticide Use Maps
ALARMING amount of pesticides being applied to crops and soil! Monte Hines
Hines Farm Photos - Fog On The Mississippi River - Male Mountain Bluebird - May 2013
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Male Mountain Bluebird - May 14, 2013 9:40 AM
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Male Mountain Bluebird - May 14, 2013 9:40 AM
May 20, 2013
We, the Vast Underclass, Must Rise Up Against Global Mafia - or Die
Monday, 20 May 2013
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed
(Photo: Hutcs / Oisin Mulvihill)
Joe Sacco and I spent two years reporting from the poorest pockets of the United States for our book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.” We went into our nation’s impoverished “sacrifice zones”—the first areas forced to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace—to show what happens when unfettered corporate capitalism and ceaseless economic expansion no longer have external impediments. We wanted to illustrate what unrestrained corporate exploitation does to families, communities and the natural world. We wanted to challenge the reigning ideology of globalization and laissez-faire capitalism to illustrate what life becomes when human beings and the ecosystem are ruthlessly turned into commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. And we wanted to expose as impotent the formal liberal and governmental institutions that once made reform possible, institutions no longer equipped with enough authority to check the assault of corporate power.
What has taken place in these sacrifice zones—in postindustrial cities such as Camden, N.J., and Detroit, in coalfields of southern West Virginia where mining companies blast off mountaintops, in Indian reservations where the demented project of limitless economic expansion and exploitation worked some of its earliest evil, and in produce fields where laborers often endure conditions that replicate slavery—is now happening to much of the rest of the country. These sacrifice zones succumbed first. You and I are next.
Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform—the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions—we are left defenseless against corporate power....
Read the full story: We, the Vast Underclass, Must Rise Up Against Global Mafia - or Die
Excellent article! Monte Hines
(Photo: Hutcs / Oisin Mulvihill)
Joe Sacco and I spent two years reporting from the poorest pockets of the United States for our book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.” We went into our nation’s impoverished “sacrifice zones”—the first areas forced to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace—to show what happens when unfettered corporate capitalism and ceaseless economic expansion no longer have external impediments. We wanted to illustrate what unrestrained corporate exploitation does to families, communities and the natural world. We wanted to challenge the reigning ideology of globalization and laissez-faire capitalism to illustrate what life becomes when human beings and the ecosystem are ruthlessly turned into commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. And we wanted to expose as impotent the formal liberal and governmental institutions that once made reform possible, institutions no longer equipped with enough authority to check the assault of corporate power.
What has taken place in these sacrifice zones—in postindustrial cities such as Camden, N.J., and Detroit, in coalfields of southern West Virginia where mining companies blast off mountaintops, in Indian reservations where the demented project of limitless economic expansion and exploitation worked some of its earliest evil, and in produce fields where laborers often endure conditions that replicate slavery—is now happening to much of the rest of the country. These sacrifice zones succumbed first. You and I are next.
Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform—the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions—we are left defenseless against corporate power....
Read the full story: We, the Vast Underclass, Must Rise Up Against Global Mafia - or Die
Excellent article! Monte Hines
We Must Reclaim Our Farmland From the Rural Oligarchy
Great Article... telling it the way it is.... Monte Hines
Monday, 20 May 2013
Monday, 20 May 2013
Traditional agriculture was the mother of human culture and societies. Small farmers raised food and created organized societies and states. In ancient Greece, small farmers invented democracy and the polis. They also defended the state. Xenophon, an Athenian general, a student of Socrates, and philosopher of late fifth century BCE, praised agriculture as the mother of all the arts and sciences and civilization.(1)
However, the fall of the Greeks and the Romans and the following Dark Ages transformed agriculture more to the liking of plantation owners who worked the land with slaves. Then the nineteenth-century "industrial" revolution added mechanical power to the plantation and, thus, the industrialized version of agriculture came into being. This is a mechanical powerhouse that has been remaking modern science and society to serve the interests of large landowners and industrialists. The damage of this monstrous institution has been monumental, even threatening the survival of the Earth. ....
However, the fall of the Greeks and the Romans and the following Dark Ages transformed agriculture more to the liking of plantation owners who worked the land with slaves. Then the nineteenth-century "industrial" revolution added mechanical power to the plantation and, thus, the industrialized version of agriculture came into being. This is a mechanical powerhouse that has been remaking modern science and society to serve the interests of large landowners and industrialists. The damage of this monstrous institution has been monumental, even threatening the survival of the Earth. ....
Read Full Story Link: We Must Reclaim Our Farmland From the Rural Oligarchy
Late Spring, Record-Low Stocks Threaten Hay Supplies
Record-low hay acreage, winterkill, and a delayed growing season are creating concern about how high alfalfa prices will need to climb to ration supplies and whether animal numbers will need to be reduced further.
As of May 1, on-farm hay stocks of 14.16 million tons fell to levels not seen since recordkeeping began, according to USDA’s Crop Production report released late last week.
Current hay stocks are 34% smaller than a year ago and have declined by more than 50% in several key dairy states, including Wisconsin, New York, Ohio, and Michigan. Hay stocks have also fallen dramatically in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, down 46% and 33%, respectively.
An estimated 20% of Upper Midwest dairy producers do not have enough forage to make it through to first cutting alfalfa, says Dan Undersander, forage agronomist with the University of Wisconsin.
"In southern Wisconsin, first cutting is two to three weeks late, and hay is just starting to come out of dormancy in the northern part of the state," he says. Northern Wisconsin has also lost about half of its hay acreage to winterkill.
Further south, however, pasture conditions have improved. Missouri pastures that were yielding 70 pounds of dry matter per acre per day during the first week of May were producing twice that a week later, reports Rob Kallenbach, University of Missouri forage specialist.
West of Missouri, however, drought remains a concern. In western Nebraska, hay movement was basically at a standstill this week. "Supply is very tight across all classes of hay," says Heather Veltri, market reporter for Hay Market News. "People are looking for Conservation Reserve Program hay, and hay is being purchased on an as-needed basis."
Pasture and range conditions in Kansas and Nebraska were 60 and 69% poor or very poor, respectively, as of the week ended May 12, according to this week’s Crop Progress report.
The nation’s drought extends to the Pacific, with all of California now reporting moderate to severe drought conditions. Southern California hay growers have been battling aphids, and some hay producers have reported losses of up to 80%, says Veltri.
In California’s Central Valley, some hay growers are already sold out of first-cutting alfalfa. It’s too early to know which way hay prices are heading, says Veltri. Supreme-quality alfalfa was selling for $240-250 per ton in the Merced area this week.
Last week in Minnesota, supreme-quality alfalfa sold for as much as $450 per ton at auction.
Late Spring, Record-Low Stocks Threaten Hay Supplies
Geoengineering: Can We Save the Planet by Messing with Nature? | Democracy Now!
As the carbon dioxide in the air hits 400 parts per million for the first time in human history, some are arguing that the best way address climate change is to use the controversial practice of geoengineering — the deliberate altering of the Earth’s ecological and climate systems to counter the effects of global warming. Supporters of geoengineering endorse radical ways to manipulate the planet, including creating artificial volcanoes to pollute the atmosphere with sulfur particles. Many scientists and environmentalists have raised concerns about geoengineering technologies designed to intervene in the functioning of the Earth system as a whole. We’re joined now by Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia. Hamilton’s new book, "Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering," lays out the arguments for and against climate engineering, and reveals the vested interests behind it linking researchers, venture capitalists and corporations.
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