Former Grassroots International Board member and current Board member of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Bill Fletcher Jr. recently blogged on CNN.com about the "frequent tendency to misrepresent the lessons of [the U.S. black freedom] movement and apply them to other social movements overseas in a way that misses the mark.
Grassroots International ally Food First's executive director Eric Holt-Jimenez wrote recently -- on HuffPost -- on the long roots of the disaster in Haiti. His point about the "historic bleeding of Haiti's economy and the systematic undermining of its political institutions" being at the root of the disaster as much as the "tectonics that leveled Port-au-Prince" is right on the mark. Grassroots' partners and allies in Haiti have long struggled against that bleeding and undermining, and fought for better Haitian and international policies on agriculture, trade, and food that would sustain their people, and their land.
Bill Quigley of our ally the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote recently on what he thought the US can and should do for Haiti in response to the devastating earthquake.
As a founding member and part of the ad hoc steering committee, Grassroots International proudly announces the following Call from the US Working Group on the Food Crisis. The statement coincides with the World Food Summit, taking place now in Rome, and it calls the the US government to take bold actions to resolve the global food crisis, including 10 specific recommendations.
Call for U.S. Leadership at the World Food Summit
Grassroots International, along with other activists and organizations, signed an Open Letter pledging to eradicate hunger and malnutrition. Members of the Drafting Committee include many Grassroots partners and allies. You can join us and sign on, too! The letter...
Despite a press release from the office of Senator Jim DeMint yesterday evening declaring that he has secured a commitment from the Obama Administration to recognize the Nov. 29th elections in Honduras regardless of Zelaya’s reinstatement, it is not too late for the Administration to reverse this position and do right by the people of Honduras.
As the food crisis showed us last year, adding food to the speculation market can have serious -- and sometimes deadly -- consequences when the bubble bursts. Surprisingly, the food and gas crises weren’t caused by a shortage of food or oil. Instead, they were brought on by the same thing that caused the global economic crisis – market deregulation. While we had to pay more for our gas and food, big-time investors made a bundle. A new video and accompanying website helps explain how speculators brought about last year’s food and oil bubbles.
On Tuesday, November 3, a bipartisan resolution (HR 867) cosponsored by Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) in the House will be likely voted on that condemns the Goldstone report released in September by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
Today is World Food Day!
World Food Day is celebrated every year on October 16 – the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. World Food Day raises awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger. This year's theme for World Food Day is "Achieving food security in times of crisis."
A critical issue related to food and agriculture that is finally gaining more attention is climate change. Industrial agriculture contributes significantly to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.
For some, October 12th is commemorated as the day that Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas. For many more, it marked the beginning of over 500 years of foreign domination, cultural destruction and systematic exploitation. Over the last 15 years, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has perpetuated that tragic history.
Join with other justice-minded people to use this October 12th to push for the renegotiation and replacement of NAFTA and forge a new history based on mutual respect, human rights, and dignity.
The Global Week of Action on Trade is a collaborative worldwide action between different communities, to protest the damaging impact of "free" trade, while highlighting alternatives to NAFTA, CAFTA, other free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
It is being organized in conjunction with the Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and Her Peoples, launched at the IV Hemispheric Summit of Indigenous People in Puno, Peru, last May.
"We ratify the organization of the Minga (traditional indigenous collective communal organization) of the Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and Her Peoples against the commercialization of life (including land, forests, water, seas, agro-fuels, ex
More than a month after the military coup in the Central American country of Honduras (for which the term “banana republic” was originally coined due to the overwhelming influence of U.S. fruit corporations in that country), the junta is still in power and shows little real sign of budging.
Want to do something simple to help support Honduran democracy and keep the crisis in the public eye? Donate your status! It’s free, easy, and can make a huge impact. Right now, the corporate news media is mostly silent about what’s happening on the ground in Honduras and the role of US policy – both past and present. Even worse, some media outlets are spreading misinformation based on the junta’s campaign to justify their illegal coup.
Help people learn the truth behind the crisis and remember the plight of Honduran citizens by donating your Facebook and/or Twitter statuses on Tuesday, August 11th – the Global Day of Action for Honduras. Set your Facebook and Twitter status to:
The junta in Honduras is still in power and shows little real sign of budging. And the human rights situation has only gotten worse with the military and police cracking down on peaceful protestors, widespread arrests, alleged torture and the forced exile of social movement leaders who have had to flee the repression. One major reason for the Micheletti regime's intransigence is the failure of the Obama Administration to act as decisively and quickly as it should have to insist on President Zelaya's speedy and unconditional return. As many here in the U.S. and in Honduras and the region have surmised -- this failure is mainly due to our vested interests in that country that for realpolitik reasons trump human rights and democracy.
While Honduras is on the brink of a civil war, politics-as-usual in Washington, D.C. threaten, quite literally, to block US support for democracy in that country. It also threatens to squelch democracy here as well. On Thursday, the office of Sen. Richard Lugar sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding clarification on the State Department’s intentions with regard to Honduras. The same letter also noted that providing such a detailed clarification would “improve the prospects of confirming” several of Obama’s diplomatic nominations for Latin America.
Over the weekend, Rafael Alegría, a prominent leader of the Via Campesina Central America and outspoken critic of the recent military coup in Honduras, was arrested along with several others including colleagues from the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). Some information alleges that a number of the detainees have been tortured.
Rafael has since been released. But the repression continues!
Dr. Paul Farmer is slated to be the next head of the United States Agency for International Development. Farmer, long known for his outspoken criticism of U.S. developmental and other policies, could quite possibly be the one making many of them. USAID has continuously implemented the rules of the Washington Consensus – stabilization, structural adjustment, and export-led growth in the developing world. Over and over this code of conduct has failed the Global South, leaving countries without adequate public infrastructure such as healthcare.
