Starving The Beast – Really?

There was an interesting article on Campaign For America’s Future by Sara Robinson. See STB: Ten Things You Can Do …. Sara says she is thinking of writing a book based on her blog post. If she does, I think she should pick a different title. Why? Because if one does a Google search using only the words starving the beast one finds that the term has been taken by anti-tax crusaders who think the way to shrink the size of government is to cut taxes.

Sara’s article is very different. The beast she means is not the government … it is MOTUs. Masters of The Universe. Her advice includes such items as moving your money from a large too-big-to-fail bank to a local community bank. I am not going to replicate her ten things … the article is worthwhile. You should follow the link to find out more.

The first assumption is: Big national corporations and the MOTUs who profit from them only have money in the first place because we give it to them. So stop giving it to them.

The second is: People in government only have power because we give it to them. So, wherever possible and appropriate, pull that power away from the federal level, and bring it back to the local level, where we can keep an eye on it — and where the best solutions to our most pressing problems are already being worked out.

With those two core assumptions in mind, here’s what we need to do to defund the Masters of the Universe and get our country back.

Why Fort Collins Folks Should Care

We are in the beginning stages of becoming a transition town. Transition includes responses to Global Climate Change, Peak Oil, a Post Carbon World, to resilience, and re-localization. When I read Sara’s article I read it thinking there might be some ideas that would apply to those topics.

Here is one. Quoting now:

4 Eat local. Eat organic. Cook your own.
More and more of us are aware that the processed foods that fill the center aisles of the supermarket aren’t particularly good for us. They’re full of sugar, salt, fake fat, fake flavorings, preservatives, and GMO frankenstuff. They come from factories thousands of miles away. And we’re sometimes suspicious that the food safety isn’t all it should be.

This is why farmer’s markets, community-supported farms, and food co-ops can now be found in almost every corner of the country, with more coming on line each year. People want alternatives — preferably fresh, organic fare produced by farmers who are close enough to get to know.

I love the fact that my food dollar isn’t going to Cargill or ADM. It’s not adding tons of petroleum-based fertilizers (those damned oil companies again) to the soil and the watershed. It’s not paying to truck food two thousand miles to my store. Instead, it’s going to Mike Finger, my CSA farmer, who lives five miles from my house. It’s keeping our town’s outrageous Saturday farmer’s market alive and lively. It’s providing hundreds of jobs for dairymen and women, cheese and butter makers, bakers, farmers, small meat operations, co-op workers, chicken ranchers, and all kinds of other talented folks in my community. And it’s creating an alternative food stream that banishes the big corporations (and the big banks that fund them) out of my kitchen and off of my family’s plates.

Today is the perfect time to be thinking of this. One source predicts:

Global Food Prices in 2011 Face Perilous Rise

Food prices globally are rising to dangerous levels. There is talk of a coming crisis, like the ones that produced riots around the world in 2008 and 1974. Many of the ingredients of a disaster are present, but governments can stop the problem before it causes too much damage.

A warning sign is the price of traded staples like wheat, corn and rice. Prices shot up in 2010, soaring 26 percent from June to November and brushing the peaks of 2008, according to the Food Price Index kept by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That hits poor countries that import much of their food, including the Philippines, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.

I think we have some opportunities right here in the Choice City. Fort Collins Food Co-operative is one. Gardens on Spring Creek is another.

I hope you know about Northern Colorado Food Incubator

See www.BeLocalNC.org

Breaking News

Protests intensify in Boliva over gas prices.

Photo Credit:1 Geek Coefficient Blog
Photo Credit: 2 Micah Ian Wright on Facebook.
Photo Credit: 3 Tree Hugger
Photo Credit: 4 Northern Colorado Food Incubator

Posted by Gypsy Chief