In our town (Australia), we have a 'choice' of 4 supermarkets. They pretty much sell all the same brands and products (except Aldi which produces similar products under its own brands).
I've often felt rather like the Russians in the pre-Berlin-Wall-fall days' propaganda where they were lined up waiting to buy the one shipment of a product.
"How the supermarket helped America win the cold war"
https://medium.com/s/freakonomicsra...-helped-america-win-the-cold-war-59c788def3eb
That article/podcast inspired me to put some thoughts I've been having in writing.
The planet now wastes 30% of the food produced on the planet, and we are at risk of losing 85% of local strains of food plants.
Seed banks are collecting heritage seeds, but need funding.
We have more food, less choice, more inequality, less good nutrition, more waste, less forest, more malnutrition and more under-nutrition.
Don't get me started on national borders and the damage they do to peace, the environment, health, equality and in general, the planet.
For about 6 months I've been a member of an "unpackaged" food collective (to use a "communist" term) which lets us split bulk amounts of different independently grown, sustainable, international and heritage foods.
Meanwhile, the supermarkets are selling more sustainable products, and less "unhealthy" or highly-processed foods.
As Bill Gates says, the world is getting better.
But it takes time to change distribution systems, habits, and land use and food production methods.
My pet peeve is international borders. As John Lennon sang and Yoko Ono wrote:
Imagine no countries
It isn't hard to do.
Bring on the NWO!!
Borders have always amused me. (Nobody stopped me, and now I'm on a roll.)
I was born in another state, I did my first 9 years of school there, but I've never lived there.
Yep, I crossed the border (and a time zone) every day I went to school and back.
Am I "South Australian" or "Victorian"?
My mother and her mother were born in China, but they're not "Chinese". Yet if they'd been born in America, they'd be "American".
Bizarre.
"In 2019, [The World Food Program] WFP is scaling up to provide 12 million people with monthly food assistance through direct food distributions or vouchers that people can use at retailers in areas where the markets are functioning. Each family of six gets a monthly ration of wheat flour, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar and salt."
https://www.wfp.org/countries/yemen
12 million people need to be given food in Yemen.
Meanwhile (trigger alert) (pun alert) guns are being sold and given to Yemenis.
Forests are being cut down in DRC, refugees are fleeing, Lake Chad and the Aral Sea are drastically smaller.
The Murray River in Australia is shrinking and we have droughts and bushfires before the southern summer has even begun.
I could go on, with more examples of over-consumption, overproduction, poor distribution, inappropriate land use, and excess waste due to state and international trade and border disputes.
Neighbours fear neighbours due to climate change, poverty, borders, food inequality.
We can see all this from maps and data. We can administrate this better with theoretical boundaries.
Will we really need physical international boundaries, if we can feed and shelter everyone, and everyone is thriving and peaceful?
I've often felt rather like the Russians in the pre-Berlin-Wall-fall days' propaganda where they were lined up waiting to buy the one shipment of a product.
"How the supermarket helped America win the cold war"
https://medium.com/s/freakonomicsra...-helped-america-win-the-cold-war-59c788def3eb
That article/podcast inspired me to put some thoughts I've been having in writing.
The planet now wastes 30% of the food produced on the planet, and we are at risk of losing 85% of local strains of food plants.
Seed banks are collecting heritage seeds, but need funding.
We have more food, less choice, more inequality, less good nutrition, more waste, less forest, more malnutrition and more under-nutrition.
Don't get me started on national borders and the damage they do to peace, the environment, health, equality and in general, the planet.
For about 6 months I've been a member of an "unpackaged" food collective (to use a "communist" term) which lets us split bulk amounts of different independently grown, sustainable, international and heritage foods.
Meanwhile, the supermarkets are selling more sustainable products, and less "unhealthy" or highly-processed foods.
As Bill Gates says, the world is getting better.
But it takes time to change distribution systems, habits, and land use and food production methods.
My pet peeve is international borders. As John Lennon sang and Yoko Ono wrote:
Imagine no countries
It isn't hard to do.
Bring on the NWO!!
Borders have always amused me. (Nobody stopped me, and now I'm on a roll.)
I was born in another state, I did my first 9 years of school there, but I've never lived there.
Yep, I crossed the border (and a time zone) every day I went to school and back.
Am I "South Australian" or "Victorian"?
My mother and her mother were born in China, but they're not "Chinese". Yet if they'd been born in America, they'd be "American".
Bizarre.
"In 2019, [The World Food Program] WFP is scaling up to provide 12 million people with monthly food assistance through direct food distributions or vouchers that people can use at retailers in areas where the markets are functioning. Each family of six gets a monthly ration of wheat flour, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar and salt."
https://www.wfp.org/countries/yemen
12 million people need to be given food in Yemen.
Meanwhile (trigger alert) (pun alert) guns are being sold and given to Yemenis.
Forests are being cut down in DRC, refugees are fleeing, Lake Chad and the Aral Sea are drastically smaller.
The Murray River in Australia is shrinking and we have droughts and bushfires before the southern summer has even begun.
I could go on, with more examples of over-consumption, overproduction, poor distribution, inappropriate land use, and excess waste due to state and international trade and border disputes.
Neighbours fear neighbours due to climate change, poverty, borders, food inequality.
We can see all this from maps and data. We can administrate this better with theoretical boundaries.
Will we really need physical international boundaries, if we can feed and shelter everyone, and everyone is thriving and peaceful?
