[pf] where I am coming from

by Vicki Madden

19 December 2000 15:08 UTC

I rejoined this list recently. The flurry of discussion about GE and the
article about multinationals going after the protest organizations have
really made me think about where I am with this stuff. I did vote for
Nader. I belong to a CSA supporting an organic farmer a couple hours away
from NYC where I live. I help to organize and expand the CSA. My husband
and I hope to be farming ourselves within the next few years. (All of my
keyboard symbols are screwed up so forgive me if dashes and quotation
markes are missing.)

I come to my concerns about the centrality of the food supply to our future
from a life as a serious cook. I have always been vaguely leftist and
suspicious of big business, but have grown increasingly so. I was ecstatic
when Nader ran and very excited about his platform. The protests in Seattle
gave me the first glimmer of hope I have felt about Americans waking up.
Almost NO ONE we know sees things the way we do. All of my friends, who are
nice and educated and vaguely liberal people, just sort of go along with
the consumer culture, feeding their kids the most horrendous junk, antifood
really, on the idea that "everyone does it so what is the point of trying
to be different."

Several years ago, I subscribed to a magazine that will remain unnamed
about land and spirituality and living a plainer life. We went to a luddite
conference in Ohio last June (driving from nyc in spite of the fact that I
was 8 months pregnant because we were desperate to meet people who might be
more like us.) We met Amish people, plain Catholics, nonbelieving
communitarian types, all kinds of people who were there questioning the
role of unquestioned technology in our lives. Wendell Berry spoke, as did
David Kline (an Amish farmer and writer) and Wes Jackson. I came away
absolutley convinced that we had to buy all organic = NOT just because of
our individual health but in order to preserve our land and our farmers
skills. I came away absolutley convinced that we have to save our land if
we want to have a chance at not being pawns of corporations. Independence
comes from having land. Didn"t Malcom X say that? The rightwing
survivalists believe it, too. Even suburban plots, even city yards, can
feed families. I think it is hopeless to agitate for political solutions
without doing what we can in our own yards and homes. Real, fresh food
changes people"s ideas about what is possible.

One farmer from Eugene spoke about changing our ideas of CSA from just
community supported agriculture to congregation supported agriculture. That
stewardship of this earth involves supporting farmers who care for the
earth.  I am not active in a church but I do go sometimes, but I have
always been mystified at the lack of attention paid by churces to the evils
of consumerism and the harm being done to the earth. In the Seattle
protests, I was so glad that church groups were there too, and I thought
that maybe there would start to be a coalition built that would question
handing our world over to multinational corporations. But alas it has not
happened yet. Priscilla, what about a congregation=supported agriculture
movement`?

The article about multinationals trying to block the protest movement
really scared me, and I want to get more active in some way that I feel
would be effective. There was an article in In These Times about Naomi
Klein who wrote No Logo, and she said that the activists in the protest
movement are not very friendly to people who are not just like them. She
raised that issue at a planning meeting and people said we are too
exhausted doing the work to be able to come up with an appropriate agitprop
(I do not even know what agitprop means) for other people. The luddite
conference was in many ways very unactivist or rather it was not so much
about changing politics as about changing ourselves. But the multinationals
take away our personal choices...so I am beginning to feel I need to work
on both levels.

Vicki Madden
Brooklyn NY