Capitalism and Class....on OWS anniversay? Nice planning, ha!

Impeccable timing Brennan! Having the chapter on Capitalism and Class on the 1-year anniversary of OccupyWallStreet.

This chapter, as much is the book so far, is very revealing. I had no idea that the Spanish had settled in 1/3 of what we now call the United States or that labor unions excluded blacks until the 1930s. The overall trend in this chapter is something that has been introduced to me before but having it said so thoroughly and with another's perspective is rewarding. Something that really stuck out to me had to do with the labor laws. Kaufman explained that "[w]hen the Federal Wage and Hours law was passed as part of the New Deal legislation in 1938, it specifically excluded farm labor from its protection. Farm labor was instead regulated under the Farm Labor Standards Act, which was much weaker." This to me was pretty amazing that when so many workers were fighting to improve their lives, they would leave out fellow workers that also needed help. Ahhhh, the power of racism.

Last week in class we had a nice discussion on the incident that went on in your Ecopysch class and it lead to a nice discussion that went on for an hour or so. It later came time to discuss the projects and it was interesting that we had 4 projects that related to food and 1 that related to air/water. GMOs were also spoken of in all 4 food projects if I remember correctly. Over these past weeks I've had lots of information flowing my way and thanks to Jaynie's annotated bibliography I now have another book, "In Defense of Food."



Apologies again for not getting to a blog post until now. Chapter 1 and 2 to follow

Sust 450 Research topic proposal

For my project in this class I will be doing the research paper and I basically want to expose Monsanto for what it does. I want to start with the basics of genetically modified organisms - What is it? How do they do it? What are the consequences, if any? Etc. From here I will have to explain a bit about the food system and how it works in the United States with its conglomeration at the top and the effects the subsidies the United States pays to farmers have on the system – basically the corn economy. This will hopefully tie into an economic discussion where I can discuss how our conventional farming system is better or worse than if we had a sustainable farming system. I will also talk about social health in this paper and hopefully manage to tie that into economy as well since healthcare is a huge economic burden. Of course all of this is very political as well because Monsanto has infiltrated our government with the good-ol’ revolving door between big business and government and with all of their lobbyists too. I already have some sources in mind, such as the documentaries “Future of Food,” “Scientists Under Attack,” and possibly “Food, Inc.,” “Fresh,” “Fast Food Nation,” and “King Corn.” I plan on diving more thoroughly into the studies provided to me by the Kushi Institute and will be searching for others myself. I have seen a lot of information lately claiming the benefits of fruits, vegetables, and basic (instead of acidic) diets but those will need to be verified by tracking down the source or finding another avenue with the same information. I’ll hopefully come across a few books so I’m hoping the book Emily has will be of some use and I also think Fair Food will have relevance.