Farming our way to starvation: Land stewardship and Indigenous agriculture

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Tuesday January 10, 2023 · 5:59 AM PST

2023/01/10 · 05:59

This is part two of a two-part series on how we can prevent the coming collapse of the global food system. You can read part one here.

Our relationship with food and water and one another are a large part of why the United States and ”Western civilization” are breaking at the seams. A (not exhaustive) list includes how our farming techniques destroy the soil and sea life, that food recalls are common, and the way we eat (not only because of what is available) is unhealthy. Creating a revolution of values is a way through this; regenerative practices are actualizing this revolution.

Richard Elm-Hill, lead program officer from First Nations Development Institute, spoke with Daily Kos about how communal food is, using cooperative farming as an example. In western cultures you’ll often see a farmer's co-op, and the plot will be equally divided up between farmers. But for Elm-Hill, if “we do everything communally, we’re all going to grow together as families, we’re all going to share the space.”

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Monday January 09, 2023 · 5:59 AM PST

2023/01/09 · 05:59

This two-part series will explore the untenable status quo of global agriculture and aquaculture practices and systems.

There are dry fields with a dusty haze as far as the eyes can see in one direction. With a silent and dead sea, no schools of fish, sea plants and sea birds gone, only the movement of the ocean can be heard, now just a tomb of fish and marine animals. A future so alien to ours currently, but one UN climate reports show are within the realm of possibilities—a future where global food access is as large a concern as rising sea levels.

Climate change is commonly, and not incorrectly, thought of as CO2 raising global temperatures, leading to rising sea levels, heatwaves, droughts, and extreme weather events. CO2 emissions are a large piece of our changing climate, along with broader causes and effects of human environmental and resource use on our ecological systems. A warming planet and unsustainable farming practices are a potently explosive union, creating conditions for dead seas and destitute land once used for farming.

Reducing CO2 emissions won’t be enough to prevent the collapse of the global food system, but there is a solution to the problem: mass adoption of the Indigenous practice of regenerative farming. Adopting regenerative agriculture can avoid this ecological disaster. But it must also be taken as an opportunity to deconstruct colonial agricultural practices by directly engaging, working with, and letting Indigenous people lead the way.

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Wednesday November 16, 2022 · 5:59 AM PST

2022/11/16 · 05:59

Domestic and care workers make it possible for the rest of the economy to run. Yet they are an unprotected class of workers, mistreated and underpaid. Domestic workers were left out of the 1935 Fair Labor Standards Act—agriculture and domestic workers were intentionally overlooked because they were predominantly Black professions.

This changed in 2015 when the U.S. Department of Labor extended minimum wage and overtime benefits to home care workers (but not all domestic workers, just in-home care providers). Domestic care workers still cannot unionize. Domestic and care workers are still more likely to be Black, brown, or Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) populations, and about 90% of the workers in the care industry are women.

The costs of child and elder care are unaffordable for most Americans, creating a “sandwich generation” of Americans, defined as those who have to care for both their parents and their young children at the same time. Low wages in care work create high turnover, lowering the quality of care and the well-being of the care worker and the person being cared for.

Care is expensive and care workers are underpaid; yet while these industries are overwhelmingly private, public funding plays a prominent role, especially for adult care. If you look at this crisis with clear eyes, the failure to address it will dramatically lower the quality of end of life for many Americans. The private sector cannot solve this crisis, leaving solutions to the public sector—our governments.

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Wednesday October 19, 2022 · 5:59 AM PDT

2022/10/19 · 05:59

Before getting COVID-19, you may have been a runner who could finish a marathon in your sleep, or you’re a parent who could work a full day and always find the energy to play with your child. But now, you can only run a quarter as far before you’re winded, and you don’t bounce back the next day. Now, there are some days you can’t even get through your work, let alone come home and play.

Katie Bach, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has studied the economic impact of long COVID. She has heard many stories about those experiencing it, telling Daily Kos of heartbreak and lives thrown off their paths. “You hear stories of younger people, they haven’t met their life partner yet. And now they're struggling alone, incapacitated, and have no one to help them. You talk to young parents who can no longer look after their toddlers. You talk to slightly later-stage career professionals, just getting where they want to go, and then it hits them. You talk to retirees who have been waiting and saving for the chance to spend time with grandchildren, with their spouse, and now are confined to their house; it’s really devastating.”

The scope of long COVID is hard for researchers to grasp, but with a recent Center for Disease Control (CDC) Long COVID Household Pulse Survey, these numbers are becoming clearer. Bach’s work shows that for Americans 18-65 years old, or “working age,” 16 million currently have long COVID, and 2 to 4 million can’t work at all, with a trail of at least $170 billion in lost wages.

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Monday August 22, 2022 · 7:29 AM PDT

2022/08/22 · 07:29

Flint resident Freddie Fisher shouts out "No justice, no peace!" as she joins more than 50 Flint residents who rally on the five-year anniversary of the Flint water crisis at the Capitol Building on Thursday, April 25, 2019, in Lansing, Mich. Fisher said she's been afraid of interaction with the water, so much to the point that she has to force herself to take a bath to keep clean, but not without its fears of what it could do to her body. She erupted with an impassioned speech asking for politicians to step up and continue to aid the city's residents until the issue is fully resolved. (Jake May/MLive.com/The Flint Journal via AP) — The EPA is largely absent in protecting Americans from exposure to toxic materials, which is a full-blown crisis.

The trick about conspiracy theories is they’re built from a kernel of truth. Anti-vaccine theories are a good example—a lack of trust about what our bodies are exposed to helped create fertile soil for anti-vaccine theories to grow. America's federal government has earned its distrust, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) played its part in aiding and creating the space for conspiracy theories to flourish by failing to protect Americans from toxic materials. Recent revelations show that toxic material exposure to Americans—and the world—should be seen as a crisis.

In December 2021, a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that half of the U.S. population has been exposed to high lead levels in early childhood. Research has shown there are no safe levels of lead exposure as a child; your brain and development will be permanently affected by any level of childhood exposure.

Then there are the alarming levels of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, aka forever chemicals) exposure across the American populace, seeping into our soil and water, with over 99% of Americans exposed. But these aren’t the only life- and society-sapping materials Americans are being exposed to at potentially dangerous levels: Others include uranium, pesticides, and a host of carcinogens.

Exposure to toxic materials is one more sweeping national crisis, impacting community health, generations of a family’s health, economics, public safety, food, and more. It is a pile of straw on top of the already bent back of the United States. And our government institutions and politicians are unable or unwilling to protect us.

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Wednesday August 17, 2022 · 2:26 PM PDT

2022/08/17 · 14:26

In the wake of the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residency, GOP leaders across the nation, along with mainstream conservative media outlets, are calling for the defunding of the FBI, political violence, civil war, and the overthrow of the U.S. government.

DEFUND THE FBI!
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) August 9, 2022

Many folks on Twitter pointed out the hypocrisy of the GOP calling to defund the FBI while those same people yelled bloody murder at the calls to “defund the police.” But pointing it out will do nothing: To the right, defunding the FBI and defunding the police are two entirely different things.

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Friday July 29, 2022 · 6:34 AM PDT

2022/07/29 · 06:34

President Joe Biden’s “Safer America Plan,” announced July 21, proposes a $38 billion investment in police and “crime prevention.” This plan includes $13 billion to hire 100,000 new law enforcement officers.

In the wake of announcing this plan and the Jan. 6 hearings, President Biden tweeted, “you can’t be pro-police and pro-insurrection.” That is a mistaken impression.

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Wednesday July 27, 2022 · 5:59 AM PDT

2022/07/27 · 05:59

It is hard to ignore the United States’ escalating housing crisis; the supply of non-luxury housing affordable to the average American is as arid as the American West. Finding affordable single-family housing, whether through rental or ownership, is becoming an impossibility. Housing prices are the financial context, and people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity are the human ones. This is a failure at every level of the American government to be a government for and by the people.

The modern American homeless crisis can be traced to the 1970s, when the nation saw a drastic reduction in various types of low-income housing. While the actual living conditions were far from great, single occupancy rooms (SROs), residential hotels, and government public housing kept permanent homelessness low. Most people in the country lived under shelter, including those in SROs or similar places on so-called skid rows. In 1974, one saw about 8,000 people residing on such a skid row in New York City; now, there are nearly 80,000 unhoused people in New York City, with 2,400 sleeping unsheltered on the street. The United States, in the depths of a homelessness crisis, is now also facing a ballooning housing crisis.

Matthew Braunginn

Community

Thursday June 23, 2022 · 9:52 AM PDT

2022/06/23 · 09:52

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: A Capitol police officer looks out of a broken window as protesters gather on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building after mass demonstrations in the nation's capital during a joint session Congress to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

If you’ve been following the Jan. 6 committee, you know the fascist rot runs deep within the Republican Party. And those who are not grifters or true believers, like former Vice President Mike Pence, are cowards unwilling to escape or take responsibility for the monstrous crocodile of their own creation that’s riding down the river. (Except for Rep. Liz Cheney, that is.)

So let’s continue to put Jan. 6 in the larger context of America's fascist movement, which should be seen as a movement within western and white colonial nations such as New Zealand. The white replacement theory went full mainstream with the Buffalo mass shooting that killed 10. It’s been recognizable among the right-wing, but rarely discussed in mainstream media until that tragic mass killing. As the Jan. 6 hearings demonstrate to the American public, the depths of this movement are extensive.

While it’s documented quite well here at Daily Kos how these views permeated throughout the GOP, there are hydra tentacles of white supremacy everywhere. Let’s continue expanding on the GOP's depths of fascist depravity.

Matthew Braunginn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday May 14, 2022 · 5:45 AM PDT

2022/05/14 · 05:45

HARRISBURG, PA - JANUARY 17: Police in riot gear monitor activity outside the Pennsylvania Capitol Building on January 17, 2021 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Supporters of President Trump are expected to gather at state capitol buildings throughout the nation today to protest the presidential election results and the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)

A 5-week-old child was killed Monday after a car crash ended police pursuit of her mother. Candace Gill, 38, is alleged to have stolen baby supplies from a Monroe, Louisiana, Walmart, according to local CBS affiliate KNOE 8. Another passenger, Edward Williams, died at the scene.

These tragic deaths are indicative of a significant problem, one the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade will make worse: Raising children is increasingly out of reach for many people in the United States. These deaths come on the heels of reports of baby formula shortages across the country, while price-gouging corporations blame rising prices on inflation while amassing record profits.

In fact, Walmart’s 2022 fiscal year profits—$572.75 billion—were up 2.4% from the 2021 fiscal year.

Matthew Braunginn for Daily Kos Emerging Fellows

Community

Friday May 13, 2022 · 1:05 PM PDT

2022/05/13 · 13:05

An Indian woman clean the remains of a burial belonging to Indus Valley civilisation during an archeological excavation at Sanauli site in Baghpat on June 4, 2018. - During the excavation were found 8 burial remains unearthed in which 3 coffin burials with chariot. (Photo by - / AFP) (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images) — An Indian woman cleans the remains of a burial belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization during an archeological excavation at Sanauli site in Baghpat on June 4, 2018. During the excavation, eight buried remains were unearthed, including three coffin burials with chariots.

On Thursday, I was doomscrolling Twitter when I came across a tweet of a video from Engineered Labs of someone casually breaking a 3,000-year-old piece of pottery from the Indus Valley Civilization.

Among archeologists and historians, the Indus Valley Civilization is one of the cradles of civilization, one of multiple cradles where the core original civilizations arose independently from one another. The South Asian site of the Indus Valley Civilization, along with Egypt in the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia in the Fertile Crescent, seem to have developed separately.

I confirmed the video's authenticity by heading over to Engineered Labs’ TikTok, where I saw and saved the video for myself. The video is now deleted from their account, and the company insists it was just a gag. You can watch it after the jump, where I’ll also tell you why hoax or not, this matters.

Matthew Braunginn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday May 11, 2022 · 4:55 AM PDT

2022/05/11 · 04:55

Pro-choice demonstrators hold placards in front of the Freedom Tower in Miami, Florida on May 3, 2022. - The Supreme Court is poised to strike down the right to abortion in the US, according to a leaked draft of a majority opinion that would shred nearly 50 years of constitutional protections. The draft, obtained by Politico, was written by Justice Samuel Alito, and has been circulated inside the conservative-dominated court, the news outlet reported. Politico stressed that the document it obtained is a draft and opinions could change. The court is expected to issue a decision by June. The draft opinion calls the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision "egregiously wrong from the start." (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. Senate can be bipartisan when protecting an increasingly authoritarian power structure that’s being bent, broken, and abused by the GOP— a fascist political party. By unanimously passing a bill to protect Supreme Court justices and their family members, the Senate and Democratic leadership showed they would rather protect fascists from feelings of discomfort than the people facing oppression assembling in their righteous anger.

The indignation and swift action by Senate Democrats lay bare the hypocrisy of many leaders within the United States—who claim to stand up for democracy, justice, and freedom—for being too concerned with an illusion of civility than the violent reality of the Republican Party, its funders, and its minions. Democrats were quick to protect Supreme Court justices but have been painfully slow in protecting American citizens from violent oppression, rising housing and food prices, school shootings, and climate change—to name a few.

This is part of a larger problem, and one that doesn’t engage with the scope or context of what the Republican Party is.

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Farming our way to starvation: Land stewardship and Indigenous agriculture

Farming our way to starvation: Unsustainable food systems

The care economy collapse: There is no care system, so what is it?

A mass disabling event: The effects of long COVID don’t stop at the individual

'Dooming another generation of Americans': The crisis of exposure to toxic materials

The GOP's calls to defund the FBI are not hypocritical

More police isn't the answer. So why does Biden want to invest $38 billion in them?

Housing on the brink: Milwaukee County’s 'housing first' success and the crisis of affordability

Putting Jan 6. within a national context: A fascist movement roundup

After police chase a woman accused of stealing baby supplies from Walmart, her 5-week-old is dead

Viral video is reminder of the archaeological looting pipeline producing 'cool gifts' for Westerners

Abortion activists are not the problem. This quick roundup of recent Republican fascism proves it