Re: [AUT] Feeding Frenzy – a Discussion on Food, Fuel and Finance

[Josephine Berry Slater <josie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, I just wanted to mention that we've filmed the event and are 
currently digitising it. I'll let you know as soon as it goes onto our 
website. It was a pretty passionate and long discussion - not sure we 
managed to solve anything, but well worth watching the video. The 
conversation veered between looking at how the current crises are an 
effect of a sequence of bubble bursts, 
non-reproduction/financialisation, and the green/blue revolutions of the 
60s/70s and the diminishing returns thereof, what possible solutions 
might entail (this broke down to ones posited within capitalism 
(agribusiness cont. or permacultural austerity), and others for which 
the supercession of capitalism was understood as an essential basis for 
any solution. Much of the debate seemed to revolve around how the 
food/fuel/economic crisis feeds into this, and/or how it 
renews/strengthens capitalism. There was some very heated debate on 
whether, as James Heartfield claimed, capitalism 'feeds billions of 
people' or not (i.e. this is in fact labour, it feeds only those who can 
pay market rate etc.), and what role technologised/industrialised 
production does and could have in all manner of futures.

We will be collecting speakers' statements on our site, but these only 
represent a small part of the discussion. For the most, it was a free 
for all, with the audience playing as big a role as the speakers.

Josie

dr.woooo wrote:with
> *Hi, did anyone attend and have comment. I have requested mute crew to put
> any papers online. *
> **
> *Benedict Seymour* ben at kein.org
> <aut-op-sy%40lists.resist.ca?Subject=%5BAUT%5D%20Feeding%20Frenzy%0A%20%3D%3Fwindows-1252%3Fq%3F%3D96_a_Discussion_on_Food%3D2C_Fuel_%3F%3D%0A%20%3D%3Fwindows-1252%3Fq%3Fand_Finance%3F%3D&In-Reply-To=>
> *Fri Jun 27 14:01:00 PDT 2008*
>
>
>    - Previous message: [AUT] [Fwd: Tagber: Germany's 1968: A Cultural
>    Revolution?]
>    <https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/aut-op-sy/2008-June/000103.html>
>    - *Messages sorted by:* [ date
> ]<https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/aut-op-sy/2008-June/date.html#105>
> [
>    thread ]<https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/aut-op-sy/2008-June/thread.html#105>
> [
>    subject ]<https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/aut-op-sy/2008-June/subject.html#105>
> [
>    author ]<https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/aut-op-sy/2008-June/author.html#105>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Hi all,
> a late reminder of this forthcoming discussion in London (next week) -
> hope it will be of interest to some of you.
> Thanks,
> Ben
>
>
> Mute Magazine invites you to a discussion
>
> If the government is to be believed, we are undergoing a streak of
> freakily bad luck. First the credit crunch, then astronomical fuel price
> hikes and now a global food crisis. Could all these by any chance be
> connected?
>
> Neoliberal policy makers and money-men clearly don't think so, since
> they are advocating more of the same medicine as a cure - further
> deregulation of food markets, more restructuring of developing countries
> sweetened by aid packages, more biotech and, of course, bank bail-outs
> to sustain the whole debt-addicted economy. In other words, propping up
> a system that will continue to force famished populations to grow
> export-only crops, to be fuel-intensively shipped to the developed
> world, to stock supermarket shelves at inflated prices for
> debt-encumbered consumers, while the famished producers pay through the
> nose for imported food at prices inflated by the flight of investment
> from mortgages into basic commodities. A vicious circle indeed.
>
> But how can we best feed the world's swelling population? Is 'food
> sovereignty' a progressive or reactionary demand? Should biotech and
> industrial farming methods be embraced as a way of feeding a warming
> planet? Have we reached 'Peak Food'? Are biofuels, on balance, helpful
> or harmful? As food riots break out in Haiti, Cameroon and Bangladesh,
> and fuel protests by truckers threaten Europe's supply lines, what are
> the political possibilities of this conjunction of crises?
>
> Mute magazine will be hosting an open discussion with contributions
> from: Gareth Dale (author of recent critiques of 'green capitalism'
> including 'On the Menu or At the Table: Corporations and Climate
> Change'), James Heartfield (author of Green Capitalism: Manufacturing
> Scarcity in the Age of Abundance), Helena Paul (co-director of
> Econexus, http://www.econexus.info/ and long term campaigner against
> GM and
> Agrofuels), Graham Burnett (vegan-punk permaculturist and founder of
> http://spiralseed.org.uk )
>
> Where:
>
> The Church House
>
> Fletcher St (off Cable St)
> george
> London E1
>
> When:
>
> 1 July at 7pm
>
> Contact:
>
> josie AT metamute.org
>
> Links:
>
> URLhttp://www.metamute.org/en/feeding_frenzy_a_discussion_on_food_fuel_and_finance
>
> Flyer:
>
> PDFhttp://www.metamute.org/sites/www.metamute.org/files/mute_food_flyer_02cropweb2.pdf
>
> JPGhttp://www.metamute.org/sites/www.metamute.org/files/mute_food_flyer_02cropweba_Page_1.jpg
>
>
>
>   
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> aut-op-sy mailing list
> aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aut-op-sy
> aut-op-sy

_______________________________________________
aut-op-sy mailing list
aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aut-op-sy
aut-op-sy