Perspectives on Social Issues
(May 2005)
Nuclear Weapons Not Possible without Racism
"Nuclear weapons could not be possible without racism. Indeed, the nuclear industry as a whole would be impossible without racism. Nuclear weapons are the product of highly enriched uranium and the plutonium that can be processed from it. Most mining and milling of uranium ore is done on the lands of indigenous peoples: 
Hopi and Navaho lands in Southwest United States, Cree land in Northern Canada, Aboriginal lands in Australia, and Tribal Homelands in South Africa. Communities of color bear a disproportionate share of risks and health effects caused by radiation released during mining and milling. The uranium fuel made from this ore for commercial reactors is processed in plants often located intentionally in communities of color, mostly African-American.
When the U.S. government went looking for a place to test its nuclear weapons, they chose an isolated area north of Las Vegas. That land belonged to the Western Shoshone Nation who called it Newe Segobia. It became the most bombed nation on earth. Since 1951, more than 1,000 full-scale nuclear weapons explosions have taken place on this, the now infamous Nevada Test Site. The radiation released by nearly 40 years of exploding nuclear weapons in the Southwest has dramatically increased cancer-related deaths among the predominately Hispanic population east of the test site."
"The Racism at the Core of Nuclear Policy," From the Editor by Dave Robinson, The Catholic Peace Voice, Pax Christi USA, Jan/Feb 2005.
Revealing Agricultural Statistics
"Number of 33 U.S. food processing industries in which consolidation from 1973 through 1992 led to lower consumer prices: 4
Number in which the effect was zero or unknown: 6
Number in which it led to higher prices: 23
Percent of total price-fixing fines worldwide paid by food and agriculture cartels in recent years: 85
Retail price of bread made from one bushel of wheat in Canada, 1975: $30
Farmers' price for one bushel of wheat in Saskatoon, Canada, 1975: $3
Retail price of bread made from one bushel of wheat, 1999: $90
Farmers' price for one bushel of wheat, Saskatoon, Canada, 1999: $3"
"Food Concentrates," Matters of Scale, WorldWatch, May/June, 2005.
Addressing Urban Sprawl
"The very nature of sprawl demands a wide-ranging, comprehensive approach, including coalition-building. Environmentalists, affordable-housing activists, local business groups, even builders and developers may find common sprawl-halting goals that are in harmony with their very different central concerns.
What could such coalitions work for? The "New Rules Project" of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (www.newrules.org) has many examples of innovative ways to create local and state legislation for maximum community benefit on issues from agriculture to energy to good government. On land use, one model they cite is Lancaster, California's distance-based impact fees, a surcharge on any new development beyond a 5 mile radius of the central city core. This regulation puts the extra cost of providing city services to far-flung developments on those developments, rather than forcing core residents to subsidize them, and has successfully turned the focus of new development in toward the core.
[P]eople of faith could play [a key role] in addressing sprawl, because our faith speaks in some way to all of the legitimate concerns felt by the different people affected-a desire for home, a hurting environment, social inequity, making room for the stranger, making a living, building the common good. We can help to hold these issues in tension in a respectful, community-oriented way that puts justice at the center of our actions and prayers, while demonizing no one."
"It's the Sprawl, Y'all," by Julie Palter, Sojourners Magazine, May 2005.
(Note: since this was added, the survey has been reinstated -- thanks to work by the NFWM and others)
National Farm Worker Survey Suspended
"The U.S. Department of Labor has suspended funding for the only national survey that collects data on the working and living conditions of the country's difficult-to-track migrant farm worker population. The move stunned researchers, policy-makers and nonprofit organizations. ‘It only costs $1 million a year, but it has allowed millions of other dollars to be dedicated to farm worker programs,’ said Richard Mines, who created the survey in 1988 arid now directs research for the California Institute for Rural Studies. The federal government currently spends about $800 million in programs for migrant workers, and funding is based primarily on information gathered in the survey, Mines says.
The Department of Labor halted the survey to cut costs. It is seeking to move the survey to the Homeland Security or Education departments, which more frequently use the survey data. Moving the survey to Homeland Security would only further stigmatize the farm worker population, said Rey Leon of the Latino Issues Forum."
"Farm Worker Survey Suspended," U.S. Briefs, National Catholic Reporter, Feb 4, 2005.
Strengthening Rural Communities
"The Farm Bill, for better or worse, is currently the vehicle for rural development policy. Most of the money spent on rural America (via the Farm Bill) ends up in the pockets of large landholders and agribusinesses, doing little to help struggling rural families. In this report [Bread for the Worlds Institute’s, Hunger 2005: Strengthening Rural Communities], we are calling for a major overhaul of U.S. rural policy to address the needs of the entire rural population. It is time for the United States to significantly reduce agricultural subsidies by phasing out the trade distorting kind and capping those paid to large landholders and agribusinesses. The money saved should be redirected into rural development to help build sustainable rural communities. This must be coupled with programs that ease the effect on farmers who will suffer during the transition.
Rural communities worldwide stand to benefit. According to the World Bank, if agricultural subsidies were removed, the number of people worldwide living on less than $2 per day would fall by 144 million, 67 million of them in Africa. The average European cow receives $2.50 per day in subsidies, while 75 percent of African people live on less than $2 per day."
"Strengthening Rural Communities," by Todd Post, Background Paper No. 177, Bread for the World Institute, April 2005.
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Gratitude to the Institute for Peace and Justice
for use of their Pope Paul VIth graphic. |
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