It's not just oil that has been driven up in price because of the war. As energy costs have gone up, so has the cost of food, in no small part because most fertilizer is oil-based, and because transportation costs are also largely a reflection of oil prices. As well, to the extent that America's food is imported, they are paying in shrinking dollars, whose value is being driven down because of the war.
If you want to see gasoline drop back below $3.89/gal, if you want to cut your food bills, if you want to see people in the developing world having enough to eat, get Congress to end the war! Meanwhile, each time you pull the trigger on that gas pump, think of the liquid that's running into your tank, and the money that's flowing out of your wallet, as blood, because that's what it all comes down to.
It's that simple.
(read more here)
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Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America
by Stephen Lendman
Frances Fox Piven's book, Challenging Authority, is about how social movements can be pivotal forces for change because ordinary people in enough numbers have enormous political clout. Abolitionists, labor movements and civil rights activists proved it. Piven examines their collective actions plus one other in the four examples she chose - the American Revolution.
Piven's book is succinct and masterful. Howard Zinn calls it a "brilliant analysis of the interplay between popular protest and electoral politics." Canadian Professor Leo Panitch says the book is "theoretically profound, yet immensely readable," and sociologist and social movements expert Susan Eckstein describes the book as "quintessentially Piven-esque." It "eloquently (shows) how ordinary people....have taken it upon themselves to correct injustices."
Piven's theme is powerfully relevant at a perilous time in our history. The nation is at war on two fronts, a third one looms, constitutional protections have eroded, social services erased, the country is militarized, dissent repressed, and the government is empowered to crush freedom and defend privilege at the expense of beneficial social change it won't tolerate.
(read more here)
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In the spirit of liberty,
From All of Us on the Populist Party team
Copyright 2008, The Populist Party of America
