Poverty

According to Failure to Yield,  a 2009 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), biotechnology industry claims about higher crop yields are not verifiable. “Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields,” says UCS.

Pressure on farmers to provide cheap, adequate amounts of food is accelerating due to climate change, increasing population, demand for biofuels and the global economic downturn. The public response of biotechnology companies like Monsanto is that they are willing and able to feed the world. The promise of rapid, high-tech improvements in plant genetics to deal with new agricultural challenges is the main PR line of biotech giants.

Under US law, the rich can “steal” cheap foreclosed houses. “People’s” historian Howard Zinn writes, “It is not easy to prove that protest changes policy.” This Monday, March 30th, Rosemary Williams is launching a protest that just might change things! She is refusing to leave her home at 3138 Clinton Ave. South in Minneapolis. It fell into foreclosure after having been refinanced once, and again two years ago to help make ends meet with an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). Monthly payments shot up to $2,000! The community is rallying around her cry: STOP foreclosures and evictions!

Related: Picket of Foreclosed Home Auction at MPLS Convention Center Saturday | TCIMC Video of Hennepin County Sheriff's Sale Action

by Lynette Malles, Poor Peoples' Economic Human Rights Campaign Member

In April, 2008, Minnesota saw 1,405 foreclosures , which was a 68 percent-rise over the same period in 2007, according to a RealtyTrac study. In the first quarter of 2008, Minnesota was hit with 4,231 foreclosures. By August in Minneapolis alone, 950 homes were abandoned, according to Minnesota Public Radio. Such homes were evacuated, locked, and the heat kept on to prevent pipes from freezing.

Related: Video of PPEHRC Valentine's Day Housing Occupation | Baltimore IMC: Activists Break Into, Restore Foreclosed House

Neighbors helping neighbors—to break into vacant houses
By: Madeleine Baran
TC Daily Planet
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2009/02/13/neighbors-helping-neighb...

Poverty rights activists broke into at least a dozen vacant Minneapolis buildings this week and helped homeless families move in.

“This is the modern underground railroad,” said Cheri Honkala, National Organizer for the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, the group organizing the “takeovers.”

From Fight Back News Service: Minnesota Protest Demands a 'People’s Bailout'
By staff

St. Paul, MN - While state officials announced a record $5.2 billion dollar budget deficit at the State Capitol here, Dec. 4 , about 25 members of the Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout were outside the room chanting, “Hey politicians, here’s the fix! Tax the rich! Tax the rich!”

On September 2nd in St. Paul, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) brought together poor and homeless people of every race, background and age, students, social workers, union members, lawyers, religious leaders, artists and others who stand for social and economic justice. The PPEHRC raised their voices in the “March for Our Lives" to demand “Money for Health Care and Housing, Not for War!”

On September 2nd in St. Paul, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) brought together poor and homeless people of every race, background and age, students, social workers, union members, lawyers, religious leaders, artists and others who stand for social and economic justice. The PPEHRC raised their voices in the “March for Our Lives" to demand “Money for Health Care and Housing, Not for War!”

Without going into all of the supersecret ways that anarchists spot undercover cops in a crowd, these two men were pointed out as infiltrators by reliable sources and then interviewed on camera. The two split up once they realized they were "made" and then one just left the march all together.

Interview conducted at the the March For Our Lives in St. Paul, September 2nd, 2008:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/09/03/18532509.php

Stewart A. Alexander
Nominee for Vice President Socialist Party USA
Candidate for Vice President Peace and Freedom Party

June 9, 2008

A recent report prepared by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization identified 22 nations that are threaten by the global food crisis; riots, due to food shortages are now occurring in most of these poor countries. To prevent the escalation of the present world food crisis, Stewart Alexander, Vice Presidential Nominee for Socialist Party USA, wants a freeze or a roll back on U.S. ethanol production to the levels prior to December 2007.