Catalyst

Why it’s So Important to Buy Fresh and Buy Local

2008-02-05T11:05:31-05:00

It’s something I wish more people were passionate about: where their food comes from. Whether you shop at your local Hy-Vee (Midwest), Giant, Safeway, or even Whole Foods—our eyes should be much more on the skeptic side than quick to trust. Why?

If you stop and look at the big picture --it’s really just a simple visualization exercise: think of the life of a single pear, apple or even head of lettuce traveling in truck all the way from California, it’s hot, it’s cold, it goes from box to box, truck to cart, it sees some bugs, inhales some gasoline fumes and well, goes through a few germy hands, and then sits for about 2 or 3 weeks until it makes it into your mouth (you wash it of course).

With global warming as the biggest environmental issue of our time --and the threat of consuming the world’s oil within our lifetimes, or our children's lifetimes—it’s important to note that the average food travels 1,500 miles (that's a low-end estimate) before it reaches your plate. (See this blurb about oil use for food).

In a Washington Post article this past week, Jill Hollingsworth, vice president for food safety programs at the Food Marketing Institute, said it best: “we as an industry need to step up and do what the government can't reasonably do on their own, given their resource and people limitations," and, "one way to do that is to work directly with the suppliers to raise the bar and set some guidelines beyond the regulatory standards."

That’s why I’ve made a choice to get my produce from local farmers Randy and Chris Treichler (Star Hollow Farms in Pennsylvania). To me, they are the true suppliers that can raise the “bar” on regulatory standards. As a consumer, I’ve prefer knowing who picked my lettuce or potato, or pear. And, I find it fascinating that most of the produce I get is in its (figuratively speaking) infancy, to the new world—(above ground or off the branch). I know this because it STAYS FRESH longer.

Buying locally has also forced me to better understand the relationship between food and its season. Even if you turn your nose up to turnips, you understand quickly that it's February and fresh blueberries are hard to come by (except in South America). But when nectarines are in season, they will be so amazing since we’ve waited a year and nothing compares to fresh, local nectarines!

The seasonality aspect also gives me reason to try new recipes and experiment with ways to use this fresh produce (my grandmother loves my phone calls for recipes too!) See my friend Eric’s excellent blog about what happens when a food lover's taste buds and conscience meet. A quick note about organic: as stated in the Post article “Current USDA standards prohibit only artificial colorings and additives in foods labeled "natural;” high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil still can be used.” Farmer Randy may not be able to call his grass and bug eating chickens “organic,” but then I know where my eggs are coming from. And for $2.75 a dozen—it’s worth it. See also "USDA Certified Organic." For more information, read the Organic page in the Issues section.

Each week, I get a detailed list of where my food comes from—and it’s all local via the Tuscarora Organic Coop. It’s nice to know that my money is going to Randy, his upkeep, his gas to travel each week and deliver produce—not the advertisers or traditional middlemen. But most importantly, I know what I’m eating, and I know it’s much healthier, fresher and better for me.

MORE REASONS TO BUY LOCAL

* Each year, the average American consumes 260 pounds of imported food.
* 98.7% of foods imported into the U.S. are NOT inspected by the FDA for safety.
* Of the scant 1.3% of imported foods the FDA tests, over 200 shipments of grains, fish, vegetables, nuts, spice, oils and other imported foods are detained each month for issues ranging from filth to unsafe food coloring to contamination with pesticides to salmonella. The other 98.7% of untested food is immediately green-lighted for the American diet.
* The U.S. imports almost twice as much food today as it did just ten years ago, yet the FDA's budget for testing imports has been cut nearly in half since 2000.

Stephanie Heishman
Center of Concern

Source: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4897.cfm

Outrage Before Breakfast!#%$@&!

2008-01-24T15:15:01-05:00

Washington, DC, January 24, 2008

Three news items have given me a furious start on the day. No need for caffeine. In case you missed them:

Dateline: The White House. The Bush administration is pushing to conclude this summer “a long term security agreement” with the Iraqi Administration which would guarantee U.S. military bases and major troop deployments on Iraqi soil for decades to come. The Iraqi foreign minister speaks of this agreement openly as a treaty, while the Bush Administration insists that it is not a treaty. Why? As a treaty, it must, by law, go to the Senate for ratification. There it will trigger a heated national debate and it will not be ratified.

A treaty it is, going much farther than any other security agreement. It obligates U.S. forces to resist any unrest that might threaten the current government of Iraq. This will reinforce the faction of the current government that favors privatizing Iraq’s oil industry. According to a soon-to-be-released analysis of the Iraq situation by Pax Christi-USA and the Center of Concern (www.coc.org/election2008), this type of “U.S. backing for the Al-Maliki government is viewed as interfering with the possibilities for reaching an Iraqi political solution.”

What this shows the people of the Middle East and should show the citizens of the U.S. is that, despite all the president’s disclaimers, it is about the oil and always has been. This is clearly not what this country or the world wants or needs. Unless the national and global uproar can stop this “security agreement” before it gets off the ground, we will have to chalk up one more loss for democracy, transparency in government, and peace.

Dateline: South Carolina Airwaves. The Clinton campaign aired a new radio ad in South Carolina yesterday repeating the attack on Obama claiming that he admired Ronald Reagan and suggesting he supported Reagan’s economic policies. This attack has been confronted publically by objective analysts and demonstrated to be categorically wrong. Senator Obama’s words were taken out of context and misconstrued.

To make that kind of mistake once in the fast pace of a political race could be an honest accident. But to repeat the charges after they have been so thoroughly discredited and you know they are a distortion is nothing more than a dirty, dishonest political attack.

My vote was Hillary’s to lose. This type of tactic is just what will cause her to lose it. If this type of politicking continues, we may well have to chalk up one more loss for integrity in government and leadership for the type of change that can restore the nation to our best values. I consider the promotion of this new radio ad “One small attack on truth, one large boost to cynicism about U.S. politics.”

Dateline: Capitol Hill. Congressional leaders this morning signed off on a bi-partisan stimulus package in an effort to stop the slide of the U.S. economy into recession. Republicans gave up their refusal of tax rebates to lower income families; Democrats gave up their demands for extended unemployment benefits and increased food stamps. Both embraced a higher-than-expected $70 billion tax break for businesses.

Let’s duck the deluge of hype and the façade of ‘bipartisan compromise’ that are sure to accompany this agreement and reflect honestly for a moment. It is a well-publicized fact that the food stamps and the extended unemployment benefits would have been the quickest stimulus to the economy. They could have been implemented quickly and would have provided money that would have been spent immediately. The tax rebates to individuals and businesses will take 6 months to implement. The “sense of urgency” to get a political solution here apparently doesn’t translate into a sense of urgency about fiscal stimulus.

Tax stimulus to businesses could promote the creation of new jobs by the Fall, but such tax relief has at least as good a chance of financing investment in technologies that eliminate jobs. We now have decades of experience with that dynamic.

Those in need of food stamps and unemployment benefits are, of course, the people in our society most vulnerable to harm from an economic downturn. Our politicians don’t seem to share their sense of urgency about food or shelter or economic security.

Chalk it up as one more case of the most vulnerable in our society being elbowed aside. Will government of the moneyed, by the moneyed, and for the moneyed never perish from the earth?

Posted by James E. Hug, SJ - President

A Global Vote for the Next U.S. President?

2008-01-17T12:02:24-05:00

Are you tired of hearing the same old, same old from the candidates during the primary debates? Do we need some fresh insights? Important as withdrawal from Iraq is, are there not other pressing foreign policy issues that we need to hear about from the candidates? Here’s an idea for you. Everyone in the world should be able to vote for the President of the United States because U.S. policy has such a pervasive and sometimes negative effect of the whole world. Radical? But it makes a point and speaks to the (mis)use of U.S. economic, political and military power not only in other countries but also in multilateral institutions. The debates might get more interesting too, if people from other parts of the world had input.

In an era when the U.S. has ignored its international treaty obligations (think Geneva Conventions and nuclear non-proliferation), tries to manipulate multilateral institutions (think the U.N. Security Council), throws around its military might (think Iraq and Iran), and ignores its global obligations (think climate change), it is no wonder people of the world are saying “basta,” “enough already.”

A key question, mostly ignored during this Presidential season, is how should the U.S. participate in international relations? How and when should we engage in multilateral negotiations for the global common good? What are our obligations to international treaties, those we have signed and those we have not? What is really in U.S. self-interest in this globalizing world? Are there limits to national sovereignty? If so, what are they and when do they become operative? Does Catholic Social teaching have anything to say to these questions?

And critically, what do our candidates, both republican and democratic, think about these and so many other issues of foreign policy.

Check the Center of Concern’s Election 2008: Voting the Common Good (www.coc.org/election2008) for some discussion of these key issues in the third issue brief “International Relations: Vote the Global Common Good.” While you’re there you may also want to check other Election 2008 Resources “Common Good Framework” and “Immigration.” Be informed, be engage and vote the global common good for the good of all of us.

Posted by Maria Riley, OP - Senior Advisor, Global Women's Project.

Immigration: Cracking Down on "Illegals" or Welcoming Strangers?

2008-01-11T13:28:02-05:00

I do not understand the passion around the immigration issue in the country today! And the most venomous anti-immigrant voices with all their denunciations of the so-called “illegals” are coming from people claiming to be religious and Christian!

Without getting into partisan politics, I was particularly disheartened by GOP candidate Fred Thompson’s proposal reiterated in the Republican debate in South Carolina to put an end to the sanctuary movement.

As a Christian theologian and believer, I find this outrageous, practically blasphemous. What Thompson, and the many others who claim Christ while denunciating "illegals," are actually showing the world is the weakness of their faith.

The heart of the Judeo-Christian message is “Welcome the stranger in your land. Remember, you were once strangers in a strange land yourselves.” The core message of the New Testament authors is the forgiving, all-embracing love of God. Jesus spent his life in ministry to the outcast and was put to death for his insistence on the loving forgiveness of God.

Forgive me for wondering how Protestants (or Catholics for that matter) on the political Right can so easily forget (or ignore) Paul’s insistence that the law does not and cannot save us.

With attitudes like this, we have a long way to go in generating a fruitful and thoughtful discussion on immigration today.

If you’re interested in a different take on immigration, please check out the Center’s new resources on immigration at www.coc.org/election2008.

Posted by James E. Hug, President, Center of Concern.

Globalization demands new role for Catholic voters

2007-11-14T15:56:17-05:00

Sound bites and easy canned answers do not do justice to the needs facing the American public nor to its intelligence. Turn them off! Block them out! Demand honest, direct real-life answers to life’s real questions – like jobs, outsourcing, health care, poverty, immigration and security. And don’t try to use our religion to divide us or manipulate us.

As a Christian approaching what could be the most important set of national elections in my lifetime, I have a serious responsibility to be an authentic Citizen Disciple: involved in the political process, working to turn the country toward greater justice for all, guided in addressing the issues and candidates first of all by the values of Jesus and his vision of the human community in the Reign of God. All Christians do. And I’m sure members of other faiths – and even people with no religious faith but authentic human values – can say something analogous.

During the three months ahead after which we will probably have identified our major presidential candidates, my dream is that we Americans will use all the best resources at our command to choose candidates and support programs that will move us as a nation again toward our best social vision for humanity, building on our best and most sacred national traditions and values.

Among those resources in the Catholic community are:

a centuries-long living tradition of social vision, principles and values grounded in the teachings of Christ,
deep engagement with each and all of the issues facing the American people,
strong national and international networks of organizations committed to working for justice for each and every person, and
a well-articulated faith vision that supports and invites social engagement with these issues.

To help Christians and Catholics take leadership in the national process of selecting new leadership and setting our national direction into the future, the Center of Concern is offering analyses of the major issues and educational tools to help people deepen their own analysis, make their own evaluation of the programs and candidates, and engage their local communities in those same efforts.

The first set of materials in this new project clarifies the notion of the common good as the context for all the major issues of the campaigns. The policy paper and educational materials argue that each of the issues – from immigration to jobs, from health care to global warming, from poverty to terrorism – is a new and more complicated problem than it was a few years ago precisely because of globalization. Merely national solutions to security, health, poverty, employment, migration, the ecology and the so-called “life issues” themselves cannot provide more than short-term fixes.

All materials in the Center of Concern initiative will be posted at www.coc.org/election2008 and www.educationforjustice.org, and are available free of charge for individual or group use. Future postings in this Center initiative will be made on the 1st and 15th of each month. Topics will include immigration, international relations, jobs and outsourcing, poverty, Iraq and security, health care, and climate change. Other topics may be developed as the primary campaigns evolve into the national campaign. Take a look!

Privatization Gone Amok

2007-10-12T11:05:44-04:00

President Bush’s reasons for vetoing SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) are yet another example of the corrosive effect of the current economic theory of market fundamentalism that dominates U.S. policy domestically and globally. We heard it first from Ronald Reagan: “Get government off our backs!” It is consistently reinforced with the questionable premise that private enterprise is more efficient than the government. It is the belief that market forces work best and to everyone’s benefit when government gets out of the way. President Bush even resurrected the great bugaboo of the last century – creeping socialism – when he gave as one of his reasons that the bill goes “too far toward federalizing health care.”

Never mind the number of uninsured children who would be covered by this bill: an additional 4 million children over the already 6.6 million children who are already enrolled in the program. And this number of enrollees does not include all children in poverty in the U.S., nor does it extend coverage to legal immigrant children.

Never mind that the program will not be federal, but is a joint program of the federal and state governments, that is state-run and managed. The President also is concerned that SCHIP will siphon off some children who are currently insured by private health insurance companies. The number is amorphous. Never mind that the American Medical Association and trade associations for private insurance and drug companies support expanding SCHIP to cover more uninsured children. Nor does he allude to the reality that a primarily market-based approach to providing health care to individuals in the U.S. has been neither efficient nor comprehensive as the some 48 million uninsured attest.

But SCHIP is not the only example we have of our flawed commitment to privatization as the headlines in newspapers continue to reveal. The extensive use of private contract workers to manage many of the logistics of the horrific Iraq war is a reality too little known by U.S. citizens until yet another disaster happens, such as the killing of 17 Iraqis citizens by Blackwater Security Guards or the shooting of two Iraqi Christian women returning home from work by an Australian Security company. All in the employ, and therefore in the name of the U.S. We are now hearing from military spokesmen that the private security guards are thwarting U.S. efforts to create trust among Iraqi citizens.

Then we are consistently informed that the private contractors who provide supplies to the troops have overcharged for the services, or the building contractors have extensive cost over-runs not to mention shoddy workmanship and buildings which are uninhabitable when finished. The mammoth new U.S. Embassy in Iraq has postponed its opening indefinitely while a Kuwaiti contractor fixes a long list of problems. This delay will cost another $144 million. Our Iraq experience clearly shows that the private sector is not necessarily more efficient than government. One of the main difficulties is the lack of oversight and accountability of the private sector. Other obvious difficulties are that the private sector is a for-profit sector seeking all the profit it can possibly grab, and it appears that there is no cost too great for the U.S. taxpayers to pay to fund this war. The cost is in the trillions and rising.

The reconstruction of the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina illustrates the same gross failures of the government “getting off peoples’ backs and letting the market hold sway.” The list is long and depressing and the people who have been harmed by this approach are numerous. But someone is benefiting.

Isn’t it time that we raise our voices in protest and challenge this economic model that is demoralizing to people and depleting our resources to the benefit of a few? Private enterprise has its merits, but it demands checks and balances. The government has a responsibility to ensure the well-being and security of its citizens as well as being a good steward of our resources. The drive toward privatization evades that responsibility and erodes our sense of social solidarity in addressing the needs and problems of our people and the peoples whose lives we impact, such as the people of Iraq.

Posted by Maria Riley, OP - Senior Advisor, Global Women's Project.

Taking Action for Justice in Global Trade

2007-10-12T11:01:37-04:00

This week, October 14-21, marks the 2007 Trade Week of Action which is being promoted by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. The Center of Concern invites you to join with people of faith across the globe in calling for just trade policies.

According to the organizers' website:

The Trade Week of Action will be a time for churches and other groups all over the world to speak out and call for trade justice. People will be taking action on the issues that matter for each person’s communities and regions, but whether we are campaigning on EPAs or CAFTA, on farming or the garment industry, demonstrating in front of the World Bank or holding a fair trade meal in a church hall, we will be acting in solidarity with millions of others around the globe...

For decades, rich countries and institutions have pushed poor countries to open their markets, privatize essential services, and divert development efforts away from local producers. The profits of large corporations, supermarkets, transport companies and advertisers have increased and the power to control trade has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. At the same time, millions of people – from small farmers to individual consumers, have become increasingly disempowered and impoverished.

That’s why we are calling for trade justice. Trade justice is about recognizing the right that farmers have to feed their families and send their children to school. It is about allowing domestic industries to develop; it is about access to essential services like water and healthcare, and it is about the right to fair wages and dignified work. Trade justice is about people and their basic human rights.

Join us – learn about the issues, find out what’s being planned in your area, and work with others in taking action! Many people are organizing their actions during the week around trade and the right to food, but everyone is encouraged to focus on an issue that makes sense in their own context.

Together we can tell the world that enforced free trade is inflicting misery on millions of poor people, and that there are alternatives.

The resources offered are not only useful for the upcoming week, but provide many tools and ideas for bringing greater awareness of trade justice to your church and community. If you are looking for an action in the U.S., please call your Legislators and express your concerns over the pending U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement!

Trade Week of Action: http://www.tradeweek.org/
Interfaith Letter to Congress on the U.S.-Peru FTA: http://tradejusticeusa.org/pdf/peru-letter-10-07.pdf

Millions Starving for Debt Cancellation

2007-10-01T15:26:13-04:00

Tomorrow, October 2, the Center of Concern staff joins in the Jubilee Cancel Debt Fast.

Today, millions of men, women and children around the world are literally starving for debt cancellation. The 2007 Jubilee Act (HR 2634) would provide expanded debt cancellation for many countries that were not included in the 2005 G8 agreement and need debt cancellation to address extreme poverty. Moving the Jubilee Act through Congress is the central goal of this fall's Cancel Debt Fast, a rolling 40-day fast for debt cancellation that is taking place since September 6 until October 15, 2007.

Nearly halfway through the Cancel Debt Fast, we are already seeing concrete results:

More than 10,000 individuals have already committed to fast for a day or more and to contact their Member of Congress;
More than 50 organizations have promoted the fast – on the web or via e-mail to their members;
30 high profile authors, religious leaders, and political leaders including 4 Members of Congress and 2 former African presidents have joined the fast as “conveyors;” check out http://www.jubileeusa.org/cdfpressroom0/cdfleaders0.html;
The fast has also garnered significant press attention including coverage in the Washington Post, Religion News Service, the Christian Post, Sojourners, and more. Rev. David C. Duncombe has been fasting since September 1st and shared his thoughts in an op-ed in the Florida Sun-Sentinel on this past Saturday at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-fasting22forumnbsep22,0,7922243.story);
There is already movement in the House towards one of the main policy goals for the fast: the scheduling of a hearing on the Jubilee Act – likely to be in November; and
One member of the Senate has already committed to reintroduce the Jubilee Act in the Senate.

The Jubilee Act has been reintroduced, but it cannot be passed without your help.

You are still on time to join the Jubilee Cancel Debt Fast!

For more information on how to get involved, please visit www.jubileeusa.org.

For more information on the Jubilee Act, please visit http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee-act.html.

Posted by Aldo Caliari, Director of the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project, and Member of the Jubilee USA Coordinating Committee.

"Not in Our Backyard": Victimizing Immigrants Across the U.S.

2007-09-20T15:48:32-04:00

There's a scary trend sweeping across the U.S.

In the absence of a successfully enacted immigration reform law, local communities, motivated by fear and an increasingly publicized rhetoric of misunderstanding about immigrants, are taking matters into their own hands.

In the areas surrounding Washington, DC, alone, some quite unbelievable proposals are being considered. In July, the Board of County Supervisors in Prince George's County, MD, authored a resolution calling for police to check the immigration status of violators of any laws, criminal or civil, and for public services to be denied to undocumented persons. The police department responded by introducing a new policy in which police would now be required to check the immigration status of immigrants stopped for misdemeanors like traffic violations. So, failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign might now lead to deportation.

Bordering the District on the other side, in Virginia, the GOP announced legislation Aug. 29 to prohibit public colleges and universities from admitting undocumented persons, effectively barring their access to the higher education that would guarantee their ability to become productive members of society.

These are only two examples local to where I live, but hundreds of such proposals have begun popping up throughout the nation since Congress failed to pass an immigration reform law. The proposals, often a response to fear, mistrust, and the exaggerated (and often untrue) rhetoric of anti-immigration campaigners, are a travesty for many reasons: they divide instead of unite communities; they create an atmosphere in which neighbors do not trust one another and immigrant communities do not trust police; they are patchwork "solutions" that do nothing to address root causes; and worst of all, they paint the immigrant as an "other" and deny the human dignity of those who have often fled to our country trying to escape the horrible realities of poverty, suffering, and persecution in their own. The problem with these local initiatives is that they dehumanize immigrants, masking the fact that they are really fellow human beings, dignity-filled human beings, created, as we are, in God's own image. The local proposals treat people as problems, and instead of trying to heal communities and bring diverse backgrounds together for dialogue, they seek to divide and separate.

In his Labor Day statement, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, the chairman of the Domestic Policy Committee for the U.S. bishops, expressed grave concern about the trend. He described the local laws enacted as "a patchwork of conflicting policies, punitive measures, and local disputes" that "cannot fix a broken federal system, but they can further enflame the divisions that make real progress more difficult."

Instead, the debate "should be shaped and measured by fundamental moral principles," the Bishop said, like the fact that human dignity is "a gift from God, not a status to be earned." Human dignity is a gift from God, not a status to be earned. How true this is. Yet how blatantly it is denied in the corrosive local proposals being introduced around the country. As citizens of the world and people seeking to live lives of solidarity, we have to stand, even if our local communities won't, for human dignity.

by Jill Rauh, Education for Justice Project, Center of Concern

The Real End Game in Iraq

2007-09-13T20:21:34-04:00

General David Petraeus delivered his much anticipated report to Congress on September 10. While holding out hope that some U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Iraq by mid-2008, Gen. Petraeus admitted that the number of forces thereafter that would remain in Iraq will equal pre-surge levels – of up to approximately 160,000.

Why? Part of the answer may come from looking at what is glaringly absent from this week’s commentary over Petraeus’ testimony – Iraq’s vast oil wealth. The battle being waged in Iraq right now over Iraq’s vast oil wealth revolves around the passage by the Iraqi Parliament of a series of laws – known collectively as the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law 0 – that will restructure the oil industry and hand control of Iraqi oil to western oil companies for the first time in 35 years.

There are two important implications for the future of the war if the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law is passed by the Iraqi Parliament. First, the current Iraq regime will begin signing long-term contracts with U.S. and other western oil companies. These oil companies, who have for years proudly shown the weight they carry in Washington, will undoubtedly pressure the U.S. government to maintain a large military presence in Iraq to secure their investment and activities in extracting Iraqi oil.

The second implication of this law is more long-term. Should a future Iraqi government ever attempt to modify or change the very pro-corporate language in the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law (in order to assert more control over their own oil reserves), the U.S. will have a ready-made legal justification for a new military intervention.

If passed, the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law will open Iraq’s oil reserves to oil companies– meaning that the wealth of Iraq will be in the hands of foreign investors for the foreseeable future. So long as the oil is controlled by these entities, one can expect that General after General will be submitting reports to Congress, and that the hope for troop withdrawal will be something that stays with us for the next 35 years.

Posted by Dave Robinson, Executive Director, Pax Christi USA.

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For more information on Pax Christi USA, see web site www.paxchristiusa.org. Also, you can listen to the podcast of an interview with Dave Robinson on “Pax Christi USA, Preaching Nonviolence” on Provoke Radio (September 9, 2007 program). Provoke is a weekly radio program on contemporary social issues sponsored by the Maryland Province of Jesuits: http://www.provokeradio.com/archives.cfm.