Coordinated Assault Against Public Sector Service Revealed by The Guardian

Documents published by The Guardian Thursday reveal how a number of right-wing groups, funded by today’s oligarchs, plan to privatize the commons:

Conservative groups across the US are planning a coordinated assault against public sector rights and services in the key areas of education, healthcare, income tax, workers’ compensation and the environment,documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The strategy for the state-level organisations, which describe themselves as “free-market think tanks”, includes proposals from six different states for cuts in public sector pensions, campaigns to reduce the wages of government workers and eliminate income taxes, school voucher schemes to counter public education, opposition to Medicaid, and a campaign against regional efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

The policy goals are contained in a set of funding proposals obtained by the Guardian. The proposals were co-ordinated by the State Policy Network, an alliance of groups that act as incubators of conservative strategy at state level.

The documents contain 40 funding proposals from 34 states, providing a blueprint for the conservative agenda in 2014. In partnership with the Texas Observer and the Portland Press Herald in Maine, the Guardian is publishing SPN’s summary of all the proposals to give readers and news outlets full and fair access to state-by-state conservative plans that could have significant impact throughout the US, and to allow the public to reach its own conclusions about whether these activities comply with the spirit of non-profit tax-exempt charities.

United Nations’ FAO Reaches Landmark Decision

This is great news! The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Emsden announces a landmark decision reached by the  United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization:

…The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization Tuesday reached a deal giving extended support to co-operatives, a growing force in the global economy.

The FAO’s memorandum of understanding is with the International Co-Operative Alliance, a 118-year-old non-governmental organization that seeks to promote and represent producer-owned co-operatives around the world.

The deal, which promises legal and policy collaboration as well as ways to “enhance the voice” of cooperatives in FAO’s governing bodies and technical committees, will give ICA’s members access to and a voice in state-level agricultural trade talks and help them benefit from FAO’s resources in agronomy, Charles Gould, ICA’s director-general, said in an interview.

Benefits of an organic food diet from an organic farming advocate’s perspective

Posted by: Khareem Cabey in Business

Organic farming advocate, Philippe van den Bossche,responds to an article discussing the benefits of eating organic.

According to a Wall Street Journal article, sales of organic food have been rising steadily over the past 10 years, “reaching almost $30 billion in 2011, or 4.2% of all U.S. food and beverage sales, as reported by the Organic Trade Association. Most who purchase organic products believe paying more for organic foods is worth it because it allows them to avoid exposure to chemical pesticides, fertilizers and hormones. However, there are families who are unsure if organic food is worth the extra cost.

Chensheng Lu, an associate professor of environmental exposure biology at the Harvard School of Public Health, argues for eating more organic food. He says that there is some convincing scientific evidence that suggests an organic diet has its benefits and that it should be common sense that consuming food free of pesticides and chemicals “is safer and better for us than food containing those substances, even at trace levels.” In a 2006 study published in the journal of Environmental Health Perspectives, pesticides disappeared from children’s urine after five days of substituting mostly organic produce for conventional produce.