Page 16 RAIN October 1979 Ujamaa Hello! Friends at RAIN, realize that a lot of government money was put into work programs to keep them off the streets instead of rioting. So, it's not unreasonable that they would go after ready-made jobs rather than creating their own. •• Self-rei'iance is a difficult concept to put into action. Industrialized people of every group have come to depend too much on experts and others outside themselves. This society tends to encourage individualistic, competitive, capital-intensive types of endeavors. It's against great resistance that any local cooperative projects, whether run by poor blacks or middleclass whites, will get off the ground and prosper. I've been getting a lot of material from RAIN because I'm building an "Alternatives" library for the cooperative community here in Los Angeles. When I read in Stepping Stones about Karl Hess's account of his experiences with blacks in Washington, D.C., I was intrigued because lam black, born and raised in that town. After seeing a continuation of that article in RAIN, Nov. '78, I'd like to pass on a few thoughts. Community financed and run·projects are nothing new to blacks. The (Black) Muslims have always stressed "doing for self" and even after harassment from the Ku Klux Klan and law officials, they still persist in their goals. Other black groups around the country have been and are engaged in a co-op movement based on the African concept called Ujamaa, which means building and maintaining their own businesses and sharing equally in the work and profits. Recently, l visited When Mr. Hess spoke about welfare clients _being unproductive, he expressed the common myth that these are mostly able-bodied, working age people. In fact, most welfare clients arc young children. They, in turn, usually live in one-parent families where the adult works at a low-paying job. (If fully compensated for their energy, many would not use welfare!) Childless adults on welfare must work for their stipend, unless declared disabled. As for black teenagers, l think most of them such a black center in Los Angeles.. . . Members of the center are starting work on their own co-ops, gardens and lifestyles de-emphasizing consumption. It will be interesting to see how successful they arc in putting t~eir ideas into form. World Hunger: Ten Myths, Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, 1979, $2.25 Food First Resource Guide, 1979, $3.00 Agrarian ~eform and Counter-Reform in Cbile, Joseph Collins, 1979, $1.00 from: Institute for Food and Development Policy 2588 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94110 (add 10 percent for postage and handling) World Hunger: Ten Myths. A quick summary of the points first published in Food First, Beyond the Myth ofScarcity. Very direct and terse presentation of the socio-economic roots of world hunger. Frame of reference is in the third world, but a look in our own back yard reveals the truly universal scope of multinational market control. • Sincerely, Sandra D. Madden Van Nuys, California Food First Resource Guide. Bibliography of the IFDP research. •• Agrarian Reform and Counter-Reform in Chile. An in-depth analysis of the progress made during the Allende years contrasted with the impoverishment of the poor after the Pinochet coup. Following closely the economic principles espou:;ed by Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics, the military junta has effectively undermined the effons of the peasants to feed themselves by encouraging production for export. Milton Friedman and the imperialists are in the lead for now, but there's more to come. -TM An Acres USA Primer, Charles A. Walters Jr. and C.J. Fenzan, 1979, $15.25 from: Acres USA Box 9547 Raytown, MO 64133 Soil fertility is the crux of the message contained in this book. Presented as a series of lectures/lessons, it covers every aspect of plant growth and soil building; AGRICULTURE plant nutrition, pest and disease resistance, composting, trace elements, crop rotations and a multitude of pertinen,t considerations. A dealer's view of the na'ion as shaped by plant food consumption. As a primer, or first reader, this book does an excellent job of tying theory to practice; revolutionary scientific concepts naturally ji,veiwith folk knowledge. And this combined wisdom soundly refutes much of wl\a.t,has transpired in between; scientif1cally questionable research by land grant universities bowing to political pressure from agribusiness interests.
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