On Wed, 14 Oct 1998, Diane Cooner wrote:
> Greetings to All!
> I had a chat with a friend about all of this the other day and we agreed that
> it is important to stay on track, but also that everything is connected. We
> can't talk about sustainability and not include potential nuclear policy
> impacts or hate crimes. We were wondering, were these two young men who
> committed this crime the children of farmers who are up against the wall
> trying to make a living? Does it not count if they are conventional farmers?
> What if they were in transition to sustainable, and it was too hard to make
> ends meet and Dad decides to take it out on his kids, who are now angry and
> fear newcomers in their community? This might sound far-fetched to some, but
> think about it. What I'm getting at is that now one thing has led to another
> and another, and the bottom line is that we are all interconnected. All of
> these issues are part of the same discussion.
> diane cooner
I agree with you. I was in Scotland, visiting farms around the Edinburgh
area a couple of years ago. Several farmers complained of a new
phenonmenon of vandalism, young people setting to fire to crops,
destroying farming equipment and so on. It turned out there were
settlements nearby of families who had worked in the coal mines and who
were all retrenched as part of the Thatcherite policies to privatise
mines, and break up the unions. Many of these were unemployed and couldn't
find jobs. Farmers also attributed the vandalism to the new "satellite
dishes" which were spreading consumerism in a situation where families
could not even bring food to their tables.
Yes indeed. Everyhting is connected.
D.Parthasarathy
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Powai
Mumbai, 400076, India
Phone: 091 022 576 7372
email: dp@hss.iitb.ernet.in
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