31. Tom Taylor, the Midwest and Southeast field organizer for the Organic Consumers Association, and a key organizer of the August 2000 demonstration of the Plant Genetic Conference in Downtown Minneapolis.

"The demo took place right afer the fiasco know as 'the animal genetics conference' or the police riot of 2000," said Tom. "One big reason to have it was simply to make sure we did everything in our power to exercise our constitutional right to freedom of assembly and freedomn of speech: 'If you don't use it, you loose it!' Shortly after this demo the City of Minneapolis passed a resolution condeming the growing of genetically engineered (GE) crops and asked for the mandatory labeling of, and third party saftey testing of, and a moritroium on growing such crops until those points have been acheived. Many other major cities have passed such resolutions including St. Paul, Minnesota; Boston; Austin, Texas; Ann Arbor, Michighan; Boulder, Colorado; Cleveland, Ohio; and San Fransisco and Santa Cruz in California. Appomoxatly 28 towns in Vermont successfully passed resolutions last winter with more expected this winter."

Off-site Link: The Organic Consumers Association

32. Lynn Ford protests the Plant Genetic Conference - Minneapolis, August 2000.

Lynn's message reminds me of the words of Vandana Shiva when in her book Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace, she notes that the word economics is derived from the Greek word oikos, meaning home. And home, she writes, "is where one is born, grows up, and is looked after . . . Home is where there is always a place for you at the table and where you can count on sharing what is at the table. To be part of a home, a household, is to have access to life."

Vandana Shiva also notes that "the dominant economy goes by many names - the market economy, the globalized economy, corporate globalization, and capitalism, to name a few - but all these names fail to acknowledge that this economy is but one of three major economies at work in the world today. In Earth Democracy every being has equal access to the earth's resources that make life possible; this access is assured by recognizing the importance of the other two economies: nature's economy and the sustenance economy.

"The globalized free market economy, which dominates our lives, is based on rules that extinguish and deny access to life and livelihoods by generating scarcity. This scarcity is created by the destruction of nature's economy and the sustenance economy, where life is nourished, maintained, and renewed. Globalization and free trade decimate the conditions for productive, creative employment by enclosing the commons, which are necessary for the sustenance of life. The anti-life dimensions of economic globalization are rooted in the fact that capital exchange is taking the place of living processes and the rights of corporations are displacing those of living people.

"The economic conflict of our times . . . is between a global economy of death and destruction and diverse economies for life and creation. In our age, 'have or have not' has mutated into 'live or live not.'"

33. Ronnie Cummins--national director of the Organic Consumers Association, co-author of Genetically Engineered Food: A Self Defense Guide for Consumers, and editor of BioDemocracy News, a monthly online newsletter devoted to gentic engineering, factory farming, and organics--addresses those protesting the Plant Genetics Conference - Minneapolis, August 2000.

Off-site Link: BioDemocracy News

34-35. Citizens protest the Plant Genetics Conference - Minneapolis, August 2000.

Vandana Shiva has noted that one of the fallacies of corporate-led globalization, is that it creates a knowledge society. Yet "we are not living in a knowledge society," she writes, "if we don't have the very basic choices that allow us to lead a human life, allow us to know how our food is produced, allow us to know what kind of forest our tables and chairs are made from, allows us to know whether the wages of the people who grew the food are just or not, allow us to know what's in our food. That's a knowledge society."

"Knowledge is not the manipulated data of Monsanto," insists Vandana Shiva. Rather, "knowledge is informed citizens making free choices. That would be a knowledge society. But that democratic framework is precisely what corporate globalization tries to annihilate."

36. Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, and Angelica Perez and Zenayda Torres (at right of photograph), two workers at the Chentex plant in Managua, Nicaragua, join with Minnesota global-justice activists in protesting the selling of sweatshop-produced clothing at Kohl's department store in Roseville, Minnesota - September 25, 2000.

"It's very emotional for us to know that you are backing us and that we can count on your support," Zenayda told the crowd of around 100 people at the rally.

37. Speaking through a translator, Angelica Perez described the efforts to improve Chentex conditions. The workforce of mostly young women is subject to contstant verbal and physical intimidation. They receive twenty cents for sewing a pair of jeans that Kohl's sells for $30. When the workers and their union asked for an eight cent pay increase for sewing a pair of pants, the plant's Taiwanese owner fired more than 500 of them, including Angelica and Zenayda. "The bosses say, 'If you complain, there are 100 people waiting at the door to take your job,'" Zenayda said.

In response, the workers--with the help of a U.S. anti-sweatshop group--are taking their message directly to the retailer and the consumer. The rally in Roseville was the first stop in a nationwide tour of more than a dozen cities.

38. "Kolh's has the ability to pay a decent wage," said Charles Kernaghan (Photograph 36). He noted that the corporation grossed $4.6 billion in profits last year, more than twice Nicaragua's gross domestic product. He also praised the Minnesota protesters, who included students, retirees, union members, clergy and others. "This is the coalition that is going to make this economy over again with a human face," he said.

39-40. Mary Vaughn (Photograph 40) was one of 15 people arrested in the peaceful protest against Kohl's department store - September 25, 2000.

41. Police stand guard at Kohl's department store in Roseville, Minnesota - September 25, 2000.