Spencer Oneal
SOS Commodification Processes & Alternatives
Week #4 January 21, 2017′
234 Words
…Biopower is constituted by numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations, including the disciplining and regulating of bodies or anatomo-polotics and biopolitics or the regulating of the species body…biopower is located in the interspace between the state, from which it was excluded as a radical movement, the public sphere where it competed with other reform movements to gain the peoples ears and the nation which it figured as an ideal futurity against which the present might the compared and regulated.
(Tompkins 2013: 70,71)
“Grain is the currency of currencies…”
“The frontier pioneers, who did not buy anything they did not directly produce themselves…”
“Corn grew everywhere and yielded more, which tended to devalue it worth…corns value revolved around its potential for feeding livestock…80% of corn production was destined for cattle…”
(Newman)
11/16/2016
http://www.agriculture.com/news/business/farm-bill-outlook-with-trump-administration
“Agriculture has benefitted substantially from trade,” he said, and many of agriculture’s great major crisis have stemmed from problems with trade.
Immigration policies also affect agriculture in vegetable and fruit production in states like California and Florida. The Midwest is also potentially affected, because immigrant labor is used in meatpacking and processing, he said.
These concepts are as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago, it is even more significant in our current political, economical and global climate. The passages are personal to me as a farmer and steward of the land and whether we are aware of it or not we all impacted by our environment. To the degree that we are conscious of the choices we either retain or forfeit our independence and autonomy, that is why it is imperative that we fight for food sovereignty and regain the security for future communities. The pioneers realized how important it was to be self-sufficient and so do the major corporations and governments realize that once you control the food you control the people.
This is one form of bio power that we see in the current day society and it is one of the main tools of oppression and also one of the greatest causes of suffering. Food is a source of great fulfillment and nourishment and while simultaneously being the epicenter for great movements of the people fighting for their natural rights. Food gains even greater biopower in that we use it directly as a medicine, unfortunately it has be adulterated to the point of becoming a poison. The breaking of break is symbolic for one of the most ancient and common practices uniting peoples in celebration and communion in almost ever culture and religion around the world.