DN Thursday, December 23, 2010: Please answer two of the following questions:
- Choose one of the headlines that interests you and research it further. In your google search, try to avoid the mainstream media by how you phrase your query.
- WikiLeaks Cables Reveal U.S. Sought to Retaliate Against Europe Over Monsanto GM Crops: The Santa Cruz Sentinel has an article about a local organic farmer who’s won a million-dollar appeal against a Colorado-based brussel sprouts agricorporation because their pesticides contaminated his crop. Should a company in Colorado be allowed to cause contamination in Santa Cruz? What problems do you foresee in enforcing this verdict? What similarities are there between the situation in France and in Santa Cruz? Do you think the SC government gets funding from out-of-county commercial farmers?
- FBI Expands Probe into Antiwar Activists: What do you think about the raids on protesters? The Electronic Intifada is one of the few organizations that gives verbal (not material) support to the right of armed resistance. If Israel is at war with Palestine, then Palestine has a right to defend itself. If Israel is not at war with Palestine, then Israel’s attacks are terrorism. Do Palestinians have the right to defend themselves in war but not against terrorism? Looking at their website, why do you think they would be targeted?
- After GOP Blocks DREAM Act, Where is Immigration Activism Headed?: Obama says that children “shouldn’t have to pay for the wrongdoings of their parents.” Was it necessary, do you think, for Obama to insult immigrant parents, who risked everything and worked in fields and factories to give their kids an “American” life? In this week’s Foreign Policy in Focus, John Feffer writes, tongue in cheek, about The Baby Trade: Americans are responsible for nearly five times the global average for per-capita carbon emissions. Even the most environmentally responsible Americans have a carbon footprint twice the size of the global average. In other words, our consumption of things – not their production of babies – is the problem. The solution to climate change, therefore, is obvious. The countries that have the smallest carbon footprints should adopt U.S. babies. We should send our children to Cambodia, Guatemala, and Moldova where they won’t have such a damaging effect on the global environment. Reverse the baby trade now!” Could the same be true for immigration? Should US students “school” with indigenous communities in Peru, Liberia, or Australia so their generation doesn’t have to “pay for the wrongdoings of their parents?”