Reflections

Regarding displacements of indigenous communities

Natives see land as part of their own identity. Instead, the West considers that property is alienable. Displacements generated by this are not just physical but also cultural; they produce ruptures in family unities and in the community. The sequence is as follows: alienation of the territory starts with expropriations, is followed by physical and cultural displacements, and ends in conflicts. But also, when there is resistance the conflict turns into a penal matter, something to be criminalized.

Luis González Placencia

 

Regarding the media lie

At a certain moment, all my knowledge about deceit, all my critical attention, are not useful at all. Sometimes, I am bullied by the printed lie, when I am bombarded from all sides, when there are fewer—less and less—people around me that question it, and, in the end, nobody doubts it is true. The propaganda recognized as lie and brag keeps having effect as long as it is possible to have the gall of go on practicing it unfazed; the curse of the superlative is not always self-destruction, rather frequently the destruction of the intellect that opposes it.

Víctor Klemperer

 

Regarding the impact of food multinationals

As growth in most powerful countries slows down, food multinationals such as Nestlé, Pepsico, and General Mills have devoted themselves to vigorously expand their presence in developing countries through huge marketing campaigns that are drastically changing traditional diets of countries such as Brazil, India, or Ghana. It is a change that is contributing to a new diabetes epidemic and heart diseases, chronic illnesses that increase due to sky-high obesity indexes in places that, just one generation ago, were affected by hunger and malnutrition.

Andrew Jacobs y Matt Richtel