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saludos to all.. here is an updated info on the
Food Crisis Fast which is being promoted globally,
to be used with media, churches, religions, pacifists,
environmental people, students, womens groups, and any
one concerned with making this situation visible and
to be worked on.. move your networks dear people, move
them.. let us make ourselves count..

Those who resist, persist...
and work for transformation, to be the change they wish
Quienes resisten, persisten..y trabajan pro la
transformacion y en ser el cambio que desean.

From: Stephen (Esteban) Bartlett
Date: Thu, May 15, 2008 at 2:17 PM
Subject: Intl Food Crisis Fast events

Lovers of Justice for All, from the impoverished to the
marginalized immigrants, (please disseminate widely)

Warm Spring Greetings!!

I want to invite all of you to consider
the root causes of today's global food crisis, now
critically impacting more than 100 million people,
ranging from Haitians eating mud to Somalian hungry
crowds marching until gunned down by police!! This
is a level of suffering that dwarfs the numbers even
of terrifying earthquakes or typhoons. The multiple
causes of this crisis were predictable: farmer and
economic justice organizations have been warning against
the policies and practices that have led to this for
the last 50 years or more. Many of the immigrants
forced from their homes south of the US Mexico border
share the common conditions that have led to this
hunger crisis: policies of economic exploitation.

The scale of the suffering and the attempt to
monopolize the debate by corporate and international
financial institution spokespersons have motivated
some of us to plan strong actions to gather our collective
strength and raise our voices.

To kick off this effort we are planning a 3-day fast
for Friday May 23rd through Sunday May 25th, with a
breaking of bread and the fast late on Sunday the 25th.
Here in Louisvile, Kentucky, fasters will be visiting
the Mazzoli Federal building at Chestnut and 6th where
John Yarmuth has his office, to praise our Congressman
or having voted NO on the Peru-US Free Trade Agreement
(though tragically the law was passed). We want to
affirm resistance to ethics that have set the stage
for mass starvation!! We want to raise up the efforts
of local organizers, educators and farmers to rebuild
our local food economy, efforts that need to be replicated
across the Earth if people are to enjoy a degree of food
security in their lives. Actions in Europe at the UN
meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization in
Rome June 3-5 will follow on the heels of this fast!!

Fasting is a powerful spiritual practice. Some of the
greatest social achievements have come after long fasts
and spiritually gathering strength through fasting. Please
consider joining myself and others committed to a three-day
fast, by fasting for a meal, a day or all three days. If
fasting is not right at this time, consider supporting our
fast by writing letters to the editor, calling Congressional
representatives, or attending one of the prayer services that
will bookend the fast: one on Friday at 1 p.m. and
one at 6 p.m. Sunday evening (more details on place soon).

I am enclosing our invitation to these actions in attachments
(in English and Spanish). Since initiating this call, we
have had an outpouring of communications, plans for a
national conference call to discuss collective actions on
Monday May 19th, 1 p.m., and communications from Latin
America and Europe. (Let me know if you would like to be
on that call.) This fast is being coordinated among many
vast networks across the planet. Such is the power of
fasting, even before one begins doing without food!!
On the day our fast begins protesters (including fasters)
will gather at the Bunge headquarters at their shareholders
meeting in midtown Manhattan, NYC to protest this agri-
business giant's activities in destroying the forests in
Brazil, displacing farmers from the land rendering those
who might produce food for the people landless and destitute,
gobbling up the resources to produce and export genetically
modified soybeans, some of it for diesel fuel rather than
even for animal feed!! Profits? Up more than 1,000% in
this quarter!!

But we must remember that we are among the ABSOLUTE
MAJORITY, and those who have devised this structurally
oppressive structure are a tiny minority... in fasting
we will connect directly at a spiritual level with
that living majority who are "tightening their belts"
at this time of misdirected abundance and structural
impoverishment. Brother and sisters, I believe in such
power!! (For health reasons, do seriously consider shorter
fasts, even skipping one single meal, if you have doubts
or severe symptoms caused by ceasing to eat. Longer fasts
for healthy people. It is the collective whole that counts,
and there should be 5-10 non-fasters for each faster
participating). Let me know if you plan to fast, even
for one meal!!

peace through justice and collective action,

Stephen (Esteban) Bartlett
Agricultural Missions, Inc (AMI)
KY May Day Coalition
T/F: 502 894 9308, T w/ voicemail 502 896 9171
email: sbartlett-at-ag-missions.org

Those who resist, persist...
Quienes resisten, persisten...

blessing Marta,

for circulating this message in Goddess Moon!

and for your support of our coming together to end the Chem-Spraying of our wetlands and roads and biketrails, and schools and homes.

I have forwarded my thank you to Stephen Esteban Bartlett for his work ... and will be joining in the fast.

there is nothing healthier for a Western consumer to do than fast ... to cleanse and heal their bodies, and enlighten their being. to turn off the sickness in their heads, and bring peace. to find mindfulness, to become the ones they are meant to be.

I led a global raw food fast, for more than two years -- against the War -- the War against the Middle East, the War against All Peoples -- the War against Mother Earth.

though I was normally 100 percent raw for those two years, and for two years before, nevertheless I still ate far more than I needed to, or I or anyone should eat.

the overeating only produces mental and physical sickness ... like an amplification of animal-eating, or alcohol or substance abuse. [Still much the Western norm.]

until you have spent a few years doing the raw vegan diet, and indeed probiotic diet, you do not learn how GOOD life and consciousness can FEEL ...

the mental wonder and physical ecstasy of a GROWING, HEALING, body and mind -- compared to the heart/mind/body which is programmed to decline and die in every die.

the child's wonder of NEW EXPERIENCE ... focused on the FEELING in every muscle and organ, the skin and nerves, the wind and sun, and stretching and playing ...

HOW IT FEELS to climb a tree in bare feet, leaves against your chest, wind in your face ... every nerve stimulated by Sun and sensation ... the birds and insects ...

a frog in your hand ...

and Song in your voice ...

singing creation,

and, She, GrandMother Turtle,

Singing thee!