BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU
Here is Nero's Guests, the film that gives us a look first hand at farmers and farmer suicides in rural India. The film stars journalist P. Sainath. The wonderful Director, Deepa Bhatia, spent her free/evening time putting together this touching film. She is a film editor for big Bollywood film productions and she was given permission by the studio to use their available equipment to make this film.
I've arranged all of the 9 parts into a single watchable playlist.
After viewing this film you WILL pay higher prices and shop at farmer's markets. Buy
food from people, not corporations. The economy can only work when money flow is balanced and supports all livelihoods. If you support a small farmer, the money can't be used for nefarious purposes. No corrupting the politicians. No subsidies. No market rigging and monopolies. Plus there's an excellence source of high quality food available. No cutting corners! Do business with those that have integrity and passion. The most important thing to have is good food and to have a sustainable food supply that is in equilibrium.
What you see in this applies to all people and all farmers everywhere around the world. There will be poverty if the economy is not run with brains, equity, and fairness. Take America as an example. When there is a dysfunctional economic system, all people suffer, but those that the bottom suffer the most. Just how many farmers lost their livelihoods during the Great Depression? Crops and milk were disposed of because people had no money to buy them! People starved that weren't starving before. There are more poor people (people making $1 or less per day) in this world than rich people. The system needs to target the needs of the majority, not the wants and greed of the rich. The impoverished people are at the end of their wits but do not know the source of their misery. The impoverished do not know about the people behind the scenes driving the impoverishing policies. The system created makes the rich richer and keeps everyone in their place.
The politicians or government are not the problem. It's not even corporations who should be blamed. It's us, the people. Poverty and begging in the street occur when the economic system doesn't consider everyone's well being. When everything runs on the lowest price, there is a lot of slavery and fraud that takes place because the well being of the workers that produced the items is not taken into consideration. Of course, if something costs less, corners were cut somewhere. That somewhere is dignified working conditions. Ask yourself why prices have been coming down on good like clothing. The conditions are worse now for garment workers than before. Remember, consider other factors than just the price of an item when shopping!
People willingly give away their money to large unidentifiable institutions. Who runs these big private corporations? Are they benevolent people? Should we be doing business with them just to save 5-20%? What is the corporation to do if people feed them money for their practices? What are the politicians supposed to do? Stop people from freely spending money as they please? Look at it this way. You are fully in control. That pound of food you just bought from the grocery store chain is one pound less that a subsidence farmer was able to profit from. That large corporation saves you money because it strong arms the producer into a low selling price. Now you know why these farmers can't sell at a price that they can live on. It is only a difference of 10% in price is a matter of life and death for subsistence farmers.
There's another aspect of the current economic system that needs to be pointed out. The urban areas feed off the rural areas. The real work and resources happen to be in rural areas. These resources get bought by the urban areas where there is wealth created through financial paper. There's a financial civil war going on for resources and control and the urbanites are the instigators. It's a scam. It's fixed. The resources are distributed to "city slickers". Credit is freely available in the urban areas. The educated, high paying, high skilled jobs are involved with building massive infrastructures and systems that distribute resources from those less fortunate to those well off in the urban areas. Finance flows to fund large, inefficient production, even if when it's lower quality. Mediocrity flourishes, life of bounty ceases to exist. Just look at McDonalds. Why does it even exist? McDonalds is about large infrastructure and low quality. If there were health standards that were enforced, McDonalds would no longer be able to sell unsafe, unhealthy, and nutritious-less foods. The rich can only be rich though these large infrastructure scams. They try to convince everyone to buy into their scam so they can redistribute wealth to themselves. They keep revolutions from happening by dropping enough crumbs from their dinner tables so the rest of the people can consume some of their own productivity.
How is it that productive land that wants to be farmed lies fallow? How is it a person cannot work their land to produce for the well being of others and provide for their family? How is it possible a crop cannot be sold at a price where this is practicable? Let's get rid of the middleman that eat up most of the profits in the supply chain. Let's tie the end consumer to the producer much closer. It's more efficient. It's more human. The internet is a great tool that should shrink the supply chain much more than what it is now.
When those stock options were sold by that corporate executive, that money came from somewhere. The money came from those lower than him on the pyramid. It came from your pockets! After all, what did that executive actually produce? So suddenly this billion exists out of nowhere. This billion did not exist before and now suddenly does. It diminishes the value of the money that already exists, like the money in your bank account. Imagine the inflation a billion dollar creates as assets are bought. You get left out of the economy with that paltry sum in your bank account. How many assets can you buy with your bank account? And yes, that executive is happy when prices go up because he is invested at a lower price. That executive will encourage inflation as he buys assets at ever inflating prices. Furthermore, that executive's billion compared to the measly money sitting in your bank account devalues your wealth, and thusly, your quality of life. You lose economic power and control. Suddenly, someone else has more power and control. No one deserve that much power and control that a billion can bring.
It's a game of musical chairs. It's only a game. The pschopathy is right in front of you. It's up to you to change.
You betcha the recent Bollywood Hindi film, Peepli Live, was based on this film! There's a lot of scenes and situations that feel similiar with those featured in Nero's Guests. The media and politicians invading the village is one such scene / situation.
In the film, crore (pronounced car-roar) = 1/4 million US dollars.
P Sainath also goes by the name P. Sainath and Palagummi Sainath.
[Youtube Playlist] Nero's Guests: P Sainath looks at Indian Farmer Suicides
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