Convocation Speaker Addresses Hunger
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the September 20, 1985 Volume 78 ONCORDIAN i Number 3 Concordia College Moorhead, Minn. Convocation speaker addresses hunger by Michael Ritland cent of the world's grain output could eliminate news reporter world hunger. She emphasized getting to the root of this hunger to find it's cure. •1? A convocation of the Concordia community was '& K9 • held in the Fieldhouse on Monday, Sept. 16. The Ms. Lappe showed how third world countries were Klira convocation was a continuation of the Food, Far- hurt on village, government, and international com- M mm ming and the Future symposium. The guest speaker^ merce levels. Villages and surrounding farmlands was Frances Moore Lappe, founder and co-director are controlled by a small number of people. In Cen- 1 of the Food First Institute for Food and Develop- tral America the figures showed that almost fifty per- ment Policy in San Francisco. Dr. David M. Gring, cent of the people in twenty selected countries had f -••» dean of the college, gave a short welcome and stated no land. On the government level, statistics show- • • \d\ J : 4t f that the symposium "got off to a strong start," and ed that of the 200 billion dollars collected from ex- • hoped that it would continue in that direction. ports of third world countries, only fifteen percent BE-i of it went back to these countries. An even smaller 4 «HI Ms. Lappe was born in Pendleton, Ore., and amount was put into agriculture. t graduated from the University of California with a y J graduate degree in social work. In 1971, she wrote According to Ms. Lappe, the free market was • W 1 1 ^wL 1 a best-selling book entitled, Diet for a Small Planet. established to respond to the physical needs of the Ik, f -I J^ The book has sold two million copies, and has been people, and the free market "responds to money." f \. -J translated into several other languages. In 1975, Land is being used for cash crops rather than food i • she was involved in starting the Institute for Food crops that could be feeding the hungry. This hap- I and Development Policy. At that time, the Institute pens because entrepreneurs can make twenty times ^ - had a staff of twenty, which today has grown to be more on these crops than for food used at home. ' ': A 1! *. m 1mm- H.--. ., . ^» ~"^?**-*'' • • internationally recognized with 19,000 members. The market for grain as feed is a prime example i r m 1E L^ ^ ^ » t 'jA. of how distorted the system is. In 1971, one-third J m i I The original title of her speech was to be "U.S. Food of the grain in the world was used to feed livestock. \ Policy, Justice, and World Hunger," but she stated Today the figure has grown to one-half the total that a more appropriate title would be "Politics of amount being used for feed. Ms. Lappe argued that Hope: Lessons from a Hungry World." Ms. Lappe the market is blind to human and resource costs was hesitant to use statistics about hunger because and leads to a concentration of economic power. photo by Nathan Miller that prompted people to use them as answers. She "All markets reflect the disproportionate power of did use them to illustrate points. a relative few," she said. This idea reflected her main Lappe: 'Maybe a new confidence will be born out of our maturity.' concern that the market undermines the condition She related hunger to universal human emotions, to serve human needs. ed. One reform that seems to be working is to take Lappe stated our first responsibility was being able breaking them down into four separate feelings: unused land away from the owners. Since this idea to admit the failures of capitalism and statism, anguish, grief, humiliation, and fear. People must Ms. Lappe related her line of thinking to that of has been put into effect, peasants now own or work "Maybe we are just in our adolescence as a see the real families with these painful emotions to our forefathers. They believed that property could ten times more land. Legislative actions have been society, and a new confidence will be born out of understand their hunger. Ms. Lappe stated hunger only serve liberty when it was dispersed. In used in Nebraska that keep anyone who is not a our maturity. The politics of hope lies in our was the "ultimate symbol of powerlessness." This Nicaragua, large land owners left fourteen percent farmer from buying land. This puts an end to com- challenging its falseness of economic dogma and was illustrated by the point that a mere two per- of their land open while people in the country starv- panies wasting land that has farming value. Ms. making it serve our values." . v Poor voter turnout elects new senators INSIDE Demonstrators challenge Kent Knutson to five vacant senate seats. Wammer, proximately 200 freshmen cast ballots. by David Garbe a senior, was elected on only thirty four votes. There Freeman news editor were only 92 total votes cast by seniors. Mike Feil Kim Krohn, SA vice president, commented on the was the top freshman vote getter with 118; Bill low voter turnout at the fall's election, saying, "I At a press conference Sunday, A very small voter turnout on Tuesday elected Steve Block collected 102 votes, Tauna Baisch was think this was really a poor voter turnout for a fall ultra rightists accuse former Wammer, Mike Feil, Bill Block, Tauna Baisch, and elected with 98, and Kent Knutson received 90. Ap- election. I'm particularly disappoiated with the Governor Orville Freeman of seniors." "genocidal tactics." Student Senate has scheduled a retreat this weekend for all the senators. Krohn sees this as a great opportunity for the new senators to get ac- How Cobbers became Cobbers quainted with those already in office, saying that it will make the first senate meeting on Sunday night go more smoothly. "There shouldn't be any ap- A new Concordia trivia column prehension about the first senate meeting after the debuts answering the timeless- retreat, so hopefully we'll be able to get right down question: Where did the to-business," she said. nickname Cobbers come from? The new senators will have much to prepare for when the senate budget meetings convene at the Cobbers take Hamllne end of this month. Student Senate appropriates funds to campus organizations and services from _ L photo by Nathan Miller photo by Nathan Miller an annual operating budget of approximately In opening'conference play, the Freshman senators: Concordia football team squeaks Steve Wammer $130,000. The money for this budget is provided Bill Block, Mike Feil, Tauna Baisch by a $50 student service fee that the college assesses by last year's conference cham- Not pictured: Kent Knutson each student enrolled here. pion, the Hamline Pipers. 12 2 The Concordlan • September 20, 1985^ Freeman's views challenged by David Garbe U.S. State Department on July 24,1980, organization, we do not condemn their actions. All views on these issues are en- news editor during the Carter administration, and proposes ways of reducing the rate of couraged to be presented." Jung also The Honorable Orville L. Freeman, growth of the population to an acceptable added that the more issues that are ad- former governor of Minnesota, and a level by the year 2000. One of the dressed will only enhance the quality of former Secretary of Agriculture, gave a demonstrators entered the Centrum and the contribution the symposium hopes to press conference in the Centrum on Sun- approached Freeman at the speaker's offer. day, Sept. 15, at 4:30 p.m. Governor table and said, "Governor Freeman, a Freeman opened the press conference by number of us are here. I'm representing Later that evening Governor Freeman ad- issuing a position statement, stating that, a group of people and we have something dressed the issue of the global hunger "The government needs to subsidize ex- to give you. We want to give you a pound situation, "The number one global ports in specific markets." He continued of flesh." At this time the demonstrator paradox today is a world full of food, and to say that during the Kennedy ad- tossed about a pound of liver on the at the same time hundreds of millions of ministration he had studied ways to table, addressing Freeman again, saying, starving people. Unfortunately, relative- develop new export markets and sent "We accuse you of committing ly little is being done about it. There is them in a proposal to Kennedy. Although genocide." The man who placed the liver no easy answer to this great dilemma, but their growth was considered gradual at on the speaker's table was escorted off . much that can be done."We must "seek that time, they are considered to be sue-" campus by campus security. The others out the less developed countries around cessful attempts to increase the United in the group distributed materials to the world that have the will and the photo by Nathan Miller States' exports. Former Governor passers-by in front of the Centrum until political leadership to cooperate in im- Freeman responds to questions at press conference. Freeman feels that the present ad- later in the evening, when they removed plementing the offensive that can meet ministration needs to move in the same their signboards and listened to the ad- their own hunger needs, build their direction. dress. The open forum of questions was economies, and along with it, create new controlled mostly by this group, inquir- markets for U.S.