Today, Monday April 10 -- A day for solidarity!
Support immigrant rights! Defend family farmers!

DEFEND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY FROM CORPORATE GREED!!
Join Family Farmers, Consumers, and Global Justice Activists in Protesting Corporate Manipulation of our Food System!

** At 10 am today at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (20 South Wacker Drive), Reclaim The Commons will support a rally and protest action led by the National Family Farm Coalition and the Family Farm Defenders**

Founded over a century ago, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has become the largest futures clearing house in the world, with transactions worth a whopping $127 trillion per year. Each day the CME opens its doors to elite groups of traders who set the world price for everything from cheese to pork to fertilizer.

Farmers are angry that their economic livelihood is now at the mercy of faceless commodity brokers who act without any effective oversight or democratic accountability. The largest dairy cooperative in the US, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), is now under federal investigation for alleged rackateering and manipulation of milk prices through insider trading on the CME. Such corporate "free trade" malfeasance only benefits wealthy elites, while "milking" money from small farmers who in turn are preyed upon by powerful industry monopolies like DFA. Many of these same entities are the ones who control the biotech industry.Reclaim the Commons stands in solidarity with family farmers, and joins them today to call for fair trade & genuine democratic accountability at the CME!

APRIL 10 IS NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS!!

On April 10, 2006, immigrants & their allies will mobilize in dozens of cities throughout the US to oppose the harsh & aggressively punitive "Sensenbrenner Bill," HR 4437. This bill threatens to criminalize those assisting undocumented immigrants as "alien smugglers" and to turn undocumented status from a civil violation to a federal aggravated felony. Immigrants are demanding real "immigration reform" that is comprehensive, respects civil rights, reunites families, protects workers, and offers a path to citizenship for the current undocumented and future immigrants.

TODAY IN CHICAGO Time: 4:00PM Location: Rep. Lipinski's office (6245 Archer Ave.) Event Details: Fight for Civil Rights of Immigrants Vigil

Reclaim the Commons stands in solidarity with immigrants who are struggling to realize their civil & human rights, as well as those who assist them! The crisis of migrant workers is directly intertwined with the biotechnology industry's onslaught against farmers in the Global South. For example, "free trade" agreements like NAFTA enable US corn growers to undercut the prices of native Mexican corn & therefore drive the farmers out of business and off their land. In other words, imports of American corn into Mexico have depressed the standard of living for Mexican farmers -- one factor fueling "illegal" immigration. One third of US maize entering Mexico is contaminated with GE varieties from Monsanto.

In 2003, a report from the Americas Program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center in February indicated, “International corn prices are currently $1.74 a bushel and the latest US Department of Agriculture figures show production costs at about $2.66 a bushel. This difference is compensated to the farmers through direct and indirect subsidies. To put this into perspective, US farmers received $18 billion in subsidies and account for less than 3 percent of the labor force, while Mexican agricultural support programs contributed only about US $9 billion in 2002 to producers.” Thus Mexican farmers are pressured from many sides - they cannot compete with US corn prices, they are increasingly dependent on US agribusiness corporations for seeds, and the richness and diversity of their native crop is endangered.

For more information, please read:
Chiapas: Reflections on Trade, Immigration, & the Global Economy
Latina/o Farmers and Biotechnology
MEXICO, MAIZE AND MONSANTO: Genetic colonialism (Chicago Tribune)
Contamination by GE maize in Mexico is much worse than feared

Update : Check out our updated Schedule of April 8 - 11 Events here -- including the Reclaim the Commons Festival, Panel on Human Rights and Genetic Engineering, Day of Hands-On Skillshares and Educational Workshops (schedule here), Benefit Concert, Community Gardening, Reclaim the Commons Parade and "Mutant Ball," and Protests Against BIO -- AND Spanish Page (Página en Español) here AND Media Page with RTC's April 6th Press Release!