[GJM] Coffe and You, The Whole Big Picture by mary rose, includes videos from You Tube

[mary rose]

As I got more into this, having forgotten much of what I read in both The Coffee Book and Uncommon Grounds years ago, I decided that I could do no less than write an article on the subject of coffee and its influence in our lives.  Fortunately, I was also able to find a couple of very good videos on You Tube that both expand upon and underline the truth of what goes on in this industry.  I was wondering when I was reading the Science article I formerly posted related to this issue, if it were not underwritten by the coffee industry, much as has been done with regard to both beef and tobacco so that the cover up is believable.  After more research and veiwing the videos, I believe that there is both denial a cover up going on.  

Coffee - The Real Story 

by Mary Rose  

Permission granted to forward this article as long as the article is complete with all credits attached.  

The cultural and social history of the coffee bean goes back to the Ethopian highlands where it was first eaten as a food sometime between 575 and 850 C.E.  It was centuries later before it was first made into a hot beverage.  In 1587, Sheik Ansari Djezeri Hanbal Abd-al-Kadi, wrote: 

            "Coffee is the common man's gold, and like gold it brings to every man the feeling of luxury and nobility. All cares vanish as the coffee cup is raised to the lips.  Coffee flows through your body as free as your life's blood, refreshing all that it touches; look you at the youth and vigor of those who drink it. " (Dicum and Luttinger - 1999)

            Does it sound like he is describing a drug?  Due to its common use, and in such large quantities, one would not think so, but watch this YouTube presentation at the Caffeine Awareness website, as you learn about coffee's active ingredient caffeine and its effect on the human body.     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGwpwsBxE8A&eurl=http://www.caffeineawareness.org/vid.htm

As well, view the Health Politics website which provides information on some of the heath aspects and on Fair Trade Coffee practices.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCYbvrPbt5Q&NR=1

You must view both videos to gain some insight as to the whole big picture.  Somehow I get the feeling that this is like the tobacco industry which covered up and denied the heath risks associated with smoking for decades.   

            Coffee moved from Africa to the Middle East, where in the Sixteenth Century, the Arab world was able to maintain a monopoly on this special bean as coffee was controlled by and used exclusively by the wealthy as an opium substitute.  However, a drug cannot be kept a secret for long, and it soon was smuggled into Mecca, and from there spread to Europe, and finally to the New World. On its journey westward, a culture sprang up around it, due in part to its affordable price.  The first coffeehouses sprang up in the area of Constantinople as early as 1554, and was followed by openings in London and New York at the appropriate times. 

            As in other drug cultures, a history of oppression and exploitation has followed the growth of what has become a much loved drink.  Many large growers in the past became wealthy while using slave labor.  Even now, wages for coffee pickers is extremely low.  And small farmers are forced to live hand to mouth, frequently selling crops below market price in exchange for cash advances with which to produce next year's crop.  

            The authors of "The Coffee Book: Anatomy of an Industry From Crop to Last Drop," Dicum and Luttinger, write: 

            "The coffee in your cup is an immediate, tangible connection with the rural poor in some of the most destitute parts of the planet.  It is a physical link across space and culture from one end of the human experience to the other. . . .The coffee trading system that has evolved to bring all this about is an intricate knot of economics, politics, and sheer power-a bizarre arena trod by giants; by some of the world's largest transnational corporations, by enormous governments, and by vast trading cartels.  The trip coffee takes from the crop to  your cup turns out not to be so straightforward after all, but rather a turbulent and unpredictable ride through the waves and eddies of international commodity dynamics, where the product itself becomes secondary to the wash of money and power." 

            Prominent in the making of coffee as a national icon of the American lifestyle was Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, who used his knowledge of psychology as a marketing technique to hook into the subconscious mind of the mass public and create addictions to consumer goods.  The creation of public relations firms with which to create mass marketing campaigns that might be likened to "mind control techniques" are attributable to Bernays.  

            Here is a short article that exposes some of Bernay's techniques. http://www.articlecity.com/articles/politics_and_government/article_348.shtml

            In 1999, coffee growing encompassed 26.8 million acres of the world's arable land; 4.5 million acres in North and Central America, 10.4 million acres in South America, 8.3 million acres in Africa, and 3.4 million acres in Asia.  Expansion by Viet Nam and other Asian growers has extended this acreage considerably, but exact figures are not available at this time.  This expansion has made the wholesale cost of coffee worldwide very competitive and has thus kept down the profit for growers.  To counter this, in some places, what is referred to as "fair trade" coffee is supported with a few small farmers being paid what is considered a fair market price for coffee in order to ensure continued delivery of quality coffee to U.S. and other prime markets.  But this does little more than to create an elite group of small coffee growers while millions more suffer the vagaries of the market.   

            At the present time, much of the land used to grow coffee for export markets could be better utilized to provide subsistence farming land for the millions upon millions of people, now forced into migration in search of a better way of life, as they are forced off of their lands by the large corporate agribusinesses as food is commodified for profit rather being used for feeding starving people. 

    Adverse ecological impacts also occur as an increasing proportion of coffee is raised under technified systems which move from traditional shade to sun systems. This shift has caused significant tropical biodiversity loss, especially in Mexico, Columbia, Central America, and the Caribbean where 97% fewer migratory bird species are found in sun vs shade growing systems.  Technified coffee systems also demands more chemical inputs than does traditional coffee. "Per acre, coffee is the most pesticide-doused crop in the world, after cotton and tobacco--and the leading pesticide intensive crop that we eat or drink." While many of the pesticides used in coffee cultivation, such as DDT, malathion, and benzene hexachloride, dont find their way into our coffee cup due to the high heat of the roasting process, coffee workers and the environment at large are routinely exposed to these toxic hazards.  Toxins associated with pesticide use have contaminated drinking water in many coffee-raising regions, and this contamination has been implicated in certain cancers, birth defects, developmental problems and other maladies. (Dicum and Luttinger - 1999).     .  .   

            This is but an extension of colonialization into modern times. It is now called globalization.   If nothing changes, nothing changes.  As long as we participate in the purchase and use of coffee, we are as guilty as anyone else of exploitation and environmental destruction.   

            For more on this, I recommend obtaining and reading "The Coffee Book."  Also recommended are:  "Uncommon Grounds - The Story of Coffee and How It changed the World," and "For God Country and Coca Cola," both written by Mark Pendergast, and "Beyond Beef - The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture" by Jeremy Rifkin, to learn how the culture of the United States was shaped by first the beef industy and then, the coffee and Coke culture, largely engineered by one man -- Edward Bernays, as he followed in the footsteps of the Robber Barons, headed up by the Morgans fronting for the Rothchilds as they move to create the "one world order".  Until one has read the history of these happenings along with many of the thousand or so books I have read on this and related subjects one cannot appreciate what has happened to us as individuals and as a collective society/consciousness/unconsciousness.  And why I am so very, very much against any form of national or international monetary system.  We must gain our self-reliance and maintain control at the community level where we have control over the land and our source of food supply.  This is absolutely imperative, IMHO.   .   .  .  .   :     

mary rose       
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