So busy today trying to give every aspect of my life some time that I'm frazzled. Reading Safe Among the Germans: Liberated Jews After World War II by Ruth Gay (Yale University Press, 2002) for the postwar Germany project. Studied German for nearly an hour and a half. Physical therapy and a work-out at the gym. Then research to help me with the discussion I'm supposedly going to lead tomorrow night following the film the Social Action Committee is presenting as part of our film series, "Are We Achieving Economic Justice?" Obviously we know that the answer to that question is that we are not. Nafta, despite its creators' good intentions, has only wrought more misery. The World Bank and its policies, while cloaked in its language of do-goodism, is designed to put money in the deep pockets of multinational corporations without care for the farmers and the economic status of the countries it has invaded. Farmers all over the world are starving, making much less money than they did 25 years ago, and this includes the U.S. I'll bring information about the latest activism Oxfam America is underwriting as well as that of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. The film we're showing is "Strong Roots, Fragile Farms" which connects the struggles of farmers in the U.S. with those of farmers in the Phillipines and in Mexico, farmers everywhere failing to achieve subsistence due to recent changes in global economic policies.

We're hoping that our publicity will attract at least a couple of new people to our fold, but, for the most part, our congregation and the community does not appear to be
moved by these issues. Alas.