WITH LAYNE HARTSELL
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SFR: I can barely make it from breakfast to lunch and you've been fasting for four days now!
LH:
You're Italian, that's why!
Ha! Actually, I'm Jewish. Seriously, though, how are you feeling?
I'm doing great. I have a lot of energy. Yesterday I had some dizziness, but I'm fine. A little hungry, but fine.
And why are you doing this?
The ultimate reason is for truth and justice. The more specific reasons are about the farmers and the poor. People with low income. Being just pushed off their land where they lived with dignity. Although they were in poverty, they were living with dignity. Now they're living in abject poverty. They can't grow their own food. They are living outside of places like Mexico City or São Paulo, Brazil. And also here in California, there's a venture capitalist that wants to build warehouses on the largest urban farm in our country and Ron Kovic [author of
Born on the 4th of July
] is starting a fast out there.
So why now?
My experience, having lived in Mexico five times and having learned from the people, is that these issues are real. And I've experienced three broken promises with regards to farming. I'm actually no longer in business [as a farmer] right now. You get to a point, where you say, 'OK, I've been to jail for these issues. I've given public talks, I've written about them. What can I do?'
Historically, from a practical and strategic standpoint, have fasts worked?
It's about self-purification and it has to be about the ideas you believe in. Mine is an individual's voice of self-purification, and I'm adhering to those principals as best I can. And it's a call for people to pay attention and to make issues of the poor, especially if the poor are going to lose their land, and the economy is pushing them off their land-it's a call for people to make that a public issue and be serious about it.
What is your definition of the 'corporatism' of the land?
My definition of corporatism is entities that transcend the nation state. It's beyond fascism. In the case we see today, we see the nation state being subsumed by the corporation. In other words, the corporation puts people into their political system for their own outcome. It's beyond a fascist state.
What are some of the more egregious examples of this happening?
Let's take Exxon for example. They had record income last year, and when you have that kind of thing with these huge corporations who are getting in trouble all over the planet with degradation of the environment, dislocating people, and when people don't go they kill 'em. They certainly have the money to hire their own military force. So when you start looking at these kinds of things you find out what Exxon is doing to make their money: destroying human lives and the earth.
What would you say to people who hear about your fast and say, 'Oh, it can't be as bad as he says. This doesn't impact us. It doesn't affect our daily lives?'
Well, if they would read the research or look at World Health Organization statistics, we lose about 50,000 people a day to easily treatable disease. We're talking about people who just need a little bit of food, a little bit of rice, some vegetables-it would help them. But we don't. People sit back and watch this stuff happening. People see it on TV all the time. And it turns out to be 20 million a people a year dead. You're looking at a Holocaust every year of preventable deaths. Easily. So, I think people already know about this stuff.
How far are you prepared to go with this?
To the death, if necessary.
Do you think it will come to that?
There are a couple of requests I've made. If I could be convinced that this becomes a serious matter of the community, that we examine ourselves and think about others. Injustice is everywhere. If we start to look at how we're living. It's not a far step to think that people should be able to survive. The first step would be that this becomes a broad public issue.
That seems pretty broad. How would you know?
I could be convinced by one person or a group. So, if someone were willing to put their life into this and die for the cause like a soldier, then that would convince me. The second part is that on a statewide level, if someone were to start a land share project that would free the farmer from financial burden and landlords, that would convince me as well. Overall, if 500 people from anywhere sign this letter I've written that will be mailed all over the world, then that would stop the fast too.
Layne Hartsell ended his fast at 7 pm, May 26 (he began May 21). According to Ann Peters, Hartsell's partner, Hartsell opted to stop because he felt the conditions of his fast had been met. Among those conditions were increased public and media attention regarding the plight of poor people, as well as the signatures of 500 people on a letter Hartsell will send out to farmers all over the world.
