Last week France made headlines around the world after they passed an amendment to a larger law that makes it illegal for large supermarkets to throw away edible food. The amendment makes it so that any food that is not yet expired but would normally be thrown out now has to be given to charity, used for animal feed, or turned into biomass. The law itself wont officially be passed until Tuesday, but there isn’t any doubt that the law will be passed in full. Those who violate the law will face stiff penalties or jail time. Now the politician, who helped make that happen, is determined to expand the idea on a global scale. Arash Derambarsh is municipal councilor for the “Divers Droit” which in English translates to the “diverse right.”

“I have been insulted and attacked and accused of being naive and idealistic, but I became a local councillor because I wanted to help people. Perhaps it is naive to be concerned about other human beings, but I know what it is like to be hungry.

“When I was a law student living on about €400 ($437.48 U.S) a month after I’d paid my rent, I used to have one proper meal a day around 5pm. I’d eat pasta, or potatoes, but it’s hard to study or work if you are hungry and always thinking about where the next meal will come from.”

Derambarsh plans on working with ONE, to promote the removal of global food waste at the G20 economic summit held in Turkey this year, as well the COP21 Paris Climate talks.

Global food waste is a global scourge that hurts both the developed world and the developing one. A report from the United Nations released in 2013, found that globally the world wastes about 1.3 billion tons of food each year. That waste costs the global economy about $750 billion dollars every year as well. The amount of waste in the global food system also has terrible consequences for the environment. About 28% of the world’s agricultural lands are wasted on growing food that ends up being wasted. Those wasted crops also drink up an astounding amount of water. The U.N says that so much water is wasted it is the “equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River”. The Volga River is the largest river in Europe. Global food waste is doing its part in wrecking the climate as well, causing an extra 3.8 billion tons of extra carbon pollution to be released into the atmosphere every year.

In recent years, most popular culture discussions of the Christian Quiverfull movement center on the charming Duggar family of TLC reality fame. The Duggars—parents of eighteen children with another on the way—are seen by many as a wholesome—if quirky—example of a healthy family with astoundingly polite and well-behaved children. It is nearly impossible to have a discussion with a well-meaning Quiverfull-illiterate without hearing that familiar refrain: “They just seem like such nice people!”

The overwhelming majority of Quiverfull families—who comprise a miniscule percentage of the American population—are followers of an extremist brand of right-wing politics called Christian Dominionism. Motivated by such writers as RJ Rushdoony and Francis Schaeffer, they want to establish a militant Christian theocracy in the United States. Not only that, but they have imperialistic designs on the rest of the world.

In this era of Christian Right ascendancy, there are at least three names that those of us who remain committed to transparent democratic processes should know: RJ Rushdoony (intellectual father of Christian Dominionism), Bill Gothard (Quiverfull’s figurehead for stealth political organizing), and Erik Prince (CEO of Xe—formerly Blackwater—and the first Christian Dominionist to amass a private army capable of successfully overthrowing a government). The rest of the posts in this series will show what each of these men is about and shed light on this often dismissed—but increasingly powerful—fringe minority. It appears as though TLC will continue to romanticize the Quiverfull lifestyle for the foreseeable future, and it’s up to those of us who know better to shed a brighter light on its politics.

Born in 1916 to Armenian immigrants in the United States, Rousas John Rushdoony was a Calvinist theologian whose fundamentalist teachings would provide the intellectual foundations for Christian Dominionism—or Christian Reconstructionism—in North America. In his writings, Rushdoony laid the groundwork for the establishment of a Christian theocracy not unlike Calvin’s Geneva in the contemporary United States. Rushdoony’s multi-volume opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law, has provided much of the movement’s political framework.

Rushdoony today remains a popular figure among fundamentalist Quiverfull families. He was an early proponent of the view that Christian families should homeschool their children in order to shelter them from secular schools in the United States. Among other works, his Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum was heard as a rallying cry for parents who shared Rushdoony’s disdain for the evils of secular humanism. For Rushdoony, the Christian homeschool was seen—almost literally—as a military training ground for the children who would become the foot soldiers in this war to replace the secular government of the United States with a fundamentalist one. In defense of these goals, Rushdoony famously wrote that “Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.”

One thing that has not been widely reported, however, is Xe’s Dominionist allegiance, up to and including the fact that its former CEO—and now chairman—Erik Prince, is the biological heir apparent to the U.S. Dominionist community.

THE DESIGN

The scientific study of flags is called vexillology, and the practice of designing flags is called vexillography. Both of these are an outcome of heraldry. In these practices there are different unofficial design rules/costums, about colors, placement, proportions, typography, and aestethics in general.

This proposal is accurate according to the regulations regarding flags.

SYMBOLIC EXPLANATION

Centered in the flag, seven rings form a flower – a symbol of the life on Earth. The rings are linked to each other, which represents how everything on our planet, directly or indirectly, are linked. The blue field represents water which is essential for life – also as the oceans cover most of our planet's surface. The flower's outer rings form a circle which could be seen as a symbol of Earth as a planet and the blue surface could represent the universe.

HERALDIC BLAZON

Centered on an azure field, seven circles of silver interlaced, creating a flower.