Tag Archives: factory farming

4 Foods That Could Disappear If New Food Safety Rules Pass

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4 Foods That Could Disappear If New Food Safety Rules Pass | Mother Jones.

Here’s an article from Mother Jones about the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Obama signed it into law in 2011 and I suppose nobody read this one either. If they did, they had to have been paid off by the usual suspects in favor of large scale factory farming.

Obviously, no one wants our food supply to be full of dangerous ingredients. We would all like to be able to buy safe, fresh, affordable, wholesome food. The problem with this law is the same as with every law like this, the ‘law of unintended consequences’. In addition to that problem, some others are already popping up.

For one, this is just one example of how BIG companies use the law to their advantage. They are much more easily able to comply with it, even if it DOES cost them big bucks. They can still manage to get by, especially when it wipes out their competition.

This sort of thing happens all the time in this country and is just one example of how we do NOT have a free market at all. No free market would permit companies to grow as large as we have here. They can only get that way because the laws allow it through special favors and manipulation of the market and the laws themselves. 🙁

Regardless of the name of this law (seems they’re always named the opposite of what they’re REALLY about), it will wind up hurting small farmers, organic farmers, food co-ops, and consumers concerned about healthy, safe food.

The article mentions just a couple of ways this will happen. Again, remember the law of unintended consequences! Those things they mentioned will probably just be the bare minimum of the problems that will develop.

Why do we always insist on the worst possible agency (the government) to take care of our problems? We always seem to think “there ought to be a law”! One size does NOT fit all and we really ought to be able to figure out ways to deal realistically with these things WITHOUT the use of FORCE. It’s especially galling when the use of force (government aid) is applied to the side that is hurting the people in favor of giant corporations.

Food safety is a pretty important subject, even if it’s not one we usually think about much. I hope some of you will think about it a bit. As they mention in the article, the FDA is still accepting comments until November 15. If this is important to you, you still have a chance to at least get the word out and hopefully your comments will be taken into account with the same weighting as someone from Monsanto or Kraft Foods would (yeah riiiiight). I said ‘hopefully’.

Universal Subjectivism: An Ethical Theory for the 21st Century

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Universal Subjectivism: An Ethical Theory for the 21st Century

This looks like a very interesting book. I haven’t read it yet but the review in Utne Reader makes me want to try and find a copy.

I read the review and of course I agree, it would be a wonderful thing to stop all suffering. I just don’t know how to accomplish that.

The author suggests that it would be simple to just pass a law and we could stop factory farming here and so end so much suffering. I totally agree, factory farming is really a sickening situation, horrible for the animals. But how ‘simple’ would it be for us to stop it?

First of all, I’m not sure it would be simple even to pass a law like that. Our political system here is SO screwed up. Our politicians pass laws every day, THOUSANDS of pages long, they never read them, no one understands them, special interests get their little favors hidden inside somewhere, we all have to wait until the shit hits the fan to find out that maybe SOMEBODY should have READ the bills BEFORE they passed them into ‘law”!

We’re fighting Obamacare right now because of that exact same situation. Our agriculture lobby is pretty powerful too. As powerful as the insurance/pharmaceutical/medical lobby? I don’t know. I DO know they would not want to have their profits hurt even a teeny tiny bit! They’ll fight tooth and nail, spend millions of dollars to riddle whatever law comes up with benefits to them and detriments to the rest of us. That is how our politics works now a days! They ALWAYS find a way to screw the little guy! 🙁

Besides the fact that it would be a huge political issue, MY objection to the whole factory farming thing is: would it REALLY be possible to feed everybody (without destroying even more of our land and resources)? I have seen SOME things that suggest that localized, organic type farming can be just as productive, even MORE productive than factory farming, (Farmaggedon-film- was one if I remember right). It just seems so hard to believe. I would really need to learn a lot more before I’m totally convinced that is true.

The author makes the point that people starve every day tho there is enough food to feed the population of today. I would agree with that, most of the people who are starving today are in that situation because of POLITICS and not because there isn’t enough food around. Corrupt and greedy ‘rulers’ find ways to work the system to benefit themselves and their cronies and screw everyone else! The issue is getting the food (or other aid) to the people who need it. Best way to solve that problem is to get rid of politics! Get rid of ‘rulers’!! They’re nothing but thugs wearing suits!

I have to admit, I really don’t want to change my lifestyle. I’m not a vegetarian now and I don’t really want to be one. I don’t want to learn to eat worms or insects either. I travel every chance I get and I don’t want to stop doing that either. So, OK, I am not very ethical according to this author, at least according to what I can get out of the intro to the book in the review. I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t think reading the book will make me change my mind.

How in the heck are we going to get everyone to change their mindsets to this kind of ethics? That question alone makes me want to get hold of the book and find out the authors ideas. I am curious to see what other people propose to solve these sorts of problems. I can’t imagine it ever happening by choice. I have a feeling people will eventually be using force, like they say about climate change, we don’t have time to THINK about the proper kinds of solutions, it’s time for ACTION. Same old, same old here. 🙁

As usual, MY solution to the issue of suffering is the same as it is for almost every other issue… start using some BIRTH CONTROL!!!!! We sure as hell can feed 9 million people on this planet a LOT easier than we can 9 BILLION!!! We MIGHT even have some land/water/resources left over for some of the OTHER creatures on the planet if we would use our big heads instead of our little ones for a change!

To me, that would involve a whole lot less suffering for everybody. I mean, really, how hard can it be to just take a pill every day? or a depo shot every 3 months? Everybody that can have a kid, gets ONE. Maybe that policy would even encourage people to appreciate their kids for a change. 🙂

Let the people who can’t have one adopt one that is already here on this planet (instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on artificial insemination, etc). Oh, you want your own genes? Too bad, life’s not fair, it’s YOUR problem, don’t expect the rest of the world to pay just to indulge your FEELINGS. If you have the big bucks to pay for the procedure all on your own (NO insurance should cover these procedures!), then fine, maybe we’ll consider an exception if you’re some kind of genius (maybe). Instead of giving incentives to HAVE kids, give incentives to NOT have kids!

Just do the same thing as China did, establish a one child policy (must CONVINCE people of the need- NOT force them!). It shouldn’t be THAT hard. After all, most people have been convinced that people caused global warming and they’e only been spouting that story since what, the 80’s?

After a while, the population will eventually start shrinking, human suffering will lessen (and animal suffering along with it) and we can start solving the REST of the problems we have created here, such as starvation, medical care, education, engaging and fulfilling work, improving the condition of our land/water/air, maybe even make a dent in climate change. 😉

CDC Reveals Scary Truth About Factory Farms and Superbugs

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CDC Reveals Scary Truth About Factory Farms and Superbugs | Mother Jones.

Here’s a little update from the CDC on all those antibiotics they’ve been pumping into your food supply for years now. Turns out, they were wrong about how safe all that is. There actually IS a link between overdosing your factory farmed meat animals (cows, pigs, chickens, etc) to the escalation of antibiotic resistant bacteria (and resulting deaths) in humans.

OK, so now we know (for sure). What are they going to do about it??? Turns out, not much. Remember, here in the USA we rely on government to keep us ‘safe’. We could probably do much better if we would get rid of our government protection and create a system that really could and would do a proper job. Read the article, you’ll see what I mean. 🙁

One Weird Trick to Fix Farms Forever

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One Weird Trick to Fix Farms Forever | Mother Jones.

One weird trick? Seems like this ‘trick’ has been around forever, it’s just our modern factory farming techniques that tend to overlook it.

I don’t really know enough about farming to say with a definite yes or no to any of this stuff. I have been learning more about it lately and I’m coming to find out that contrary to what our government schools are telling us, that no, factory farming is NOT necessary to feed all the people on this planet now.

I always thought that because of the humongous amount of people running around and needing to be fed, that factory farming was the ONLY solution. Now, I’ve been learning, it isn’t. In fact, it is causing a lot of harm. Not only to the animals, but to the water, to the soil, to the plants, to the people involved in the farming, AND to all the rest of us.

Check out the article, read it all the way through and even the comments at the end. If you want some more info, check out this book I read called “Genetic Roulette” on GMOs (they even made a movie out of it). We’re working on showing that one at our local (Campaign for Liberty) meetup groups movie night sometime soon. Or another movie called “Farmaggedon”. There are lots more but those are a couple of good ones that’ll open your eyes and get you started asking questions. I’ve been a fast food junkie my whole life and they did open my eyes to a lot of things. Even tho I’m still eating all the crap food, at least I’m learning 😉