Kristina and I believe that individual actions can have a global effect, which is why we have chosen to change our lifestyle. We believe that how we chose to live not only makes a statement about what we value but can influence others and eventually change the world.
We decided to really change our lifestyle before our oldest son William was born. We would no longer just sputter outrage at the injustices we saw, or pay lip service to environmental issues. We were going to walk the walk. We were going to act upon our principals, we were not going to just complain about Nike using sweat shops to make its clothing (according to James Wallis Nike paid Michael Jordon more to sell shoes then it paid all of the people (combined) who actually made the shoes), while buying our Nike shoes, we were not going to buy any products unless we had good reason to believe that the people producing those products were treated fairly.
We do not think that one company (Monsanto) should have control of 80% of the US corn crop and 95% of the Soybean crop. We will not (or at least try very hard to) support corporations that actively causes harm to people to inflate their own profits. That uses intimidation and fear to coerce people to use their products and bankrupts anyone who tries to resist them.
If you think that one family cannot change the world then think about the organic food movement. The term organic was only used by a few hippies in the 1970’s who wanted to live outside of the military industrial complex. Now every major supermarket chain has an organic section. In 2002 22% of all dairy cows were injected with rBGH and in 2007 only 11% of cows had rBGH injections. Since then the three biggest dairy retailers Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco have pledge to sell only rBGH free milk (Monsanto is trying to make it illegal for milk labels to have “rBGH Free”). Both of these movements were begun by families concerned about the food that they eat and the health effects of pesticides on the environment. The actions of a few individuals gathered steam and rolled over an oppressive corporate giant.
Most all consumer movements , Fair Trade, Product Safety, debt free, etc…. have been started by one person saying “I don’t like this and I am going to change how I live”. If all of us try our hardest to act upon our principals and take a moral stand for what we believe in, instead of giving up or taking the easy way out, then we can change the world.
What would our world be like if people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Thomas Jefferson, etc…… said “I am just one person, and how can I make a difference? The problem is too big I don't want to even try”? You see the key is not trying to change the world but changing ourselves. We usually have no control of the world around us but we almost always can control how we react to it. We can talk about how things need to change, or we can try to change the things we can change.
You don’t like the fact that Chase, Citibank and Bank of America got bailed out by the tax payer but still awards $100’s of millions in bonuses? Then get rid of your Chase, Citibank and Bank of America credit cards. Move your money to a small local bank, that didn’t get bailed out. Write your congressional representatives, if enough of us complain about something they will eventually listen. Boycott companies and products who use practices that you don’t like when you can (it’s really hard to boycott Saudi oil). But the most important thing that you can do is VOTE in every election. Vote in your local elections, in your state or provincial elections and your national elections, but please just VOTE! I don’t even care who you vote for, well I do but that’s not the point.
We can make a difference in the world but the first thing we must do is try, we have to try and we must never quit fighting for the things that we believe in!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
How we choose to live
My wonderful, beautiful and incredibly smart wife Kristina suggested that I talk about what we are doing to change our lifestyle. We are trying to use less resources and the resources that we do use we are trying to use more wisely. We are trying to only eat meat that has been humanely raised and minimally processed, with little or no preservatives. We are eating less meat, have meat with only one or two meals a week. We are getting most of our vegetables from local Alabama farmers through our CSA, Grow Alabama and we are trying to ensure that the rest of our food is grown and processed in a sustainable way.
Is every meal we eat made from scratch or follows our rules above? No, we still get frozen pizzas and ice cream occasionally. We don’t want to be extreme or be so hard and fast to our rules that we hate them, plus with the boys it is sometimes just easier to toast them a waffle when things get hectic.
We are trying to make sure all of our purchases follow the same rules for food. That we try to buy clothing and other products that are made by people being paid a living wage (preferably in North America) with as minimal harm to the environment as reasonably possible.
But the most important thing that we are doing is asking ourselves these questions:
“Do we really need this, what function will it serve?”
“Will I still be using this 3 years from now and will it last that long?”
“Was this made in conditions that I would work in?”
Our reasons for doing this are many fold. We want to use fewer resources now so that our children and grandchildren can have a better life. We learned in 7th grade science class that oil, iron, coal, copper etc… are limited resources and we are already now seeing price increases in these commodities due to decrease supply and increasing demand. We have already seen a company formed to mine copper and other construction wastes out of New Jersey’s landfills, and as India and China try to live like Americans the competition is going to get even worse.
We (North Americans) are less the 5% of the world’s population but we use over 25% of the worlds resources. If almost half of the world’s population (China and India) tries to live how we do and have lived for the last 40 years we will quickly deplete what resources remain.
Not only is our way of life unsustainable it is clearly unfair, and no I am not going to give up electricity, running water and sewage, health care or the security that I enjoy. But I will try to not consume without thinking, that I will try to lessen my impact on our world through my actions, deeds and words. I will try to prepare my sons for a life in which they do not enjoy all of the advantages that cheap energy gave me in my life.
I can drive my car 30 miles for less than $3.00 (one gallon of gas) how much would it cost to hire someone to push my car that far? How much would it cost to own a horse to pull my car? I believe that most of us North Americans have no idea how reliant we are on cheap oil and energy, and as we use up the remaining reserves and as other countries begin to adopt our lifestyle and compete with us for resources we are going to be in for a Crude Awakening.
I do not think that civilization will collapse but I do think that our society is going to have to make some tough choices and face a difficult adjustment as our quality of life decreases from what it is now.
Is every meal we eat made from scratch or follows our rules above? No, we still get frozen pizzas and ice cream occasionally. We don’t want to be extreme or be so hard and fast to our rules that we hate them, plus with the boys it is sometimes just easier to toast them a waffle when things get hectic.
We are trying to make sure all of our purchases follow the same rules for food. That we try to buy clothing and other products that are made by people being paid a living wage (preferably in North America) with as minimal harm to the environment as reasonably possible.
But the most important thing that we are doing is asking ourselves these questions:
“Do we really need this, what function will it serve?”
“Will I still be using this 3 years from now and will it last that long?”
“Was this made in conditions that I would work in?”
Our reasons for doing this are many fold. We want to use fewer resources now so that our children and grandchildren can have a better life. We learned in 7th grade science class that oil, iron, coal, copper etc… are limited resources and we are already now seeing price increases in these commodities due to decrease supply and increasing demand. We have already seen a company formed to mine copper and other construction wastes out of New Jersey’s landfills, and as India and China try to live like Americans the competition is going to get even worse.
We (North Americans) are less the 5% of the world’s population but we use over 25% of the worlds resources. If almost half of the world’s population (China and India) tries to live how we do and have lived for the last 40 years we will quickly deplete what resources remain.
Not only is our way of life unsustainable it is clearly unfair, and no I am not going to give up electricity, running water and sewage, health care or the security that I enjoy. But I will try to not consume without thinking, that I will try to lessen my impact on our world through my actions, deeds and words. I will try to prepare my sons for a life in which they do not enjoy all of the advantages that cheap energy gave me in my life.
I can drive my car 30 miles for less than $3.00 (one gallon of gas) how much would it cost to hire someone to push my car that far? How much would it cost to own a horse to pull my car? I believe that most of us North Americans have no idea how reliant we are on cheap oil and energy, and as we use up the remaining reserves and as other countries begin to adopt our lifestyle and compete with us for resources we are going to be in for a Crude Awakening.
I do not think that civilization will collapse but I do think that our society is going to have to make some tough choices and face a difficult adjustment as our quality of life decreases from what it is now.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Looking for Locally grown meat
Since the Blog is suppose to be about my families quest for increased sustainability and I have yet to write about that I think I should have at least one post a month about it. We are trying to use less resources and the ones that we do use we want to use more wisely. We are trying to eat a more local diet, to buy things only made in the US or other countries were we have a good reason to believe that the people producing the products were treated fairly (by being fairly treated I mean they are treated how I expect to be treated). We are having difficulty finding locally grown, humanely raised meat. When we belonged to our previous CSA we could get chicken from them but they have closed down their CSA (we have ordered half a hog from them that should be ready sometime in the spring). What I mean by humanely treated is that they are treated with the same amount of respect that any of Gods other creatures deserve. I find it ironic that people get so upset and demand criminal charges be brought against someone kicking a dog but the food animals that they regularly consume are treated much worse. Most animals in CAFO's (Concentrated, Animal, Feeding, Operations) are treated with less respect than the inmates at Auschwitz were.
We get our vevegetables from Grow Alabama which is an organization that buys produce from local small farmers and then sales it to individuals. This enables us to both support Alabama farmers and helps remove us from the cocorporate food chain. If you have noticed I haven't mentioned organic, I do want organic food raised in the traditional methods that my Grand and Great-Grand parents used but this is of less importance to me, than insuring that my money goes to help a real farmer and not into some multinational CEO's bonus check. I believe that Eisenhower's warning of the most dangerous enemy that our country faces is the industrial complex that we created. The recent finical bailouts of large corporate banks and the auto industry ( these were done both under the Bush and Obama administration) while providing little to no relief to the individual citizen is a perfect example of how the money from corporate lobbyist controls both political parties and is threatening to take over both the tea party movement (on the right) and the progressive movement (on the left).
Ok I am getting preachy again and I really was trying not too. Even though we eat meat only once or twice a week and that I have got some chicken and goat in my freezer it will not last to long and I need a local supply. I am really looking for a source for chickens, I will gladly slaughter and clean them myself if some one can provide me with some. I will even pay in advance for them. We do not want any deer meat because Kristina is still venisoned out from last years harvest but turkey would be fine. So any one that is within 100 miles of Tallassee or Decatur give me a shout if you know where I can get some chickens or turkey's.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
A Disconnected Society
There seems to be a disconnect between all levels of our government and most of our financial system and the daily lives of the common American. Our federal government says that the average American needs to save more of their income but the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates so low that you will lose money in a savings account if your bank charges any one of the numerous fees that banks charge now to inflate their profits. The USDA suggests that we eat more fresh vegetables and less fats and sugars, yet it provides subsides that make fatty, sugary foods cheaper than vegetables (should the most expensive thing on McDonald’s menu be a salad?). I cannot believe that a head of lettuce costs more to produce and process than a twinke!
I am not sure if this disconnect started in our finical system our started with us, the American people. It seems to me that we have lost our historical values and any idea of what the American dream use to be. We seem to value money and physical possessions more that we value each other. This might be because we have be targeted by incessant advertising telling us we will be happier and have more time if only we buy the “New and Improved, WonderThingamagig”. When in actuality the only reason that we have the same relative standard of living that our grandparents had in the 1950’s and 60’s is because both parents are working, so now it takes two incomes to maintain the same status quo that one income did 40 years ago. This is where one of the disconnects lie, because since the 1970’s we have seen a great increase in average income but it is concentrated in the top 20% of the income bracket. The CIA World Fact Book (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html) claims that “Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households.” It further states “Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups.” If you look at the table provided by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States (so take it for what it is worth) you can see that in the last 35 years median income has increase by almost $10,000 but the income for the 80th percentile has increased by a over $30,000 and the 90th percentile’s income has increased by almost $65,000 while the bottom 20% income has only increase by $3,000!
So for my situation where I am making the median income I am actually earning less now then when my Father was making the median income 30 years ago once we account for inflation.
I think this is caused by our government valuing economic growth (as measured by the creation of money) above all else. By adopting these values we have drifted from a production based economy to a consumer economy. Do you think that we can sustain an economic system were we sell each other stuff that was imported from someplace else? This has not only created a financial system that favors the creation of wealth over everything else, but seems to have created a society that favors material possessions over personal relationships. It has created a disconnect in local governments, where they want to attract a Super Wal-Mart for the increased tax base even though it will wipe out the small business that make up (or did) the traditional upper middle class of most American towns. Yes you create more (but lower paying) jobs but you lose the nexus of your local civil society. We value short term gains over long term prosperity, even though we are destroying our country and our traditional way of life.
We live in a time where it is perfectly acceptable (and legal) for a power company to sell its natural gas futures and stop producing power if that is deemed more profitable. It does not matter if it is in the middle of a blizzard and tens of thousands of households will lose power. It does not matter if making money hurts people, you can always find more consumers.
We can create wealth out of thin air, the $100 (if I had $100) bill in my wallet will provide no nutritional value if I eat it. I cannot put it in my gas tank and drive my car with it. It will provide a little heat if I burn it, and it is too small to make good toilet paper with. It’s only worth is what other people are accepting it to be, and we are creating billions of dollars now. We have become addicted to debt (which is another way to create money out of thin air) both as a nation and a society. Our debt addiction is not limited to a political party or certain demographic but spread widely and deeply throughout our culture.
We have almost $13 trillion in debt now as a nation and I can only see three potential ways out our current situation (of course this is expecting our society to remain stable)
1) Hyper-inflation – if we keep borrowing at our current rate, other nations probably will stop lending us money and demand that our debts be paid. This will put us in a similar situation that Germany was in after WWI with prices sky-rocketing as our dollars become useless.
2) Stagflation- Similar to what we saw in the late 1970’s early 80’s were we had a stagnate economy and inflation, the only solution was to raise interest rates up to 20% and wait until the money comes out of the system (no more borrowing no more money being created).
3) Deflation- Were we stop printing money raise interest rates sky high or tag our currency to something of real value like gold or silver (I am actually not sure how or even if this will work but some people on the far right seem to think that this is a good idea). In this case we remove the money from the system so fast that prices actually fall. I know this sounds good but it is what happened during the Great Depression (which wasn’t good at all) and no one had any money to spend on the now suddenly cheaper goods.
I am sure and do hope that there are more and better options than I have stated. I am not an economist but a biologist. As a biologist I know that you cannot have infinite growth in a finite system (something that economists seem not to account for) and our planet is a finite system.
I will save for later my thoughts about our over consumption of all things and what it means as we start to run out of resources.
I am not sure if this disconnect started in our finical system our started with us, the American people. It seems to me that we have lost our historical values and any idea of what the American dream use to be. We seem to value money and physical possessions more that we value each other. This might be because we have be targeted by incessant advertising telling us we will be happier and have more time if only we buy the “New and Improved, WonderThingamagig”. When in actuality the only reason that we have the same relative standard of living that our grandparents had in the 1950’s and 60’s is because both parents are working, so now it takes two incomes to maintain the same status quo that one income did 40 years ago. This is where one of the disconnects lie, because since the 1970’s we have seen a great increase in average income but it is concentrated in the top 20% of the income bracket. The CIA World Fact Book (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html) claims that “Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households.” It further states “Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups.” If you look at the table provided by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States (so take it for what it is worth) you can see that in the last 35 years median income has increase by almost $10,000 but the income for the 80th percentile has increased by a over $30,000 and the 90th percentile’s income has increased by almost $65,000 while the bottom 20% income has only increase by $3,000!
So for my situation where I am making the median income I am actually earning less now then when my Father was making the median income 30 years ago once we account for inflation.
I think this is caused by our government valuing economic growth (as measured by the creation of money) above all else. By adopting these values we have drifted from a production based economy to a consumer economy. Do you think that we can sustain an economic system were we sell each other stuff that was imported from someplace else? This has not only created a financial system that favors the creation of wealth over everything else, but seems to have created a society that favors material possessions over personal relationships. It has created a disconnect in local governments, where they want to attract a Super Wal-Mart for the increased tax base even though it will wipe out the small business that make up (or did) the traditional upper middle class of most American towns. Yes you create more (but lower paying) jobs but you lose the nexus of your local civil society. We value short term gains over long term prosperity, even though we are destroying our country and our traditional way of life.
We live in a time where it is perfectly acceptable (and legal) for a power company to sell its natural gas futures and stop producing power if that is deemed more profitable. It does not matter if it is in the middle of a blizzard and tens of thousands of households will lose power. It does not matter if making money hurts people, you can always find more consumers.
We can create wealth out of thin air, the $100 (if I had $100) bill in my wallet will provide no nutritional value if I eat it. I cannot put it in my gas tank and drive my car with it. It will provide a little heat if I burn it, and it is too small to make good toilet paper with. It’s only worth is what other people are accepting it to be, and we are creating billions of dollars now. We have become addicted to debt (which is another way to create money out of thin air) both as a nation and a society. Our debt addiction is not limited to a political party or certain demographic but spread widely and deeply throughout our culture.
We have almost $13 trillion in debt now as a nation and I can only see three potential ways out our current situation (of course this is expecting our society to remain stable)
1) Hyper-inflation – if we keep borrowing at our current rate, other nations probably will stop lending us money and demand that our debts be paid. This will put us in a similar situation that Germany was in after WWI with prices sky-rocketing as our dollars become useless.
2) Stagflation- Similar to what we saw in the late 1970’s early 80’s were we had a stagnate economy and inflation, the only solution was to raise interest rates up to 20% and wait until the money comes out of the system (no more borrowing no more money being created).
3) Deflation- Were we stop printing money raise interest rates sky high or tag our currency to something of real value like gold or silver (I am actually not sure how or even if this will work but some people on the far right seem to think that this is a good idea). In this case we remove the money from the system so fast that prices actually fall. I know this sounds good but it is what happened during the Great Depression (which wasn’t good at all) and no one had any money to spend on the now suddenly cheaper goods.
I am sure and do hope that there are more and better options than I have stated. I am not an economist but a biologist. As a biologist I know that you cannot have infinite growth in a finite system (something that economists seem not to account for) and our planet is a finite system.
I will save for later my thoughts about our over consumption of all things and what it means as we start to run out of resources.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Corprate America
I am concerned about a recent Supreme Court case and its potential impact upon our country and the world in which we live. The case is expected to redefine the role of corporations in financing federal campaigns. The case's outcome will determine corporations' ability to make political contributions to specific candidates in an election. It hinges on the assertion that corporations have First Amendment rights. If the law regulating such corporate donations were overturned, the effect on sort of the role money would play in politics, in our national life, and the ability to control that money would be forever changed.
As it stands now corporate money is illegal in federal elections, but the two major parties were hooked on it. In 1999 and 2000, they raised nearly half a billion dollars from corporations, unions and the wealthy. This is so-called “soft money”. Among the companies supplying soft money to the parties was Enron. One thing Enron lobbied for and got was financial deregulation. Last June, when the House of Representatives passed a bill which included money for airplanes the Air Force hadn't asked for. "The House just awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of no-bid contracts, to companies whose executives and their lobbyists turned around and contributed tens of thousands of dollars to members of Congress who secured those no-bid contracts," says Republican Rep. Jeff Flake.
The Supreme Court’s ruling could change everything. “The way that the Supreme Court has been interpreting campaign finance law could well lead us into a spiral, where we end up with a deregulated campaign finance system," says Rick Hasen, who teaches campaign finance and ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. That would be a political system unlike any we've seen before.
This is why we need to pass the 28th Amendment to the Constitution: Separation of Corporation and State. Which states: “This amendment affirms that constitutional rights extend only to human persons. Corporations, partnerships, and other organizational entities are not human persons and, therefore, are not entitled to constitutional protections."
The recent financial bailouts and record CEO bonuses marks a new height of American corporate corruption and influence over our federal government—corporations find more protection under the law than American citizens, health and safety regulations are stripped away to serve profits ahead of people, politicians serve only their corporate backers, and our environment is falling victim to the lustful greed of this disaster capitalism.
How did it come to this? In 1886 corporations were given the same protection under the law that we're given as individual citizens. The 28th Amendment would strip corporations of their "personhood" and allow the US citizenry to re-assume its place as the most powerful force in our democracy.
As Ultimate Civics states musch better that I can “Our democracy is founded on the premise that "We, the People" are the ultimate check and balance on our three branches of government. Yet for over 100 years the U.S. Supreme Court has been steadily granting “corporate persons” more and more of the rights of natural persons in addition to their taxation and limited liability privileges. The net effect of these court decisions is literally destroying our democracy – and the planet. We cannot have a functional democracy and achieve a sustainable future when our political and economic systems are driven by huge corporations seeking to maximize short-term profits at the expense of social and environmental wealth.”
As Eugene Jarecki (maker of http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/) put it “With the enormous costs of elections and the need for members of Congress to bring home jobs, the most important people for any politician are not you and me, but those whose companies write big checks and generate employment. Neither party is exempt from this. Democrats and Republicans alike face obscene electoral costs and constituents who want results. And this is where industry gains the troubling foothold that Eisenhower warned against. The problem is systemic. So how can we fix it?”
And the problem is through out our poltical system infecting both parties like a terminal virus, and that is what it is. Our country is in danger of becoming so corrupt that it can no longer function. It is already losing its ability to effectivly govern and protect the populace. We can not keep our food system safe, because of the food industry fighting against any and every piece of legislation that would regulate them to protect us the people that our government is suppose to represent. The fact the the USDA does not have to power to shut down a food processing plant when E. coli or Salmonella is detected starts to tell you just how little our politicians are concerned with our safety. Why are will building more roads when we can not afford the up keep on the ones we have now, is it because of corprate contributions and pork fatting the poltical coffers of our representiatives?
I leave you with the words of Bill Moyers “Something’s not right here. One year after the great collapse of our financial system, Wall Street is back on top while our politicians dither. As for health care reform, you’re about to be forced to buy insurance from companies whose stock is soaring, and that’s just dandy with the White House.
Truth is, our capitol’s being looted, republicans are acting like the town rowdies, the sheriff is firing blanks, and powerful Democrats in Congress are in cahoots with the gang that’s pulling the heist. This is not capitalism at work. It’s capital. Raw money, mounds of it, buying politicians and policy as if they were futures on the hog market.”
As it stands now corporate money is illegal in federal elections, but the two major parties were hooked on it. In 1999 and 2000, they raised nearly half a billion dollars from corporations, unions and the wealthy. This is so-called “soft money”. Among the companies supplying soft money to the parties was Enron. One thing Enron lobbied for and got was financial deregulation. Last June, when the House of Representatives passed a bill which included money for airplanes the Air Force hadn't asked for. "The House just awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of no-bid contracts, to companies whose executives and their lobbyists turned around and contributed tens of thousands of dollars to members of Congress who secured those no-bid contracts," says Republican Rep. Jeff Flake.
The Supreme Court’s ruling could change everything. “The way that the Supreme Court has been interpreting campaign finance law could well lead us into a spiral, where we end up with a deregulated campaign finance system," says Rick Hasen, who teaches campaign finance and ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. That would be a political system unlike any we've seen before.
This is why we need to pass the 28th Amendment to the Constitution: Separation of Corporation and State. Which states: “This amendment affirms that constitutional rights extend only to human persons. Corporations, partnerships, and other organizational entities are not human persons and, therefore, are not entitled to constitutional protections."
The recent financial bailouts and record CEO bonuses marks a new height of American corporate corruption and influence over our federal government—corporations find more protection under the law than American citizens, health and safety regulations are stripped away to serve profits ahead of people, politicians serve only their corporate backers, and our environment is falling victim to the lustful greed of this disaster capitalism.
How did it come to this? In 1886 corporations were given the same protection under the law that we're given as individual citizens. The 28th Amendment would strip corporations of their "personhood" and allow the US citizenry to re-assume its place as the most powerful force in our democracy.
As Ultimate Civics states musch better that I can “Our democracy is founded on the premise that "We, the People" are the ultimate check and balance on our three branches of government. Yet for over 100 years the U.S. Supreme Court has been steadily granting “corporate persons” more and more of the rights of natural persons in addition to their taxation and limited liability privileges. The net effect of these court decisions is literally destroying our democracy – and the planet. We cannot have a functional democracy and achieve a sustainable future when our political and economic systems are driven by huge corporations seeking to maximize short-term profits at the expense of social and environmental wealth.”
As Eugene Jarecki (maker of http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/) put it “With the enormous costs of elections and the need for members of Congress to bring home jobs, the most important people for any politician are not you and me, but those whose companies write big checks and generate employment. Neither party is exempt from this. Democrats and Republicans alike face obscene electoral costs and constituents who want results. And this is where industry gains the troubling foothold that Eisenhower warned against. The problem is systemic. So how can we fix it?”
And the problem is through out our poltical system infecting both parties like a terminal virus, and that is what it is. Our country is in danger of becoming so corrupt that it can no longer function. It is already losing its ability to effectivly govern and protect the populace. We can not keep our food system safe, because of the food industry fighting against any and every piece of legislation that would regulate them to protect us the people that our government is suppose to represent. The fact the the USDA does not have to power to shut down a food processing plant when E. coli or Salmonella is detected starts to tell you just how little our politicians are concerned with our safety. Why are will building more roads when we can not afford the up keep on the ones we have now, is it because of corprate contributions and pork fatting the poltical coffers of our representiatives?
I leave you with the words of Bill Moyers “Something’s not right here. One year after the great collapse of our financial system, Wall Street is back on top while our politicians dither. As for health care reform, you’re about to be forced to buy insurance from companies whose stock is soaring, and that’s just dandy with the White House.
Truth is, our capitol’s being looted, republicans are acting like the town rowdies, the sheriff is firing blanks, and powerful Democrats in Congress are in cahoots with the gang that’s pulling the heist. This is not capitalism at work. It’s capital. Raw money, mounds of it, buying politicians and policy as if they were futures on the hog market.”
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