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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] What's wrong in "Thanksgiving's Hidden Costs"

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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat@meadows.pair.com>
  • To: "self-reliance, networking, and simple living, for small farm sustainability, rural independence and security." <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] What's wrong in "Thanksgiving's Hidden Costs"
  • Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 07:16:43 -0500

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 21:17:42 -0700, you wrote:

>
>In Thanksgiving's Hidden Costs http://www.alternet.org/story/20556/ the
>writer states:
>
>There are paths to a better way: muscular antitrust measures to break up
>corporate control over food; subsidy reform that shifts payments (currently
>$15-20 billion a year) from large-scale agribusiness to ecologically
>sustainable diversified farms; aggressive regulation (and enforcement) of
>the meat industry's shoddy food safety practices and mistreatment of its
>workers; a serious reduction in the 500,000 tons of toxic pesticides dumped
>on our food each year; and major public investment in community food
>security projects that link together small local producers and consumers to
>supply healthy, affordable, sustainably produced food (the USDA ladled out
>just $4.6 million for such efforts last year).
>
>There are many other promising trends afloat – movements to expand farmers'
>markets, serve organic foods in schools, and to encourage institutions like
>schools and hospitals to purchase local organic food whenever possible.
>
>-------- and I disagree completely with all those solutions. After a good,
>hard-hitting analysis of what's wrong with our food systems, the writer
>allows the solutions to be limited to government action. That's the same
>government, by the way, that created all these problems in the first place.
>
>Anyone care to outline the only solution that can possibly work? If not, I
>WILL.
>

I don't really have time for this at present.... darn.
I'll answer this once, then bow out of this discussion. I
truly don't have time at present to do this...sorry.

The fact that you have evidently experienced bad government
does *not* make *all* government bad. The fact that you
believe all government is bad doesn't make it so, either.

There is nothing wrong with government action in the right
direction, i.e., aiding the people instead of crushing them.

I'd like, for instance, to see government assistance to
small family farmers: government policy has almost killed
them all off, a little assistance to the few survivors would
be very welcome at this point. We cannot expect this now,
but maybe in the future...

There are functions that *cannot* be performed by
individuals, especially in a market-driven society, and for
that reason, throughout history people have banded together
in societies and established governments and written laws.
The governments and laws have a proper function, a use. In
a democracy, the people rule.

When people have not established a democratic government,
then inevitably oligarchs have taken power, as is happening
now in the USA. Then the rule is by the rich and powerful,
not by the people.

Those are the *only* two realistic alternatives: rule by
the people in a democracy, rule by the rich and powerful in
an oligarchy. There is no realism to the argument that - if
government disappeared - all people would magically become
good and wise and charitable: it's nonsense, as abundantly
proved throughout history. Fairy-land, the land of dragons
and elves and magic, is more realistic than to believe that.

Personally, I'd welcome a change in our government such that
it would work to conserve the environment, decentralize and
strengthen local food security, etc. I don't expect it, but
I'd welcome it. Such a change, I point out, would in no way
preclude action by individuals, but reinforce and aid such
actions.

For a model of government action that has done just exactly
that, you need to look no further than Cuba and what they
have done since the collapse of the USSR (combined with the
blockade by the USA) abruptly stopped their imports of food
(and almost everything else). They have become the world's
leader in organic local food production, growing food
throughout their cities, as well as rural areas. If you
want to find out about this, you only need to Google on
'organoponicos'. There's a wealth of information available.

Pat
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