The fate of wild salmon and a panic over power plants that no longer answer to human commands would not seem to be interlinked. But they are, in the belief that the parts of the world that have been fouled, or found lacking, can be engineered to our standards — without consequence. You see this attitude in the denial caucus of Congress, perhaps now a majority of Republicans in power, who say, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that climate change is a hoax. – The Problem With Genetically Engineered Salmon – NYTimes.com.
Western man has been on a mad dash to wring every ounce of profit from the earth for too many years. Be it engineering food crops so you can patent the very seeds needed to raise our dinner, or filling our environment with antibiotics so you can speed up the process of raising the meat on my plate, profits are paramount. We are now endowing a class of “people” whose only legal mandate is to maximize profit. These “people” have now been given the right to spend unlimited resources in our elections here in America. These “people” are the corporations of this world…Owned and controlled in the majority by a class of people who are now richer than at any time in history.
Americans have become increasingly aware of the ins and outs of factory farming. Michael Pollan’s books — which regularly make the best-seller lists — instruct consumers that our current system is unnatural and unhealthy, especially when it comes to meat: “Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do.” In recent years, other writers and filmmakers have explored the same system — Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation (which was turned into a movie); Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me; and the documentary Food, Inc. all convey the message that our food policy perpetuates a system that is unhealthy for consumers, cruel to animals, and exploitative of migrant workers.
However, there is still precious little attention paid to how the system is bad for farmers as well. – The Serfs of Arkansas.
The mobility myth in America seems to live on despite the reality of American society. Whose interests are served by the maintaining of this myth? The very same “people” our Supreme Court empowered with more free speech than any of us Americans have ever seen in the hands of “people”.
In his very last column for the New York Times, Bob Herbert looked at the state of America and decided that we are “Losing Our Way”…
There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion. – Losing Our Way – NYTimes.com.
It is almost sad…A statement of where the world is heading…That we find ourselves again placing ourselves in liege to a “person” or “persons” whose interests are being placed above our own. Funny isn’t it…We moved from the dark ages to an age of enlightenment…Now the light is flickering and the darkness is getting closer again.
