Fait accompli

Obama is naming Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as his Sec. of Agriculture today and food activists and anti corporate activists are rightly upset over the choice.

Vilsack, seen here giving a woman the traditional farmland greeting, is no friend of the organic food movement, the local food movement, or those who oppose genetically modified foods. He's pro Monsanto, pro agri-business, and pro big business. In short he's everything we don't need in a Sec. of Agriculture right now.

Just as the deregulation in the banking, insurance, and mortgage industries has come back to bite us in the ass, all the deregulation in the food business, the reliance on big factory farms and industrial feed lots, and the move away foods that have genetic diversity will have a huge negative effect on our country in the days and years ahead. Vilsack is someone who will continue the policies of the first Bush administration, the Clinton years, and the lawlessness of the last Bush administration. He's not going to do anything bold like break the grip that the corporate bully Monsanto has on farmers. He's not going to follow the lead of the European Union and ban bovine growth hormones in cattle. And he's not going to come up with sound sustainable food and farm policy.

But you know what? We would have been stuck with him anyway. It's true. He briefly had his hat in the Presidential ring and then when he saw that Vilsack mania wasn't spreading anywhere outside of Davenport and Ames, Iowa, he got out. Then he tossed his support behind Hillary because she promised to help him pay for all the debt his abortive campaign had incurred. And for all his early support she would have rewarded him with this same post had she won the nomination and had she beaten McBush in the Presidential race. So for better or worse we would have been saddled with this corporate farm loving albatross no matter which way we moved. It's sad but true.

Now having said all that, is there a way we can break the grip of the corporate farms and companies like Monsanto that Vilsack loves so much? Sure there is. Here's a few things you can do:

• Buy as local as possible.
• Buy produce that is organic and or pesticide free.
• Plant a garden and don't use any products from Monsanto or companies like them on it.
• Shop local farmers markets and buy only pesticide free or organic local food.
• Buy grass fed beef.
• Stop buying products that have High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. This one is going to be hard because they put that shit in virtually everything from soda pop, to graham crackers, to yogurt, to pancake syrup, to candy bars. Check those ingredients on all processed foods before you buy them to make sure HFCS is not in them.
• Buy cage free/free range chickens and eggs.
• Learn about the dangers of winnowing down the food gene pool.

I'm not kidding when I tell you that the next crisis we face is going to be in our food supply. I'd adivse you to watch a short film called The Power of Community (How Cuba Survived Peak Oil). This short film has much to teach us about how to farm and live when the oil runs out, and yes, despite what FOX Noise and Rush tell you, the oil is going to run out someday soon. This film about our supposed enemy has more information and hope in it than in anythign I've seen in the past few years. There is a way out and we'll all find it just as soon as we stop letting big business tell us how to live.