Corporate Candidates

I started watching the Food Channel after the Supreme Court handed George W. Bush the presidency. The chance of accidentally seeing or hearing George W. Bush was impossible if I only watched the Food Channel. The fact that this twit was president because the Supreme Court stole the election for him was a reality that I could not completely grasp.

We’ve all experienced the huge ugly irrevocable moments that change our lives forever. An unexpected death of a loved one creates upheaval that is initially overwhelming, eventually subsides, but reverberates throughout the rest of our lives.

To compound the devastating realization that The United States of America was assassinated by the Supreme Court, the assassins and their supporters screamed at anyone in mourning to GET OVER IT!

There wasn’t even a funeral. The MainStreamMedia just slapped a heavy coat of make-up on the corpse and told their audience how strong and vigorous the dead body was. See? The Economy is doing well.

So I started watching the Food Channel. Besides learning how to make the best baby back ribs I’ve ever had, the Food Channel also reminded me that although I was trying to retreat from politics … choosing to cook with quality food is a “political” choice.

If you want to eat food that doesn’t contain herbicides and pesticides, if you don’t want your meat or milk laced with unnecessary antibiotics or hormones, and you’re trying to avoid eating genetically modified “Franken-Foods,” you’ll have to get used to paying 15 – 25 – or even 50% more for organic food. And after months of paying a premium for toxin-free food, any rational person would eventually ask a very simple question,

“How’d All That Crap Get Into Our Food Supply In The First Place?”

A naïve individual might think that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was created to protect us from all that crap. Here’s their mission statement:

“The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.”

But … the question remains …

“How’d All That Crap Get Into Our Food Supply In The First Place?”

Simplistically though accurately put, the corporations that manufacture our food and drugs gave bags of money to politicians and government administrators to bend the law enough, or create new regulations to let the poison in.

If you haven’t read a toothpaste label recently, you are in for shock. The label on a tube of Kids Crest toothpaste says:

“WARNINGS: Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek PROFESSIONAL HELP or contact a POISON CONTROL center immediately.”

Anybody know where their nearest POISON CONTROL CENTER is? I don’t. And since I didn’t want to frantically flip through the phone book looking for one in case my little boy accidentally swallows more than used for brushing … we buy fluoride-free toothpaste instead.

Anyone who has ever had to prep a wall for painting knows what TSP, Trisodium phosphate, is. You go down to the hardware store, buy a box of it, mix it with water and clean off years of grease, grime, and built up cigarette smoke. You have to be careful with it because it can corrode metal.

Oh look … It’s in Cheerios.

Is it harmful? General Mills says … no. Is TSP in organic Nature O’s? No.

The General Mills handout regarding TSP goes into great detail how the small amount of TSP in Cheerios is harmless. But why have a debate about TSP in the first place when you can avoid even the teeny amounts of this wallpaper stripper by purchasing Nature O’s for your kids. We have to have this silly conversation about Cheerios because our political system has been warped by the Corporations who put crap in our food and medicines.

Alton Brown, the somewhat twitchy host of my favorite Food Channel program, Good Eats said:

“Here’s what it comes down to, kids. Ronald McDonald doesn’t give a damn about you. … We are fat and sick and dying because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our nourishment so little that we entrust it to strangers. We hand our lives over to big companies and then drag them to court when the deal goes bad. This is insanity.”

Okay. I get it. Corporations are not our buddies. They don’t care if their actions kill us or ruin our environment. They only care about profit. And every election cycle they make sure that they’ve got bought and paid for candidates who will represent their interests … not ours.

As reported by the Boston Globe on August 7th 2008:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/both_mccain_oba.html

“… The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reported today that employees of Exxon, Chevron, and BP have all contributed more money to Obama than to McCain.”

And from Harper’s Magazine from the October 2006 issue:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/10/sb-a-little-bit-more-on-obama-1161881683

“… Exelon, a leading nuclear-plant operator based in Illinois, is a big donor to Obama, and its executive and employees have given him more than $70,000 since 2004.”

Guess what? According to Barack Obama domestic offshore drilling and Nuclear power are back on the table. Even though the Energy Information Administration admits offshore oil production would not be expected to start before 2017 or hit peak production until 2030. And then it would only represent 1% of U.S. consumption. Safely harnessing nuclear power is a pipe dream because the time frame in question when dealing with radioactive waste ranges from 10,000 to 1,000,000 years. Practical studies only consider up to 100 years as far as effective planning and cost evaluations are concerned.

That crap is back on the table because the Democratic candidate for president is a Corporate Candidate as much as his Republican counterpart.

Over 80,000 people cheered Barack Obama during his acceptance speech. They cheered a candidate who lied to them about “Russian Aggression,” talked tough about Iran, and promised to wind down the war in Iraq but expand the war in Afghanistan.

But he’s the first Black candidate who will probably become President. Is this a great country or what? As a nation we have finally begun to transcend our destructive racism.

But we continue to hand over control of our lives to people and institutions that do us all great harm.

My Dissonance Meter blew out as tens of thousands cheered into the Denver night. I’m switching over to the Cartoon Network.

August 29, 2008