Friday, Aug. 3, 2012
In Face Of Emergency, We're Still Asking, 'Where's the Beef?'
To understand how utterly broken our society is, how hostile to sacrifice we are and how willfully ignorant we have become, you need only look at the historic drought hammering the heartland—and how our elected officials are responding to that cataclysm.
As you likely know from this arid summer, America is suffering through the worst drought since 1950. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, half of all counties in the nation are officially disaster areas—a situation that has devastated the country's supply of agriculture commodities. Consequently, food prices are expected to skyrocket, and eventually, water-dependent power plants may be forced to shut down.
This is a full-on emergency, and USDA, a key agency involved in the national security issues surrounding our food and water supply, last week responded with a minor non-binding recommendation. In its inter-office newsletter to agency employees, it suggested that those who want to conserve water could simply refrain from eating meat on Mondays.
The idea is part of the worldwide "Meatless Monday" campaign, which The New York Times notes is backed by "thousands of corporate cafeterias, restaurants and schools." In the face of a drought, it's a pragmatic notion. Cornell University researchers estimate that "producing a pound of animal protein requires, on average, about 100 times more water than producing a pound of vegetable protein." According to the U.S. Geological Survey, that means a typical hamburger requires a whopping 4,000 to 18,000 gallons of water to make.
Considering these numbers in juxtaposition to the drought, taking one day a week off from meat-eating seems like the absolute least we should be willing to do in a nation whose average citizen annually consumes an unfathomable 194 pounds of meat. And yet, in Washington, the USDA recommendation was a cause for outrage.
That's right; upon the release of the USDA newsletter, lawmakers who have pocketed massive campaign contributions from the meat-centric agribusiness industry were out in force—as if the agency had declared war on the American Way of Life. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) called the recommendation "heresy" and pledged to "have the double rib-eye Mondays instead." Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told his drought-stricken constituents that "I will eat more meat on Monday to compensate" for the USDA suggestion. And Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) proudly posted a photo to his Facebook page showing a Caligulian smorgasbord of animal flesh that his Senate colleagues were preparing to scarf down as a protest against USDA.
No matter where you come down on the carnivore-vegetarian continuum, this episode should shock, disgust and frighten you.
It should shock you that our government's response to such an epic agricultural crisis is a small non-binding recommendation to consume a bit less meat. Indeed, compared to our nation's past reaction to other national security emergencies—from World War II-era recycling campaigns to post-9/11 homeland security spending binges—a "Meatless Monday" suggestion in an internal newsletter is stunningly inadequate.
It should likewise disgust you that even this inadequate recommendation has prompted not merely lawmakers' boisterous opposition—but also public displays of gluttony aimed at encouraging Americans to consume even more water-intensive products than ever.
And, most important, this episode should frighten you because it shows that those elected to deal with national security threats are so owned by industry that they now respond to crises with mocking condescension, in the process raising a harrowing question:
If an historic drought can't convince us to even talk about eating less than 194 pounds of meat every year, then how are we ever going to discuss solutions to—much less actively combat—the even bigger crises headed our way?
David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He co-hosts "The Rundown" on AM630 KHOW in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
© 2012 Creators.com
As you likely know from this arid summer, America is suffering through the worst drought since 1950. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, half of all counties in the nation are officially disaster areas—a situation that has devastated the country's supply of agriculture commodities. Consequently, food prices are expected to skyrocket, and eventually, water-dependent power plants may be forced to shut down.
This is a full-on emergency, and USDA, a key agency involved in the national security issues surrounding our food and water supply, last week responded with a minor non-binding recommendation. In its inter-office newsletter to agency employees, it suggested that those who want to conserve water could simply refrain from eating meat on Mondays.
The idea is part of the worldwide "Meatless Monday" campaign, which The New York Times notes is backed by "thousands of corporate cafeterias, restaurants and schools." In the face of a drought, it's a pragmatic notion. Cornell University researchers estimate that "producing a pound of animal protein requires, on average, about 100 times more water than producing a pound of vegetable protein." According to the U.S. Geological Survey, that means a typical hamburger requires a whopping 4,000 to 18,000 gallons of water to make.
Considering these numbers in juxtaposition to the drought, taking one day a week off from meat-eating seems like the absolute least we should be willing to do in a nation whose average citizen annually consumes an unfathomable 194 pounds of meat. And yet, in Washington, the USDA recommendation was a cause for outrage.
That's right; upon the release of the USDA newsletter, lawmakers who have pocketed massive campaign contributions from the meat-centric agribusiness industry were out in force—as if the agency had declared war on the American Way of Life. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) called the recommendation "heresy" and pledged to "have the double rib-eye Mondays instead." Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told his drought-stricken constituents that "I will eat more meat on Monday to compensate" for the USDA suggestion. And Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) proudly posted a photo to his Facebook page showing a Caligulian smorgasbord of animal flesh that his Senate colleagues were preparing to scarf down as a protest against USDA.
No matter where you come down on the carnivore-vegetarian continuum, this episode should shock, disgust and frighten you.
It should shock you that our government's response to such an epic agricultural crisis is a small non-binding recommendation to consume a bit less meat. Indeed, compared to our nation's past reaction to other national security emergencies—from World War II-era recycling campaigns to post-9/11 homeland security spending binges—a "Meatless Monday" suggestion in an internal newsletter is stunningly inadequate.
It should likewise disgust you that even this inadequate recommendation has prompted not merely lawmakers' boisterous opposition—but also public displays of gluttony aimed at encouraging Americans to consume even more water-intensive products than ever.
And, most important, this episode should frighten you because it shows that those elected to deal with national security threats are so owned by industry that they now respond to crises with mocking condescension, in the process raising a harrowing question:
If an historic drought can't convince us to even talk about eating less than 194 pounds of meat every year, then how are we ever going to discuss solutions to—much less actively combat—the even bigger crises headed our way?
David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He co-hosts "The Rundown" on AM630 KHOW in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
© 2012 Creators.com
But at Whole Foods prices, too. You probably shop there to be among people who you think have enough financial fortitude to be worthy of "meeting fresh meat" in the produce section, where professional wannabes with discriminating taste hook-up with other picky, choosy professional wannabes.
What Sirota is calling out is the effect it is going to have on the McDonalds, the Taco Bells, the Aldi's, the Lena's, whereever meat is sold to people who need low price far more than their tolerance of paying extra to support environmental responsibiility, fair trade, organic health, and such.
And about "Vegan" life being better for you, vegans love to point out how you don't see obese vegans. Dr Zorba on NPR notes that when he travelled to India, they also have veganism, but for a different reason, culture and religion. He notes that there were just as many obese "dot-indians" (he did not use that phrase) in the vegan places as there were in the meat-serving places. After all, the animals that tend to get the biggest, heaviest, fattest are your plant-eating animals, not your meat-eating animals.
Dot Indians get fat from too much sugar intake.
But we have one drought and the liberals go into a panic because it may mean and end to their Dollar Menu at McDonalds.
Food is so cheap anyway so even if prices doubled most people could still easily afford it.
Ranchers sell off the cattle and hogs when the price of feed soars. Wait and watch prices will climb.
Perhaps we should be even more concerned about how government subsidies, spending and environment altering water programs has influenced the normal supply and demand curve for food products. Sirota was talking about the water altering programs, I am talking about corporate welfare, packaged as farm subsidies.
Every congressman wants pork for his state at the EXPENSE of other states. Is it right? No, but voters and campaign contributors know that a "favored advantage" is the only way to get ahead in life. Rising with the tide that lifts all boats is meaningless if the poor and lazy rise just as fast as the rich and industrious.
Go back a bit... we have both a Senate and a House of Representatives, and it is chosen for a simple reason... appeasing those who believe in "one man one vote" or one vote for each man, rich and poor alike; and "one acre one vote" or more votes for the man who has more skin in the game. The House was apportioned off by counts of people, states with more people have more congressmen. The Senate was 2 senators per state, no matter how big or small, how crowded or empty. It gave the big wide-open farmland states as much power as New York or Massachusetts back in those days.
Is it any wonder that the states that vote Red are the wide-open states, making money only when laws are changed to provide cheap water for irrigation, subsidies for corn and wheat which is heavily fertilized, heavily watered, and picked by machines driven by Billy Joe Bob, making an over-abundance, so we feed it to beef cattle to fatten them from 600 pounds to 1800 pounds in just 6 months on a feed lot. A nice windfall of consumer profits from those government paid water programs, of course the farmer and his kids are going to vote Red, keep that money out of their customers hands. (This IS your supply-side economics)
Meanwhile, the growers of the produce that is fed only to humans, not the animals, is grown in areas that depend more on the natural weather, and are picked by hand with the help of Juan, Manuel, and their wives, sons, and daughters. Paying one Billy Joe Bob a high wage is still cheaper than paying this equivalent group of migrant workers a sub-minimum wage. Crowded states where they also see what happens when land and resources are pushed to the limit and it is affecting the lives of the consumers who are not welcome anywhere else. they can't help but vote Blue.
This is your real "Red vs Blue" battle. It's all over the money favoritism.