Recently in food supply Category

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     I'm not sure how these boycotting liberals imagined John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, Inc., but I believe it went a little something like this:

    He gets up around 1pm, combs his long gray hair, plays a little ditty on his mandolin before sliding his feet into his Teva's, throwing a Che Guevara T-shirt over his head, and slipping into some hemp sweatpants.  He gets into his car, a 1977 Volvo, and strolls into work around 2:30, a cup of fair-trade coffee in one hand, a Bob Avakian book in the other.  He sits in his office, speaking, just a decibel above the Phish tune he's pouring out of his radio, about how this Country needs to start caring about poor people again.  He's there for about an hour, at which time the spirit moves him to clock out.  Oh, wait.  You're right.  I don't think he uses the time-clock.  I bet he volunteers there. 

     WAKE up, folks!  John Mackey is a libertarian.  He runs a company that panders to a very large and growing group of health-conscious People, and he does so with free-market values.

     He's got great ideas about health care reform, which he wrote about on his blog.  In so doing, he revealed his true Red, White, and Blue colors to the American People.

     He's an opponent of the Employee Free Choice Act, but the only liberals who have a problem with that are the ones who AREN'T WORKING FOR HIM.  That's because Whole Foods employees have terrific benefits.  No intrusive government act necessary!
    
     You know, we cry and carry on about how corporations just won't listen to us.  They won't respond to our needs and desires for quality goods and services.  Then, finally, a company falls from free market heaven, answering our prayers for a grocery superstore that supplies us with a fresh, organic, free-range, antibiotic-free, hormone-free smorgasbord, and what do liberals do?  Boycott it!
    
    Well, I think Mackey is doing a fine job.  He's couragous, too, putting his opinions and values out there while catering to mostly liberal customers.  He's saying to them, "I am opposed to big government.  We, the People, are responsible for our own lives and our own health.  Whole Foods customers reap the rewards of a capitalist society."
   
    These liberals...(and, here, I get to use one of my favorite phrases) don't know whether to shit or go blind.  
   
     So, they boycott.


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     In today's Sun-Times, Scott Stewart wrote about Christopher Steiner's new book, $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better.

     Steiner is an Evanston engineer and journalist, and was also featured in Rolling Stone last month.

     His book posits the drastic impact of increasing gas prices on American life.

     At $6, good-bye SUVs.  Revenues from gas taxes plunge, causing roads to crumble and bridges to collapse.  Highways are privatized; higher tolls.
     At $12, Americans flock to cities.  Detroit and Cleveland are reborn.  Suburbia becomes the new inner city.  Empty McMansions, abandoned malls.
     At $20, 90% of Americans live in cities; 70% never own a car.  Nuclear reactors power everything.  (Ah ha!  I told you I was seeing into the future on this one - Windmills )

     Nevertheless, I have to admit, I find the basic idea of the book a little assumptuous (new word created by Liz Lux).  I mean, is it inevitable that the price of gas will continue to go up, and up to $20 a gallon?  The price of oil was down last week.  It goes up and down all the time.  If the climbing of gas prices is inevitable, wouldn't folks be stocking up on oil futures right now?

     In any event, many economists say the economy will get worse.  So, aside from gas, the prices of all goods and services will start to weigh heavily on the American People.  At least, that is the opinion of Former Citizen.

     Forget that Steiner's talking about gasoline.  He's not analyzing gasoline.  He's analyzing the American People's commitment, in hard times, to greasing this machine - this machine that has taken over where American lives used to be...before corporations, before the federal reserve. 

     It's very interesting to think about life without sushi, which Steiner associates with a $16 a gallon gas price.  Or, life without Walmart which he speculates will occur at $14 a gallon.

     Soon enough, Americans we will be put in a position where we must reexamine our priorities.  We will have to decide where we want to be in a time when we can't travel so freely.  We'll have to figure out how to get food, how to make money, and decide what sacrifices we can endure to make our lives work again. 

      That's what this book does for its readers.  The scenarios it provides are a helpful guide for readers who want to plan for their future.  Check it out.

Photo by Bitzcelt
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I heard someone raving about Intelligentsia coffee the other day.  I bought some and tried it out this morning.  Sure enough, it could've been Folgers crystals for all I know. 
     What really happened:  I was fooled into buying a Fair Trade coffee product by someone who I've now identified as a heat-seeking liberal.
     To alleviate my disappointment, I set out to expose the Fair Trade program for what it really is:  a purveyor of the finest Columbian bologna a do-gooder could ever get his/her coffee cup around.
     Fair Trade coffee buyers must pay at least $1.26 per pound for the coffee, while the world price hovers near $.50 per pound. 
     According to Global Exchange, "Many small coffee farmers receive prices for their coffee that are less than the costs of production, forcing them into a cycle of poverty and debt."
     Well, the real cause for the farmers' cycle of poverty and debt is their willingness to continue operating as coffee farmers when the cost to produce their coffee is more than what is brought in by selling it.
       The market is flooded with coffee. Hence, the 50 cent price.  Keeping these farmers afloat prevents them from finding other ways of work which are actually profitable. If coffee production slowed, supply would decrease, prices would increase, and then the coffee farmers of the world could enjoy a better life. 
      Fair Traders are simply engaging in an "adopt-a-farmer" system that has no chance of sustainment.  What will happen to these farmers in 10 years when the do-gooders lose interest in their plight, deciding instead to put their efforts behind keeping Fruitflowers in business.
     This is nothing more than a short-term bail-out, with long-term devastation dissolved in every cup.
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"One of the most successful foods on earth is Coca-Cola, a combination of intense sweetness, caffeine, and a prickly feeling against the nose that we find refreshing." - Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses.

If there's a person who understands the desperate plea for the icy soul-mate of a salty pizza or burger, it's me.  But, Coca Cola has no nutritional value and many regard the drink as poison.

My daydream goes like this:  I know it's not good for my body, but it's oh so good for my soul.

My snap-out goes like this:  Alert!  Citizen-thinking taking over!  Citizen's brain has been manipulated by the marketing schemes of the Coca Cola company for 30 years. 

What is the actual "Real thing" going on here? 

Interesting that Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca Cola, is a member of the Bilderberg Group, the powerful elite group "responsible for much of the capital-friendly, dissent-crushing law-making, poverty and general misery in the world" according to http://www.bilderberggroup.net.

Because of its secrecy and refusal to issue news releases, the group is frequently accused of wicked world plots by elements of the populist movement and fringe politics.

These plots include the extermination of some of the world's People in an attempt to control the earth's population.

The Citizen will scoff at this notion and continue to drink the Coca Cola Kool-aid.

The Former Citizen will put down the Coke, and wonder why the Bilderberg Group with all its infinite resources, cannot bring clean drinking water to the poorest of places, but can cover every inch of this earth with a working Coca Cola machine. 

Photo by Sunny-Drunk
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