Skip to main content

Axles of Evil


Saw the film Food Inc. last night. Go see this movie if you don't see another film all year. It lifts the VEIL to show the EVIL. Find out how our food is produced, engineered, marketed, produced; find out how it's killing us by degree and instantly, on occasion.
Learn about Monsanto, the link between the corporate interests and the Supreme Court. (Iran has Supreme Leader, we have Supreme Court) Look what happens to small farmers who won't play by the rules. Recall that even Oprah, her damn self, got sued by the beef industry and only because she had a million dollars to spend on legal fees could she win the case. Who has, and who doesn't have a million dollars to spend on telling the truth.
Did you know it's now possible to own a seed...all seed of a particular plant. Monsanto owns the soybean. Most of all find out what there are so many recalls of beef. Learn why spinach can be contaminated with e-coli bacteria, and where that bacteria comes from. Oh yeah, you'll really get to go inside a cows stomach.
In a word, CORN. It is the foundation of high fructose corn syrup. Just imagine what percentage of supermarket products contain corn syrup.
Bottom line: there are only a few corporations. They absorb everyone, even the organic businesses.
BUT: all is not lost. As the film says, "you vote 3 times a day." Food is as political as it gets. Make change.
Author Michael Pollan ( "the carrots should be more affordable than the potato chips") deserves the Nobel Prize for this work. He and a host of others who are fighting this battle. Lifting the veil to expose the evil. It's the classic American value conflict yet again: profit over human life.

Food, Inc.
documentary
(USA, 2008, 93 mins)
Wisconsin Premiere
Directed By: Robert Kenner (IMDB)
cinematographer: Richard Pearce
editors: Kim Roberts
music: Mark Adler
executive producer: William Pohlad, Robin Schorr, Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann
producer: Robert Kenner, Elise Pearlstein
co-producer: Eric Schlosser, Richard Pearce, Melissa Robledo
cast: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Gary Hirshberg, Joel Salatin
IMDB Film Info
www.takepart.com/foodinc/
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner (Two Days in October) lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of e. coli, the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults. Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms' Joe Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising truths about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation, and where we are going from here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr. Greene v. Mr. Brown

I want to tell you about something. Something I've carried inside myself for a number of years now. Perhaps if I were a different kind of person I wouldn't need to talk about it. I'm not. My need to tell it is stronger than your need to hear it. Because, however, there are a number of teachers and former students of mine who may read these meanderings from time to time, I need to tell this story all the more. About 7 or 8 years ago I was asked if I would allow a university PhD. candidate to observe an English class. At first I decided against it because I was scheduled to have a student teacher placed with me the second half of the semester in question. After some urging, however, at the request of a respected colleague, I agreed. Soon I was committing to extra meetings, signing documents and explaining to the class in question who the young woman who thoughtfully pounded away on a laptop in the rear of the classroom three times a week was. I knew that the topic of ...
3 comments
Read more

Illusory

What does it take to enrage you?  That moment when your words fly on pure emotion because enough is enough.  Is it a driver that cuts you off at high speed?  What about being an eyewitness to blatant racism or on the receiving end of some obvious injustice? I know some people who never express rage.  I admire them but know full well I am not capable of such distance from that which would bring about such a strong response. Another senseless shooting and 7 people die at the hands of a mentally ill gun owner.  The father of the 20 year old college student lets it fly and somehow millions feel a new sense of relief.  He calls the politicians bastards who do nothing, he wears his pain in public.  The news media responds but we all know that nothing is going to change.  We are the gun country.  We are the place where anybody, anytime, can be cut down just for being there when somebody else snaps. Usually the perpetrators are delusional. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Body Language

I'm sitting there in a hospital gown, waiting for my doctor to complete my yearly physical.  This is when I look at everything on the walls, read the medical posters, the instructions on any equipment in the room, look in every corner and behind every chair.  I study the paper on the examination table, laugh out loud at the picture of a smiling child holding a bouquet of broccoli, and the note the placement of the computer in the room. Finally, wondering if the gown I'm wearing is on correctly, I focus on myself.  At this point in my life I'm fairly comfortable in a doctor's office.  But it always seems to take so long when waiting for the doc to enter.  So I fidget.  Then I begin a tour of myself.  Scars are tattoos.  I look at the one on my knee and see myself at 12.  Whittling a piece of wood with my Boy Scout jack knife.  The blade slips and I cut a crescent slash through my jeans and into my flesh for life.  50 years later ...
Post a Comment
Read more