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Obama's Broken Promises to Family Farmers: Disappointing and Dangerous
"And it means ensuring that the policies being shaped at the Departments of Agriculture and Interior are designed to serve not big agribusiness or Washington influence peddlers, but the family farmers and the American People."
--President-elect Barack Obama, December 17 2008, Chicago, Illinois.
The message was one of hope, the words of a newly elected President echoing the Populism of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the promise of John F. Kennedy. It stopped there, the delivery of the promise fell short.
We have gotten a New Deal, albeit one that is more protective of those who caused the economic and agricultural crises than of those who suffer from them. We have also gotten a new version of "The Best and the Brightest" in the Obama Administration and their faulty counsel extends beyond war into food and trade policy.
The campaign promises were not worth the notepads they are written on. The promises were broken and business at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will carry on much as it did during the Bush Administration.
Instead of going outside the agribusiness and agrochemical industries, Obama has kept the revolving door spinning and appointed the very lobbyists and special interests he said would find no home in his administration.
Monsanto stalwarts Michael Taylor, special assistant to the FDA Commissioner for food safety and Roger Beachy, head of National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
Rajiv Shah, head of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) where his pro-biotech leanings will continue to be pushed on the developing world. Perhaps it is a good fit, as President Obama noted "/The mission of USAID is to advance America's interests by strengthening our relationships abroad". /However, advancing America's/ /interests and giving real aid to those in need are not the same thing. Advancing interests implies control and empire building.
Islam Siddiqui, Chief Agriculture Negotiator, office of U.S. Trade Representative, is a particularly troubling nomination. He is no friend of consumers, considering his most recent employment at CropLife America (CLA), the pesticide industries main trade association. As a registered lobbyist and vice president of regulatory affairs, Siddiqui was responsible for setting and selling CLA's international and domestic agenda which, simply put, was to weaken regulations on pesticides and agricultural chemicals worldwide.
He is no friend of farmers either, and not just organic farmers, even though he has a long history of distaste for organic agriculture. He promotes agribusiness, chemical companies, processors and grain marketers who make their profits by buying low, processing and selling high. In his world, a farmers job is to maintain corporate profits.
As an unabashed 'free trader" he is a strong supporter of the World Trade Organization and its ability to strong-arm countries into accepting unwanted U.S. imports. He openly derided the European Union's rejection of hormone-treated beef, Japan's desire to mandate labeling of Genetically Modified (GM) food and he pushed to permit pesticide testing on children. In his world consumers should be forced to accept whatever food products are thrown at them.
Forced trade, telling countries they must accept our products whether they want them or not is not trade, it is nothing short of blackmail.
His "public service" career has been dedicated to selling more pesticides and GM seed to farmers world-wide and easing restrictions on their use. The beneficiaries of these policies were not farmers or consumers but the agribusiness corporations that Siddiqui worked for. That is not public service, that is promoting private interest.
Siddiqui has not worked in the best interests of farmers or consumers, rather he has consistently promoted the interests of multi-national corporations, grain companies, meat processors and chemical companies over those of the farmer or consumer. If appointed, why should we believe that that the leopard will suddenly be changing its spots ?
President Obama noted as a candidate:
"We'll tell ConAgra that it's [USDA] not the Department of Agribusiness. We're going to put the peoples interests ahead of the special interests."
Just another empty promise.
19 Comments so far
Show AllThey were not "promises", just outright lies. His Excellency, The Great Obama, never thought for even a moment about doing any of this. Obama is the Frankenstein Monster, built from the parts of defeated Republicans. In 2012, the dismal economy and the Afghan insurgency will chase him into the windmill and set it on fire. The torch carrying villagers will cheer as the structure is consumed and collapses. Then comes the sequel: The Bride of George Wanker Bush.
Lies, not empty promises. That's exactly what I was thinking. And Trojan Horse Obama is not just continuing the Bush policies, he's also slapping the "Democrat" label on them.
If the majority party in Congress doesn't break with Obamastein soon, there will be a public backlash at the polls, as you say. Don't know if it means a President Palin. Hopefully a genuine progressive will be on the ballot, either a D or an I.
Obomber possibly the greatest fraud in Human History.
Obama-the gift that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving...
Instead of a Roosevelt and a New Deal
we got an Obama and a Raw Deal...
The only "promise" Obama has kept so far is the troop increase. Other than that, he has lied about, manipulated, or simply ignored his campaign promises. Americans need more than these two corporate parties--we need an independent progressive party.
I'm sorry but that quote was Obama's empty rhetoric. Never did he promise to repeal policies against small farmers at any point in time. As a matter of fact, he made no bones about his support of Big Agri all through the campaign trail. I haven't forgotten last year when the corporate media said that Obama is running even or ahead of Mccain state to state because Obama strongly supports Big Corn subsidies while even Mccain isn't as stupid. Most rural farmers in the heartland didn't support Obama even though I wished they would have opened their hearts and minds to Nader and Mckinney instead of going Mccain.
Everybody talks about building a Progressive Party. How do we do it? This is not a rhetorical question. I want to hear concrete ideas on how to go about this from the readers here. Whether it's local, regional or national. If we don't do it now, soon it will be too late. Go here to contact me:
http://www.progressivecenteroftheozarks.org
You need progressive media, to begin with.
I suspect that our whole government has run afoul of the RICCO statute.
It's RICO statute(s) if one includes those of several states.
How do you obtain a redress of grievances in this regard when the Justice Department is one of the crooks?
We're also having "trickle-down" corruption these days, when local politicians take their cue from the big boys.
As for issues of agricultural chemical and GM enforcement, if the appointees named in the article don't believe in it, that sort of leaves the farmer up to his own devices, eh.
If the disconnect between what Obama does and what he says keeps up like this, people are going to be even more disillusioned than during the Bush years, which is probably part of the game plan because it weakens resolve and creates avoidance of confrontation.
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We got exactly what was offered: another corporate stooge, albeit an articulate one. Hillary is one as is McCain or any other person allowed within 100 miles of DC. You are nothing. There will be no reform. The corporate predators will get away with everything, including murder if it comes to that. Welcome to the Matrix. And you thought it was only a movie!
"We got exactly what was offered: another corporate stooge, albeit an articulate one. Hillary is one as is McCain or any other person allowed within 100 miles of DC."
Exactly right.
Think of it as a form of evolution by a perverse form of natural selection where a candidate needs a certain corrupt politics to successfully swim upstream to get to the pond which is marked "Serious candidate". If you don't have those politics, you can't get there. If you are there, it is because you have them.
Or you can think of it as the ruling class sifting all the candidates through a progressively corrupt sieves until the ones which emerge at the bottom are the most thoroughly corrupt.
Who is paying you guys to promote the status quo?
Obama's governance is understandable, when you consider that our country now exists in an early state of corporate fascism. Granted, ours is, for now, a kinder and gentler version of tyranny than the one unleashed in Europe in the 1930's and 1940's. Give it time. In the meantime, it appears that our immediate fate is to remain almost lifeless, dazed and confused as if trapped in the headlights of our new reality:
Still blaming our political disappointments on Fox News and other so-called mainstream news media, when the truth is MNM expired long ago, replaced by super-efficient, synergistic, corporate echo-chambers, which are worthless to the common folk and are operated exclusively for the benefit and profit of their owners;
Still wagging our tongues in desperation over the nearly identical outcomes delivered to us by either political Party, though it is a fact that the party system is also dead, superseded by armies of apolitical executive, legislative and judicial operatives who, elected or appointed, serve only corporate interests and the special interests of other wealthy patrons;
Still incrementally caving in to the constant erosion of our civil rights in the name of preserving security and fighting the “Long War”, against a poorly defined enemy whom we cannot possibly recognize or fully comprehend;
Still passively accepting our humiliating and debilitating global-fate as we make false and painful choices between accepting third-world wages and losing jobs.
The solution to reclaiming our lives and our democracy may not yet be apparent, but what should be abundantly clear is that the way out of this mess does not reside within the current political conventions or within either of the two political Parties.
How about those who voted for Obamastein to be the Democratic nominee, and then voted again for him in the general election? Don't they deserve some blame?
OBAMA WILL HOLD A PRESS CONFERENCE to dispute these
charges as soon as he climbs out from under corporate america,s
desk and takes off his knee pads gargles and straightens
out his tie. news at eleven!
To hope that the government will stop passing legislation that benefits corporations is idiotic. The entire reason the USDA and FDA exist is to benefit big corporate industrial farms and to destroy small farmers. Food safety has been the PR line behind legislation that takes away our food freedoms since the Slaughterhouse Cases. And government agencies have played a major if not essential role in creating industrial farms through subsidies and legislation, all for our safety of course.
Consider Joel Salatin, the star of Food, Inc., a true hero and in the front lines of the fight for saving our food. If you read interviews with him, he explains how the USDA and FDA are the bad guys and that legislation can never benefit a farmer like him. Only freedom from legislation can benefit him. And he will also say in many interviews that the free market is the best way to put an end to industrial farming. Voting with your dollars and convincing other people to will create real change and provide real hope.
This foolish liberal idea that big powerful government agencies are going to do anything is absurd since they created the system in the first place. Everything in this article could have been predicted from the first word Obama said in his campaign.
White is black, black is white. I'm sure that 9/11 happened during the Clinton administration --- in your world.