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Rotten Eggs and Our Broken Democracy
What do a half-billion eggs have to do with democracy? The massive recall of salmonella-infected eggs, the largest egg recall in U.S. history, opens a window on the power of large corporations over not only our health, but over our government.
While scores of brands have been recalled, they all can be traced back to just two egg farms. Our food supply is increasingly in the hands of larger and larger companies, which wield enormous power in our political process. As with the food industry, so, too, is it with oil and with banks: Giant corporations, some with budgets larger than most nations, are controlling our health, our environment, our economy and increasingly, our elections.
The salmonella outbreak is just the most recent episode of many that point to a food industry run amok. Patty Lovera is the assistant director of the food-safety group Food & Water Watch. She told me: “Historically, there’s always been industry resistance to any food-safety regulation, whether it’s in Congress or through the agencies. There are large trade associations for every sector of our food supply, starting from the large agribusiness-type producers all the way through to the grocery stores.”
The salmonella-tainted eggs came from just two factory farms, Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg, both in Iowa. Behind this outbreak is the egg empire of Austin “Jack” DeCoster. DeCoster owns Wright County Egg and also owns Quality Egg, which provides chicks and feed to both of the Iowa farms. Lovera describes DeCoster as “a poster child for what happens when we see this type of consolidation and this scale of production.”
The Associated Press offered a summary of DeCoster’s multistate egg and hog operation’s health, safety and employment violations. In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay a $2 million fine after then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich described his farm “as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop.” In 2002, DeCoster’s company paid $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Mexican women who reported they were subjected to sexual harassment, including rape, abuse and retaliation by supervisors. Earlier this summer, another company linked to DeCoster paid out $125,000 to the state of Maine over animal-cruelty allegations.
Despite all this, DeCoster has thrived in the egg and hog business, which puts him in league with other large corporations, like BP and the major banks. The BP oil spill, the largest in the history of this country, was preceded by a criminally long list of serious violations going back years, most notably the massive Texas City refinery explosion in 2005 that killed 15 people. If BP were a person, he would have been imprisoned long ago.
The banking industry is another chronic offender. In the wake of the largest global financial disaster since the Great Depression, banks like Goldman Sachs, flush with cash after a massive public bailout, subverted the legislative process aimed at reining them in.
The result: a largely toothless new consumer-protection agency, and relentless opposition to the appointment of consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren to head it. She would give the banks as much oversight as the new agency would allow, which is why the bankers, including President Barack Obama’s appointees like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers, are believed to be opposing her.
The fox, you could say, is watching the henhouse (and the rotten eggs within). Multinational corporations are allowed to operate with virtually no oversight or regulation. Corporate cash is allowed to influence elections, and thus, the behavior of our elected representatives. After the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which will allow unlimited corporate donations to campaigns, the problem is only going to get worse. To get elected, and to stay in power, politicians will have to cater more and more to their corporate donors.
There is hope. There is a growing movement to amend the U.S. Constitution, to strip corporations of the legal status of “personhood,” the concept that corporations have the same rights as regular people.
This would subject corporations to the same oversight that existed for the first 100 years of U.S. history. To restrict political participation just to people will take a genuine, grass-roots movement, though, since Congress and the Obama administration can’t seem to get even the most basic changes implemented. As the saying goes, if you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
103 Comments so far
Show AllThere was an article on NPR this morning about New Orleans, post-Katrina.
One of the groups interviewed was a multiracial gospel group called'The Shades'.
They survived because they looked after each other.
What a concept.
Maybe , instead of looking to government and corporations for our needs and welfare, we picked 50 friends and made a mutual aid society. We could provide childcare, food, entertainment, we could fix things up, loan money.
How much money do each of us spend on communications a month (TV, phone, internet) that are really being offered by cartels and monopolies. Rather than eating out, what if we had a soup supper every friday at a different persons house.
Rather than all buying the same stuff why couldn't we share 1.
The empire wants to control our every move.
All we have to do is say no.
Dangerous idea... They need us more than we need them.
one person controls the sales of millions of eggs, who then gets the money
If millions of people controls the sale of 1000's of eggs Then all that money would get divided and one person would not have so much control and influence.
just a thought.
Now I'm going to check how many eggs my chickens laid today
"How much money do each of us spend on communications a month . . . ? (sic)"
I would amend this wording to say "How much money does each of us spend on unnecessary communications a month . . . ?"
How many time have you heard people seemingly talking to themselves in public only to realize that they're using their Bluetooth? I've seen people walk into the grocery store doing so, continuing their conversation all through their shopping and back into the parking lot. What on earth could be so important as to necessitate unending discussion?
The answer is "nothing." People are paying a premium just to run their mouths ceaselessly.
q
Hooray for the "Stepper"!
"I've seen people walk into the grocery store doing so, continuing their conversation all through their shopping and back into the parking lot. What on earth could be so important as to necessitate unending discussion?"
It is mind boggling. And when you are forced to listen to their conversation in line, it is almost always inane! Thanks for your post.
Even more baffling, at least to me, are people walking 'neath the Redwoods texting away and ignoring the beauty surrounding them.
No worse than some of my college students, texting to each other in the same room. I don't get it in my day we had talking, getting too old I guess.
>^^<
Or perhaps a striking symbol of how isolated we all have become? A people kept apart is no threat.
quickstepper, I've been in crowded bars where the 20-something next to me ignored the band playing or anything else happening around them while they called various friends to see what else was going on. If someone asked them, I doubt that they could tell you the name of the band, what music they played, or anything about the bar -- they were that oblivious. And I could picture them actually finding 'something going on' -- say, a party -- and then going there and spending their time compulsively calling around to see what was going on someplace else. It seems to be a national disease among college kids.
As to the point of Amy Goodman's article -- I think we're too far down the path of corporate control to expect this Congress, or the next one, to pass any legislation that might upset the Plutocracy they service, especially a Constitutional Amendment. I'm afraid the whole economy is going to have to collapse to the point where Fox News goes into hiding before any meaningful 'reining in' of corporate power takes place.
It's hard to believe that things haven't got past that point of no return these days, and that things can get better without completely falling apart.
Arabic phrase of the week: Tuq hanak, which means "blah blah blah."
You seem to be channeling the sixties communal movement, which failed abysmally by the by. While your suggestion is not without merit, in my opinion, it fails to address the more serious issues facing our nation, and indeed the world.
Mega-agricultural corporations are squeezing out the family ( or even the communal) farmer by price fixing, by raising the cost of supplies, by controlling even seed production. Your suggestion, reminiscent of libertarian thought, fail to deal with such problems. This doesnt even touch upon the many other problems we as a nation inflict upon our world. Coming together is a great idea, but to fix our system not ignore it.
Every attempt thus far to "fix our system" has also failed, even more abysmally than the minimally influential communal movement of the '60s. That movement did work for a while in a few places, but it was overwhelmed and rendered "quaint" by the unstoppable juggernaut of consumerism that defines this society.
Today, there are about as many family farmers who haven't been buried alive by agribusiness, as you mention, as there were surviving communalists by the mid '70s. But the suggestion of forming mutual aid societies across the country doesn't have to include solutions to every last problem afflicting us to deserve serious attention. It's a good idea, maybe a great idea, and one that's been around for hundreds of years, with a history of scattered success, until the forces of monopoly capitalism swallow it whole.
If we were able to forms such cooperatives that gained real traction against the reigning capitalist behemoth wrecking the world that Amy Goodman describes, we might actually be empowered enough to tackle outrages like the BP disaster, the never-ending illegal wars that sustain this corrupt economy, and expect a little justice, unlike what we're getting from our corporatist-in-chief residing in the White House.
What are needed are societies of mutual aid, yes, but more importantly societies for mutual defense. The ruling class is not merely failing to take care of us or failing to protect us, we are under brutal and continuous assault by them. The degree to which people are in denial about that is the degree to which they have insinuated themselves into a cozy relationship with power in exchange for protection, status and perks - otherwise known as "being in the middle class." That is why "working within the system" and "speaking truth to power" and lobbying for reform or fantasizing about restoration of a better time is all dangerous and naive nonsense.
Well, I never said anything about '"working within the system" and "speaking truth to power" and lobbying for reform or fantasizing about restoration of a better time."' And if we had mutual aid societies, maybe we'd have the foundation for building mutual defense societies. Most Americans are armed to the teeth as it is, and most of those arms are owned by Tea Party types and assorted whack jobs of the far right, delusional militia groups, etc. They've been messing with guns all their deluded lives, while most lefties have favored gun control and have never fired a weapon, or at least have no guns. If not outright pacifists, then close to it. How do we defend against the gun nuts, who understand nothing but violence?
Eliminate the obscene nonsense that is regarded as entertainment for/by the sheeples.
Understood. I didn't say you had advocated "working within the system" and "speaking truth to power" and lobbying for reform or fantasizing about restoration of a better time. Many others do, however.
Here in farm country there is no connection between firearm ownership and Tea Party types, as everyone owns firearms and Tea Party types are a very small minority who are mostly well-off upscale transplants from the city. Nor are most of the people here "gun nuts" nor "delusional" nor "messing with guns all their deluded lives." The stereotype of rural people - fundy, redneck, gun nut. etc. - is false.
I agree that mutual aid societies could lead to building mutual defense societies.
Mahatma Gandhi Opposed gun control because it allowed the British to control the country. If it's good enough for Gandhi, who am I to argue.
T.A. well expressed truth.
Do you really believe that those ( few) who work to reform the Democratic Party or those who post truth in opposition to the lies most people accept as truth is wasted effort?
I would love to hear your proposed solutions, if you have any. I would also appreciate relating what you do to help your neighbors and your nation.
I am not picking on you, really.
I will answer, if you like. The other member was seconding my post.
"Do you really believe that those ( few) who work to reform the Democratic Party or those who post truth in opposition to the lies most people accept as truth is wasted effort?" –(doubledee)
–Yes.
To even ask the question regarding the 'reform' of the Democratic party is to insult the intelligence of all sentient life forms.
Broad generalizations and knee jerk criticisms are seldom factual. Those who work to reform the Democratic Party are doing something, what is it you do?
No, I do not believe that "those ( few) who work to reform the Democratic Party or those who post truth in opposition to the lies most people accept as truth is wasted effort" if the purpose of the effort is to defend the existing sate of affairs and suppress the Left. I just do not share that purpose.
The "let's hear your solutions" and "what are you personally doing to help people" challenges are red herrings - cliches that get dragged out again and again to shut critics up. It is a clever rhetorical sleight of hand: you present your ideas, someone else presents theirs, and then you that we should not consider theirs because they supposedly "have no solution" or "are not doing anything." We were not comparing what people are doing (or claim to be doing) nor were we comparing "solutions," we were comparing one analysis of the situation to another. Apparently your analysis if the situation cannot stand on its own, or you cannot defend it, so you switch the topic to what people may or may not be doing or what "solutions" they may or may not offer. How can we talk about solutions if we cannot agree on the problem? What difference would it make what a person is doing, if we don't agree about where we are going?
What an absolute sidestepping of the real issue here. I am rather shocked at this from, you.
Constant criticisms of those who are trying to make things better, whether one agrees with those efforts or not, especially from an electorate grown increasing distant and imbued with a sense of hopelessness, is not helpful at all. That I choose to point this fact out makes me the villain here? Or worse, brands me as trying to silence people? Shame on you for a lazy and silly effort.
What is "the real issue here" that I am "side-stepping?"
The "electorate" damned well ought to be "imbued with a sense of hopelessness," and to whom would it be "helpful" were we to convince people to have hope - as an end in itself?
Obama claims to be "trying to make things better." Would it "not be helpful" therefore to criticize his efforts? If we were told that we should not criticize the administration because it is "trying to make things better" and so to criticize it would be "not helpful at all" would that not accurately be seen as "trying to silence people?"
Sorry for the delay in responding, Salmon fishing on the Feather River. My acusation of sidestepping lies in your refusing to consider that those who work to reform the Democratic Party work in our best interests. You refuse to consider that they work to end the worst abuses of that party as well and only see a continuation of those things you reject.
I do not work within the party but refuse to condemn those who do.
I don't see "communal" in the comment but rather a return to the (better aspects of) the idea of neighborhoods. Many of us do not know our neighbors anymore. Mutual local support in ways we each can help others is an excellent idea. Sure, we do a little of that now, but it's not enough.
Family farms have been assaulted, and lost, for fifty years. We could protest at corporate headquarters, support needed legislation and regulation, sign more petitions, but meantime, doing something substantive locally is also important. And yeah, buying some of commenter's extra eggs does exactly "deal with such problems'. To buy elsewhere is a de facto boycott of whatever Big Corp.
It is not merely the case that people have strayed and drifted away from community based living, we have been driven from it, and any and all attempts at setting up alternative communities will inevitably draw armed agents of the state on this or that pretext to put a stop to any such activity.
Anything of substance done locally will be brutally suppressed. To deny that is to fail to understand the nature of the oppression we are under and the scope of the challenge we face.
There is no possibility of a return, of reform, of restoration. There are two choices: submit or resist.
But meeting local needs locally is a form of resistance. And if millions of us do this, they cannot suppress us all. Every tyrant eventually falls. Millions of people creating local projects will act like termites, eating away at the foundation of the empire until it crumbles. This appears to have been what happened to Eastern European Communism.
Quite true and a solution as well. I appreciate your efforts in opposition to those who offer only despair.
I don't "offer only despair," I advocate resistance.
Gee, did you think I meant you? I am not responsible for your conscience.
Of course. Unless you responded in the wrong place, it is quite clear that you intended to respond to me.
"Conscience?" You must be kidding.
My comment fell where it was intended, under that of 'nosurrender', to whom I was speaking. You fast become tedious.
Under federal law, I believe, you are allowed to make 200 gallons of beer each year. If everyone tried this it would be a good indicator if other mutual efforts work. If not, we could cry about our profound alienation, letting our shared tears fall into the brew. If it all blows up we'll still have all that " outsider " beer to drink. For as Ben Franklin said, " Beer is proof that God wants us to be happy. " Despair no more!
Yes, meeting local needs locally can be a form of resistance. Yes, every tyrant eventually falls.
However, we can no more step out of the Capitalist system than slaves could merely stroll off of the plantation. Certainly, had millions of slaves all left at the same time, that would have been a blow to slavery. This is in fact what did happen, but that was only in the context of a strong Abolition movement in the North and an invading army in support.
Let's talk about the modern equivalent to the Abolition movement, and a modern equivalent to an invading armed force as a response to the enslavement we now suffer under Capitalism, rather than fantasize about personal lifestyle changes and imagine "what if" everyone did the same. Were everyone to do the same, there would be a violent response from the ruling class, and failing to take that into account is to advocate that people place themselves at risk without any discussion about how to protect them.
Hello Two,
Check out "Communities" magazine, published by the "Fellowship for Intentional Community." There are hundreds of "alternative communities" all over the country: some full communes, some co-ops, others co-housing where people live in separate apartments but may share some common meals. Some of them are deeply political.
There is also the "Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives," or NoBAWC, which links worker owned and run enterprises. Alternative business as well as alternative community.
Very few of these have been suppressed. Although I do know of some that have been.
It is your choice to get involved with community or not. But please don't use government repression as an excuse.
Also, when you make sweeping generalizations ("they will inevitably draw armed agents."), please try to back them up with specific past and present history.
"Getting involved with community or not" is not dependent upon getting involved with this particular type of community. Community involvement in urban and rural communities is and always has been very intense and broad. It is suburbanites who are hungry for community and try to make them up, and that is why these intentional communities are dominated by suburban refugees. It is also suburbanites who are obsessed with personal choice, and who talk about people getting their "butts off the couch" and who scold and shame people about their personal choices, and who fantasize that their personal choices are some sort of meaningful social and political statement. They are accustomed to being important and heard and to having a relative degree of status and clout and privilege and then project that onto the rest of the population, most of whom already have communities - communities that are under assault - and who do not have the personal choice options that more upscale people do. For the educated and privileged suburbanites, life is merely a matter of "making the right choices" that "align with their values." For most people it is an ongoing life and death struggle.
"Government repression as an excuse?" Hardly. I advocate organized resistance.
There is a long history of alternative communities being suppressed in the US, as well as workers' movements and the Left being suppressed. I can put together a list of examples if that would help. The community garden effort in LA comes to mind as a recent case. If communities are not currently being suppressed it is most likely because they are not doing anything very radical and are not any sort of a threat to the ruling class.
There used to be an organization entitled "Neighbor Helping Neighbor" in Honolulu; about 31 of us would be on call for one 24-hour period per month. What happened to it — and to similar organizations throughout the country? Can we help to re-institute such genuine caring instead of whining & complaining?
In West Berkeley there is a large backyard garden ("Green Fairy Farm" by name) which raises goats. About 20 of the neighbors have been organized to come in and milk the goats at different times of the week.
There are so many ways to co-operate. All we need is the will, imagination, and a good heart. Not everyone will do it, but there are a lot of people who can.
"You seem to be channeling the sixties communal movement, which failed abysmally by the by."
I think you're right basically, that people from working class and affluent families were unable to put utopian communal ideals into practice and sustain them for the long term, though I am told that some farming collectives still exist here and there in the world. I've known people who grew up on communes, and they seem to have more rounded attitudes toward economic theories of all kinds.
But what I want to point out is that more traditional communes, such as those of the Amish, have succeeded for centuries. The people live in individual homes, but they consider it a responsibility to lend a neighbor a horse if necessary, bring in their harvests together, repair each others roofs, etc. Amerindian people throughout the Americas lived by communal ideals before the coming of the genocide.
I wouldn't say that communes in general failed abysmally. I would only conclude, possibly, that middle class America in the 20th century was unable to fully grasp the meaning and the responsibilities of communal society.
In the main stream, what we pay for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, as individual families, is based on three things, giant profits at the top, the lowest possible wages for labor, and corporate welfare. Sometimes the top level is taking its multimillion dollar bonuses while we on the food chain are enjoying predatory pricing which is sustained by agribusiness subsidies. Predatory pricing is an artificially low subsidized price which drives sustainable family farms out of business. It blurs the real price of things. The efficiencies of scale are often nothing more than a myth.
The Amish, the Mennonites, Quakers as well, form communities around religious ideas and ideals. They hold together because their religion provides a sort of glue.
I support your contentions regarding economics . We are all brainwashed to varying degrees, kept powerless because we believe we are powerless, at the mercy of our paychecks. I believe we await a tipping point wherein so many will be living in poverty, so many deprived of basic needs, both political and physical that a revolution will seem preferable to ones continuing condition. Apres Moi, the bloodbath. That is why I urge active involvement now, before we get to this (inevitable) point.
I urge active involvement now because we are at the tipping point. The Capitalist System is failing- exponential growth was not possible. The principles that dictate business decisions taken together as a whole undercut workers/consumers, destroy the environment, undermine the integrity of democratic institutions, wastes vast energy and mineral resources, etc. Eventually the growth of profits is no longer possible. The Credit/Debt system breaks down, currencies fail, widespread economic dislocation and disruption of essential commerce (food, energy, etc) is the inevitable result.
The only difference we may have is that I believe we are already at the tipping point. Check out "Crash Course" on Youtube for the explanation of why I believe this. The economy has to go first, it is the weakest system upon which human life depends.
Never been to 'youtube', or facebook, or myspace. Never will.
Right on Aberfan,
Here's a little leaflet you might like to adopt to bring your neighbors together.
TOGETHER WE CAN
NEIGHBORHOOD SHARING NETWORK
We can help each other here where we live
With our new NETWORK, we’ll be able to share our skills and labor with our neighbors We can call on one person or many for help, and they will be able to call us. We start by listing our needs and our skills.
Name _____________________________________
Address__________________________________
Phone (h) ____________ cell,work_____________
Email _____________________ best time? _______
HELP YOU NEED. Gardening ______ Repairs_______
Housework ____ Painting ____ Babysitting ______
Pet Sit ____ Anything Else? __________________
_________________________________________
WORK YOU WOULD LIKE TO DO TO HELP OTHERS
Level of skill? Some (1), Moderate (2), Skilled (3)
Gardening ______ Repairs_______
Housework ____ Painting ____ Babysitting ______
Pet Sit ____ Anything Else? __________________
_________________________________________
GROUP ACTIVITIES? Gardening ___ Pot Lucks ____
Receive Packages of Produce _____ Music _______
Art (what kind?) ____________________________- Play Group ____ Meditation or Spirituality ______
Subjects you would like to Teach (T), Learn (L) or Discuss (D) _______________________________
_________________________________________
Anything else? ______________________________
_________________________________________
Return to: ________________________________
I haven't used this form yet, but I plan to when some of our garden sharing neighborhoods are dense enough.
Enjoy your eggs. Two weeks ago our Neighborhood Vegetables got together a Garden Work Party to build a chicken run for a woman in Oakland.
VERY good, Laurence! We'll print out your suggestions and leave them at every mailbox in the neighborhood.
Hello Jeevee,
It makes me very happy that you would like to organize a Skill Pool. I would love it if you could tell me what city you are in, and keep me/us informed about how it goes.
Laurenceofberk@aol.com ... 510-540-1975
Can I make a few suggestions, however?
1. If you can spare the time, go door to door yourself with the questionnaire. Getting a piece of paper or an email is never a substitute for personal contact, and your success rate will be much higher that way. The best way to go door to door is as a couple: one woman (to allay suspicion) and one man.
2. Try to get everyone in the neighborhood together so that they can get to know each other. I'm doing group gardening, but a party, a potluck, a meeting or any kind of group work project will do as well. In Berlin when I was there 12 years ago, there was a local currency exchange which had an open meeting once a month, where people could say "I need this," and others could reply, "I will do it." Where there is no personal group contact, a list of skills looks a lot like the yellow pages, and we already have that.
3. Don't let the pool of people get too large, geographically. If that happens you lose personal contact. In Berlin there were 25 different skill pools in different boroughs (a political unit with its own mini City Hall), each one of which had its own membership list and meeting. (although they can link) It's also good to have many organizers so that more people will "buy in."
4. If you want an exchange value system rather than a gift economy, google... "Lets System",currency... which is what they use in Germany or ... "Ithaca Hours", the most successful system in the US. I also googled ... "gift economy","community organizing" ... Very interesting.
Good luck, and keep us informed.
PS. It would be great if CD had a separate section for organizing ideas.
Yes, your idea is very compelling.
Someone told me this today:
"One grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very much, a billion of them would".
Green Party
Trenton, NJ
"Maybe , instead of looking to government and corporations for our needs and welfare, we picked 50 friends and made a mutual aid society"
Are you a closet teabag supporter?
Here are the foxes running the FDA henhouse, asking for more power because they just can't somehow stop the corporations, not saying they are the corporations.
Check out who's in charge of food safety and seeking more power (total power) - Monsanto, Monsanto, Monsanto.
http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2010/08/whats-around-s-510.html
Many people believe that the egg drama was a marketing ploy to push S 510, a horrifically dangerous bill to the US - a take over of all food here.
Amy Goodman has not done a single show on that bill though people have begged her to repeatedly. Time for her to cover food for what it is, the most political and crucial thing in our lives. She's been treating it as a step child to "politics," clearly not remembering Kissinger's Plan to control food, to control people, or noticing that Goldman Sachs is invested in starvation.
Food control, food for thought. Just within the last 3 months a Repubican Congressman from New England wanted to introduce legislation to make it illegal for people to grow their own food, flowers, any commodities on their own property, privately. Beware of the Food Police, we already have the Thought Police which; "come to me in my bed, the Thought police get inside of my head, the Thought Police, Thought Police.......", to borrow a phrase from the Cheap Trick song, The Dream Police.