Another New Word Is Coined In Reference To The Eco-Politics Of Food Supply
Ever since President William Jefferson Clinton ushered in the
era of NAFTA, the bickering's been going on back and forth over whether it
benefits labor, markets, or your every-day good ole boy filthy
rich capitalist. Of bloody course, it's gonna benefit the wealthy.
Corporation CEOs and CFOs and COOs and all sorts of other Director-level people had a field day because NAFTA
opened whole new avenues of trade to them whereby they could
please their shareholders and make themselves look good at the same time. It
also helps to say that "in the past year our profits have grown n
per cent" when these fellows with the corner offices and private club
memberships go asking the board for another multi-million dollar bonus, so they
can afford their lavish poolside toga parties and other executive
extravagances.
Well, hell, it's time to stop. To hell with enjoying the latest fabulous
Pinot Noir from Chile (not to mention their delightful Friar plums). Mexi-corn
I view with scorn! A Honduras banana will just as easily find its way into a
cream pie as I will allow that cream pie to be placed in my face for the sake of
humor — not at all. That nectar of the Angels above, ice wine from
Canada no longer entices me; I might as well be a Prohibitionist
so far as that dessert-time quaff is concerned. Columbian coffee
will be treated by me with the same disdain I treat the crystalline powder the
country's famous for producing.
Who am I?
I am an Americavore, dammit. And I'm proud of it.
The year 2005 marked the coinage of a word, locavore, to define a new
eating regime. Where once some vegetarians and then vegans
were at the forefront of politically-motivated dietary selections, the locavores
have taken over. The locavores promote support for local food sourcing,
especially family farms and dairies, as an environmentally and politically
appropriate way to eat.
Support American Farmers, Period.
Long the subject of awful night-time
television monologues that government subsidies paid them
not to grow crops, it's time we respected our farmers no matter how
large the size of their silos or what kind of futuristically superior foods they produce. Let's face it, the era of
the "family farm" held so dear by the locavores is over. Grandma and Grandpa are
drooling on themselves in a nursing home, mom and dad are over-worked and
under-appreciated, and it's a statistical fact that a full twenty-five per cent
of children of the breadbasket of America have tried
methamphetamine. A whopping seventy-five per cent of the thankless whelps have
tried marijuana.
The Americavore movement, in its essence, is a grassroots movement to vote
for farmers with our purchases, not by our politics! Since we can no longer
trust the politicians to do anything right except get in trouble, we must act
with our bankrolls, not at the polls. Remember, the laws of supply and demand
prevail here. If out-of-the-country foods are left to rot on supermarket
shelves, we can achieve anything we can dream of!
Here's how it works:
- If we hand out narcotics and weed to the former farm kids, just
enough to get 'em entranced but not put 'em to sleep, they'll be
able to pick all of the lettuce, baby vegetables, greens and grapes that
California can produce. When the slothful Mexicans show
up after jumping the border, they'll find the fields empty and return to
their homeland, poor and dejected. And we won't have to spend a penny on the
Border Patrol.
- To hell with tourism. It's damned expensive to fly to Hawaii, anyway.
The Americavores will only buy Hawaiian pineapples, bananas and other
tropical fruits. And glorious Kona coffee!The demand will be overwhelming...
just wait. If the housewives of American begin shopping like Americavores
and demand Hawaiian produce, we can have our "Pineapple Chicken Surprise"
Jell-O molds for the Sunday church pot-luck suppers and eat it, too! We
won't fly the produce in, we'll use converted cruise ships because Hawaii
will be so awash with agriculture they'll tear down the hotels and priceless
ancient ruins to make room to grow stuff.
- Give up plums and other South American produce. Buy only citrus fruits
from Florida. The vitamin C is good for you.
- We will transport the cow dung from Illinois to the strip-mined
barrens of coal country in Kentucky and Tennessee. We'll grow enough
tomatoes to supply the entire country year-round, and have plenty left over
for that nutritious vegetable, ketchup.
- Lamb from New Zealand? Never. Just imagine the grassy summer
ski-slopes of Aspen, Colorado teeming with sheep and their offspring! In
wintertime, they'll eat feed grown on land that was previously retirement
communities in Arizona (we'll knock down the houses but keep the sprinkler
systems).
Remember, these ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. Hey, that was funny!
Iceberg...lettuce...get it? If one uses one's imagination, the possibilities are
only as endless as the bountiful supply of Alaskan oil
that we'll use to truck the stuff back and forth across the country.
So the next time you go to the supermarket, don't give another thought to
those luscious Honeydew melons grown in Ecuador. Choose a New York apple
instead. Yeah, it was picked green and Astro-Cooled all winter long
and tastes like cardboard, but add a little cinnamon, sugar, and pastry and
baby, you've got pie!
As we all know, nothing's more American than apple pie!
Dear Reader: kindly inspect the links before voting. This is an example of my dry sense of humor and is meant as entertainment only. Thank you.
RECOMMENDED READING:
- "Even Labor Unions Can Gain from Free Trade" By Tamara Kay,
YaleGlobal, December 23, 2003
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/40/204.html (Accessed 9/19/07)
- "NAFTA Article 1110: Environmental friend or foe?" by Madeline Stone,
Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Summer 2003
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3970/is_200307/ai_n9295426
(Accessed 9/19/07)
- "The Party of Davos" by Jeff Faux Susan Ohanian's Website
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=363 (Accessed 9/19/07)