Why the U.S. Doesn’t Stop Importing Tainted Food from China
May 21st, 2007Always low prices. Always.
At least a crock of shit would be useful. You can compost it and put it on your garden.
“Typical Americans” are nourished on increasing amounts of petroleum, empty calories and toxic slag from slave labor camps in China. I wouldn’t allow what “typical Americans” are eating everyday into my compost heap.
Society is now a zombie consumer death cult, with uncontrollable self destructive urges. Everything is being turned to poison and the goal of the zombies is to consume as much of that poison as possible before their carcasses simply give out. Oh yeah, they want to make more zombies in the process.
But is it time to get excited about the next election?
Someone sent me an email asking me which candidate I’d like to see win the next U.S. Presidential Election.
I’m not sure if the person was serious, just taking the piss or trying to insult my intelligence, but here was my response:
“Are you out of your f*@*^%$ mind? Have you been paying attention to ANYTHING I’ve been posting here for the LAST FIVE F&@&%$! YEARS!?
Run for your life.
If you get cornered by zombies, aim for their heads.
Kevin
Don’t get taken in by the zombie mind trick which tempts you to engage in worthless political debates. If I catch myself reading or viewing corporate propaganda and starting to think in terms of a political solution to this shit we’re in, this mantra helps me get through it:
You are a zombie. You are undead. I will not join you.
It’s weird, but it works well. Try it, the next time you’re thinking about mainstream politics in the U.S.
I don’t know what you’re going to be eating in the meantime, but if you keep the zombie scripts out of your mind, eventually you’ll figure out how to grow your own food.
Via: San Jose Mercury News:
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.
These were among the 107 food imports from China the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught – many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.
Now the confluence of two events – the highly publicized contamination of U.S. chicken, pork and fish with tainted Chinese pet food ingredients and this week’s resumption of high-level economic and trade talks with China – has activists and members of Congress demanding the United States tell China it is fed up.
Dead pets and melamine-tainted food notwithstanding, change will prove difficult, policy experts say, in large part because U.S. companies have become so dependent on the Chinese economy that tighter rules on imports stand to harm the U.S. economy, too.
“So many U.S. companies are directly or indirectly involved in China now, the commercial interest of the United States these days has become to allow imports to come in as quickly and smoothly as possible,” said Robert B. Cassidy, a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China and now director of international trade and services for Kelley Drye Collier Shannon, a Washington law firm.
‘Kowtowing to China’
As a result, the United States finds itself “kowtowing to China,” Cassidy said, even as that country keeps sending American consumers adulterated and mislabeled foods.
It’s not just about cheap imports, added Carol Tucker Foreman, a former assistant secretary of agriculture now at the Consumer Federation of America.
“Our farmers and food processors have drooled for years to be able to sell their food to that massive market,” Foreman said. “The Chinese counterfeit. They have a serious piracy problem. But we put up with it because we want to sell to them.”
“Don’t get taken in by the zombie mind trick which tempts you to engage in worthless political debates. ..”
LOL! What a hoot. Thats so true. When, or if…and thats a BIG if, Americans wake up to the fact that they’ve a bi-factional one-party state, then maybe they’ll revolt. But until then, and I’m betting on this, it’ll be “bid-ness” as usual.
Isn’t it amazing that the US government (and lets not confuse an indifferent and callous political elite with the slaves masquerading as “citizens”) will piss hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars in citizen wealth, and you know it HAS to come from somewhere, enslaving future generations to taxes they’ve no say in, to presumably destroy foreign “devils du-jour” all the while ignoring what could be done to truly set ourselves free. This isn’t by accident, its by design and its EVIL.
The truly sad charade is in watching people squawk like geese about “participating in the process”. Yeah, right! Like processed through a meat packing plant. After all is said and done its all a bloody mess, unrecognizable, and whats left is ground up or made into sausages ready for grilling.
And it isn’t only Chinese goods but Mexican as well. Quite a lot of produce is coming in from south of the border and what its been “fertilized” in isn’t fit for description. Needless to say that Senor Jorge Bush isn’t losing any sleep over it.
Hear, hear. Politics is “American Idol” for the middle-brow. Trust me, I work in that field.
As for the food, I hope there are more wake-ups from the pet horror. As much as Kevin hates LA/OC — with good reason! — there are certain pleasant neighborhoods, with weekly organic farmers’ markets, and man that stuff tastes better than the grocery store crap. Even Trader Joe’s is starting to feature locally grown produce … did the supplies of pears or apples from 3,000 miles away finally start creeping people out?
In my experience as an agriculture reporter some 20 years ago, the Norte Mexicano produce was actually cleaner and less poisoned than the USA stuff, but that was probably a simple delay in World Bank Poison Technology.
KL, US produce…especially in meats, is chock full of enough chemicals to make anyones head spin. “Better food through technology”? I’m not so certain of that. There has to be some reason that Organic products are booming. Now whether there is a qualitative difference and if opportunists are merely slapping “organic” on their boxes is another matter. What I do see is that there is an honest desire on the part of people to get something better to eat.
Great site — I’ve been reading it for about 6 months, and this is my first comment.
I’m confused, honestly. I agree that politics in the US is theatre — a sham. I love the comment about it being American Idol for the middle-brow. But, as Noam Chomsky always says, it seems to me that the only possible way to improve the situation is for mass public participation (one person at a time) in politics — to close the democracy gap between public opinion and public policy.
More people involved means more parties — ending the one (business) party state with 2 wings, being able to demand public financing of elections — hoping to end the influence of big donors and money on the process. I guess I’m still thinking of how to improve things, rather than believing they will totally collapse.
@ BostonGemini
What has Chomsky’s brand of activism accomplished over roughly the last half century? More people listen to and read Chomsky now than ever and look at this shit we’re in.
The point of Chomsky is to get young people in universities engaged in a massive, go nowhere circle jerk. Wave a sign or two, then go to the Gap. It’s all about system maintenance. Some students want to think outside of the box, ok, here’s Chomsky. Now they’re radicals! They’re reading Chomsky and listening to his lectures on pink iPods. They think they’re outside the box, but they’re really just inside Chomsky’s box, which is inside Cheney’s box.
Chomsky represents absolutely nothing in terms of a threat to the status quo.
Oh yeah, ask Chomsky who killed JFK…
That’s good for a few thrills!
Kevin is right. I’ve read Chomsky, later in life than any student, and while he does point out the hypocrisy in the political system, what I realized in the end is that he and his ilk believe they can make it “better”. They don’t want to get out of my pocket , get out of telling others how to live their lives, or driving a stake through a vampiric government. No..No..No… Its all about “public” this or that…. At everyones expense. Thats the bottom line. He represents another form of totalitarian do-goodism.
I guess I should have looked at the label. But then I did, and gee willickers, no country of origin listed for vitamin c. I take vitamin c like most of us mammals should who don’t produce our own for health and well being. Got to have it for collagen production, tissue repair and healing. For me pre PMS symptoms, etc. All humans need it. But production at the best rate has been shipped to China.
This sucks. On the one hand I don’t want the FDA to regulate vitamins so that they squelch and dictate my usage, on the other, I sure would like to know where the ingredients come from so that I could evaluate for myself whether I want to buy it on the basis of the particular point of origin.
Ever work in a restaurant? I have, and sometimes, you have angry people – even in the gawd bless us all USA acting out around food. OOPs, SPIT ON THAT STEAK BY MISTAKE. Oh my gawd, I just dropped a boogar in the linguine!!!
Imagine a whole nation, like China, that U.S. corporations use as SLAVE LABOR for their products NOT ACTING OUT AROUND THE FOOD SENT TO OUR NATION? Nah, those dumn Chinese peoples don’t have feelings. No they don’t care. They don’t hate being slaves. It WOULD NEVER cross ANYONE’s mind working for a yuan a day (not a multiple vitamin) maybe pissing in that latest greatest food supplement, or anything else you eat that is soooo precious to you? Right. Slaves don’t have feelings. Hock -poo-ee. Where did it land this time?
Eileen,
Consider the humble dandelion as a source of VC:
http://www.healthrecipes.com/dandelion.htm
Kevin my friend, you’ve outdone yourself with this morning’s posts. Zombies indeed! I’ll be sending some visitors your way later today…
On the subject of the bi-party situation, I recently did a little cartoon:
http://www.idleworm.com/tww/2006/ep0010.shtml
(shameless self promotion over).
Greetings from Uncle Duke of the Idleworm forum.
In brief, about that so-called “massive market” in China, one billion people whose collective disposable income is less than zero isn’t a massive market of any kind. China’s “market” is the biggest smoke-and-mirrors con-job of the past 100 years.
This is off topic but in defense of Chomsky he has never held out much hope of effecting change, but does reach some people. Informing the very few people who actualy care enough to pursue some understanding of the current corporate fascist power structers cant be all bad. He advocates dismantling all state authority.. That is hardly in “Cheneys Box”. Now he may not call the ruling elite by name or know who they are at the end of the day(Fabian Society, Rockefeller Morgan Combine etc.) However he does understand their empires oppression on the people of this planet. When enough peasants complain somtimes you get covert opps instead of a Veitnam style war which saves some lives so in my book was worth it.
Coming from germany (and having been directed here by the oh-so-humble dermot ;)) I can only say that Germany seems to be recovering from the danger of falling into the very same trap… luckily!
If any of you has fresh products nearby, don’t hesitate, it is DEFINITELY worth the higher price.
I am from the Hamburg/Lübeck region, and very close to the source of potatoes, apples and, in spring/early summer, even asparagus.
I wouldn’t buy any of theese in a discount-market.
And thanks for the mantra. While I have some faith that Germany is not exactly as bad off politically as the US yet, I see us spiralling towards it.
I am not a Zombie… and hopefully never will be!