From The Matrix Reloaded: Morpheus speaking to the people of Zion

[Warning: mini rant!] I’ve been reading a lot lately about “food safety.” About the fight for raw milk, about horrible new drugs used in livestock, about more food contamination, about more meat recalls. It is frustrating, scary, and rage-inducing, because I know the problems are all caused by dirty factory/mass farming practices and driven by greed.

Oh, and fear. Their fear of losing money and our fear of getting sick. Our fear is being stoked by theirs so that people easily agree to new laws that have their food bleached, irridated, and drugged, thus resulting in more money for the big corps. Our fear is their tool that dupes people into thinking that the twisted “modern” methods of food production would be perfectly safe if those bad little independent farmers would stop screwing things up by not bleaching, irridating, or drugging their food. “People are getting sick! Well we need stricter controls (of the little guy)! We need more chemicals blasted onto our food so that we don’t ingest any germs! How dare these little farmers try to poison us! Make them comply with the big, safe food guys!”

Of course, I understand that there is also a lot of ignorance about how food is produced. I am ever grateful for all the work currently underway to change this. But there is also so much ignorance of basic biology and science (shown by how many people buy into the “germs are bad” and “antibiotic” marketing). This goes into the serious, serious problems with the (un)educational system, problems that drove me right out of it. I do see hope in the school garden programs, although my cynical side sees that as too little, too late. Of course, I don’t believe that the powers that be, whoever they actually are (take your pick), want anyone truly educated. We’d not be as easily fooled or led.

Aaaggghhh. It drives me batty! I get so angry every time I read about some new way to “clean” food. How about cleaning up the factory farming operations? How about keeping the animals healthy and happy and in their natural states? There are plenty of non-factory farms currently running that prove quite nicely that it can be done, it does produce better food, and it does have positive ripple effects into the surrounding community.

Oh, wait. Silly me. Such things don’t line the pockets of the big fat cats who control the big factory farming megacorporations. They’ll never allow their profits to go without a fight. So they get their friends in government to keep coming up with new regulations and inspection requirements that cost so much money that small food producers are either put out of business or never get into business in the first place.

And silly me to say, “just let me choose.” I would like to choose better food, so as long as I have that choice, I’ll just go on my merry way. But lately it seems that more of us are choosing differently, and the corps are noticing. They see it as profit going away. So they’re working hard to destroy what little choice is left.

Which just strengthens my desire to produce as much of my own food as possible. But I’ve heard mutterings here and there about ways to prevent home gardens, although I don’t know the specifics. My first reaction is, why the h*ll would anyone do something so asinine? Then I remember. Oh, right. Money. If I’m growing my own food, I’m not buying someone else’s, and this consumption-based economy can’t stand that. So I suppose I would not be surprised if some politico though to make his food corp cronies some extra money by outlawing gardens. But you know what? “If gardens are outlawed, only outlaws will have gardens.”

I can’t help thinking of The Matrix again. In The Matrix, people who refused to “accept the programming” of the machines were allowed to “escape” the matrix and live free. The free people formed their own society and fought to free more people. Neo became their leader, and as their numbers grew, they caused more disruptions in the system. The machines realized they needed to be controlled, so they decided to send in their sentinels (fighting machines) to wipe out the free humans. At this point in factory food production, I feel that more and more people are realizing they have a food choice between natural and factory-farmed and are choosing to be “free” from factory-farmed food. But we are starting to reach critical mass, the point at which our numbers equal too many lost profits for the food corps to ignore us any longer. The sentinels are starting to sniff us out. Regulations are being proposed, “food safety” bills are inching through Congress, and my fear is that our choice could soon end. The machines seem ready to declare war.

But to quote Starbuck from the new Battlestar Galactica and throughly mix my pop culture metaphors, “fight ‘em ’til we can’t.”