THE RECORD
May 21, 2003

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

What happened to me with farm poisons and chemicals had happened and is happening even today to millions of farmers and farm workers, especially in so called "third world" and "developing countries." Here in North America and in Europe farmers are warned about the dangers and advised to wear protective clothing and other measures to protect their health, but in many parts of the world the workers, especially on the huge plantations of multinational agribiz corporations, are treated worse than animals, herded around by private armies and if they happen to die of the poisons, or their babies are born crippled, well, it is just too bad. There are more where they came from.

The "developed world" of the G8 countries demands "cheap foods" and the corporations and governments are willing to deliver it, regardless of human and environmental costs. The beauty of the neoclassical economic theory is that nothing matters except profits and as long as a few make them, the GDP is up and everything is OK.

The name of the game is "direct foreign investment," imaginary money that flows into the pockets of backwoods dictators, who are willing to sell out their own peoples.

I'll never forget an interview I saw some years ago with the foreign minister of an impoverished African country, where thousands of indigenous, subsistence farmers had been uprooted to create large, mechanized pineapple plantations, saturated with the whole gamut of poisons and employing just a few hundred cannery workers. The man was asked whether it bothered him that out of every $100 generated by the plantations $94. leaves the country for the benefit of so called "foreign investors." His reply was that all he was interested in was how much was left in the county, not what went out! Brilliant logic, strongly reminiscent of our "free trade" policies advocated by Jean Chrétien, Stephen Harper and Gordon Campbell.

People are constantly urged to eat more vegetables, more healthy diets, less fat, less cholesterol and so on and on. The basic idea is sound, but what people do not know and what the supermarkets that sell the stuff, and the governments who are supposed to look after people's health are not willing to discuss are the sordid facts of what those foods really contain, because they don't know and are not willing to take the time and "expenses" to find out.

When we moved up here in 1979, after 24 years in Vancouver on supermarket foods, and had the first vegetables from our organic garden, we were astounded to rediscover the long forgotten tastes of our childhood. It is very tragic that billions of people around the world, especially in our industrialized society, have never been able to taste real vegetables, real meat, real eggs, because what comes out of these agribiz operations often contains things that people should not eat and then causes some of them to fall to cancers and similar manmade illnesses.

Virtually everything today is soaked, coated and sprayed with artificial fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and preservatives, so they stay fresh looking for weeks under transport and warehousing conditions. That's why, for example, store bought carrots can taste like aspirins.

When we look at the ingredients on the side of canned foods and even breads and baked goods, there are enough chemicals, preservatives, artificial colouring and other goodies listed in them to build an atom bomb.

Kraft Foods is just now being sued in California for allegedly "fraudulent and deceptive marketing" over the hydrogenated oil, or trans fats, deadly substances, contained in their Oreo cookies. When we walk by some of these fast food, especially the fried chicken joints, the stink of burning, hundred times used fat pouring out of the doors is enough to knock a buzzard off a dead tree.

Sometimes when I buy a stamp in one of these chain convenience stores, where they fry chickens, the stink gets into my clothes so bad that we have to open the truck's windows to get rid of it. Yet, people are picking the stuff off the shelves without looking at what they contain and are stuffing themselves, then they and the politicians are surprised that they get sick and medical costs are going through the roof. Of course, blame it on old people.

The Bush gang has just issued a gag order on the US Environmental Protection Agency against any discussion of perchlorate pollution that poisons, the waters of the Colorado River. Which in turn poisons the lettuce and other vegetables grown in parts of California and then exported to Canada. Perchlorate, which is a component of rocket fuels of the sacred military variety, is now poisoning the water and vegetables of 20 US states with 70 to 200 times higher than the previously permitted dosages. The Bush solution? Raise the limits and declare them safe, then demand Canadian waters so they can pollute more, because it is "cheaper" than prevention.

Has anybody noticed that after every major poison spill, or manmade disaster, the official government statement always is that no harm was done, everything is peachy. They and the perpetrators do it to save their own necks from lawsuits. As long as the profitability of a dwindling number of investors is preserved, the governments consider their jobs done and are rewarded with major donations to their parties.

This is what they call "Public Private Partnership," where the "public" pays through the nose and the "private" laugh their way to the bank. And if there are hundreds of bald headed little children moping around after losing their hair to chemo therapy treatments for illnesses unknown 50 years ago, it is just too bad. It is the "cost of progress." Progress and profitability must be maintained and if a government would dare to lift a finger to look behind the scenes, it is immediately labelled with the biggest crime of our age: "unfriendly to business."

Copyright (c) 2003, West's International