9-27-06, 8:48 am
Case Study #11: If you think you are safe in the free enterprise system -- think again. A New York Times editorial of 4-6-2006 takes the USDA (the Dept. of Agriculture, now controlled by cretinous Bushite Republican clones) to task for exposing the American people to Mad Cow Disease. Creekstone Farms, a beef producer, wants to test all of its cows for the disease. Sounds good to me -- why don’t all cows get tested? The Times says the 'cost is not prohibitive.' The USDA (now a front for the beef industry) only wants to test 1% of the cows and has prohibited Creekstone from testing their own cows. The reason. The USDA is afraid 'that broad testing may reveal a higher rate of infection.... with a devastating impact on the cattle market.' In other words profits for the big beef processors are more important than the lives of the thousands of people who may ultimately die of Mad Cow Disease. It’s that simple for G.W. (Jesus is my favorite philosopher) Bush and his cronies. Meanwhile it is a capital idea not to eat beef -- what’s in your stomach? CASE # 12: As the rich get richer in the US crony capitalist system we find that crime is increasing in poorer communities. 'Small Cities in Region Grow More Violent, Data Show' the New York Times reports. Homicides are up 28% in 15 studied cities in NY, NJ and Connecticut with populations of 100,000 or more. These crimes are mostly in poor areas and due to gang activity. Nationwide in cities from 100,000 to 249,000 the homicide increase was 12.5%. 'The numbers underscore... a resurgence of senseless violence among young men in impoverished neighborhoods.' The truth is that the profits before people capitalist system cannot and will not provide a decent education and meaningful job prospects for millions of poor youth in this country.
CASE # 13: It’s not only the beef industry that doesn't care about your health. The processed food industry is also killing its customers to make a buck. The following information is from 'The War Over Salt: It's the Food Industry vs. an Army of Medical Experts' by Melanie Warner in The New York Times (Business Day) 9-13-2006. Medical experts, the AMA in particular, wants the FDA to start regulating the amount of salt the food industry dumps into the processed food it sells. Fat chance! 'The food industry, which adamantly opposes any regulation of salt, is lobbying the government to stop any attempts to force companies to limit salt in food.' This is because when food is processed it not only loses a lot if its natural flavor and texture but also sometimes 'unpleasant tastes are also created.' Dumping excess salt into the food hides these bad tastes, makes up for the lost flavors and textures, and also acts as a preservative so this junk can stay around in the store longer. Now 75% of salt people eat comes from processed food. Salt is a cause of hypertension which leads to the No. 1 (heart disease) and No. 3 (stroke) causes of death in the US. Middle aged people and people at risk should eat no more than 1500 milligrams of salt a day (its 2300 max for healthy young adults). If salt in processed food were cut in half 150,000 lives a year could be saved. Dr. S. Havas of the AMA says, 'There have been repeated calls over the last 25 years for the FDA and the food industry to take actions that would reduce these unnecessary deaths. As a physician, it’s very hard for me to understand why these groups have not addressed this critical public health problem.' It's the money! Remember, its Profits Before People and capitalism kills.
CASE # 14: 'On India's Despairing Farms, a Plague of Suicide' by Somini Sengupta (New York Times, Tuesday, September 19, 2006.) This is a really distressing report. It details how our capitalist system takes a horrible toll in death from some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. Across India thousands of dirt poor Indian farmers are driven to suicide each year because of debt and poverty caused directly by the policies of globalization (led by US capitalism) as well as the pro 'free' market attitudes of the Indian government. In 2003 '17,107 farmers committed suicide.' The Times says that 'economic reforms ' have 'opened' [read 'exposed'] the peasants to world competition and that they have 'access to' [read 'are forced to buy'] expensive and promising biotechnology.' Sounds like a good deal. An Ayn Randian dream. Competition and science to the rescue. Surely Indian farmers can beat out costly Western farm products that have to be grown at a higher cost of production that it takes Indian peasants. But, oops, the 'reforms' have a downside in that they haven't 'necessarily opened the way to higher prices, bank loans, irrigation or insurance against pests and rain.' And the 'free ' part of 'free trade' includes the US giving '$18 billion a year to its own farmers, which have helped drive down the price of cotton' paid to Indian farmers. Also 'American multinational companies [are] peddling costly, genetically modified seeds [Monsanto]' which the peasants are forced to buy to try and remain competitive. So they have to go into debt: borrowing against the future harvest.
In order to help out the peasants one Indian state forced Monsanto to lower the 'royalty' it collects for its 'patented' seeds. After all, God didn't make these seeds properly and Monsanto had to do His job for Him, but it is the Indian peasant that has to pay. Not to be deterred from its excess profit making by a mere 17,000 or so suicides due to overwhelming poverty and debt these royalties are partially responsible for, Monsanto 'has appealed to the Indian Supreme Court.'
Meanwhile the Indian government has not stepped in to prevent the charging of 'exorbitant interest rates' by local moneylenders: sometimes as much as 5% a month! These loans become impossible to pay back. Sometimes the peasants must then sell their crops to the moneylender below the market price and he then sells them reaping the profits. One moneylender, quite honest about how capitalism works, told the Times, 'Many moneylenders have made a whole lot of money. Farmers, many of them are ruined.' A study showed that 86.5 percent or 14,798 of the reported suicides were directly caused by debt. What is the value of a human life in these circumstances? The average debt was around $835, a huge amount for an Indian peasant. These figures are from 2003. Evidence indicates the problem is growing even greater. The Indian government should get rid of these moneylenders and provide debt relief and guaranteed low interest (no interest) bank loans to poor peasants. And please, rooters and tooters for capitalism, remember when you read all those stories about the economic success of India that they only refer to a small urban elite. Two-thirds of the population is trapped in the village system. An economic system that sacrifices hundreds of thousands of people (over 170,000 estimated suicides for the period 2001-2010) on the altar of Mammon should be overthrown.
--Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at
