Pet Food and World Domination

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The recent poisoning of pet food in the U.S., and subsequent recall of 60 million cans and pouches of pet food, brings to mind the simple question, "Why is one company able to monopolize an industry the way Menu Foods Corp has been able to?" Also, do you have any doubt that the same sort of consolidation is happening in the human food supply industry?






















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Today, Monsanto and DuPont control 60 percent of the U.S. corn and soybean seed market. They join three other companies, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer, as the world's leading suppliers of seed and chemicals for commercial crops worldwide. Source

Until recently (oh say November 2000 or so) most of us assumed that our State and Federal governments would be doing oversight of such massive operations as the nation's food and water supplies. Even then we were wrong, now it's much much worse. Sure we pay plenty of taxes and those monies are supposed to go into a pool of funds to finance basic services and protections for everyone in society.

Our taxes are supposed to pay for public schools, roads, scientists, food inspectors, providing electricity, running the courts, and thousands of small and big things that affect our daily life. So when a concerted effort is made to strip government of it's oversight duties, and it's done by a group of people, (especially Grover Norquist)






















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who believe that government should ONLY exist to protect the nation in a military sense, and that all "extra" money should be "contracted out" to businesses that will now do the work that government used to do, is it any wonder that we find ourselves at war?

So yet again we must ask ourselves, Joe & Joan American Citizen, what can WE do to stop the take-over of our government, our lives and the world by these greedy sons-of-bitches?

Here's a short list of ideas, things you could start doing today, that will help turn things around:

1) Stop buying products from giant corporations. Whenever possible buy from small, local shops, and try to choose items made locally, especially food. Visit your local Farmer's Market where you can buy locally grown organic food. It may cost a bit more but it's worth every penny you spend. It's healthier, it's supporting small businesses, and it almost always tastes better.






















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2) Check the country of origin of every product you're about to buy and stop buying plastic crap from China. China has a deplorable record on human rights, there are barely environmental laws for industry, and most of the stuff they're making for us is replacing products that used to be made by American workers.















PBS.org

3) If and when you do have to buy something "corporate" do so at a BLUE company. That's a company that doesn't fund the Republican Party.

Additional reading:

How Corporations Became "Persons" by Tom Stites.
Corporate Personhood by ReclaimDemocracy.org.

Websites:

Consumer Watchdog
Corp Watch
AFL-CIO Corporate Watch
Free Press
Corporate Crime Reporter