The Freedom of Choice
September 21st 2008 23:37
As American citizens we are guaranteed rights by birth which are derived from the Constitution and Bill of Rights
The Bedrock of Democracy and Freedom
The most important of these unalienable rights is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Bedrock of Democracy and Freedom
The most important of these unalienable rights is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
These three things go into everything that affect our daily lives as Americans, ranging from rights of religious freedom and expression, the right to have varying views in political thought and ultimately our right to find fault or praise in government institutions and to kick our elected officials in the butt to make things better for society.
The things that I feel will make society a better place may differ from your views but when the dinner is ready to be pulled from the oven at least we can all agree that the cooks who prepared our meals in past decades have lead us on a path that has resulted in the current disasters our nation is facing..
As another financial giant falls and is ultimately bailed out by a government that is fighting a war on multi billion dollar war on terror to keep this country safe, a five decade trillion dollar dollar war on drugs and billion dollar full scale conflicts in the nation’s of Iraq and Afghanistan along with a trillion dollar debt that is passed like a Frisbee between congressional and presidential administrations, it really makes me scratch my head in bewilderment as to how long we can keep “putting it on the tab” before the bartender cuts us off.
Closer to the things that affect our daily lives, Americans are having to deal with sky rocketing food prices and unbearable costs in energy prices that are the result of political leaders on both sides of the aisle not finding a way to compromise to make wind, solar and renewable energies part of the permanent American culture.
Greed and oversight is to blame in both Republican and Democratic leadership
The average American citizen is dealt the blow as neighborhoods are gutted with foreclosures, school systems are failing, people are sick and dyeing with the inability to receive health care, our food sources don’t have the promise of safety and health that they had in decades past and the divide between the have’s and have not’s has widened to epic proportions.
When looking at the situation it’s easy for a Presidential candidate or public figure to simply pass it off as Americans not taking care of their money, or not eating healthy or not doing preventive care to avert some of these situations
After being on both sides of the have and have not debate…
Things in this country are truly deeper and more complex than they appear at first glance
Without recourse or financial backing the only element important to a human being is survival. For some, this survival means eating consumables that are the cheapest food, government education and doing what you can to keep a roof over your head.
Ironicaly, the companies offering the cheapest consumables are also the one’s raking in the most profit through billion dollar infrastructures
The smiling faces we see through humorous Fast Food & Restaurant advertisements are also the same companies who are exploiting the situation on an environmental and social level.
The one thing that matters to these corporations above all others is the margin of their yearly profits. As they fatten their expense accounts they have also backed away from the public service aspect of the personal promise to provide safe and nutritious food to the public.
When these companies first opened their doors, the aspect of business was with a personal shake of the hand and if you provided food that was put together with a lazy touch your business would not last very long.
In today’s society, our need for “convenience” has traded in quality for getting a burger in five minutes and not caring about what went into the process of getting meat from the farm to the factory to our dinner plates.
I love having a Porter House steak with a Guinness just as much as the next guy but there is something wrong with a society that turns a blind eye to an industry that would rather higher untrained, undocumented workers to save money off their bottom line rather than providing a service to the people who are investing their trust and hard earned dollars in a product that is supposed to nourish and fill a basic need.
In the minds of these meat industry and fast food CEO’s the human cost of Salmonella poisoning incidents from meat covered in feces from improper butchering is well worth thousands of extra dollars in their own expense accounts and company revenue.
For me it was a tough choice to make the decision to not to continue feeding my hard earned dollars into a system that openly supports the brutalization of our people, earth and animals for the sake of making CEO’s, who cut corners and are worth millions of dollars richer.
Not feeding into the system doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a Vegan or Vegetarian….
Animal rights is a huge issue for me but I also believe that there can be a balance between the rights of treating any animal humanely, our strong tradition as hunters and gatherers and having animals as a food source.
Not feeding into the system simply means becoming healthy and informed about where the food you eat is coming from…
It’s the difference between supporting your local farmer who has animals that graze and are able to form social bonds as opposed to buying the breast of chicken from KFC where the animal your eating was genetically mutated without a beak, shot up with hormones and spent it’s life in a crate with his head sticking out waiting for the blades to come and put her out of misery
It’s the difference between supporting a restaurant that buys from local farmers who are doing the right thing by feeding his cows grain and ending their lives humanely with skillful butchering as opposed to getting ground beef from your local grocery store that was produced from the slaughter of a steroid injected cow in a chop shop by an undocumented worker who is told to slice and dice through the bladder and intestinal track leaving the consumer at risk for a Salmonella infection or worse.
The ultimate issue isn’t with the death of animal but rather our humanity
When we were a society of hunters, issues like the one’s we see month to month involving people getting sick from meat were not an issue. The hunter kills the animal, and honors its death by using its Hyde for warmth and consuming its meat for survival.
As a society we took care of our own butchering of meat and the ultimate responsibility for our health was within the family or community structure.
Responsibility has turned into dividends as our society has become too large for this kind of personal responsibility and short cuts have become the norm for corporations looking to maximize profit
The more we destroy, plunder and write off the gifts we were given as human beings the more they will be taken away and we will have to pay the ultimate price of not having them anymore or looking for a new way to survive…
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