The Politics of Food, Part 2

The Ethical Gourmet
by Jay Weinstein

(Page 2 of 2)

That single piece of legislation, originally intended by senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) as an ecologically constructive way to give small farmers a hand while ending huge agricultural subsidies, morphed into the most destructive policy the administration had undertaken until the Iraq invasion. It ended up costing taxpayers $248 billion — representing an increase of more than 80 percent over the 1996 Farm Bill. Since the aid focuses its cash largesse mainly on eight "program" crops (cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, barley, oats, and sorghum), it predominantly benefits breadbasket states, which happen to be electoral swing states.

During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, the Food and Drug Administration did the beef and feed industries a huge favor: It slowed down. Following revelations about a case of mad cow disease in Washington State in 2003, the federal regulators had promised to swiftly reform practices in the meat industry that foment disease. But, in an effort to placate corporate sponsors of the Bush administration, the agency took steps to delay the most significant changes involving what could and could not be included in animal feed. Breaking with years of nonpartisan tradition, in 2004 the National Cattlemen's Association endorsed President Bush for reelection immediately after the delays were announced. It's common for agencies to go into semihibernation around election time, a process known as "slow rolling" to ensure that no controversial decisions upset the reelection campaign. But with the health of the American people and the welfare of tens of millions of animals at stake, this case of government inaction is particularly egregious.

We who care deeply about the Earth and other living things need to take back our policy-making role in this country. That means choosing candidates who stand up for the environment. To review ratings for all senators and congressional representatives, look at environmental scorecards and environmental group endorsements on the following Web sites: www.lcv.org and www.sierraclub.org.

Holy Rolling: When Religion Steamrolls The Environment

Environmental destruction is insignificant to anyone who believes that all must be destroyed for the coming of the Messiah. Today, belief in what is called the rapture, a global apocalypse preceding the salvation of all believers, is a fundamental belief of our most powerful elected leaders. From the White House to the houses of Congress, nearly half of our leadership receives between 80 and 100 percent endorsement from the three main proponents of that theory — the country's most powerful Christian right organizations.

The belief that the Day of Judgment requires the annihilation of nature is driving environmental policy in our time, with the White House and its congressional allies (including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Majority Leader Roy Blunt) taking aim at the pillars of our nation's environmental protections, including land management policies on food production.

Along with the well-publicized agenda of oil and gas exploration of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Padre Island National Seashore (the last pristine stretch of the great wild seashores that once hugged our perimeter); downward revisions of the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Endangered Species Act; and relaxations of emission standards for cars, SUVs, and heavy equipment (including farm machinery), the administration has set its sights on endangered species protections from pesticides, and it wants to waive environmental review for grazing permits on public lands. The free-for-all for polluters can easily be shrugged off by anyone who believes, as one-third of Americans do, according to a 2004 Gallup poll, that environmental degradation is part of God's divine plan.

It's against this backdrop that the not-for-profit caretakers of the last parcels of sensitive wilderness — groups like World Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, and The Nature Conservancy — fret over the likely repercussions of the 2004 elections. What Vice President Dick Cheney describes as a mandate is viewed by many in the environmental movement as a death sentence to the most vulnerable creatures, lands, and waters in America. The irony that disdain for environmental safeguards is being practiced in the name of religion, which praises God for creation, is undeniable.

In a speech upon receiving the Global Environment Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, journalist Bill Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister, spoke about the wave of adherence to a doomsday belief sweeping the nation under the title, "The Godly Must Be Crazy." He pointed out that the best-selling books in the country are the twelve volumes of the "Left Behind" series by right-wing fundamentalist zealot Timothy LaHaye, who cites what Moyers calls "a fantastical theology concocted in the nineteenth century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans." His succinct synopsis of the movement's viewpoint is chilling:

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the Messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist [www.grist.org] to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer — "the road to environmental apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed — even hastened — as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

I read Moyers's words with horror but not surprise. It explained a lot about what was happening in our country, and how a toxic mixture of theology and ideology was taking us back to the future. We who believe in the value of nature, and try to protect it, are being swept back, along with the rest of the country, to an antiscience, anti-free-thought Dark Age, where fatalism and profligacy go hand in hand. We must swim against the tide if we hope to preserve what's left of our natural environment, and get back on the path toward making the world a cleaner place, with better quality of life for future generations of humans and our wild cohabitants on this planet.

"What would Jesus drive?" was the question posed by a responsible evangelical group, the Evangelical Environmental Network, which cites scripture in support of environmental protection. Noting that pollution causes suffering and disease, the group's Web site, www.whatwouldjesusdrive.org, cites the most famous proverb, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Evoking Christianity's values of peace and goodwill, the group says that "dependence on foreign oil from unstable regions heightens the potential for armed conflict . . . working against the Prince of Peace."

The group's message about the real threats of global warming cites declines in agricultural output in poorer countries as one of the serious consequences the phenomenon may bring. By addressing the possibility that 80 to 90 million poor people could be at risk of hunger and malnutrition later in the twenty-first century, the group is sending out the message that I had thought religions generally taught: Help the poor first. The approach they're taking is "Protect and improve the things we share: air, water, and earth."

© 2006 by Jay Weinstein. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), with a degree in journalism from NYU, Jay Weinstein is a protégé of Jasper White's and has cooked at Le Bernardin. He has written two cookbooks and his articles have appeared in The New York Times and Travel and Leisure. He is the editor of the CIA newsletter Kitchen and Cook, and he lives in New York City.