Obama putting politics above Pollan?

As so many have pointed out, EVERY statement of Barack Obama's comes with an expiration date. He is so thoroughly post-modern I doubt that even his closest supporters know what his bedrock prinicples are. Everything else is subject to change.

Change you can beleive in. Ha!

He appoints an Iraq war defender with deep Israel / AIPAC ties as his Chief of Staff and now this.

Why do you expect Obama to be any different than any other politician? He couldn't have gotten to the level he did if he wasn't in the pocket of corporate Amerika. Expecting real change to come through the very methods that the dominate class has established is foolishness. "Voting" is a distraction used to make you think that you can make a difference with your lone, single, solitary "vote".

Watch out what you ask for, you may get it.

In case you haven't noticed, commodity prices have collapsed along with oil (and everything else), and farmers out here in the Tyrannical Oppressor States of America (formerly known as the Midwest) are losing their ass.

IOW, the cost of production outstrips what they're getting paid for their crops. Their land values are falling, too, in what looks to be a replay of the farm crisis of the early 1980s.

As more and more farmers throw in the towel -- or, alternatively, hold back more and more of their crops waiting for higher commodity prices -- folks in We Like to Bite the Hand That Feeds Us America may come to rue their blessed laissez-faire, free-market ideology (peace be upon it).

It may be that if Tom Vilsack (the FORMER governor of Iowa, Chet Culver is the current one) is the new ag secretary, the coffers will be too empty to prop up "King Corn." In which case, we folks in the Midwest will adjust and manage to feed ourselves just fine. We're an industrious lot. Back in the day, the pioneers found that if they weren't . . . they died.

But without the rest of America implementing an alternative method of doing agriculture before "King Corn's" highly anticipated demise, I certainly hope you all have your copies of the Haitian Cookbook -- the one with 101 different recipes in which dirt is a main ingredient.

On the broader point that Rod brought up, Obama knows how to sound different to the right audiences. He's really not as radical as he makes himself out to be. He's different than Bush, but not really different from the average politician. He's no radical reformer.

Wait-he's actually a politician? I'm utterly shocked. What a revolting development.

You call it corn, we call it maize, Iowa calls it cold hard cash. Welcome Secretary Vilsack. Remember that the Iowa caucus gave The One his big start. Payback! If you recall the whole idea of the mafia in "Goodfellas"-" ___ you; pay me!"

"But without the rest of America implementing an alternative method of doing agriculture before "King Corn's" highly anticipated demise, I certainly hope you all have your copies of the Haitian Cookbook -- the one with 101 different recipes in which dirt is a main ingredient."

Well, considering most of our corn and beans goes into livestock food, I am not sure that there will be a huge dent made in the food most folks eat when the Midwest farmers go belly up. What will happen is that the farmland will simply be bought up by a handful of large corporations. After all, there will still be people on earth who need to eat, and there will still be good farmland here in Iowa and the rest of the midwest.

What will happen is that the cost of food for the foodies will go up dramatically. Not unexpected, and perhaps an even beneficial condition if you want to see local production spurred. After all, when hamburger goes to $10/lb for the stuff WalMart sells, there might be some demand for locally grown options.

Of course, this will take a generation or so to implement, and I pity the folks out west who are running out of water to irrigate their backyard gardens. Who knows, we might see some large scale starvation before it is all over.

But you are right. Those of us in the Midwest will survive. We have the land, the seed stock, the livestock, and (at least so far) the will power to take care of our own.

But let's see the folks in New York City and Washington DC eat their fancy cars, concrete buildings and asphalt streets. And let's let them remember...the primary beneficiary of the cheap food program in this nation is the consumer. Take away price supports and after 5-7 years prices in the store would double. After all, when ADM ends up owning 90% of the arable land between the Appalachians and the Rockies, they will decide who gets the food. And I'm willing to bet they will not have a lot of loyalty to the Red, White and Blue.

Perhaps we don't need more choices, but rather different ones. In our area, if you have $250,000 to spend on a house you can get a townhouse in a development, a run down home in a bad neighborhood, or a cute, albeit small, bungalow with a front porch. Sadly, people don't know how to live with only one bathroom and no dishwasher. Even if they don't like the townhouse, what choices are there? Especially for families who are concerned about schools. The schools in our neighborhood, we live in a bungalow, are the worst in town! We used to live in a townhouse with the best school in town. You do the math.