On many occasions, Sally and I have been challenged on our views that the complex industrial system which supplies most of our food is malignant. Though we patiently try to explain the workings of this global leviathan, our views are generally dismissed as being at best misplaced and at worst positively conspiratorial.
If we mention a ‘foodstuff’ that carries toxic ingredients, we are likely to be met with a response along the lines of, “If it was harmful, it wouldn’t be on the market.” If we talk about the draconian legislation in place to make it arduous for small farmers to eke out a living in a world dominated by agri-business, we are likely to be told that we know nothing about modern day farming. Both responses suggest a deep level of public unawareness, or at least an unwillingness to face uncomfortable facts.
Underlying the resistance to the idea that industry is self-serving is the fact that it is in our human nature to be trusting. We have essentially evolved from small hunter-gatherer communities in which cooperation was an essential prerequisite to survival, security and peace. In what is effectively a blink of the evolutionary eye, we have moved from this to our modern urbanised society, and that is insufficient time for those fundamental instincts to have been replaced by cynicism. But a good shot of cynicism would be very useful today, as it would help us to work out the detailed implications of a divided unequal society, in which the majority of us are effectively subjugated by a tiny minority.
The iniquities of a system that allows this to happen pervade every Westernised social order, but the true nature of the situation is probably best seen in the United States of America. Here, under the false flag of democracy, we have a hotbed of corporate domination and control of the masses by the corrupt elite. It is only the myth of democracy that prevents the USA from descending into an impenitent police state. An increasing number of gloves-off incidents is illustrating very clearly the scale of the problem, and nowhere is the picture more alarming than in the food industry. In a farcical yet disturbing concoction of erroneous research, laughably specious legislation and frighteningly real intimidation by the authorities, the small farmers ofAmerica are being persecuted into extinction. But I am not going to say any more. I am going to hand you over to someone who understands the situation better than I do, that tireless campaigner, Dr Mercola. Here is an article from his website. I hope it encourages you to sign up for his regular newletters.