Obesity and Bad Socialism

[mgreene]

Hello,

I would like to know what some of you guys think of corn subsidies. MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell, a self-proclaimed socialist, calls agricultural subsidies "bad socialism." What do you think of this?

Many analysts and experts in the field believe that corn subsidies are behind high-fructose corn syrup's inexpensiveness and ubiquity. In turn, many scientists have noticed a correlation between HFCS and obesity, diabetes, etc.

I have started a petition on the White House website asking the Obama administration to reduce the availability of high-fructose corn syrup, possibly through a tax or even ban.

You may view and sign my petition HERE: wh.gov/lCiH9

So I would like some of you guys to weigh in on this. What do you think of agricultural subsidies, the US farm bills, HFCS, obesity, etc.? Do you agree or disagree with my petition and why?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Corporate welfare and state subsidies are not socialism; this is typical of liberal arsewipes who have no understanding of socialism whatever. "Socialising the losses", as they sometimes also call it when the state bails out banks. In reality, of course, it's not socialism at all but an inherent element of capitalism. U.S. agriculture, and in Europe as well, is quite big business, and when not so, at the very least dependent upon strong state subsidies to preserve a status quo, where entire rural regions would otherwise face harsh challenges that would be politically unfavourable to the ruling order.

As for petitions, they are stupid and pointless.

Even in places were HFCS are not as common, there's a significant rise in obesity and diabetes, etc, so any efforts on that front would unlikely be very effective, and taxing it would just increase food costs for poor families, as it becomes a regressive measure.

Ergo, the only real solution is the overthrow of capitalism, and any attempts to with these liberal hogwash methods affect social change is doomed to at best modest success and at worst utter and miserable failure.

[danyboy27]

So I would like some of you guys to weigh in on this. What do you think of agricultural subsidies, the US farm bills, HFCS, obesity, etc.? Do you agree or disagree with my petition and why?
Well, i think your petition even if its taken seriously will not change much, the corporations will just find another way to get their sugar.

Has for Obesity, the problem isnt the avaliability of cheap chocolate bar and soft drink, its the unability of the working class to find the time to exercise and eat healthy.

Why do you think most workplace got vending machines? Its a verry cheap and efficient way for overworked people to get access to the sufficient imput in calories in order to stay awake while working long hours doing graveyard shit at a cedentary jobs.

The problem isnt the bad stuff, its the inherent need of it for our society to function.

I guarantee you, if you remove all form of sweet and fast food in a big american city for a month, shit will get crazy.

[mgreene]

It might make a difference. Just to have Obama or one of his staff members read my petition I would consider a victory. Which is why I would greatly value your support.:)

[Consistent.Surprise]

It might make a difference. Just to have Obama or one of his staff members read my petition I would consider a victory. Which is why I would greatly value your support.:)

May I ask why that would be a victory? I don't trust this country to look past those filling their pockets. Obama & his staff aren't concerned with petitions or the actual needs of the people.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Takayuki is right - corporate handouts aren't "socialism". It's just a more state-directed form of Capitalism on the scale between "lassiez-faire" and "Keynesian". IMO a lot of liberal keynesians in the USA call themselves "socialist" because moderate Social Democrats in Europe appropriated the term "socialism" then proceeded to move further to the right.

Your petition is certainly well intentioned but I doubt Obama would listen to it, and even if he did, I doubt congress would listen to him because a bunch of commie pinkos signed a petition.

You are right that corn subsidies are incredibly harmful to the health of millions of people in this country. Corn was subsidized to help keep food cheap and accessible in the US since it's easy to grow on a very large scale in the plains of the midwest and other flat corners of the USA, but unfortunately this just fed the beast of the corn lobby. That is one of the obvious systemic flaws of a Capitalist republic - different industries and constituencies jostle over limited resources, and when they succeed it just leads to larger lobbies which help to feed more money to these industries and constituencies.

Unfortunately for anyone trying to solve this problem in the near term and the people who are hurt by it, I doubt that there's a solution within the logic of the American model of Capitalism and Republicanism.

[danyboy27]

It might make a difference. Just to have Obama or one of his staff members read my petition I would consider a victory. Which is why I would greatly value your support.:)

I dont want to burst your bubble but even if he read it, he is hardly the only one calling the shot within his administration.

[Rafiq]

The way the term socialism is used here is the most infuriating trend ever. God, when did it start, around 2008? So because a bunch of idiot fucking conservatives used the term, everyone decided to jump on the bandwagon? I absolutely despise american politics. They're pathetic, they're incredibly demoralizing.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

In addition to (especially) what Takayuki said above, I would also like to add that whilst some foods have more/less nutritional content than others, obesity is caused by eating far more calories than you need - i.e. the total calorie intake is greater than total calorie expenditure.

Blaming obesity on one food or another, or one fad or another, is generally something I treat as suspicious, since the reasons for someone eating more than they need/expend are multiple and varied, and cannot be put down to just one cause or the other.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

It's interesting to refer to the capitalist state's disposal of social wealth as "bad socialism". Is it useful? While, on one hand, I understand the knee-jerk "that'snotfuckingsocialism!", but there's part of me that appreciates the discursive shift which acknowledges the existence of "the social", and capitalist socialization, as opposed to popular Thatherite "society doesn't exist" conceptions of capitalism.

In any case, as regards high fructose corn syrup, I think American corn production needs to be located in the context of global capitalist dynamics, and not just posited as a sort of "quirk" of American policy. I hate the "Therefore we must destroy capitalism!"-non-answer, since it skips over all strategic corrections and gives me nasty flashbacks to reading the Socialist Worker (a paper, tellingly, written by Toronto academics and rarely read by workers). So, what do I propose? I confess, I'm not sure I have an answer, but it probably has to do with a) agricultural sector organizing (and consequently, anti-border organizing), b) anti-oil organizing (mass grain agricultural requires huge oil inputs), and c) working class community food organizing (moar gardens rofl). Which isn't meant to shit-talk your petition pushing, but . . . maybe if you went door-to-door with a petition and had some conversations, your perspective on what needs to be done might shift.

As an aside, I really think that's what is most useful about petitions: you can walk up to a stranger and start a political conversation without immediately being read as a total whack-job.

[RedBen]

you people sound more and more like embittered "you'll never make it, that'll never work" types daily. i read about how any efforts to do or change anything are pointless, if that's the case, we're fucked no? why call ourselves members of any party? i read about complete overthrow, who doing anything besides the occasisional rally/protest? do you all not sign petitions ever? what do you all do about things you don't like? blog about it? no obama won't read the fucking petition but christ's sake stop shitting on people who TRY to do something. i'll sign the motherfucker

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

you people sound more and more like embittered "you'll never make it, that'll never work" types daily. i read about how any efforts to do or change anything are pointless, if that's the case, we're fucked no? why call ourselves members of any party? i read about complete overthrow, who doing anything besides the occasisional rally/protest? do you all not sign petitions ever? what do you all do about things you don't like? blog about it? no obama won't read the fucking petition but christ's sake stop shitting on people who TRY to do something. i'll sign the motherfucker

I don't think anybody means to put down someone for 'trying', but trying does not necessarily = the most efficient means of effecting changes in policy, or indeed wider changes to the political system society operates within.

For what it's worth, I would say that petitions can sometimes be useful, but only amongst other tactics such as direct action, and gaining appropriate public exposure/media coverage. Petitions on their own, IMO, are largely useless.

[Consistent.Surprise]

As an aside, I really think that's what is most useful about petitions: you can walk up to a stranger and start a political conversation without immediately being read as a total whack-job.

That is the awesome thing about canvassing. You also get some great stories.

I'm not poo-pooing your attempt Mgreene. If you feel strongly about doing something, at least you are trying. I would suggest getting into the crowds, though. You get blown off but you also do get great non-electronic confirmation of your views.