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(Photo by Robin Holland)
This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with author Michael Pollan about America’s problematic food policies and what citizens might do for their –- and the nation’s –- health. Pollan said:
“I'm not a puritan about food and I'm not a zealot about it, and there is something called special occasion food that we have in our house. And it's kind of understood that sometimes you go enjoy your fast food, you have your Twinkie, whatever it is. People have done this for thousands of years. There's nothing wrong with doing it. Our problem is we've made special occasion food [into] everyday food and that one in three children are at a fast food outlet every single day... One of the reasons that people in the inner city have such higher rates of diabetes [is that] there is a demand for fresh and healthier food that’s not being served.”
Arguing that nutritious options were too difficult to find, the Los Angeles City Council earlier this year passed a moratorium on any new fast food restaurants in a number of poor neighborhoods with disproportionate rates of diabetes and obesity. Beyond the expected complaints of restaurant chains, the public response was mixed; journalists noted that healthy fare was already easily available from fast food franchises and the area’s three underutilized farmers’ markets, while many community members were skeptical that the ban would prove effective:
“‘[The ban is] stupid. It’s our body, we choose what we put in it,’ Tonya Owens, a 45-year-old nurse assistant, told Reuters... ‘It’s fast and easy. I think people will still come here no matter what,’ [Edwin] Tsai, 23, said."
What do you think?
Given nutritious options, will most people make healthy eating decisions? Why or why not?
What policies do you propose to improve America’s health? Do you believe that your ideas are politically and logistically feasible?
(Photo by Jason Houston)
We'd like to thank Lisa M. Hamilton for sharing her photo essay, "The Transformation", with THE MOYERS BLOG. We invite you to respond below.
Please note that the views and opinions expressed by Lisa M. Hamilton are not necessarily the views and opinions held by Bill Moyers or BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.
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A Community Comes Together to Conserve Two Endangered Species: Rare-Breed Turkeys, and Turkey Farmers
In 2004, Slow Food USA launched a campaign called Renewing America’s Food Traditions (or “RAFT”), whose purpose was to save endangered food species by getting farmers to grow them—and consumers to eat them. Members in Sonoma County, California, set out to revive heritage breed turkeys, but immediately were faced with a new issue: there were no farmers to raise them. In the early 20th century the region was known as the “Egg Basket to the World” and had as many as 6,000 small poultry farms. But beginning in the 1950s, factors ranging from urbanization to industry consolidation to the advent of breakfast cereal wiped out nearly the entire industry. Today only a handful of small-scale poultry farmers remain, and none was about to jump into the unpredictable business of raising commercially unfamiliar breeds of turkeys.
Undaunted, the Slow Food members decided to start from the ground up. Three years ago, they joined forces with a local 4H group to start a sort of “turkey CSA”: Each year the 4H kids raise the turkeys at home, just as they would with a cow or a pig, and along the way learn about responsibility, leadership, and practical agricultural economics. In return, Slow Food enlists people in the community to buy the turkeys. Because the kids agree to raise the turkeys organically, the members give them a generous price per pound. As organizer Jim Reichardt explained, the lesson in agriculture economics becomes a lesson in the economics of sustainability; for instance, the more the animals are out on pasture, the less feed the kids need to buy. While the margins in conventional turkey farming are tight, these kids have discovered a potentially profitable alternative. For now the venture is just a summer job, but organizers are hopeful that it could eventually lead to the revitalization of the industry. “It might not happen this year or next,” Reichardt said, “but someday we hope we’ll find a kid who wants to take this on and run with it.”
With this near-perfect solution, the Slow Food members faced one final challenge: there was no small-scale processing plant that could “harvest” the birds. Again, they looked to the community. In what has become an annual tradition, the weekend before Thanksgiving everybody— kids, parents, Slow Food members, local chefs, and other volunteers— comes together to turn the turkeys from feathered friends to holiday entrees. This year I joined the event, which Reichardt has dubbed “The Transformation.” Some of the photos are not for the faint of heart, but if you eat turkey and care about local food, I think it’s worth a trip.
CLICK HERE to view Lisa M. Hamilton's photo essay, "The Transformation."
Journalist Lisa M. Hamilton focuses on food and agriculture, particularly the stories of farmers and ranchers. Her work has appeared in THE NATION, HARPER'S, and ORION, as well as on nationally syndicated radio. Her narrative nonfiction book DEEPLY ROOTED: UNCONVENTIONAL FARMERS IN THE AGE OF AGRIBUSINESS" will be published by Counterpoint Press in May 2009.
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Below is an article by JOURNAL senior writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.
Michael Pollan's Food For Thought
By Michael Winship
The writer and activist Michael Pollan has no interest in becoming Barack Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, thank you very much, even though there are a lot of people who think he’d be perfect for the job.
Pollan disagrees. Laughing, he told my colleague Bill Moyers on the latest edition of public television’s BILL MOYERS JOURNAL,” I have an understanding of my strengths and limitations…I don’t want this job,” then turned serious as he added, “What Obama needs to do, if he indeed wants to make change in this area-- and that isn't clear yet that he does, at least in his first term -- I think we need a food policy czar in the White House because the challenge is not just what we do with agriculture, it's connecting the dots between agriculture and public health, between agriculture and energy and climate change, agriculture and education.”
There’s been an Internet-fueled citizen’s movement to draft Pollan for the cabinet post. As the author of countless articles and such books as The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, his thorough reporting, literally getting his hands dirty working on American farms and writing about it, has made him one of our country’s greatest experts on how and what we eat.
In an open letter to whoever would become our next president -- or “Farmer in Chief,” as he put it in the October 12th NEW YORK TIMES magazine -- Pollan wrote, “It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril...
“But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.”
In 2007, before the financial meltdown had even struck, some 32 million Americans -- at least one in nine households -- had trouble putting enough food on the table. Now, according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL, food banks across the country are struggling to meet a surge of people uncertain about their next meal. They’ve seen a 20% increase in demand -- middle class families, they say, account for most of the growth.
And the day before our annual Thanksgiving binge, the WASHINGTON POST reported, “The number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.”
Contrast this with the big bucks being shelled out in the recent $307 billion farm bill, much of it going to massive agribusinesses -- “A welfare program,” as TIME Magazine described it, “for the megafarms that use the most fuel, water, and pesticides; emit the most greenhouse gases; grow the most fattening crops; hire the most illegals and depopulate rural America."
In a press conference on Tuesday, President-elect Obama cited a report released this week by the Government Accountability Office: “From 2003 to 2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff to qualify for such subsidies, “ he said. “If this is true, it is a prime example of the kind of waste I intend to end as president.”
All well and good, but as a senator, Barack Obama supported that monster farm bill (although he was absent for the actual roll call). He also supported the production of ethanol (a politically expedient move when the Iowa Democratic caucuses were at stake), even though using corn for fuel rather than food raises the price of grain and results in huge emissions of greenhouse gases.
Thus, where food and agriculture are concerned, connecting the dots, as Michael Pollan told Bill Moyers, is a tortuous journey involving internecine politics, international diplomacy, big business, every branch of government and every issue from morbid obesity to homeland security.
Pollan is hopeful that Obama will take advantage of his oratorical skills and bully pulpit to set an example for the American people, perhaps even suggesting “meatless Mondays” for the country – which according to Pollan would have the ecological effect of taking 30-40 million cars off the road for a year – and encouraging home gardening and eating locally; supporting the small farmers who grow fresh food nearby – without chemicals or subsidies.
“I think we have to figure out different solutions in different places, and it's not all or nothing,” he said. “We need to let a thousand flowers bloom. We need to try many things in many places, and figure out what works…
“Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the farmer's market. Get out of the supermarket… Plant a garden…. Declare your independence from the culture of fast food.”
Regardless of who Obama chooses as his Ag Secretary, it will be interesting to see if the new president sees fit to make Pollan an unofficial advisor on food issues, an influential voice in his – you should excuse the expression – kitchen cabinet.
Please note that the views and opinions expressed by Michael Winship are not necessarily the views and opinions held by Bill Moyers or BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.
(Photo by Robin Holland)
This week on the JOURNAL, guest host Deborah Amos spoke with NEW YORK TIMES business columnist Joe Nocera about the recent federal bailouts of large institutions and what might happen next.
Nocera said that the federal government should attempt to bail out homeowners:
“This is not an issue of compassion or liberalism or anything like that. This has to do with solving the financial crisis. You cannot solve the financial crisis if you don’t solve the problem at the root, which is on Main Street in people’s homes where they either have subprime mortgages that are going to reset in ways that will make them unable to pay their mortgages, or they’re already facing foreclosure... the money that you would spend now to modify mortgages and help keep people in their homes would be more than justified because if you don’t do it, the financial ramifications are going to be huge.”
Some have contended that a homeowner bailout is more difficult and complex than it sounds. Nocera’s fellow NEW YORK TIMES columnist David Leonhardt urged caution:
“Coming up with a large-scale homeowner bailout without also helping millions of people who don’t need help is almost impossible... As soon as the government announces that it will help everyone at risk of foreclosure, a lot of people are suddenly going to decide they’re at risk for foreclosure... Multiply 19 million mortgages by a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and the government could be left with $4 trillion in obligations.”
What do you think?
Should the federal government attempt a bailout of homeowners not keeping up with their mortgages? Why or why not?
Would such a bailout create a “moral hazard” that condones and/or encourages irresponsible financial behavior? Explain.
 This week, in a collaboration with EXPOSÉ: AMERICA'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS and BLUEPRINT AMERICA, the JOURNAL profiled the efforts of Dallas television reporter Brett Shipp investigating gasline explosions allegedly stemming from decades of neglect by local power companies and state regulators.
What do you think?
Are you confident in the infrastructure companies and regulators in your area?
Are there infrastructure issues you feel are important that have gone unaddressed in your community? If so, tell us about them.
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Below is an article by JOURNAL senior writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.
This Just In From Middle Earth
By Michael Winship
QUEENSTOWN, New Zealand – You might think it hard to think about politics when you’re in a place as extraordinary as this on New Zealand’s South Island. The landscape fills the eye with glacial and volcanic lakes, valleys and mountains so breathtaking and eerie in their beauty they inspired director Peter Jackson’s vision of mythic Middle Earth when he adapted J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings into three epic motion pictures.
In the cab on the way from the airport the driver immediately announced he had worked four days as an extra on the second film of the trilogy – “The Two Towers.” He was proud to say he played a refugee from Rohan escaping the evil Orcs.
At least I think that’s what he said. The New Zealand accent plays tricks with vowels. On Saturday, it took me a while to figure out what a tour bus driver meant when she said the only mammal indigenous to the country was the “bit.” I finally realized she was talking about bats.
Then she kept insisting we’d soon be riding on a cruise missile. Visions of hurling to earth astride a bomb a la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove danced through my head until I understood she was saying “cruise vessel” – the three-masted ship we were taking on a voyage around Milford Sound.
Actually, she and the taxi driver were just about the only people I met here who opened the conversation without talking about Barack Obama’s victory, as well as our congressional elections. This trip began in Auckland, New Zealand, on the North Island, where I was attending an international conference of writers, all of whom were eager to discuss recent events in the States. “This is your Mandela moment,” South African Kwazi Diamond declared to me the first day. “This was the world’s election.”
And so it was, but once again it’s more than a little embarrassing to realize yet again how little we Americans know about the electoral politics of other nations compared to what they know about ours. In fact, New Zealand had its own national election just four days after America’s – literally as we were flying here. Hands, please, if you knew that. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t until I arrived.
They had a turnout here of 78.69% of enrolled voters – and were disappointed. It’s the second lowest voting rate in more than 20 years. We, on the other hand, were reasonably delighted with a 62% turnout – only about four million more than 2004, despite predictions of a massive bump this year in the number of those casting ballots.
Like President-Elect Obama, New Zealand’s new leader, John Key, is 47 years old and having to hit the ground running, facing a major economic crisis, his country already in recession. But unlike Obama, Key is taking office almost immediately and heading straightaway for Peru, to attend a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC).
What’s also different – perhaps appropriate in a land that’s upside down from us and where water spirals down the drain in a different direction – is that the political shift here is the opposite of that back home in the States. John Key is a conservative replacing a liberal – the Labour Party’s left-leaning Prime Minister Helen Clark, who served in office for nine years.
Key has formed a coalition government that he characterizes as “center-right,” including representation from the free market party known as ACT and the Maori Party that represents the country’s indigenous people – about 15% of the nation’s 4.3 million population. Traditionally, the Maori – among New Zealand’s poorest and most disadvantaged – have aligned with Labour.
Coincidentally, despite the Obama win, the idea that the United States also is a “center-right” country and should so be ruled is being pushed in America by such conservative commentators as Pat Buchanan, Charles Krauthammer, and Joe Scarborough.
They’ve been seconded by former Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd who advised Obama to "govern from the center, where the vast majority of the country is," while Hillary Clinton's adviser Mark Penn wrote in the FINANCIAL TIMES: "Stick to Centrism." NEWSWEEK agreed, declaring in a headline a couple of weeks ago: "America remains a center-right nation -- a fact that a President Obama would forget at his peril."
But on the other side, the argument is made that Barack Obama's election marks a revival of the progressive tradition stretching back to the New Deal and beyond – to Lincoln's vision of a strong national government and a wider, more generous embrace of just who constitutes, "We, the people."
The one thing that’s clear in both America and New Zealand is that Obama and his team were right – these were elections about change, about throwing the long-seated rascals out, period – whether they were conservative or liberal in their outlook.
Quite simply, the time had come. In the elections’ wake, Tapu Misa, a newspaper columnist in the NEW ZEALAND HERALD, wisely chose to quote Alfred, Lord Tennyson: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfills himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.” Whether change will lead to improvement and advancement, or simply signal motion without action, is now the formidable challenge faced by both our nations.
Please note that the views and opinions expressed by Michael Winship are not necessarily the views and opinions held by Bill Moyers or BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.
(Photos by Robin Holland)
This week on the JOURNAL, guest host Deborah Amos spoke with journalist Elizabeth Rubin and author Fred Kaplan about policies the United States might pursue in Afghanistan and throughout the region, and how we can evaluate how much progress occurs.
Amos asked:
“When the Bush administration took on Afghanistan and then Iraq, there was this notion that we were involved in a democracy-building operation. And then there was talk even in the campaign about victory, that there would be a way that we would know that it was time to leave, that it was over. Those ideas have really lost currency. Is there a measure of success in these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?”
Rubin said:
“I think the measure of success is when they’re not in the news anymore, when they start to just become countries that are existing on their own... When there’s a certain kind of stability and a country is being built, it’s going to be a lot less newsworthy than when you have Afghans getting killed every day, Americans getting killed everyday... But you’re not going to have one day that’s going to signify the end.”
What do you think?
Should the United States remain in Iraq and Afghanistan until they become democracies? If not, at what point of “success” should U.S. forces withdraw?
Should democratizing foreign countries be an objective of U.S. foreign policy? If so, how much of a priority should it be?
Are all nations capable of democratic governance? Why or why not?
 This week, BILL MOYERS JOURNAL collaborated with EXPOSÉ: AMERICA'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS to tell the story of a journalist from THE DENVER POST as he reports on the broken justice system on Indian reservations across the country.
The MOYERS BLOG is no longer accepting questions regarding this story. We thank Michael Riley of the DENVER POST for taking time to answer your questions at this link.
(Photo by Robin Holland)
This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with economic and political critic Kevin Phillips about the results of the 2008 elections and what they tell us about the future of American politics.
Phillips, whose 1969 book THE EMERGING REPUBLICAN MAJORITY [PDF link] correctly predicted an era of dominance for the GOP, said:
"I think the Democrats are going to have enormous problems over the next four years [with] a coalition in which they represent new emerging demographic groups [like minorities and the under-30 vote] but also, based on contributions and political geography, represent the financial community now -- the upper-income groups. And how they straddle this, which is something they've never had to straddle before, especially in difficult times, I think will strain the demographics."
Pointing to the success of California's Proposition 8, which found strong support from minority groups in its bid to ban gay marriage, Phillips suggested that the victorious Democratic coalition might fracture in years to come:
"I think that only supports the division between the ordinary people and the financial elites, the fact that blacks and hispanics on some cultural issues are a lot more conservative than the suburbanites in Fairfield Country, Connecticut or Morris County, New Jersey... I can conceive that they would be more open to some of the black conservatives and Republicans who say 'you can't trust those people.'"
What do you think?
Will the Democrats' electoral coalition prove durable over the next several election cycles?
Over the next few decades, do you expect Democratic and Republican party platforms to change significantly from those of today?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with scholars Eric Foner and Patricia Williams about Tuesday's historic election and what it means for America's future.
Foner suggested that Barack Obama could pursue a progressive presidency:
"There really is a chance for a new paradigm now, and I think if he moves forward and puts forward a new governing principle for the country, it will be progressive. It's not that we just have to go back and reenact the New Deal or reenact TR's policies, but something which breaks really dramatically from the Reagan ideology... I don't want to say he has the specific policy. But I think it's more of an ethos of public life, a more communal one that looks after the common good and not just individual self-interest as we've been ruled by for the last 20, 30 years, that doesn't seek competitiveness as the sole measure of a society."
In an editorial, the WASHINGTON EXAMINER argued that Obama and the Democrats carry "a mandate for conciliation, not for ideology":
"The reason it's not an ideological mandate of the sort given to the conservative Ronald Reagan in 1980 is because, unlike Reagan (who also won a much bigger victory), the liberal Barack Obama did as much to shade his ideology as to proclaim it... He consistently emphasized proposals more often associated with conservatives than liberals: tax cuts, greater numbers of military personnel, and a "net spending cut" for the federal government (even if his spending numbers never came close to adding up)... this victory certainly was not 'a progressive mandate.'"
What do you think?
Did America give Obama a progressive mandate?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Below is an article by JOURNAL senior writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.
Obama Shows Us Where We’re Headed, Where We’ve Been
By Michael Winship
Whether you’re Democrat, Republican or Mugwump, you look at Tuesday night’s remarkable election results and the nationwide reaction and can’t help but wonder at how far our young country has come – and, at the same time, how long it’s taken.
You probably saw those photos of the big Obama rally in St. Louis, Missouri, a couple of weeks ago – 100,000 people attended. If you looked closer, in the background, you could see an old building with a copper dome turned green with age.
That used to be the courthouse. Slaves were auctioned from its steps, and in 1846, 162 years ago, Dred Scott and his wife, two slaves, went there to appeal to the court for their freedom, arguing that they had lived in states and territories in which slavery had been outlawed and so should be let go.
They were, briefly, but soon were returned to slavery. When their appeal reached the United States Supreme Court in 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney refused to free them. He ruled that slaves did not have the rights of citizens because Dred Scott and his wife were, quote, “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
Seventeen years later, January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and in November of that year, 145 years ago this month, he traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the battlefield was still freshly soaked in the blood of North and South, to assure all Americans that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
And yet more than a century would pass before we would come anywhere near making his words true. Much more blood would be shed and lives lost toward achieving Lincoln’s aspiration, the one for which he was martyred, too. Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma. In 1964 came the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act the following year.
And still there was violence and still there were words of hate. There’s a certain irony that this year it was in the electorally important state of Pennsylvania and from Lincoln’s own party that so much bitter, often racially-oriented attack came during this campaign. In their hunger to turn their state to the McCain column (unsuccessfully), the Pennsylvania Republican Party in particular pulled out the stops with virulent robocalls, flyers and last-minute TV ads that once again tried to stir ugly emotion and jingoistic reflex by re-conjuring the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
As gracious in defeat as John McCain was Tuesday night it cannot be denied that his candidacy and the desperation with which the status quo tried to cling to power created an atmosphere of ugly accusation and insinuation unlike any we’ve seen in our lifetimes, and not just in the race for the presidency. Take, for example, the unsuccessful campaign in North Carolina of Senate incumbent Elizabeth Dole who, in the ultimate Hail Mary play accused her Democratic opponent Kay Hagan of Godlessness.
Yes, some Democrats did it, too, and in the past, candidates have accused each other of far worse; of traitorous, seditious acts and heinous, imaginative transgressions of the flesh. But this year’s venom was conceived in kneejerk ideology and instantly brought to your home or office by the Internet: cyberspace, 24-hour news and talk radio deliver poison into the body politic’s bloodstream with unparalleled speed and unfiltered ferocity.
This week, the majority of this nation rejected such hate. President-elect Obama ran a campaign in which the color of his skin was not so much an issue but an integral aspect of what has made him the complex and original man he is.
When Harry Truman became President after the unexpected death of FDR, he said he felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on him. Barack Obama must feel a little of that, too, but unlike Truman he has chosen this particular trajectory of his own free will and been given a mandate for change. He will reside in a White House and rule this country with men and women who work in a white marble Capitol, both of which were built by slaves long ago but not so far away.
And so we will hold this moment dear, turn it in the light to savor the beauty of each facet, even though we know there are hard times ahead, difficult decisions and, as Obama said, false steps. Chances are, he and we will be disappointed; sometimes by him, sometimes by each other. From time to time, hearts will break. So it goes.
Yet, as the song goes, the world will be better for this. After 9/11, the French newspaper LE MONDE’s headline read, “We Are All Americans.”
In the years that have followed we denied that proffered hand; we drove wedges, built walls, waged war that isolated us not only from other countries but squandered the solidarity and strength that existed within ourselves.
On Tuesday, as a nation we stood in line, waited our turn to cast our ballots, did what we do best. And when the results were announced we watched a man and his family stand on an outdoor stage in Chicago. He asked for our support, regardless of party or race, and finally, for a moment at least, together we were all Americans once again. It’s a good start.
Please note that the views and opinions expressed by Michael Winship are not necessarily the views and opinions held by Bill Moyers or BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.
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