<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by mtvyfan http://www.grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/ Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:27:08 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/1 Hope he is being scolded by the Creator!

I read "Diet for a Dead Planet" and Christopher Cook and he describes the problems that the subsidy programs had by I didn't know that Rusty ASS started it. I hope he is shown how detrimental his system has become and is ashamed of himself.

]]> Hope he is being scolded by the Creator!

I read "Diet for a Dead Planet" and Christopher Cook and he describes the problems that the subsidy programs had by I didn't know that Rusty ASS started it. I hope he is shown how detrimental his system has become and is ashamed of himself.

]]> Comment #2 by Expat Chef http://www.grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/ Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:35:02 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/2 Between Butz and Bush

what a rotten legacy we have to recover from. Monsanto is now going after rBGH-free labeling in Kansas, BTW. The bill was introduced to the state senate just one week from end of session, conveniently.

]]> Between Butz and Bush

what a rotten legacy we have to recover from. Monsanto is now going after rBGH-free labeling in Kansas, BTW. The bill was introduced to the state senate just one week from end of session, conveniently.

]]> Comment #3 by johnpdeever http://www.grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/ Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:02:47 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/3 Wendell Berry on Butz

 In 1977, Wendell Berry foresaw all of this and scolded Earl Butz in the wonderful early essay, "The Unsettling of America."  Butz had proudly declared that "food is a weapon."  Berry replies:

"To think of food-as-weapon ... may give illusory security and wealth to a few, but it strikes directly at the life of all. ... [The] Department of Agriculture [is] being used as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation.  This militarizing of food is the greatest threat so far raised against the farmland and the farm communities of this country.  If present attitudes [remember: this was 1977] continue, we may expect government policies that will encourage the destruction, by overuse, of farmland.  . . . . The tendency, if not the intention, of Mr. Butz's confusion of farming and war, is to complete the deliverance of American agriculture into the hands of corporations. [This] will lead to the exhaustion of farmland and farm culture."

Sadly, Wendell Berry, of course, was right. It isn't just food that has been adversely affected but rural America. And thus, the landbase of all of us.

http://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agricult ...

]]> Wendell Berry on Butz

 In 1977, Wendell Berry foresaw all of this and scolded Earl Butz in the wonderful early essay, "The Unsettling of America."  Butz had proudly declared that "food is a weapon."  Berry replies:

"To think of food-as-weapon ... may give illusory security and wealth to a few, but it strikes directly at the life of all. ... [The] Department of Agriculture [is] being used as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation.  This militarizing of food is the greatest threat so far raised against the farmland and the farm communities of this country.  If present attitudes [remember: this was 1977] continue, we may expect government policies that will encourage the destruction, by overuse, of farmland.  . . . . The tendency, if not the intention, of Mr. Butz's confusion of farming and war, is to complete the deliverance of American agriculture into the hands of corporations. [This] will lead to the exhaustion of farmland and farm culture."

Sadly, Wendell Berry, of course, was right. It isn't just food that has been adversely affected but rural America. And thus, the landbase of all of us.

http://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agricult ...

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