A bunch of us are working on a project (similar to Energize America, but for food). There's a lot to do so I can't imagine that we'll work until YK07 and then call it a day, but for now, let's shoot to have something ready to go for YearlyKos 2007. We have no confirmation we'll be anywhere on the agenda, but the first step is having a project completed by then. (No completed project 100% guarantees we won't be on the YK07 agenda!)
Why food?
1. We all eat it.
2. A lot of people don't have any.
3. We waste ridiculous amounts of energy with our current system.
4. The current system pollutes the earth with excess fertilizer, manure, pesticides, and more.
5. The country is suffering from an obesity epidemic, which is killing us (literally) and costing us billions too.
6. There's a really simple solution out there - and we know it - and yet we don't do it.
... and that's just the start. Once you get into food issues, you immediately touch on energy, the environment, the economy, trade, labor, healthcare, poverty, education, AND SO MUCH MORE.
Do me a favor and skim over this diary. See if it interests you.
A few questions to think about
- Why does my grocery store have apples from New Zealand and watermelons from Texas right now, when both are in season here?
- Why are bad-for-you foods cheaper than healthy ones? And the more bad-for-you food you buy at once, the cheaper it gets!
- Why is health food near impossible to find half the time?
- Why were 10% of the patients at the clinic where I used to work diabetic?
- Why did obesity surpass 25% in my state, Wisconsin, for the first time ever in 2004? And why does it cost us nearly $3bil (with a B) for adult obesity-attributable medical expenses in our state?
- Why does farmerchuck have to work an entire full-time job off the farm just to have the right to work full time ON the farm without going under?
We know most of these answers. Even if you don't know the specifics, the answers lie in our nation's power structure. Money buys access, and access buys you laws that get you more money.
The winners here are clear: Tyson, Cargill, Conagra, McDonalds, KFC, Altria (parent company of Kraft/Philip Morris), Pepsi, Coke, etc. And pharmaceutical companies. And oil companies. And banks. And Monsanto. And politicians who they buy.
The losers: Everybody.
We pay to subsidize cheap commodities. We pay again when we buy them back at the grocery store with "value added." We pay a third time at the doctor when they made us sick. And don't even know how much we keep paying when we live in an environment that was polluted by manure, pesticides, industrial waste, and fertilizers.
The Project
Fix the system!
Yes, the whole system. Yes, it's a big job. Furthermore, I've got a diary coming in a few days or a week or so but the Dems aren't exactly thinking right on these issues either so our problems don't come entirely in the shape of an elephant.
Our goals are to be able to tell the Democrats what we want. Let's let them know that we ALL want it. Not just farmers. Anyone who eats wants to know what is going on in DC and how that affects the food we eat.
We are NOT starting from scratch. We are standing on the shoulders of giants already. Farmers already know they are getting screwed, and they know who is doing the screwing. Nutritionists know what's up. Universities have departments devoted to this. Communities have activist groups building up local food systems. But they aren't always acting together.
Let's bring together all of the stakeholders. In many cases, they already agree. Let's bring together complementary fields of expertise - farmers, economists, educators, nutritionists, policy wonks, you name it. Together, we'll figure out what exactly we want from the Dems.
Part Two is that we need to communicate to the left why they need to care about food issues. Make it an election issue. Otherwise any position paper we come up with won't mean much, no matter how good it is. (YearlyKos might be an ideal time to do some "educating" and we might need to do it by providing some convention refreshments...)
Your Role
For now we've got an email group going. Shoot me an email at OrangeClouds115 at Yahoo dot com (with your handle, so I know who we've got on the list) and I'll get you signed up. Anyone can join the email group.
Feel free to get involved if you'd just like to listen in on what's going on, or if you'd like to participate but you don't know what you want to contribute yet. That is OK.
Once we get a fairly stable group together on the email list, step 2 is setting down the foundation of our project. We'll want to outline our goals, our deliverables, our timeline, our methodology, and our individual roles.
Step 3 depends on Step 2, so let's not go there yet.
Brainstorming
We need a name. Something catchy (like "Energize America"). Let's use the comments to discuss names (among other things) and we can vote on the best ones on a future diary.
Don't limit brainstorming to just naming - that's just an initial goal I'd like to accomplish so we can make a website and pick a URL, etc.
What are your ideas?