It's been a Whac-A-Mole of a week. Like many folks working in advocacy and digital media, the latest hot mess in the form of the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill has all hands on deck here at Daily Kos, and there are about fifty-'leven other issues that need immediate attention. I guess this is what we meant back in November when we said we'd have to keep up the pressure and keep fighting on every front.
On Tuesday, I had an opportunity to collaborate with one of our partner organizations, Food & Water Watch at their Los Angeles event aptly named #DontPolluteOurFruit. We're working with them to host a petition with a coalition of partners to tell The Wonderful Company and California legislators to stop allowing dirty oil wastewater to be used on the crops that we eat. Apparently this practice has been going on for a while by several major corporations looking to turn a profit at any cost.
So now we have to tell big corporations in charge of our food production to please don’t poison us with waste product? Huh?
The event was well attended by dedicated and vocal activists, and other awesome partner orgs: Center for Food Safety, Center for Biological Diversity and Climate Hawks Vote who gave super rousing speeches about the need to put pressure on these rich corporations by boycotting their products until their harmful policies change. We even got the attention of some of The Wonderful Company employees themselves with a theatrical demonstration of activists dressed as a tangerine and a pistachio getting sprayed with oil wastewater - hilarious and super effective, I highly recommend this tactic for your next rally.
Until we learn that they stop using oil in our food, I'd suggest looking for fruits, nuts and juices by folks other than The Wonderful Company.
To see more about the event, visit the Daily Kos Facebook page and watch the FB Live post.