Food Sovereignty-- Getting Around Agribusiness Whore Collin Peterson

When discussing loathsome Democrats, it's often repeated that "at least he's not as bad as a Republican." That doesn't really work with Minnesota Blue Dog Collin Peterson. He's more corrupt than most Republicans in terms of taking legalistic bribes from the corporate entities he oversees and whose toxic agendas he puts into law. And last year he voted less frequently with the Democrats on crucial rollcalls than a handful of Republicans. His ProgressivePunch score was a breathtaking 23.31, which means he voted with Cantor and Boehner more than 76% of the time. What an asshole! Over the course of his entire miserable career he's been with the GOP about 60% and with the Democrats just about 40%.

Before half the Blue Dogs, though alas not Peterson, were defeated last year, flipping the House to the GOP, Peterson chaired the House Agriculture Committee-- so packed with corrupt right-wing Democrats that committee meetings were like Blue Dog caucus sessions. K Street lobbyists claim that there was no committee on Capitol Hill more blatantly up for sale than Peterson's Agriculture Committee. Peterson himself has taken more in bribes from agribusiness than any other Member of the House ($2,251,813, approximately the same as Senator McConnell).

His iron grip on the country's agricultural and food policies has been devastating-- a national disgrace, which has made him wealthy and made the country sick. Looking at the situation last May, I wrote: "Congress, particularly the graft-oriented House Agriculture Committee, has steered U.S. food policies in the interests of fat-cat donors from agribusiness and in ways diametrically against the well-being of consumers. For decades both parties have been working furiously against their own constituents. This might be expected of Republicans-- it's part of their religion-- but conservative Blue Dogs have been ceded food policies within the Democratic Party and they're not better than Republicans." It hasn't gotten any better. And that, at least in part, is a political problem.

Peterson has no primary opponent, and the Republican who filed to run against him this year, Lee Byberg, only managed to garner 38% in 2010, the best GOP year in decades. McCain won the district 50-47% in 2008, at the same time that Peterson took 72%.

Recently Blue America was approached by a well-financed food policy group that has its heart set on ending Peterson's career. I wish we could help-- I really, really do. America would be a far better, and far healthier, place if his career ended. But these civic-minded souls had no idea how to defeat him. They asked if we could put a campaign together like the one we did to defeat Alabama Blue Dog Bobby Bright last year. The two races are as unrelated as are the two districts. Peterson is actually popular with his clueless constituents; Bright wasn't. And Bright made the fatal flaw of pretty formally breaking with the Democratic Party by announcing he wouldn't vote for Pelosi as Speaker. While the GOP idiotically ran ads claiming he was a Pelosi pawn, we blanketed Democratic precincts with the truth-- which is what did him in. He lost to a moron teabagger, Martha Roby, 111,645 (51%) to 106,865 (49%), with Democratic turnout significantly lower in every county we ran ads in. I wish we could do the same thing against Peterson, but wishing won't make it come true.

As for an end run around his toxic food agenda... well, better news on that front. It's coming from small-town Maine. Ever hear of the "food sovereignty movement"? Sounds like part of a Ron Paul campaign, but it's even better.

On Friday evening, they became perhaps the first locale in the country to pass a “Food Sovereignty” law. It’s the proposed ordinance I first described last fall, when I introduced the “Five Musketeers”, a group of farmers and consumers intent on pushing back against overly aggressive agriculture regulators. The regulators were interfering with farmers who, for example, took chickens to a neighbor for slaughtering, or who sold raw milk directly to consumers.

The proposed ordinance was one of 78 being considered at the Sedgwick town meeting, that New England institution that has stood the test of time, allowing all of a town’s citizens to vote yea or nay on proposals to spend their tax money and, in this case, enact potentially far-reaching laws with national implications. They’ve been holding these meetings in the Sedgwick town hall since 1794. At Friday’s meeting, about 120 citizens raised their hands in unanimous approval of the ordinance.

Citing America’s Declaration of Independence and the Maine Constitution, the ordinance proposed that “Sedgwick citizens possess the right to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing.” These would include raw milk and other dairy products and locally slaughtered meats, among other items.

This isn’t just a declaration of preference. The proposed warrant added, “It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance.” In other words, no state licensing requirements prohibiting certain farms from selling dairy products or producing their own chickens for sale to other citizens in the town.

What about potential legal liability and state or federal inspections? It’s all up to the seller and buyer to negotiate. “Patrons purchasing food for home consumption may enter into private agreements with those producers or processors of local foods to waive any liability for the consumption of that food. Producers or processors of local foods shall be exempt from licensure and inspection requirements for that food as long as those agreements are in effect.” Imagine that -- buyer and seller can agree to cut out the lawyers. That’s almost un-American, isn’t it?

This from a press release put out after the vote by supporters:

“Local farmer Bob St. Peter noted the importance of this ordinance for beginning farmers and cottage producers. ‘This ordinance creates favorable conditions for beginning farmers and cottage-scale food processors to try out new products, and to make the most of each season’s bounty,’ said St. Peter. ‘My family is already working on some ideas we can do from home to help pay the bills and get our farm going.’

“Mia Strong, Sedgwick resident and local farm patron, was overwhelmed by the support of her town. ‘Tears of joy welled in my eyes as my town voted to adopt this ordinance,’ said Strong. ‘I am so proud of my community. They made a stand for local food and our fundamental rights as citizens to choose that food.’”

The ordinance comes up for a vote in three other Maine towns upcoming–Penobscott, Brooksville, and Blue Hill.

Occupy Blue Hill! And some good news from Ezra Klein yesterday: Americans are eating less and less meat-- 12.2% less meat in 2012 than they did 2007. “Beef consumption has been in decline for about 20 years; the drop in chicken is even more dramatic, over the last five years or so; pork also has been steadily slipping for about five years.”

Why is this happening? The Daily Livestock Report blames rising meat prices in the United States. As countries like China and India get richer, they’re eating more meat, which is helping to drive up U.S. exports and making beef, pork, and chicken more expensive here at home. Ethanol also plays a role: Nowadays, American farmers divert bushels and bushels of corn to make fuel, which drives up feed prices and, again, makes meat pricier.

Perhaps just as significantly, though, it does seem that attitudes toward meat are changing. More and more people appear to be cutting back on beef and pork consumption for environmental or ethical reasons. (Although before vegetarians get too excited, one factor that often gets overlooked here is the aging of the population-- as the baby boomers get older, they’ve been eating less meat.)

And Hostess Brands, one of the most toxic purveyors of faux-food in America-- Twinkies, Ho Hos, Sno Balls, and Wonder Bread-- just filed for bankruptcy protection again. The shady Texas company seems to have been stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from it's employees pension plans but that isn't the only reason they're in trouble.

[P]art of the problem is that sales of Twinkies are down.

"Nearly 36 million packages of Twinkies were sold in the year ended Dec. 25, down almost 2 percent from a year earlier, according to data from SymphonyIRI Group, a Chicago-based market-research firm," reports the Wall Street Journal.

The company, which has roots reaching back to 1930, has also suffered as consumers move away from white bread and toward more whole-grain breads.

And sales of Twinkies have suffered despite its prime product placement in the 2009 film Zombieland.