The greatest betrayal
I sometimes see myself in Robert Kennedy: an idealist trying to make the world healthier, sometimes getting his facts wrong. I'll admit to some of those failures and be glad I was not put in charge of the nation's health.One can predict a few aspects of this situation. The leader is ultimately beholden to those who have spent millions to put him there; bottom line, he doesn't care about the nation's health. He'd sell out his grandmother if it got him out of a few felonies. So in the end he's going to go with the Roundup people who spent millions if not billions to keep a status quo.
These days there is Roundup, or something like it, being spread on cornfields and soybean fields throughout Illinois and the midwest. The lawsuits are piling up as people notice that it causes cancer and makes our wells unusable. It makes a dead zone out of the entire Mississippi and for miles after it unloads into the Gulf of Upyours. It kills our children. It is the single number one factor making the midwest a difficult place to raise children.
Kennedy should know better. As a lawyer he actually represented people with cancer against the Roundup firms and won. Now here's where I'm not totally ready to document my facts. But I do believe he knew better. I also believe he had no choice. He sold out the American people because of who he worked for.
Here's what I want to say. From the point of view of the individual farmer, it's hard to fight against Roundup. If all your neighbors are using it the soil is full of it whether you use it or not. Your wells are still poisoned. Your kids are still suffering with the consequences. People still have to live with cancer for generations to come. This is a situation where we need government to just outlaw it or at least severely curtail it, and do it for everyone's benefit. People aren't going to themselves curtail their own needs when their output directly influences whether they can make it as a farm. If it comes down from the top that this stuff is not only good but necessary they will go with that judgment just like we go with the judgments of the Supreme Court. If I had myself a little organic farm out in West Nowhere I could refuse to use it and be holier-than-everyone but what's the point? It's the nation's children that are at risk here. It's all the wells in the midwest.
Kennedy, if you had any cajones you would stand up for the American people.
posted by tom @ 12:18 PM
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