We Are All Complicit

It ain't much, but here's the latest I've written...

In these modern times, in a world as small as it has become, we are all complicit in so many of the evils we can no longer claim to be unaware of.  Do you use a cell phone?  Oops!  Those rare minerals in your phone were most likely bought and sold with blood, and possibly with the blood of African children.  Do you drive a car?  Oops!  Not only do you add to carbon emissions, but you have done your part to ensure the bloody conflicts over oil continue.  Wear clothes?  Oops!  Child labor?  Own anything plastic?  Oops, sorry ocean!  Another contribution to the ever-growing “eighth continent”.  Unless one goes the way of the hermit, you will find yourself implicated in umpteen crimes against the Earth and the poor around the Earth just by living a ‘normal’ life.  We are all complicit.

                Food is no exception.  The Agricultural-industrial-congressional-complex is a behemoth to match any other; encompassing social, economic, political, environmental, local, racial, global, (you name it) issues.  People don’t realize the extent of the reach industrial agricultural has in our lives, not because we have forgotten how basic of a need food is, but rather we haven’t truly grasped how numerous our species has become.  Couple our vast population with the modern idea that just about nobody should be concerned with providing themselves with their own food, and you have a perfect recipe for the factory farming and monoculture agriculture that has prevailed in the last century.  Of course most of us know this comes at the expense of clean water, healthy animals and people, soil, and countless other environmental and social atrocities.

                Oops!  Complicit with every bite.

                In this age of information, I’m much too informed; especially for someone who has a social conscience.  Every day is a practice in hardening one’s heart.  Each one of these issues mentioned in passing could claim a lifetime of fighting for social justice.  So we pick our battles—don’t we all?  We all draw some sort of line somewhere and try to hold it.  Our line is food.  Particularly meat.  It is a good fit for us, as we love animals and we love a good meal.  But it is a great deal more than that.  We fight for local, because we know what it does to the planet globally.  We fight for environmental, because we believe in long-term efficiency.  We fight for humane, both for animal and for farmer.  We fight for healthy food because our society is sick in more ways than one.  And certainly not least, we fight for food that tastes good, ‘cause, dang it, otherwise the rest is a losing battle.