Do you
ever get tired of fear? –the fear that permeates our society in just about
every aspect of public life? Do you ever grow weary over the seemingly
ubiquitous fear instilled into every concern from personal safety to global
co-existence? Are you aware of all of the fear spread amongst us as a cancer
that often results in sheer hatred? But what am I talking about?
I
intended to outline the many and various forms fear takes in our society, but…
where to begin? To address the entire condition of fear is simply too vast of
an undertaking for this entry. So, I will minimize the focus…
Over
the decades, as I have matured, many human reactions that used to dismay me eventually
revealed themselves to be the result of fear. It took a lot of life experience
along with understanding some human psychology to come to grips with this ever
pervasive fear. As one who is rarely fraught with fear, the more some of these
human reactions are witnessed, the more annoying those reactions are. How about
an easy example? Recently, in politics, a group of… “citizens” have banded
together to oppose EVERYTHING in the agenda of our first (partly)
African-American president, and to do so quite loudly at times. Some have
attacked town halls with loud shouting, otherwise known as… hate. And this hate
is merely fear in different clothing. If one does not fear another, that person
will not be hated. If one can comprehend that, one is on the path of recovery
from fear. On many levels, such hate and fear lie at a very primal level of our
species’ development. It is unfortunate that such “evolved” creatures cannot
get past such a… “barbaric” level of development.
What is
even more unfortunate is how such fear and hate is stirred up constantly by our
free market economy. Most advertising on television thrives on this. There are
ads for a myriad of medicines that pronounce to be the cure for all forms of
ailments. These ads feast on fear. “You should check with your doctor to see if
you have this or that problem.” Fear. The most bizarre aspect of these ads are
the long disclaimers at the end of the commercials stating that those very
medicines may cause anything from vomiting to stroke to death. Should not those
side effects be… feared?
And
then there are car commercials and shoe commercials and clothing commercials
that spread the fear that you won’t “appear” correct to society. And there are
foods advertised that have been processed to be “healthy” for you to eat, when
they are just the opposite. If one is not aware of the dangers of consuming
such “food”, it is the fear of being unhealthy that convinces the person to
consume such poisons. And there are ads for retirement age Baby Boomers that
try to sway investments into insurance, mortgage schemes and other ill-advised
money affairs through the fear that they either need more money, need
protection from money loss, etc.
Big
corporations have almost unlimited funds to instill fear through
advertisements, which… leads me to the latest example of fear that has
enervated me greatly. And this example is absolutely about fear. Without fear
actually created by advertisements paid for by big corporations there would be
no issue. Instead, well… let’s move on to the example.
On
November 5, 2013, Washington state citizens voted on, among other things,
“Initiative to the Legislature 522”. This was a special measure to label genetically
modified organisms(gmos) in some food products. California had a similar
referendum called Proposition 37 during the 2012 election. In both states,
pre-election polling showed that a vast majority, well over 60% of the populace
favored GMO labeling.
I am
going to pause here. Who really would NOT want to know what is in their food?
What is WRONG with knowing what is in our food? If GMOs are as harmless as the
corporations claim, why not label them? Apparently, it is EXTREMELY important
to those chemical companies that the people NOT be allowed to know what is in
food. Thus all of the advertising propaganda they throw out to the populace to
digest.
In both
states, extensive ad campaigns were put into place by Big Agriculture companies
in order to dissuade the people from voting for their right to know what GMOs
are in food. These ads preyed upon many fears of the public, and the ad assault
was intense and relentless in the few months heading up to the election. The
main points presented by the ads were the law was poorly written and that it
would be very costly to consumers as well as farmers. I will come back to the
“poorly written” part later.
But first, let’s bring in the real
fear factor… costs would go up. There were ads with farmers stating that if the
law was enacted, unnecessary labeling and monitoring programs would be put in
place that would cost the state millions and individual farmers would face
increased costs. Other ads stated how the cost of food would raise almost $500
a year for the average family. Fear. If there has ever been a means of getting
the majority to oppose something, convince them that the government would empty
out their pocket books.
But is this fear warranted? The
likelihood of that is negligible. To start with the large majority that
supported the law before the negative ad campaign, the support was largely over
concern about the harm GMO products may have on human health and the
environment. Hence, let us know what is in our food, so that we can decide what
to put in our bodies. The negative ads changed this concern into one on whether
such a change would be affordable. For farmers, and especially those farmers
who would be mostly affected, the farmers that already receive subsidies to
grow, for the most part, the GMO corn and soybean crops in question, little
will change. The onus will not be on the farmer, but on the GMO corporations.
It would be a different situation if the government was not already deeply
involved in providing additional income to these farmers. As for the grocery
store shelves, little would change. Supply and demand keeps prices relatively
equivalent, and labeling GMOs would have almost no effect. And as for the
labeling, this would be required of the large corporations… who already label
such things in Europe. Fear. Truth? Not so much.
Then, again in both states,
editorials were written in the major newspapers advising against voting for the
measure. “Poorly written” are key words to look for in such disingenuous
editorials. In Washington State, every major newspaper presented a similar
editorial. For me, it is the similarity between the editorials in Washington as
well as California that is most striking. They all copy from the same script.
And who wrote that main script? Who owns those newspapers?
The main concern in the editorials
is that the law is poorly written. Here is where it actually gets quite
complicated, that is, how our democracy, supposedly “of the people” actually
works. But allow me to explain. The issue raised is that there are a number of
exemptions from the law that weakens the law, thus making it trivial. Meats,
dairy and alcohol are all exempt from the law. This is one of the main lines of
attack corporations like to use on such laws. If a law is not perfect, do not enact
it. By that logic, there would possibly be no laws at all. Democracy works as a
back and forth, and coming up with a “perfect” law is just about impossible.
But some law is NEEDED. The point is…
you have to start somewhere.
So, the supposedly wise editorials
in the newspapers belittled the “frivolous” laws and in addition to the Big
Agriculture ad campaigns, the citizens of Washington spoke… and 52% voted
against the law, that is, voted not to know. In California, it was 51% who
voted not to know. Fear won out.
While such a defeat is extremely
disheartening to me, it does not change what the future will bring, which is,
to start, GMO labeling. Big Agriculture will continue to fight and kick and
scream all the way through the future process, that is their nature… and they
will not win. Nonetheless, and unfortunately, so long as the process that leads
toward, to start, GMO labeling can be swayed by fear, what the citizens of the
United States of America truly want will continue to be delayed… again…
Do you ever get tired of fear? I
do.