For decades our government has been dominated by a conservative ideology that claims to despise big government, abhor regulation and adhere to an unswerving faith in the infinite wisdom of the market. Rick Perlstein dubs this philosophy “E. Coli Conservatism,” and in practice it is not only flawed but corrupt: a calculated conservative project intended to gut our regulatory systems in the interest of sheer corporate greed. We eat adulterated food not because we cannot adequately regulate the industry but because to do so would eat into the profits of the corporations our regulators serve.
In the six years since 9/11, food-borne pathogens and toxins have quietly killed ten times the number of Americans who died in the terrorist attacks. How many more Americans must conservatism kill before our leaders embrace a more responsible ideology?
That is the provocative conclusion to “Poison for Profit”, my new piece on food safety (or the lack thereof) in the July 30 edition of The Nation. The issue won’t hit newsstands until the end of the month, but you can read my contribution online now.
In case you’re wondering, America’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine pays even worse than The Stranger, but I’m told it’s a tad more prestigious. Yes, that’s right, a magazine that has published the likes of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gore Vidal, Hunter S. Thompson, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, John Steinbeck, and Jean-Paul Sartre, has now also published potty-mouthed Goldy. I know there are those who sneer that my love of foul language is symptomatic of some character, literary or mental defect that will forever relegate me to the role of mere blogger, but believe it or not, I managed to get through an entire essay without writing the words “fuck,” “shit,” “asshole” or “cocksucker” even once. Imagine that.
So a heads up to all you local publishers: I’d just love to supplement my meager income with a regular column. Come and get me while you can still afford me.
” I managed to get through an entire essay without writing the words “fuck,” “shit,” “asshole” or “cocksucker” even once. Imagine that.”
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Quite an accomplishment, Goldy!
CONGRATULATIONS GOLDY!
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I assume oyu are planning to sign my fucking copy and anybody else’s fucking copies of the Nation at DL!
I would like to buy you a beer!
Wow. Looks like you hit the big time. Congrat-you-lations.
There’s one serious drawback to being published in The Nation, though. When you turn the page, you don’t get to see column inch on column inch of ad hominem attacks, stale talking points, lunatic ravings and other trollskrit that the likes of Mark the Welsher, Pud the Dud, Doofus and the other traitor trolls around here regale us with on a daily basis.
David, you’re naive if you believe a more empowered FDA, SEC, etc., can protect us. You haven’t integrated the lessons of “Free To Choose.”
1 It actually is something of an accomplishment to write an entire article about assholes and cocksuckers without using their most accurate descriptors.
GOLDY’S NEXT PIECE:
ON THE VARIOUS PSYCHOPATHOLGY OF WINGNUTTIA WASHINGTONIA.
RICH SOURCE MATERIAL INDEED IN THE COMMENT THREADS OF HA.ORG.
re 5: Everything that Freidman posits presupposes that economic man is a rational creature — which he is not.
Everyone knows that!
You cannot build an intellectual edifice of theoretical economics on a concept so demonstrably false. There’s an article on this very subject in a recent copy of, THE NATION.
You need to get out more, Luigi. You seem like you are dead to the world.
@5
David, you’re naive if you believe a more empowered FDA, SEC, etc., can protect us. You haven’t integrated the lessons of “Free To Choose.”
The FDA is already very empowered. It’s a matter of who they answer to that’s the problem. The FDA should be serving us, not a narrow corporate special interest.
Goldy, outstanding. As a longtime subscriber to The Nation, I find its articles and essays more illuminating and fact-based than anything I read in more mainstream periodicals like Time or Newsweek. The Nation gives a topic the space needed for an individual to actually gain a fair perspective on the topic. Contrasting viewpoints are frequently offered. It is truly an honor to be published in such a venerable rag.
CONGRATULATIONS GOLDY!
As to your last paragraph:
Oy, wotta sales pitch!
Congrats, Goldy. Rick Perlstein quoted from your column at his blog. Check it out.
This exchange between me and Proud Leftist is so good, I am going to post it in every thread on HA from now on. It destroys the Publicans’ stupid talking points – period.
“I’m working really hard to understand how President Bill Clinton’s actions act as justifcation for the righties. Read this fuckwads.
If your lame ass argument is that Bill Clinton was a bad President – which is what you say – and if your argument now is that the AWOL coward GW Bush is in someway comparable to Bill Clinton, what you are actually saying is that GW Bush is NO BETTER THAN CLINTON.
Does it hurt to be that stupid? I really want to know.
proud leftist says:
RES @ 18
You’ve hit it on the nose. The rightwing fringefucks consider Clinton to be the personification of evil–indeed, he is the devil incarnate in their twisted little minds. Nonetheless, their justification for all of the Bushites’ sins is, always, “well, Clinton did it, too.” Methinks they never studied logic.”
And what’s better, is that the rightie traitor keeps pointing out that this is true. Thanks MTR. Please keep proving my point for me.
Congratulations Goldy! You can bet that Seattle’s own Dan Savage, America’s favorite cocksucker, couldn’t write an entire article on a serious subject without using the words shit, fuck, suck or rim. But then he is a war supporting conservative. And we know how they are!
Great article, Goldy. I first started reading your blog during the pet food recall, when you seemed to be the first to report on all the new developments. Several of the “big blogs” (e.g., DailyKos, etc.) directed readers to you for info and analysis. Thanks for your efforts.
Good on you.
Great news.
MORE THAN ONE MILLION children are killed in abortion EACH YEAR in this country.Where is the post and angst on that?