Hightower Lowdown

You can look at the label on your T-shirt or television set or tennis shoe and see where it was made, but where’s your hamburger from, or that fish filet on the blue-plate special?
Most Americans say they’d like to know whether the food they eat comes from a country that at least pretends to have food-safety protections. In our wondrous global economy, giant agribiz corporations are abandoning U.S. farmers to produce and process everything from meats to veggies in countries where farmers and fisherman can be treated like serfs, where the water and land can be contaminated at will, and where food-borne diseases are rampant.
This is why Congress finally passed a law to require that food products be labeled by their country of origin. If the beef is from Bulgaria, hey, tell us, so we consumers can decide if it’s what we want to buy.
This is basic Adam Smith capitalism, but guess who doesn’t believe in it? The corporate capitalists!
They went wailing to the Bush administration, claiming that the labeling law would stifle global trade and cause the sky to fall. Ever sensitive to corporate cries of pain, the Bushites put out an Ag Department report claiming that the law should be killed because it would cost $2 billion to implement.
Hogwash! This is an industry that routinely changes its labels and already tracks every iota of its business operations.
To stop the lobbyists from killing the labeling law, contact the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods at 425-771-4049.