Swamp Thing: It's not fiction anymore

[linazelle]

I watched a piece on Free Speech TV featuring Bobby Kennedy and corporate agri-farming overnight.

It was...there are no words...it was...unreal.

Farmers are being run out of business by big corporations who buy up land and fill it with Walmart like "farms" where pigs and cows are housed butt to face.

Smaller farms had been unregulated environmentally. However, now that megafarms are operating with all kinds of negative environmental impacts that were unheard of through regular farming, local goverments--like the North Carolina legislature--allow the farms to operate without oversight in order to draw business.

The results are devastating.

One farm, for instance, may house 30,000 pigs who excrete waste equalling that of 1,000,000 humans. This waste runs into open pits on the farms--holes in the ground as big as lakes. When the pits are filled, they suck up the waste, mix it with water and spray it on the land. While regular farmers have used manure to fertilize the land historically, it was a manageable amount of waste that was returned to the land.

The small acreage that the megafarms operate on cannot absorb the waste of 30,000 or more animals. When the land is saturated, the rains wash the manure into the waterways.

The contamination has created hostile combination animal/plant life forms that eat and kill fish. :scared: :wow: :wtf: They pulled all of these fish out of the water that had "bites" taken out of them--some looked like they had festering sores on them. The shorelines were littered with dead fish. (This was in N. Carolina BTW but they are expanding anywhere that our legislators are willing to take their money. They've even moved into Canada.)

Not only are the farmers being put out of business, but anybody living within five or ten miles loses property value because the stench is so bad, that planes flying over can smell it. Neigbors a mile away cannot hang out clothes to dry, or even sit on their porches. Everything gets covered in the "spray."

To make matters worse, The animal/plant things also emit noxious gases as they eat and kill fish by the millions--the gases which paralyze fish, can also cause memory loss in humans if they happen to be boating on the waterways when the gases are emitted.

There is so much more that I cannot go on here about, but all I can say is God Help Us. The government is allowing corporations to kill us all. :cry:

[AllieB]

1. Wow. This is truly frightening.

I can't believe agri-business can get away with this, but then again, nothing really surprises me anymore.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. My hometown has learned all about this, the hard way

Several farms have opened up in the last 10 years. Last time I went home I was there for a week, and on one day we couldn't smell the farms! :(

The immigration thing is big there, so many 'strangers' have moved in that it's really fueling the hatred.

The few people I went to school with that stayed in town have a hard time finding work, unless they want to work in the breeder barns for min. wage. :(

D&D Farms has RUINED my hometown. :mad:

edit to add this article: they try to pretty it up, but ya know, lipstick on a pig and all that.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/election98/pig_11-2.html

Yuma County is right next to Phillips County, where I grew up.

[benburch]

3. Corporate Fat Cats

The other other other white meat.

[theHandpuppet]

4. The majority of us contribute to the problem

We eat way too much damned meat in this country -- myself included. The amount of land it takes to sustain vast herds of grazing animals (NOT a wise use of land, considering the return) is increasing exponentially, along with the demand for animal flesh. We create the market -- corporations will do anything to fill it.

[linazelle]

12. I guess you are right. However, most people don't even know

that the problem exists. This is the crime of the media. I am lucky to have seen it--and lucky to be able to share this here, where the uninformed might be able to share it with others. I had never heard of free speech TV--I actually hit a button the remote control by mistake and the channel came one. Thank God it did. I'll be watching FSTV from now on.

[hatrack]

Google "Pfiesteria Piscicidia" for a rollicking good time!

Here's plenty of references for your dining and dancing pleasure.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/Bibliographies/eb9704.html

[linazelle]

8. Yep, that's the ticket. Unfortunately. Thanks for the link. n/t

[Neil Lisst]

5. betcha didn't know the same guy who created Swamp Thing created

V for Vendetta!!

[hatrack]

6. Get out of town - same guy?

Now THAT'S good trivia!

[Neil Lisst]

14. he's credited on the Swamp Thing rejuvenation in the 80s, but not

with creating it. I was wrong about his creating it. He didn't create it, he refurbished and revived it, as the character we have known as Swamp Thing since the early 1980s.

[baby_mouse]

9. Not so.

Moore picked up the writing job on Swamp Thing and made it famous through being weird, in fact, swamp thing already existed.

[Neil Lisst]

13. you are correct, sir

he made it the Swamp Thing as we know it, but he did, indeed, pick up an existing property and rejuvenate it rather than create it

[lonestarnot]

7. Well hell, we have to increase those wetlands in some manner. N.O.

could only do so much.

[linazelle]

16. Even NOLAs swamps were not this bad. This is a crime. n/t

[The2ndWheel]

10. Imagine how the pigs, chickens, and cows feel

The government has been allowing corporations to kill them for...a long time. They don't live for the sake of living. They live to be food, our delicious processed food.

Did you see the thing on The Daily Show about how scientists are now injecting who knows what into pigs so that the pork and bacon we eat will now be healthier for us?

Imagine another species coming into town, rounding you up, stacking you in cages so you can't move, taking your babies away so that they can be chopped up with automated machines into smaller pieces for easier shipping, with seasoning baked in.

The sad thing is that I picture that, and still end up eating some of it.

[The Stranger]

11. Figure out how to use the recommend feature.

Kicked and recommended.

[shenmue]

15. "Eat and kill fish"?

"Hostile life forms"?!

:cry:

:scared:

[MadHound]

17. I'm glad that you're jumping in on this

It's been an issue out here in farm country for a quarter century. And it just isn't hog operations, they do this with cattle, chickens, and other edible livestock. Corporate farms are killing the small farmer, they've been slowly bled to death for the past quarter century.

One way that you can help is to buy your meat and produce from your local farmers' market. Support those of us who are still out there fighting the good fight with your dollars. In return you will get high quality, organic, untainted, properly raised products that are not only much better for you, but are much, much better tasting.

And of course, as always, let you politicians, reps and the public in general what exactly is going on.

Thank you.

[linazelle]

18. The show said it's not confined to pig farms--it's all types of farming

As for buying from local farmers, I wish I could distinguish who's who. You really don't know. Even farmer's markets are no longer authentic.

The one thing that I don't buy is pork from companies like Hormel. In Wisconsin, the predominant food chain only sells Hormel pork. Wisconsin is suppposed to be a farm state, but it's not. I actually drive out of state to buy meat often--it's cheaper as well.

[MadHound]

19. Suggestion

Start talking to the people at the farmers' market. They can tell you who's who in the zoo, and give you tips on who to avoid. They can also point you in the direction of local livestock farmers who will sell you high quality meat. I buy my beef, a quarter side at a time, from my neighbor. I buy my pork from a farmer twenty miles away, again in bulk. There are lots of farmers who will do that for you, you just have to pay the butchering costs(not much at all) and have the freezer space to store all of the meat.

Check around, get to know some folks, and you can't go wrong.

[linazelle]

20. Good suggestion. I'll try it. n/t

[linazelle]

21. kick

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Oil is to blame.

Hear me out.

In this country, oil supports "bigness", Megachurches, Megamalls, SUV's, Walmart, Agribusiness.

When peak oil happens, all the underutilized farmland will revert to a traditional use, and the megafarms will contract to a size that is supportable by the consumption required by the immediate vicinity - a size that is environmentally sustainable.

It's like I always say - "always look on the bright side of life!"
http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/ensign2/humanAdaptations/brightsideofLife/eric.jpg

[SoCalDem]

23. Farmers are getting old and dying

their college educated "children" are NOT farmers and are NOT interested in farming. They want the MONEY..

The only way to GET the money is to sell off the farms.. Agribusiness and real estate developers are fighting over these large level tracts of land..

It's a domino thing too.. Farms used to border other farms, and as soon as ONE large tract sells out, the others nearby almost have to because of the turmoil..

Farms USED to be way outside of town, and now the towns have moved right up to the farms..That drives up property taxes and farms are a marginal business, so it's financially more feasible to just sell it and move on..

The old farmers succeeded too well..they raised educated kids who didn't HAVE to farm..and so they don't.