Tag Archives: pocketbook issues

The Ag Industry’s Trojan Horse

When we claim that agribusiness has largely forgotten about animal welfare in its normal operations, the comeback is always that Americans want cheap food. It will cost more to do the right thing on animal welfare.

Chicken face credit iStockphotoIn 2008, The Humane Society of the United States sniffed out a scheme that demonstrated that the egg industry was not only on the wrong side of animal welfare, but also upside down with consumers. Falsely positioning itself as a defender of pocketbook issues, the industry was taking an unfair share of the dollars average Americans spend on their dietary staples.

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You And What Armey?

Former House majority leader and presumed head of the Tea Party movement Dick Armey should perhaps be congratulated for excommunicating the anti-immigrant zealot Tom Tancredo. When I talked several weeks ago with Freedom Works, the group Armey leads that is behind much Tea Party activity, a representative authorized to speak for Armey expressed similar sentiments, telling me that they were “worried about Tom Tancredo” who could alienate the “libertarian branch” of the movement.

The spokesman contrasted the failed candidacy of the (very) culturally conservative gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell in Ohio in 2006 to the surging (by his account) campaign of the (very, like eliminate the state income tax) fiscally conservative John Kasich. The implication is that Tea Party candidates will succeed if they can focus attention on so-called pocketbook issues, such as cap-and-trade, the stimulus package, and earmarks. But if attention turns to divisive cultural issues, of which immigration is presumed to be one, the Tea Party will shatter like so many delicate teacups.

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