AOC’s Burgers

A young lady who is mostly referred to these days as “AOC”, stunned the establishment politicians and talking heads by winning a congressional seat in her New York district last November.  AOC has every long term, incumbent, bullshit-artist-politician quaking in their boots as she has started a dialogue about changing the corporate, fascist run empire we live in.  Now, whether she is too extreme, inexperienced or just unrealistic, one thing is for sure, she has ignited discussions that have caught the attention of the 90% of Americans who are struggling to find the “American Dream”.

Recently, AOC co-wrote a piece of legislation titled; “The Green New Deal”, which proposes to fix many of today’s societal ills, especially income inequality.  One of the components of the bill addresses global warming and the many different contributors to this potential disaster.  Included in the demands of the bill is that the meat industry (she should say corporations) need to reduce “green-house gas”, a by-product of cow burping and farting.  Cow farts and burps evidently release a large amount of methane, a large contributor to greenhouse gases.

Recently, one of AOC’s staff members was witnessed eating a hamburger and the shit (complete with methane) hit the fan.  Accusations of hypocrisy are flying all around Capital Hill, since you can’t demand that the use of something be stopped then turn around and use it yourself.  From here on out, AOC’s staff should confine their lunch time cuisine to tofu sandwiches and soy bean burgers—right?  This is where I come in to save AOC’s bacon (pun intended).

I am not a scientist and cannot argue the green gas thing (I do believe in global warming), however, I have written about the shitty quality of beef currently available in most middle-class stores especially in the Midwest, the part of the world where I hail from.  I have noticed over the last 10 years that the quality of the beef being sold (at least to those of us who are not billionaires) has gotten pretty shitty.  You have to work really hard to find a pound of ground beef that isn’t 20% gristle and has enough food coloring in it to paint your house.  The flavor has also disappeared with GMO grains being fed to cows who are crammed into tiny feed lots.

For several years now corporations have either bought up most private farm beef producers or drove many of them out of business with pricing schemes.  The corporate behemoths then began doing what they do best, mass production, not only of beef but cash as well. Their huge farms became assembly line production of beef, just as their poultry farms had done earlier.

Most of these farms cram cattle into very small pens where they have little room to roam, just like the poultry industry does.  There are culinary studies that prove that animal stress affects the flavor of the meat, in any types of warm-blooded mammal.  So, in addition to the pollution this causes, it also denigrates the flavor as well.  Because of the cheaper prices for corporate beef, many seldom beef buyers became frequent purchasers and drove up demand and the number of belching, burping cows.

I have throughout the years, always seemed to be lucky in knowing someone who is a private rancher who raises a few cows.  This has given me the opportunity to enjoy beef that is naturally grazed and allowed to roam a decent size pasture in happiness (well, at least until processing time).  As many of you may know there is little comparison in the taste of that beef as opposed to the corporately poisoned, mass produced cattle.  I challenge you—try it sometime!

So, when they accuse AOC of taking everyone’s hamburger, I call bullshit, we just need to use the local butcher shops instead of corporate slaughter houses (and by that, I mean corporate stores).  This whole thing coincides with the loss of other small, more personal businesses that has been going on here for the last 50 years.  What makes it tough is the fact that corporations can offer their GMO beef a lot cheaper than small butcher shops, since they have eliminated or consolidated competition to point where there are only a few choices left.

Look, it is true that we customers should cut back on a lot of this mass-produced shit including beef (and I am a big beef fan), chicken and pork, for health and environmental reasons.  If we all cut back then we could return to the days of smaller beef, chicken and pork ranches which would restore the quality of taste and our environment.  The moderation thing would help here, but as long as corporations continue to mass produce cheap beef and cheap prices the problem will continue.

So, the next time that one of AOC’s staff gets caught eating a hamburger or cheeseburger, keep in mind that it was probably raised on a smaller non-corporate farm and not the corporate farms that she is going after.  No matter what corporations produce, it is always in large quantities, and their output of by-product and pollution is equally large.  So, the story about taking everyone’s hamburger being taken away is not true, but then, how often is anything fucking politicians do or claim true?

By the way, and while we are on the subject, I love what this young lady (AOC) is doing to the political scene.  She is turning it on its ear and it’s about damn time!   Maybe a lot of what she is talking about or proposing is not possible right now, but we have start somewhere.  We need to start talking about how we can fix our world and we need to do it now.  So, to AOC I say—YOU GO GIRL!  Love Ya!

Talk To Ya Later

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