Two peas in a pod. (An organically grown GMO pod of course)

It’s been a while since good old Steve Cornett at Beef Today has said anything interesting, but his commentary on the upcoming hoopla over Eric Schlosser’s movie Food Inc. is worth a mention. Schlosser has made an easy career pointing out the unsavory side of modern America’s industrialized food system, but like most predictable liberals his prescribed solution is more government regulation and intervention. He comes to the issue with a muckraker’s mentality, but sadly he only seeks problems that fit with his cookie cutter statist solutions. I haven’t seen the movie, the Oklavore has, she can tell me where I’m wrong in my assumptions.
This of course sends conventional beef industry supporters like Mr. Cornett into a tizzy. Steve rightly sees the threat of further regulation as a big obstacle to his way of life, and he’ll caterwaul about the unfairness of it all.
But here’s the thing, Steve’s a big a statist goon as those Pollan types he rails against. He defends an industry built on subsidized grain, an industry that seeks to be the gatekeepers of “real beef”, an industry that seeks to use to power of the state to keep smaller operators in line, jumping through bureaucratic hoops though still feeding the feedlots with inexpensive animals.
You’ll never hear Steve sing the praises of direct marketing pioneers like Virginia’s Joel Salatin or Dallas area grassfed beef entrepreneur Jon Taggart. He’ll rail against “Pollan principles” all day, but he’ll never mention Pollan’s featured farmer Salatin, a man with a seven figure income selling his own line of low input/high value meats. Steve’s view of capitalism is to keep beef producers selling their calves higher up the chain, for the sole purpose of keeping that chain in business. How ironic that a man who decries bureaucratic hurdles can’t see the real capitalist superheros who have carved their own fortunes out of the status quo. Either that or he sees them as the threat that they are.
Don’t worry, Schlosser won’t mention them either. In this sense, Cornett and Schlosser are two peas in a pod, both seeking favors from Washington, and both blind to the real revolution that goes on without them.