Bobby Kennedy Junior

[Crazy_Ivan80]

You're about a decade and a half behind us. Give it time. . The right has an uncanny way of co-opting loony left stuff and somehow making it worse.

Probably, but euro food isn't as crappy as us food due to regulation.
But loonies will loon, and we've got our fair share of anti-vac idiots too here.

[Sheilbh]

The New Agey MAGA stuff is mostly orthogonal to US political divisions.  Kennedy could have endorsed either side; he went Trump b/c Trump offered him a cabinet slot and Harris wouldn't.  Those ideas have an anti-establishment vibe so tended left in the 60s-70s but is more receptive to the right now.

Yeah so this is an area I feel slightly orthogonal to as well - because I think there is a degree of negative polarisation.

So I think the FBI and the CIA are bad - I might even, if I were being melodramatic, call them a deep state. They advance a set of interests that occasionally overlap with things I think are good but broadly speaking we've got, say, 100 years of the FBI and generally speaking I don't think it's a good thing for a democratic society. They have a long record of being hostile to freedom and to democratic power and I don't thing it's wise to give that position up just because there's a degree of hostility with Trump.

Similarly there is no area where I feel more fully European than the idea that food and drug regulation are fundamntally different spheres. Unpasteurised milk does wonderful things, you can't make champagne in California and just because you nuke something with a million chemical additives doesn't make it "healthy".

So I kind of think it's okay for Mitt Romney to be aligned with the FBI and Twinkies - I'm not sure it works for the Democrats

[Tonitrus]

So where did it all go wrong?

I kinda wonder what might have been different in US politics if JFK Jr wasn't into flying.

You'd have a prettier coked up Kennedy?

I am probably wrong, but I had the impression that JFK Jr was degrees more wholesome than the usual reputation for Kennedy men.

Unless he really is Q.

[Legbiter]

I am not sure what you are complaining about there

Not complaining at all.  It's just weird to me that this outlook is now right-wing coded in the US. 

[HVC]

So where did it all go wrong?

I kinda wonder what might have been different in US politics if JFK Jr wasn't into flying.

You'd have a prettier coked up Kennedy?

I am probably wrong, but I had the impression that JFK Jr was degrees more wholesome than the usual reputation for Kennedy men.

Unless he really is Q.

My, perhaps faulty, recollection was that he was a playboy addict with a failing business and not much upstairs. You know, a Kennedy

*Good rollerblader though

[Jacob]

Hmm... I'm pro-home-knitted-sweaters, pro-raw-milk-cheese on the basis of flavour, but also pro-vaccination. I'm in favour of growing vegetables for home use, but too lazy to actually do it.

I guess that makes me a moderate?

[HVC]

The raw milk crowd is usually talking about the actual milk, not cheese. They're the ones you hear about in the news once in a while dying from things like listeria and e coli. Not sure of the process but I guess cheesifying the milk makes it safer. I think most cheese is Europe is produced from raw milk, isn't it?

*edit*

Google, so everyone knows the caveats

"Aging Process: In the U.S. and Canada, cheese made from raw milk must be aged for a minimum of 60 days before it can be sold legally. This aging period, combined with the development of acidity and salt content in the cheese, creates an environment where most pathogenic bacteria struggle to survive or are outcompeted by beneficial bacteria."

[Sheilbh]

You can buy raw milk in lots of European countries.

It's nothing to do with safety - it's industrial capture of regulators in America and MacDonaldisation and mass production of food is not "safer".

As I say on drugs I find RFK Jr despicable - but on the food industry in the US, I'm less sure. I'm really sorry but I'm not going to take what the FDA - the regulatory backstop behind bread with a six month expiry date - as the sine qua non of food safety.

[HVC]

Isn't europes most common milk the UHT pasteurized kind that comes in boxes and is self stabile for an insane amount of time? I remember being weirded out by unrefrigertaed milk on shelves last time I was there tastes weird too,

[The Minsky Moment]

Similarly there is no area where I feel more fully European than the idea that food and drug regulation are fundamntally different spheres. Unpasteurised milk does wonderful things, you can't make champagne in California and just because you nuke something with a million chemical additives doesn't make it "healthy".

So I kind of think it's okay for Mitt Romney to be aligned with the FBI and Twinkies - I'm not sure it works for the Democrats

Historically the origin of food regulation in the US is from the first Progressive era.  That's a movement which crossed party lines but was somewhat more associated with "good government" Republicans. Their political descendants also cross-party lines today but are more concentrated in the wonkish wing of the Democrats.

The politics of "food MAHAism" is still not clear to me - but my sense is that the working poor are not as committed to the idea of natural foods or terroir based wine making . . .

All this is really irrelevant to RFK though, because FDA regulation isn't being replaced by enlightened naturalism, but by a deregulatory void for corporate exploitation. That may be by intention or just because RFK doesn't have a clue about how to run an agency, but the result is the same.

[Sheilbh]

Sure but that's just because only children drink milk

But also I really think there is a huge problem in the US of regulatory capture around food and I think a politics that is really into that and the FBI is not a winner. You need space for at least some of the hippy-dippy new agey types (or, indeed, Obelix types following a family tradition and curing meat and making cheese in a barn).

[crazy canuck]

You can buy raw milk in lots of European countries.

It's nothing to do with safety - it's industrial capture of regulators in America and MacDonaldisation and mass production of food is not "safer".

Oh my, so much misinformation, so little time to correct it.

Raw milk definitely has safety risks, namely food poisoning.  Pasteurization eliminates that risk. If a source of raw milk can be found where there is a high degree of confidence that the practices used to obtain, store and ship the milk has a low chance of being contaminated with salmonella, E. coli and listeria then of course the risk is reduced.

But have you ever actually been to a diary farm?  You do realize there is shit every where right? You would need to have a very high degree confidence the diary farmer has taken all necessary precautions.

Cheese from raw milk is a different matter - the risk there is much lower.

[HVC]

Sure but that's just because only children drink milk

But also I really think there is a huge problem in the US of regulatory capture around food and I think a politics that is really into that and the FBI is not a winner. You need space for at least some of the hippy-dippy new agey types (or, indeed, Obelix types following a family tradition and curing meat and making cheese in a barn).

Not all of us drink blended bleached grass seed juice


I'm not actually a milk person, probably haven't a glass of milk in over a year. The raw milk crowd just annoys me. Well, the ones I'm aware of in NA. European ones may well differ.

That being said, Minsky put it well. RFK isn't the safer food Jesus, he's just deregulating everything and seeing we're the chips fall. And historically we know what happens when food safety is ignored. An imperfect system isn't great, but it's better then no system.

[Grey Fox]

I am not sure what you are complaining about there

Not complaining at all.  It's just weird to me that this outlook is now right-wing coded in the US. 

Because they don't have any good consumer pointed regulations and their healthcare system is stupid, they are easily coerced against their interest by those that pretend that they will help them.

[Sheilbh]

Historically the origin of food regulation in the US is from the first Progressive era.  That's a movement which crossed party lines but was somewhat more associated with "good government" Republicans. Their political descendants also cross-party lines today but are more concentrated in the wonkish wing of the Democrats.

The politics of "food MAHAism" is still not clear to me - but my sense is that the working poor are not as committed to the idea of natural foods or terroir based wine making . . .

All this is really irrelevant to RFK though, because FDA regulation isn't being replaced by enlightened naturalism, but by a deregulatory void for corporate exploitation. That may be by intention or just because RFK doesn't have a clue about how to run an agency, but the result is the same.

Yeah - I agree but I think he's filling a void (I think it's a bit like unease around conversations about masculinity and young men - the gap will be filled).

In RFK's case I think there is a a vague suspicion that American food regulation isn't healthy - and 25 years ago I suspect every single person on this forum currently defending American food regulation as a good thing would have agreed that it's unhealthy and been on the side of Jose Bove. And they would have been right. I think we're negatively polarised away from that - a distasteful person who is wrong is talking about it so we oppose which I don't think is adequate.

American food regulation has absolutely been captured by not just big business but some of the most objectionable companies in the world - we should have a language for talking about that and 25 years ago the left did. From a Euro-perpsective I still think there is an alternative which is a different type of regulation around production and terroir not just nuking food with enough chemicals to make it safe after the event - I'm not convinced by a food regulation system that needs pasteurisation but allows pumping cattle full of hormones or washing chicken carcasses in chlorine. Great for mass, low standard production and companse that can buy the necessary chemicals but it's a regime that's actively hostile to slower food that has good production values at all stages.

The point isn't that RFK is right - but that "we love the FDA" isn't an adequate respone. Or, more broadly I think the anti-MAGA coalition needs space for people who may not buy into "deep state" stuff but are civil libertarians and hate the FBI (as they shoud) and it also needs space for hippy-dippy raw milk moms.

And I agree on the politics of food MAHAism - but I do think the aesthetics of it are interesting. Because from a UK perspective what it most resembles is the people campaigning against "ultra-processed food" plus crossfit My own view is that I think we probably need both and should allow both and it's not helpful (or, perhaps, healthy) to polarise politically on these aesthetic issues (and, as a European food snob, it'll be a cold day in hell before I consider American food regulationat something worth defending I think there's fabulous food and produce in the US but I think that's often at high cost and in spite of big company favouring regulations).