It's been a while

Yeah, I know, it's been a while. Last time we were talking about death and what may or may not come after. This time I'm going to talk politics...sort of.

So as it happens, I was at my sister's house in Alna for the 4th, and she took us around and showed off her garden, the chickens one of my brothers had given her, and the pig. Now the chickens gives them eggs and aren't the cooking sort so they're pretty safe, but that pig is there to fatten for slaughter in the fall.

She's a cute pig, as far as pigs go, happy with her little pool and the barely stale artisan bread. She gets excited when anyone in the family comes to see her, whether or not they bring her anything - although I'm sure she'd prefer they brought her something (Oh, and for the record, I don't know if I could do this. I'd probably end up getting attached to the pig and then I'd have a bunch of pigs in addition to the five cats and a dog).

Anyway. This pig (It's NOT Wilbur!) will feed my sister's family for over a year, provide them with meat/protein a few times a week. The great thing is they know exactly how their meat was raised. Where it came from. Same with the eggs. And it occurred to me (not that I didn't kinda know this already) that this is how we're supposed to live. Either raise our food ourself or buy it from a neighbor we know*, NOT buy from some nameless corporation a million miles away where the pig (cow/chicken/whatever) lived where? In what conditions? Fed what kind of diet?

How did we get here, you ask? Simple. Big money. Somewhere somebody decided that factory farming provided cheaper meat to the people who wanted it, and the people bought the idea. The problem is this isn't healthy, not for us, not for the animals, and not for the environment.

And this is how this relates to politics. Whenever big money get's involved, everything goes to shit. Because money corrupts just like power. Don't think so? Look around. We're surrounded by the corruptive influence of money and power, whereby the few who have rule the many who have not.

This is not evolution. This is business as usual. 

*there is a third option when it comes to protein: become a vegetarian.