- McLibel -

More Oprah McLibel,and the ranchers that act like Clinton on Tobacco

Well, those cattle-ranching assholes are at it again. ANOTHER group of ranchers has decided to sue Oprah Winfrey for the same "I'll never eat another hamburger" show on Mad Cow disease. Again, they are trying to use the food libel laws to repeal the First Amendment. Unfortunately, given that the Supreme Court has already gutted one Constitutional right(the right to bear arms) by "interpreting" the Second Amendment, there is NOTHING to stop the courts from deciding that free speech is just too expensive for the corporate bosses that keep them in power. Once more these people are trying to rape a public figure for daring to suggest that something might be unsafe to buy and use(or eat, in this case). Keep in mind, Oprah wasn't trying to get laws passed taxing meat, putting a minimum purchase age on it, or prohibiting advertising like the Safety Nazis are doing to tobacco, she was just laying the cards on the table and saying"here's the facts-choose for yourself." Since beef is IN power and tobacco is OUT of power right now,one person is sued for criticizing beef while others are arrested for selling tobacco.
Don't get me wrong-I cannot stand the smells of either beef OR tobacco, but to me, government suppression of freedom of speech and and arresting people for being the wrong age smells even worse. I oppose all parts of the tobacco bill and would oppose any similar bill on meat. What these people really want is POWER-the power to tell you what to do and what to buy every minute of your life. In addition, once they control an industry and tax it enough they are themselves in the same business and make even more money for themselves. Besides, any attempt to deal with the meat problem by legislation would just trigger a backlash that would remove the anti-meat regime and leave behind a backlash that would INCREASE meat consumption-like in Argentina after a government tried to ration beef to increase export availability.
Getting people off tobacco-or meat-can only be done by giving them the facts and letting them choose for themselves. This is what has been knocking beef and other meat consumption down for the last decade in the US. This is what the ranchers are really afraid of. Meanwhile smoking skyrockets higher and higher as the government tries harder and harder to arrest teens for it. Perhaps the whole tobacco campaign was really a plan by the tobacco industry to INCREASE sales,rather like liquor industry involvement in drinking age campaigns? In the tobacco case, the companies have finally seen the light(after seeing the price!)and retracted their support for government solutions.
On the subject of direct action, there is a world of difference between direct action against a slaughterhouse and a person simply for eating (or even serving) beef. The former is seen as targeting specific abuses at a particular slaughterhouse(even if they all do it) while the latter will be seen as an attempt to make vegetarianism compulsory, just as their is a difference between vandalizing Joe Camel billboards and arresting teenagers for buying Camel. One attacks the bosses and educates the masses, while the other only attacks the masses.
Of course, the power of knowledge is so strong the industries that have the power to do so will do anything they have to to control it. Once again, here is my challenge to the assholes that are suing Oprah: I say they are acting just like Clinton on Tobacco(only for a different cause), I say beef is unsafe to eat,and I say beef burns the rainforest, it burns free speech-and now it even burns the Constitution! I dare them to sue me-I have no assets and can tell them to kiss my sharries. For more on how young people are fighting Big Government and Big Business, check out the Utopian Anarchist Party

Follow Ups:

• Oprah spoke out. Anon June 15 1998 (0)