Meat Crisis: Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up

[cub1c]

I saw this great documentary on CBC today.

Here's the transcript:
http://www.cbc.ca/countrycanada/main.html

Fav quote:

REG SHERREN: In total during 2002 and 2003 the USDA failed to test nearly 500 BSE suspect cows. Michael says it often left him wondering whether the government really wants to find mad cow disease.

REG SHERREN: Those inspectors do a hard job, they're looking for the needle in the haystack all day long and that's a hard hard job and then if you find the needle and nobody looks at the needle then you really begin to question what you're doing there.

REG SHERREN: And, he says, industry quickly gets the message.

REG SHERREN: So if its got a central nervous system problem, get rid of it.

MICHAEL SCHWOCHERT: Bury it, burn it

REG SHERREN: Shoot shovel and shut up.

MICHAEL SCHWOCHERT: Yep

GRAPHICS:

In August 2004 the USDA's own Inspector General issued a 78-page scathing review of the departments mad cow surveillance system.

The USDA failed to test hundreds of high-risk cows because of "confusion" and "lack of coordination".

"The problems … impact … the credibility of any assertion regarding the prevalence of BSE in the United States."

REG SHERREN: In the meantime what do you say to Canadian ranchers that are going broke and there are thousands of them right now the losses are two billion dollars and climbing?

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY ANN VENEMAN: Well just what I said we are working very hard on the process and I understand what's going on in Canada.

 

[peapod]

Thanks cub..that will broadcast here, I will defiantely watch it.

 

[Jo Canadian]

Anyone else find this fishy?

By BETH GORHAM - Canadian Press




WASHINGTON (CP) — Members of R-CALF, the U.S. ranchers’ group that sued — on safety grounds — to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle, bought up cheap cows in Canada after the devastating ban, the group’s president acknowledged.
“I don’t see anything ironic about it,” Leo McDonnell said from Columbus, Mont. “I didn’t see it as a big deal.
“There’s a couple of them that have bought and fed cattle up there, three or four at most,” a figure disputed by a Canadian feedlot owner who says it’s higher.
Three of those U.S. ranchers have been significant contributors to R-CALF’s litigation fund, McDonnell said, an endeavour focused squarely on keeping the border shut.
Some in Canada are furious, saying R-CALF members have exploited a crisis they helped to create.
It’s not illegal but their ethics are terrible,” said an Ontario producer. “I’ve had enough. I have no use for these guys.”
Rick Paskal, a feedlot owner in Lethbridge, Alta., said group members “recognized an opportunity for their own personal economic gain.
“They were absolutely not concerned about food safety.”
In a huge setback for Canadian ranchers, a federal judge granted the group’s request last week for a delay in resuming the cattle trade.
It was supposed to begin Monday for the first time in nearly two years after some $7 billion Cdn in losses for Canada’s industry.
The American protectionist group has opposed reopening the border since it closed in May 2003 after Canada’s first case of mad cow.
R-CALF argues that Canadian cattle are dangerous to U.S. herds and humans.
“There’s nothing unique about what we’re doing,” said McDonnell, who noted that members of pro-trade U.S. ranching groups have also bought Canadian cattle.
“I’m not quite sure why we’re the bad guys.”
The Americans benefited from rock-bottom cattle prices in Canada, said Paskal, adding that he believes more than a dozen R-CALF members picked up Canadian cows, buying as much as 30,000 head of cattle each.
Some of Paskal’s auctioned cows were bought by R-CALF member Lloyd DeBruycker, who has complained about “greedy” meat-packers in Canada taking his profits.
Some Canadian processors were refusing last year to slaughter cattle owned by R-CALF members.
A day after the court ruling in favour of R-CALF, U.S. senators voted to reject the U.S. Agriculture Department’s plan to reopen the border to cattle, a largely symbolic move but another sign of the intense opposition that’s been building.
Many legislators and U.S. ranchers have been much more vocally opposed since the last two mad cow cases were discovered in Canada in January. One cow sparked particular concern because it was born after new feed rules were implemented to halt the spread of the deadly disease.
There are still many in the U.S. industry who support dropping the ban, especially big meat-packing companies that face uncertain future without enough beef to process.
However, on Monday, a federal judge rejected efforts by the American Meat Institute to lift all barriers to Canadian beef shipments.
U.S. officials had agreed to imports of cattle up to 30 months of age, thought to be at lowest risk for contracting mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
But it could be months before they make a decision on older cattle and beef products from older cows.

 

[mrmom2]

Typical US corroption,Problem,reaction,solution they are the masters .The thing that bugs me though is I go in to the grocery store and i pay full price still for meat.The ranchers here are getting nothing for it.The gov. should be looking into the meat packers there ripping us off and nobody says boo squat about it.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Meat Crisis: Shoot, S

The government tried looking into the meat packers. They found them in Contempt of Parliament and tried to force them to open their books. The committee tried to impose fines to force the books open. The Conservatives on the committee refused to let that happen. The two big meat packing plants in this country are in Alberta, right in the heart of Conservative country.

The Conservatives chose their corporate cronies over the people they are supposed to be representing.

 

[Extrafire]

The story of the mad cow problems in the states was made public quite a while ago by that guy. What I can't figure out is why the media haven't made that a huge story, both here and over the line.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Meat Crisis: Shoot, S

Because the corporate media doesn't want the story. What is required is simple...a complete feed ban on animal proteins in any livestock feed, and thest every animal. The big pakers don't like that, and they have all the political pull.

The result is that anything more than a cursory look into the politics behind BSE is ignored by the mainstream media. It doesn't fit the corporate narrative they want to sell.

 

[Extrafire]

Gee, I don't know. The right wing media are the only ones I know who have publicised that story. Maybe now the CBC has got hold of it there might be a little more reaction. But the US media is generally hostile to the Bush Republicans and conservatives in general. They should have made it big. Remember the big splash when Oprah was sued by the big cattlemen? Maybe we should send a transcript to her.

 

[mrmom2]

Its all US corporate media Extra.You have got to wonder whats going on when W spends 260 million on fake news storys.I don't even watch US news its all propaganda for the major corporations you only get what they want you to get

 

[Reverend Blair]

The right wing media are the only ones I know who have publicised that story. Maybe now the CBC has got hold of it there might be a little more reaction.

The right-wing media has done almost no in-depth coverage. I first saw Shoot, Shovel, Shut up almost a year ago. Nobody else picked up the story.

 

[Extrafire]

The right wing media are the only ones I know who have publicised that story. Maybe now the CBC has got hold of it there might be a little more reaction.

The right-wing media has done almost no in-depth coverage. I first saw Shoot, Shovel, Shut up almost a year ago. Nobody else picked up the story.

Was that on CBC TV a year ago? I don't watch much TV.

I know that Western Standard ran the story last year sometime as a major article. They're a right wing magazine, but fairly small so they don't have much influence.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Meat Crisis: Shoot, S

It was on CBC, it's been covered on some actual leftist sites, it's been covered in the Nation and on Air America in the US. Not just the Shoot, shovel, shut up part of it, but corporate involvement in keeping feed rules lax, government scientists on both sides of the border being pressured by their bosses, etc.

 

[no1important]

RE: Meat Crisis: Shoot, S

It was on CBC and newsworld a year ago and on Country Canada (ch96 in vancouver) a couple times.

 

[Ten Packs]

http://sympaticomsn.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1113403014256_108812214?hub=TopStories

Looks like the Americans have been doing lots of covering up, themselves....

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Meat Crisis: Shoot, S

That backs up the CBC story from earlier this week. If they have been covering things up, they need to be shut down. Fully and completely. That is a serious violation of their obligations under international trade agreements.

 

[mrmom2]

It will never happen Rev There far to crooked to own up to anything

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Meat Crisis: Shoot, S

It won't happen if it's just us complaining. You get the world community on your side and the worm begins to turn in a hurry. They are very dependent on exports so they would have to clean up their act.

 

[mrmom2]

I wonder if the Japanese goverment knows anything about this?

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Meat Crisis: Shoot, S

We should be making them fully aware of it. The EU as well. Likely the best course of action is to get it on the news all over the world.

 

[mrmom2]

I jave got to agree with you on that one 8)