Sunday, April 26, 2009

Swing Flu and Industrial Hog Farming?

We have so much to thank conservatives for. I just saw an article tracing the current outbreak of swine flu to the hog factory operations of Smithfield Foods in Mexico.

How does this connect to conservatives? One of the interesting dimensions of the problem is the reluctance of government officials in either Mexico or the U. S. to deal with the problems caused by factory farms. Local people in both countries complain about respiratory illnesses connected to manure lagoons on hog farms. But governments are reluctant to address the issue.

Like the global recession, swine flu might be a consequence of deregulation. Hopefully, the health authorities will be able to limit the spread and virulence of the disease.

With only 21% of the country identifying themselves as Republicans, it appears that conservatism is no longer as virulent as before.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

More precisely, we can place some of the blame on NAFTA, with its emphasis on deregulation.

But really, we were overdue a pandemic anyway, which has little to do with conservatives or liberals.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Conservatives. Those bastards. They start "global warming" and now this pandemic in Mexico? Whats next? They'll say something along the lines of "government takeover of private buisnesses/industries is a bad idea." Oh yeah, well we liberals say that more government oversight is the way to fix everything (including this pandemic). Right guys!