Food, Inc. on PBS

[techs]

I'm glad they touched on the fact that the food manufacturing industry is hugely responsible for illegal immigration.

Who did people think employeed illegal immigrants? Did they think they came to America to hang out at a Home Depot for day labor?

It's corporations that are feeding illegal immigration by willfully hiring illegal aliens.

Crack down on employers who hire them, and you would go a long way to fixing the problem.

Oh, btw, now a tax on soft drinks makes sense to me. We are subsidizing the price of HCFS so it would really just be an end to the subsidy, at least for the soda industry.

 

[ShawnD1]

The rich get healthier and the poor get fatter.

Just like ever other time period in the history of man kind.

 

[Jzero]

Well surely documentaries produced by vegans, Marxists, and animal rights activists couldn't have a slant or bias of any kind. I mean, look at that one documentary "Super Size Me" by Morgan Spurlock. No bias or distortion there. :\

Has there ever been a documentary that does NOT have an agenda? Your sole complaint is that an advocacy piece which you have never seen might, in fact, be an advocacy piece? Are you worried that it might have an influence on you or something? This is like saying an action movie is no good because there's probably action in it.

Do you actually have an opinion on the subject matter (protip: the subject matter here is not whether eating at McDonald's will make you fat)?

The sad irony here is that you're freaking out about Marxists and vegans, but when you buy food products direct from local farmers you're being a lot more capitalist than someone who is buying all their food products from huge conglomerate producers that are living on big fat socialist gov't subsidies.

As for animal rights activists, any local meat farmer worth his salt will let you come observe the slaughtering. Give that a whirl at a Purdue abattoir!

 

[PricklyPete]

scary shit. so is King Corn.

I really enjoyed King Corn.

 

[PricklyPete]

Well that was depressing. Much like I've always said, and I'm a little disappointed they only barely touched on it, a HUGE part of the problem stems from farm subsidies.

Watch King Corn.

 

[evident]

this was a scary documentary.

The sad part is, the only people who can make active choices on where they get their food are wealthier people. Poor people won't be able to give a shit about where their food comes from, just whatever's the cheapest.

 

[PricklyPete]

Just like ever other time period in the history of man kind.

HUH? maybe the healthier part..but certainly not the fatter part.

 

[tk149]

I caught the last few minutes of this program last night. If the last few minutes are a representative sample of the whole program, all I can say is take everything they say with a grain of salt. As with any good propaganda piece, it mixes truth with implied statements and leaves out information that directly counters its assertions.

It did bring up some good points, but before you accept those points as truth, I encourage you to do your own research on the subject before coming to a conclusion.

 

[tcsenter]

Has there ever been a documentary that does NOT have an agenda?

Terribly sad we have an entire generation who thinks Michael Moore is the pinnacle of documentary film-making and have never been exposed to real documentaries.

 

[techs]

I caught the last few minutes of this program last night. If the last few minutes are a representative sample of the whole program, all I can say is take everything they say with a grain of salt. As with any good propaganda piece, it mixes truth with implied statements and leaves out information that directly counters its assertions.

It did bring up some good points, but before you accept those points as truth, I encourage you to do your own research on the subject before coming to a conclusion.

The last few minutes are when the documentary maker gets to voice his opinion.
It is definitely worth watching. Though, to be honest, the part about the womans son who died was stretched out and only served to try and gain sympathy.
The parts on the food companies, US policies, etc is very interesting.

As I posted earlier, you find out why a bunch of broccoli costs more than a dollar double cheeseburger.
And of course, it doesn't in reality. It's because the US taxpayer subsidizes the double cheeseburger.

 

[Jzero]

Terribly sad we have an entire generation who thinks Michael Moore is the pinnacle of documentary film-making and have never been exposed to real documentaries.

OK, name some of these "real documentaries" and while you're at it you might as well give some explanation as to why you feel they do not have any sort of agenda or message for the viewer.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

OK, name some of these "real documentaries" and while you're at it you might as well give some explanation as to why you feel they do not have any sort of agenda or message for the viewer.

Are you stupid? Don't get offended. I am just having trouble making a judgement here. It's purely academic.

 

[Jzero]

Are you stupid? Don't get offended. I am just having trouble making a judgement here. It's purely academic.

You're welcome to take a crack at my request if you feel you're up to the challenge. It would at least be more productive than making personal attacks and then pussying out on them by saying "it's purely academic."

 

[SphinxnihpS]

You're welcome to take a crack at my request if you feel you're up to the challenge. It would at least be more productive than making personal attacks and then pussying out on them by saying "it's purely academic."

I'm taking a crack on your request right now. If you don't see how, then I guess I have my answer.

 

[Jzero]

I'm taking a crack on your request right now. If you don't see how, then I guess I have my answer.

Crack all you want, chief.

Can you name any of these amazing unbiased, agendaless documentaries of yesteryear that tcsenter holds so dear?

At the very least, can you explain why this request would be in any way stupid?

 

[SphinxnihpS]

 

[Jzero]

OK, so what conclusion did I jump to here?

 

[oznerol]

Crack all you want, chief.

Can you name any of these amazing unbiased, agendaless documentaries of yesteryear that tcsenter holds so dear?

At the very least, can you explain why this request would be in any way stupid?

Not to entirely jump in on this angsty discussion, but there are a bunch of documentaries without some political agenda. I would consider the BBC series "Planet Earth" to be a fairly modern documentary that fits that description.

Back to Food Inc - I saw it a while ago and I was entertained. I wasn't incredibly bothered by much of what they showed - though the things like the food libel laws, FDA complacency, and Monsanto seed patents were definitely disappointing.

Overall, I'd recommend it, but only if you go into it knowing what you're in for.

 

[Kanalua]

Watched it...meh...

thought Supersize me was better. If anyone doesn't know what was shown in Food Inc., then they've had their head in a very deep hold for way too long.

Thought the worse thing was the Mansanto thing about suing farmers that may have used their seed. Something Obama will not go after since he's a Monsanto fan.

 

[Aharami]

Not to entirely jump in on this angsty discussion, but there are a bunch of documentaries without some political agenda. I would consider the BBC series "Planet Earth" to be a fairly modern documentary that fits that description.

Back to Food Inc - I saw it a while ago and I was entertained. I wasn't incredibly bothered by much of what they showed - though the things like the food libel laws, FDA complacency, and Monsanto seed patents were definitely disappointing.

Overall, I'd recommend it, but only if you go into it knowing what you're in for.

IIRC Planet Earth mentions global warming on many occasions, and that is considered to be liberal agenda by many right wingers.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

The Monsanto stuff didn't bother me that much. There's of course the typical big business legal strong arming that's incredibly problematic but hardly limited to Monsanto or the agri-business. As presented, most of the Monsanto issues brought up had just too much grey area to really make a clear judgement. On one hand it makes sense that they be able to earn income each year on the seeds they developed, on the other hand it's incredibly artificial to prevent farmers from reusing the seeds they've grown. It's also pretty bull if they're harassing farmers who didn't use GMO seeds but basically have them now due to cross-contamination. This whole issue was not explored very thoroughly though, so I'm not sure what to think. Going after the guy with the seed cleaning machine on the grounds of aiding patent infringement was also very interesting, and seems to parallel a lot of what we see now with P2P sites.

 

[Kanalua]

The Monsanto stuff didn't bother me that much. There's of course the typical big business legal strong arming that's incredibly problematic but hardly limited to Monsanto or the agri-business. As presented, most of the Monsanto issues brought up had just too much grey area to really make a clear judgement. On one hand it makes sense that they be able to earn income each year on the seeds they developed, on the other hand it's incredibly artificial to prevent farmers from reusing the seeds they've grown. It's also pretty bull if they're harassing farmers who didn't use GMO seeds but basically have them now due to cross-contamination. This whole issue was not explored very thoroughly though, so I'm not sure what to think. Going after the guy with the seed cleaning machine on the grounds of aiding patent infringement was also very interesting, and seems to parallel a lot of what we see now with P2P sites.

Or like IBM's strong arm tactics with its patents...