Georgia Dems Celebrate Civil Rights Even as they Crush Black Farmers

Congressman David Scott allowed US farmers and ranchers who were coming for redress of years from rigged markets by the multinational meat packers, to be mocked for simply seeking a rule - a rule!

Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, is chair of the House committee that attacked USDA regulations aimed at restoring competition to livestock markets. Republicans and Democrats alike attacked the proposed regulations. Here is Rep. Scott with President Barack Obama.

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - The Democratic Party of Georgia and Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials is having a 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Freedom Rides. To this they have invited Congressman David Scott, the man who ran the infamous house committee that laughed at the very idea of justice and fair markets for the little guy.

Republicans and Democrats showed an uncommon ability to set aside partisanship as members of both parties pummeled and piled on rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to govern the livestock market.

The scene at the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry hearing Tuesday was brutal, as one member of Congress after another labeled the regulations as “silly,” a “serious mistake,” “offensive” and a “clear violation” of what legislators intended.

“I’m watching this (hearing) through the Internet feed,” wrote DTN agriculture policy editor Chris Clayton, “and all I can think is ‘Talk about breaking out a can of Whoop *&%.’” (To listen to the full hearing, click here, thanks to FarmPolicy.org.)

What Scott did could not have been more anti-farmer (and directly harms black farmers,), anti-democratic, anti-jobs, anti-environment, pro-corporate, and anti-justice.

And Scott allowed US farmers and ranchers who were coming for redress of years from rigged markets by the multinational meat packers, rigged markets that have driven 1000 ranchers a month out of business, to be mocked for simply seeking a rule - a rule! - to ensure fairness. Now he has the shamelessness to "honor" freedom riders who risked their lives for justice. But when it comes to farmers and ranchers today seeking redress for corporate grievances that are driving them out of business, Scott used his power as head of a Congressional committee to allow Democrats and Republics to openly, viciously and publicly deride them.

From the Black Commentator:

Six members make up the core of defectors from the historical Black Political Consensus – deviants from the CBC’s proud 36-year progressive tradition: Harold Ford, Jr. (TN), Artur Davis (AL), David Scott (GA), Sanford Bishop (GA), Albert Wynn (MD), and William Jefferson (LA). All but Jefferson are members of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and/or the Blue Dog Coalition, vehicles for corporate funding and intrigue in the Democratic Party. Having reached critical mass with the election of Alabama’s Davis and Georgia’s Scott in 2002, the corporate-allied faction’s influence is greatly enhanced by the DLC’s institutional and financial clout.  ....

The corporate cash intervention in Black electoral politics, closely coordinated with corporate media attacks on “civil rights-type” politicians, has subverted and deformed much of the Black political landscape. Although there is no evidence that the masses of Blacks have been persuaded to turn against themselves, a significant portion of the Black political class has been purchased or cowed.

David Scott also enjoyed overwhelming corporate backing to win his first campaign for a suburban Atlanta seat, outspending his opponent by more than 3 to 1 ($1,286,263 to $409,831). Corporations spent lots of money to create the “Worst Black Congressperson.”

A number of the 15 Black congresspersons that crossed one or more “bright lines” last month (see the chart, below), would not have done so if BP PAC existed.

Andy Young and Alveda King are calling fluoride a civil rights issue and suing over it.  Perhaps it's time for them to recognize that food is the most essential of all civil rights, and thanks to people like Scott, it is being removed from public control and handed over to corrupt corporate powers.

The Democratic Party under Obama, and with David Scott's help, is removing everyone's civil rights around food, destroying 100,000s of jobs, as well as Americans' access to truly safe food. It is, in fact, sending KKK-like armed raids against organic food coops, closing down innocent farmers, and trying to rid itself of leading activists against the big packers, by treating his hay as a pollutant, thus threatening all family farm agriculture.

The Georgia Democratic Party is dressing itself up in a history of courage around "civil rights" while, outrageously, it invites a Congressman who has turned the Congressional corporate dogs lose on those who came for help, for justice.

In its invitation, the party claims it is "NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE’S COMMITTEE" but the more relevant issue is whether it is authorized by (funded by) the corporations.

The Democrats are certainly not helping the little guy ("Killing the competition: Meat industry reform takes a blow"). Instead, they are killing them off - ranchers and farmers, black and white - because they are what is left of our competition to the behemoth food and agribusiness corporations.  The GIPSA rule that got laughed out of Scott's committee was the

      "most promising attempts at food system reform" in years and would have given "... authority to crack down on the way large corporate meatpackers wield power over small and mid-sized ranchers. ...

      ".... ranchers all around the country now agree that it's impossible for them to get a fair price for livestock

      "Many chicken farmers these days are forced, contractually, to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in chicken houses that meet ever-changing packer specifications.

      "If anything goes wrong, as it often does, it's the farmer who's left holding the bag chickens with no recourse from the meatpackers. If things remain as they are, that kind of indentured servitude represents the future for most beef and pork growers. All the power will remain with a handful of massive corporate behemoths, and ranchers will be glorified hired help taking on all the risk and getting little or no reward.

      "The meatpackers also convinced Congress to hold a series of hearings [Scott's committee being one] packed with pro-Big Ag witnesses  .... industry [being] hell-bent to kill this reform. That alone should tell you how important it was."

      ...."  the White House intervened in USDA's attempts to restrict the planting of genetically modified alfalfa. Vilsack himself was personally humiliated in that fight, as his very public position to restrict GE alfalfa was steamrolled by a White House concerned with the corporate reactions. And he clearly got the message for future reform attempts. In the case of the livestock rule, rather than facing the White House steamroller again, the USDA did the dirty work itself and pulled out all the controversial parts of the rule that would have truly leveled the playing field for small producers."

Obama, a black president, cut the legs out from under his own USDA, in order to give biotech corporations unconstitutional power to dangerously contaminate one of the most important foods for livestock (giving them control of all of it through patents), threatening the lives of everyone in the country.  

“Even fewer Americans are aware that in 1999 attorney Steven Druker reported that in 40,000 pages of FDA files secured via a lawsuit, he found ‘memorandum after memorandum contain[ing] warnings about the unique hazards of genetically engineered food,’ including the possibility that they could contain ‘unexpected toxins, carcinogens or allergens.’”