Month: October 2013

A reader writes:

Your acceptance of the “simply morally unacceptable” eating habits that you currently follow leads you to the “eat less meat, or eat better-raised meat” solution. That seems like an obvious, and perfectly reasonable, reaction when one views the evidence surrounding factory farming. But would that actually satisfy one’s moral compass? While eating less meat by definition reduces the number of animals killed, it implicitly gives sanction to eating some meat. I don’t think society generally accepts that sort of logic when approaching other acts that are morally frowned upon.  It would not be acceptable for the US to waterboard fewer prisoners, a rapist to target fewer victims, or an abusive father to beat his children less often, and claim to be acting in a morally upright manner.

And the option of only eating more humanely raised/killed meat is simply not a realistic option.  While specialty stores may stock meat that purports to be miraculously free of animal suffering, it is often little more than a marketing ploy.  The overwhelming majority of meat sold (in order to be economically competitive) comes from factory farms.  The same applies to the egg and dairy industries.

Eating less meat, or eating better-raised meat, as a morally-sound solution is simply a lie that many of us tell ourselves to feel better about our current habits.

I’m trying to be realistic here. Another vegan is less rigid and has some very helpful tips on cruelty-reduction:

You correctly state that people can still make big differences through their food choices in ways that suit their needs and desires. I would like to offer some guidance on that. No deep thoughts, just some practical advice. (Yes, some advice on eating animals from a vegan. Anything to reduce suffering!)

To begin with, if you want to reduce suffering as much as possible and still include animal products in your diet, reduce anything from pigs or birds.

These are by far the most abused animals in farming today because they can both be raised indoors in tight confinement. They have body parts hacked off to minimize the problems of living in such confinement, among other reasons. Pigs and birds are both very intelligent and social (crows are one of the five most intelligent non-human animals on earth). I believe you are totally wrong when you suggest that chickens have a low level of emotional experience – that describes clams, mussels, and oysters (but likely not most fish). Further, a single chicken yields far less meat than a single cow, so chickens are tortured in vast numbers.

First reduce or eliminate eggs, chicken, and turkey; and pork, ham, and bacon. Next on the reduce/eliminate priority list is dairy. Buy delicious nut milk cheeses and coconut milk/almond milk/soy milk/rice milk yogurt and ice cream.

Beef and lamb are much better choices, as they must live at least some of their lives out in pasture. “Grass fed” is good but deceptive, as they do end up in CAFOs eating grain. Grass-fed and grass-finished beef is better, as they don’t end up in feedlots – this is probably the closest to the “one bad day” school of agricultural animal welfare.

Be very suspicious of feel-good labeling, as most of it is highly deceptive. Terms like “cage free”; “free range”; “natural”; “humane” etc. are mostly used on products from atrocious factory farms. Do not believe them! Look for stores or products that use the labeling system from the Global Animal Partnership, as Whole Foods does, and try to stay in within the green labels. If you feel you must use eggs, make sure they are “pasture raised” or “pastured” – these still surely have their problems but are vastly better than anything without some form of the word “pasture” on them, when that word is used honestly.

Try ideas like Vegan Before Six, Meatless Mondays, meat as a small part of dishes, only on weekends or for special occasions, or any such approach that works for you. Buy vegetarian/vegan cookbooks. Read Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals. Watch the documentary Earthlings (narrated by Joaquin Phoenix; music by Moby).

Of course if you add the environmental concerns to the cruelty concerns, then that may bring you closer to vegan … maybe, someday. Either way, everyone can help reduce suffering.

You may recall, even though it feels like a couple of centuries ago now, that there was quite some debate about the decision to hand over responsibility for Syria’s chemical weapons program to the UN, headed up by the Russians. Here is Mike Doran, who was on AC360 Later with me on Sep. 10:

It wouldn’t surprise me if, weeks from now, President Obama were attending the United Nations General Assembly while still holding meetings about a U.N. resolution to compel Assad to give up his chemical weapons. I guarantee you that as we speak, Assad’s chemical weapons team is frantically pouring bottles of Chanel No. 5, which Hezbollah stole from Lebanon, into missile shells that it will deliver to the U.N. in an elaborate demonstration of compliance with the agreement. We will take one whiff, call it perfume, and cry foul.

Surprise!

Russian officials and Secretary of State John Kerry have lauded the Syrian government for its cooperation with the preliminary work of the experts, sent by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a group based in The Hague that ensures compliance with the treaty banning them. Syria’s government joined that treaty last month after having spent decades amassing an enormous stockpile of the munitions and refusing to acknowledge it possessed them.

Syrian state television released a brief video on Tuesday showing the organization’s experts at work. The experts oversaw the first destruction of components on Sunday, with the goal of rendering inoperable all of Syria’s production, mixing and filling equipment by Nov. 1.

Perhaps Doran still believes this is all a “Potemkin disarmament effort,” as he once tweeted. I’d like to see him defend that posture against the current facts on the ground. Speaking of people who know nothing and never get called on it, here’s a statement about the UN agreement from Senator John McCain and Butters from less than a month ago:

We cannot imagine a worse signal to send to Iran as it continues its push for a nuclear weapon. Without a U.N. Security Council Resolution under Chapter 7 authority, which threatens the use of force for non-compliance by the Assad regime, this framework agreement is meaningless. Assad will use the months and months afforded to him to delay and deceive the world using every trick in Saddam Hussein’s playbook. It requires a willful suspension of disbelief to see this agreement as anything other than the start of a diplomatic blind alley, and the Obama Administration is being led into it by Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin.

And yet what we learn today is that by November 1, “all of Syria’s production, mixing and filling equipment” will be inoperable. Will this buffoon ever concede this? Of course not. The same statement accuses Assad of deceiving the world like Saddam. But Saddam’s ultimate deception was leaving the impression that he had WMDs, when he didn’t. It appears McCain has yet to absorb the most basic fact of the last war he successfully lobbied for (he’s unsuccessfully lobbied for a few dozen since, if memory serves).

Here’s Jeffrey Goldberg who knows so much about the complexities of the Middle East:

This plan probably won’t work. Assad is a lying, murdering terrorist, and lying, murdering terrorists aren’t, generally speaking, reliable partners, except for other lying, murdering terrorists.

Wrong again! More neocon wrongness from Jon Tobin at the magazine that roasts war criminals, Commentary:

[T]he Russian-sponsored process to get rid of Assad’s chemical weapons is an invitation for the Syrian tyrant to delay and obstruct any efforts to actually remove the toxic material and lock the U.S. into a partnership with a man that even United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon labeled as a criminal.

So why are the UN, the US, and Russia so happy with how things have worked out thus far? Now, of course, this is still an early stage, and we may have to wait a much longer time to see the real truth. But I seriously doubt any of these alleged hard-nosed foreign policy experts would have predicted the thoroughness of the Syrian cooperation so far, do you? I doubt it just as much as the idea that they will ever concede error, even when it is staring them, like newly-charred bodies in Baghdad, in the face.

(Photo: U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) speaks about recent developments in Syria September 17, 2013 in Washington, DC. The senator was speaking during a forum at the Council on Foreign Relations. By Mark Wilson/Getty Images.)

Timothy B. Lee passes along the above chart illustrating how complicated the Obamacare system is:

If the exchanges were just insurance marketplaces, getting them to work might have been a lot easier. Much of the complexity comes from the fact that the exchanges are used to administer the complex system of subsidies the Affordable Care Act provides to low-income consumers. Figuring out whether a customer is eligible for a subsidy, and if so how much, requires data from a lot of federal and state agencies.

A reader argues – persuasively to me – that the system could have been much simpler:

David Auerbach does a good job describing the poor execution of the federal exchange, and I’m sure there’s more of this kind of investigation to come.  But the federal government also made an infinite number of policy decisions, and one of those is, perhaps, the original sin of the design. They decided, very intentionally, not to allow window-shopping.

The administration knew that letting consumers shop anonymously and look at what is available, including the general price ranges, was an important factor.  However, they also knew that the federal subsidies reducing those ultimate prices would be a vital enticement.  They decided that letting consumers know about the subsidies was the more important policy.  But to make that happen, the site would have to require people to actually sign into a formal account, provide financial and other information, and only then proceed to the products available to them.  That is a very intensive technological process, particularly in light of privacy concerns, and is a considerable part of the problem most consumers are having to suffer through.  The benefit is that once through the application stage, they will know not only what products are available, and at what price, but also that they will get a subsidy if the information they’ve provided qualifies them for one.

Placing the subsidy as the primary policy goal came at the expense of allowing people to enter a few basic pieces of information anonymously (age, family structure, zip code, say) and simply explore the options and general prices.  If they see something attractive, they can then either go into the application process at that point, or come back to it at a more convenient time (since no one needs to sign up immediately for coverage that won’t begin until January 1 at the earliest). That would have virtually eliminated the front-heavy technology that was enormously hard to manage, and was predictably glitch-prone.  Anonymous shopping is far easier to design and implement, makes for a better consumer experience, and allows people more time to gather the necessary (and necessarily complicated) information they must have when they are finally ready to actually buy health insurance.

The problems in execution are blameworthy, but it is more than fair to hold the administration’s feet to the fire over their policy decision to prioritize subsidies over shopping.  State-based exchanges had the same options available to them, and many chose shopping as the priority.  Score one more for the wise decision in the ACA to let states take the lead in health care reform, and one more shake of the head at the states who chose to let the federal government do the job rather than doing it themselves.

When is Kathleen Sebelius going to be fired?