Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we react to the ongoing effort in the US Government to seemingly allow more toxic chemicals like glyphosate, the ingredient in herbicides like Roundup, to be introduced into people's food and water.
Hello, welcome to called Like I See a Podcast. I'm James Keats. And joining me today is a man who has been trying to warn people there is a dark side. Tunde Yoga. Lana Tunde, are you ready to guide us through these muddy waters here today?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Yeah, man. All right, I'll pick up the baton from George Lucas.
I want everybody.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: All right, all right. Now recording on March 10, 2026. Antonde for the past few months, it seems like we've seen parts of the US Government seemingly double or even triple down on lowering barriers which restrict the use of toxic chemicals in our environment.
Like a few months back at the end of 2025, we saw the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency approve for the first time the use of a forever chemical based pesticide. And this would be used in golf courses, on lawns and on certain foods.
And now we're seeing this big push involving executive orders, bills that are being introduced into Congress, and also arguments being made at the Supreme Court to boost the production and use of glyphosate, which is the ingredient, main ingredient, the active ingredient in herbicides like Roundup and has been found many places around the world to cause cancer and to be very toxic to human beings. In addition to being very toxic to, it's supposed to be toxic to plants, but also it supposedly has been found again in many, many places around the world to be toxic to human beings as well. And these efforts also involved to increase the use and also to remove any risk, legal liability and all that kind of stuff for companies that make it and any risk they would face if and when people get sick. So Tunde, what is your reaction to seeing the administration in the various parts of the US Government approving forever chemical based pesticides and, and while shielding the makers of glyphosate from any kind of liability and making it easier for them to produce more and use more and stuff like this. How is this supposed to make America healthy?
[00:02:32] Speaker B: I can't answer that last one because I think this whole conversation is going to be about explaining how this is probably not going to be that healthy for all of us. But I want to just add one thing before I directly respond.
One of the crops that you forgot to mention is cotton. And I just say that because when I read that, it made me realize, just reminded me like you said, golf courses Those of us that play golf gonna breathe it in the food. We're already used to the idea of pesticides on food, but it was just. When I read that it was also being approved for use on cotton, it was a reminder that, yeah, cotton's a plant, and I'm wearing cotton right now on my, you know, my shirt is made out of cotton. And so we're going to be breathing this in, absorbing it through our skin, all that kind of stuff. So it is. It's a reminder of how.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: So I undersold it. You know, I undersold it.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: That's what I was saying, like.
Yeah, no, but that's why I just want to say that. Not to distract, but it's more of. We forget, all of us, how pervasive these chemicals are and just that they are around us at all times. And I think part of, unfortunately, where we are is that this, like many other topics, whether it be healthcare or education, has kind of gone into the political baby faces and heels and footballs, you know, kind of back and forth as to. As to people liking or not, you know, the people that say the messages, but not looking at this underlying stuff. And I think to go back directly to the question about what I think about this, I think this plays a little bit into that, where you had a lot of Americans concerned. I mean, Americans are concerned about healthcare in general. And I would say this pesticide stuff and all that is just one lane of the bigger conversation about our health in this country and what we eat and all that kind of stuff. And so this is on a lot of people's minds. And again, I think a lot of people genuinely felt that this administration coming in would do something different.
Like many people have felt in their respective things that they care about, that, you know, new administrations will make these changes that they supported that said administration for, you know, not just this one, but any others from the past. And so I think that it's not a surprise that people are questioning this. I would say this, James. Me personally, I'm not surprised because this is another example of an American administration I'm not even gonna beat up, just this one, even though this one looks like it's doing what I'm about to say on steroids a bit. But it's an example of an administration that is just siding with industry over the people that voted them in. And, well, you know, I think that's pretty much just, you know.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Well, see, I mean, it's interesting that you. That you in there, because where you started, you know, was really talking about how the responsibility of the people, you know, and kind of like, okay, you know, people are looking at this and they've been kind of presented these things and a baby face heel kind of thing. And so you just hop on board with the baby face and you boo the heel all the time. And so therefore maybe your decision making process can be compromised, intentional.
You can be sold a bill of goods and then feel good about it too, because you're still cheering for what you see as the good guy. I actually was looking at this where you ended though, from the standpoint of the incentives of our system. And you said something that I just don't think is really true at this point. And you're saying that the people in office, the elected officials in office and their appointees, you said that they're siding with industry as opposed to the people that voted them into office. And I think that we have to come to grips with the fact that the people aren't really putting these people in office. It is industry that is putting these people in office. And whether that, if you want to point to Citizens United and the decision that money is speech and corporations can have as much speech as they want, meaning they can spend as much money as they want, or. I mean, that wasn't the first time that money got involved in politics though. But I think that may have tipped the scales to a point where. Well, what we're seeing now is that one, the companies that make and sell these products, if they're toxic, the company's incentive, the way our system is set up right now, isn't to make it less toxic. The company's incentive is to rig the system so that they can't be legally liable for that, that they won't have to, that they won't have cost because, because it's toxic, they want to minimize their costs and maximize their revenue, therefore growing the profits, growing the value to shareholders and so forth. So their incentive isn't to produce a product that is more safe, it's to produce something that works at least on a first blush that ideally that they can patent. Because a large part of the Monsanto, Bayer part of this is yes, they make the glyphosate herbicide, but then they also make, you know, they have patented seeds that can grow with all this stuff with it's being slathered in, they have plants that can be slathered in the, in the Roundup or you know, the, the, the, the, the, the herbicide and still grow. So then they, they sell those patented seeds and they have an exclusivity because of the patent, so they're getting it on multiple different angles.
But their incentive won't be to make a safer product, it'll be to make sure that the system can't hold them accountable. Then their incentive on the other side is to say, okay, we need friendly politicians that will make it so we can sell more of this stuff. So that will make it so that we can credibly claim at some point that hey, you got to use our stuff. If you don't use our stuff, your food supply is going to collapse. You know, that's quite a great deal for a for profit business is to say, hey, if you guys want to eat, you got to keep using our product and if it kills you, so be it. You'll die from starvation faster if you don't use our products. So we're kind of tied up in a little bit of a bind here with this because everybody is acting from a business standpoint in line with their incentives. And so until there is more direct accountability to people, to the interests of people, to the wellbeing of people, then things will continue down this path. Because right now there's not a intervention in place to break the chain of, okay, corporation has a lot of money, spends a lot of money to make it so that they minimize their risk, spends a lot of money to make sure that they can maximize their sales. And then for the people standpoint, there is no mechanism to say, hey, you need to look out for our interest too. You know, it's kind of like we're beholden to, hey, hopefully some nice people are out there that can see all this stuff going on and still try to advocate for us. And, and what we're seeing is that that's really trying to swim upstream.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Well, and not only that they're nice people that try to advocate for us, but they also got to check the box that somehow they're going to be able to do all that and overcome the financial windfall that they'll be fighting against, like you said, which is going to be the purse strings of industry which have been wide open. So dare I use, James, a certain word that starts with an R, but it's not the one that my mom would be mad about if I called you that.
It's going to be the word regulation.
That's exactly what used to be the solution for these things about protecting the public from, let's say, the negative incentives that may sometimes drive industry to make certain short term decisions that help the corporation and the shareholders but long term decisions, they may negatively affects society as a whole.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Change their calculation basically either by outright them or by making it more costly to make harmful decisions that are harmful to people.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I think that part of the journey we're on as a nation, this being one of many topics, is we're at a touch the stove moment as people in a democracy where it seems like Americans the last 20 years or so have been complaining about everything. And there's actually a lot of agreements. There's areas where Americans agree 80% on things like they don't like school shootings, they want to have a solution to that. They don't like the health care system, they want to have a solution to that. They don't like these pesticides. They want to not eat poison food and wear clothes that's going to have poison because the cotton was laced with pesticides. So these are things that we tend to some majority of Americans, both left and right, baby faces and heels all agree with, but yet we have elected officials that we keep putting in power that like you said, because of certain parts of our system that have been deregulated and others that have been allowed to compete with the people through money, we seem to not. I mean, I don't know, maybe we got to go through this. Maybe that's why I said there's a touch of stove moment for us to really see that this is serious, that all these things that we keep saying as Americans on aren't being addressed by anybody.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Well, no, that's. You make a great point. Because the thing is, is that what we've learned, what we're learning and what we're seeing, and we'll see how many times we have to bump our heads against this before we say, hey, maybe we need to look at how this is set up, is that if 80% of the people agree on something, it doesn't matter if one industry decides that they don't want that to be, they don't want that intervention to happen. One industry, you know, whether it be the gun lobby, whether it be the chemical and the chemical industry, you know, company lobbies and stuff, they can say, okay, we don't care if 80% of the people want whatever is happening to stop because we got the money, because our speech money can exceed theirs, then we, then our elected officials are going to be responsive to the industry and not 80% of the people. So that's what I'm saying, that's the disconnect we can't even get because once you get to the Idea of regulation. Then it's like, well how do we regulate it? What do we regulate? And so forth. We can't even get really to that discussion right now because the idea of restraining industry in places where industry doesn't want to be restrained and has the wherewithal to lobby and to work themselves into government agencies and so forth. We can't even get to that first part of the second part of the conversation.
And it's really interesting because what we're talking, and this is the thing about it, like viscerally this means something to me because when we're talking about herbicides or pesticides and so forth, what we're talking about is poison. Like literally that's the whole side part about it. And so we kind of walk around in this situation where it's like, okay, yeah, we're gonna spray. It's not like it's a targeted small amount, one time thing and you know, where the environment's cleaning up or whatever, we're gonna spray these poisons on these things that we then consume or wear. And, and we're going to just be like, it almost requires you to take an ostrich approach. Like okay, well that won't affect me just because it's killing everything else, but I'll be cool. Like it's such a head in the sand type of thing to think that it's okay to spray poisons on all this stuff. And so. But again, we can't even get to a substantive discussion. Okay, like the part about it with the forever chemicals is really crazy because then it's like, okay, we're going to spray poisons that never degrade.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Yeah, let me jump in here forever.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: And so it's like, yeah, that's the plan now. So I do want to keep us
[00:13:42] Speaker B: chomping at the bit because. Well, no, I actually you said something important and this is where to me language is important. I just want to say this for the audience because you blew through it, but you said that's what the cide is for. And what I want to say for the audience, that's the spelling C I D E meaning pesticide. And think about the words.
Infanticide is when you kill children.
Fracturecide is when someone kills their brother or sister. You know, these kind of things. So pesticide is exactly that. It's poison that kills pests. So I just want to make it clear that what you're saying is very accurate. This is poison.
This is poison. That many scientific studies, let's just say
[00:14:23] Speaker A: all of them, the point of it is to kill living organisms.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: I guess we just have assumed that we're not living organisms in the same way. So if we have so much of this poison floating around us everywhere, that we're just not going to be affected. And so.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Hold on.
Yeah, because you're going to have me going the other direction of that one, but that's a different show. Seriously. Because that is honestly something in our culture about that we think we're so much dominant to nature and that we're not actually. That this whole thing is in an ecosystem, to your point.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: So.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: But that's a. That's a separate conversation about culture, but
[00:14:58] Speaker A: as well, you know.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean.
Somehow these things will affect everything else, but not us. But just to finish up, I just wanted to say something before we jump to the next section, because what we're talking about is very interesting. One of the tools used for this legislation that is, or, you know, the way this is being pushed out, or executive order actually, is what I should say.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah, we already had the executive orders already come out.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the Defense Production act of 1950. That's what's being used as the excuse for this part of it is that along with glyphosate is phosphorus. That's being said is a national security issue. Phosphorus. And this is where things are connected. Phosphorus is used to make bombs. There's something called white phosphorus, all that. So my point is that right now, as we're recording this, we've been spending our munitions this past year, right now as we speak, a military operation, special operation. I don't know if we're supposed call it a war in Iran, but remember, we've been shooting missiles in Nigeria, all over the world. So part of this is I kept thinking of a president who reminded us ten years after the Defense Production act was legislated in 1960, his name was Dwight Eisenhower and he warned us of the military industrial complex. And my point is, is that I think now what we're looking at, there's a food industrial complex, there's a tech industrial complex. So what's happened is since his warning in 1960, these kind of shadow.
I don't even know what to call them, but these shadow pockets of industry and government colluding with the money seem to have only grown. And I think that explains a bit what we talked earlier of why Americans seem always unhappy, that we have all of these shared concerns, that if you look at it as 75% plus on many of them, that we share these concerns. But no matter who we elect into office, we don't see a change. And I think it's. And that's what I mean, maybe this was our touch the stove moment, that we now have an administration that's kind of ripped the veneer off and said, hey, industry, if you just pay us,
[00:17:00] Speaker A: we'll let you do whatever you want.
And that was happening already. It might be helpful now that we can actually. The way that they're operating, there's no transparent, you know, like, we see the lobbyists in there writing the regulation and so forth, and we can see, like, we can see the quid pro quo, you know, happening. And so maybe some people, more people wake up and, and. But recognize that again, it's because these industrial complexes rise up because it's industry that makes the decisions or that puts the people in office, not the people. The people are given a lot of times a couple of choices. But the little known fact is that the lobbyists are lobbying both sides at all times, you know?
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause weren't we told.
Weren't we told that there was a. But wait a second, let me just say this. We were told that there were a secret group of unelected people, right. That we needed to get out of the government. And now here we go again. These unelected lobbyists and all that are.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: They got more control now than ever, you know, like, Exactly. That's interesting that that warning was, hey, this is what's really going on. But instead of it being hidden, I'm gonna make it public and actually get more money out of it myself. I'm gonna fully potent, you know, make it fully potent. But no, I think we touched the stove.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: We touched the stove real quick.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Do you think now part of the current administration, you know, part of that. That rode in on the momentum and with the support of people who claim to want to make America healthy, you know, like they say, oh, yeah, we want to get rid of chemicals in our food supply and in our soil and in our water and all that we want, you know, all these different things. They're so worried about vaccines and all this other stuff that all this stuff that they're worried about.
And so part of this administration at least held themselves out as saying, hey, you know, like, whether it be through Robert Kennedy or whatever, like, hey, we're going to try to make. We're going to try to fulfill some of this promise. Do you think those people would be justified in feeling betrayed with how things have unfolded? I mean, we're just in the first year and Couple months of the administration and it hasn't been status quo. It's been gone the other way. It's been, hey, we're going to make things, we're going to get more toxic chemicals in. Do you think that. Yeah, you know, like, do you think they have a. They'd be justified in feeling betrayed here?
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, to be fair to them. Yes.
Could I sit here and criticize them for being naive, not seeing what I saw, that a lot of things were BS coming into this and all that. But yeah, I mean, look, to be fair to them, yeah, I think that there's a lot of people that genuinely are concerned about these health issues and the greater thing, things like environment pollution, things like that. And I'm gonna read here from one of the articles that I know we're gonna cite as our source mater.
It says last May, that would be May of 2025, not even a year ago from our recording this Kennedy, the Secretary of Health and Human services issued a 69 page report. So it wasn't short. It was actually.
Must have been a lot of scientific research in it titled, quote, making our children healthy again, in which he specifically called out glyphosate as a chief concern. The report said glyphosate caused possible health effects such as reproductive and developmental disorders and cancers, liver inflammation, metabolic disturbances. My point is. So it's kind of like the book we did some time ago. It was all a lie. That's what I thought of, is that maybe Kennedy's genuine, maybe he's not, I don't know. But this administration doesn't really care. Bayer, the company that bought Monsanto, which stands to lose $7.25 billion in a class action lawsuit about this stuff, you know, in terms of making people sick
[00:20:39] Speaker A: with these forever hurting people about this.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Exactly. Making them sick.
I believe they paid $9 million in lobbying is what I heard, and that made it to the President. He signed an executive order. So again, we can see the incentive of industry.
If I'm Bear, yeah, I'd rather pay 9 million than 7.25 billion.
So that's the question. What are we going to do about it as Americans? Are we going to let the next guy tell us that the Haitians are eating our cats and dogs and totally forget about all this important stuff that we seem to care about?
That's what I mean. Like I'm realizing, James.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's wrong though, because this is like we're talking about people who. These aren't people that were distracted by some side issue. They thought that, like, the people who. They're the people who are concerned about being, you know, about trying to make the world less toxic, which I would consider myself that kind of person.
They were told it wasn't that they were distracted with some side issue. They were told, hey, we're going to work on this for you. You know, like. And so now they're not. Obviously, it's going the other way, you know what I'm saying? So I don't think this is an issue where you can point to a distraction of something happening, you know, some claim in Springfield, Ohio, I'm going to
[00:21:47] Speaker B: be nice and not ask someone like you to tell me, well, since you believe in all that and all that, how come you didn't think that?
Well, I'm glad that.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Here's why I'm not going to be nice. I'm not going to be nice because I think that you'd have no reason to feel justified or you're not justified to feel like you've been betrayed. If you make a deal with the devil, someone who it. Like, I, I tell my kids this. If you see someone lie to other people, then you cannot walk around thinking they won't lie to you. Like, oh, well, they just do that to other people. They wouldn't lie to me. They would tell. They're only going to tell me the truth, you know. But all these other people, those other suckers, they're going to deport those other people, they believe that they're all getting lied to. If you see someone who is persistently dishonest and they tell you something, you cannot believe it. If you believe it, it's your bad. It's not like you're not betrayed. If the devil tricks you, you know, the devil lies to you and doesn't do something like, because the devil came in, you knew who he was. You know what I'm saying? And so if this was a situation where a person who was earnest and had this track record of honesty and consistency and and so forth, and they came in, it was Dwight. If it was Dwight Eisenhower who came in and said, hey, this is what we're going to accomplish. This is what we're going to do. Here's what I got for you. And then that person flips and does some dance for industry in exchange for money, then it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I get it. I would. You're definitely justifying and feeling betrayed there. But this is the. We got the slipperiest people that ever been. Have ever been in government, you know, like they openly court bribes and hey, give me a plane and I'll give you this. And like, they openly do this. And so if you're going to make a deal with that person and say, hey, this person's going to get my back once I throw my support behind them, and once I throw my support behind them, I don't really have any say anymore. I don't have ongoing leverage. They just got it at that point. If you buy that person and put that person in, then you get whatever happens to you after that, you know, like, you don't. It's not a thing where you put your faith in someone who has a track record of being honest and measured. You put your track record in someone who, who deceives people all the time pretty transparently. So, no, there's no. If you feel betrayed, it's on you. And you need to learn and be better as far as the kind of people you put your trust in. Because again, it's a lesson for children. If people lie to other people, they will lie to you. Stop trying to act like that you're so special that they won't lie to you.
All you got is a kid. All you got is a chuckle.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: That's tough advice, man.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Stop. It is.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: Stop acting like they weren't like you.
Nah, man, it's sad because, I mean, I feel bad for people because it's kind of like Santa Claus and you know that kind of stuff. Like, people do wish. Honestly, man. I mean, adults, this is why people play the lotto, right? They do wish that somebody just comes. I mean, that's why religion never fails and still popular after all these thousands of years, right? People want somebody to come and create a miracle and just. And just fix it. And.
And that's why I said it's.
I guess I'm trying to be glass half full.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Honest people will promise you miracles, you know, Honest person will be like, oh, I don't know if I can deliver that. Yada, yada, yada. And you're like, oh, screw that person. Then the dishonest person is like, yeah, I'll fix everything. I'll fix it all in one day. You know, no big deal. And then, then that's why I love.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: That's why I love using the full term of a confidence man, not just the short one, right? Like, not just con men, but they're confidence men. They actually come in with confidence and they make you feel confident that they're for real. And then they disappoint you. And that's, you know, it's the story
[00:25:24] Speaker A: as old as time, man. That's.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: But let me ask you a question, man, because I know we're gonna get. We're kind of on the home stretch here of this discussion.
So, you know, one of the things that's kind of intrigued me as we were even preparing was because I'm looking at the other side. Like, all right, so the people who are pushing this through the administration, what are they saying? And so I wanted to kind of find some, you know, who thinks this is good. And obviously the administration is going to put some positive spin on something they're doing. So they're saying the arguments, the only consistent argument is that the food system requires this. And if we don't do it, your food system collapse. You know, kind of, I would say, for me, of more fear based on, like, hey, don't ask too much. Cause if not, you know, this will collapse. But I wanted to get your thoughts. Do you feel that it's a big
[00:26:10] Speaker A: to fail kind of mentality? Yeah.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, exactly. That's a great point. Too big to fail. So how do you feel about that? Do you think the food system in America can't afford to make this change, or do you feel that there could be other solutions?
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Well, no, there's definitely other solutions because there are places in the world that doesn't, like, let's just say glyphosate, for example. There are places where it's illegal, you know, so there are definitely other solutions. Now, can you flip us again back to the confidence man thing? Could you flip a switch and tomorrow it's gone? No, you know, like, because it has been integrated into our system and our practices so much that it would take a. It would take time to unwind. Now, whether that would be six months or three years or whatever it would be. But what the issue we have right now isn't that if you. If you pull it out of the system, that everything will fail. It's that we, the people who are in charge, don't want to pull it out of the system. It's a will problem, not a way problem. The way is there.
And if we wanted to unwind this just in the same way that we unwound in the 80s chemicals that were creating a hole in the ozone, if we wanted to unwind it, we would be able to unwind it. And in fact, we'd still be able to put ourselves in a good situation because of the way technology has evolved over the past 50 years or whatever. So the problem that we have is, again, a One of will. It's like we don't want to do it, and so therefore we're going to. And then there's people who make a lot of money by us not doing it. But so let's get together the people who don't want to do it to get. Get together with the people who don't want you to do it, and then have some money change hand and then we lock ourselves in even more. But if something's too big to fail, also, I'd got to say this piece, that's a leadership issue also, because if you're the leader of a government, if you're going to put the government in a good kind of situation, you probably shouldn't have them to be dependent on companies in that way, because then those companies, that's a lot of leverage those companies have over you at that point. So on multiple levels, that's complete bs, you know, on multiple levels. But at the same time, what will end up happening is that people will accept that because it sounds on the surface like, oh, okay, well, we got to deal with this.
There's a motivation to accept it because as opposed to requiring a higher standard from people for people we like, we tend to want to say, oh, okay, well, I'll just deal with it or whatever. And that's unfortunate because we give people great power. We should hold them to a high standard.
Yeah.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: No, I agree. What about you?
[00:28:30] Speaker A: I mean, what do you think on this?
[00:28:32] Speaker B: It's interesting, man. I think that the more I looked into it, it made me appreciate the idea of kind of monopolies and antitrust because I started thinking about when I've gone overseas, every time I go out of this country, the food is just better.
I can just taste it. It doesn't have as many preservatives doesn't have. What do you mean by better?
[00:28:51] Speaker A: You should explain.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: That's what I mean. Not as many preservatives less processed, more whole foods like fresh greens and, and vegetables and things like that. And I'll give you an example. Like last year.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Hold on. So you've saved like better from a texture, from a taste from it. Like so, you know, like, because of. It lacks preservatives, for example. Like I find. And then the, the, like the different things they put in, like they, they'll take out all the natural stuff and then add a bunch of stuff to try to make it taste natural in the United States a lot of times. And you can taste that difference, you know, where it's like, oh, this is just what it's supposed to taste like. As opposed to.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: You can taste this stuff. Well, then you can try to make it fresh like that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: And you can take it, taste that it's fresher, and look, it's not. I want to be kind of clear here. Not everything's some grand conspiracy. I do believe that the way food developed in the United States after the Depression, the Dust bowl of the 1930s, was in a more defensive posture. Hey, let's protect the population by having more centralized farms and distribution of food.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: And then let's add preservatives so that we can ship it all over the place.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Exactly. That required preservatives so that you could keep it fresh. And that's the thing, like, to go overseas, the food actually rots a lot faster. So I think the answer, because it dawned on me again last year, I was. The only place I went to outside the United States last year was my trip to Israel. And it's interesting going to Israel.
It's in the desert, and it doesn't have huge forests and all these things. And they have the way they do irrigation. They have small farms around the country, and every food you eat everywhere is fresh. So it's like, if a small country like that with a small land mass can afford to have farms in a little bit, every corner and this and that, and still get food to their population at any given time and everyone's, you know, healthy and eats well, why can't we? And so that's kind of my. How I feel about it. And then going back to just finish off the monopoly point, that's what I feel like, even though I say it may not have been sinister how this started. It's kind of like Eisenhower with the military industrial complex. The military wasn't sinister. It started. But by 1960, when he made that comment, there began this fusing of kind of corporate and government interests. And I think the same thing happened, has happened with food where, if you think about it, the monopolies of big farms and big corporations like Tyson Foods and Mondelez and Fresh Del Monte, there's only about less than a dozen companies that own these massive farms. And so when you talk about the system, they would be the ones fighting, breaking this all up and making much smaller farms, that you could have much more entrepreneurial farmers around the country, people get back to work, all that kind of stuff. And I think, like you said, too big to fail is a great point, because whether it's tech, banking, all that, there's other industries in our country which through lobbying, have been able to stamp out competition. And I think this is what's happening now is the lack of antitrust in the recent decades has led to this monopolistic takeover. And here, this whole conversation has been just one example where food, pesticides and all that, they dominate it. And it's much harder for us, the people, to do anything about it.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would require unwinding, you know, like it would require unwinding. And right now the snake has us all wound up, so why would it let us. Exactly, you know, and that's kind of, yeah. The issue that we have in that sense. So, yeah, I don't, I don't actually don't think it's dishonest for them to say, hey, if we, if we change, cut this stuff off now, we would mess up our food supply. It would like. You would actually have to have some foresight and some planning. You wouldn't. You couldn't just close the door, turn the light switch off and it's over.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: I mean, you can't just do a doge and just close everything and not.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: No, that's. Remember, that's the way that con men operate. They promise to be able to. To just flip the switch and change everything overnight.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: And so I shouldn't wait for my peace dividend and my doge dividend. You know, all that stuff is not coming. I'm gonna be like these maha people. I'm gonna be disappointed that my money didn't come.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: You're putting your faith in a miracle, man. Man and a miracle delivered by some dude, you know, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Not God, but a dude. Yeah. Not an angel.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So you are. You are running a risk right then and there. And if, if you're not, if, if you open your eyes, you'll realize that you're being taken, you know, for. For a ride at that moment. Once, once all these grand promises are made, it's like, oh, yeah, there's.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Listen, once we finish with Iran, the peace dividend's going to be pa.
Just gotta finish.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: But no, man, I think we can wrap this topic from there. But I think it's really unfortunate because, like, the ultimate disconnect, though, is where I started, though. It is the disconnect between the people and the power. And now industry between, you know, the people and the power means that, again, it was really saddening to hear you say that at the beginning, talking about how you're right. Yeah. 80% of the people in favor of something. And you and I will be on the phone talking, like, yeah, well, that doesn't matter. You know, and we'll just say it like that. And it's just like, man, if you stop and think about that, like, well, hold up. This is a democratic system. If 80% of the people agree on anything, that should matter. But the way things are set up right now, it. It doesn't. And so the intervention has to come somewhere that, you know, like, where. Where it has to start mattering again, what masses and masses and masses, the masses of people want and think and care about within the context of the Constitution, is what I would say. And because I don't want to lose sight of that because there are definitely efforts right now to push that to the side as well, so. But we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time, I'm James Keys.
All right, we'll talk soon.
