AJ DiCintio

Let’s Kill All the Tomatoes!
October 30, 2009

If we can correctly guess anything about the nature of the leftist mind, it’s that its neurons, in varying degrees, are rife with chemicals that give rise to the love of power, the love of being ruled, the love of hypocrisy, and the love of neurotic guilt — a quadruplet that explains perverse behaviors that leftists always characterize as resulting from a triumph of reason.

For example, when American liberals hear Shakespeare’s character say that to create a utopian society, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” they don’t cheer a person who reveals an admirable thoughtfulness regarding what “Utopia” means.

Rather, liberals claim reason impels them to hiss, “Dick the Butcher is a racist, fascist troglodyte — like every member of today’s tort reform loving mob!”

To be honest about it, leftist perversity always gets the “let’s kill” thing wrong.

Such is the case regarding the bureaucrats of the Swedish National Food Administration, who, in their zeal to reduce Sweden’s “carbon footprint,” are trying to convince Swedes to do a lot of perfectly stupid killing.

What is this all about? Well, to understand it, one first needs to know that according to Elisabeth Rosenthal (NY Times), all Swedes may soon be confronted with new labels that list “the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the production of foods, from whole wheat pasta to fast food burgers.”

To give us an idea of what the labels look like, Rosenthal explains that a set of guinea pig Swedish shoppers are already being “flummoxed” by the following pronouncement on a box of oatmeal (which this author has restated in the English system).

“Climate declared: 14 ounces CO2 per pound of product.”

Now, Swedes may be bewildered by the message, but Americans immediately perceive both its meaning and intent:

The information informs shoppers that nearly a pound of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere to produce a pound of the oatmeal.

Its purpose is to encourage Swedes to do their darnedest to kill one food and purchase another that is more carbon friendly —price be damned.

As sensible people will guess, the real plan is eventually to ditch the program’s Obama-sized portion of hope and replace it with governmental force that kills food choices.

But as things now stand, the Food Administration is simply counting on obedient subjects of the Swedish nanny state to love the most environmentally correct foods.

Yes, love them — even if, for example, the stuff has the taste and texture of stable bedding and is infinitely less nutritious than the steelcut havremjöl, which, topped with environmentally sinful sugar and banana and eaten for frukost on many a frozen morning, has, since childhood, warmed the little that remains of the Swedish heart and soul.

Swedes will also have to make other wrenching decisions as they turn from their shopping lists to read from “proposed new dietary guidelines” that take the environment into account.

Yes, every Swedish man and kvinna will be faced with deciding whether to stick with old favorites or obey bureaucrats who recommend eating carrots instead of greenhouse-grown tomatoes or beans in place of red meat.

“Never happen in the United States,” somebody might say, “because Carol M. Browner, Obama’s Energy Coordinator/Global Warming Czar, doesn’t have the stomach to attempt laying a culinary guilt trip on Americans.”

Too bad Mr./Ms. Somebody is fixated on the stomach because Czar Browner certainly has the mind for the job as revealed by Stephen Dinan (Washington Times) when he informed us that as soon as Barack Obama chose her for the post, her name disappeared from websites of a number of organizations.

Foremost among those groups is the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, a subsidiary of Socialist International that, according to Dinan, promotes the idea of “global governance” aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions — the economy be damned.

Yes, like every other good liberal, Ms. Browner would love to kill tomatoes and steak in favor of springing into life dinners of carrots and beans, all in the name of energy independence and a clean environment.

We know this to be true because during the Election of ’08, T. Boone Pickens labored as hard as he could on behalf of a plan that eschews killing tomatoes to build a bridge to America’s independent, environmentally sound energy future by erecting electricity producing windmills from North Dakota to Texas and drilling vigorously for natural gas on American soil.

During the campaign, Pickens was optimistic that liberals understood and would act upon his practicable proposal.

But soon after Obama assumed office, T. Boone learned that he who lives upon hope in liberalism will die worse than by fasting as liberals conveniently shoved him and his plan into the vortex of the common sense sucking, We the People devouring black hole that is politics in Washington, DC.

No, liberals won’t support practical, private sector plans that move toward achieving an energy independent, environmentally healthful America.

Neither will members of the “wealthiest Democratic group” (Pew Research) reach into their own deep pockets to cover millions of liberal rooftops with photovoltaic systems, a technology currently too costly for most Americans.

But in their insatiable pursuit of power, liberals will connive mightily to institute abominations such as “Cap and Trade,” a contrivance so mad Rube Goldberg couldn’t even imagine it but one nevertheless beloved by partners at Goldman Sachs as well as accountants at the DNC and IRS.

They will continue to jet fuel all the way to Ulan Bator for a vacation or to Tierra del Fuego to attend a conference on “Reducing CO2 Emissions.”

And having learned that Swedes are feeling guilty when they order their favorite burger, they will surely try to create a National Food Administration that issues “environmentally sensible” National Dietary Guidelines.

After all, according to the bible of the Liberal Church, wallowing in neurotic guilt or inducing it in others is one of the four main loves that make life worth living.