Be Strong and Healthy

[Gem]

I think it because in modernity we have the underlying philosophy of freedom, and have drawn the conclusion that freedom = choice. This is represented in 'the land of the free' by having 87 choices about everything. How many ketchups are on the supermarket shelf? In the 'whole food' market it has gone the other way. For example, there are so many heirloom tomato varieties, but probably between 3-5 varieties of tomato on any supermarket shelf. Where I grew up in a third world county there were so many varieties of banana in the marketplace I couldn't give a number, but what about the supermarket? Cavendish, ladyfinger and perhaps one variety of cooking banana. But there is a whole supermarket isle for just chips.


Under the philosophy of 'give them a choice and tell them they are free, we attempt to incorporate freedom ideologies into policy which is 'fair', but such policy is strongly biased toward the 'free market' which provides choices to the consumer. However, the free market is not concerned with the betterment and well-being of their consumers. They only want you to consume their products, and consume as much as possibly can - plus throw out what you can't!



The symbolism of the image of 'great American food' laid in abundance beneath the portrait of Abraham Lincoln is so poignant. A choice between a whole lot of cr4p is what 'freedom' has come to be. But people miss it because it is concealed in plain sight by the invisibility of normalcy which defines 'American'. Thus, the image of the white-house lunch represent how policy determines the standard (or normal)American diet, and how people are the unwitting slaves of policy - even though the policy gives them choice.

Freedom is not choice. If you attended the white house lunch, what choice did you have? Similarly, the same choice you have given the 'great American lunch'. Choice is not freedom. People are merely bound to the choices available to them in their environment and influenced by the pressures acting upon them. Freedom is the ability to discern what is for the best and making the 'right' choice.