Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumNew NE Governor Rolls Out Bold Policy Of Hysterical Attacks On Soy Milk, Meat Substitutes
Last week, Nebraskans elected Republican businessman Jim Pillen to be the states next governor. Its no surprise he won: Nebraska has picked a Republican in every gubernatorial election since 1998. But what made Pillens campaign so peculiar and alarming to those who care about animal welfare and climate change is that no other political candidate has campaigned so vehemently against veggie burgers and soy milk. Throughout his campaign, Pillen vowed to stand up to radicals who want to use red tape and fake meat to put Nebraska out of business, and promised to work to pass laws that ban plant-based food producers from using words like meat and milk on their packaging.
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Pillen also has a financial interest in maintaining Nebraskas hands-off regulatory landscape: His giant hog operations have been trailed by air and water pollution complaints since the 1990s. Pillens campaign did not respond to an interview request for this story. The real aim, it seems, of his vitriol toward bean burgers a tactic increasingly deployed by Republican politicians is to ensnare plant-based meat into the culture war and further cleave an already divided electorate.
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Real meat is for real Americans, while the stuff made from plants is touted by coastal billionaires, Pillens campaign asserted. The same message lit up right-wing media last year when the Daily Mail speculated with zero evidence that President Joe Bidens climate change plan might limit red meat consumption. (What became the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed a year and a half later, didnt touch meat; ensuring an abundant, cheap meat supply is a goal that still has bipartisan consensus in the US.)
The message resurfaced this summer when Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene nonsensically warned that the government was going to surveil and zap people who eat cheeseburgers. Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as the White House physician for five years and who won reelection last week along with Greene, tweeted I will NEVER eat one of those FAKE burgers made in a LAB. Eat too many and youll turn into a SOCIALIST DEMOCRAT. Real BEEF for me!!
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https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/18/23458234/jim-pillen-governor-nebraska-pigs-pork-plant-based-meat-water-pollution-nitrates
Tetrachloride
(7,865 posts)of soy milk smoothies and veggie chili cookouts.
multigraincracker
(32,714 posts)unless it uses cow milk? OK to eat real meat as long as the real cost is included in the store price.
Blues Heron
(5,939 posts)OnlinePoker
(5,725 posts)I guess Shakespeare was a left-wing radical.
Blues Heron
(5,939 posts)or liebfraumilch for that matter
C_U_L8R
(45,018 posts)but many won't cry in their milk if Nebraska wants to make itself a food desert.
DarthDem
(5,256 posts)They're coming for your red meat!!! BOOGA BOOGA!!
Of course, no one is.
Another thought - doesn't Nebraska have plants? Just asking questions!
NotASurfer
(2,153 posts)And that a wiener dog isn't made of wieners.
On the positive side, maybe he'll try to do something about spammers