Bizarre exchange with someone re: dog food contamination...

[Hobarticus]

I've been talking back and forth with a family member about this.

I made the comment that it's kind of disturbing from a national security point of view, that two labs established to test our food/water supply in case of mass contamination (ie. terrorist attack) came up with false results for rat poison, which the FDA just found nothing of the sort (but named another substance likely to be at fault) when they tested the samples a week later.

She's kind of a red-stater so I didn't push where I was going with this. But my thought is, we're not really any safer than we were six years ago, even after all this nonsense about duct tape and garbage bags, and nonstop Orange Terror alerts. The shiny new Department of Homeland Security supposed to protect us is incompetent at the most basic level.

Her reply?

That maybe this dog food contamination is a test, to see how easy it would be to poison America's food supply. That maybe this is an attempt to demoralize America by killing our pets.

I mean, whoa. Love her to death, but that's just batshit Fox News crazy paranoid.

Did anything of the sort occur to any of DU, or am I being harsh?

[Duer 157099]

1. Can I plead the 5th? n/t

[Hobarticus]

3. Gonzales, I told you to STAY OFF DU!

Get back to fixing elections, dammit!

[xultar]

4. You workin with Gonzo?

[thecrow]

11. I don't remember

Let me clarify that....
To the best of my knowledge..... I don't remember

[Hobarticus]

13. DIRECTIONS: Lather, rinse, repeat 121 times. eom

[xultar]

2. WE'LL FUCK. I thought we were fighting them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them here.

Terra-lert. Bush isn't keeping us safe. He broke his promise. IMPEACH HIS ASS!

That is what I would have replied.

[MichaelHarris]

5. my reply would have been

tests are conducted in secrecy, no one would show their hand in such an international way. It's crazy talk thinking this was a test by terrorists, did they practice flying planes into trees first?

[truedelphi]

6. I'ver actually been optimistic about this mess

Your statement "That maybe this dog food contamination is a test, to see how easy it would be to poison America's food supply" is exactly the sort of pessimistic thing that my brain ususally creates around an event like this (And it was a very dour event, your pessismism is appropriate)

But on the bright side - maybe people out in the general population will finally wake up to what us activisits have been saying for years- That far too many chemicals exist inside the foods we eat and the home products that we use.

Get rid of "traces" of pesticides; MSG, food colorings not based on natural substances like beets, additives, weird sweeteners. Examine the plastic polymers that are in the food containers (a cause for concern if the companies putting food in these are doing so when the food is above 88% or so.)

[Duer 157099]

7. OK, no 5th, I'll come clean: Yes, those were my first thoughts, too

and I don't even WATCH Fox News!!!

[Hobarticus]

8. You're pulling my leg...elaborate, please eom

[Duer 157099]

10. Nope, not pulling

Now I actually didn't go so far as to think that "terrorists" were doing it intentionally, but what I did think was that *if* they (or anyone) had WANTED to do this, it could be easily done.

It also occurred to me that targeting pets is diabolical, if intentional, and thus could be a real target.

I didn't spend a lot of time dwelling on this though -- just made the observation to myself that as you stated in your OP, we are most certainly *not* any safer than we have ever been.

[Hobarticus]

14. That's not so bad...

This is ceratinly reasonable to consider. We really are vulnerable in this manner. And it'd take a couple weeks for the Fed to get their shit together.

Whew, you had me worried. :)

Just knowing this person, I'm positive she meant it in terms of swarthy men out to kill her dogs to break her will.

[havocmom]

12. Me too. No FAUX, but plenty of observation skills. We are all lab rats

Also thinking today: Bhopal, anybody remember THAT? US corporation got away with killing brown people and Americans still supported it via purchases. So now our pets are being poisoned and we will see if the masses sit still for that.

If you are sitting in a board room of a MEGA-HUGE Corporation, the temptation must be great to keep seeing how far you can cut corners and increase profit at the cost of safety. At what point do people grab their pitchforks and storm the castle so you have to back off a bit? So far, seems like the corporations have no reason NOT to poison people, animals, environment. They suffer no consequences and the mess they make will outlive them anyway... no direct consequences.

Time to storm the castle, folks. Time to show them where the line is and push them back.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Occam's Razor --

Why create an elaborate terrorist conspiracy when common corporate greed and carelessness provides as good an answer?

No terrorist would expect testing of animal food to be equal to testing of human food. Of course, considering who's in charge now, testing of animal food is probably better than testing of human food - thee are fewer producers and fewer customers for animal food than human food. But it wouldn't worth their while in terms of expense to deliberately do this as a test. Easier to just do some crop dusting with E-Coli.

[shadowknows69]

15. Off subject but a little tidbit from Science Fiction

The Whole "Planet of the Apes" thing got started according to its mythos because a mysterious plague wiped out every cat and dog on earth so mankind took to keeping apes as pets and eventually as slaves thus they evolved quicker.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. Yup. I mentioned that in another thread

but was roundly ignored.

Ah well, so much for film allusions.

[shadowknows69]

17. if people paid more attention to science fiction

we might not be living in Soylent Green world by now.

[NV Whino]

18. Well, it did cross my mind

although terrorists were not involved in the equation.

Isn't it sad this administration is so batshit crazy that a reasonably sane person could actually think such thoughts.

[kestrel91316]

19. I happen to think it's probably careless Chinese farmers/wheat

processors and a hamstrung FDA that allowed this to happen, but that's just me.