In a car accident, you hope your seat belts are on.
In our current economy, we need to ensure
government support keeps Americans strapped in.

Just as airbags cushion riders in trouble,
we need unemployment insurance, healthcare,
& mortgage support to cushion our fellow travelers.

To avoid a pile-up, you may need to accelerate,
just as we now need to accelerate our economy
with jobs, infrastructure & green investment.

And no matter how bad the car's condition,
nobody's left stranded at the side of the road.

Detroit's difficulties are trouble for us all:
if America's auto industry crashes, we'll need
smart safety steps to survive a national car crash.

Join the discussion & share a drink
(and have a designated driver, if you do)
with like-minded lefties & liberal libations
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally’s kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)

Kat: The FDA announced last week that it was detaining a wide variety of milk-based Chinese products--everything from candy and baked goods to, once again, pet food--in order to verify that these foods aren't contaminated by melamine. But as an op-ed in Monday's New York Times revealed, melamine turns up in our own domestic food supply, too, and the FDA appears to be pretty blasé about it:

If melamine-tainted milk from China poses a potential hazard, why is the use of melamine in American agriculture acceptable?

Dr. Nestle: It is most emphatically not acceptable. The FDA says this quite clearly on its website:

This means that if farmers are using it as fertilizer, they are doing so illegally. And they are doing it stupidly. Melamine may be rich in nitrogen (67%), but bacteria in soil break it down very slowly so the nitrogen isn’t very available. It would just sit there for a long time. As I discovered during the research for my book Pet Food Politics, the main use of the nitrogen in melamine is to fool tests for protein into thinking that pet food, animal feed, and, for that matter, infant formula, has protein when it doesn’t. So any time you find melamine in pet food, animal food, human food, or fertilizer, it is there because some unscrupulous person has committed fraud. It is not supposed to be there at all, ever.

The FDA’s standard of 2.5 ppm as a “safe” level for melamine in food is a tacit admission that the situation is out of control. I agree that 2.5 ppm is unlikely to harm anyone, even babies. As I discussed in my book, the levels that caused crystals to form in the kidneys of sheep in the 1960s and cats and dogs last year were 100 times higher. But the kidney crystals are formed from melamine and its breakdown product, cyanuric acid. When both are present, crystals form at 32 ppm; the lowest level at which crystals form has not been defined.

Melamine should not be in American—or Chinese--food, feed, or fertilizer at any level whatsoever. If it is in our agricultural system, it’s time to put a stop to it before any more harm gets done.

As for human food: Last week, the FDA issued an import alert on a long list of Chinese foods ranging from milk to candy to pet food because of suspected contamination with melamine. This week, the FDA opened an office in Beijing. While waiting for all this to do some good, it’s probably a good idea to be careful about what you buy from China. Or, as the concerned designer Sokie Lee would say, don’t buy anything at all until China cleans up its food safety act. (see above illustration).

Thirteen days ago, an invigorating Tuesday night warmed our liberal hearts. Election Night brought the country to cheers and to tears, and as people applauded in the streets and shouted out windows and chanted in the subway in New York, I felt real hope and enthusiasm for our prospects.

Now, how long will that energy last?

Sure, the next day people were still sharing smiles during their morning commute...but in our over-saturated culture, will the emotions of our society really be swayed?

My experience on Saturday at the post office suggests the emotional impact wasn't just a one-day wonder.

I had to mail 75 boxes on Saturday. In NY, that means there's one post office I can go to: the main branch. And it's never fun carrying 75 boxes around a bustling city. So I wasn't in a great mood even before waiting for 40 minutes to get to the front of the line. And the guy at the counter wasn't thrilled by the 75 boxes either.

He opened a new window (so we wouldn't hold up the rest of the line) and got to work. He was fast (I actually always find the post office really efficient). And as we got to the final box, he asked me what all these packages were.

"It's for a political club I'm part of," I replied. I instinctively avoided details of my politics as this guy was at his job.

"Must've been a really busy time for you," he said. Then, he added, less tentatively than I'd been: "And a good time."

It wasn't that he was hunting for my political leanings; he just assumed them -- assumed that an American would have to have been excited by what had transpired.

I took the bait. "Well, these are celebratory gifts," I explained. And he smiled. I fished a button out of my pocket and handed it to him.

"Drinking Liberally!" he read out loud. "Now that's the change Barack Obama was talking about!"

He put the button on, becoming a newly-minted Drinking Liberally member right there at the post office. We chatted about where we'd been on Election Night, and saw each other off -- maybe not like good friends, but definitely like friendly neighbors.

A stranger and I made each other happy through our shared politics. More, he clearly just felt it a shared experience -- an American experience. He was proud of his country and there was no question in his mind that others would be to.

If that positive energy makes it back to Thanksgiving tables around the country next week, people will toast our President with their like-minded family members and will at least talk politics with their less agreeable family. That's a good thing for our country, it's a good ingredient to keeping the momentum going.

As we saw with marriage equality rallies last Saturday, politics is remaining central to many people's daily lives, not being shelved for 4 more years, or filed under "completed" on November 4th.

While it's the challenge of our Community-Organizer-in-Chief to turn this hope into a governing constituency, it's also all our jobs to keep talking politics...and maybe be a little less hesitant than I was at first.

Even 40 minutes at a post office isn't something that a little political joy can't cure.

Even our most progressive presidents can be addled by Agribiz propaganda. President-elect Obama--thanks to his corn-fed constituents, we presume--is regrettably fond of ethanol, unlike his rival, John McCain. And McCain's not the only Republican who slams the grain-for-gas scam. Arch conservative P.J. O'Rourke airs his aggravation with industrial ag in the current Weekly Standard:

But Obama wouldn't be the first liberal leader to be conned by Con Agra & co. Jed Bartlet, that wildly popular--though sadly fictitious--West Wing populist, once called the Butterball hotline seeking expert advice on how to cook a salmonella-free stuffing, and gushed "I think this is a wonderful service you provide."

And maybe it is, but there are some not-so-wonderful aspects to Butterball's signature product, America's top selling turkey for more than forty years. In a concession to our obsession with big breasts, American turkey breeders created an avian abomination. As Barbara Kingsolver noted in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:

Ah, but no such reluctance on the part of Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton and co-author of The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. Singer and his co-author Jim Mason actually got themselves hired to work for Butterball's artificial insemination crew in Carthage, Missouri, to experience first hand this foul method of poultry propagation.

Singer and Mason lasted exactly one day. Their description of what the job entailed, from extracting semen from the "toms" to working as "breakers"--i.e., grabbing panicked hens so the inseminator can inject them--is gruesome. A breaker has to wrestle with each hen to insert a tube, whereupon the inseminator releases a blast of compressed air, blowing the semen into the hen's oviduct. Singer and Mason describe this revolting ritual in fittingly coarse terms (sorry, Dad, but I'm just quoting an illustrious Princeton professor):

On the bright side, this is one job that can't be outsourced to India. On the other hand, do you really want to make this miserably manufactured creature the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving feast?

But, you ask, what else is there, beside the ubiquitous Butterball?

Well, before the Broad-Breasted White came along and gobbled up the market, we relied on ordinary, normal-sized turkeys whose modest proportions enabled them to strut, fly, and, yes, engage in good old-fashioned turkey sex. These "Heritage" varieties were bred for flavor, not size, so while they're smaller, they're far tastier.

But, you say, that "Heritage" label sounds so hoity-toity. Surely, they're more expensive? And when so many of us are struggling with rising food costs, is it fair to urge folks to splurge on a fancy fowl?

Well, yes, it costs more to produce poultry in a sustainable and humane way. The small family farmers who raise these Heritage breeds don't benefit from the economies of scale enjoyed by the industrial turkey producers. You could argue--and many do--that factory farms are more efficient and give us cheaper food.

And sure, exploitation is more economical--just think of all the tax payer dollars we saved using slave labor to build The White House. Some things are just wrong. Factory farming abuses animals, workers, and the environment in the name of efficiency. It breeds disease, and depends on toxic pesticides and chemicals and hormones and antibiotics and genetically modified organisms--causing untold damage to our health, and that of the planet's.

That's why I'm asking you to please join the Thanksgiving Local and Organic Food Challenge co-sponsored by Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, and the Eat Well Guide, North America’s premier free online directory for finding local, sustainable food (and for whom I sometimes consult, in the interests of full disclosure.)

As challenges go, this one is modest but meaningful. The Local and Organic Food Challenge simply asks you to include one dish--or even just one ingredient-- that's fresh, local, and sustainably grown, in your holiday feast. And by partnering with The Eat Well Guide, Consumers Union makes it supremely easy for you to participate. There's no need to embark on a marathon foraging expedition to hunt down organic cranberries or locally grown squash, because the Eat Well Guide’s comprehensive online tool does the searching for you--you just have to do the gathering!

The Challenge invites you to share your locally-flavored recipes, and offers additional recipes and inspiration from legendary chefs Alice Waters, Mario Batali, and Dan Barber. Waters recommends that you "roast a delicious Heritage organic turkey. These birds are slow growing and spend a large part of their lives grazing and foraging which results in a deep and complex flavor. You will be supporting the poultry farmers who are raising special breeds, like Narragansett and Bourbon Red, in a sustainable way that cares for the land."

But what if you're on a budget, and you're not ready to bag the Butterball? Well, OK--you can still spring for some organic sweet potatoes, say, or whip up a sustainable stuffing with some Granny Smith apples from the farmers market, and maybe some locally milled cornmeal. As the Eat Well Guide's director, Destin Joy Layne, explains:

If only President Bartlet had known about the Eat Well Guide. Instead of putting in a call to Butterball, he could have flipped open his laptap, logged on to the Eat Well Guide, and punched in his area code to find dozens of stores in his own neck of the woods where he could find a free-range Heritage turkey raised the old-fashioned way. And then he might have said, "I think this is a wonderful service you provide! My fellow Americans, say buh-bye to the Broad-Breasted White and bonjour to the Bourbon Red." Now, there's a slogan for us sustainable socialist types--better off red than overbred.

The lamest duck invites the coolest kid over to his house,
& though they've disagreed & even dissed one another,
the two play nice in the Oval Office.

In a time of two wars, a veteran loses an election,
to a man who promises change in military direction,
& nobody's worried we'll see tanks circling the Capitol.

From the economy to healthcare to global climate change,
America's making new choices, possibly a leftward swing,
& right-wingers snipe on TV...but no sniping in the streets.

Despite flawed elections, curtailed liberties, timid press,
corporate interference, corruption, incompetence & fear..
we didn't manage to completely break democracy yet.

Our democracy's a little stronger than that after all...

Raise a glass both to the results of the election
& that we had an election...now, that's worth toasting.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

This morning, a bunch of people got punked, receiving forwarded articles pronouncing: "Ex-Secretary Apologized for WMD Scare."

Following a day in which Bush expressed regret over "Mission Accomplished" and "Dead or Alive," it seemed plausible that Condi Rice was trying to protect her legacy too.

But when, on my way into the subway, I get handed a paper copy of the New York Times declaring "Iraq War Ends," I knew it was a prank.

A prank...except that wasn't really tricking anybody (we generally knew the war wasn't over, universal healthcare hadn't yet happened and Bush wasn't standing trial for war crimes).

A satire...except it wasn't really funny. The reactions on the subway weren't laughter.

It was a parody...that elicited hope.

This project, which seemed to be dropped on the unsuspecting public by the Yes Men, got us thinking...you know, the war could be over in and troops could start coming home in 6 months...CEO wages could be capped (especially as part of the bailout)...NYC bike lanes could be widened...and The Times editorial page could properly apologize for their complicity in the great Iraq deception.

Unlike the Onion which pokes at the truth with absurd headlines, this parody wasn't so far-fetched. The articles suggest a world that hasn't come yet, and maybe isn't immediately within reach, but is a few steps away...if we keep progressive pressure on this administration.

I saw people reading this fake paper -- not because they were tricked, nor entertained...but because it invited them to dream of the world they would wanted to see.

And who doesn't like to imagine?

Reading Liberally Page Turner
by Nora Eisenberg

(We're honored that Nora Eisenberg, longtime friend of Living Liberally, award-winning novelist, and author of the soon to be published When You Come Home (Curbstone Press), the first American novel about the 1991 Gulf War and Gulf War illness, has allowed us to publish this special Veteran's Day post.)

What does a war injury look like? In the case of Iraq, we tend to picture veterans bravely getting on with their lives with the help of steel legs or computerised limbs. Trauma injuries are certainly the most visible of health problems – the ones that grab our attention. A campaign ad for congressman Tom Udall featured an Iraq war veteran who had survived a shot to his head. Speaking through the computer that now substitutes for his voice, Sergeant Erik Schei extols the top-notch care that saved his life.

As politicians argue about healthcare for veterans, it is generally people like Sgt Schei that they have in mind, men and women torn apart by a bullet or bomb. And of course, these Iraq war veterans must receive the best care available for such complex and catastrophic injuries.