We Investigated The Corporate Cover-up Killing Rural America

[bucolic_frolic]

Cancer rates in Iowa are rising faster than anywhere else in the country.

Politicians blame individual choices, but the real villain is the industrial farming covering the state.

We went, tested the water, and found cancer causing levels of chemicals running through Iowa.

More Perfect Union is an Emmy-winning, nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to build power for working people. Here’s what that means: We report on the real struggles and challenges of the working class from a working-class perspective. We attempt to connect those problems to potential solutions. We report on the abuses and wrongdoing of corporate power. And we seek to hold accountable the ultra-rich who have too much power over America’s political and economic systems.

[erronis]

1. Poor choices? It's not like the families that have lived there for generations

had any say when the mega-agro-corps decided to take over most of the land and pollute the groundwater and air.

[KT2000]

3. They bought into the lies

told by chemical salesmen. The corporations courted agriculture colleges into believing their products would save the farmers from crop failures. Sure they did but at what cost? Independent farmers bought into the chemical revolution before there was corporate farming. They were at the front of resistance to more testing and less use.

We have a no-spray on roadsides policy on our county. A person wanted to change the country back to spraying herbicides so they brought in a professor from a state agricultural university. He brought his props that showed a cup of coffee was more dangerous than glyphosate.

Many people who know better have been bought off.

[KT2000]

2. Having been in the fight

against toxic chemicals destroying the health of this country, I have to say it is the general population that has stood up for the polluters and chemical companies. The harder we fought, the stronger our opposition became. We were easily marginalized with ridicule.

Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962 and the corporate war against chemical safety started. The tactics are identical to the ones republicans use to denigrate everyone who does not bow to them. The Mid-West is no exception. Farmers were successfully recruited by the chemical companies and their salesmen to ridicule those who were fighting for their safety and health. They were the army for the chemical companies.

Of course they are not the only ones but the chemicals they are encourage to use are spread far and wide so all of us are exposed.

[Cheezoholic]

4. Its the same everywhere in the fly overs. What I find ironic here is there is a massive number of MAGA "millionaires"

Buying and building or buying newly built MAGA mansions as I call them RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A FACTORY CORN FIELD! They have their MAGA flags flying, 4 wheelers galore, big trucks Kubota tractors all to mow some grass and go to the grocery. These places are ridiculously obnoxious and they are popping up everywhere. I live 4 miles from the closest town and i now pass by 5 of these on the way in when there were 0 5 years ago. No city water there buds, just dippin into that shallow well of glyco for a drink and wearing it on your skin as you tan out by your pool as the giant spray tractor drives around your house WITH NO TREES!
Fucking idiots. 70-80 years of chemical poisoning has genetically modified humans into morons, I'm convinced.