I wonder if any of us older folk here remember beefalo?
Beefalo was a product of the Permanent Meat Shortage.
“HUH,” everyone replies.
Yes, Virginia, there was during one of the decades since the 1960s a Meat Crisis. One of the solutions to this Crisis, which absolutely everyone at the time was talking about, was a cross between buffalo and domestic cattle. As I understand it, the resulting beefalo produced good meat, but without the extreme coddling and special feeding required by our highly bred domestic cattle.
To me, the important thing about the Meat Crisis has nothing whatever to do with cattle, buffalo or meat in general. To me, it is the classic example.
The Permanent Meat Crisis is a perfect example because absolutely nobody remembers it.
Except me. During its year of media alarm, the Permanent Meat Crisis was known about by absolutely everybody. Now it is not merely forgotten. When I talk about it I can hear the Twilight Zone music playing in the background. Everybody who was there looks at me as if I am speaking Algonquin.
Except that more people can understand Algonquin than can remember the Permanent Meat Crisis.
Compared to the Permanent Meat Crisis, the Energy Crisis is not entirely forgotten by the hundred million Americans who heard about it throughout the 1970s. Dozens of them remember THAT crisis.
The Energy Crisis was entirely different from our present Peak Oil discussion, and the simple fact that our oil must eventually run out. No, the Energy Crisis of the 70s began with the OPEC boycott after the US supported Israel about 1972.
The next three elections featured The Oil Crisis. Then when Reagan went in, the Oil Crisis disappeared.
If you asked anyone what happened to it they won’t remember The Oil Crisis. If they do, they have no idea what happened to it.
As I say, this Oil Crisis was not like the depletion of the world’s oil which has been the subject of frantic discussion since the 1920s. This, like the Permanent Meat Shortage, was a “right now“ thing, because under the system as it then existed, there was an actual danger of economic collapse if OPEC turned the screw, not in decades but next week.
My point is that the Permanent Meat Shortage was the perfect example of the kind of thing a professional political advisor recognizes immediately. He puts out a press release for whoever wants it and then gets back to grown-up stuff.
#1 by Gator61 on 11/11/2011 - 6:59 am
I remember the “beef crisis”. One of the things about the “beef crisis” that sticks in my head from that time is a line from a Frank Zappa song
The mystery man came over
And he said “I’m outta sight!”
He said for a nominal service charge
I could reach nirvana tonight
If I was ready, willing and able
To pay him his regular fee
He would drop all the rest of
His pressing affairs and devote
His attention to me
But I said “Look here brother
who you jiving with that cosmik debris?
Now who you jiving with that cosmik debris?
Look here brother, don’t waste your time on me”
The mystery man got nervous
And he fidget around a bit
He reached in the pocket of his mystery robe
And he whipped out a shaving kit
Now I thought it was a razor
And a can of foaming goo
But he told me right then when the top popped open
There was nothin’ his box won’t do
With the oil of Aphrodite, and the dust of the Grand Wazoo
He said “You might not believe this, little fella
But it’ll cure your asthma too”
And I said “Look here brother
Who you jiving with that cosmik debris?
Now what kind of a guru are you, anyway?
Look here brother, don’t waste your time on me”
*(Don’t waste your time)*
“I’ve got troubles of my own”, I said
“And you can’t help me out
So, take your meditations and your preparations
And ram it up your snout!”
“But I got the crystal ball”, he said
And held it to the ligh
So I snatched it, all away from him
And I showed him how to do it right
I wrapped a newspaper ’round my head
So I looked like I was deep
I said some mumbo-jumbo, then
I told him he was going to sleep
I robbed his rings and pocketwatch
And everything else I found
I had that sucker hypnotized
He couldn’t even make a sound
I proceeded to tell him his future, then
As long as he was hanging around
I said “The price of meat has just gone up
And your old lady has just gone down!”
And I said “Look here brother-who you
Jiving with that cosmik debris?
Now is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Don’t you know, you could make more money as a butcher?
So, don’t waste your time on me”
Don’t waste it, don’t waste your time on me
*(Shante)*
Cosmik Debris by Frank Zappa
I wrapped a newspaper ’round my head
So I looked like I was deep
I said some mumbo-jumbo, then
I told him he was going to sleep
I robbed his rings and pocketwatch
And everything else I found
I had that sucker hypnotized
He couldn’t even make a sound
I proceeded to tell him his future, then
As long as he was hanging around
I said “The price of meat has just gone up
And your old lady has just gone down!”
And I said “Look here brother-who you
Jiving with that cosmik debris?
Now is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Don’t you know, you could make more money as a butcher?
So, don’t waste your time on me”
“The price of meat has just gone up…” and “Don’t you know, you could make more money as a butcher?” Would not have been included in this song if instantly recognizable “facts”. If Zappa were writing Cosmik Debris today I’ll bet the line would be “The price of gas has just gone up…”
#2 by dungeoneer on 11/11/2011 - 9:38 am
The Meat Crisis is still going strong,there`s the water and soil depletion,and also the dreaded greenhouse gases and Climate Change:
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=102354
“The overall message is clearly that we must eat less meat to help secure a more sustainable and equitable world.”
“‘This book contains truths too important to dismiss, too frightening to ignore.’
Joanna Lumley, actress and campaigner”
LOL
#3 by Genseric on 11/11/2011 - 10:43 am
Yeah.
Imagine.
“A world without MEAT! Forget White children, where’s the beef?!”
“Save the Whales. Save the spotted owl. Slaughter White children. I don’t care. Just give me my beef!”
#4 by Dave on 11/11/2011 - 12:52 pm
You gotta understand stupid dog trick politics. The public’s attention is always misdirected into nonsense.
For example, the public is told Chavez is an enemy of America. He puts on a big show of being an enemy of America. But the fact is he treats the American and Canadian franchises in Venezuela with kid gloves. In fact is he is a finicky waiter, a finicky servant of American interests.
How do I know? His gold and oil flow north, deposits in the US Treasury flow south in exchange. His anti-American show is nothing but stupid dog trick politics. He knows where his bread is buttered.
The public is endlessly fooled. The bullshit never stops. They buy it hook, line, and sinker.
What about the Gulf states and the Arabs? The oil flows west, deposits in gold denominated accounts flow east. Not gold! Bank deposits in European and American banks denominated in gold. If the Arab public knew the truth, they would overthrow their monarchies in a heartbeat.
But stupid dog trick politics trumps everything. Publics all over the world fall for stupid dog trick politics EVERY TIME. In the Arab world the big stupid dog trick distraction is the notion that Islam is under threat.
Beefalo, Peak Oil, Wall Street Banks, Radical Islam, endless bullshit! The public falls for it EVERY TIME.
This is so pervasive I think it is Mother Nature herself in play. There is NO WAY the public cannot be tricked!
ANY PLAUSIBLE LIE WILL DO.
ANY PLAUSIBILE LIE WILL DO.
ANY PLAUSIBLE LIE WILL DO.
#5 by Gator61 on 11/11/2011 - 1:15 pm
Beefalo was little more than a novelty among beef producers but it got a lot of play in the media.
Why do you suppose that was? Could it be that they wanted people to believe that mixed race bovines were superior to pure breed European cattle? Another solution was to switch from farming European staples like cattle and pork to ostriches and emus . Again replacing animals with European origins with non-European imports.
What type of cars are being touted in the media as our salvation from the oil crisis? How many articles have you seen on hybrid cars in the last few years?
Is it just me or is this a trend?
#6 by Simmons on 11/11/2011 - 1:16 pm
Well since peak oil is being ridiculed I’m taking my ball and going home, kidding.
It is the scam of the logical fallacy even the counter arguments to peak oil are of the logical fallacy.
So regardless of the scare of the moment it is all based on the logical fallacy.
My favorite besides the oil crisis and the scams perped on its account was the landfill crisis that the idiots on the broadcast media hyped.
Even our genocide is predicated on people believing the fairy tale sounding logical fallacy of equality.
But they all and I mean all fall before the QUESTION. And as Bob notes the respectable conservatives are paid handsomely to never ask questions that might destroy the logical fallacy, heck even people on our side quibble the details.
#7 by Dave on 11/11/2011 - 3:04 pm
Yes Simmons, it is those logical fallacies that are so devastating.
The white public cannot separate the obvious fact that a nonwhite is fully and wholly a person, deserving of the legal protections that all persons deserve, from the communal fact of race and race differences!
They cannot see that HUMANKIND does not exist, even though full blown persons DO exist, regardless of race.
That is why the white race cannot get out of the abolitionist religion that held that nonwhites were nonwhite because of the SIN OF BONDAGE and would TURN WHITE once freed.
Most whites actually believe that. They don’t see nonwhites at all. They PROJECT themselves onto nonwhites and are blind to the reality of the ACTUAL BEING of nonwhite races.
Nonwhites point this out to whites, accurately time and again, only to find that whites are INCAPABLE of either hearing it or understanding it. Whites cannot overcome the idea that nonwhites have to be in their distorted view, actually white under the skin!
Talk about race trumping everything! White people of living proof of it yet are incapable of understanding it. They project themselves onto the nonwhite world blinding themselves to reality.