Wrath of Grapes

by Robert Wilkinson

Today we have a short documentary that blew my mind and made me change my diet when I first found it 25 years ago. It's still relevant to us all.

A long time ago I was de facto Program Director for Access TV in Austin. Among the many interesting videos I found, one stood out. It is a 15 minute documentary film about Cesar Chavez and the Farmworker Movement called "Wrath of Grapes."

Narrated by Mike Farrell, it's a powerful and blunt indictment of industrial farming and the pesticide industry. Set in California, it outlines corporate sponsored violence against workers and how pesticides have been killing both farm workers and Americans who eat foods sprayed with deadly pesticides.

If you wonder how this applies to you, the next time you eat take a moment to think about what was sprayed on that food in order to get it to your table. You can bet it applies to both California and Chilean grapes, or Canadian berries as much as US grown berries.

While some progress has been made to curb the use of the most egregious pesticides, it's still pretty lousy that we're poisoning the Earth and each other to a significant degree, and that corporations continue to put profits ahead of the public health. For those in other countries, it's also happening to you, unless your government has banned such farming practices.

I love perfect fruits and vegetables as much as anyone, but this is about life and death. It also applies to coffee, cotton, and more food than most suspect. That's why I went organic as much as possible.

And since we are all in this together, please take a moment to consider the plight of those who harvested that food. Industrial farming believes these workers who harvest our food should labor under impossible conditions, harvest food recently sprayed with cancer-causing pesticides, drink water from containers contaminated by poisons, and inhale the air as biplanes and helicopters spray death all around.

For your consideration, from a very poisonous corner of the Twilight Zone, the awesome Wrath of Grapes!

Wrath of Grapes - Part 1

Wrath of Grapes - Part 2

Both of these were courtesy of the Farmworker Movement Documentary Project. There you'll find 11 Video Clips:

Harvey Richards Documentary Films, 8 Video Clips: Cesar Chavez Speaks at Harvard University, Luis Valdez: 3 Video Clips from ¡Huelga,! 3 Video Interviews With Delano Strikers, 7 Video Clips: "SI SE PUEDE," and 9 Documentary Films About Cesar Chavez and the Farmworker Movement, of which "The Wrath of Grapes" is one.

© Copyright 2011 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Joëlle]

Bonjour Robert,

I am very familiar with this problem. After 35 years of exposure in pesticide my central nervous system is "contaminated" in an irreversible way by the accumulation of pesticides in the body.
Especially the family of "organophosphorus" (example: Diazinon, Malathion). These products with acute toxicity were used massively and without proper judgment during several decades. Residues are stored cumulatively and permanently in the body.
Today, many countries prohibit the use of these products (Canada is one of those countries). However, we buy abroad and in countries where this regulation does not exist. When we get these plants, we need to clean them and remove the leaves residues of these pesticides. In my case, this cleaning trigger violent crises like the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
As an example you give the grapes. I give you the citrus. We drink a cup of tea with a slice of lemon. We incorporate the "zest" citrus in many recipes. I have to avoid these products for the same reasons. An accumulation of too much pesticide in the body and violent reactions from them.

Today people want products "organic." Manufacturers of pesticides have sensed a new lot of money in this new trend. They claim one «volte face» and a better approach in the management of the agriculture) and the horticulture. These multinationals got into the universe of insect pollinators and into that of the "beneficial" insects.
There are now genetic manipulation of these insects and the consequences are already visible. Collapse of bee colonies, and loss of many beneficial insects. Without those «little workers of the nature» agriculture can not survive because these insects are essential to the cycle of life.

Joëlle.

[caliban]

There are so many folks with nerve disorders at present. I mean nasty ones.

[caliban]

Robert, on the subject of diet . . . I noticed during saturn's transit through virgo alot of stomach ailments. I understand that mars will have an extended stay in virgo coming up quick here. I've read virgo can be nervous and the nervous system well, it's real central to the body. The only other backup thought I have on this is that my father had mars in virgo and he was real picky about his food because of what he called his stomach. He was kind of a tense guy. His diabetes ended up shutting his organs down, (but he made it to 90) which isn't too shabby. Any words of wisdom you have on maintaining the digestive system as we move into that transit would be appreciated.