Fear. Panic. Anger. Terrorism is a word all too familiar to Americans and people around the world today. Terrorism’s goal is in its name. Terror. Aiming to strike fear into the minds of innocent people everywhere. But terrorism did not used to be something that happened in America. America was impenetrable, or so everyone thought. On that crystal clear Tuesday morning in 2001 life was good, right up until just before 9am, when the whole world changed. Nothing would ever be the same, cue fortress America. With attacks continuing to happen in the US, people look to the government to act.  As the American public has seen over the recent years the government has been trying to combat this threat with tighter security measures in public places and stricter guns laws.  Military officers and politicians agree that domestic terrorism is a pertinent threat and the only way to combat this threat is by attacking the source, preventing groups like ISIS from recruiting Americans to commit these vicious acts.

The first step, which is in the process of being taken, is politicians need to accept is that domestic terrorism is the biggest threat to national security, not climate change. Yes, looking at you Bernie Sanders. According to Michael Morell, a military intelligence officer, ISIS poses a major threat to the US both domestically and abroad. But for all intents and purposes, let’s just focus on the domestic side.

In Morell’s article, titled, ISIS Will Strike America, he gives a small glimpse into how real this threat is when he writes “The FBI has over 900 open investigations into homegrown extremists, the vast majority radicalize by ISIS, and a large number of those investigations relate to individuals who may be plotting here” (Morell 2). The most striking piece of information from this quotation is the 900 open investigations. Now, granted, 900 is a very small number in comparison to the number of open murder investigations the FBI has, 200,000 since 1980, but this number is still significant (NPR.com).

The reason this number is so significant is because terrorist attacks, especially in the US are much more rare than murders. The fact that there are 900 open investigations means that there are a lot of people out there intending to do harm on other Americans and not on a small scale either.

Terrorists look to inflict as much damage as possible to as many people as possible when they carry out their attacks. So, while it may seem like there are way more open murder investigations, the level of urgency does not compare to that of the open terrorist investigations. In terms of countering these domestic terror attacks, the government needs to display more urgency by putting plans in motion.

According to Admiral James Stavridis, the only way to combat this threat is to make changes across multiple areas. Admiral Stavridis has an eight-step plan that he claims will defeat ISIS. Whether or not this is true is up for debate, but it is a good place to start. Some of the biggest parts of his plan consist of increasing intelligence across defense departments. Another portion of his plan suggests that the US needs to incorporate a cyber element into this fight, in order to combat ISIS’s ability to recruit domestically, disrupt operational control, and prevent them from more monetary gains from their criminal activity. This part of Admiral Stavirdis’s plan is in motion, with the Obama administration creating a joint task force with the NSA and Department of Homeland Security.

Recently, the Obama administration has set up a joint task force between the NSA, the National Security Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security. This task force’s goal is to try and prevent ISIS members from recruiting within the US and also trying to locate where these recruiters are located in order to apprehend them. In addition, the government has been adamant recently about overhauling America’s gun laws in an attempt to ultimately keep guns out of the wrong hands.

Some of these new gun laws are as follows. In 2016, the FBI is going to increase background checks on everyone attempting to purchase a firearm. They hope to accomplish this by employing 230 more examiners in order to provide background checks around the clock (ATF). Also, the Obama administration is proposing a $500 million investment to increase access for mental health care. Now, while these new laws may seem like a step in the right direction, that’s all they are, a step.

Ultimately, only time will tell if any plans the US is putting forth to combat ISIS in America will work. Creating stricter gun laws and assembling task forces is a good place to start, but there are always loopholes, for example illegal firearms. This group has found these loopholes in the past, who is to say they will not find them again in the future?

Aside from whether or not ISIS will find a loophole to continue to conduct attacks on America, there is another issue, recruitment. Now, if you are like me, you are going to ask yourself one simple question; who in their right mind is joining ISIS as an American? Luckily, or maybe not so much, there is an answer.

One example of Americans being drawn to ISIS’s ideologies is Elton Simpson. In Garland, TX, May 2015 Elton Simpson opened fire at an event celebrating local cartoonists. Shortly before the assault, Simpson declared allegiance to ISIS on Twitter. Simpson is one of 62 known Americans who have declared such an atrocity within the US. 62 is a small number in comparison to the number who have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight for ISIS, which according to a discussion on NRP in September 2015, that number is around 250 Americans, however, that is still more about one person per state.

Does 62 still feel like a small number to you? Well take this into account. James Comey, the current head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said during an interview in July 2015 “ISIS has influenced a significant amount of troubled Americans through social media… urging Muslims who are unable to travel to the Middle East to ‘kill where you are’”(Varandani 1). This quotation from the current F.B.I head is what is going to put fear into the minds of all Americans. 62 probably feels like a huge number now, right?

According to psychologist Arie Kruglanski, people who join the Islamic State and similar groups are people who view the world with sharp definition. These terrorist groups view the world in the same manner. No gray area, everything is coherent. In addition, these extremist groups also allow people to become part of a large, unique group. Kruglanski says that these beliefs are attractive to those who are looking for a sense of identity (Mooney 2). ISIS knows this and therefore is able to recruit vulnerable people within the US simply because these people are trying to find where they belong.

ISIS recruiters know there are people in the US who are vulnerable and easily manipulated. For example, ISIS recruiters often put movie-trailer style videos on YouTube, glorifying their heinous practices and beliefs. To someone who may not know any better, the videos can be very appealing.

This is exactly where the NSA’s task force is needed. Being able to prevent ISIS from recruiting Americans via social media will be a step in the right direction. Also, the previously mentioned information from psychologists like Arie Kruglanski can help to build a psychological profile for people who join extremist groups.

As previously stated in this article however, there is no one plan to prevent and even end domestic terrorism. Colin Clarke, a RAND Corporation political scientist sums it up best when he says “’there is no single key or silver bullet to combating Islamic extremism, which is what makes combating it so difficult. There is no single pathway to radicalization.’”

The fist thing that American people and politicians need to accept is that domestic terrorism will always exist. There will always be extremist groups in America and around the world who are looking to bring harm to others for simple reasons such as they do not like someone else’s culture or their government and therefore feel the need to attack their way of life.

While these new policies involving guns laws and task forces are a step in the right direction, that is all they are, a step. Only time will tell whether or not these policies actually do anything to help law enforcement both find potential terrorists before they strike and make it harder for terrorists to carry out their attacks. The biggest impact these policies have on the public is it gives everyone feelings of security. That in itself is part of this battle as well. If Americans do not feel that there is a constant threat against them every time they leave their homes or go to a crowded area, then that is a victory in itself.

No matter what the government does to prevent attacks, they will still happen. There will always be hate.  As President Obama leaves office in the next few months Americans will have to wait and see how they try to combat this threat.  One thing is for certain though, these extremist groups like ISIS will never be able to dictate the way Americans live their lives.  The American population as a whole will not accept defeat from ISIS or any group like it and will never stop in its quest to combat this threat.

work cited:

Aguiar, Peter. “Here’s How the U.S. Moves Forward after San Bernardino Terror Attack:.” ProQuest. N.p., 29 Dec. 2015. Web.

Bergen, Peter. “Who Are ISIS American Recruits?” CNN 6 May 2015: n. pag. Web.

Crabtree, Susan. “White House Huddles with Tech Firms on Counterterrorism.” ProQuest. N.p., 8 Jan. 2016. Web.

Kruglanski, Arie. “Here Are the Psychological Reasons Why an American Might Join ISIS.” Mother Jones 29 Aug. 2014: 1-3. Web.

Miller. “Obama Administration Plans Shake-up in Propaganda War against IS.” ProQuest. N.p., n.d. Web.

Morell, Michael. “ISIS Will Strike America.” Time Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web.

“Report: 250 Americans Have Gone To Syria And Iraq To Fight.” Interview by Steven Inskeep. NPR.com. NPR, n.d. Web.

Varandani, Suman. “ISIS Influence On Troubled Americans Bigger Threat Than External Attack By Al Qaeda: FBI Head James Comey.”International Business Times 23 July 2015: n. pag. Web.

Image: http://www.nycrimecommission.org/images/domestic-terrorism-chart.gif

Gun Image: https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/acs/files/2015/02/gun-control-l-01.jpg

Unit 3 Reflection:

1. I think that my title does grab the reader, because when you first look at it, it doesn’t give the impression of being an article about domestic terrorism. I tried to be a little clever with the title. One thing that gave me the idea for the title was during my research authors kept talking about how these domestic terrorists could really be anyone, so I tried to incorporate that into my title. The subtitle however does. The subtitle gives the reader an idea about what exactly they’ll be reading about in my article.
2. The introduction is intended to grab the reader’s attention from the first three words. I chose to just use three words, instead of an opening sentence to grab their attention, also trying to induce a sense of urgency in the reader. The problem is located towards the end, where I write about where the root of the domestic terror threat lies, and that is in preventing ISIS from recruiting Americans. Also, in order to lead the reader in I mentioned how America has changed in the years since 9/11, what it was like before and after and how America will never be the same.
3. I tried to offer up an idea that I could really dive into. My idea being how to prevent recruitment. I chose this because there were several avenues of approach that I saw. One idea being how is ISIS recruiting? Another being what kind of person joins ISIS from America and why do they join? These topics allowed me to look into recent events in the US and how law enforcement responded and also how the government responded.
4. I tried to keep my thoughts organized in an order that made the most sense and also flowed well. The most helpful thing I thought was when we scrambled our drafts in class. This is because by having someone else put it back together in an order they thought made the most sense really helped me see how an audience would read this piece. I also tried to keep the paragraphs are short as I could, since this is a magazine article, but at the same time not cutting them short of any information I thought needed to be included.
5. NY Times magazine article readers are definitely a more educated group overall than people reading Huffington Post articles, so they are more likely to have more of a background or at least some prior knowledge of my topic. This being the case, the biggest thing I needed to make sure I did was find and include accredited sources, sources people have heard of and trust. But finding these sources was only half the battle. I needed to make sure that my writing was strong and that I had a strong argument present. In my article I tried to address key points about this issue while also focusing most of my argument on an area that most people may not think about, recruitment.
6. I think I conveyed my stance well. Making it known that ISIS recruiting Americans is an issue and needs to be stopped. I also tried to convey that while this issue may not get a lot of attention it still is a big issue. I found statistics from NPR and newspapers to back up this claim as well, trusted sources that the reader knows.
7. For my research I tried to find as many quality sources as I could, knowing I probably wouldn’t use all of them, but I wanted to have a solid base to work with and choose the best ones. I also chose to include an image to show how domestic terror attacks have increased over the years. In addition, I also included an image that was symbolic of gun laws. It was a handgun made of words that represented the pros and cons of gun laws.
8. I incorporated a primary source with a chart that showed the increase of domestic terror attacks over the years. I included this to show the reader that this is truly an issue. In addition, I included many secondary sources that both introduced new topics and build off of other topics. One example of this is when I broke down ISIS’s ability to recruit within the US. I chose to explain how they do this and also the psychological profile of someone from American who would join ISIS.
9. In the beginning I tried to create sense of urgency in the reader by starting out with just three words instead of sentences. Also, I tried to use pathos by mentioning 9/11, because I knew that would strike a nerve with people, making them think back to that awful day. Overall I think that my use of sources helped to develop my argument and help make a strong point.
10. The visuals I used I chose because I wanted to give perspective. I don’t think that people realize how big of an issue domestic terrorism is and the image of the graph I hope will help convey that point. The other image I used was of a handgun made out of words that were the pros ad cons of gun control. Gun control is a hot topic today in the US, so I needed to include it in my article and I thought that this picture perfectly conveyed the two side of the argument.
11. When I first started writing the biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to start. I had a lot of information from my research, so I needed to figure out a way to present it in a manner that made sense and flowed. The one thing that helped me the most with my organization, as I said earlier was the scrambled draft. This is because I was able to see how someone else thought I should order my paragraphs, which ended up being relatively different than how I had originally ordered them and I liked the new order a lot better, it was much more organized.
12. I used hyperlinks to the articles that I found to be the most interesting and that I thought readers would benefit too from reading. I think that the articles give another perspective, for example, Michael Morell’s article, he was a military intelligence officer, so I think reading about how he views the situation from the point of view of someone who has dealt with these threats first hand is very beneficial for readers. I also hyperlinked the URL for the interview with psychologist Arie Kruglanski, because I that article went into great depth that I honestly just didn’t have room to go into in my article, given the word count limit.
13. I made sure that all the grammar in my article was perfect. Also, I edited t=it to make sure, one that I didn’t have any run on sentences where I was just going on and on and giving the reader too much information at once. Second, I wanted to make sure that none of my paragraphs were too long, since this is a magazine article, the paragraphs need to be as short and concise as possible without losing any details along the way.

Farm fresh, organic, anti-GMO. All are key words that pop out to any consumer when they are shopping in the grocery store. But how natural and safe is the food we eat? For some, it is shocking that here in the US, with all of our regulations and restrictions that food is produced the way it is. Think the government has control over the food industry? Wrong. Follow the money. It will lead right to multinational corporations who are the ones controlling food production. Several authors have articulated their own views on food production in their own publications, with arguments varying from whether organic or conventional farming is better and food borne illnesses, but all noting somewhere that these problems come from a lack of government control.

One of the biggest issues with food production in the US is where the power lies, and it does not lie in the government’s hands. Marion Nestle, an author and NYU professor argues in her publication, “Resisting Food Safety”, that the government needs to intervene more in the food production process.

 

Change is attempted in the 1970’s when the CDC begins conducting studies about food borne illnesses to find out how big of a problem they really are. “Nearly half the participating states were reporting no outbreaks or very few, suggesting considerable underreporting” (Nestle 38). One of the biggest reasons for their results is many people do not report when they get food poisoning, they think it is just something that happens from time to time. Are you kidding me? The fact that people accept that is why the food industry continues to have problems with quality control. The CDC attempted to expand what they thought be signs of food borne illnesses, such as a person experiencing diarrhea. Granted an episode of diarrhea does not necessarily mean someone has a food borne illness, but the CDC is just trying to get their numbers up and if that happens, then maybe policies will change.

People seem to be assuming that they were the only one who got sick from eating that food whereas in reality thousands of others could have gotten sick too, because an entire line of food that was produced could have been infected with a food borne illness. Like hello, there are other people that exist outside of you. One example of a food borne illness is E. coli. What is E. coli? Oh it is just a potentially fatal food borne illness that is transmitted via fecal matter. Now if someone gets a food borne illness from E. coli, it will be reported, as Nestle points out in her article, because of how potent the bacteria is. But for smaller cases that are not, there still could have been an entire line of food that affected thousands. Now granted, this study was done 40 years ago, more people today realize how big of an issue food borne illnesses are.

Reporting food borne illnesses however should not be solely up to consumers to make reports, the FDA should be cracking down on food producers. But as Nestle states, this is another area where problems lie. The FDA only has about 700 food inspectors nation wide and are tasked with overseeing 30,000 food producers, 128,000 grocery stores, 785,000 commercial and industrial food establishments, 1.5 million vending machines, and oh yeah, all the food imported into the US. What lamebrain in Washington said, yeah that’s humanly possible.

All of these places are supposed to be inspected annually, and with the nearly nonexistent number of inspectors, the FDA is only able to check about 2% of these places annually. Fantastic! In fact, in another article, “You Are What they Eat”, by Consumer Reports “loopholes still allowed certain risky feedstuffs to be fed to cattle and their ruminants…‘the FDA does not know the full extent of industry compliance’” (CR 29). This proves that the FDA does not have a handle on what goes on in the food industry and neither does the government because food manufacturers are able to get away with giving potentially disease infested feed to animals and if the FDA is not able to inspect producers, people will continue to get sick and the government still will not be able to do much without sufficient evidence.

These articles and statistics are dated so when looking at an article written in 2009, the picture of control in the food industry looks a little nicer. A 2009 article written by Common Dreams, claims the Obama administration is in the process of investigating Monsanto, a seed company that provides seed to nearly all farmers in the US, for anticompetitive activity. Common Dreams states at the beginning that Monsanto is not an entirely evil corporation responsible for issues in the food industry, but they are a big problem. Basically, Monsanto has become a monopoly in the seed market, which is illegal. However, Monsanto cleverly gets around this by spending big money lobbying to get their people jobs within the government. This is a classic case of a company exploiting its power to get what it wants. By putting its people on the inside, they now gain even more control and power over the food production industry and protect themselves. So this raises an important question, if the Obama administration is trying to sue Monsanto, will it even be possible with Monsanto’s people on the inside?

In addition to the government not having a firm grasp on the activities of multinational food companies, they are also lacking in the organic foods section. In an article written by Blake Hurst, he claims that no testing is done on foods with organic labels to see if they are in fact organic and the producer followed all the guidelines. Now, Hurst’s article, “Organic Illusions”, needs to be taken with a grain of salt because the man has no sources, he just sort of rambles on about his own beliefs about the food industry, while once or twice mentioning some Stanford study, but never giving real data. However, if Hurst’s claim is true, then lack of testing is a major issue. Hurst claims the reason for organic food’s success is due to marketing and people view organic food as healthier for them. The major issue here is if people think that what they are buying is better for them, but no testing is being done, then consumers are being misled. If government testing is required on organic foods, not all because that would be impossible, but testing of certain batches of food produced, then food companies will not be able to get away with selling something misleading.

While some argue that organic food offers no real health benefits, farmer Joel Salatin from the documentary Food Inc. says otherwise. The food Salatin produces contains considerably less bacteria and chemicals than food produced by major companies. And he was almost shut down because all of his food production takes place in the open air, instead of the much healthier disease infested factory. Salatin states during his interview that the government wants to shut him down because they think there are more bacteria and pathogens flying around in the open air that can contaminate his food. In Salatin’s case, the government is actually trying to shut down the wrong person because of his methods. This is just another prime example of the government believing the way major food companies produce is the safest and best way. If the government does its job and starts taking control over the food industry rather than just seemingly letting companies do what they want and not really having consequences, then food may actually become safer for consumers.

Ultimately, government control is necessary for safer and better food. As shown by the authors and documentary, the government does not have the control over the food industry that it needs to. The US food industry contains many problems from lack of FDA employment to allowing producers to give potentially bacteria infested feed to their animals and not testing organic foods. This lack of involvement means more consumers could get sick and food producers can continue to do what they do without consequence. Government involvement is just the first step in producing safer food.

Reflection:

For the writer’s project, my understanding was using the readings and film to find common arguments between all the sources and analyze and synthesize those arguments. In the sorting it out assignment, the most helpful section for me was finding the passages that connected and shared the same type of idea. That section definitely made things easier for me when I started writing the article and was trying to make connections. The connection section in sorting it out also helped me to figure out which ideas and arguments I should lead with, in order to make my article flow and also be compelling. To me synthesis is being able to make connections between articles and arguments. It’s important to do this because if you’re working with many different texts but never connect them the entire article feels disconnected. My accomplishment during this unit was definitely formatting my article to flow and sound the way I wanted it. When I started writing at the beginning I had 3 long paragraphs and once I was able to break them down more, the article seemed to come together well. For the main idea I looked at all the articles and tried to find common points they shared. This way it’d be much easier for me to connect the articles together by finding common ground between them. At the beginning my organization was pretty horrendous. My paragraphs were too long and had multiple arguments woven into them. I went to the writing center in order to work with someone to figure out how I could reorganize my article so the paragraphs were shorter, but I wasn’t compromising the writing. I successfully synthesized 3 texts in the beginning of my article when I’m talking about government control and food borne illnesses. The food borne illness part of my argument on government intervention had a lot of good information behind it, so the biggest thing for me was to make sure that the reader wouldn’t get lost in all the information, that I explain along with giving data. As the process went on, I found that my writing seemed to technical, lots of data, not enough analysis, so once I fixed that it flowed much better. For me the lede actually wasn’t too challenging. What I try to do when I’m working on an opener for a writing assignment is to just write whatever comes to mind and then work from there. When we did peer editing I was told my lede was too long, so I tried to make it as concise as possible, in order to grab the reader, but not bore them with a long sentence. One goal I have to work on for the next assignment is to keep my lede concise and to really try and get as much analysis out of the sources as possible.

Work Cited:

Hurst, Blake.  “Organic Illusions”.  American Enterprise institute.  1 Oct. 2012.  Online article.

Kenner, Robert, dir, Food Inc.  Magnolia Pictures.  2008.

Nestle, Marion.  “Resisting Food Safety”.  Online article.

Richardson, Jill.  “Sick of Corporate Control Over Your Food?”.  Common Dreams.  28 Dec. 2009.  Online article.

“You Are What they Eat”.  Consumer Reports.  Online article.

https://myaquanui.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Ecoli.jpg

http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/content/images/episodes/foodinc_444.jpg

http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/files/2010/02/foodinc2.jpg

Farm fresh, organic, anti-GMO. These are all key words that pop out to any consumer when they are shopping in the grocery store. But how natural and safe is the food we eat? For some, it is shocking that here in the US, with all of our regulations and restrictions that food is produced the way it is. Think the government has control over the food industry? Wrong. Follow the money. It will lead right to multinational corporations who are the ones controlling food production. Several authors have articulated their own views on food production in their own publications, with arguments varying from whether organic or conventional farming is better and food borne illnesses, but all noting somewhere that these problems come from a lack of government control.

One of the biggest issues with food production in the US is where the power lies, and it does not lie in the government’s hands. Marion Nestle, an author and NYU professor argues in her publication, “Resisting Food Safety”, that the government needs to intervene more in the food production process. In the 1970’s the CDC began conducting studies about food borne illnesses to find out how big of a problem they really are. Their results, not enough evidence to warrant any major policy changes. One of the biggest reasons for their results is many people do not report when they get food poisoning, they think it is just something that happens from time to time. Are you kidding me? The fact that people accept that is why the food industry continues to have problems with quality control. People seem to be assuming that they were the only one who got sick from eating that food, whereas in reality thousands of others could have gotten sick too, because an entire line of food that was produced could have been infected with a food borne illness. Now granted, this study was done 40 years ago, more people today could realize how big of an issue food borne illnesses are. However, it should not be solely up to consumers to make reports, the FDA should be cracking down on food producers. But as Nestle states, this is another area where problems lie. The FDA only has about 700 food inspectors nation wide and are tasked with overseeing 30,000 food producers, 128,000 grocery stores, 785,000, 1.5 million vending machines, and oh yeah, all the food imported into the US. What lamebrain in Washington said, yeah that’s humanly possible. All of these places are supposed to be inspected annually, and with the nearly nonexistent number of inspectors, the FDA is only able to check about 2% of these places annually. Fantastic! In fact, in another article, “You Are What they Eat”, by Consumer Reports “loopholes still allowed certain risky feedstuffs to be fed to cattle and their ruminants…‘the FDA does not know the full extent of industry compliance’” (CR 29). This quotation shows that the FDA does not have a great handle on what goes on in the food industry and neither does the government because food manufacturers are able to get away with giving potentially disease infested feed to animals and if the FDA is not able to inspect producers, then people will continue to get sick and the government still will not be able to do much without sufficient evidence. These articles and statistics are dated so when looking at an article written in 2009, the picture of control in the food industry becomes a little nicer. In a 2009 article written by Common Dreams, it says that the Obama administration is in the process of investigating Monsanto, a seed company that provides seed to nearly all farmers in the US, for anticompetitive activity. Basically, this means that Monsanto has become a monopoly in the seed market. Finally, after years of bowing down to the food industry the government is taking action. The only question is how long will this last?

In addition to the government not a firm grasp on the activities of multinational food companies, they also do not have any way of testing organic foods. In an article written by Blake Hurst, he claims that no testing is done on foods with organic labels to see if they are in fact organic and the producer followed all the guidelines. Now, Hurst’s article needs to be taken with a grain of salt because the man has no sources, he just sort of rambles on about his own beliefs about the food industry, while once or twice mentioning some Stanford study, but never giving real data. However, if Hurst’s claim if true, then lack of testing is a major issue. Hurst claims that the reason for organic food’s success is due to marketing and people view organic food as healthier for them. The major issue here is if people think that what they are buying is better for them, but no testing is being done, and then consumers are being misled. If government testing is required on organic, foods, not all because that would be impossible, but testing of certain batches of food produced, then food companies will not be able to get away with selling something misleading. While some argue that organic food offers no real health benefits, according to farmer Joel Salatin in the documentary Food Inc., the food he produces contains considerably less bacteria and chemicals than food produced by major companies. And he was almost shut down because all of his food production takes place in the open air, instead of a much healthier disease infested factory. In Salatin’s case, the government is actually trying to shut down the wrong person, because of his methods. Another prime example of the government believing the way major food companies produce is the safest and best way. If the government can start taking control over the food industry rather than just seemingly letting companies do what they want and not really having consequences, then food may actually become safer.

Ultimately, government control is necessary for safer and better food. As shown by the authors and documentary, the government does not have the control over the food industry that it needs to. From lack of FDA employment to allowing producers to give potentially bacteria infested feed to their animals and not testing organic foods. This lack of involvement means more consumers could get sick and food producers can continue to do what they do without consequence. Government involvement is just the first step in producing safer food.