Here's The Beef

Well might South Koreans protest at the dumping of diseased American beef on South Korea.

Well might we go to any length to prevent and reverse our own slide from proper agriculture (with its strong rural communities, its family-centredness, its environmental responsibility and its animal welfare) into factory farming.

And well might Americans rally to Barack Obama in his authentically conservative opposition to the South Korea "Free" Trade Agreement, as well as to another such with Colombia, extending both the dumping of sub-standard produce on the world's poor and, which is just as bad, the export of high-skilled, high-wage, high-status American jobs to Asian and Latin American sweatshops.

Obama, who would undoubtedly want a second term, must be held to the commitments that he has made on trade, among many other issues. Especially now that the Democratic Party's ranks are being swelled by former Republicans such as Bob Conley, alienated by the Republican Party's abandonment of its historic belief in real national security through economic protection, through strictly limited and strictly legal immigration, and through the avoidance of needless wars.

A McCain adviser, Carly Fiorina, has called Obama "the most protectionist candidate that the Democratic Party has ever fielded". Here's hoping. And here's watching.