It’s been one week since Wal-Mart announced their intention to become the world’s largest retailer of organic products. That makes one week since organic went mainstream.

Prior to 1927 or so everything we grew was more or less organic, the dipping of seed potatoes in mercury aside. Then the USDA began promoting the new scientific method of farming. This involved spraying large amounts of pesticides on monoculture cropping. Which was very convenient for manufacturers of poisons for use in warfare, since they were already in the business, so to speak, and had huge stockpiles of leftover war poisons to contend with. The USDA has been in the hands of big business ever since.

The current organic movement started, near as I can tell, about 35 years ago, around 1970-1971, as a byproduct of the back-to-the land movement that brought 300,000 transplants to Vermont alone. A statistically small group of primarily white, educated, suburban raised intellectual hippies had been questioning every aspect of our capitalist society. Food, clothing, hairstyle, ideas of marriage and societal grouping; all were tested and rebelled against. Alternatives were experimented with, and many are still operating today. People sought to understand the proper place of humans in our ecosystem and to implement a more meaningful, sustainable way of life, for us, and for generations to come. A bunch of these folks ended up right here in the Holler.

Beginning with a handful of small, local farms, farmers’ markets and co-operative grocers, organic is now mainstream. Thirty-five years is a very natural cycle in the birth and acceptance of a product, and the lifestyle associated with it. It seems like only yesterday that Big Bad Johnnie, Rutvegas’s own crusading FBI superhero took 1 ounce of every herb in the little co-op store away for analysis. Intimidation? Or did they really analyze all that Red Zinger Tea? We must have looked like terrorists to them. And in a way we were. The freaks threatened the very fabric of suburbia. Now, the memory of those heady times are used to sell...well, not much, as hippies were a fairly thrifty and anti-consumer lot. We believed we could change the world—rearrange the world. And for a second we did. The Establishment held its breath. Nixon split, and the War was over.

Next breath, and they began to absorb our generation, and the alternative culture we had created. The society survived, but with a broad new Great Society liberal agenda. The freaks became dads and Select board members. Ten thousand non-profits employed their wives.

Don’t get me wrong. This was never meant to be an exclusive club. We want the world to be organic, or damn close anyway. These days buying organic is one of the few protest options available to the conscious consumer. It’s just that organic always had an expectation of Local with it. We felt good knowing we were eating Farmer Brown’s organic potatoes from up the road. These days Farmer Brown is a trademark, and those potatoes are trucked 5,000 miles to the store. The march of the multinationals is as inexorable as a glacier, except that now the glaciers are melting.

It’s been almost fifty years since President Eisenhower delivered his fateful warning to America to watch out for the corporations and the universities. Now they work together and basically are the government. We went from peace, love, freedom, and happiness to fascism in half a generation. Weird huh?

The takeover of the natural products industry began at the Expo East trade show in Baltimore 14 years ago. A bunch of us longhair types were standing around our booths as they opened the show to the public. Much to our surprise, the aisles were soon filled with lawyer/banker types scurrying about. They were into mergers and acquisitions. If your company was grossing $1M or better, they had a plan. Some people took it. Some people didn’t. Some people got rich. Some people didn’t. Distribution became centralized, and giant discount retailers pushed out the smaller independents. This pattern is strikingly similar to the 40% decrease in independent bookstores over a 10-year period as book superstores moved to the most lucrative markets. Control the distribution of goods and you control the market. Control the distribution of information and you control the world.

Organic is like a seal of approval. Your mother would approve—it’s good for you. It also conveys, “We are good people who take the time to make a healthy product.” Organic sells like crazy. That’s why there is so much fake organic and Mexican organic (no pesticides but ammonia nitrate is used) out there. People want to be organic. Especially if you don’t have to do anything, pay more, eat food that tastes like cardboard, or beat yourself with birch branches.

You can stop eating your carrots under the bed now, organic is mainstream!

These essays were written for entertainment purposes only. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of Vermont Soap, its employees, board of directors, our Web host, Web designer, the neighbors who live up the road; or any of the thousands of people who use our stuff. Originally published in edited form by Comic News. Many thanks to Seasoned Books, without which, life in the Holler may never have become a reality.