Blockades, Cheese, And The Politics Of Value.

 

Blockades, Cheese, And The Politics Of Value.

I recently listened to a thoughtful YouTube news discussion featuring Heather Cox Richardson and Senator Warner that offered a clear outline of what is currently happening in Venezuela.
They described how the Venezuelan government is being brought to a standstill by a blockade enforced outside the country by American naval forces.
The discussion also addressed the profiting of oil, specifically oil confiscated from freighters that are boarded and seized.
That oil, according to the report, is sold or will eventually be sold, with the proceeds placed into a so-called savings or holding program.
What was also raised, more quietly but ominously, is the likelihood that much of this money could flow to private concerns rather than public American funds.
This mirrors a kind of gangster-style profiteering seen in modern Russia, where a small group benefits while the public remains largely unaware.
There is an unspoken fear, lingering in the background, that accusing President Trump of personally profiting from such arrangements feels dangerous or forbidden, even when the possibility is implied rather than stated.

While reflecting on that, my thoughts drifted to Robert Kennedy Jr., now part of the Trump cabinet, and his recent “reckoning” on food that aired on KPBS.
The program focused on redefining food value and emphasized a move away from processed food toward what they describe as real food.
On the surface, that argument makes sense and is widely accepted.
However, the deeper discussion about redefining foods based on selective qualities, especially an emphasis on protein, felt unfamiliar and ideologically loaded.

Cheese came to mind as a revealing example.
For decades, cheese has often been condemned by food analysts due to its association with cholesterol and cardiovascular risk.
Yet there are, in practice, two very different kinds of cheese sold in this country.
One is real cheese, often found in a deli case, expensive, and rich in nutrients such as vitamin K, the same nutrient found in spinach.
The other is processed American cheese, typically sold next to the hot dogs, affordable, and nutritionally hollow.
Most people shopping at Walmart cannot realistically afford the deli cheese, so they end up with the processed version.

In reality, this creates two categories of cheese, and by extension two categories of consumers.
There is cheese for people with money and cheese for people without.
Even grated cheese often falls into the same processed category as American cheese slices.
For those with even fewer resources, cheese disappears entirely, replaced by food pantry distributions and whatever processed substitutes filter down.

This division feels consistent with the broader attitude of Kennedy Jr. and the Trump administration toward food and economics.
There appears to be an unspoken assumption that one kind of food is meant for the wealthy and another for everyone else.
The economy seems structured to reinforce this reality, and it may remain that way for years unless the underlying imbalance is addressed.

So, between the blockade of Venezuela and the symbolism of American cheese, it seems unlikely that Greenland will be invaded anytime soon by American military force.
To put it bluntly, this feels like yet another cheesy idea from President Donald Trump.

Finally, it is impossible to ignore the broader pattern within Trump’s cabinet and ICE policy.
The administration is dominated by wealthy figures focused on preserving their own lifestyles.
Their clumsy and often cruel handling of immigration reflects a willingness to create chaos in one arena to distract from others, such as voting rights, climate change, and renewable energy debates like wind power in Maine.
Granting a small amount of power to the public is treated as a threat, while rising energy costs and social instability are accepted as collateral damage.