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TechnoratiIs Your Picnic Filled With 'Franken-Foods'?
Some 200 million acres of the world's farms grew biotech crops last year, with over 90 percent of those crops coming from genetically engineered seeds patented by U.S.-based Monsanto.
Scientists have taken genetic material from one organism (like a soil bacterium), along with an antibiotic resistant marker gene, and spliced both into a food crop (like corn) to create a genetically modified crop that resists specific diseases and pests.
There has been no long-term, independent testing on the effects of these "Franken-foods" on the ecosystem or human health.
In the early 1990's when biotechs were being evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, several key FDA scientists warned that GE crops could cause negative health effects. These scientists were ignored and blanket approvals of GE crops were passed.
It would be difficult to avoid eating genetically modified organisms in our country because they are so pervasive in the food system and unlabeled in the grocery stores.
Part of the reason for this is biotech giants fought to keep GMO foods unlabeled.
Most recently, the growth hormones from GE organisms known as rBGH, which is given to cows to make them produce more milk, were banned in Europe and Canada after authorities learned about the health risks of drinking milk from cows treated with rBGH hormones.
American milk producers started labeling their milk "rBGH and rBST free." Monsanto, which sells bovine growth hormones under the brand name Posilac, has successfully sued dairy producers to force them to stop labeling their milk.
In addition to most milk products, GMOs can be found in commercially farmed meats and processed foods on store shelves. In our country, 89 percent of all soy, 61 percent of all corn, and 75 percent of all canola are genetically altered.
Other foods, like commercially grown papaya, zucchini, tomatoes, several fish species, and food additives like enzymes, flavorings and processing agents, including the sweetener aspartame and rennet used to make hard cheeses, also contain GMOs, according to Greenpeace.
To complicate matters, GMOs move around in the ecosystem through pollen, wind and natural cross-fertilization. The Union of Concerned Scientists conducted two independent laboratory tests on non-GM seeds "representing a substantial proportion of the traditional seed supply" for corn, soy and oilseed.
The test found that at "the most conservative expression," half the corn and soy were contaminated with GM genes, eight years after the modified varieties were first grown on a large scale in the U.S.
The reports states that "heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level."
* * *
What can you do to avoid GMO's?
• Know how your food is grown by buying directly from local farmers.
• Support organic agriculture, and food producers who label their ingredients, particularly dairy farmers.
• Eat pastured meat raised on organic feed. The only way to ensure this is to buy from someone you know.
• Support farmers who are sued by biotech giants. Monsanto has set aside an annual budget of $10 million and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting more than 150 farmers for a total of more than $15 million.
• Demand labeling on all GMO-containing products.
Copyright © 2008 Hudson Valley Media Group
61 Comments so far
Show AllAbout a month ago my land received a 10" rain. Areas near major waterways were somewhat eroded. However all other areas showed extremely low erosion due to the millions of tiny dams created by surface crop residues. These residues also function to decrease the impact of individual rain droplets. In other words, my flocculated carbon dams did their job.
Tilling or 'no-till' does not determine the quantity of soil run-off from agriculture.
The soil is built on a strong or weak magnetic field flocculated by carbon. If carbon is missing or displaced throughout the soil, erosion will increase.
No one is strictly emphasizing organic as the only alternative. Organic certification is another way for multinationals to control the price of a valuable commodity and decrease the potential for small ethical organic farms to earn revenue independent of free market manipulation. As before, 're-localization' - sustainability - permacultures - all accompanied by cooperatives for economic mobility are the way to better manage the mess we've all gotten into from neglecting our own communities.
Erie: You really add a lot. I do think being intimidated is a losing strategy, that the trespass borders (at least) on criminal behaviour (which would effectively resolve some of the problems you mention), and that there are other means of dealing with the David vs Goliath aspects of the shituation. Plus, I think that small farmers and even some lawyers may have considerably more grit than they're being given credit for, and that some sort of test case should be on the table somewhere. It's a pretty straight-forward cause of action, particularly if Monsanto is given formal warning. It needn't be based on negligence, which is naturally much more complex. It's much more like placing explosives where they pose a peril to neighbors, almost strict liability, and the misnomered Monsanto has very deep pockets which present an attractive target.
Obama's supporters should test the waters to see if Obama is prepared to go against criminal corporate giants like Monsanto who is the head of the evil GMO empire.
Obama supporters should demand that Obama state his position on GMO's in the food chain, on the labeling of all GMO food prodeucts and what he would instruct the FDA to do regarding the regulation, inspection, research and testing of GMO's.
My guess is that Obama will do little or nothing to addess the GMO calamity on the American people.
DE BELTWAY: One of the most tragically ironic scenes is to see a heavy person order a diet drink (with aspertane) along with a HUGE desert. Back in the days when I was in college and worked as a waitress and some really fat person ordered desert, I searched my soul on the premise, by serving them did that make me an accomplice to a crime? I have a wealthy friend who won't hire any employee who drinks diet sodas. He is convinced they create the basis for mental disorders, and that's besides the fact they screw up the blood sugar "thermostat" so that people DO end up gaining more weight. It comes down to eating less and getting exercise. I wear the same clothes now, that I wore when my children were babies... the good thing is, the fashions recycle so I can stay ahead of the curve (in more ways than one, LOL).
ERIE WIRE: I much appreciate your informed posts! The problem lies with those who see nature as a thing, and have internalized the patriarchal belief that "GOD gave man DOMINION over." All this messing with the natural order, pre-empting the LAWS of natural selection generally leads to a mess. I've seen enough National Geographic and Nature specials where an alien species was introduced somewhere because some scientist thought it would be a good idea, eradicate some "pest" and the entire web of ecosystems comes asunder. BIO engineering is the genetic equivalent of that approach.
Since I am theoretically in the "change of life" (with no symptoms) and have been eating more soy, the news that 90% is modified has me extremely upset. It's unbelievable to me the way citizens in this land and others are being consciously and systematically POISONED with prodigious amounts of dangerous chemicals in their food, water, and air... and the profit-machine keeps on churing and burning. This is what happens when greed along with militarism become the "highest" values of the land. Just appalling. It truly has become YOY... you're on your own! Lately I wonder if I should even bother to pay property insurance and/or car insurance. Will there be money in those "vaults" if ever the need arises? I get the feeling the lack of conscience in our banking/stocks world, and the many stories I've come across where individuals with HEALTH insurance were denied treatment, makes me wonder about the fairness of any of these behemoths. Once they take it, they see OUR money as theirs. Gone.
Just because it says 'organic' doesn't make it great. I've seen organic farmers work the soil over and over throughout the spring in an attempt to get a majority of the weeds to germinate and then be tilled under. This leaves the soil far more open to erosion than no-til and if the soil is eroded away then you're kinda screwed. Extra cultivation is needed between rows or sometimes plastic is placed between the rows (how lovely). Fuel is wasted. Global warming is wosened. The use of manure is sometimes problematic with pathogens intoduced into food.
I forgot Aspartame on my list. Another deadly poison produced by Monsanto. Lots of google videos on that one also.
Vitamin C is a good thing, but so was the electric car. The negative side of GE crops (which is quite tangible at this point) currently outweighs benefits we could get with the development of a grain spliced with better nutrients. The soil is meant to provide the necessary vitamins and minerals which help our bodies after consuming food. It's an energy cycle. The use of chemicals is depleting the soil's potential while it has been shown that organically maintained fields retain nutrients and retain water significantly better.
If a miracle crop is made, who do you think is going to snatch up its patent, possibly bury it (no pun intended) so that they can control who gets the food? Reform in a corrupt system that is thick with politicians, corporations and law firms that are meant to protect Big Ag at whatever cost is a daydream. By the time an inspired young individual decides 'hey maybe I'll become a lawyer, politician, judge, farmer, grant writer and try to do something about this' the companies are going to be that much more powerful and that naivety is going to cause that hopeful to be eaten by the wolves. Our young people care, and they are doing what they can, but we have to do more than just encourage them to litigate. The bureaucratic blockades are enormous and nearly impenetrable.
The farmers can't sue because suing someone, let alone a multinational who has got every trick in the book up it's sleeve, takes time and money which the threatened farming community doesn't have a whole lot of. Besides, Monsanto has been using its team (as mentioned in the article) to make allegations, commonly before the farmer even knows his crop has been contaminated. That is why the triumph of Percy Schmeiser was so important, he's one of the only farmers who has been able to stand up to the bully, suffer through a decade long legal battle, and win. He wasn't even a GE farmer, the seed he was using was a 200 year old variety of canola that had been passed through his family. The GE canola had contaminated his field and Monsanto's intellectual property patent states that if the gene cross pollinates, the new plant is theirs and the farmer must pay Monsanto for growing it. It is that twisted.
These biotech businesses care about money, not about survival. They capitalize on the consumer trend. So if you want reform, then vote with your dollar. Support local agriculture and know where your food comes from. If you can't by local, buy organic or learn how to compost, and grow your own food.
God please bless the GMO spindoctors so they can see the error of their ways.
Thanks Coco!
TY GregR and DKM for bringing reality to ideology. ErieWire, you seem to have changed horses in mid-stream, but I don't understand how secondary problems in specific instances should serve as a basis for the total denegration of GM foods as a whole. I share your concern about Monsanto, et al, but it sounds more like problems which have led to solutions than grounds for total condemnation of GM as an approach to the problems you address. I think that the evil attitude of getting gain ala the republican ethic, the privatization of natural resources, and things like abuse and reform in the patent laws would be a more significant effort than a blanket curse on GM food. I mean vitamin C is vitamin C, and the added benefits of natural source vitamin C lies in greater complexity of additional elements rather than the nature of the vitamin C molecule itself. What is wrong, considering the complexity of the question itself and the trading off of risk and gain, etc, with putting a carotene gene in rice seed?
I do not understand why farmers who find that their seeds are contaminated with Monsanto genes cannot sue the brithches off of Monsanto in trespass.
Greg R and anyone else who rationalizes the use of GMOs with the shallow benefits of 'No-Till' farming
Although the no-till method of farming may save some amount of fuel, the alternative requires the soaking of the soil in glyphosate (a non-selective systemic herbicide commercially known as RoundUp as sold by Monsanto - which has cancer-promoting side-effects if ingested, inhaled, etc). Increases in the yield is due to the use of genetically modified seed that carries a mutated gene to withstand the powerful herbicide, while everything around it dies. Farmers who use this method usually spray once before planting which kills everything, then again after planting, just to be sure. That means that they are over-applying this deadly chemical just to increase their crop yield. These chemicals then seep into the local watershed and and are almost impossible to completely filter out. If the chemicals are sprayed on crops that are especially porous, then they are almost impossible to rinse off before ingesting.
Not tilling your land may increase liquid retention and prevent the 'erosion' - but monoculture farming depletes the soils of its nutrients anyway (even if you rotate your crops every few years, for example with corn and soy). Not to mention that the biodiversity of the land and soil is killed off by the glyphosate, thus there is little hope for the land to replenish itself the way nature intended, even if fertilizers are used. In order for the crops to be nutritionally beneficial to humans, the plants need to get enough nutrients from the soil. Who cares if you have 200 bushels of corn if you aren't getting the proper nourishment from it? The corn from 50 years ago had much more substance regarding its health properties. Besides, the genetically modified corn isn't your farmers market sweet corn; it's industrial corn - humans can't eat it raw and it has no nutritional value. Industrial corn is used for:
- Biofuels - which is a sham, considering that no amount of corn will even dent our dependency on oil, not to mention that the energy to make ethanol comes from coal, which is the most polluting form of energy out there. So the 'fuel saving' excuse of no-tilling is a fleeting one.
- Fattening grain-fed cattle which are put into feed lots where the only thing they are fed for the last 150 days of their lives is corn. After being fed the industrial corn that long they begin to develop stomach ulcers and if they weren't going to slaughter, they'd be dead soon after anyways.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup - a cheaper-than-sugar commodity which you'll find in almost every can of soda and as a replacement for sugar in hundreds of thousands of foodstuff products. It has been studied that the effects of consuming HFCS is a direct cause of the rise in Type 2 Diabetes among not just older citizens but adolescents as well.
Then there is the amount of industrial corn that is exported for any number of reasons (but much of Europe won't take our exports because genetically modified food is banned in the United Kingdom). The only reason GMOs are legal in the U.S. is through the political manipulation of the F.D.A. by Monsanto and other biotech companies. Monsanto were the developers of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War and, ironically, also had a hand in promoting aspartame as a 'safe' sugar alternative.
The consumption of GM soy is becoming a problem now, too. Traditional methods of eating soy are only good if eaten in moderation, and it needs to be organic, or else you have to deal with the build-up of GM cancer-promoting side effects. The over consumption of any type of soy that is over-processed i.e. soy powder, soy baby-formula, soy chiken, soy burgers, etc. has been shown to cause thyroid problems due to the amount of iodine that is going through the body. Like the article said, almost 90% of all soy in North America is GMO. America is being sold soy in an irresponsible way, and unless it's certified QAI organic, you can bet that your soy cooking oil, your soy protein muscle-building shake mix and your 'American Cancer Society-Approved' soy-fortified cereal bar you bought after seeing it on a commercial while watching Oprah - are all GM products.
I digress. So the land that should be going to real food production in the U.S. is being privatized, sold off, and used for things that give us overwhelmingly negative externalities.
Are you really worried about the fuel commodity shortage or are you just concerned with how the rising cost of fuel is affecting your weak dollar wallet? Then quit with your passive understanding of what is really going on with our agriculture and energy and own up to the realities. Stop supporting the companies who are responsible for this mess. As the world blindly becomes more and more dependent on the GMO commodities, the more these companies will determine where your dollar has to go in order for you to stay in business and keep using these damaging farming methods. Hell, you are blogging on a progressive news site where the alarm is sounded every single day about the interlinking corruptions of these industries and our government. Does it sink in? Or have the chemicals that you've been casually playing in as you spray your fields been numbing certain cognitive parts of your brain?
I don't mean to sound spiteful, but I wouldn't be surprised. Your ignorance is a burden to those of us who know and follow what is really going on. These problems are severe and are created for the greed of power hungry men who want to privatize the food supply as much as they can. Monsanto is currently buying patents for climate-ready seeds so they can control the future of food as green house gases increase global warming. The world is changing fast in huge ways, the threat is real and water is next up to be privatized, so get wise and quit taking our resources for granted.
World According to Monsanto
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5637442739159670524&q=world+according+to+monsanto&ei=wxV8SMKID...
Monsanto is a chemical company not a biotech company...we need to scream this then the masses will get it. Agent Orange, Bovine growth hormone, franken seeds....all against nature there's nothing bio or natural about it.
Someone mentioned soy. Stay away from soy. I gave up milk products for three months trying to avoid bovine growth hormone filled dairy products and ended up gaining weight from all the overpriced soy substitues. Soy messes with your metabolism and thyroid and mimicks estrogen. Like corn its in all your food. Americans aren't just fat and sick because of our high stress lack of exercise lifestyles its the food dammit. We need to demand better. Eat local eat organic eat grass fed animals if you must eat meat.
"after authorities learned about the health risks of drinking milk from cows treated with rBGH hormones"
A point of fact. This statement is false. The so-called health risks were that the magical thinkers were all bent out of shape so it was easier to just give them what they wanted than make them show that there was a need for it. The problem with a labeling program is that there is no way you can test the milk to see if BST has been used because the amount of hormone that is injected is hardly measurably greater than what the cow is already producing.
"Isn't it strange that we should pay more for food with no additives than for food with?"
Not at all. It costs more to keep food safe if there are no preservatives. People don't buy food unless it looks nice and tastes good, so food without additives meet with rejection.
It's the magical thinking so rampant on this page that makes me despair of the future of mankind. GM is a process. You can't say that the process is bad anymore than you can say that the internal combustion engine is bad. The only thing you can say with any degree of honesty is that maybe particular genes that are inserted into the genome have bad effects. Frankly, I have no problem at all with inserting genes for the production of beta-carotene in rice seeds because Vit A deficiency is a big problem in Southeast Asia, especially among children. On the other hand I have problems with putting genes for herbicide resistance into plants to encourage increased use of herbicides. I have no problem with putting genes into alfalfa that delay flowering a week or two to allow the plant to grow a bit more before it starts to produce lignin so that more forage protein can be produced allowing other plant protein sources to be used for human food.
For the flower children who are getting excited about the use of GM, it is sort of the same as marveling endlessly at crystal and pyramid power. To hyperventilate about GM is the same as Bush's famous GWOT, it causes more harm than it prevents and instead of being a rational program, it is merely a reaction to a process, not an actual thing. If your real problem is Monsanto and Cargill, then the solution is to support GM that is used for more socially appropriate uses than fattening some capitalist's bank account. See to it that your Land Grant university is working to produce and disseminate GM organisms that are helpful to the user and that they have the resources to do the work without having to depend on corporate funding to develop their product. Agriculture research funds have been reduced by more than half in the last 20 years. The main source of research now is people like Monsanto, Cargill and similar corporations.
Please, all you magical thinkers, if you aren't going to help, get out of the way so that those of us who are concerned with feeding a growing population can get on with saving lives.
Doll- GM crops don't rot faster, they rot a bit slower. kman2- I'm lucky, I live in one of those rather scarce blue rural counties in SE MN. I don't know if it's the scandinavian heritage around here or what, but I do like it. elmysterio- supposedly Monsanto bought the patent to produce these terminator genes, but I don't think they have made any use of it. It would come in handy for farmers if they used it in their roundup-ready corn. I have to spray an extra chemical to kill volunteer roundup-ready corn in my soybeans. Yes, I use gm crops and I do not farm organically. I no-til to save soil and fuel. I use chemicals judiciously. Don't forget that the average person is exposed to thousands of assorted chemicals all the time. We need to weed out the worst ones and hope strange interactions between chemicals doesn't cause too much harm. This is modern life. It's nice that we're free to bitch though, isn't it?
Donkey Hote: Many of Monsanto's 'seed' products contain a 'terminator gene' which causes any seeds grown from their GMO crops to be sterile. These seeds will not grow.
Ohio just recently passed a law restricting the ability for rBGH-free labels to be on dairy products. This excerpt was taken from the Columbus Dispatch on July 1, 2008:
"The Ohio rule, scheduled to go into effect Sept. 19, says any dairy producer that advertises its milk as hormone-free must place a disclaimer next to the label that the Food and Drug Administration has found no significant difference between milk from cows treated with the hormone and that from untreated cows.
Some producers say the new law is so restrictive and costly that they will stop putting hormone information on labels, giving consumers less information."
Thank god someone is standing up to this. The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association filed separate lawsuits against the Ohio Department of Agriculture after the law passed, stating it was a violation of free speech rights.
The situation with GMOs is severe and Monsanto is one of the most sinister multinationals ever to manipulate the system in their favor.
A very informational documentary called, "The World According to Monsanto," was directed by independent French filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin and was aired in France on a public network earlier this year. The film profiles Monsanto and reveals the company's malicious history, from PCB dumping in residential areas in Alabama to the revolving door at the FDA to the thousands of suicides of Indian cotton farmers put out of business by Monsanto's practices.
There are places where sections of it can be viewed online for free, however somebody has been cutting the links to parts that are particularly horrifying.
The entire film, uncensored and free, can be viewed at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6262083407501596844
There is hope, however. Every year, the Boys/Girls State citizen and leadership program is held in each state, (usually around the same time of the year) where high school juniors and seniors participate in a mock government complete with a mock state legislature and governor where they debate on laws that should be passed. Ohio hosts the largest of the programs.
Recently, the Ohio Boys State was held at Bowling Green State University. One of the issues brought up by a group of concerned students was that of the rBGH-labeling and the banning of GMO crops. Within their mock government, the student officials passed a law for the mandatory labeling of all rBGH-dairy. They used arguments such as the lack of tests demonstrating the effects of consuming rBGH milk as well as highlighting the countless cases of rBGH causing Mastitis in the cows. Mastitis is a painful infection of the udder, resulting in the increased use of antibiotics and the potential for pus to contaminate the milk. The students were able to initiate a great dialog of the ethics behind the use of synthetic hormones and GMOs for food sources. Our young people care!
Also a beam of hope - Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian canola farmer who was set up and sued by Monsanto's intellectual property law team for having their patented GMO crop on his land (which was uncontrollably cross pollinated into his initially GMO-free fields), counter-sued the company for clean-up costs and won the case after an expensive 8-year legal battle. Monsanto first tried to settle the counter claim, stating that if they agreed to the cleanup costs, which was just over $600, then Mr. Schmeiser would never be allowed to speak about the incident to the press or public (including his neighbors) and that he would never be allowed to sue Monsanto again. Having beat Monsanto, Mr. Schmeiser is able to tell his story and warn people of how wicked and dishonest the company truely is. The details of his story is at www.percyschmeiser.com
Also here is a great Canadian radio program, highlighting Mr. Schmeiser's victory.
http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/032008.htm
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMER - BUILD THE RELATIONSHIP
This is the only way to protect yourself and your family from companies like Monsanto (and the governments that support them) and protest what is happening to our food system.
Hmmmmmmm . . . aaaarghhhhhh . . . genetically modified tomatoes . . . good!
COLD WAR BABY: That was beautifully written and quite moving. There are still magical places virtually untouched, though the long arm of "development" threatens to swoop them up and transform them into Mcworld at every turn. I travel a lot and am always delighted to find such zones... parts of Athens, Georgia; Cedar Key, Florida, the little town of Micanopy, Florida. The thing about these places is that you often have to be willing to live away from the maddening crowd to access them. Sometimes if we scale back on our costs of living we can freelance from home (as I do), and imbibe of nature's healing qualities in places that still remain NATURAL.
My children can't understand why I more or less moved off the grid. Twelve years ago I took off with a soulmate and traveled down the road I recently bought a place next to. I knew then it was a good fit, and events allowed it to happen 12 years later! I ride my bike into a state park and hang with deer and amazing birds. I try to time my biking to accord with a minimum of people (like at sundown) so I can experience a dive into the cold, aqua springs alone... these zones were likely sacred grounds to the Indigenous and given my open intuition I can still feel that link. When my writing comes to an impasse, usually all it takes is a bike ride to prompt it back into a high creative gear.
It is not a bad time for CD readers to try to situate themselves near water sources. I am not sure if things will get as bad as some of us believe--whether by virtue of prophecies, the US economy, the collapsed dollar, global climate change, the blowback of karma--but preparation is not necessarily a bad idea. Human beings lived WITH nature for centuries before the capitalism credo of more, bigger, faster "better" devoured the very ecosystems required for our survival. I don't think Atlantis got this far before the elementals called it quits and changed the topography around for the next act.
Companies like Monsanto are part of the fascist criminal corporate capitalism run amok that cares nothing of the welfare of the people.
The Americans FDA is an extension of that facism.
The question that should be put to Prfesidential candidates Obama and McCain is, "What do you propose to do to rein in comapnies like Monsanto to protect the welfare of the people and future generationsw?"
My guess is that Obama and McCain would give another mumble mumble, yaddayadah answer to pass it off.
We consumers simply need to realize that we are on our own as far as expecting any help from governmental/corporate forces and then go as organic as possible, radically alter our diets so as to avoid the deadly shit that Monsanto and their ilk try to spew upon the planet.
Only when the masses avoid Monsanto Franken food products, and eventually starve Monsanto of its gross profits, will their be any significant changes.
Seeds of Deception
BOBPOMEROY
funny you should mention the sunflowers. this morning i had my very first harvest of seeds from the sunflowers i planted just before the full moon, two full moons ago..............i didn't think they would come to anything as i don't have 'green' fingers, but i have 8 of them now. they really are beautiful flowers and it's amazing to watch them turn through the day to follow the sun................
THELEVELLER
i'm not suggesting you become 'macrobiotic' but the following is a very good website that will tell you about staying healthy.......yoga too is a very healthy form of exercise for both the body and mind. i can't recommend any books per se, but i'm sure your local library/bookshop will have plenty to choose from. i can honestly say though, being vegan for the past 25 years has not done me any harm...........
http://www.macrobiotics.co.uk/articles/principles.htm
hey coldwarbaby, that was a nice read. i could feel yr cementslab~n~hood. it also brought back the memory for me of swimming and partyin at that verysame candlewood lake; ) as a teen in ct. heh.
It's pretty obvious that "large" spells "trouble" in human organization.
lo, a new generation of corporate trained "scientists" with the same narrowminded anti-reality paradigms rotting their creativity, come up again with the same failed strategies to again create messes and make more messes while cleaningup their messes, as if ecology didnt work without them, as if no final lesson can be learned but stupidity through denile of natural ecology.
Revelation 18:23 ... for thy merchants were the great men of the earth, for by thy "sorceries" were all nations deceived. (King James)
Sorceries is word #5331 in the Stongs concordance, translated from the greek word "pharmakeia" meaning medication, pharmacy, magic, sorcery, witchcraft.
Search the Swedish company "Pharmacia" and their mergers, acquisitions, and subsequent spinoffs of Upjohn, GE Health, and Monasanto.
Coldwarbaby. Excellent commentary that everyone should read and consider seriously. As well, your comment about walking in the snow brought a lump to my throat. Been there done that but unfortunately not for many years.
Ron
Someone, somewhere is creating Triffids!
Each morning, weather permitting, sometime between the hours of six and nine I take my morning coffee and sit on the cement slab that passes for a patio in my back yard. The presumptive purpose for this action is to capture a few moments of peace and solitude before the rest of the family rises and the daily activity begins. It is intended to be a brief interlude of freedom from the crass material world of humanity, a moment to commune with nature. I have continued to do this in spite of believing it to be an exercise in futility.
Since my dwelling is less than a mile from a main thoroughfare in the midst of a small but rapidly growing city, the decibel level produced by the ceaseless, ant-like activity of the concrete hive seems to increase daily. Because the neighborhood is an older one, from before the mindless sprawl began, it seems quite a bit more rural than it is. The homes, even though they are duplexes, are spaced a modest distance apart rather than following the new trend of being so close that one needs to turn sideways to walk between. There are a few trees in some yards and, if the house is fortuitously positioned, one can even catch a glimpse of the Sandia mountains on the other side of Albuquerque across the Rio Grande.
Unfortunately, the illusion of rural living ends there. A walk of less than five minutes brings one to the edge of an asphalt river clogged with schools of cacophonous steel fish of every size, color and description. They vomit a continuous torrent of poisonous excreta as they rush and threaten each other with metal-ripping, bone-crushing mass and momentum. Each seems to be utterly consumed by a mission, as salmon fighting the current knowing that reaching their destination is a matter of life and death.
Sitting on a rickety lawn chair, on my humble concrete slab, I must struggle to isolate the forlorn chirping of a few birds hoping to find a full feeder or the frustrated sigh of the mourning, morning breeze trying in vain to replace the noxious fumes with a breath of fresh air.
I was beginning to think I must be insane since I was doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different result. Well, EUREKA, today that hope was realized! Instead of the usual frustration and dismay at the continued, rapid destruction of the world around me, I was presented with something utterly unexpected.
A memory of another morning, distant in time but as vivid as it was unbidden, flooded into my consciousness with a clarity and understanding far greater than I had experienced at the time of the original incident.
Let me take you there.
It was perhaps forty years ago, maybe more, in the last hours before dawn as I walked across a frozen Candlewood Lake in New Milford, Connecticut. My feet swooshed through almost two feet of fresh powder snow, which continued to fall, thick and soft, filling the troughs created by my passage. My breath plumed into the clean, frigid air as large snowflakes touched my face with their cold, moist kisses.
The falling snow whispered sweetly of peace and tranquility, telling me of the world as it had once been, and would one day be again. Except for the gentle sigh of snow caressing the surface of the lake as it fell, I was surrounded by complete silence. Except for the radiance of an incredibly full moon breaking sporadically through the clouds, I was surrounded by primal darkness.
As far as my feeble human senses could reach, the world had been restored to its rightful state. A simple act of nature, a moderate New England snowstorm, had utterly stopped and silenced all the trivial, manic human commotion that usually never ends. For that brief time, in that one place, the Earth commanded the respect that it truly deserves at all times.
In that moment, Earth spoke to me and I understood.
"Respect me," said Earth. "Respect me and I will provide for you. If you fail to do so, if you harm and abuse me, I will stop you."
There was no threat in the tone of that voice. There was only the gentle but implacable certainty of a completely neutral, emotionless, immeasurable power. This power does not judge. It does not punish. It does not reward. It simply is.
I have come to understand what "primitive' peoples experience in their relationship with nature. I can grasp the concept of the Native American who could "hear" what Earth had to say.
Some of us cling to dogmatic religious cults. We use them as a crutch, an excuse for ignoring evil that is being done all around us. We simply shrug our shoulders and leave it to god.
If we would only spend half the reverence, the devotion, on LIFE, on EARTH, that we waste on imagined, fantastical deities of our own creation we would make a quantum leap in awareness, take a huge step toward freedom from our prison of greed and ego.
Some of us worship a material master. We believe that wealth and power to subject others will elevate us to some special place of superiority. We actually imagine that oppression and domination of "lesser" individuals will raise us to godlike status with the power of life and death to be wielded indiscriminately and without conscience.
In both personae, we seem to think that we can consume our Earth with reckless abandon and, somehow, everything will be just fine. There will be no consequences. Either our celestial master will save us from ourselves through divine intervention or our material master will enable us to buy our way out of the fate we have created for ourselves.
Wrong.
FLASH! Late breaking bulletin.
Gaia has announced that further abuse and neglect will no longer be tolerated. If we continue to rape and mindlessly exploit our world we WILL be stopped. We may pray most fervently to our mythical god. We may throw mountains of wealth at a desperate, last-ditch techno-fix. All will be for naught.
Gaia will take, has in fact taken, the poison, filth and destruction we have wrought to use against us and soon we will be no more. No amount of pleading prayer will be heard. No amount of desperate bribery will be accepted.
I think it would be good to find a quiet place, assuming you can, to sit and contemplate what we have done, what we have allowed to be done and what we are NOT doing. Although this is unlikely to affect the outcome of our failure as a species, it may help us to reconcile our fate, to accept it with a degree of grace that might have saved us had we found it sooner.
This much is certain; as we slide into oblivion we must admit the blame is ours alone.
Gaia hypothesis - an ecological hypothesis that proposes that living and nonliving parts of the earth are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism
coldwarbaby@hotmail.com
Hello CD readers...I am interested in learning more about eating heathier and trying to get away from "Franken Foods" and processed food in general but I feel like I don't really know enough about how to do that. Can anyone recommend any books or articles about eating healthy using organic food and getting away from the genetically mutilated food that is found in most grocery stores.
Thanks!
Kernel,
Actually, the panicle of wheat is called an ear, although it's initial appearance is referred to as 'heading'. I agree with your other point, though.
Yes, lets just blame the farmers and Monsanto for all the problems that people have that are caused by many different things in our modern lifestyle, such as lack of exercise and obesity, overuse of pills, and the environment.
As to the picture of wheat, anyone that does not know wheat has heads and corn has ears had better not be givibg advice to other people. That shows about how intelligent this article is.
Siouxrose----- I wholly agree with you
Monsanto has never answered for its willingness to create KILLER chemicals like Agent Orange, nor has it or its profiteering chemical-producing commercial cousins EVER answered for the mutilated bodies that have resulted from THAT atrocity. Now, with naked evidence of what this company is about, it INSISTS on owning FAR too many seeds, and butchering them so that they WILL impact the genetic structures of FUTURE generations, just like Thalydimide did.
We know the FDA has become a rubber stamp to the corporations, that the lobby system and the pass given to all big money organizations since Bush took office allows for egregious trepasses against public health. Most checks and balances in regulatory agencies have been rendered as null and void as the intended check-balances on the 3 co-equal branches of our actual government (its intended design).
Consider the banana situation, and the inbreeding of a certain sect makes it vulnerable to collapse. Monsanto is doing to plant genes what the military does to bodies, lining it all up to march rank and file to ORDERS given by the crew in charge. NATURE is a feminine entity, SHE is a poet that likes to have lots of entities at her disposal to mix and match. Mother nature has always put unique forms together to sustain life and strengthen it. Natural selection is the fruit of that process.
All over the US we see ROWS of the same plant forced to grow by someone's enforced design. Wiping out companion plants, eviscerating communities in nature is not only a problem for animals and birds, it eventually catches up with us. This uni-forming of nature, this military like control of species--think the bees that are forced into daily labors and have managed to escape, Goddess bless them! It's ALL anti-life... there is such utter disrespect for the Divine feminine, the principle of the union of Yin and Yang, the Divine marriage that constitutes LIFE! It's seen in cloning, this idea of MANMADE control of systems that are NOT HIS to control!
I'd like to see Monsanto carted off to the Hague right after Bush and his neocon felonious pals. One disgusting trespass against life after another, all in homage to the gods of mammon (profit) and Mars... not a bone of compassion, decency or genuine accountability in any who work for this organization. It is a plague upon this earth, and we have not seen the tip of the iceberg. For those who do manage to survive decades into the future, there will be ugly deformities ON their bodies...
Kelmer--- you are blaming the wrong people--- Have you never believed a lie? Ever buy a car? New or used?
Most farmers live hand to mouth and year to year. The "Government Subsidy" programs help the corporate farmers far more than those whom they were allegedly designed to help. I, (a small farmer) have never applied for or accepted a dime of any Government program, save my small social security check.
The misrepresentations made by Corporate sales departments would make an oily used car salesman seem a saint.
"This is all due to conservative electoral victories–tell all your farmer friends in those wonderful prairie red states. Tell everyone."
What a laugh. This statement shows real east/west coast arrogance (Canada included). Acually I live in Blue Prairie state and the prairie states truely are wonderful. I do take offense to your sarcastic arrogant description.
Check out the red versus blue Midwest county by county. This link has a map:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
You'll see many very rural counties in the midwest prairie farm states are blue and the suburban rings around the urban cities are very very red. Western MN, SouthWestern WI, Eastern IA have very rural farm counties that are very blue. Suburban MSP and Suburban Milwaukee for example are the most red.
Yes, blame the farmers you idiot.
Let me see Minnesota (a huge prairie farm state) has been blue since 1976. NO state on the either coast can boast that!! California gave us right wingers named Reagan and Nixon for KriseSakes. Thanks a lot you West Coasters!!
Mustabesomemistake---- I believe there are a couple of errors in your post. First, the seed WILL germinate. That is why Monsanto requires a contractual agreement that the farmer will not save them to plant, and sues on the assumption that he did if any of their GM genes can be found in his crops, no matter how they got there. The term "Roundup Ready" referrs to the fact that they have placed a gene in the plant that will cause it to tolerate application of their herbicide "Roundup" which will kill any plant that does not have the gene.
Doll---- Please do not comdem the farmers. This program has been pushed on them with lies and misinformation. By and large, farmers are squeezed so hard by the realities of the economic system within which they operate that they mostly are at the mercy and whim of the marketplace, the weather, lack of labor that they can afford to use for alternative production methodologies.
I know only a little about this, but I am a farmer. I operate on a relatively tiny scale. I have never and never will grow any GM crop, I use NO herbicides or chemical pesticides,but I see the way many get sucked into the system. Economics and policies make it somewhere between very difficult and impossible to conduct large scale agriculture on a sustainable basis. We are indeed, in trouble.
Go after the farmers and treat them and Monsanto as terrorists.
Organize local green groups to go into supermarkets and inform people about what is in the grocery aisles.
Along with oil companies, GMO companies and their scientists are the greatest ecological blight at the moment.
Occupy America with an army of sunflowers!
If you can't plant a garden, you can grow a sunflower in a pot. A group called Garden Guerillas, or something to that effect, is trying to establish the sunflower as an international peace symbol. Plant them where you wait for the bus or in a crack in your supermarkets parking lot. Everywhere they can get watered. If you don't have a place where you can have a garden, anyplace will do for a sunflower. Vive la fuerza de las flores! Occupy America with an army of sunflowers
If you aren't gardening this summer, get your plans together, and start for next spring. Some seeds are planted in the late summer, early fall. Kale and onions. Composting. Be radical, plant a garden!
I read somewhere that the GM crops rot much, much faster than normal crops.
Anyone else read about this? If a crop lasts weeks instead of the normal months, why would any farmer want to grow GM crops? Even if they don't rot quickly, why would any farmer want these monsters?
Maybe we need to condemn the farmers who grow these monster crops in order to stop Monsanto.
The movie/dvd, The Corporation, details the ways corporations, with the rights of human beings (actually more), are a particular type of human being; PSYCHOPATH or SOCIOPATH! and, they are the ones in power, buying off so-called mainstream media and politicians. The inmates are TRULY running the asylum. They are well on their way to crushing what is left of our democracy. (see Bill Moyers latest essay on Truthout). Destruction of democracy and the environment and the health of human beings are all so INTERRELATED!
If a few on this site feel that we are getting shrill, it's because we recognize we are in a state of multiple CRISES! I am grateful that there are some who remind us of the need to be grounded in a spiritual center.
We can't say it's too late; we have to keep supporting candidates and causes with votes and money, keep writing on the web and letters-to-editors, and through persuasion in our personal contacts to bring them to CD and other alternate sources where they will find the doubletruth instead of bullsh*t.
We owe it, through time and space to our greatgrandchildren and to citizens all over the world today who have even less power than we do over what happens; and, oh yeah, we owe it to ourselves.
It is the Divine Right of Capital to poison, maim, deform, murder, or enslave you. This is why the flat-earth genocidal blood god Yahweh made you - to serve HIS representatives on earth, Richfilth psychotic monsters who see you and your children as the food in THEIR picnic basket. Welcome to the Hell that is your present and future in our unrepentant genocidal melanin deficient empire. How good of you to sacrifice yourself and your children so that Master may have riches beyond the dreams of avarice.
Oh boy, this is great! I thought maybe Monsanto had ended all discussion of this stuff: Thanks for bringing it up!
Think like this: we are the testers. We are the guinea pigs.
1. Your great granma had a 200:1 chance of getting breast cancer between 1900 and 1920. Your granma had a 100:1 chance from the 40's to the 60's. Your Mother had a 20:1 chance of losing a breast since 1960; and you have a 8:1 chance. Your daughter will see every other women of her generatio get breast cancer.
2. Autism is a national epidemic. In my own anecdotal way i can only say when i was a kid we never heard of it. In the fifties and sixties and seventies, we did tend to lump all childhood mental problems into the general area of retardation. That was ignorant: the movie Rainman blew it up. also, there are more so-called "crack babies" than there should be. I don't believe all of those kids are properly diagnosed. Considering the dietary choices of the poverty and near-poverty working classes.
3. Herbicides are related to Agent Orange. Just how i don't know, chemically. But, if we want to see what the long-term effects of that look like, go to Viet-nam. In some places fish have not yet returned to the streams and rivers. Are their children "retarded" or autistic? Or poisoned?
Having Monsanto seeds means the plants are immune to the herbicide "ready roundup". Imagine unlimited spraying with no harm to the crop anymore--you can spray until death do you part.
4. Pesticides. Go figger.
5. Lack of diversity in seed choices. Leaves us all in danger of some great new plant plague. As well as lack of choice.
6. Growing organic next to a Monsanto crop is impossible due to lawsuits. Check out the Percy Smiser story in Canada. His crops were tainted by pollen from Monsanto crops. he had to pay damages because the wind blew.
7. Monsanto seeds do not create seeds that will sprout again. So every seed has to be purchased from them prior to planting the next one. Every seed. Never has this been the case in agriculture. Imagine the power to control prices!
This is all due to conservative electoral victories--tell all your farmer friends in those wonderful prairie red states. Tell everyone.
But now we have Monsanto and others pushing for even MORE GMO produce as a way to combat hunger. The EU and World Health Organization are going to be infiltrated if not already to force the use of these standard products.. all to line the coffers of Monsanto's pocket.
It is a radical act to grow your own food or buy from a local organic farmer!
Is there a bumper sticker to that effect?
I would bet Monsanto scientists buy organic foods for their families. Any takers?
GMO corn is probably in use in a higher percentage than was mentioned. Just about everything in the supermarket has corn syrup in it. Even buying local, organic produce, one cannot be absolutely sure that GMOs aren't invading the food, as the author notes that with cross pollination, airborne, by bees... we aren't safe. Almost makes a person want to become a Luddite. If we could just take the profit out of science, companies, like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, wouldn't even exist. The people there would have to get jobs that might actually benefit humanity.
We are surrounded with the results of ALL this "tinkering". Just becasue we could most definately didn't mean we should and they KNEW THAT! (Ha ha on presidents Bush's "no cloning and stem cell research" what a joke - the idoit. He probably owns stock and had no idea he was guilty of just such things.)
Our tech. has proven that a balance between social, spiritual and economic mechanism's of society are now an impossibility...Schools can not keep up with the problems associated with learning, autism has exploded and parents have no idea what to do. We need our greatest scientists on this! It may already be too late in terms of crops but the additives have got to go! I am not kidding. We need to focus on what went wrong and on how to fix it.
Forget the ecomony as the biggest concern to most people (which it is) the enviornment and what we have done in the name of our own destruction SHOULD and MUST be the biggest concern for the entire worlds populations most importantly the flora and fauna.
The problem is that chemically and now genetically modified foods have enabled the world's population to more than double in fifty years. Now these foods are killing us.
My belief is that nature will bite harder and there will be mass hunger when the crops fail, and yet more chemically induced disease.
The rich can eat organic of course.
Labeling gives the citizens (who FAR outnumber the few in control, who ARE the country, who DO the work, who MAKE things happen in a very real way, whose money SUPPORTS monsanto, whose BOYCOTT could bring companies like them down) a clear choice in purchase which is generally necessary for those who're allergic to some ingredients and may be aware of those ingredients that can potentially lead to certain medical maladies. It's imperitive no one organization, or individual, have the kind of control monsanto has at its hands, nor the irresponsible attitude the judicial system seems to have demonstrated in finding for monsanto.
Third world populations all over the globe have organized its citizens to bring down rogue governments, or arms of them, to eliminate exactly that kind of control and fickle attitude. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing that happen in a commercial effort, bringing down companies like monsanto for their seemingly autcratic pressures upon the populace that has depended on their honesty and responsible efforts.
I intend to email this article to my friends and family, relying on at least some of the suggestion being put to use by them. I also intend to buy local from those who use organic feed for their dairy cows, support those who have been sued for responsible labeling, and placing this article up on my website for all those who visit it to see just what a slime monsanto and the judicial system that supported its suit is.
We are unbelievably arrogant fools. Greed compels us to turn the planet into a toilet, rather than curb our excesses. We, sadly, shall have earned what we get. How sad!
What the people want no longer matters in our democracies. How could that ave possibly come about?
First of all, genetically engineering a neurotoxin like BT that kills bugs into a corn plant is going to kill or disable a wide spectrum of animal kingdom life. A few humans are highly reactive to neurotoxins.
When you take a fish gene, or half of a fish gene, and splice it into a corn cell, you bring the potential to produce thousands of organic chemicals in addition to the one natural pesticide that you wanted. Many new chemicals and hormones in the corn plant can cause unforeseen reactions. For example, trace dioxins might possibly be manufactured. The corn plant grows in 75 days and doesn't have time to become cancerous and die, but the human eating the corn has 80 years. There's no cross-checking done at all for multiple drug reactions within a corn plant. All Monsanto knows (or deliberately cares to know) is that the plant grows and produces something that looks like corn.
Isn't it strange that we should pay more for food with no additives than for food with?
Up here in Canada our federal politicians, primarily the pro corporation Conservatives, similar to your Republicans, recently voted to ban the labeling of GMO foods. This in spite of the fact that over 70% of Canadians favor labeling. When queried not one of these representatives of the people could explain why they voted this way. Like America a plutocracy is firmly established in Canada.
One year ago I became one of many which are directly affected by all that is added in today's food. The rate of cancer has dramatically risen in the last few years, breast cancer now strikes one in eight women in the USA and men as well. I was fortunate enough to have a very good health plan and get routine check-ups. Cancer was found early, I got prompty operated and radiation treatment was successful.
Found out I have to stay away from soy, something causing imbalance of hormones and soy feeds the cancer. You'd think 'that's easy, just don't drink soy milk etc.', but have you ever checked the lables on foods? Just about everything has soy added, from pizza to pastry, to cereals to the most unlikely foods. Even eating 'healthy foods' like salads means no majonaise no to most oils, no salad dressings, for most have soy added too. Soy beans by itself are pretty healthy, but too much gets added and the food industry uses the soy trash, squeezes the peels, which contain all the pesticides put in the soil in the first place.
For years I have been shopping at the local farmer's market, which are held in my location only once a week and eat much home grown fruit. But there comes the announcement that mosquity spraying will resume, as soon as the several weeks of unhealthy smoke from the ongoing fires clears out... and on it goes with the poisoning
I always wondered why my zucchini got so out-of-control big before I could get to it. I should watch out for a law suit from monsanto for unauthorized use of their GM foods that accidentally pollinated with my store bought seeds.
Shame on monsanto for using law suits to control the farmers that don't agree with them. I would be embarrassed to work for them. They're nothing but pond scum.