I was so happy to see national protests yesterday against Monsanto. One of the Senate's latest insults to Americans this week was to PROHIBIT states from legislating labeling of GMO food. Hows that for contempt? Not even bothering to hide the fact that Monsanto controls the Senate? Here's a video of yesterday's protests against Monsanto drawing a reported 2 million in 400 cities worldwide to the streets:
http://therealnews.com/t2/
http://www.infowars.com/
This week the Senate refused by a 27-71 vote the Bernie Sanders Amendment to the Farm Bill that would have permitted states to pass bills requiring GMO labeling, effectively FORBIDDING STATES from labeling GMO engineered foods . In essence telling the American public that this corporate entity can do whatever it wants without determining first what will be the environmental impact, and, the American people will not be allowed to know that they are eating GMO foods.
There is a Change.org petition to Obama to repeal the "Monsanto Protection Act", but I doubt it will do any good now that the Senate has explicitly voted to prohibit labeling of GMOs for States. http://www.change.org/
A few weeks back I posted a TED Talk by Lawrence Lessing about, in essence, corporate ownership of our government, which was once a democracy. And the Multi-National Corporate State is doing a very bad job of governing, since, with climate change, destruction of the oceans, fracking what's left of the underground water tables............need I go on?...................their profits are going to be very bad in the not too distant future, because there won't be many people left to "consume" what little is left.
And there is no Corporation more powerful, or scary, than Monsanto, a corporate entity that is busy playing God/dess with absolute impunity. I posted previously about the "Monsanto Protection Act" that was just passed, and feel, in good conscience, that I need to post further for the benefit of any who may not know about why people have been marching this week against Monsanto. Below is the documentary "The World According to Monsanto". Having watched it, I BELIEVE EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE THIS FILM. This is truly monumental, and frightening, whether we're hearing a French scientist report that the universally used weedkiller Roundup "provokes the cell division leading to the formation of cancer", to the almost complete loss of independent farms and biodiversity in Uruguay.
In India farmers are being driven to suicide because they can no longer, due the fact that Monsanto completely controls the cotton seed market, afford to plant their traditional crops (Monsanto and the Seeds of Suicide). As a result, they are falling deeper and deeper into debt, losing their lands, and being displaced from traditional homelands.
Indiana farmer Troy Rouse talks, in the film (below) about being sued by Monsanto. (If you grow organic or conventional, and your neighbor grows Monsanto,
the two will likely cross, making you legally liable to be
sued by Monsanto when they field test your
seeds.) Further, seed crops are being designed to be sterile, so that future planting must be purchased anew from the corporation****. This means that essential food crops could be controlled by a corporate entity demanding a tax which it can determine
at will. And what will happen if modified seeds escape into the gene pool, now that Monsanto has carte blanche to proceed without appropriate controls or even visibility to consumers? 
http://youtu.be/N6_DbVdVo-k
****http://youtu.be/eUd9rRSLY4A
Even though they can't label the GMO foods, they CAN label foods that are NOT GMO. Of course most of these are sold at health food stores, but they are available. I see more and more companies labeling their products as containing no GMO foods.
ReplyDeletethanks, that's true! I've started buying Silk soymilk because they have a "non-GMO" label.
ReplyDeleteI know that, for a blog about art and spirituality, I've become very political. But our universal problems have become so intertwined and dire that I do not believe it's possible to separate spirituality and politics anymore. GMO's not only pose a universal threat, but the contemptuous governmental manipulation of this corporate entity, the blatent disregard of democracy.......is equally disturbing.
Politics is threaded through everything these days. You have to be political, you have to have opinions!
ReplyDeleteGreat post.