by Linn Cohen-Cole
March 9, 2009
from
OpedNews Website
To begin reversing GM contamination will require ending the power
biotech companies such as Monsanto exert over our government and
through that, over our food.
HR 875, was introduced by
Rosa DeLauro whose husband
Stanley
Greenberg works for Monsanto.
Rosa DeLauro
Stanley Greenberg
The bill is monstrous on level after level:
-
the power it would give
to Monsanto
-
the criminalization of seed banking
-
the prison terms
and confiscatory fines for farmers
-
the 24 hours GPS tracking of
their animals
-
the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry
-
the stripping away of their property
rights
-
the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of
anti-farming international "industrial" standards to independent
farms - the only part of our food system that still works
-
the planned elimination of
farmers through all these means
The corporations want the land, they want more intensive
industrialization, they want the end of normal animals so they can
substitute patented genetically engineered ones they own, they want
the end of normal seeds and thus of seed banking by farmers or
individuals. They want control over all seeds, animals, water, and
land.
Our farmers are good stewards. That is who is threatened by Rosa
DeLauro's bill (and because of that, we all are). At a time in this
country when wise stewardship and the production of anything real -
especially good food - is what is most needed, it is our best
stewards whom Rosa DeLauro threatens, under the cruelly false name
of "food safety."
And now Monsanto wants its own employee,
Michael Taylor (image left) - the man
who forced genetically engineered
rBGH on us (unlabeled so us,
unaware) when the Clintons placed him over "food safety" in the 90s
- back in government, this time to act with massive police power as
a "food safety tsar" from inside the White House.
HR 875 would give
him immense power over what is done on every single farm in the
country and massive police state power to wield over farmers and
punishments to break them at will.
The following quotes show Monsanto and its biotech ilk are not
"stewards" at all. Their inhuman focus on profit has led to inhuman,
insane, sickening products that require intense corruption of
democracy and science institutes and media, to foist them on country
after country which don't want them.
It is our farmers who stand between us and this outrage which
masquerades as science, as food, as normal business, as government.
And it is or farmers who need not only protecting and but actual
freeing from government intrusion, control and harm.
Vegetarians and vegans do not identify with farmers who raise
animals but what is at stake here is critical for all of us.
"First
they came for the Jews" is an apt reminder of what matters in
standing with each other because,
-
the overwhelming bureaucratic
burdens
-
the recording over every single thing done on a farm
-
the warrantless inspections
-
the end of farmers markets
-
the
criminalization of seed banking
-
the ten years in prison for
stepping out of line in any way,
...will next be applied not to animals
breaking out of fence onto a neighbors' farm, but for such things as
not spraying pesticides on an organic farm to eradicate earthworms
(now listed as an invasive species) because the government's "food
safety tsar" has deemed it necessary.
It is totalitarian control
(and HR 875 epitomizes it) which we stand against, and now it is
aimed with ferocity at farmers with animals. Stopping it now keeps
all farmers safe.
Rosa DeLauro and Stanley Greenburg have a great deal to account for
in attempting through a mislabeled bill with hidden intent to wipe
out our farmers and harm all of us.
HR 875 gives Monsanto greater
power and opens doors wider to the following ...
GM and non-GM crops cannot coexist
"OK, we know that cross-pollination will occur but we’ve got thirty
years of experience to say we know how far pollen will travel. And
therefore what we’ve done is we’ll grow a GM crop at a distance away
from a non-GM crop, so the people that want non-GM can buy non-GM,
and the people that want GM can buy GM. The two will not get mixed
up. Everybody will have the right to choose."
Paul Rylott, Seed Manager for Aventis CropScience, and later chief
spokesperson for the agricultural biotechnology industry in the UK,
"Matter of fact”, BBC2 Eastern Region, broadcast 12 October 2000
"Global incidents of genetic contamination from
genetically modified
(GM) crops are on the rise, while the companies responsible ignore
the consequences. Since 2005, the
GM Contamination Register has
recorded 216 contamination events in 57 countries since GM crops
were first grown commercially on a large scale in 1996. While
companies claim they can control the use of GM crops, the reality is
very different." Greenpeace International, “Biotech companies fuel GM contamination
spread”, 29 February 2008
"If some people are allowed to choose to grow, sell and consume GM
foods, soon nobody will be able to choose food, or a biosphere, free
of GM. It’s a one way choice, like the introduction of rabbits or
cane toads to Australia; once it’s made, it can’t be reversed."
Roger Levett, specialist in sustainable development, “Choice: Less
can be more",
Food Ethics, Vol. 3, No. 3, Autumn 2008
"The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded
[with GMOs] that there’s nothing you can do about it. You just sort
of surrender." Don Westfall, biotech industry consultant and vice-president of
Promar International quoted in, “Starlink fallout could cost
billions”, Toronto Star, 9 January 2001
"The industry is in reality making serious efforts, whether legally
or illegally, to contaminate the cultivated species all over the
world." Devinder Sharma, trade policy analyst, “The great genetic scandal”,
Center for Alternative Agricultural Media, 1 August 2002
"[Dale] Adolphe [of the Canadian Seed Growers Association] said it's
ironic that even as public protests and opposition to GM food
products seem to grow and even as new regulations and controls are
put in place, the total acreage devoted to GM crops around the world
is expanding.
That may be what eventually brings the debate to an
end, said Adolphe.
'It's a hell of a thing to say that the way we
win is don't give the consumer a choice, but that might be it.'"
Adrian Ewins, quoting Dale Adolphe of the Canadian Seed Growers
Association in “Biotech wins by giving consumers no choice", The
Western Producer, 4 April 2002
"People will have [GM]
Roundup Ready soya whether they like it or
not." Monsanto spokesperson in Britian, Ann Foster, “The politics of
food", Maria Margaronis, The Nation, 27 December 1999
"The US Department of Agriculture claims to know where the maize
-
banned from all food use globally and only recently approved for US
exports - is located. Aventis, the French firm which developed the
genetically modified maize sold throughout the US maize belt in 1999
and 2000, says it knows, also. So do I:
StarLink maize is
everywhere." US agricultural journalist Alan Guebert, "Another contamination
scandal dents US biotech hopes", Farmers Weekly, 8 December 2000
"It's important for countries around the world to adopt a uniform
standard of acceptable levels of contamination."
Biotechnology Industry Organization spokesperson, Lisa Dry quoted
in, "Engineered DNA found in crop seeds", Rick Weiss, Washington
Post, 24 February 2004
"In 2006 it was discovered that 30% of the entire US long-grain rice
supply had become contaminated by experimental GM rice varieties
unapproved for human consumption. Not only was this a public safety
disaster, but also cost the rice industry over $1 billion. The
contamination source? 'Controlled' field trials."
The Soil Association, “Government to defy critics with secret GM
crop trials", Today's News, 17 November 2008
"If they can’t prevent it there, there is little chance they will
avoid it in the field."
Dr Brian Johnson of English Nature, after sugar beets genetically
modified to resist one company’s herbicide accidentally acquired GM
genes resistant to another company’s herbicide, despite being grown
in greenhouses. “Stray genes highlight superweed danger", New
Scientist, issue 2261, 21 October 2000
"Cross-pollination of the environment is an issue, and that has to
be addressed. And for those countries that have very small landmass,
there’s no way they can segregate GM crops from conventional crops
or from organic crops, and so the likelihood of cross pollination
exists." Prof Patrick Wall, until 2008 the Chairman of the European Food
Safety Authority (EFSA), the EU Agency mandated by the European
Commission to advise on the safety of genetically modified food and
animal feed for the European Union, in an interview: "We cannot
force-feed EU citizens with GM food", 2 December 2008
"The cultivation of genetically modified maize [in Spain] has caused
a drastic reduction in organic cultivations of this grain and is
making their coexistence practically impossible."
Conclusion of research published in the Journal of Agricultural and
Environmental Ethics: “An impossible coexistence: transgenic and
organic agriculture", Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 30 June
2008
"Mexican plant biologist, Ignacio Chapela, and his student David
Quist, were the target of attack for their painstaking research that
established the spread of transgenes in the centre of origin of
maize. Such genetic contamination would ultimately destroy the
world's available genetic purity and in the very hotspots of
diversity.
The National Biodiversity Commission of Mexico accepted
the findings.
‘It is confirmed. There is no doubt about it,’ Jorge Soberon of the Commission was reported as saying. Two separate teams
found transgenic DNA in around 10 per cent of crop plants sampled in
Oaxaca province, describing it as ‘the world's worst case of GM
contamination’."
Devinder Sharma, trade policy analyst, “The great genetic scandal”,
Center for Alternative Agricultural Media, 1 August 2002. Quist and
Chapela's findings were further confirmed by a study published in
2008, see "Modified genes spread to local maize"
Monsanto's Michael Taylor is BAAAAACC...KKK ...
This Time to Control
"Food Safety" From The White House
by Linn Cohen-Cole
March 8, 2009
from
OpedNews Website
Michael Taylor, perhaps stowed away in
Hillary Clinton's trunk as a
nostalgic reminder of the good ole days when Bill put him in charge
of the FDA and he approved
rBGH, has reentered government along with
her.
He slipped onto Obama's transition team somehow (just how?) and
is now hoping to slip into an office... in the White House.
What would he do there, he who subjected this country and many
others to the increased risk of breast cancer (7 times greater
risk), prostate and colon cancer because of what he did to milk,
cheese, yogurt, ice cream with rBGH as well as to all the foods that
rely on milk solids and other parts of milk? Why, over see "food
safety."
Food Democracy Now wants people to "[w]rite Secretary Vilsack (AgSec@usda.gov) and tell him to stand strong on food safety."
But isn't that the same Vilsack who has no record on food safety, a
strong record of support for Monsanto and genetic engineering, and
oversaw a huge increase in CAFOs in Iowa and the loss of thousands
of small farmers? How is he supposed to "stand strong" on something
he has never stood on before and actually supports the opposite of?
And he's Monsanto's boy and the guy who dreamed up the Monsanto laws
that preemptively remove democracy from communities wishing to
control what is planted on them or how farms are used.
Food Democracy Now describes Taylor as:
"Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto executive, whose career literally
fits the definition of
the revolving door between government,
lobbying and corporate interests. Before serving on the Obama ag
transition team, Taylor made a name for himself rotating in and out
of law firms, Monsanto, the USDA and FDA. While at the FDA he helped
write the rules to allow
rBGH into the American food system and our
children’s milk.
They go on to say "We need a food safety system with some teeth -
one that is independent of corporate interests," yet, mysteriously,
they have not even mentioned or yet opposed the bogus "food safety"
bills that Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, and giant surveillance
companies want which are designed to destroy our farmers and give
control of the US food supply and control of US farmland to
multinationals.
Deborah Bryceson of Oxford UK calls it “de-peasantization” – the
phasing out of traditional family farms to make fertile farmland
available for intensive capital accumulation using factory farming.”
Third world countries were the original target, now it is our turn.
Food Democracy Now wants people to write "Secretary Vilsack and ask
him to reconsider these decisions" but they don't seem to have the
picture yet: There is a huge plan in place for Monsanto to take over
control of all food in the US. Vilsack was potentially put in at the
USDA to help.
Putting Michael Taylor back in charge of food is likely the deal
that
Obama struck to get her to stop her incessant "running" - let
the Clinton's Monsanto connections back into government with her,
this time with monstrously centralized power. This centralization of
the FDA and USDA into a "Food Safety" department was one of Hillary
Clinton's major platforms while standing at her side was her
campaign strategist and long term advisor, Mark Penn, CEO of
Burson-Marsteller, a major (and reviled) PR firm for Monsanto.
It appears that Food Democracy Now is being played by Vilsack and as
they focus on him and what he does, good or bad, they accidentally
distract the whole organic community from the most massive danger we
have ever faced - a take over of our food supply through those bogus
"food safety" bills. I believe the timing on Merrigan's appointment
was chosen to distract progressives until the bills have been shoved
through, and then, additionally to throw people off-guard, Vilsack
goes and makes a PC speech on civil rights.
Burson-Marsteller is not one of the largest PR firms in the world
for being inept at staging things - right now they are likely
helping to direct everyone's attention away from the bills. And, to
keep people busy, meanwhile, the USDA is going through the motions
of asking for comments on NAIS which they have no intention to
listening to (though our filing comments is incredibly important
because we'll have numbers to indicate how much this matters.
So,
use this link and comment repeatedly . Your comment will go to
the USDA as well as Congress and newspapers. Get all your friends
and family to, as well.
Meanwhile, they are doing their best to keep people busy with
democratic exercises which they intend to be exercises in futility.
We need to use those exercises, not to expect their action, but to
tabulate their injustice.
Meanwhile the real show is going on down the street, where Monsanto
is taking massive control over all farms through the falsely named
"food safety" bills, introduced by Rosa DeLauro whose husband,
Stanley Greenburg got rich from working for Clinton and Monsanto.
And the agriculture committee is loaded with people who have gotten
large donations from ... who else? ... Monsanto.
Connecting the dots is not hard. The same laws in the EU have
already wiped out 60% of Polish farmers, and that is only so far.
HACCP, also (like NAIS and "best farming practices" which are also
included) was an international harmonization of laws that Monsanto
wanted - another Clinton's gift also billed as "food safety." In
Kansas alone HACCP wiped out 72 small local meat processors who'd
hadn't had any problems, and vastly lowered the number of
inspections to the point where we have over 70 million food borne
illnesses a year now.
Fool us once, shame on you (Clintons and Monsanto). But here comes a
really huge "twice" - and by the same folks.
The left has been completely taken unawares and except for frantic
efforts now to wake them up, they have been busy either being happy
about Merrigan, or looking forward to an organic White House garden,
or trying to figure Obama's budget for agriculture - entirely
unaware the "food safety" bills will destroy literally everything
they have been working on and dreaming of and entirely ignorant of
the bills' content, scope, intent and horror.
Those bills are Monsanto triumphing over "organic."
It will be taking control over every farm in the country,
eliminating as many possible farmers in the process as they can,
with Michael Taylor, their lawyer, running the whole thing from the
White House.
Meanwhile, the media, despite being constantly written to and
begged, has not done a single story on this.
With Michael Taylor looking to head food safety from the White
House, the penny should finally drop for everyone.
Even that appointment may be timed to throw attention away from the
bills themselves and to set people scrambling to stop it. But if
people don't want Michael Taylor in charge of a centralized "Food
Safety" department, they only need kill the department itself. Kill
the bills.
The:
...need to wake up fast and join farmers who have been doing their
damnedest to say things were beyond rotten and they were about to be
eliminated.
Don't reach Vilsack (though be sure to comment at the USDA, Congress
and your newspapers on NAIS and those bills) - reach
Rosa DeLauro .
She introduced
HR 875 -
the biggest of the Monsanto bills. Her
husband, Stanley Greenburg, got rich working for Clinton and
Monsanto.
She has betrayed every man, woman, and child in the country by
introducing a bill that will turn our lives over to Monsanto. She
has made a mockery of any feminist position she has ever espoused in
support of women and children.
At what point does working for Monsanto become toxic to whomever
does it? Do these people's careers ever collapse from such a
betrayal of their country?
DeLauro:
Washington Office. Phone: (202) 225-3661. Fax:
(202) 225-4890
Connecticut Office. Phone: (203) 562-3718. Fax: (203) 772-2260
The sponsors need to withdraw their support entirely and they very
well might if they know they stepped in it.
Remember that everyone
has been faked out and most of these sponsors would have been as
well. In addition, there are a lot of women on this list who will
likely believe they are standing up for children and families
against unsafe food so are being used as easy marks here.
This is a very carefully and well planned attack on our food supply,
using progressives to make it happen, and pulling along the
progressive community with them.
Here are the list of sponsors. Let them know they are being used and
the bills are being pushed by Monsanto (and the Dirt Pack of big
meat packers) and point out that Monsanto's
Michael Taylor, who gave
us rBGH, is back and wants to run this centralized lie of "food
safety" from the White House.
-
Rep. Shelley Berkley [D, NV-1]
Phone: (702) 220-9823 Fax: (702) 220-9841
Phone: (202 ) 225-5965 Fax: (202) 225-3119
-
Rep. Sanford Bishop [D, GA-2]
Phone: 202- 225-3631 Fax: 202-225-220
Phone: (229) 439-8067 Fax: (229) 436-2099
-
Rep. Timothy Bishop [D, NY-1]
Phone: 202-225-3826 Fax: 202-225-3143
Phone: (631) 696-6500 Fax: (631) 696-4520
-
Rep. André Carson [D, IN-7]
Phone: (202) 225-4011 Fax: (202) 225-5633
IN Phone: 317-283-6516
-
Rep. Kathy Castor [D, FL-11]
Phone: (813) 871-2817 Fax: (813) 871-2864
Phone: (202) 225-3376. Fax: (202) 225-5652
-
Rep. Peter DeFazio [D, OR-4]
-
Phone: 202-225-6416 Fax: 202-225-0032
TollFree: 800-944-9603
Phone: 541-269-2609 Fax: 541-269-5760
-
Rep. Diana DeGette [D, CO-1]
Phone: 202-225-4431 Fax: 202-225-5657
Phone: (303) 844-4988. Fax: (303) 844-4996
-
Rep. Eliot Engel [D, NY-17]
Phone: (718) 796-9700 Fax: (718) 796-5134
Phone: 202-225-2464. Fax: 202-225-5513
-
Rep. Anna Eshoo [D, CA-14]
Phone: (202) 225-8104 Fax: (202) 225-8890
Phone: (650) 323-2984 Fax: (650) 323-3498
-
Rep. Sam Farr [D, CA-17]
Phone: 202-225-2861. Fax: 202-225-6791
Phone: (831) 424-2229. Fax: (831) 424-7099
-
Rep. Bob Filner [D, CA-51]
(202) 225-8045 Fax: (202) 225-9073
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords [D, AZ-8]
Phone:(520) 459-3115 Fax: (520) 459-5419
Phone:(202) 225-2542 Fax: (202) 225-0378
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-
Rep. Raul Grijalva [D, AZ-7]
Phone: 520-622-6788 Fax: 520-622-0198
Phone: 202-225-2435 Fax: 202-225-1541
-
Rep. John Hall [D, NY-19]
Phone: (202) 225-5441. Fax: (202) 225-3289
(845) 291-4100 Fax: (845) 291-4164
-
Rep. Maurice Hinchey [D, NY-22]
Phone: 202-225-6335 Fax: 202-226-0774
Phone: (845) 331-4466 Fax: (845) 331-7456
-
Rep. Mazie Hirono [D, HI-2]
Phone: 202-225-4906 Fax: 202-225-4987
Phone:(808) 541-1986 Fax:(808) 538-0233
-
Rep. Eddie Johnson [D, TX-30]
Phone: (214) 922-8885 Fax: (214) 922-7028
Phone: 202-225-8885 Fax: 202-226-1477
-
Rep. Marcy Kaptur [D, OH-9]
Phone: 202-225-4146. Fax: 202-225-7711
-
Rep. Barbara Lee [D, CA-9]
Phone: (202) 225-2661 Fax: (202) 225-9817
-
Rep. Nita Lowey [D, NY-18]
Phone: 202-225-6506. Fax: 202-225-0546
Phone: 914-428-1707 Fax: 914-328-1505
-
Rep. Betty McCollum [D, MN-4]
Phone: (651) 224-9191 Fax: (651) 224-3056
Phone: (202) 225-6631 Fax: (202) 225-1968
-
Rep. James McDermott [D, WA-7]
206-553-7170 Fax: 206-553- 7175
Phone: (202) 225-3106 Fax: (202) 225-6197
-
Rep. James McGovern [D, MA-3]
Phone: (508) 831-7356 Fax: (508) 754-0982
Phone: 202-225-6101 Fax: 202-225-5759
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-
Rep. Gwen Moore [D, WI-4]
Phone: 202-225-4572 Fax: 202-225-8135
Phone: (414) 297-1140 Fax: (414) 297-1086
-
Rep. Christopher Murphy [D, CT-5]
Phone: (202) 225-4476. Fax: (202) 225-5933
-
Rep. Jerrold Nadler [D, NY-8]
202-225-5635. Fax: 202-225-6923
-
Rep. Eleanor Norton [D, DC-0]
Phone: 202-225-8050 Fax: 202- 225-3002
-
Rep. Chellie Pingree [D, ME-1]
Phone: (202) 225-6116 Fax: (202) 225-5590
-
Rep. Timothy Ryan [D, OH-17]
Phone: 330-630-7311 / Fax: 330-630-7314
Phone: (202) 225-5261 Fax: (202) 225-3719
-
Rep. Linda Sánchez [D, CA-39]
Phone: 202-225-6676 Fax: 202-226-1012
-
Rep. Janice Schakowsky [D, IL-9]
Phone: (202) 225-2111 Fax: (202) 226-6890
-
Rep. Mark Schauer [D, MI-7]
Phone: (202) 225-6276 Fax: (202) 225-6281
Phone: (517) 780-9075 Fax: (517) 780-9081
-
Rep. Louise Slaughter [D, NY-28]
(716) 853-5813. Fax: (716) 853-6347
Phone: 202-225-3615. Fax: 202-225-7822
-
Rep. Fortney Stark [D, CA-13]
(510) 657-8831 Fax: (510) 657-8832
DC Phone: (202) 225-5065
-
Rep. Betty Sutton [D,
OH-13]
Phone: (440) 245-5350 Fax: (440) 245-5355
-
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz [D, FL-20]
Phone: (954) 437-3936 Fax: (954) 437-4776
Phone: 202-225-7931 Fax: 202-226-2052
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Call these offices even if you are not in their district to tell
them they stepped in it and the whole organic community is now onto
this game and rising up. This is the death of organic food and the
criminalization of seed banking. It is a Monsanto take over and
Taylor is here to run it.
If someone wants to locate emails for these people and post them for
others to use, that would be great.
And make good use of this link to tell your Congress people and
newspapers AND the USDA how you feel about any of this.
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