For those who hope Obama will bring something different to the world, we must first see clearly what is happening, and make demands of him that are profound, not show.
Liberals are pleased he may appoint a White House farmer to plant an organic garden. That is empty show.
Meanwhile corporations like Monsanto are moving rapidly to take control of food supplies ... and democracies, including ours. www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/1/192127/2714/736/691835
Obama chose Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State. We cannot know what deals were struck to make her stop her destructive campaigning long after it was apparent she had lost. But we do know that Mark Penn, CEO for Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's large PR firms representing Monsanto. www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=392 advised her for years and ran her campaign. And when she showed up again, by Obama's side, suddenly so did a man named Michael Taylor ... also again.
MIchael Taylor is a Monsanto lawyer Bill Clinton once put in charge of the FDA where he approved Monsanto's rBGH. Hillary was back, and Obama was putting Taylor on his transition team. www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15710.cfm
Using the transition team's advice, Obama appointed Tom Vilsack to head the USDA, overriding 20,000 opposing "grassroots" emails. The objection to Vilsack? His deep Monsanto connections.
www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15573.cfm
Hillary Clinton's connections to Monsanto go way back the Rose Law Firm where she worked. Rose represents Monsanto, Tyson, and Walmart - the world leaders in genetic engineering, animal production and industrialized food. She received favors there, as did Bill. In office, Bill's USDA immediately and significantly weakened chicken waste and contamination standards, easing Tyson's poultry-factory expansion, www.financialsense.com/ editorials/engdahl/2006/0828.html, and his USDA head, Espy, was indicted for bribes, money laundering, and much more, with Tyson was the largest corporate offender.
What happened specifically with Monsanto?
Bill appointed Michael Taylor head of the FDA and put other Monsanto employees in as US Agricultural Trade Representatives, onto International Biotechnology Consultive Forums, and more ... www.commondreams.org/headlines/072600-03.htm or www.monitor.net/monitor/9904b/monsantofda.html or www.mindfully.org/GE/Revolving-Door.htm.
Bill's Monsanto FDA gave Monsanto permission to market rBGH - the first GMO product every approved.
Despite bovine illness and deaths, and despite medical warnings of increased breast cancer risk in humans,
www.preventcancer.com/consumers/general/milk.htm
Bill's Monsanto FDA did not recall it or put warnings on it, www.wafreepress.org/14/Envirowatch.html or even require a label. www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Environment/Gag_Reflex.html www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14131
When activists protested the blatant conflict of interest of Michael Taylor, a Monsanto lawyer running FDA and approving Monsanto's own product, rBGH, Bill Clinton gave him a new job ... as Under-Secretary at the USDA. www.organicconsumers.org/miketaylor.html
What did the Clinton connection to Monsanto bring to us all?
Three profoundly disturbing things predominate:
1. Monsanto's control over our food supply through genetic engineering and its patents.
Bill Clinton not only helped unleash genetic engineering into the world, he pushed it as hard as he could, including sabotaging the international Biosafety Protocol treaty, and more.www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20060827&articleId=3082
Genetic engineering has brought Monsanto immense and destructive control over farmers. www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pubs/CFSMOnsantovsFarmerReport1.13.05.pdf
2. Infinite and immeasurable public health consequences from genetic engineering (a very limited list).
Mae-Wan Ho, designated expert of the International Cartagena Biosafety Protocol and representing more than 578 scientists around the world said "At the end of the Cold War and as we approach the new millennium the greatest threat to mankind is not nuclear war but genetic engineering." www.heureka.clara.net/books/ho.htm
(The harrowing change to the world from nuclear fission and fusion is the closest parallel, but genetic engineering does not weaken eventually, it grows and spreads and leaks out into nature in infinite and unpredictable but multiplying ways.)
Over 30 scientific publications have shown that increased levels of IGF-1 in milk with rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold, also increasing colon and prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. www.sustdev.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2127&Itemid=35
A French study which Monsanto tried to suppress shows a link between Bt-corn and diabetes. www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_776.cfm http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/service217.htm
There is an epidemic of type 2 diabetes in children, a disease not known in children before. Across the country, diabetes is up 90% in ten years. http://www.healthfreedom.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=582&Itemid=
There is a solid link between high fructose (Bt-) corn syrup and diabetes. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823094819.htm
60% of our corn is GMO, with nearly 100% Monsanto "owned" traits).
2. Anti-democratic control over language and bizarre use of language to hide genetic engineering's presence. Clinton helped close off people's awareness and thus escape from genetic engineering through FDA non-labeling.
Clinton attempted to hide genetic engineering under false "organic labeling," proposing including genetically engineered products
within "organic" standards. Massive public protest followed. query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEED91E31F933A1575AC0A96E958260 Had this gone through, Monsanto could have labeled rBGH milk ... "organic."
Dairy farmers attempting to label their milk "rBGH-free" were threatened that all their dairy products could be confiscated from stores.
Monsanto continues to push laws to stop all labeling of GMOs (this is true at the international level as well). nonais.org/index.php/2008/02/15/monstersanto-in-kansas/
Since Clinton to today, the FDA insists that those who label milk rBGH-free state there is no evidence that milk is different from regular milk though independent studies show it is www.awionline.org/farm/rbgh.htm.
And as late as January 2008, Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania, a very close Clinton friend, tried to banned labeling of rBGH. The document deserves an Orwell award. www.agriculture.state.pa.us/agriculture/lib/agriculture/foodsafetyfiles/labeling/milk_labeling_standards_new.pdf
Today's FDA, also under Monsanto influence, allows a bizarre and profoundly anti-democratic (to the degree democracy is about freedom of speech) commercial by the Corn Refiners which sells nothing but promotes mockery of anyone questioning the safety of high fructose corn syrup at the same time it is strongly associated with diabetes and we have an epidemic of diabetes occurring.
Monsanto claimed it would not use terminator genes which make seeds go dead after one season. www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20060827&articleId=3082
These pictures from India tell another story:video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6063387598655207801 and video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1482107411279204352&hl=en
Bill Clinton sided with Monsanto ... and anti-democratically and corruptly against farmers, against the right to know and freedom of speech, against public health and safety, against American's control of their own food supply.
What does this have to do with Hillary Clinton now?
Hillary Clinton pushed for a centralized food safety department when she ran for president, which would bring together a deeply Monsanto-corrupted USDA and Monsanto-corrupted FDA, giving Monsanto immensely more power over our food supply. She appears to have passed this plan on Vilsack who has now raised the same specter, while making it appear that "critics" were suggesting it. www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE50P4TX20090126?rpc=64
Hillary Clinton, identified as concerned for food safety and for women and children, has never once spoken out
- to demand labeling of dairy products associated with a greatly increased risk breast cancer and other cancers, or
- against GMOs now proven a threat to fertility www.greenpeace.org/international/press/releases/ge-threat-to-fertility-11112008, or
- against GMOs linked to diabetes, www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_776.cfm http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3329.cfm or
- against GMOs linked to cancers. www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/bgh.shtml www.purefood.org/rBGH/rach598.htm www.ourbodiesourblog.org/blog/2008/09/breast-cancer-rbgh-and-yoplait-put-a-lid-on-it
Vilsack spoke on January 30, 2009 of "investing in programs that alleviate hunger and suffering overseas and support long-term agriculture development."
India: 180,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide over the last 10 years following Bill Clinton opening India to our Big Ag corporations, Monsanto leader among them. The suicides continue at the rate on one every half hour. www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/16367
Vilsack spoke on January 30, 2009 of "investing in programs that alleviate hunger and suffering overseas and support long-term agriculture development."
Africa: In Kenyan (where Obama is from) farmers, voice a view held by small farmers across the continent, put out the Thika Declaration.
We believe that God created life, and no one can own it, not even Monsanto, Syngenta or other multinational companies. We therefore reject all GMOs in agriculture, and call upon the Kenyan government to respect our indigenous expertise. Therefore to be able to fully understand the effects of GMOs on our livelihoods, health and environment, we demand a twenty-year moratorium on GMOs in Kenya.
www.grain.org/research/contamination.cfm?id=161
The newly-registered Kenya Small-Scale Farmers Forum yesterday claimed that the Government was being arm-twisted by multinationals to accept genetically modified food whose consumers become infertile as recently proved by German sheepkeepers.
allafrica.com/stories/200408230733.html
Vilsack spoke on January 30, 2009 of "investing in programs that alleviate hunger and suffering overseas and support long-term agriculture development."
Iraq: Most Americans have no idea of the "freedom" we inflicted on farmers in Iraq, using Bremer's Order No. 81. www.alternet.org/waroniraq/62273/?page=entire
"As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations -- which can include seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve." au.messages.yahoo.com/news/localnews-vic/2527?p=last
Yet Vilsack spoke on January 30, 2009 of "investing in programs that alleviate hunger and suffering overseas and support long-term agriculture development."
Kissinger said control food, control people.
Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State. Monsanto is taking over food supplies around the world, using our government to do so. This is more than "agriculture" - this is Monsanto as US foreign policy.
I began this article with material on what Clinton had done through a corrupt connection to Monsanto, forcing genetic engineering on the world against its will and even knowledge and impacting health and democratic control over food. Domestically, Hillary Clinton, closely connected to Monsanto, remained silent about the risks of genetic engineering, its undemocratic non-labeling and its strong links to increased risk of cancers and diabetes.
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton needs to get away from power and see the real people whose lives have been destroyed by Monsanto.
Sneeds to go to India and spend time with the widows and children and see what happened because Bill opened India to Monsanto. She needs to go to Africa and hear farmers angry that the US and their own corrupt governments are forcing Monsanto's GMOs and patents on them even though a huge UN studied proved organic farming can feed Africa easily and bring democratic and health benefits. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/organic-farming-could-feed-africa-968641.html And most of all, since Hillary Clinton needs to go to Iraq and see that farmers and all future generations of Iraqis were robbed of thousands of years of their biologic inheritance by the US, working for Monsanto.
The American people were "sold" the Iraqi war with lies. They were told it was to help innocent people being crushed by tyranny and they wanted to help. Instead, Americans must now carry the moral burden of inflicting on Iraqis one of the most severe totalitarian controls ever devised in human history.
Monsanto is considered the most evil corporation on the face of the earth. articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/07/08/tthe-most-evil-company-on-the-planet-monsanto.aspx?source=nl
Hillary Clinton needs to redeem herself and Bill for what he did and she remained silent about, for Monsanto's benefit, and at the expense of all human beings.
Hilary Clinton's first act as Secretary of State, must be a redemptive act - for herself, for the United States Government, and for badly misled American who only wanted to offer freedom - the removal of the sadistic and fully fascist seed laws in Iraq.
Hillary Clinton must order that the genetic inheritance of Iraq stolen by Monsanto and the US be returned in full and that Iraqi farmers' freedom (something Sadam Hussein never took from them) be restored in whole so the Iraqis can exist and survive as free people, not as what the US and Monsanto have been reduced them to by stealing their seeds - dependent, easily starved slaves.
Vilsack spoke on January 30, 2009 of "investing in programs that alleviate hunger and suffering overseas and support long-term agriculture development."
It is time to see past symbolic shows of "the White House farmer" or empty compassionate words, to the immense threat coming at all of us through Monsanto influence over the USDA and the FDA. Our food supply and those of other countries are being taken over - in Africa as "charity," in India as "knowing better how to farm," in Iraq with all pretense put aside.
Here, Monsanto and other corporations use "food safety" or "public health" or "food security." But away from the show, they have written massively controlling and destructive regulations, www.opednews.com/articles/FOOD-SAFETY-REGULATIONS--by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090108-947.html are planning to gain more power through a centralization of already corrupted food agencies, and have orchestrated Homeland Security regulations to be handy for military force, warrantless, seizures and destruction of non-corporate farmers' animals and crops, using "diseases" or "bioterrorism" as the excuse.
Hillary Clinton has a profound moral obligation to make up for what happened when she and Bill were at the White House. Acting as Secretary of State she must restoring stolen seeds to the Iraqi people's full and unlimited control - thus restoring democracy we took and which human ownership of seeds depends upon.
Millions of people around the world marched to try to stop Bush's war in Iraq. Bush did not listen. After the catastrophe that has happened there, the world must now ensure the United States stand up for the freedom it promised.
We would all applaud Hillary Clinton's moral courage in making her first act as Secretary of State the full restoration to Iraqis of what is theirs by birthright - the most basic of democratic freedoms and most profound of human rights for all people - the right to own their own seeds and control their own food supply.
This would not be "a show of freedom," with an entire nation stripped of survival necessities and left with servitude to Monsanto and US control as the reality. It would be democratic freedom at its most fundamental, what US citizens believe in and so many have died to bring to Iraq.
This much we owe Iraq, morally. For the Iraqi people and the restoration of their most profound human right to survive, people around the world would march again. It is where we must begin.
A great Secretary of State, working on behalf of a great President, must end the "show" of democracy in Iraq and deliver back to them what is essential for a true one.
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