Hillary vs. Bernie on Frankenfood
Why would voters choose Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton?Food is a good reason for Democrats and Republicans to abscond from their "politics as usual" party loyalties and vote for Bernie Sanders, the 38-year Independent running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic primary. This article deals with both candidates' positions on two issues that relate to the food we eat - GMOs and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Hillary Snip:
How is Hillary personally involved in supporting big agriculture? The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which gathers leaders to solve the world's problems, promotes Monsanto, the maker of RoundUp® and RoundUp Ready® seeds. Hugh Grant, Monsanto's Chairman and CEO spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in September, 2014. Ms. Clinton's top campaign advisor, Jerry Crawford, was a lobbyist for Monsanto for years and is now the political pro for her Super PAC, "Ready for Hillary." Clinton spoke in favor of the government's Feed the Future (FtF) program, a USAID funded, corporate-partnered program that brings RoundUp Ready® technology to the most vulnerable populations of the world. Monsanto and Dow Chemical support Hillary and Bill's 'Clinton Foundation' with generous donations.
Bernie Snip:
Senator Bernie Sanders represents Vermont, the first state in the nation to pass a "right to know" GMO labeling law. He authored an amendment to the 2013 farm bill that would have given states the ability to require labeling so that they don't have to fight for it, state by state, through propositions on the ballot. Sanders' amendment was defeated 71 to 27 in the Senate, even though 93 percent of Americans want GMOs labeled.
"An overwhelming majority of Americans favor GMO labeling but virtually all of the major biotech and food corporations in the country oppose it." says Sanders. Vermont's labeling law is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2016. "The people of Vermont and the people of America have a right to know what's in the food that they eat," Sanders said.
Read the Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/hillary-vs-bernie-on-fran_b_7638846.html
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Personal message:
It took until 1800 for our population to reach 1 billion. By 1960, we were at 3 billion. Today we are at 6 billion and in the next 50 years, we will reach close to 10 billion people on our planet. Our children are growing up in a different world.
Sustainable agriculture is important to our survival. Big Ag is not the answer. Allowing GMO's that many times require more pesticide and have been modified to fight nature in ways we do not fully understand is not a good idea. Introducing GMO food without testing for safety is also a bad idea. Good or bad, who can argue for testing by independent labs versus testing on the population as they do today?
Local and chemical free is the answer.
Here are a few articles to support my position.
The GMO Issue: False Claims, Pseudo Analysis And A Politically Motivated Agenda
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/25/the-gmo-issue-false-claims-psuedo-analysis-and-a-politically-motivated-agenda/
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A Secret History of the Monarch: How the Biotech Industry Conspired to Knock Off One of the World’s Rarest Butterflies
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/31/a-secret-history-of-the-monarch-how-the-biotech-industry-conspired-to-knock-off-one-of-the-worlds-rarest-butterflies/
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Do you agree with the USDA that pesticide residues in food are safe?
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/01/27/glyphosate-gmo-pesticide-residue.aspx?x_cid=20151212_tweet_glyphosate-gmo-pesticide-residue_twitterdoc
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National Geographic: Roundup is an Endocrine Disruptor & Costs BILLIONS
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150305-chemicals-endocrine-disruptors-diabetes-toxic-environment-ngfood/
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Hungry for land: Small farmers feed world with less than quarter of all farmland
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland
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Vandana Shiva: Industrial agriculture causes hunger
http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/08/28/vandana-shiva-industrial-agriculture-causes-hunger/
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Dirty Money, Dirty Science
http://foodtank.com/news/2015/09/corruption-of-academic-crop-science-by-the-biotech-industry-reaches-far
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Really though it doesn't take much to be one of those people. Just a dose of self-righteous ignorance and little sprinkle of vindictiveness then magically a bigot will appear that feels opinion is much more important than numbers, results, facts and even peoples lives and deaths. They are kind of like garden weeds, they pop up in multitudes and try to choke out all things being cultured. They have no reason to why they are, but do know what mission they are on.
Knowledge itself, is their kryptonite and having the knowledge at your fingertips makes them weaker at every turn
My handle is the same one i have had for fourteen or so years and had nothing to do with food when i took it. My original thinking was there was too much self-promotion on this site and it was a turn off to some (including me). So nolabels indicates not wanting self-promotion but only wanting to put in my two-cents of what i know or feel is correct.
Pretty sure i did not indicate or endorse any of those things you accuse me off, but would more than willing to listen 
I do, however, question the information used to bolster it. And a couple of facts need to be borne in mind:
1. All crops are GMO. Every one of them. They may not be transgenic (which is what most people opposed to GMO foods are actually worried about; hence the nonsense term "frankenfood"
, but there is literally no such thing as a crop plant or domesticated animal that is not, in some way, genetically modified.
2. No one has ever demonstrated health risks to humans from GMO foods. Based on everything we can determine scientifically, they're perfectly safe to eat.
I would rather see the efforts directed less on the GMO crops and more on the horrific overuse of pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics in the farming industry. That's where you'll find the real danger to human health and the ecosystem.
That, and the often disgusting business practices followed by big ag companies.
Last edited Sun Jan 10, 2016, 11:47 AM - Edit history (1)
Which is why we see this label on some foods:
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The label is given to any food that is produced according to consensus-based best practices for GMO avoidance. It is not a guarantee that food is GMO-free, but it's about as close as one could hope for.
Therefore, there is no good reason why GMO food manufacturers should not be required to label their products as GMO. These labels would not be a "waste of time" any more than ingredient lists are a "waste of time."
Your idea about labels for fruits and vegetables is a good one. There is no reason why both ideas could not be implemented. The GMO label would apply to grocery items and the pesticide label would apply to produce.
You'll be accused of being a Socialist and not a real Democrat
Great post BTW 
http://ensia.com/voices/the-complex-nature-of-gmos-calls-for-a-new-conversation/
One of the most comprehensive I've come across, but added to it a bit of a lengthy response/addition:
Yes! It's stuff like this that the myopic/hyper-focus on GM overshadows and blocks out from the debate. Its become less about the problem (drought, yield, pest and disease-resistance, nutritional content, etc...), and almost exclusively about the wonders of GMOs. They can't tease apart the "wonders" (which are simply the idealized solution...which often times does still ignore the greater environmental context) from the GMO. Proponents forget, the purpose shouldn't be to cheer lead GMOs, it's about better addressing and resolving these issues - and they fail to question (or investigate) whether GMOs are the best way to achieve those results.
For example, they think they can simply splice in a gene to make a crop drought resistant, rather than, say, building porous soil rich in organic matter that increases rates of water absorption and leads to vastly larger stores of water retained (particular in times of low rainfall) - which itself often includes mixed stocking of crops and animals (among a host of other techniques). Or that pest resistance again comes down to adding another gene, rather than building the plants own existing defenses (again, through a robust soil teeming with biodiversity) and attracting and encouraging beneficial predators with a healthy and biodiverse landscape. It actually speaks largely to an all-too-common reductionist (not to mention "gene-centric"
approach across the sciences - we've lost sight of (or simply failed to identify in the first place) the mutualistic relationships of nature.
Here, mycologist Paul Stamets describes one such relationship between a grass, mychorriza fungi, and a virus that allows the grass to grow and thrive in an environment with extreme temperatures (should be cued up around 23:42...if it isn't, skip ahead to that time):
Paul Stamets and John B. Wells - Mushrooms & Environment
?t=23m42s
You can't just genetically modify that into existence, you have to foster the relationship. It, in my opinion, is a much more advanced science/technique than the myopic "gene for every mean" approach. Which is why it's not only disingenuous, but exceedingly patronizing and insulting, for people like the NYT's Amy Harmon to throw around "anti-science" accusations and seedy equivocations. It not only falsely frames the terms of the debate (thus cementing positions and automatically granting one side an imagined intellectual high-ground), it ignores good science itself:
Organic agriculture: deeply rooted in science and ecology
Like farmer Joel Salatin says:
"Of course I think I’m using science, but so does Monsanto. And so the question is whose science will be used as a regulatory foundation and enforcement action? It won't be pasture-based livestock, compost and symbiosis through multispeciation. It will be further animal abuse, chemicals and pathogen-friendly protocols."
Further, problems like malnutrition (like Vitamin-A deficiency) involve a myriad of issues, including the physical (involving a broader lack of a complex of dietary fats and nutrients...which are actually required for proper absorption of Vitamin A) and the socio-politico-economical. GM-opia ignores the scope of the issues and smacks of simplistic solutionism.
Final thought, I'd even challenge the thought that "most" of the GMOs are safe to eat. Particularly those that exist in actual fact today. Reason being, almost no thought (and certainly hardly any study, particularly from the industry) has gone into considering the effects of these foods on our microbiome - those trillions of bacteria and other micro-organisms that live on and within our bodies (a large portion of which are in the gut), that are crucial in not only keeping us healthy but alive in the first place. One reason for this is we are only beginning to discover, realize, and appreciate just how crucial these critters are to health and well-being, with functions ranging from digesting and deriving nutrients in our food, to fighting off pathogens and regulating/boosting our immune-system. In fact, it is those very bugs in our guts we have to worry about when it comes to GMOs - not only when it comes to the chemical pesticides that the plants are engineered to withstand, but especially those "modified" with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) within the plant itself. Plenty of our "modern" disease epidemics seem to be rooted in inflammation stemming from gut/GI issues...and it could very well be that these "foods"/ingredients derived from them are contributing to that problem in large degree (and I seem to recall some preliminary findings hinting at such).
On a somewhat related (and equally fascinating) note, George Monbiot points out how - through a process dubbed "trophic cascade" - wolves can in fact change the course of rivers:
How Wolves Change Rivers
And, on a similar note, we see how "whales effect climate":
How Whales Change Climate
From honey bees
to Blind Melon's Bee girl
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to the big B
Bernie Sanders!
