Obama Deregulates GMO Crops Despite Supreme Court Injunction

[Javaman]

http://www.truth-out.org/obama-deregulates-gmo-crops-despite-supreme-court-injunction/1307023149

Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt’s uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.

In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical) farmers.

>snip<

Obama’s push for deregulation potentially also means the end of the organic meat and organic dairy industries as we presently know them. Essentially, he is choosing to favor the profits of big agribusiness over the survival of America’s family farmers, and especially America’s organic farmers.

Our democracy has to work for farmers and consumers and not just for multinational biotech corporations. It makes absolutely no sense that the economic risks to farmers are not considered before genetically engineered crops are put on the market. It is farmers who pay the costs of genetic contamination, not the biotech companies.


More at link...

[adigal]

1. What is with Obama?? He seems like a Republican so much of the time

that I just don't get who I voted for!!! GMOs are very possibly dangerous to our health. They should be banned, period, until more research is done on them.

[msongs]

2. when there is a conflict between words and actions, look to actions for the truth nt

[txlibdem]

20. There's the rub. His actions say exactly the opposite of his campaign speeches

As they say, actions speak louder than words.

[Coyote_Bandit]

3. More

frickin transparency and change I can believe in......

[no_hypocrisy]

4. If the Administration is in defiance of a federal court order that's endorsed by the Supreme Court,

then the contempt can be reviewed by the federal court and the injunction enforced.

[sunwyn]

5. I knew we were screwed the monent he appointed Vilsack

[proverbialwisdom]

6. Not so fast.

The accuracy of the truthout article is contested in the comments. Check it out.

Did you know there was a symposium on the future of food in early May in DC? Read about it here.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=the+future+of+food+dc+may+2011&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d2da7bf6259b98f9&biw=1347&bih=940

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=prince+charles+obama&cp=18&pf=p&sclient=psy&biw=1347&bih=940&source=hp&aq=0&aqi=&aql=&oq=prince+charles+oba&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d2da7bf6259b98f9

Come on people, there are open frontal attacks and there are stealthy subversions which achieve the same end. The jury is still out.

[proverbialwisdom]

7. I think the public needs to do the heavy lifting grassroots-style.

Spread the word. Get active. 'Vote with your fork.' 'Make some noise' as a consumer. It worked with rBGH when breast cancer survivors' groups protested pink ribbons on GMO yogurt labels. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/is-eli-lilly-milking-canc_b_312754.html )

-

Here's a great noncontroversial source to cite to people unfamiliar with the subject (video currently unavailable at DR. OZ website).

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/resources/audio-video
(VIDEO) Genetically Modified Foods, Parts 1 - 3
Are genetically engineered foods safe?

Dr. Oz leads an investigation to find out... Featuring special guests Jeffrey Smith, Dr. Michael Hansen, a scientist from Consumers Union who has been an avid critic of GMOs for two decades, and Dr. Pamela Ronald, a pro-GM scientist who has been proposing that organic foods include GMOs.

-

I also follow this inspiring site regularly: http://gmwatch.org/

[Divernan]

8. Nothing stealthy about Obama's goal of $1billion in campaign contributions

That's one of the rare instances of transparency - he wants money and he wants BIG money!

He's not gonna get that from struggling small farmers or people desperately trying to stretch their budgets to pay for groceries and gas for the family car.

But Agribusiness? Archer Daniels Midland? He's got deep pocket friends there, doesn't he?

[proverbialwisdom]

9. Look at all the protests around the world against biotech food posted at

http://gmwatch.org/ .

We can do the same here. The informed public needs to step up and make the issue visible. Consumers have immense power. We are 'a force no government can deny' (H. Zinn).

[proverbialwisdom]

10. Remember Zinn, even if his exact words get garbled. Sorry.

WE ARE 'A POWER GOVERNMENTS CANNOT SUPPRESS.'
- HOWARD ZINN


I think of this everyday.

[bvar22]

11. This was predictable.

Obama installed Monsanto's Man (Tom Vilsack) as the Secretary of Agriculture.
Google "Vilsack ties to Monsanto".


The DLC New Team

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=254886&kaid=86&subid=85

The writing was On the Wall on Day One for those who chose to read it.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want a party that will stand up for working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone


"By their works you will know them."

[proverbialwisdom]

12. This WaPo article buries the lead unless you squint while reading it. IMO, so does this thread.

1. I challenge you to name Wellstone-type candidates who are thriving.

2. It's clear the public won't hear any extended open debate on the subject of the biotech food. Between so-called 'food disparagement' laws, the involvement of politically powerful PR firm(s) (see George Monibot articles on GMOs), and the relationships Jeremy Scahill wrote about between the relevant multinationals and private security firms, it's clear effective opposition might need to be a leaderless movement. Us, the public, unified - unstoppable.

3. Yes, actions speak volumes. If you look carefully, you'll see the record is confusing and mixed, but not without hope. The quotes, this rug - a con, a signal, or just a rug?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0090305100.html

Oval Office rug gets history wrong


The president's office underwent a makeover while the Obamas were vacationing. The changes pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. and four previous commanders in chief.

By Jamie Stiehm
Saturday, September 4, 2010; A17

A mistake has been made in the Oval Office makeover that goes beyond the beige.

President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge.

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King.

Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington...

<...>

...The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863.

Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people."

Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages.

Jamie Stiehm, a journalist, is writing a book on the life of Lucretia Mott, a 19th-century abolitionist and women's rights leader.

[proverbialwisdom]

13. Check it out: http://www.cofed.org/

(you're welcome)

[bvar22]

14. I LOVE it!

Thanks!!!

Decentralized, Localized, small scale Organic/Sustainable farming is a way out of the Factory Food Nightmare.

In 2006, my wife & I moved to The Woods, far from Industry & Big Ag, and began growing our own food.
Needless to say, GM crops and non-natural Pesticides, Herbicides, & Fertilizers are forever banned from our small hilltop.

So far, so good!!!
:hippie:

[Nihil]

15. Aww ... how "bi-partisan" of him ...

> In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions
> and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically
> engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental
> Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical)
> farmers.

> Essentially, he is choosing to favor the profits of big agribusiness over the
> survival of America’s family farmers, and especially America’s organic farmers.

Tell me again how there are two parties in the US administration?

:eyes:

[proverbialwisdom]

16. Let me flip your framing for you. 'Tell me again how there are two parties in the US public?'

Not on this NONPARTISAN issue. The only problem is lack of awareness. Work on that, the faster the better, and the majority public view will prevail.

Agreed, the easiest way to get rid of these products would be for the federal government to regulate them into oblivion, but since the likelihood of that is low considering the investment in biotech, can you imagine alternatives?

The public doesn't split along political lines over this issue. The public can function without leadership from DC. The public can reject these products. Every food purchase can be accompanied with complaints to store managers, comments to others in the check-out line and cashiers, etc. And, there are action groups to join with periodic protests, like this.

http://chicagoist.com/2011/05/18/whole_foods_responds_to_gmo_concern.php

Whole Foods Responds to GMO Concerns, Protester Arrests
May 18, 2011 11:20 AM

Yesterday, the Organic Consumer's Association picketed the Lincoln Park Whole Foods, alleging that Whole Foods isn't doing enough to fight the pervasiveness of genetically-modified foods. In the course of the protest, the political director of the OCA, Alexis Baden-Mayer, was arrested. We got in touch with Whole Foods to get their side of the story - what their policies on genetically modified organisms actually are, how they dealt with the protest and what they are doing to improve the products across their stores.

Libba Letton, a spokesperson for Whole Foods, spoke to us this morning. She insists that Whole Foods had nothing to do with the arrest - in fact, they welcome increased awareness about GMOs. "If you can't handle a protest, you need to rethink your strategy. These people are our customers, and they let us know that." The exact details are a bit fuzzy, but Letton insisted that the protest happened off of Whole Foods property and that no one on their staff called the police.

The fuss around the protest shouldn't detract from the real issue - what is Whole Foods' position on GMOs? As we mentioned yesterday, all USDA-certified organic foods are required to be GMO free. "Some people think everything at Whole Foods Market is organic," Letton warned us - and it's not true. They carry conventional produce, as well as a wide variety of packaged food. The protestors from OCA were complaining that the non-organic foods, which potentially contained GMOs, should be labelled and/or removed from the stores. Letton pointed out that 93% of the soy grown in America is GMO, which makes establishing a supply chain for non-GMO foods difficult. But what is being done?

<...>

Whole Foods is working to convince more farmers that if they grow non-GMO crops, there will be a market for them. According to Letton, "We are working on plans to go back in the supply chain and talk to growers, to convince them to grow non-GMO crops." This is part of a longer effort to educate consumers about the issues surrounding genetic modification.

For more information, read the Whole Foods Genetically Engineered Foods policy statement.

[Nihil]

18. There *are* two parties in the public - "Rich" & "Poor" ...

... but the latter don't have much in the way of representation
and they certainly have no support from old "bi-partisan" himself.

> Not on this NONPARTISAN issue. The only problem is lack of awareness.
> Work on that, the faster the better, and the majority public view will prevail.

You are simply wrong on this: there are no "NONPARTISAN" issues today.
Even those that affect everyone (e.g., health, environment, education)
have been so effectively "sold" to the public that even the poor vote
to support the self-serving policies of the ruling plutocracy.

The only "lack of awareness" problem that most of the public have
is the lack of awareness of how much the politicians have betrayed
them for the sake of corporate bribes.

[proverbialwisdom]

19. I disagree and I'm certainly not wrong about the passion of ordinary people mattering ENORMOUSLY.

In fact, after observing this thread being pushed within a very shockingly short time to the bottom of page 1 of this topic forum by new threads started by three posters whose bias and in-tandem work I have quickly come to characterize negatively, I'd say I called it.

Of course, I can't prove the timing wasn't coincidental.

[proverbialwisdom]

17. Check it out: http://www.robynobrien.com/

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_9802585
A Ripple of Hope: When Courage and Conscience Collide
June 10, 2008

by Robyn O'Brien

I was raised on capitalism and the Wall Street Journal. As a child, my family celebrated the birth of Reaganomics the way one would have celebrated the birth of a child. There was prosperity to be had by all – if only we believed. My father, like so many of his era, fully supported deregulation and the notion of trickle down economics. If we loosen the regulatory purse strings that government tightly controls, we will all prosper. The system works. In our house, the Reagans had an almost royal status – to watch them dance, with Nancy in her red dress, gave me the feeling, as a child, that I was watching some magnificent combination of Frank Sinatra and a foreign prince with his graceful companion on his arm. I trusted my political values would serve me well – I was loyal, patriotic and supported the system.

And then one of my children got sick. With a blood condition that no one could pronounce and a pediatric mandate requiring immediate enrollment at a Children’s Hospital. And I awoke. Suddenly, everywhere I turned, there were sick children. Children with diabetes, children with cancer, children with obesity, children with asthma and children with allergies. What had happened? As headlines in the paper warned me of environmental dangers, I began to pay attention. What was in the food? Wasn’t organics a left-leaning thing? And what about the plastics and the baby bottles and the vaccines? Should I worry? Doesn’t our system protect us from these dangers? And without realizing it, an internal battle had silently begun. I lay awake at night as I tried to reconcile the loyalty I had to my father with the loyalty I had to my children. Had a generation of grandfathers failed to recognize the health risks associated with capitalism’s profits, unintentionally jeopardizing the well being of their grandchildren?

I had been raised to support the system, to believe in it, to never question it, and certainly to never speak out. Activism was something that “radicals” did, certainly not conservative soccer moms. But I couldn’t shake the internal dialogue. And armed with an MBA in finance and my four children, I began to investigate the expanding role that corporations had taken in the system in which I was raised to believe. And I was stunned. There were insecticidal toxins engineered into crops to increase profitability for the world’s largest agrichemical corporation – a company whose former employees included Donald Rumsfeld and Clarence Thomas. There were petroleum based chemicals in my children’s toys and shampoos that were a product of an oil corporation that had recruited me in business school. How had this happened? Had we forsaken our physical health for financial wealth?

As I struggled with the responsibility that I felt for betraying my own children, I realized that it was now my responsibility to act. But the internal battle raged on – as the call from my conscience collided with the familiar comfort of conformity – and I was paralyzed. But with sick children, paralysis was not an option. I realized that I had to find the courage, on behalf of my children and others, to speak out against the very system in which I was raised. And I reluctantly stepped forward. With the words of another crusader in hand, I found my voice: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls.” (Robert F. Kennedy).

It is with that hope, and holding the hands of my four children, that I took a stand...


Also: http://allergykids.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/the-monopoly-of-the-food-supply-price-inflammation-and-one-corporations-allergy-to-labels/

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http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/18567384/index.html
Martha Herbert MD PhD, "It frustrates me that we are not focusing a massive quantity of energy like a Manhattan Project type of energy on what is going on in an entire generation." Herbert, a child neurologist at Mass General Hospital, says nothing in her training prepared her for the number of kids coming in with autism, ADD, ADHD and other developmental disorders..." (part 1, minute 5:54)

Excerpt from ABC's Chronicle: Toxic Kids (4 parts)
What is making American children sick? Cancer rates are climbing. Cases of autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and asthma are through the roof. Is the answer all around us in the food our kids eat, the air they breathe, and the clothes they wear? Tonight, Chronicle investigates a provocative thesis about the American lifestyle and its effects on children's health.

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