Stephan: One of the big lies of this HGCS strategy is that the changes in the nature of plants and animals -- and I include ourselves -- caused by the technologies involved with this strategy are under control. It's simply not true. Here's one of a growing chain of evidence making this point.
Genetically modified wheat created by Monsanto Co. (MON) that wasn’t approved for use turned up on an 80-acre farm in Oregon last month, threatening the outlook for U.S. exports of the grain that are the world’s largest.
A farmer attempting to kill wheat with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide found several plants survived the weedkiller, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in a statement. Scientists found the wheat was a strain field-tested from 1998 to 2005 and deemed safe before St. Louis-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seedmaker, pulled Roundup Ready wheat from the regulatory approval process on concern that importers would avoid the crop.
Enlarge image Monsanto Modified Wheat Unapproved by USDA Found in Oregon Field
A farmer attempting to kill wheat with Monsanto Co.’s Roundup herbicide found several plants resisted the weedkiller and notified Oregon State University. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg
‘I would imagine even the perception that GM wheat is out there would have some impact on our exports
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ANTHONY GUCCIARDI, - Nation of Change
Stephan: Why was Citizens' United a critical piece of the strategy? Because it permits this. Our government is more corrupt than a South American banana republic in the 50s. The level of corruption in fact is so extraordinary it is business as usual. What always amazes me is how cheaply influence over a Congressperson can be purchased, if you know how to play the game. And this is just a tiny window into the money machine. It considers nothing but direct contributions that are on the record.
Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. As long as you can help Monsanto slide its icy tentacles into the food chain, then there’s some financial tip available to you. Thankfully, many such ties can be exposed through some data digging, and thanks to diligent readers who send comprehensive news tips and other researchers out there, we now have an extensive list of politicians getting paid cold hard cash from GMO juggernaut Monsanto.
Keep in mind these are the figures we know, which means that behind the scenes expect these numbers to multiply extensively. But what is most amazing is that these politicians just don’t care that you know they’re receiving thousands of dollars from Monsanto! They sweep it under the carpet, but they are openly taking money from this corporation that has been caught running ‘slave-like’ rings and disregarding public health. We’re talking about a corporation that primarily aided in the creation of Agent Orange - the Vietnam-era chemical weapon that killed over 400,000 people and led to 500,000 plus birth defects.
Looking at these figures, over $260,000 was openly pumped into the House, and $122,000 was pumped into the Senate. And again, this is openly. I’m speculating, but I would imagine the […]
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VANDANA SHIVA, Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi - Organic Consumers Association
Stephan: What is happening in food and water is only now really entering public consciousness. But the reality is this has been a long term strategy going on for at least 16 years. I started writing about the move to take over the world food and water supplies in 1998. Here is a story from 1999. Already you can see the strategy and its tactics.
Over the past few years, Monsanto, a chemical firm, has positioned
itself as an agricultural company through control over seed – the
first link in the food chain. Monsanto now wants to control water, the
very basis of life.
In 1996, Monsanto bought the biotechnology assets of Agracetus, a
subsidiary of W. R. Grace, for $150 million and Calgene, a
California-based plant biotechnology company for $340 million. In
1997, Monsanto acquired Holden seeds, the Brazilian seed company,
Sementes Agrocerus and Asgrow. In 1998, it purchased Cargill’s seed
operations for $1.4 billion and bought Delta and Pine land for $1.82
billion and Dekalb for $2.3 billion.
In India, Monsanto has bought MAHYCO, Maharashtra Hybrid Company, EID
Parry and Rallis. Mr. Jack Kennedy of Monsanto has said, ‘we propose
to penetrate the Indian agricultural sector in a big way. MAHYCO is a
good vehicle.’ According to Mr. Robert Farley of Monsanto, ‘what you
are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it’s really
a consolidation of the entire food chain. Since water is as central to
food production as seed is, and without water life is not possible,
Monsanto is now trying to establish its control over water. During
1999, Monsanto plans to […]
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Stephan: I have decided to focus today's SR on GMOs and the transgenic sector because it represents such a clear example of the geopolitical shift we are living through: the Ascendence of the Non-geographical corporate states.
NGCSs are not just corporations, in a business sense, that we mean when we say, corporatocracy. These transnational entities are so big and so powerful that they are essentially states, literally countries without geography. They have their own foreign policies; their own goals that may have little to do with the policies of the country where they happen to be based. They control the political structure and write the laws that govern them, and judge them. They are the emerging world powers.
This transfer, is not a continuation of the chain of family, to tribe, to village, to duchies and the like, to nations. The NGCS springs from the business world. Its priority is profit. In its most extreme manifestation nothing else really is a factor.
Nowhere is the transfer of national power over to the NGCSs clearer than in what is happening in food and water. Parts of this trend are known, but the overarching strategy the NGCSs are following, and the tactics they are using are rarely seen as the coherent whole they are.
Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont and Syngenta. They are usually described as chemical pesticide companies but, I think, a better way to see them is as a corporate cohort making an aggressive attempt to gain domination over the world's food and water supplies.
Notice the hallmarks of this trend, they work their way through all of these stories: The power of lobbying bribery; the superiority of the Non-geographical corporate state over the government of nation states; and, the complete disregard for wellness at every level of that term.
If one stands back and looks at these six companies on their own terms, as illustrated by these reports, you will see how astonishingly blatant, and successful, all this is.
So really the question becomes not what are these corporate states doing? They're doing just what you'd expect a corporation state to do if profit is the only consideration. The question is: why, while we are still able, are we allowing them to get away with running the world in this manner?
-- Stephan
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, - The Times of India (India)
Stephan: I have done so many articles on the health issues of the pesticides that are part of this strategy, and there always seems to be a new one as research proceeds. Here is one of the latest.
Check the SR archives searching on 'GMO' or 'pesticide' or see my essay: The Great Experiment: Genetically Modified Organisms, Scientific Integrity, and National Wellness http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2812%2900222-4/fulltext
Researchers have analysed more than 100 global studies to show that exposure to pesticides, weed killers and solvents is likely to be associated with a higher risk for developing Parkinson’s disease.
The research appears in the May 28 print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
‘Due to this association, there was also a link between farming or country living and developing Parkinson’s in some of the studies,’ said study author Emanuele Cereda of the IRCCS University Hospital San Matteo Foundation in Pavia, Italy.
Cereda conducted the research along with Gianni Pezzoli of the Parkinson Institute (ICP) in Milan.
The researchers found that exposure to bug or weed killers and solvents increased the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by 33 to 80 per cent.
In controlled studies, exposure to the weed killer paraquat or the fungicides maneb and mancozeb was associated with two times increase in the risk of developing the disease, reports Science Daily.
‘We didn’t study whether the type of exposure, such as whether the compound was inhaled or absorbed through the skin and the method of application, such as spraying or mixing, affected Parkinson’s risk,’ said Cereda.
‘However, our study suggests that the risk increases in a dose […]
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