I don’t believe in the devil. Or I should say I didn’t
believe in the devil, until recently when I watched an independent film about
Monsanto. Now I agree with my friend Pat Fender, they are El Diablo.
Here’s the deal, their seeds are engineered to grow despite
being sprayed by Round Up (which, of course, is a Monsanto product) and
Monsanto uses corruption, intimidation, sabotage, whatever means are necessary
to spread their seeds all over the world. Also, Round Up (and, it stands to
reason, their transgenic seed that can survive Round Up) gives you cancer
—luckily I’m not a scientist, so I don’t have to watch it happen in a room full
of mice in order to say it. Here’s what the scientist who watched it happen in
a room full of mice said, “Round Up provokes the first stages that lead to
cancer.” – Robert Bellé. The good news is— Oh wait, there is no good news. Monsanto
will charge farmers whatever price they decide for the seeds, as well as
collect royalties when the crop comes in; essentially turning all the farmers
into indentured servants.
“Monsanto is trying to take away our right to not eat their
food.” – Caroline Alberino.
On Monsanto’s website they proclaim that GMO crops will ease
world-wide hunger and end famine, but that is a crock of organic horse apples.
Small farmers are being driven out from Indiana to India by Monsanto, and if
they don’t kill themselves then they are bankrupted and forced to move to the
city to look for work. Being poor and living in a city is entirely different from
being poor and living on a farm.
One big difference is the ‘revolving doors’ way in which big
city guys conduct their business. Picture a revolving door with three suits
inside, we’ll call them Industry, Regulation and Legislation. After awhile,
watching them all go around and around, we tend to get bored and look elsewhere…
distracted by a hot dog vendor perhaps. That is exactly what is going on right
now with Monsanto, and it has been since before Reagan had Alzheimer’s. By
patenting the seeds Monsanto is “in the process of owning food. All food.” –
Troy Roush.
They don’t even try to hide it anymore like when Nixon was in
office… From a Washington Post article by Elizabeth Flock:
In 2009, President Obama
appointed Michael Taylor as a senior adviser for the FDA. Consumer groups
protested the appointment because Taylor had formerly served as a vice
president for Monsanto, the controversial agricultural multinational at the
forefront of genetically modified food.
Hey Monsanto: quit
trying to get in my plants! That was my sign’s message at the March Against Monsanto on May 25th.
Granted, there were more people skiing in Aspen than marching that day, but we
do what we can. And we did pick up a few new marchers along the way, which is
better than wearing snow pants in 70 degree weather and eating cancer-causing
corn on the cob. Speaking of corn on the cob, the United States currently sends
subsidized shipments of GMO corn to Mexico, driving down the price of local corn
and contaminating the ancient source of corn varieties.
Teresa Camou is
producing a film titled Sunnú about the struggle and determination of
the indigenous northern Mexican communities to preserve their native corn seed
and way of life. The 90-minute documentary will both reveal and explain the
fate of this crucial seed at its source and the imminent threat to the
sustainability, heritage and overall lives of its ancient caretakers due to
climate change, the introduction of GMO corn plantations in Mexico, and NAFTA
farming practices. For more information visit:
Sunnú.org*
Monsanto’s next commercial should be a rip off of the old
Beef ads: Cancer, it’s what’s for dinner. Then they can partner with Eli Lilly
and sell us both the cause and the cure. Al Pacino’s character in The Devil’s
Advocate, i.e., The Devil, would be so proud.
*Alejandra
Rico
All quotes are from the film The World According to Monsanto, with the exception of Caroline Alberino’s which was said aloud at March Against Monsanto.
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