Barbara H. Peterson
I have watched while the GMO labeling movement got on its knees and begged and pleaded for the government to label GMOs, all the while proclaiming that labeling is the key to success. I have watched while ballot measures to label them were watered down to ensure that most GMOs would not even be impacted, and still a majority of the voting public has indicated that it really doesn’t give a rodent’s patoot about what we put in our mouths.
Measure 92 , the Oregon GMO labeling measure, lost by 1%. This was a measure to label only a portion of the 2% of GMOs that actually go into 85% of processed foods. It was the least we could do. And it failed.
http://oregonvotes.gov/results/2014G/1029276478.html
But mark my words, the labeling crowd will still declare victory because the vote was so close. They will declare victory because they have to keep up appearances. They have to keep up the “fight” while raking in the dough. We’re in it for the long haul, they will say. Next time it will be different. More people will be aware. Hogwash. By the time we get through with this labeling dance, we will be eyeballs deep in genetically engineered everything. How ya gonna label that?
If you were truly in it for the long haul, you would be advocating a ban on the planting and growing of 100% of the GMOs on the planet and not be concentrating on less than 2%. You would be amping up the real threat, which is the wholesale contamination of our entire food supply by GMOs. You would be like the people of Maui:
They got into Monsanto’s face. They accused Monsanto/Dow of spreading poison.
They didn’t say, “You have a right to know what’s in your food and we’re all nice people, and reasonable people have a right to disagree.”
They hit it hard.
The Maui SHAKA Movement and voteyesmaui.org and other activists won by a very narrow margin—and instituted a temporary ban on new Monsanto/Dow GMO crops in Maui County.
Their corporate opposition spent $300 for every vote they got. And lost.
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/election-bang-maui-bans-gmo-crops/
Maui banned GMOs while Oregon got on its knees, begged for scraps and got kicked in the teeth.
I don’t give a rodent’s patoot if people want to eat as many GMOs as they can stuff in their pie holes. I just don’t believe that anyone has the right to force them on me. You do not have the right to force me to eat the same garbage as you through genetic and pesticide contamination.
And that is the key.
By allowing GMOs to proliferate, contamination is a given. If GMOs completely take over agriculture, labeling is a moot point. It is high time to quit chopping at the branches and start at the root.
People of Maui – Farm Wars salutes you! People of Oregon? Not so much. You started out with a bang when Jackson and Josephine counties instituted a ban. Then the governor panicked and the Oregon Monsanto Protection Act was passed in an emergency session. It was an emergency alright, an emergency for the biotech industry and its cronies. Enter the labeling distraction. Don’t worry about a ban, we’ve got labeling on the ballot. And the very same governor that did this got voted in again.
Relating to preemption of the local regulation of agriculture; declaring an emergency.
Makes legislative finding and declaration that regulation of agricultural seed, flower seed, nursery seed and vegetable seed and products of agricultural seed, flower seed, nursery seed and vegetable seed be reserved to state.
Congratulations, the subterfuge worked. Let’s all get on the bandwagon for GMO labeling!
So far, the counter-reality is: let Monsanto and their allied farmers grow their food, as long as the consumer can ID it on the label and reject it, if he wants to.
That’s going to win the day?
That’s the superior new reality?
That’s suicide through lack of imagination and courage.
Take a few million of the dollars now being spent on pro-labeling campaigns and, instead, put it into video web ads that play all over the world:
For example:
A destitute farmer (and his family) stands in front of his wasted, dusty, super-weed-choked field, states his name, and says: “I’m an American farmer. Monsanto lied to me and killed my farm and my livelihood with their poison called Roundup. And it doesn’t even work. The weeds it was supposed to knock out are bigger than ever. Monsanto strangled my soybean crop. They ruined my farm. And my daughter is sick from the Roundup poison…”
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/election-bang-maui-bans-gmo-crops/
It’s not labeling that scares them, it’s banning. Labeling is the salve. The ointment to sooth the angry crowd. The appeasement. The bandaid that covers up the open, oozing sore that is the Monsanto death machine. It doesn’t matter if you win or not or if anything actually gets labeled. The real victory is that people are becoming aware… Hey, I can be aware that I’m falling off a cliff, but does that make the impact at the bottom any less real?
Excellent article! The truth certainly is that labeling is just a band aid. We should be fighting to ban GMOs because by the time they’re labeled, there will be so much cross-contamination that labels will become meaningless.