Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Monsanto and Obama: Yes, we can!

Now watch the organic cowboy. He's to become minister in Mr. Obama's team.
Enjoy, if you can.




- Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack supports genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, especially pharmaceutical corn.

- The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was also the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership.
- When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning dairy cows.

- Vilsack was the origin of the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, which many people here in Iowa fought because it took away local government's possibility of ever having a regulation on seeds- where GE would be grown, having GE-free buffers, banning pharma corn locally, etc. Representative Sandy Greiner, the Republican sponsor of the bill, bragged on the House Floor that Vilsack put her up to it right after his state of the state address.

- Vilsack has a glowing reputation as being a schill for agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto. Sustainable ag advocated across the country were spreading the word of Vilsack's history as he was attempting to appeal to voters in his presidential bid. An activist from the west coast even made this youtube animation about Vilsack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmoc4Qgcm4s The airplane in this animation is a referral to the controversy that Vilsack often traveled in Monsanto's jet.

- Vilsack is an ardent support of corn and soy based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.

"Vilsack lobbied hard to get seed pre-emption bills into state legislative bodies, beginning in 2005. These bills seek to control the use of seeds on the state level, and thus deny local communities (and small farmers, and even backyard farmers) the power to establish their own regulations for protection from genetically engineered seeds If seed pre-emption bills become law, citizens will not be able to regulate where genetically engineered crops are grown, the creation of GE buffer zones, or the banning of pharmaceutical crops, among other things. The use of seeds becomes entirely regulated by government, and opens the door to human and plant exposure to every adverse effect of genetically engineered crops. - And simultaneously ruins biodiversity, because once transgenic seeds prevail, there's no going back. Seed pre-emption bills have been introduced in sixteen states, and the battle is ongoing. But Vilsack has been one of the chief architects of looming biodiversity disaster, and there's no reason to believe he'd halt his love affair with genetic engineering and Big Ag just because he's working for Obama."

Courtesy Campaign for Liberty

Má's bréag uaim í,
Is bréag chugam í.

4 comments:

  1. Little by little the wonder boy of change and hope is showing his true colours, those of a politician in the pocket of the big boys. It's a shame. Nobody expected much from Bush but I think alot of people will feel bitterly betrayed when they realise that Obama is as much a puppet as Bush and Clinton before him.
    Did you notice that he said "..our forests and fields where the proud tradition of hunting is passed on.."
    No mention of farming, perhaps it's too much of an allusion to nature...and the natural.

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  2. I tried VTunnel to watch the clip, and that's even not impossible...((
    About Iowa, I have a cousin living there, transplanted from South California to this 'state'...and he was always talking about how good it would be if they can produce genetically manipulated crops, fuel etc.
    Told him always that people over there, in Iowa, are already looking a 'little different' than elsewhere, you understand how he reacted..))
    Iowa is the 'funny state' of the USA...
    Kindest
    hans

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  3. La Craic,
    and there seems quite a tiny bit more to come. I'd not be surprised when the majority of those who cozened by his coaxing eloquence considered Mr. Obama an alternative for the better, will soon have to realize that for the 'messiah' they were nothing but – let’s stick to agricultural terms - voting cattle.

    Hans,
    if only those folks’ funniness had not such consequences.
    Strange you would not be able to watch the video. Unless I am mistaken none of the gentlemen insulted Turkishness. :)

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  4. I think people wanted to believe it so much, especialy after 8 years of Bush, that they let themselves be convinced. The mind can be a treacherous thing. The problem arises when Obama, imagine, decides to invade Iran. Do those who believed and voted for him say 'Ah shit, suckered in again' or will that treacherous little voice in the back of their minds say, 'I know it looks bad, but it's Obama. Change and hope, remember...' And off we go for another turn on the merry-go-round.

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