This video is called Scientists Talk About Inside Monsanto.
The “Monsanto Rider”: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity from Federal Law? Alexis Baden-Mayer, AlterNet in the USA: “A so-called ‘Monsanto rider,’ quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require – the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask”: here.
Why a Major Food Organization Is Teaming Up With Monsanto and Friends to Block Your Right to Know What’s in Your Food: here.
Monsanto’s Quiet Coup: Will Congress Limit Scope and Time for GMO Reviews? Here.
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: “With biotech giant Monsanto leading the way, big agribusiness firms and food manufacturers have vastly outspent organic food and alternative health firms in an effort to defeat California’s Proposition 37 ballot initiative that would require special labels on foods made with genetically engineered (GE) organisms”: here.
A Major Food Organization Is Teaming Up With Monsanto and Friends to Block Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
OMG
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We have to accept that Monsanto is a very powerful company and has powerful allies in the US and other countries, some of the individuals are very rich, so money talks many languages. It is tragic that in Africa people are being encouraged to grow and eat GMO as many people in European countries.
We have to find a way where by coming together crossing borders, we can defeat Monsanto. Perhaps consideration can be an internatuional boycott of Monsanto’s products?
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Hi dou dou and Len, thanks for your comments!
Various groups are waging opposition to Monsanto.
See
http://www.google.com/search?q=monsanto+watch&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:nl:official&client=firefox-a
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Yes indeed they are, but no offence, we need to form an international group to respond to the power of Monsanto. Lets get he message around that one of the steps is an international embargo/boycott on all Monsanto’s products.
My concern with Monsanto goes back many years, not only for its GMO, but it being one of the makers of Agent Orange that caused devastation to the people of Vietnam, a country that I have visited each year since 1989 and on each visit have met with those affected and suffering from Agent Orange.
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Hi Len, at least in the USA this is already happening:
Dear Reader,
“Occupy Monsanto” will be a national day of action September 17, and Gateway Green Alliance, St. Louis’s Greens/Green Party USA affiliate, will play a leading role by co-sponsoring a two-day event in St. Louis, headquarters city for Monsanto. G/GPUSA’s national membership meeting will precede the event in St. Louis September 14. Details can be found in this newsletter.
According to a recent survey, 95 percent of those polled want food labels to disclose whether the foods contain Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). In California, volunteers have collected enough signatures on petitions to put labeling of GMOs on the ballot in November. This may be the year when we begin to end one of the largest experiments on human beings.
In this issue of Green Politics we have put an emphasis on GMOs, but we also have other compelling articles. Barbara Chicherio and Don Fitz were recently in Cuba to celebrate the “March Against Homophobia.” Be sure to check out the article and pictures. Our resident writer Paul Kesler has a provocative article on Fascism & Theocracy.
These are complex times. We know you, the reader, can help point the way forward for us all. Give us your comments and ideas. Tell us the focus you want to see in future issues of the Green Party newsletter.
You can reach us at http://www. greenparty.org/newsletter/contact_us.php.
In solidarity
The Print Collective
Phil Ardery, Jr
Barbara Chicherio
Devin Ceartas
Elizabeth Fattah
Wes Wagar
Whole Foods Market Rejects Dialogue on GMO Food Safety
by Don Fitz
Drivers passing by the Brentwood (MO) Whole Foods Market (WFM) on June 9 spied a 14 foot tall coyote puppet. Next to the puppet was a sign reading “Coyote Jim Says” followed by “GMOs Contaminate Food” and “Whole Foods Sells GMOs.”
Twenty members of the Gateway Green Alliance (GGA) and Safe Food Action St. Louis (SFA), along with Occupy St. Louis supporters were reminding customers that higher prices at WFM do not necessarily buy better food. The action followed the refusal of WFM to discuss the safety of food it sells which contains GMOs (genetically modified organisms).
GMO Protest
June 9 demonstrator warns customers of Whole Foods Market in St. Louis that WFM sells GMO-contaminated foods. Whole Foods Market had rejected dialogue with Safe Food Action group.
Many of the customers who stopped to talk were aware of health and environmental problems caused by GMOs and wanted to know how to avoid them. But they were mostly unaware of the large number of GMO products sold by WFM.
In April 2012 GGA and SFA presented WFM the results of a survey they did on attitudes toward food labeling by 315 participants in St. Louis. The poll found that 95% wanted labels on foods containing GMOs. If also showed that WFM customers were the least likely of five groups to be willing to serve GMOs. But, at the same time, they were the most likely to expect food at WFM to be free of GMO contamination.
Safe Food Action sent the April findings to WFM and asked management to contact them by May 14 to discuss the findings and recommendations. When WFM stonewalled them, the safe food advocates called a picket for June 9.
Continue reading the Whole Foods article here.
Greens/Green Party USA will hold a national membership meeting September 14 in St. Louis. The meeting precedes by two days the Monsanto/GMO action conference previewed in this issue of Green Politics. Keep current with plans for the G/GPUSA national membership meeting by checking http://www.greenparty.org throughout the summer, and PLAN TO ATTEND!
Join Midwest GMO/Food Safety Event – St. Louis, September 16-17
Occupy Monsanto (Sept. 17) is a national day of action. All across the US there will be events and demonstrations expressing concerns regarding Monsanto’s increasing control of food and Monsanto’s continued aggressive development of GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) technology. Many are also voicing demands for labeling foods that contain GMOs.
cartoon
Cartoon published with permission from its creator, Joe Mohr. See joemohrtoons.com
The World headquarters of Monsanto is in St. Louis. Safe Food Action, The Gateway Green Alliance and the Organic Consumers Association are hosting a two-day event Sept. 16-17 to examine and discuss GMO technology and the larger issue of food safety. Website for the event: http://www.gmofreemidwest.org.
Please join us for a conference and two days of education and direct action regarding GMOs and Monsanto. Learn more about GMOs’ effect on human health, the environment, the economy and the use of GMOs to dominate the globe. There may be opportunities to interact with the Monsanto family.
To see the preliminary agenda for the conference (subject to adjustments), click here.
Understanding GMOs: What Is Genetic Engineering?
by Ricarda Steinbrecher, The Women’s Environmental Network
Monsanto Corporation and its enforcers, enablers and distributors, particularly the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Whole Foods Markets, don’t want Americans to understand the difference between (1) genetic variations achieved by breeding and (2) genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – new life forms created by genetic engineering.
More than a decade ago, Synthesis/Regeneration published a background paper researched and written by Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher for Women’s Environmental Network
Writing with the minimum scientific language needed to make the key distinctions, Dr. Steinbrecher differentiates breeding—”the natural process of sexual reproduction within the same species”—from genetic engineering. “Genetic engineering (GE) is used to take genes and segments of DNA from one species, e.g. fish, and put them into another species, e.g. tomato.” She points out that “placing the new gene into a receiving higher organism is rather crude, seriously lacking both precision and predictability.” Read Dr. Steinbrecher’s paper here.
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Reblogged this on NonviolentConflict.
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Very pleased to read of these actions and wish them all success, but can I ask that US Vietnam Veterans also be asked to take part, many of them and their children, like the Vietnamese -4.8 million – are suffering from the effects of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War – 80 million litres – and Monsanto was the leading company that made Agent Orange yet still today 51 years on refusing to accept responsibility or make any compensation to those affected.
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Hi Len, that would indeed be a good idea.
On veterans and Agent Orange, see e.g:
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internet petition against Monsanto:
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/stop_the_monsanto_protection_act/
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