Right and Wrong vs Profit and Loss

David and I have a lot of time to talk on the road. I’ve learned a lot about David in the process. And I’m sure David has learned a lot about me.

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David knows that I grew up in a home with parents who instilled traditional values in their children. And when I say traditional values, I mean the traditional values of working class Christians: Love you neighbors whether you like them or not, do good to those that despitefully use you, we’re all members of the same human family so treat everyone with love and respect, sleep in your own bed, honesty is the only policy, and the Golden Rule.

I grew up believing that all parents at some level believed and taught their children those same values.

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But I was wrong.

A few states ago, I struck up a conversation with a young man at church. Our conversation turned to values and why it is that the ruling class seem to operate by a different set of values. He went on to say that lower working class people are taught to obey societal and religious rules and that the ruling class are taught that they make the rules, and because they make the rules, they are free to break the rules as they see fit.

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And while the working class are doing just that: working, working 9 to 5, working sunup to sundown, working 40, 60, or 80 hour weeks, working their fingers to the bone, working an honest day’s labor for an honest day’s wages, working and wearing their lives away, the ruling class are buying and selling and investing. They’re making millions, sometimes billions, off of the labor of the working class. They’re buying companies, firing employees at will, then turning around and selling the same companies at obscene profits, giving no thought to the fact that their company flipping places working people on the streets and on the dole.

And while the working class are paying their taxes, the ruling class are pulling the strings on their political puppets to create the tax loop holes that enable them to gain millions, by and large, tax free.

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And while the working class are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the human family, the ruling class are concerned only that the working class keep their noses to the grindstone, their shoulders to the wheel, and their mouths shut so the ruling class can continue to profit from other people’s labor.

And while the working class wouldn’t resort to shady means to make a buck, the ruling class don’t give a rat’s ass how they make their bucks or who ends up hurt or dead in the process.

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This analysis may be a bit over simplified and may be a bit too black and white, but then again, maybe it’s a dead ringer.

How else can one explain the fact that corporations like Monsanto, Dow, Dupont Pioneer, BASF, Bayer and Syngenta continue to operate on the values of Profit over Loss, Regardless.

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Regardless of the fact that their chemical and GMO-based agricultural systems are killing the soil, polluting waterways, and poisoning all life, including the lives of their own children.

Regardless of the fact that their large scale, monocultures destroy precious biodiversity and displace millions of peasant who join the ranks of the poorest of the poor.

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Regardless of the fact that many who farm GMOs find that suicide is the only escape from an endless cycle of debt.

Regardless of the fact that by patenting plants and animals, the poisoners become biopirates committing biopiracy as they steal from Nature and from the collective commons.

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Regardless of the fact that their corrupt collusion with politicians makes of mockery of democracy.

Regardless of the fact that virtually nobody wants their poison saturated bastardized imitation food and that the only way they can continue to get people to eat such stuff is to continue to keep GMOs unlabeled, even if that means threatening and suing entire states such as Vermont, or creating global “Free Trade” agreements like the TPP that declare participating governments shall do nothing to infringe on corporate profits including the labeling of GMOs.

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Regardless of the fact that many countries refuse to buy GMO-based corn and soybeans and those commodities are so overproduced in the USA and their value is so low that GMO-based agriculture can only be sustained by billions of dollars in government subsidies.

Regardless of the fact that most farmers are barely making a living and most of the subsidies they receive end up in the bank accounts and investment funds of the poison peddlers.

Regardless of the fact that the poisoners must shield their eyes from the sight of the deformed, disabled, diseased and dead people their policies and poisons have produced.

Regardless of the fact that they must cover their ears to block the cries of their victims.

Regardless of the fact that their alleged science-based research is little more than the science of fraud and deception.

Regardless of the fact that their profit is commensurate only to their skill as liars.

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I am grateful that I was raised with the values of Right and Wrong rather than the values of Profit and Loss. But I want my children to know and understand that there are people in this country and in this world—people they will likely never meet—who care only for their own profit and that those people make and break the rules as they see fit. And those people use their power and influence to ensure that only their political puppets—both democrats and republicans—enjoy the financial backing to win elections or the connections to be appointed to key governmental positions, including the regulatory agencies that are supposedly in place to protect the people and the environment.

I want our children to know that they must assume full responsibility for their own health and well-being. I want them to know that in violation of the Constitution, their conversations are being monitored and recorded, not so much to catch thieves, crooks, and terrorists, but to catch the people who catch government thieves, crooks, and terrorists.

And someday, when enough people have awakened from the collective delusion that corporations care and that the government represents them, I pray that the people who value Right and Wrong will rise up and create a system of government based on the values of Right over Wrong, on the value of loving rather than bombing, on the value of caring for rather than pillaging the Earth and her resources, on the value that all have access to clean and healthy food, education, and health care.

For the sake of the Earth and her inhabitants, may that day come soon.

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Brett and David Wilcox are within two weeks of finishing their transcon 3,000 mile Run For a GMO Free USA. To date, their run expenses far exceed donations received. You can help change that fact by making a donation of any amount through their Indiegogo campaign fundraiser.

BioSafety Alliance, Alexis Baden-Mayer, Seattle, 2013

I had the good fortune of participating in the Justice Begins With Seeds International Conference sponsored by the BioSafety Alliance held in Seattle, Washington, in August, 2013. Was good to hang out with so many people who are working for a better world.

Alexis Baden-Mayer, with the Organic Consumers Association is one such person. Alexis delivered a speech that packs a 100% organic punch.

Thanks, Alexis, for your work and thanks for sharing your speech with the world.

Alexis Baden-Mayer

Monsanto hates democracy because democracy doesn’t work for Monsanto.

9 out of 10 of us want to know where Monsanto’s been hiding the GMOs in our food and a most of us wouldn’t eat those GMOs if we knew where they were.

If everything in this country were decided democratically, most of the food we eat would be non-GMO and Monsanto would be driven out of business.

We don’t have a problem convincing people we’re right, we have a problem with our democracy when we can’t get the politicians to pass the laws that the majority of us want.

But no government, no matter how corrupted by corporate money, will be able to stop us when we get the 9 out of 10 people who agree with us to take action with us. And that’s what’s starting to happen.

Monsanto knows that democracy doesn’t work for them, so they’re not taking any chances with it. They’ll fight us at the local and state level when they have to, but when they get a chance, they’re going to take us to a place far way from the voters where it’s hard to hear their voices and where money talks very loudly. Congress.

This is what they did when the Center for Food Safety’s lawsuits started having an effect. Monsanto got their main man in Congress, Sen. Roy Blunt, to slip the Monsanto Protection Act into a spending bill that Congress had to pass to avoid a government shut-down. It was stuck in the bill at the last minute and it didn’t get a vote, but it became law.

We’re seeing the same thing now with the King Amendment. Rep. Steve King from Iowa got the House to include an amendment to the Farm Bill that says no state can put any condition on the manufacture or production of any agricultural product in interstate commerce. The debate on the King Amendment in Congress has focused on Prop 2, a ballot initiative passed by the voters of California that says farm animals should have enough room to spread their limbs and turn around, that’s why we’re calling it the Animal Cruelty Protection Act but I was told by Hill staffers that Rep. King actually came up with this idea because of state laws regulating ethanol. The law is so broadly written that it could apply to anything, animal welfare laws, ethanol regulations, and certainly the laws we’re passing to regulate GMOs.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association also hates democracy. They’re working with Monsanto to fight I-522, but we know from news reports that they’re also in DC, trying to take care of the democracy problem they’re having, with states starting to pass laws to label GMOs. They probably like what they see in the King Amendment, but the Farm Bill might not pass, so they’re working behind the scenes now to see what can be done in September when Congress is back scrambling to avoid a government shut-down again before their current spending bill expires on September 30.

What’s amazing is that Congress as corrupted as it is by corporate money is way too democratic for Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. They’ll fight us in Congress when the have to, but they’d rather be somewhere we can’t get to, where voters are obsolete, where the corporations have full and exclusive access, where everything is kept secret from the public: international trade negotiations.

The Obama Administration is currently negotiating two huge new trade deals, one with Europe and one with countries around the Pacific, including Japan and Peru. The US position is that bans on GMOs, but also pre-market safety testing and labels, are barriers to trade. The person who’s negotiating this for Obama is Islam Siddiqui who used to be the Vice President and Chief Lobbyist for CropLife America — that’s Monsanto, Dupont, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer and BASF, that’s the group that sent a mean letter to Michelle Obama when she planted her pesticide-free and GMO-free organic garden. Siddiqui is a political operator. He got is job with Obama by fundraising for Obama. Before working as a lobbyist for Monsanto and the rest, he worked for Clinton trying to get GMOs, sewage sludge and irradiation into organic.

Our movement stopped Siddiqui then and we can stop Siddiqui now! We can stop the Monsanto Protection Act and the Animal Cruelty Protection Act! We can stop Congress’s attempts to take away states’ rights to regulate food and farming. We can stop Sen. Roy Blunt, Rep. Steve King, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Syngenta, Bayer and BASF! We can do it by getting the 9 out of 10 people who agree with us to take action with us and by moving the fight away from Congress and international trade deals where corporate money is louder than the voters and get back to the state and local level where democracy works for us. GMO Free San Juans made democracy work last year. We’re going to make democracy work here in Washington in November when we pass I-522! We’re going make democracy work in Oregon when GMO Free Jackson County passes its ballot initiative in May 2014!

Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq.
Political Director
Organic Consumers Association

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