The GMA and The Customer Servitude Industry

On my first day back on the job with my former employer, I sat through my second Customer Service presentation. Which means I sat through my second viewing of Bob Farrell’s video and presentation titled “Give Them the Pickle.”

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Among other business ventures, Bob has launched several different restaurant chains. Back when Bob was just starting out, he got a letter from a disgruntled customer who explained that on his most recent visit to Bob’s restaurant, the waitress informed him that she’d be happy to bring him his requested pickle . . . for 75 cents. Pay for the pickle? That was a first. And consequently the customer informed Bob that he would never return to Bob’s restaurant again. Ouch!

Who Funds Anti Labeling Campaigns

Obviously a smart man, Bob recognized that he gained far more than he lost when his employees gave out pickles as requested. He told his employees, “Give them the pickle.” That line became his mantra and the basis for his successful career as well as his “Give ’em the pickle” presentations.

The first time I watched Bob’s presentation some nine years ago, I considered its meaning in relationship to the people I serve at work. Although I had similar thoughts this time around, in as much as my son and I recently finished our transcontinental Run For a GMO Free USA, I couldn’t help but also apply Bob’s solid customer service principles to the GMO industry—an industry that includes the White House, Congress, regulatory agencies, universities, The Grocery Manufacturers Association, chemical companies such as Monsanto, Dow, and Dupont Pioneer, the junk food and soda industry such as Mars, Pepsico, and Coca Cola, grocery stores, farmers, and consumers.

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Bob Farrell is one of many good spokespersons for the customer service industry. The Grocery Manufactures Association is one of many giant organizations representing the customer servitude industry, an industry that is so large and so powerful that it has, thus far, successfully controlled government policy at the top while snubbing consumer preference on the bottom. In contrast to Mr. Farrell’s Give-‘Em-The-Pickle business model, the GMA makes its money by routinely giving consumers the finger.

In Bob’s world, the customer is king and boss. The customer pays Bob’s mortgage, his kids’ educations, vacations, etc. In the GMA’s world, the industry itself is boss, king, and lord over mindless hordes of hungry consumers. It maintains sufficient control of the food supply that it leaves Americans with little if any choice at all at the grocery store.

The GMA represents, protects, and promotes some of the biggest players in the GMO industry including of course Monsanto, one of the most hated companies in the history of the world. The successful introduction of GMOs into the food supply provides proof of the monopolistic power of the GMA over America’s food policies. Consider this: No one has ever gone to the grocery store to intentionally buy genetically modified organisms or products containing GMOs. In other words, there is no consumer market for GMOs. None. Zip. Nada. Not only is there no consumer market, millions of Americans want GMOs banned, and if not banned, they want them at least labeled so they can readily and easily avoid buying them.

Bob Farrell recognizes the wisdom in giving people a pickle, but he wouldn’t dream of forcing his customers to buy and eat pickles filled with unnatural ingredients they neither need nor want. He wouldn’t dream of overrunning D.C. with lobbyist to get those unnatural ingredients labeled as natural.

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Not so with the Omnipotent GMA. The GMA insists on selling people GMO-contaminated products they neither need nor want, while also insisting that those unwanted and unneeded products remain unlabeled. And when millions of people rise up and declare that they don’t want to eat those products, or at the very least, they want those products labeled, the GMA responds with multi million-dollar misinformation campaigns to scare people into voting against labeling. And when Vermont passed the first no-strings-attached GMO labeling bill, the GMA filed suit against the state of Vermont. There is something seriously wrong with an organization that wields sufficient power to thwart what little remains of American democracy!

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The GMA claims it’s committed to promoting the health of American consumers. Such claims would be laughable if they weren’t also deadly. Regardless, it can claim to be interested in the health of American consumers until the genetically modified cows come home, but Americans are seeing through the lies. Ultimately, the hubris of an organization that profits by giving people what they don’t want while refusing to give people what they do want, not to mention its obscene level of political influence, will some day prove to be its downfall.

We’re tired of being lied to. We’re tired of being told to shut up and eat our unlabeled, poison-saturated GMOs. We’re tired of being told that we’re not smart enough to understand the meaning of GMO labels. In spite of the GMA’s money, influence, and lies, millions of people from California to New Jersey are standing together, demanding GMO labeling and in some cases demanding GMO Free zones. (We had the privilege of meeting hundreds of these people in our run across the USA.)

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The GMA doesn’t know it quite yet, but Bob Farrell is right. We customers are king. And it’s long past time for us to banish the likes of the GMA and reclaim American democracy. A crucial first step to doing so is to label GMOs.

So when GMO labeling hits the ballot in your state, be prepared for the GMA to roll in with its propaganda and its lies. And remember that the GMA has only shown up to get you to shut up, fork over, and chow down. Don’t do it. Raise your voice and cast your vote.

And when you ask for a pickle at one of Mr. Farrell’s establishments, make sure it’s free—GMA and GMO free.

Sources:

http://www.giveemthepickle.com/bob.htm

http://www.RunningTheCountry.com

http://www.gmaonline.org/

http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2014/jan/18/big_foods_arrogant_move_in_the_gmo_labeling_wars

http://www.gmaonline.org/news-events/newsroom/gma-statement-on-defeat-of-proposition-37-in-california/

http://www.gmaonline.org/news-events/newsroom/gma-files-lawsuit-to-overturn-vermonts-unconstitutional-mandatory-gmo-label/

http://www.gmaonline.org/about/for-consumers/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/10/gmo-labels-congress_n_5576255.html

http://organicconnectmag.com/two-gmo-victories-oregon/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/GMO-Free-Los-Angeles/130864966978664

Mike Pompeo, You’re Not In Kansas Anymore

When David and I talked about running across the United States, we didn’t imagine that we’d end up in the Land of Oz running the Yellow Brick Road. But that’s exactly what happened. Shortly after running into Kansas from Oklahoma, we entered the city of Liberal. Wizard of Oz aficionados know that Liberal is home to various buildings and displays dedicated to preserving the magic of the Wizard of Oz. We normally don’t stop until we’ve got our 20 miles run for the day, but not stopping to see Dorothy’s home and other memorabilia seemed more wicked than the Wicked Witch of the West.

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And stop we did. We soon found ourselves in a guided tour providing all sorts of backstory to one of the most famous movies of all times.

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Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that we were still in Liberal when we learned that Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West has a twin brother with strong Kansas roots. He goes by the name of Mike Pompeo. And of the two twins, even Oz’s flying monkeys would agree that Mike is the more wicked.


(The video above was recorded at our GMO Free discussion in Liberal.)

Mike is a politician (R-Kansas). Being a politician doesn’t necessarily make a person wicked, but people like Mike make it hard to believe otherwise. You see, in 2010 Mike opened his pockets to more money from the infamous Koch brothers than any other politician. With pockets bursting with Koch money, it’s no secret who Representative Pompeo represents.

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But wait, there’s more. Mike recently sponsored a piece of legislation that was reportedly written by the Grocery Manufacturers Association. The GMA is the organization that illegally funneled money into Washington State last fall to fund a disinformation campaign to help defeat the peoples’ right to label GMOs.

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Mike and the GMA are calling the bill the “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014.”
Euphemistic title aside, this bill is designed to legally hide unsafe GMO frankenfoods in our food products.

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Those who see the truth behind Mike’s act have named it for what it is: The DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right-to-Know Act). The DARK Act is the latest ploy of the Junk Food and Junk Gene Industries to keep GMOs hidden in your food unlabeled. But the GMA’s DARK Act goes beyond hiding dangerous GMOs in your foods. The GMA actually states that GMOs are natural and should be labeled as such.

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Natural? Roundup resistant bacteria in our food is natural? Herbicide saturated foods are natural? Corn that makes bugs’ stomachs explode is natural? The DARK Act would also make it illegal for states to mandate the labeling of GMOs and it will forbid the FDA from requiring labeling (Sadly unnecessary because the FDA has made it more than clear that it’s not about to label GMOs). (http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob420.html)

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We all remember the famous words, “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” The same could be said of Mike. In a call promoting his bill, Mike said that the “scientific community has spoken with one voice.” He went on to say: “There is not a single example of anyone getting sick after eating food made with GMOs.” (http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob420.html)

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Mike picked up those lies in the land of the GMA and the land of the GMO Industry. You probably know that the lands of the GMA, GMO, and Koch share borders and bedrooms with a good share of the power hungry people squatting in Washington D.C. Kansans might say that the whole bunch of them are as horny as a pack of kissing cousins in a barnyard hayloft. So it’s no surprise when grinning politicians like Mike shoot off the same lies as his lying bedmates.

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The fact is that there is no consensus among the scientific community regarding the safety of GMOs. A good many scientists urge caution and others come right out and say that GMOs are a death sentence or a potential death sentence to life as we know it on planet Earth. (See the following videos)

So what can you and I do to stop the likes of Representative Mike Pompeo? At the very least, take just a moment and click on the following petitions. Tell your elected officials, tell the FDA, and tell Michelle Obama it’s time to leave the land of the GMA and the GMO Industry. It’s time for our once-upon-a-time representative government to once again represent the people.

NEW! TAKE ACTION: Tell Your Representative: Don’t Support Big Food’s Bill to Kill GMO Labeling Laws!

TAKE ACTION: Tell the FDA: No Watered-Down, Voluntary Federal GMO Labeling Rules!

TAKE ACTION: Tell Michelle Obama: Consumers Want Labels on Genetically Modified Foods!

Brett Wilcox is the author of We’re Monsanto: Feeding the World, Lie After Lie. Brett and his 15-year old son, David, are currently running from coast to America coast promoting a GMO-Free USA. Brett and David blog at RunningTheCountry.com. Brett wrote this blog in the beautiful and historic Kingman Carnegie Library in Kingman, Kansas. Support their run and mission at RunningTheCountry.com/donate.

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