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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Billary's ties to Monsanto: Some of the disgusting details...***
  • Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:11:28 -0700

Billary's ties to Monsanto: Some of the disgusting details...***

An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton from Another Wellesley College Alumna

Dear Hillary,

By polling logic, I should be your supporter - Democrat, older woman,
white, liberal. I was even in a dorm with you in college. I have pulled for
you for years. But something this past summer fundamentally changed my
responsibility to my children and grandchildren. In the time I have left in
my life to protect them and others, I need to speak out.

I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra, India, about farmers committing
suicide. Monsanto, a US agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads
telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards) from
big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The
expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto,
again) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers
had larger debt than they'd ever experienced

And farmers couldn't collect seeds from their own fields to try again
(true since time immemorial). Monsanto "patents" their DNA-altered seeds as
"intellectual property." They have a $10 million budget and a staff of 75
devoted solely to prosecuting farmers. http://www.grist. org/comments/
food/2008/ 01/17./). Since the late 1990s (about when industrial
agriculture took hold in India),166,000 Indian farmers have committed
suicide and 8 million have left the land.

Farmers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Indonesia,South America, Central America
and here, have protested Monsanto and genetic engineering for years.

What does this have to do with you?

You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose Law Firm where you
worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food-related
roles. Your Orwellian-named "Rural Americans for Hillary" was planned
withTroutman Sanders, Monsanto's lobbyists.

Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all
come together at the Rose Law Firm, which represents the world's largest GE
corporation (Monsanto), GE's most controversial project (DP&L's - now
Monsanto's - terminator genes), the world's largest meat producer (Tyson),
the world's largest retailer and a dominant food retailer (Walmart).

The inbred-ness of Rose's legal representation of corporations which own
controlling interests in other corporations there and of corporate boards
sharing members who are also shareholders of each other's corporations
there, is so thorough that it is hard to capture. Jon Jacoby, senior
executive of the Stephens Group - one of the largest institutional
shareholders of Tyson Foods, Walmart, DP&L - is also Chairman of the Board
of DP&L and arranged the Wal-Mart deal. Jackson Stephens' Stephens Group
staked Sam Walton and financed Tyson Foods. Monsanto bought DP&L. All
represented at Rose.

You didn't just work there, you made friends. That shows in the flow of
favors then and since. You were invited onto Walmart's board, you were
helped by a Tyson executive to make commodity trades (3 days before Bill
became governor), netting you $100,000, Jackson Stephens strongly backed
Bill for Governor, and then for President (donating $100,000).
http://www.financialsense.com/ editorials/ engdahl/2006/ 0828.html

Food and friends, in Clinton terms:

Bill's appointed friend Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, who
immediately significantly weakened federal chicken waste and contamination
standards, opening the door to major expansion of Tyson's chicken factory
farms (www.financialsense .com/ editorials/engdahl/ 2006/0828. html). Espy
resigned, indicted for accepting bribes, illegal contributions, money
laundering, illegal dispersal of USDA subsidies, .... Tyson Foods was the
largest corporate offender. http://www.engdahl. oilgeopolitics.
net/GMO/Monsanto /monsanto. html

But what Bill did for Monsanto "genetic engineering" goes beyond
inadequate concepts of giving corporate friends influence: He unleashed
genetic engineering into the world. And then he helped close off people's
escape from it.

Genetic engineering is many orders of magnitude different from "normal"
(even polluting) business in its potential biologic ramifications. The
warning myth of Pandora'a Box - letting irretrievable things rush out into
nature - has become real. The harrowing change to the world from nuclear
fission and fusion is the closest parallel.

What did Bill do?

1. Bill's put Monsanto people in at the FDA, as US Agricultural Trade
Representatives, on International Biotechnology Consultive Forums, and more
... (http://www. commondreams. org/headlines/ 072600-03. htm) or
http://www.monitor. net/monitor/ 9904b/monsantofd a.html or
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/ Revolving- Door.htm

2. Bill's FDA gave Monsanto permission to market rBGH (a GE bovine growth
hormone), the first genetically engineered product let loose on us (or did
tomatoes with fish DNA get there first?).

3. Despite reports of bovine illness and death, Bill's FDA did not recall
it or put warnings on it. Even "a very angry, very vocal nationwide
consumer base" had no impact. " http://www.wafreepress.org/14/ Envirowatch.
html

4. Bill's FDA wouldn't even label rBGH as "present" in milk.

5. When dairy farmers tried to label their own milk rBGH-free so the
public could choose, Bill's USDA threatened all dairies that their products
could be confiscated from stores. Michael Taylor, USFDA Deputy
Commissioner, was formerly Monsanto's counsel.

6. How were consumers to protect their family, given Bill's FDA enforced
public blindness, except to buy only organic? But Bill's FDA tried to close
off that last escape, proposing to include in "organic" standards, "the
dirty three" a : genetic engineering of plants and animals, use of
irradiation in food processing and use of municipal sewage sludge as a
fertilizer. (My emphasis.) The FDA backed down. http://query. nytimes.com/
gst/fullpage. html?res= 9C0DEED91E31F933 A1575AC0A96E9582 60

Had this gone through, Monsanto could have finally labeled rBGH milk ...
as "organic." And animal waste from factory farms, a pollution nightmare
for Tyson and others, could have been sold as fertilizer.

USDA head Dan Glickman: "This is probably the largest public response to
an [Agriculture Department] rule in modern history." In fact the response
was 20 times greater than anything ever before proposed by the USDA.
http://www.orpheusweb.co.uk/ john.rose/ orglab.html

Personally, I resent years of effort to protect my children and now
grandchildren, from that crap.

Politically, Bill sided against small farmers and against the public's
right to know, and with Monsanto.

A snap shot of our food:

Oils: Sheep died in India after feeding on Bt cotton fields
(http://btcotton. blogspot. com/). We feed our children Bt cotton, as
cottonseed oil in peanut butter and cookies.

Grains: 49% of US corn acreage was planted in Bt corn in 2007. A French
study proved Monsanto's GMO corn causes kidney and liver toxicity
(http://www. organicconsumers .org/articles/ article_4790. cfm). Soft
drinks and candy have highly concentrated Bt corn, in the form of high
fructose Bt corn syrup. The US food system depends most on two crops, soy
(90% GMO, 90% of traits owned by Monsanto) and corn, the largest crop (60%
GMO, nearly 100% Monsanto traits). "[E]ssentially our entire food supply is
genetically modified, to the benefit of one company." The Grocery
Manufacturers of America in 2000 estimated that 70 percent of US food
contains GM traits. http://www.organicc onsumers. org/articles/
article_9716. cfm

Meat: Steroids bulk up atheletes. Monsanto steroids bulk up animals -
more weight, more profit. We feed our children steroids in meats. Is this
why our children are fattening, like Hansel and Gretel?

Poultry: Bill's USDA weakened chicken waste and contamination standards
and attempted to allow sewage sludge as fertilize crops. I will say more
about disease from industrialized poultry farms waste, at the end of this
letter.

Milk: Over 30 scientific publications have shown increased levels of
IGF-1 in milk with rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up to
seven-fold, also increasing colon and prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29
European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and
South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. Bill's USFDA put no
restrictions, no warning labels (not allowing labels at all). (My
emphasis.) http://www.sustdev. org/index. php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=2127&Itemid=35

American children eat that food and drink that milk, Hillary.
Coincidentally, American children are increasingly fat and sick.

Here, Bill ignored pleas for labeling. Abroad, Bill ignored intense
international objections over the same issue - unlabeled US food exports -
badly straining trading relations. Monsanto's "good ole boy," he betrayed
American families at the deepest levels conceivable - their family's health
and their democratic right to know. He betrayed our rural life and American
family farmers - backing corporation deceit and control, over honesty and
clean farming.


But, HIllary, it is one thing to not label a regular ole food product to
sell it, and quite another to sell a suspected-dangerous food product
(rBGH), but Bill's administration didn't label (or stop) a well-known,
terrifying threat - Mad Cow Disease.

Bill's FDA's August, 1997 regulation permitted "known TSE-positive
[Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy] material to be used in pet food,
pig, chicken and fish feed," only requiring the label to read "Do not feed
to cattle and other ruminants" in the US.

Monsanto added to the problem. "There is evidence that rbST use
[Monsanto's GE bovine growth hormone] reduces the useful lifespan of a
dairy cow. ... Given that the incubation period for BSE is at least three
to five years and perhaps longer, rbST-treated cows could harbor "hidden"
BSE. That is, they might be infected but still asymptomatic when sent to
slaughter." (My emphasis.) http://www.consumersunion.org/ food/bgh-
codex.htm

Bill let TSE into our entire food chain. And who owned the feed and
slaughter and genetic engineering corporations whch benefitted?

Please, tell me, Hillary, what he could possibly have gotten in
friendship or favors, that could ever justify his exposing millions of
people to this?

With genetic engineering itself, Bill did something to the whole world,
which tried to object. Words are inadequate to express how astoundingly
immoral, beyond human bounds and conceit and power, that was.

"Even for the biggest "winners," it is like winning at poker on the
Titanic." Jerry Mander: Facing the Rising Tide

He had no right.

Do you hear that?

Bill had sex from Monica Lewinsky. That's "dinky immoral." That's chicken
feed immoral - excuse the Tyson pun, excuse the TSE-laced pun. Bill let
genetic engineering lose on NATURE itself.

"Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the
next several decades than in the previous one thousand years…Tens
of thousands of novel transgenic bacteria, viruses, plants and animals
could be released into the Earth's ecosystems…Some of those
releases, however, could wreak havoc with the planet's biospheres." Jeremy
Rifkin, Biotech Century

Bill did this to us, like it was some nothing and he, some big dumb ass
Southern boy, just smiling and getting in good with the Big Boys, thinking
about as much about the consequences of something this immense and about us
human beings out here, as he thought about you, when he was unfaithful with
Monica. Just one big fool getting off on the power and used to getting away
with things.

Terminator genes, developed by DP&L, a Rose Firm client, prevent seeds
from "working" after only one season. Farmers "must" repurchase (patents
and suing not certain enough control, it seems). Those "killing" genes pose
the apocalyptic risk of breaking out into nature. Natural seeds could fail,
too. Nature could fail.

Far-fetched?

GMO fields are already contaminating normal species (http://www.
foodfirst. org/pubs/ backgrdrs/ 2002/sp02v8n2. html. Berkeley Professor of
Microbiology, Ignacio Chapela, wrote an open letter, warning the Mexican
government about just this breaking out phenomenon happening in maize
(http://www. slogefree. org/newsletters/ News_Item. 2004-12-21. 4353/).
And it has already happened with weeds - pesticide resistant GMO seeds
break lose and weeds become pesticide-resistant Superweeds (http://www.
newscientist. com/article/ dn1882-genetical lymodified- superweeds-
not-uncommon. html).

But Bill's USDA spokesman, Willard Phelps said the USDA wanted the
technology to be `widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many
seed companies.'
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ index.php? context=viewArti
cle&code=ENG20060827&articleId=3082


"Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that
feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the
truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is
to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent
farmers." David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University

Hillary, one third of the world's bee colonies have collapsed. Gone.
Farmers in India are killing themselves. Farmers and bees. Since organic
farmers in India are fine and organic farmers report no colony collapse,
what does these farming catatrophes say about "industrial agriculture" ?

Mad Cow Disease is another direct result of industrial agriculture. And
now ....... transnational poultry factories are implicated as the source of
bird flu. ... Small scale poultry farms and wild birds seem not to be the
problem [just as small farmers are not the issue in Mad Cow Disease], and
yet "initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor poultry, squeeze out small
producers and restock farms with genetically modified chickens. ...
http://www.ens- newswire. com/ens/feb2006/ 2006-02-27- 01.asp "Of the few
outbreaks that did occur in [Laos], more than 90% broke out in commercial
poultry operations, not free-ranging flocks." http://www.birdflubook.com/a.
php?id=75

Monsanto (and others) is currently working with the USDA (http://www.
farmandranchguid e.com/articles/ 2006/01/30/ ag_news/updates/ update01.
txt)
to force small farmers to tag every animal with a global tracking device
(NAIS - National Animal Identification System). Allegedly related to food
safety, Monsanto and others would be creating a vast corporate digital
library on every move of small farmers's livestock.
http://goexcelglobal.he.net/ ~natpropg/ nonais.html

But small farmers do not create the contaminated environments, do not
supply the feed, do not grind up diseased animals into feed (how Mad Cow
began) and then sell it. In fact, their farming methods, free range and
small scale, are significantly healthier and safer for animals and food
than the massive concentration of animals by corporate industrial
agriculture.

Monsanto is also aggressively pushing for state laws to limit farmers'
right to choose what to plant and the public's right exclude GE plants from
their communitieshttp://www.rense. com/general65/ righto.htm

Cattle bloated by steroids, lapse and loss of 10,000 year old normal
seeds, immense pollution from factory farms, deadly-disease- ridden feed,
world-wide bee colony collapse, poisoned soil and depleted water supplies,
Superweeds (http://www. newscientist. com/article/ dn1882-genetical
lymodified- superweeds- not-uncommon. html), lawsuits against farmers, loss
of family farms, and ... India farmers killing themselves in what may be
the largest mass suicide in recorded human history (on average ... one
farmers' suicide every 30 minutes since 2002 - The Hindu 1.30.08) - that is
industrial agriculture.

Monsanto and Tyson are two of the largest industrial agricultural
corporations in the world. Industrial agriculture is represented by your
Rose Law Firm.

Your claim to care about food safety is terrifying double-speak given
what Bill did and who you take donations from. Your idea of a Department of
Food Safety would centralize control of food - in whose corporate connected
hands? You talk tough about labeling food - ah, but "foreign" food - a
sleight of hand tricking a public desperate for safe US food. You talk
about food safety but Bill degraded food in every imaginable way and
prevented minimally sane labeling.

I am a person before I am a woman. Your gender means nothing. It is a
media distraction. Your policies on health and food and women and children,
are meaningless in the face of connections that have threatened those
groups profoundly, connections you have never denounced.

Monsanto uses child labor in India, primarily very young girls, exposing
them to a lethal pesticide 13-14 hours a day, for pennies in pay.
http://www.indiaresource.org/issues/agbiotech /2003/monsantoun ilever.html
But you take donations from their lobbyists. You say you care about black
people but as the poorest people in this country, they are least able to
buy organic and are forced to eat the contaminated foods Bill let into our
food system. The National Black Farmers Association has a boycott out on
all Monsanto products.

Do you eat organic?

So, who are you with, hapless black consumers and black farmers, or
Monsanto? Mothers left to give their children rBGH milk, or Monsanto? Women
exposed to 7 times greater risk of breast cancer, or Monsanto? Desperate
farmers in India and young children forced into child labor in cottonseed
factories there, or Monsanto? Animals suffering from lives in filthy cages
and disgusting feedlots, shot up with steroids and hormones and
antibiotics, or Monsanto? Our children who eat candy with high fructose Bt
corn syrup associated with kidney and liver toxicity, or Monsanto?

Edwards was right about your corporate connections. I just didn't
understand until I saw that PBS show and read about Monsanto, how
personally affected my children and grandchildren, and all people around
the world, have been.

I will not vote for you. I will vote for someone who will commit
themselves to work on behalf of small farmers and real food and decent
treatment of animals and to end this industrialized agricultural nightmare
that is taking us off a cliff.


Linn Cohen-Cole
Atlanta








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