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Founder, Food Democracy Now!
The march to stop Monsanto is one of the most pressing issues of our
time. As a single company, Monsanto is the tip of the iceberg
representing the threat that unchecked corporate power has in corrupting
our democratic institutions, driving family farmers off the land,
threatening human health and contaminating our environment.
The problem with Monsanto is not just their corrosive lobbying
practices, but the fact that the products they produce, genetically
engineered foods and chemical weed killers, are in more than 70% of the
processed foods that we eat and feed our families everyday.
In terms of corruption and consumption, Monsanto’s reach is global.
Monsanto’s toxic impact reaches far and wide, from farmers’ fields to
our nation’s capital to leading universities, media editorial boards and
even the White House, with their patented genetically engineered pollen
contaminating organic farmers’ fields, their poisonous chemicals
infiltrating our waterways and our food and their lobbying tactics
undermining our basic rights.
After more than 100 years in business, Monsanto’s name has become
synonymous with greed, arrogance, corruption and poison. In a stunning
display of
calculated callousness
of the impact that their products have on the human health and the
planet, Monsanto is responsible for some of the most lethal chemicals
known to history, including
Agent Orange,
PCBs, and
DDT.
In the 1980s, Monsanto made a strategic decision to combine their
chemical company with the emerging science of biotechnology. Today, the
same company that
poisoned America’s veterans in Vietnam is responsible for producing the food that appears on our plates every day.
If you think the same company that lied about the health impacts of
Agent Orange to the U.S. government and our veterans is telling you the
truth about the science behind genetic engineering and the food they are
feeding us, you are either a fool, delusional or a member of Congress.
Only two months ago, Monsanto made the single largest strategic error
in its 100-year history when they finally succeeded in sneaking a
special corporate loophole that protected their genetically engineered
crops from judicial review in a must pass spending bill.<
By passing Section 735, now known as the infamous
Monsanto Protection Act,
Monsanto finally exposed the truth to millions of outraged citizens of
how they operate as a lawless corporation, willing to manipulate our
nation’s laws to protect their flawed GMO technology and able to get
away with it because our elected officials at the highest levels have
become accomplices to the ultimate corruption in the writing of our
nation’s laws.
Now that Congress and the President have shown their true colors to
the American people and free citizens around the world, it is our civic
duty to expose and resist this descent into lawless tyranny that not
only keeps the American people from having the basic right to know
what’s in our food, but also prevents open and independent scientific
studies to be conducted on patented GMOs crops.
On March 26
th, 2013 when President Obama
signed H.R. 933 into law over the objections of more than
250,000 farmers and citizens
from Food Democracy Now!, millions of people around the globe were
outraged and the previously unknown provision gained worldwide
attention. The outrage has become so intense, that Senators Barbara
Mikulski (D-MD), the Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee
was forced to
issue an apology, something almost unheard of in DC politics and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has courageously offered an amendment to
repeal the Monsanto Protection Act during the recent farm bill debate.
The fight over the Monsanto Protection Act has become
the turning point
in the debate on political lobbying and genetic engineering in the U.S.
For the past 20 years, Monsanto has been able to get their laws written
behind closed doors when no one was watching. Today, we've built a
movement that is paying attention to every lie they tell the media, our
elected officials and every time they try to corrupt our democracy.
For far too long, Monsanto has been allowed to operate under cover of
darkness, manipulating our elected officials, the media and scientific
institutions that would normally serve as safeguards against their
deeply flawed technology.
At Food Democracy Now!, we are greatly encouraged that activists and
everyday citizens around the world are waking up to the toxic impact
that corporations like Monsanto have on our planet and are willing to
join a growing movement to take back our basic democratic rights.
This weekend, thousands of people across the world are gathering in
towns and cities to rise up against Monsanto’s abusive practices to say
that as a free society we will no longer stand silent.
Monsanto’s unchecked power is corrosive to the health of our
democracy, our well-being and our planet and it must be stopped. As free
citizens, it is our right and our duty to protest their unlawful
encroachment into the most basic and fundamental aspect of our lives,
the food that we eat and the laws that govern our lives.<
This weekend, thousands of everyday citizens joined together in more than 400 cities across the globe at an inspiring
March Against Monsanto. What elected officials and Monsanto apologists need to know is that we will no longer be silent.
Monsanto's days are numbered, the era of telling lies and getting
away with it is over. Monsanto and our elected officials have one
choice, label GMOs in the U.S. or they will go the way of the dinosaur.
Thank you Monsanto. Your corruption has become your undoing.
Follow Dave Murphy on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/food_democracy
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