http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/stop_the_monsanto_protection_act_seize_congress/

3/22/2013 12:29:03 PM

Summary or your opinion? I'm not clicking that without one.

3/22/2013 12:32:38 PM

looks like its anti-science loons bitching about gm crops

3/22/2013 1:12:36 PM

Quote :

"This dangerous provision, which we're calling the Monsanto Protection Act, strips judges of their constitutional mandate to protect consumer and farmer rights and the environment, while opening up the floodgates for the planting of new untested genetically engineered crops, endangering farmers, citizens and the environment."

3/22/2013 1:46:15 PM

Ehhh. Monsanto already won when they got the court to agree to tell people they couldn't plant non-Monsanto seed on their own land....

3/22/2013 2:51:21 PM

Text of the section:

In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made
pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has
been invalidated or vacated,

the Secretary of Agriculture shall,

	notwithstanding any other provision of law, 

	upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, 

immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part,

	subject to necessary and appropriate conditions
	consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant
	Protection Act, 
		
		which interim conditions shall authorize the movement,
		introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization
		and other specifically enumerated activities and
		requirements,
	
		including measures designed to mitigate or minimize
		potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant
		to the Secretary’s evaluation of the petition for
		non-regulated status, 
	
	while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move,
	plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other
	authorized activities in a timely manner: 
	
		Provided, 
		
			That all such conditions shall be applicable only 
			for the interim period necessary for the Secretary
			to complete any required analyses or consultations 
			related to the petition for non-regulated status: 
			
			Provided further, That nothing in this section 
			shall be construed as limiting the Secretary’s 
			authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the 
			Plant Protection Act.

3/22/2013 10:41:09 PM

Monsanto lobbyists slip wording into bill HR 933 that allows their company to bypass the regulatory review process designed to prevent unsafe GM seeds from being sold to farmers.

Its step 5 of their plan:

1. Genetically modify seeds that produce larger, prettier, hardier crops.
2. Patent seeds.
3. Purge the market of any competing seeds by lobbying congress, spreading false advertising and selling pesticides that attack non-monsanto breeds.
4. Bankrupt tens of thousands of farmers with seeds that quickly exhaust the land of its fertility.
5. Dismiss regulations to prevent a repeat of past tragedies.

3/25/2013 3:38:38 AM

Yep, pretty much. It's quite insidious.

3/25/2013 8:54:15 AM

Signed into law by Obama without a hitch.

3/28/2013 10:11:56 AM

You can't expect the public to organize against every shitty law that goes through the system. Sure, every now and then you might stop one, but not on a regular basis.

Just make sure to remember these moments next time you want to cry about lack of bipartisanship and Congress "not getting anything done"

3/28/2013 12:09:24 PM

Sometimes I get you, but this is not one of those times.

4/1/2013 8:30:08 PM

i LOVE having GMO/GE arguments with people...it's ridiculous how little people understand and how scared they are of their own ignorance

4/1/2013 8:41:06 PM

hopefully my dna is altered and i get xmen corn powers

4/1/2013 8:50:56 PM

Quote :

"Sometimes I get you, but this is not one of those times."

The point is that these laws can only get shut down if the public is made aware and if they hold their representatives' feet to the fire. The majority of the time, the lobby --> legislature --> law chain will go unbroken, especially if it's regarding something that people generally don't understand. I guess you could suggest that we not have a corporate-sponsored Congress, but the ship has sailed on that one.

4/2/2013 9:39:42 AM

Quote :

"i LOVE having GMO/GE arguments with people...it's ridiculous how little people understand and how scared they are of their own ignorance"

4/13/2013 6:57:05 PM

Quote :

"i LOVE having GMO/GE arguments with people...it's ridiculous how little people understand and how scared they are of their own ignorance"

x1000

4/14/2013 9:38:11 AM

Quote :

"i LOVE having GMO/GE arguments with people...it's ridiculous how little people understand and how scared they are of their own ignorance"

how about explaining what ignorance you're referring to, instead of basking in your own self-righteousness?

4/14/2013 12:02:58 PM

^ yes this is the thread where the debate they love having goes..


[Edited on April 14, 2013 at 1:12 PM. Reason : not chitchat.]

4/14/2013 1:10:57 PM

I don't know about everyone else, but I was agreeing with the sentiment that a lot of hysteria seems to come from a place of misinformation. The term 'GMO' refers to a set of techniques to perform targeted alterations to an organism's genome. Some people seem to think that all GMOs are the same and all GMOs are harmful. The French study that went around a while ago about roundup tolerant corn and mice tumors was terrible, terrible science but it got a lot of press.

I think that GMO is a somewhat useless term. It would be more helpful to talk about what they are inserting or deleting rather than focusing on the technique they used to do it. We don't get upset about crops that have been selectively bred for certain traits, even though we have technically modified their genome for our purposes. A lot of the objections I've read sound like people appealing to the Noble Savage idea rather than arguing facts, which I do not like.

Are there risks with GMO technologies? Sure, as there are risks with any new technology. There are also a lot of potential benefits that could help everyone on the planet live a better life. If you want to talk about food production that is bad for the environment and bad for health, let's talk about organic food.

[Edited on April 14, 2013 at 1:19 PM. Reason : ]

4/14/2013 1:18:25 PM

I'm in favor of GMO labeling.

I think it might lower the price of my totally-GMO staples.

4/14/2013 1:20:34 PM

?

4/14/2013 3:09:41 PM

^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food ?

4/20/2013 8:43:40 AM

http://rt.com/news/monsanto-gmo-protests-world-721/

I guess this happened a couple of days ago. I wasn't really aware of it until after it had occurred.

5/27/2013 11:59:01 PM

message_topic.aspx?topic=628494

5/28/2013 12:47:20 AM

Is USA Today a more suitable news source?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/05/25/global-protests-monsanto/2361007/

5/28/2013 1:47:09 AM

I joined the march against monsanto in NYC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIzlaxRmnLw

^^^There seemed to be a near full blackout on it by mainstream press.

[Edited on May 30, 2013 at 2:36 PM. Reason : .]

5/30/2013 2:35:06 PM

I heard on the npr this morning something about a farmer ijn oregon, who discroved genetically modified wheat growing on his property in a place where he didn't plant it. supposedly, the genetically modified wheat was produced 10 years ago (modified to be resilent to round-up), but it was never approved and never marketed, so they have no idea how it got on his farm. or something like that.

here's the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/business/energy-environment/genetically-engineered-wheat-found-in-oregon-field.html?_r=0

[Edited on May 30, 2013 at 2:53 PM. Reason : ]

5/30/2013 2:52:43 PM

^also interesting because it could potentially cause cancelled orders of wheat by nations that have banned GMOs (see: Japan currently). if the price of American wheat nosedives, and Monsanto is on the receiving end of all the blame, will they finally get some extra scrutiny? Seems unlikely, but one can hope.

5/30/2013 3:17:39 PM

Monsanto is in a league along side Exxon and BP. A slap on the wrist and then more tax breaks.

5/30/2013 5:25:53 PM

The farmer in question should be able to sue monsanto over this, much like Monsanto has sued farmers left and right for decades.

5/30/2013 6:10:46 PM

One would hope.

5/30/2013 6:43:41 PM

Monsanto will probably sue him for theft of trade secrets.

5/31/2013 1:38:09 PM

I haven't kept up with this, but was the ruling that farmers couldn't use the seed from GMO crops to plant a new crop?

So you have a "product" that is naturally occurring and replicating, change something in it, then sell it and it continues to do what it naturally does, but your customer can't use it for what it does? Really? And people say SCOTUS isn't bonkers.

5/31/2013 1:54:02 PM

that's the agreement you sign when you purchase it

5/31/2013 2:02:05 PM

^^ We may be talking about different things here, but what I am referring to is the lawsuit that Monsanto's army of lawyers won where they sued a farmer on an adjacent plot that did NOT use their product, but was next to a farm that did. When the farmer wouldn't switch to Monsanto's seed, they sued him....

5/31/2013 3:07:11 PM

^ You are talking about different incidents.

5/31/2013 3:44:15 PM

Quote :

"that's the agreement you sign when you purchase it"

6/2/2013 11:48:34 AM

Quote :

"^^ We may be talking about different things here, but what I am referring to is the lawsuit that Monsanto's army of lawyers won where they sued a farmer on an adjacent plot that did NOT use their product, but was next to a farm that did. When the farmer wouldn't switch to Monsanto's seed, they sued him..."

you mean the farmer that bought and planted cheap spoilage seed knowing that it would contain Monsanto seed, and then harvested and continued to use seed from the surviving plants, as a way to purchase cheaper Monsanto seed? after you get past the headline, its not a very strong case against Monsanto.

6/3/2013 9:45:30 AM

http://www.forbes.com/innovative-companies/list/\
#34

8/21/2013 3:34:52 PM

Fuck Monsanto and others

This video is really eye opening.

http://www.upworthy.com/3-lies-about-food-youre-used-to-hearing-and-might-even-believe

11/12/2013 7:25:58 PM

http://www.filmsforaction.org/news/just_eat_it_big_money_spends_millions_to_convince_washington_its_none_of_our_business_what_we_put_in_our_mouths/

Just Eat It: Big Money Spends Millions to Convince Washington It's None of Our Business What We Put In Our Mouths

Quote :

"9 November 2013: A disheartening but predictable loss for GMO labelling in Washington, where Monsanto, DuPont and other big corporate interests jumped in and spent millions, sometimes evidently illegally, to defeat Initiative 522 to label groceries containing genetically engineered ingredients. In a repeat of last year's campaign in California, food, biotech and agribusiness giants barraged voters with ads and mailers to convince them labelling would raise prices and overwhelm their wee brains with too much information about what it is they're putting in their and their children's bodies - that, despite polls showing that over 90% of Americans actually support such labelling. In other words, they spent an estimated $30 a head to convince people they don't think what they thought they think. Sigh. Colbert had the best response to the sorry spectacle, insisting it's un-American to question if there's any food in your food and quoting Fox News on the terrible consequences of no GMOs, especially on seedless watermelon - "You know what happens then - the seeds come back" - even though, actually, seedless watermelon isn't genetically modified, but hey, who needs facts when you have fear? With some substantive strategizing for how to beat them next time around."

Fuck all those big corporations. And how is it possible that 90% of the people support such labeling, but the initiative was defeated? Wait, who actually took part in the voting, just lawmakers?

Whatever, it still sucks.

The only good thing to come out of this is Stephen Colbert's take on this, which had me seriously LOLing for a couple of minutes. Click link to see the clip.

Also, for those interested, several of the words in the text above are hyperlinks, so click on link to follow them.

11/12/2013 8:13:00 PM

Thank God. If I cared where my food came from, I'd ask. I don't need a bunch of busy bodies forcing my time to be wasted on shit I don't care about.

11/12/2013 11:50:10 PM

IMO the problem isn't so much that consumers' little brains would be overwhelmed as that the anti-GMO propaganda leads too many to believe that GMOs are inherently bad, so a strict policy of labelling as it is would lead to the wholesale rejection of perfectly good food, thereby lowering the prices that manufacturers of foods made with GMOs could get...

...shit, that initiative should have passed, then I could have moved to California and gorged on the good and now cheap food that the masses were turned away from in the anti-GMO hysteria.



Seriously though, anti-GMO rhetoric is like the anti-vaxers, or the teabaggers: They rely on selling a simplistic and false narrative to the populace, and if their claims aren't considered carefully, they sound mighty reasonable.

11/13/2013 7:50:18 AM

Never quite understood the issue with Genetically Modified crops. Is this really that different than selective breeding, except for GMO crops happen on a much faster scale?

I'm more worried about pesticides and shitty chemicals put on vegetables to make them stay fresh longer on the way to market.

11/13/2013 8:26:06 AM

^ I don't worry about GMO food because science rocks. GMO food companies on the other hand need to DIAF for their abusive and exploitative business practices.

11/13/2013 12:59:05 PM

yeah i've heard ridiculous stories of Monsanto suing farmers because their genetically modified seeds have blown over from a neighboring farm. As such Monsanto can suck on my fat chode.

11/13/2013 1:16:37 PM

HUR and darkone win this thread.

11/13/2013 7:57:25 PM

what do you guys think of this:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/86107/this-food-could-help-save-2-million-lives-but-now-people-are-fighting-to-block-it

i read all the comments as well. very interesting and thought provoking.

3/27/2014 5:38:47 AM

I never understood the big opposition to GMO. Humans have been selectively breeding crops for 1000s of years to perpetuate traits they like. GMO just seems like a way to speed up the process. Not like they are adding toxic chemicals to the plant.

Is there any scientific links regarding the negative health effects of GMO?

3/27/2014 8:41:09 AM

No.

3/27/2014 8:42:52 AM