The US Supreme Court Is Not On Our Side

(c) carlos latuff

From The Ramparts

Junious Ricardo Stanton

jrswriter@comcast.net

July 2,2010

The US Supreme Court Is Not On Our Side

'Monday's 7-1 decision enables the U.S. Department of Agriculture to complete a study on whether the alfalfa will harm the environment before deciding on whether to approve the seeds for planting, a process that could go into next year. The high court ruled that a federal judge in San Francisco went too far when he issued an order that overturned the Agriculture Department's decision to allow some farmers to plant Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa seeds before the government had completed its full study of the environmental issues. The plants are resistant to the company's herbicide. An appeals court upheld the ban.” The Los Angeles Times http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/22/business/la-fi-court-monsanto-20100622

In January of 2004 I had activist Jeffrey M. Smith the author of the book, Seeds of Deception Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating on my Internet radio program. Back then there was very little known in the US in general and the African-American community specifically about what the industry calls bio-technology, genetically engineered foods or genetically modified organisms. During the program Mr. Smith shared his research into the global proliferation of what I call Frankenfoods, the products of mad scientists working assiduously in their labs to create hybrid, artificial and truly monstrous seeds and food products. Under the guise of creating 'healthier' more 'disease resistant' seeds and foods these maniacs are attempting to turn the natural order upside down and usurp the DIVINE ORDER; although Mr. Smith and I did not approach or conduct the interview from that perspective. During our interview Mr. Smith shared how many countries in Europe were vigorously opposing GMOs. To their credit some countries in Africa (mainly Kenya) and Asia (South Korea, Cambodia Thailand) farmers and activists are waging a valiant fight against these corporations. In the US the exact opposite is true; little is known about Frankenfoods or the influential corporations behind them. In his book, Mr. Smith reveals why.

The major culprit in this nefarious plan to supplant the natural order is Monsanto although Dow and DuPont are active in the field also. Monsanto has been very successful in getting the US corporate media to squash revelations about their fiendish plans to monopolize the industry with their massive development and distribution of anti-nature seeds and foods. That interview was six years ago, things are even worse now. On June 21, 2010 the US Supreme Court, ever the friend of corporate monopolies and their owners, struck down a lower court injunction against Monsanto's genetically modified Alfalfa. The high court which in recent years has made some bewildering decisions set the stage for Monsanto to attempt to market their seeds without an environmental impact study by the US Food and Drug Administration on the effects of Monsanto's genetically modified Alfalfa seeds. A lower court had ruled the FDA illegally allowed Monsanto to market the seeds without an impact study so the court acting on behalf of the public banned the seeds.

If you read Jeffrey M. Smith's book, you will discover the US FDA is totally in Monsanto's pocket no matter which party is in office. Sadly the case of the USFDA's failure to look out for the health and safety of the US public mirrors the malfeasance and failure or the blatantly pro-corporate bias of most US regulatory and investigative agencies such as the Minerals Management Service which looked the other way as BP skirted safety rules and regulations on its Gulf of Mexico oil rigs, the SEC which refused to follow up on tips about Bernie Madoff or stock market and commodity exchange manipulation using super computers, the FBI, NSA and CIA who dropped the ball on 9-11 and the Justice Department which is notorious for not going after corporate crooks and criminals. Makes you wonder, whose side are they on?!

Benito Mussolini said, â'ascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.' This what we are seeing more and more of in this country today, the unabashed subservience of the government to corporate power and influence. The USFDA is a classic example. The FDA is charged with protecting the US public and consumers by stringently regulating the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries. Alas they have failed utterly with regard to GMOs. In most cases they not only don't due their due diligence by demanding that Mansanto thoroughly test their Frankenfood products, the FDA routinely allows Monsanto to put their seeds and products on the market with no warning labels or information about their content!!! 'The way FDA generally dismissed the dangers of GM plants to the public health in its policy statement, it would appear that the agency had a consensus of a majority of its scientists that GM plants did not generally present a risk to the public health; it did not. Internal agency documents made public years after the 1992 policy statement show that a majority of scientists at FDA who worked on the issue were against the policy statement and believed that GM plants were more risky than traditional plants.

One FDA scientist who opposed the agency's policy statement was microbiologist, Louis Pribyl. According to Pribyl, 'There is a profound difference between the types of unexpected effects from traditional breeding and genetic engineering' [9ap. 132]. Pribyl warned, 'There is no certainty that [the breeders of GM foods] will be able to pick up effects [e.g., the creation of toxins in the plant] that might not be obvious' [9ap. 132, second brackets mine]. Pribyl attacked the credibility of the policy statement: 'What has happened to the scientific elements of this document? Without a sound scientific base to rest on, this becomes a broad, general, 'What do I have to do to avoid trouble'-type document . . . . It will look like and probably be just a political document . . . . It reads very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects, but contains very little input from consumers and only a few answers for their concerns' [9app.133-134, ellipses in original].' Food Safety - Can FDA Be Trusted? By Pete Kennedy www.farmtoconsumer.org/news/news-29jan2010-food_safety.html

This sounds eerily familiar with the US military stand down and cover up of 9-11, the SEC failure to do its' job despite being warned repeatedly for years about Bernie Madoff and the US Congress repealing the Glass-Stegall Act, the 1930’s legislation which served as a safeguard against the very fraud, collusion and Wall Street shenanigans that now has this country on the edge of an economic collapse. Yet no one ever gets arrested, convicted nor goes to jail no matter how egregious their failures, how stupendous their mistakes or how criminally negligent their behavior. How is this possible? This could not go down unless either the US government is working in collusion and cahoots with major corporations; or the United States itself is a banana republic? Either way we are in deep trouble morally and physically.

In his book Smith reveals how the major bio-tech corporations get their way not only here in the US but around the world. 'Perhaps even more important than donations, lobbying and advertising is the role personal connections play in winning political support. According to the New York Times, Monsanto maintains˜close ties to policy makers-particularly trade negotiators' For example, Mickey Kantor,a former secretary of the United States Department of Commerce was a personal friend of Monsanto's CEO Shapiro. Naturally, when Kantor became the trade representative of the United States under Clinton, a strong sometimes bullying pro-biotech strategy pervaded the US trade stance with the rest of the world.' - Seeds of Deception Exposing Government Lies About Safety of the genetically Engineered Foods You Are Eating page 149.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as safety is concerned. Do yourself a favor do some research on the biotech industry, genetically modified foods or what I call Frankenfoods. It will blow your mind because none of the stuff in the seeds and foods we are eating has been thoroughly tested yet the government allows Monsanto and the other biotech giants to market these products without warning labels!!! Worse case scenario, Monsanto could literally be getting away with murder thanks to the FDA and the US Supreme Court.

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