Aquí reposa la verdadera historia reciente del ser humano, desde el año 2013 hasta nuestros días, historia que será ocultada a las futuras generaciones.
Here lies the true recent history of humans, from 2013 to present day, a history that will be hidden from future generations.
The GMO Biotech Lobby’s Emotional Blackmail and Bogus Claims
Colin Todhunter
“There are 7.2 billion people on the planet. There
will be 9.6 billion by 2050. The demand for food will double… [Using GM
food and data science is] the only thing that will enable us to feed the
planet without encroaching on the forests and wetlands….This represents
a business opportunity, but from a societal perspective, it’s very
important.” Robert Fraley, CEO of Monsanto, Winner of the World Food
Prize 2013 [1].
The claims made by Monsanto do not stack up. Issues pertaining to the
weaponisation of food aside [2], GM food represents little more than a
massive business opportunity, a way of enriching a handful of people,
all carried out under the guise of altruism.
“It’s difficult, in the short term, figuring out how I am
going to make money dealing with people who don’t have money. But in
practice the development of agriculture at a village level is something
that could make an enormous amount of business sense over time.” –
Robert Shapiro, former CEO of Monsanto (quoted in the CBAN report ‘Will
GM Crops Feed The World’).
By ‘development’, what Shapiro really meant was allowing Monsanto to
take control of agriculture and strategic policy decisions and
destroying traditional methods, knowledge and practices in order to
recast them in its corporate image [3]. The following quote is indicative of the pro-GMO lobby’s use of
emotional blackmail when forwarding its cause and the smearing of anyone
who rejects GM crops as being an enemy of the poor and a hypocrite.
Such statements are based on spurious claims about the efficacy of GMO
technology and divert attention away from the true nature and causes of
hunger and food poverty.
“It is shameful to me that the leaders of some South
African countries who are apparently well-fed, would rather see their
populations go hungry then eat the same food we consume daily in the
United States.” - US Republican Senator Charles Grassley, 2003 (quoted
in the CBAN report ‘Will GM Crops Feed The World’).
On 15 August, India will mark its 67th
anniversary of independence from Britain. It may seem strange to some
that a nation would publicly celebrate its independence while at the
same time it less publicly cedes it to outsiders. The gleaming façade of
flags and fly-pasts will belie the fact that national security and
independence do not depend on military might and patriotic speeches.
Eye-catching celebrations will take place in Delhi and much of the media
will mouth platitudes about the strength of the nation and its
independence. The reality is, however, an ongoing, concerted attempt to
undermine and destroy the very foundation and security of the country.
The bedrock of any society is
its agriculture. Without food there can be no life. Without food
security, there can be no genuine independence. A recent report by the
organisation GRAIN revealed that small farms produce most of the world’s
food and are more productively efficient than large farms [1].
Facilitated by an appropriate policy framework, small farmers could
easily feed the global population. But small farmers are currently
squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world’s farmland and the world
is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into
the hands big agribusiness and the rich and powerful. If nothing is done
to reverse this trend, the world will lose its capacity to feed itself.
By definition, peasant
agriculture prioritises food production for local and national markets
as well as for farmers’ own families. Corporations take over scarce
fertile land and prioritise non-food commodities or export crops for
profit and markets far away that cater for the needs of the affluent.
This process impoverishes local communities and brings about food
insecurity. GRAIN concludes that the concentration of fertile
agricultural land in fewer and fewer hands is directly related to the
increasing number of people going hungry every day.
The Oakland Institute in the US recently stated that the first years of the 21st century will be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale [2]. An estimated 500 million acres,an
area eight times the size of Britain, was reported bought or leased
across the developing world between 2000 and 2011, often at the expense
of local food security and land rights. This trend could eventually
result in the permanent shift of farm ownership from family businesses
to institutional investors and other consolidated corporate operations.
The GMO Biotech Sector can’t win the Scientific Debate. Co-optation, Deception and Collusion
By Colin Todhunter
British
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Owen Paterson is a staunch
supporter of the GM sector (1). Despite criticisms of him being an
industry puppet (2) and content to ignore the devastating, deleterious
health, environmental, social and agricultural impacts of GMOs (3), both
he and other officials like the EU’s chief science advisor Anne Glover
(4) have been more than happy to act as mouthpieces for the GM sector by
making false statements and claims about the benefits and safety of
GMOs that fly in the face of scientific findings.
Paterson’s
support for GMOs is being carried out in partnership with a number of
institutions, including the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC),
which is backed by GM companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer
CropScience (5).
Evidence
recently emerged of meetings and briefings involving ministers and the
ABC and its industry backers, despite no such meetings with groups
worried about the impact of GM on human health and the countryside. In
response, GeneWatch UK made a Freedom of Information request to find out what was said at the briefings. Paterson’s
department refused to give details. GeneWatch lodged a formal complaint
with the Information Commissioner in the hope that ministers will be
forced to admit how GM companies are driving government policy. The
evidence strongly suggested that the Government is colluding with the GM
industry to manipulate the media and plot the return of GM crops to Britain.
Paterson’s
department refused to provide details of a telephone conference between
the department and the ABC on June 10 last year. Ten days later, Paterson made
a speech calling for opposition to be dropped and claiming GM crops and
food were ‘probably safer’ than the conventional equivalent. It also
refused to release a “message on media suggestions” sent by the ABC to
the ministry last April, or details of discussions between Monsanto and
the ministry two months before. In addition, his ministry would not
provide details of a meeting and emails between former environment
minister David Heath and the ABC.
John Herbst, US
ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006 , this week gave an interview to
the RT television channel about current developments in Ukraine.
According to Herbst, what we are witnessing is a peaceful uprising
against an authoritarian, oppressive regime. He is unequivocal about
this. He said that the protests and protesters are being smeared and
discredited, and the only ones wanting to portray the opposition in
Ukraine as being ultra nationalist, neo Nazis and violent are those who
fear democracy on their own doorstep (i.e. Russia).
Herbst says the protests are
a reaction to four years of oppressive government. While admitting that
Yanokovych won a free and fair election in 2010, Herbst argues since
that time he has put increasingly authoritarian strictures on the
opposition and asserts that Yanokovych authorised the use of armed
snipers against unarmed protesters.
In response to certain
reports that state it was the opposition that first started any firing,
Herbst says that such a claim is simply a lie. Herbst quotes Orwell to
imply that people and sections of the media are not only lying, but are
propagandising by using smear words about the protesters, such as ‘ultra
nationalists’ or ‘anti-Semitic’
As far as an attack on a Jewish synagogue in Ukraine is concerned, he
merely asks who attacked it and answers his own question with “Nobody
knows” and that it is quite likely the attackers were “provocateurs.”
Despite ‘nobody knowing’ he immediately implies it was carried out by
former government forces to discredit the opposition.
For a man who refers to Orwell, his words flow easily with
doublespeak and hypocrisy. While he doesn’t appear to know who attacked
the synagogue, not wanting to apportion any wrong doings to the people
the US has supported in Kiev, he is conveniently adamant that government
snipers gunned down protesters, which is highly debatable, if not
totally untrue (1).
Fine for him to make his unfounded claims that suit US goals and
smear Yanokovych, but when others make claims he doesn’t like to hear,
backed up with evidence, they are merely looking for a reason to tarnish
the US-backed protesters.
During the interview with RT, he was asked how would it be perceived
if Occupy protesters were to take over government buildings or a city
hall in the US , as the people he supports in Ukraine have done: would
it be labelled as a peaceful protest?
Of course it wouldn’t. The US state has long been involved in the
illegal monitoring and subversion of perfectly legitimate democratic
groups on home soil. Its security and intelligence agencies have been
used to crush genuine democracy. From Martin Luther King and the Occupy
Movement to Veterans for Peace, the US state has used the full panoply
of resources to infiltrate, monitor or subvert. Today, democratic
movements that seek to legitimately question the influence of Wall
Street, US military policy abroad and a range of other policies that
have serve elite interests are spied on and ‘neutralised’ (2).
But this is not up for debate. Best to move swiftly along, as indeed
Herbst did. In order to prevent further analysis of how the US might or
does treat dissent on its own soil, the former ambassador continued with
his rhetoric (seemingly in the belief that if you keep on repeating
something, people will eventually believe it) and went on to state
during the interview:
Human Health and the GMO Industry: Puppets in High Places
By Colin Todhunter
Anne Glover recently
declared that there is no evidence pertaining to the adverse impacts of
GMOs. This is an extremely disturbing statement. It’s disturbing because
it is not only patently wrong, but also because Anne Glover is chief scientific adviser of the European Commission.
In an interview with EurActiv on 24 July 2012, she stated:
“There
is no substantiated case of any adverse impact on human health, animal
health or environmental health, so that’s pretty robust evidence, and I
would be confident in saying that there is no more risk in eating GMO
food than eating conventionally farmed food.” (1)
In a letter to Anne Glover,
which is posted on the GM Watch webite, Dr Brian John says that her
claim is a “lie”. John regards himself as a member of the global
scientific community ad has a background in environmental research and a
long list of contacts in academia and within environmental, health, and
consumer NGOs. In the letter to Glover, he states that many of his
colleagues are directly involved in research in the GM field, and
between them they have contributed hundreds of articles to the
peer-reviewed literature.
Anne Glover wrote in 2012:
“If
we look at evidence from [more than] 15 years of growing and consuming
GMO foods globally, then there is no substantiated case of any adverse
impact on human health, animal health, or environmental health.” (2)
In 2013, she wrote:
“There
is no evidence that GM technologies are any riskier than conventional
breeding technologies and this has been confirmed by thousands of
research projects. Food produced with GM technology is very common in
other parts of the world, without any evidence that this has been
harmful to the people that consumed it or to the environment at large.”
(3)
Brian John asks Glover:
“With all due respect, that is a
repetition of the same lie. What literature do you read? And from whom
do you obtain your scientific advice?”
John goes on to state:
“I
wish to place on record that there is abundant and unequivocal
published evidence, within and outside the peer-reviewed literature, of
real harm to living organisms in the plant and animal kingdoms arising
from the growing of GMO crops and the consumption of GMO foodstuffs.
This material is freely available to any scientist who chooses to
examine it, and many of the key publications are found within a list
recently compiled and published by GMO Free USA.” (4)
John then lambasts Glover for her one-sided approach:
“Of course, there are others lists of
publications, some purporting to demonstrate harm associated with GMOs,
and others purporting to show that they are safe. You refer to
“thousands of research projects” and pretend that they all reach the
same conclusion. That is of course nonsense.”
General Elections in India: The Choice is “Globalization” or “More Globalization”.
The Role of the Wall Street Lobby
By Colin Todhunter
2014 will witness India’s general election. And the choice available from the two biggest national parties seems to be more globalisation or more globalisation. In other words, continued acquiescence to Wall Street’s economic agenda.
Globalisation, the type we are witnessing, reflects the needs of the extremely wealthy of the world. They are ultimately setting the agenda at the G8, G20, NATO, the World Bank, and the WTO and are from the highest levels of finance capital and transnational corporations. They dictate global economic policies.
In India, many people are resisting state-corporate policies because they are in the main merely facilitating corporate takeovers of food, agriculture, resources, land, public infrastructure and water. Successive governments have abused and removed some the nation’s poorest people from their lands. Killings and human rights abuses have gone hand in hand with the destruction of the environment as profiteering industries linked with resource extraction and processing have moved in. Parts of agriculture have already been placed in the hands of powerful Western agribusiness. The effects include seed patenting and seed monopolies, increasing levels of cancer due to contamination, the destruction of rural economies, farmer suicides and water run offs from depleted soil leading to climate change and severe water resource depletion.
Traditional agriculture is being destroyed by Western agribusiness and petro-chemical farming. Both food sovereignty and the health of the nation are under threat as the structural adjustment of Indian agriculture leads to a shift away from the production of bio-diverse food crops for local consumption to commodities for exports.
The secretive corporate-driven EU-India Free Trade Agreement currently under negotiation could well entail India’s finance sector and food retail/processing sectors and investment rules being restructured in favour of transnational corporations. Industrial developments built with public money and strategic assets, such as energy sources, ports, airports and seeds and infrastructure support for agriculture, are already being sold off.
If people are to have any hope of reversing these trends, before casting their votes next year they should at least take a look at some of the backers behind those running for high office. And that includes ALL major candidates, whichever party they represent.
In the meantime, however, let us turn to Narendra Modi, not least because of his phenomenal reinvention as a political figure and subsequent rise to the pinnacle of national politics.
While many hold Modi personally responsible for the killings of Muslims and atrocities that took place in Gujarat back in 2002, Brand Modi has reinvented and remarketed himself. Modi and his backers have had considerable success in forwarding the message that he is a visionary and a hero of development in Gujarat, where he is Chief Minister. He has even been selected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Indian general election. Modi’s recent story has been one of remarkable repositioning and self promotion.
The future is bright, the future is Modi? Would you trust him? It is clear that 960,000 followers on Google plus do. And it is clear that his six million ‘likes’ on his official ‘fan page’ on Facebook do. On that page, it says: “the man endeared as a visionary & an untiring, selfless worker who has made Gujarat the cynosure of all eyes across the world.”
While not denying Modi has a mass support base, especially among young middle class voters, his backers have a record of setting up ‘grass root’ groups tailored for specific causes. On other pages across the internet, the words ‘fascist’ and ‘spin’ often appear in forums about Modi.
Modi’s party, the Hindu-nationalist BJP, promoted the phrase ‘India shining’ in 2002 in an attempt to hoodwink the electorate that all was well in India as a result of its neo-liberal economic policies. That electioneering slogan was as bogus as the ‘Gujarat shining’ one we hear now, given that Modi’s record on development in Gujarat is not all it appears to be.
It seems you can sell anything to anyone given these days with the right backing and strategy.
And who are among Modi’s backers? Look no further than the US-based PR/lobby giant APCO Worldwide, which, as outlined by researcher Shelly Kasli (see the article at the end of this piece) has strong links with bodies such as the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group. Pro-Wall Street and very well-connected to key US/Israeli political, financial and security-intelligence institutions, this firm has been instrumental in helping to give Modi a much needed makeover, remarketing him as prime ministerial material and promoting Brand Modi and Brand Gujarat.
Behind the glossy spin promoting Modi, there lies a rather different reality; that of APCO and its lobbyists, who it is reasonable to assume would benefit from having what could be a former client as India’s top politician. Regardless of any nationalist sentiments that certainly play well with sections of the Indian electorate, if Modi becomes PM, he would in principle be well placed to allow what could arguably amount to further international corporate-financial power grab in India facilitated by APCO. That would only serve to further accelerate the processes discussed in the first half of this article.
In APCO’s India Brochure, there is the claim that India’s resilience in weathering the recent global downturn and financial crisis has made governments, policy-makers, economists, corporate houses and fund managers believe that India can play a significant role in the recovery of the global economy in the months and years ahead. APCO describes India as a trillion dollar market. The emphasis is not on redistributing the country’s wealth among its citizens or their genuine empowerment via common ownership of production, but on the opposite – recovery of ‘the economy’, which means positioning international funds and corporations to exploit markets and extract profit the best way they can.
In the mainstream media and among many leading politicians and economists, this constitutes growth and development; but it’s neither. It’s plunder. The evidence doesn’t lie – in the West, decades of such policies have culminated in austerity, disempowerment and increasing hardship for the masses and the concentration of ever more wealth and power in the hands of the relative few. In India, the horse is in position. And the vultures are circling.
And here we go again. In Syria, things were getting desperate for Washington. It needed a major made-for-TV, cross-the-red-line incident involving chemical weapons. Unsurprisingly, by hook or by crook – probably crook (1) – it got it. The BBC, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and a multitude of other media outlets and politicians now clamour, or at least strongly imply the need, for direct military action to bolster the illegal ‘indirect’ military intervention from the West and its allies that has already been taking place for a long time.
The story being peddled goes that the (axis of) evil Syrian regime has used a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ to help win a war it was already winning, thereby incurring the wrath of the US. Strange logic indeed.
It’s a case of déjà vu. British MP George Galloway in front of a US senate hearing back in 2005 exposed the ‘pack of lies’ that the US-led invasion of Iraq was built on. Similar forms of deceit have been the foundations for shaping public opinion regarding attacking Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and numerous other countries. The presence of WMDs was used to justify attacking Iraq, while ‘humanitarianism’ or ‘fighting terror’ was the excuse used elsewhere.
But what is it about the term ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that provokes a knee jerk reaction from media people and politicians who foam with rage and let seep from their mouths high minded platitudes about morality?
“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.” Oscar Wilde in ‘An Ideal Husband’.
If in the above quote from Wilde, we replace ‘people’ with ‘regimes’, we may appreciate the nature of the West playing fast and lose with its notions of morality. Supply arms, including chemical weapons, to dictatorial regimes throughout West Asia with atrocious human rights records because, notwithstanding the fact it is great business, they are ‘good friends of ours’ (to coin a highly apt mafia term). Yes, all friends and good ones at that, as long as they remain loyal to the ‘Project for the New American Century’ (2).
The PNAC, or the project for world domination, is partly built on gullible, easily led public opinion, which is (often) fanned by the emotionally laden letters ‘W-M-D’. A Pavlov’s dog public and media, which respond on cue to the moralistic bleatings of condescending criminals that masquerade as respectable politicians and who rely on the public’s ignorance to fuel their barbarity in the name of ‘protecting civilians’ from an impending bloodbath, while going on to cause one in Libya, to ‘defeat terror’, while funding it in Syria, or to ‘support democracy’, while undermining it in Egypt.
These politicians and much of the mainstream media confine the narrative about WMD to a military battlefield, or a threat of outright violent destruction. The term is never to be associated with the US dropping atom bombs on Japan, the West using mini-nukes in the form of depleted uranium or the use of white phosphorous to kill and maim (3). From the cancers caused to the environmental contamination, where is Hague’s, the BBC’s or any other number of media outlets’ moral indignation about this type of mass destruction?
Where too is their condemnation of treacherous economic, trade, food or agriculture policies that blight hundreds of millions across the globe? Where is their condemnation over the criminal manipulation of currency markets, commodities, interest rates and derivatives, or the neo-liberalism and the corporate-financial cartels that conspire to shape trade via the WTO, IMF or the World Bank (4,5,6,7,8)?
That’s right, condemnation of these economic and political weapons of mass destruction and suffering are nowhere to be seen or heard simply because such political figures and media institutions with their skin-deep morality are in place merely to serve the interests of fraudulent capital and its fraudulent policies.
This type of mass destruction and mass misery does not involve headline-grabbing, eye-catching episodes of carnage and death. This violence is structural in form, is arguably ultimately just as destructive and is ongoing and all pervasive (9). In Western countries, this is disguised as a need for ‘austerity’. In poorer countries, it is called ‘development’.
Under the ‘structural adjustment’ policies imposed on poor countries, it has become a case of export or be damned, embrace corporate agriculture or be damned, borrow and build dams or be damned. And, in the process, elites – both foreign and indigenous – prosper, while the people and the environment end up being damned anyhow (10). It’s almost becoming a cliché to mention the hundreds of thousands of farmers in India who ‘embraced’ it all and died. It’s no cliché though, it happened.
It’s no cliché that the petrochemical-backed, corporate-driven ‘Green Revolution’ is raping the environment (11). It’s no cliché to say that genetic engineering is a highly financially lucrative ‘experiment’ that is jeopardising our health and the future of humanity (12). Neither is it a cliché that millions, from Egypt to the US, are bearing the brunt of economic policies that result in misery for the many and record profits for the few.
Perhaps we should look at Hague and his ilk and assess whether they actually do care about the plight of ordinary folk in the manner they claim to. Do they really care about the plight of Syrians? Perhaps we might care to ponder that they clearly do not, given the back door deals and wars they have sanctioned for the benefit of powerful corporations (13,14).
Why should they care so much about people in far off places when they show little for those in their own countries? The post-war Keynesian consensus has been gradually dismantled, leading to the offshoring of much of their own economies and leaving millions in debt, in poverty, thrown onto the scrapheap or used as fodder to fight wars for the rich under the banner of ‘humanitarianism’ or ‘protecting our freedoms’. And, as far as ‘protecting our freedom’ is concern, look to Edward Snowden and especially Hague’s squirming reaction to the revelations to see how hollow this rings.
Moral outrage within certain influential quarters about the latest happenings in Syria might be enough to fool some of the public, but let the record show that this fake outrage runs skin deep and is extremely selective.
GMO and Monsanto Roundup: Glyphosate Weedkiller in our Food and Water?
By Colin Todhunter
“Historians may look back and write about how willing we are to sacrifice our children and jeopardize future generations with a massive experiment that is based on false promises and flawed science just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise.” So said Don Huber in referring to the use of glyphosate and genetically modified crops. Huber was speaking at Organic Connections conference in Regina, Canada, late 2012.
Huber is an emeritus professor in
plant pathology at Purdue University in the US and has worked with the
Department of Homeland Security to reduce the impact of plant disease
outbreaks. His words are well worth bearing in mind given that a new
study commissioned by Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE) and GM Freeze
has found that people in 18 countries across Europe have been found to
have traces of glyphosate in their urine (1).
Friends of
the Earth Europe commissioned laboratory tests on urine samples from
volunteers in 18 countries across Europe and found that on average 44
percent of samples contained glyphosate. The proportion of positive
samples varied between countries, with Malta, Germany, the UK and Poland
having the most positive tests, and lower levels detected in Macedonia
and Switzerland. All the volunteers who provided samples live in cities,
and none had handled or used glyphosate products in the run-up to the
tests.
The Influence of the Biotech Sector on Safety and Regulation
Although ‘weedkiller in urine’ sounds
alarming, Tom Sanders, head of the nutritional sciences research
division at King’s College London, says the levels found are unlikely to
be of any significance to health because they are 300 times lower than
the level which might cause concern. Alison Haughton, head of the
Pollination Ecology Group at Rothamsted Research, said that if FoE and
GM Freeze want their work to have scientific credibility and provide a
genuine contribution to the debate on pesticide residues, they should
submit their work for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Valid points, you might think. But FoE believes that there is
sufficient evidence to suggest environmental and health impacts from
glyphosate warrant concern. It wants to know how the glyphosate found in
human urine samples has entered the body, what the impacts of
persistent exposure to low levels of glyphosate might be and what
happens to the glyphosate that remains in the body. New research
published in the journal Entropy sheds disturbing light on such concerns
(discussed later in this article).
In 2011,Earth Open Source said that official approval
of glyphosate had been rash, problematic and deeply flawed. A
comprehensive review of existing data released in June 2011 by Earth
Open Source suggested that industry regulators inEuropehad
known for years that glyphosate causes birth defects in the embryos of
laboratory animals. Questions were raised about the role of the powerful
agro-industry in rigging data pertaining to product safety and its
undue influence on regulatory bodies (2).
In the same vein, FoE says there is currently very little testing for
glyphosate by public authorities, despite its widespread use, and
authorities in Europe do not test for glyphosate in humans and tests on
food are infrequent. Glyphosate was approved for EU-wide use in 2002,
but FoE argues that the European regulatory agencies did not carry out
their own safety testing, relying instead on data provided by the
manufacturers.
Of course there are certain scientists (usually with links to the
agro-industry) who always seem to be strident in calling for
peer-reviewed evidence when people are critical of the biotech sector,
but then rubbish it and smear or intimidate the scientists involved when
that occurs, as has been the case with Dr Arsad Pusztai in the UK or
Professor Seralini in France. It is therefore quite revealing that most
of the data pertaining to glyphosate safety came from industry studies,
not from peer-reviewed science, and the original data are not available
for independent scrutiny.
Increasing Use
With references to a raft of peer-reviewed studies, FoE also brings
attention to the often disturbing health and environmental dangers and
impacts of glyphosate-based herbicides throughout the world (1). The FoE
study also highlights concerns around the increasing levels of exposure
to glyphosate-based weed killers, particularly as the use of glyphosate
is predicted to rise further if more genetically modified (GM) crops
are grown. It is after all good for business. And the biggest producer
of glyphosate is Monsanto, which sells it under the brand name
‘Roundup’.
“The figures don’t lie; GMOs drive glyphosate sales.” (3)
Despite
its widespread use, there is currently little monitoring of glyphosate
in food, water or the wider environment. The FoE commissioned study is
the first time monitoring has been carried out across Europe for the
presence of the weed killer in human bodies.FoEEurope’s spokesperson Adrian Bebb argues thatthere is a serious lack of action by public authorities and indicates that this weed killer is being widely overused.
This
certainly needs to be addressed not least because the prediction
concerning increasing exposure to glyphosate is not without substance.
The introduction of Roundup Ready crops has already resulted in an
increase of glyphosate use. Using official US government data, Dr
Charles Benbrook, research professor at the Center for Sustaining
Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University, states
that since 1996 the glysophate rate of application per crop year has
tripled on cotton farms, doubled in the case of soybeans and risen 39
percent on corn (4). The average annual increase in the pounds of
glyphosate applied to cotton, soybeans, and corn has been 18.2 percent,
9.8 percent, and 4.3 percent, respectively, since herbicide tolerant
crops were introduced.
Glyphosate is used on many genetically
modified crops. 14 new GM crops designed to be cultivated with
glyphosate are currently waiting for approval to be grown in Europe.
Approval of these crops would inevitably lead to a further increase of
glysphosate spraying. In the US, biotech crops, including corn,
soybeans, canola and sugarbeets, are planted on millions of acres
annually.
Increasing Dangers
Evidence suggests that Roundup could be linked to a range of health
problems and diseases, including Parkinson’s, infertility and cancers,
according to a new peer-reviewed report, published recently in the
scientific journal Entropy (5). The study also concluded that residues
of glyphosate have been found in food.
These residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne
chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body
functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by
Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a science consultant. The study says
that negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over
time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.
In 2010, the provincial government of Chaco province
in Argentina issued a report on health statistics from the town La
Leonesa. The report showed that from 2000 to 2009, following the
expansion of genetically-modified soy and rice crops in the region (and
the use of glyphosate), the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa
and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire
province (6).
Professor Huber also notes the health risks associated with the
(increasing) use of glyphosate. He says a number of plant pathogens are
emerging, which when consumed could impact human health. Based on
research that he alludes to (he refuses to make his research public or
identify his fellow researchers, who he claims could suffer substantial
professional backlash from academic employers who received research
funding from the biotechnology industry), Huber notes that the use of
glyphosate changes the soil ecology, killing many bacteria, while giving
other bacteria a competitive advantage. This makes plants highly
susceptible to soil borne diseases. At the same time, glyphosate has a
negative effect on a number of beneficial soil organisms (7).
Huber’s concerns about the impact of long term use of glyphosate on
soil sterility are similar to concerns expressed by Elaine Ingham, a
soil ecologist with the Rodale Institute, and also research carried out
in by Navdanya in India (8).
As for GM crops, Huber says they have lower water use efficiency,
tend to be nutrient deficient, have increased bud and fruit abortion and
are predisposed to infectious diseases and insect damage. He suggests
that Roundup Ready crops, treated with glyphosate, have higher levels of
mycotoxins and lower nutrient levels than conventional crops.
“… you could say that what you’re doing with glyphosate
is you’re giving the plant a bad case of AIDS. You’ve shut down the
immune system or the defense system.” Professor Ron Huber (7)
He concludes that, when consumed, the GM crops were more likely to
cause disease, infertility, birth defects, cancer and allergic reactions
than conventional crops.
Huber claims that consumption of food or feed that was genetically
modified could bring the altered genes in contact with the microbes in
the guts of the livestock or people who eat them. He feels this
increases diseases, such as celiac disease, allergies, asthma, chronic
fatigue syndrome, diabetes, gluten intolerance, irritable bowel disease,
miscarriage, obesity and sudden infant death syndrome.
While none of these findings conclusively prove that plant (or
animal) diseases are caused by the glyphosate, Huber feels safety
evaluations have been inadequate, suggesting that previous (GM sector)
research was substandard and extremely misleading in its interpretation
of results – or worse.
With some hugely powerful players involved here, many of whom have
successfully infiltrated important government and official bodies (9),
much of the science and the ensuing debate surrounding glyphosate is
being manipulated and hijacked by vested interests for commercial gain.
“… publishing in this area can also be difficult. I know
from the International Symposium on Glyphosate that they had to find a
journal publisher outside this country (the US) to publish the research
data and symposium proceedings. It’s pretty hard to get it published in
the States. There are also some hazards to publishing if you’re a young
researcher doing research that runs counter to the current popular
concepts. A lot of research on safety of genetic engineering is done
outside of this country because it’s difficult to gain access to the
materials, or the statements you have to sign to have access to those
materials stating that you won’t publish without permission of the
supplier. I think the 26 entomologists who sent their letter to EPA in
2009 stated it aptly when they said that objective data wasn’t available
to the EPA because the materials haven’t been available to them or that
they’re denied the opportunity to publish their data.” Professor Ron
Huber (7)
Two men armed with knives and gun(s) apparently hack to death an off-duty soldier outside an army barracks in Woolwich, London. As the soldier lies dead or dying in the road, one of the alleged attackers approaches a man filming the scene on his mobile phone and makes a political speech about the British state’s role in killing Muslims in foreign countries.
According to the attacker, what he and his associate have just done basically represented pay back for the lives taken by British soldiers on behalf of the British government. The two alleged assailants do not flee the scene, but, with weapons still in hands, talk to passers by. The police arrive and both men are shot and wounded as they quickly approach a police car. Later on in the area, English Defence League (EDL) supporters hold a protest and express their usual anti-Islam sentiments. The EDL has had some success in garnering support in recent years by tapping into working class frustrations by using Islam as a proxy for the economic and financial woes impacting Britain.
On just another day in an ordinary district, a heady mix of class, empire and retribution left their marks on a London street. But what made this particular attack so stark was the brutal nature of the incident and that the alleged perpetrators made no attempt to escape. They took advantage of the situation to tell the world why the incident took place.
Over the last couple of days since the attack, there has been much debate over what happened and why it happened. A dominant narrative via the mainstream media has been that of two crazed men (at least one spoke with a London accent), possibly acting on their own, who had been indoctrinated or radicalised by strands of Islam.
Questions are being asked about what can be done to stop this type of thing happening again. The media, politicians and commentators have been quick to talk about preventing the radicalisation of Muslims living in Britain. All well and good.
When certain acts of terror have taken place in Britain in the past, however, senior politicians have denied any link to British foreign policy. This time, one of the alleged perpetrators in Woolwich is on video explicitly stating his reasons for his actions and linking them directly to foreign policy. It doesn’t justify the attack, but it certainly helps to explain the motives.
Most politicians and commentators have tended to avoid the foreign policy issue by focusing on the horrific nature of the attack and ‘crazed, indoctrinated people’ who carry out such deeds. It has at times all been understandably quite emotive. The fact that the dead soldier was said to be wearing a ‘hope for heroes’ t-shirt at the time has further fuelled the outpouring of national grief and anger. Hope for Heroes is a charity offering support to soldiers returning from conflict zones.
Politicians and the media have been quick to shape the debate over the incident by referring to it as an act of terrorism and by asking what could be done to stop such an act ever taking place again. Perhaps they should turn to Noam Chomsky for an answer. When once asked how to prevent terrorism, he replied “stop committing it.”
Chomsky’s views on The US and NATO’s role in committing acts of terror in and on other countries are well documented. Either overtly or covertly, the British government has been involved in the ‘war on terror’ or ‘humanitarian militarism’ across the Muslim world, from Libya, Syriaand Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the same time it has been a staunch supporter of brutal, undemocratic puppet dictators throughout West Asia.
The notion that terrorism is simply a predictable consequence of an interventionist foreign policy, the propping up of dictators and the embrace of empire is downplayed by the mainstream media. The dominiant political and media message is that British military involvement in West and Central Asia is necessary to prevent terrorism reaching its shores. Without a hint of hypocrisy on their part, politicians and commentators use incidents like Woolwich to say to the public – look, this is what happens if we do not keep vigilant and do not go into these countries to root out such people.
The media likes to compartmentalise issues. Focus on the Woolwich attack, not civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Focus on one of our lads who was butchered by a couple of maniacs, not on drone attacks that terrorise whole communities. Focus on protecting ‘freedom and democracy’, not Guauntanamo, Palestine or actions or support for regimes that have nothing to do with either. Do not connect any of the dots for a comprehensive analysis, but focus on specific incidents and emotive platitudes.
And anyone who criticises British foreign policy and linking it to Woolwich, while even condemning the attack there, is regarded with a degree of suspicion, is regarded as ‘unpatriotic’, as not supporting the troops – the brave heroes ‘out there’ thousands of miles away protecting our freedoms..
Of course, you will never hear any TV news channel or political debate in parliament bring up the Project for a New Americam Century (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1937.htm), a plan devised by US neo-cons and which sets out the underlying reasons for the West’s ongoing wars, destabilisations, covert operations, killings, murders, death squads and torture that have nothing to do with humanitarianism or ‘fighting terror’ and everything to do with securing world domination. No mention of it or Britain’s role in supporting it. Such things are not to be discussed.
Such things are beyond the scope of ‘rational political discourse’. We must keep to the ‘facts’ – the facts as designated by those who wish to bury the real facts at every available opportunity.
In the meantime, we must stick to the story about the proper way of preventing terror at home is by stopping the indoctrination or brain washing of young Muslims. Do not focus too much (if at all) on the Western-fueled barbarity and hacked to death bodies on blood stained streets in far away lands. Out of sight, out of mind, thanks largely to the media. Just who is being indoctrinated here? And who is to protect us from the real extremism?
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society
By Colin Todhunter
When attempting to analyse what is happening in the world, it is important to appreciate past economic, social and political processes that led us to where we are today. Understanding the tectonic plates of history that led certain countries towards fascism, communism or capitalist liberal democracy, for example, is essential (1) (2).
At the same time, however, it can become easy for us to push aside the individual as we focus on theoretical perspectives that refer to the ‘underlying logic of capitalism’ or some other notion that draws heavily on theory. It can get to the point where individual motive or intent (agency) is airbrushed from the narrative because human action is deemed to have been shaped by the dead weight of history or forces beyond our control.
While not wishing to understate the role that such constraints have on human action, I wish to draw attention to researcher Stefan Verstappen who provides valuable insight into how individual agency has shaped and continues to shape society (3).
While Machiavellianism has long been associated with politics and public conduct, Verstappen shifts focus somewhat by arguing that people with psychopathic personalities have for thousands of years tended to grasp power and impose their views and deeds on the rest of us. In order to get power, he concludes that people cheat, kill or lie their way to the top. Whether it has been due to the butchery or lies of royalty, religious leaders, politicians or corporate oligarchs, nice guys have tended to finish last.
What leads him to conclude this?
Psychopathy is a personality disorder identified by characteristics such as a lack of empathy and remorse, criminality, anti-social behaviour, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and a parasitic lifestyle (4).
With that definition in mind, look around: the criminal, parasitic activities by bankers that have plunged millions into poverty; the destruction, war and death brought to countries in order that corporations profit by stealing resources; the dropping of atom bombs on innocent civilians in 1945 or the use of depleted uranium which again impacts innocent civilians; and the many other acts, from the use of death squads to false flag terror, that have brought untold misery to countless others just because powerholders wanted to hold onto power or to gain more power, or the wealthy wanted to hold onto their wealth or gain even more.
Based on these terrible deeds, it becomes easy to argue that the people ultimately responsible for them do not adhere to the same values as ordinary people. It may be even easier to conclude that it’s not the cream that rises to the top, but, in many cases, the scum.
Now such a scenario might seem awful enough, but the people who tend to control the world, the ones responsible for these acts, try to impose their warped world view and twisted values on everyone else. Hollywood films, commercials and political ideology are all engaged in forwarding the belief that it’s a dog eat dog world, war and violence abroad is necessary, competition and not cooperative is what counts, aggression and not passivity is the key to ‘success’ and that success equates with amassing huge amounts of personal wealth and lavish displays of conspicuous consumption.
“A person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.” - definition of a psychopath from Dictionary.com
Again, bearing this definition in mind too, the acts mentioned above are not those of properly functioning social beings that contribute to a sense of communality, altruism, love or morality; quite the opposite in fact.
Yet this is the type of stuff that is rammed down our throats as constituting normality every day. Whether it’s the ‘Big Brother’ TV show or ‘The Apprentice’ show, these values are promoted day and night. The ‘Big Brother’ winner is the one who can survive and outdo the competition in terms of the duplicity and backstabbing involved along the way. The winner of ‘The Apprentice’ must be more aggressive, more duplicitous, more devious and cunning and more willing to trample over everyone else. And the winner is judged as such by a multi-millionaire who himself was cunning and ruthless enough to have made it to the top of the pile and has amassed millions for his own personal benefit. These are the role models to be admired and emulated!
These are the measures of success, of sanity, of normality.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
Apprentice competitors are highly driven individuals: not driven by a need to help humanity, but by egocentricity and greed. And, ultimately, these are the values that many mainstream opinion leaders, senior politicians and their corporate masters hold dear.
These values of egocentricity, aggression, competitiveness, duplicity and greed are not confined to some TV show. There are part of a much more sinister process. They are inextricably linked to and underpin the actions that resulted in the killing of half a million children in Iraq for geo-political gain (5) and the sending in of military forces into the jungles of India to beat, rape and dispose of a nation’s poorest people because they stand in the way of profit and greed (6). From Congo and Libya to Syria and beyond, we witness the outcome of a terrifying mindset that is nurtured and encouraged throughout society.
Too many people have become “well adjusted to the values of a profoundly sick society,” whether residing in middle England, middle America or the gated communities of south Delhi or Mumbai. Humanity is being beaten down to be neurotic, vicious and to regard these traits as constituting normal, acceptable behaviour. Thanks to the media, this becomes engrained from an early age as comprising ‘common sense’, and those who question it are merely sneered at or ridiculed by a system that promotes a mass mindset immune to its own lies.
Whether this is all due to psychopathy, narcissism or ‘Machiavellian personalities’ is open to debate. Moreover, as implied at the outset, historical and sociological factors often compel usually decent people to act in terrible ways. The debate within academic sociology between structure and human agency is after all a very long one (7). Whatever the underlying reason, however, as a global community we are being force fed a diet of perverse values and destructive actions, all spuriously justified on the basis that ‘there is no alternative’ and ‘needs must’.
Corporate capitalism, consumerism, the new world order, a war on terror (or drugs or poverty, take your pick), neo-liberalism – call it what you will, but it’s all based on the filthy lie that those in control have wider humanity’s interests at heart. They don’t. By any means possible – war, murder, torture or propaganda, they seek to convince people otherwise. What price human life? None whatsoever for such people.
Notes:
1) Robert Brenner (1976), “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe”.Past and Present
