March Against Monsanto - October 12th 2013

[chekov]

ye what kochari said^^

edit - fail

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

Most of the time GM foods are hugely beneficial. I know that sometimes it can seem un ethical to some people. But fuck that. I dont mind if i one day "have" to eat perfect meat and veg.
http://www.goldenrice.org/
These guys have bio engineered rice to contain vitamins for countries in africa where people eat a lot of rice but dont get enough nutrition.
Might not be as perfect as they say it is. but its a brilliant idea.

[SCope13]

I'm not necessarily against GM crops per se - I'm sure if they're done right and safely they can do amazing things, feed millions who would otherwise starve.
What I am against is allowing a company (and especially a company like Monsanto) absolute free reign to do what they want with untested technology, without telling us what it is they're doing.
Plus I think this march was an excellent opportunity to show those in charge that people do care about issues like these, that we do have opinions and those opinions should be listened to. That applies to more than just GM crops. It reaffirmed for me that if you feel strongly about something it is your responsibility to make your voice heard....I think a lot of people were empowered by this, at least consciously. And that's the first step towards positive and meaningful change, innit.

This. I wasn't trying to say I'm pro GM, I'm just skeptical as to whether they are detrimental to one's health. I think the problem with them is more ecological and how they affect bio-diversity, a problem that I definitely think needs to be taken very seriously and studied. So yeah I'm all for caution when using these things, and I absolutely despise Monsanto, I'm just not convinced they have negative health effects.

[nousd]

producers
without full testing
of PCBs, aspartane, Agent Orange etc.
bullies of small farmers
monopolizers of seed stocks
promoters of unsustainable monocultures
cavalierly dismissing concerns about local plants, insects & ecologies
and covering up any unfavourable research


this ain't no paranoid hippie drivel
this is a rampant multinational not giving a fuck about anything but profits
don't believe it possible?
like tobacco, asbestos, Mirena IUDs, coal seam gas, lead pipes, thalidomide, DTT, chlorofluorocarbons (etc.)?

their "concern" for feeding the poor is propaganda to lock developing countries into industrial agriculture
reliant on fossil fuels & their own petrochemical toxins

trust this company to have your best interests at heart?
your kids food supply?

don't believe me of course
but please, look a bit deeper...

[SCope13]

Yeah I'm in no way defending monsanto. One of the most psychotic corporations in the world. There's just no consensus that eating GMOs is necessarily bad for you. Completely agree with everything else guys are saying about monopolizing seed and bullying small farmers, trust me I argue this shit all the time with the idiot farm kids in my town that somehow think Monsanto is working in their best interest.

[magma]

bullies of small farmers
monopolizers of seed stocks

These are the two actually worrying bits. Their "copyright" policy on GM seeds needs settling as well as their fondness for trying to design crops that don't seed, so farmers struggle for long-term self-reliance which should be the cornerstone of farming. The seed is humanity's key to independence - DNA sequences are too powerful for people to own; all should be open source.

As for GM in general, it's the future and we won't support the sort of population that we want to without it. Talk of population decreases is about as fantastical as talk of World Peace - it's just not in humanity's nature to limit its breeding, so we need to be able to fill all these stomachs somehow. We've already been genetically modifying for millennia through selective and cross-breeding - just about everything that passed your lips today was GM in some way or another; just because it happens in a petri dish rather than a seed propagator these days doesn't make it any scarier to me... if anything, it should make eventual results more reliable.

[twilitez]

So more then 2 million people did this, and the media response?
A deafening wall of total silence..
Why am i not surprised.

[test_recordings]

We actually already produce enough food for at least 9 billion people, without proper management on a lot of it. We'd be best off sorting the supply system first, or just perpetuate the first-world monopoly.

[nousd]

As for GM in general, it's the future and we won't support the sort of population that we want to without it. Talk of population decreases is about as fantastical as talk of World Peace - it's just not in humanity's nature to limit its breeding, so we need to be able to fill all these stomachs somehow. We've already been genetically modifying for millennia through selective and cross-breeding - just about everything that passed your lips today was GM in some way or another; just because it happens in a petri dish rather than a seed propagator these days doesn't make it any scarier to me... if anything, it should make eventual results more reliable.

Apart from Testes Recording being right about there being enough food now, needing proper distribution,
I make a distinction between cross-breeding/hybridization
which could happen in the wild
and self-regulates for survival characteristics
& genetic modification with gene shears etc. which is an intervention as per radiation
possibly having unintended consequences that could proliferate before being detected
(not saying will but could)
so I'm inclined to be extra cautious & insist on thorough & open testing before exposing the world to them
which Monsanto has not & is not doing

e.g. French tests of long-term effects of Monsanto maize & herbicide Roundup on rats
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19654825
research which Monsanto either has not done or hasn't made public...

& again, that's the crunch: manipulating our food without full disclosure
on the pretext of patent protection of things imo should not be patentable.

[chekov]

So more then 2 million people did this, and the media response?
A deafening wall of total silence..
Why am i not surprised.

actually i posted a guardian article about it on the last page...

but ye other than that i haven't seen owt

[test_recordings]

That bbc article is just a quiet admission that there is basically NO long-term research on GM crops, and the little bit there is isn't exactly favourable. This stuff should be independently tested and approved based on the evidence. Not good =no approval, end of.

[d-T-r]

http://www.ir-d.dk/gmo-lose-europe-vict ... nisations/

GMO lose Europe – victory for environmental organisations

Monsanto will halt production of genetically modified corn in all of Europe, except Spain, Portugal and Czech republic. The agribusiness multinational states not to spend any more money on trials, development, marketing, court cases or anything else to get GM corn accepted in Europe.

--

corn is a start

[magma]

We actually already produce enough food for at least 9 billion people, without proper management on a lot of it. We'd be best off sorting the supply system first, or just perpetuate the first-world monopoly.

There will always be waste. Have you ever looked in your own bin at the end of a week? This isn't a modern society or first world problem, it's a human problem. You need to produce a LOT more food than the minimum in order to actually fill every mouth in the world. People have whims, food goes off, people buy luxuries they don't need. That's all part of living a happy human life. Only those faced with starvation are organised enough to not waste... in any other situation, the human has better shit to do with their time than count out their portions of mung beans.

I don't really understand why the "perfect" vision of the future so often leaves humans with incredibly hassled lives. Progress should be about raising the rest of the world up to the ability-to-waste of the western world, not for the western world to spend all it's spare time on making sure every last lentil is digested.

[Kochari]

Progress should be about raising the rest of the world up to the ability-to-waste of the western world

Obviously everything creates waste. But do you really think that our current level of waste is in any way sustainable?
Moreover, its not about you and I making sure "every last lentil gets digested". Its about making sure that supermarkets don't fill their bins to the brim with perfectly good food while millions starve. And I'm not just talking about in developing nations either (how would we get the food to them?). Think about the masses of homeless and below the poverty line people in the UK. Think of the enormous rise in food banks.
But if me doing my little bit of recycling helps, even in some small way, I don't mind doing it. I don't see why you would tbh, its not that much trouble is it?

"Be the change you want to see" and all that jazz.

[d-T-r]

We actually already produce enough food for at least 9 billion people, without proper management on a lot of it. We'd be best off sorting the supply system first, or just perpetuate the first-world monopoly.

There will always be waste. Have you ever looked in your own bin at the end of a week? This isn't a modern society or first world problem, it's a human problem. You need to produce a LOT more food than the minimum in order to actually fill every mouth in the world. People have whims, food goes off, people buy luxuries they don't need. That's all part of living a happy human life. Only those faced with starvation are organised enough to not waste... in any other situation, the human has better shit to do with their time than count out their portions of mung beans.

I don't really understand why the "perfect" vision of the future so often leaves humans with incredibly hassled lives. Progress should be about raising the rest of the world up to the ability-to-waste of the western world, not for the western world to spend all it's spare time on making sure every last lentil is digested.

"waste' only really applies to countries wealthy enough to actually waste. One man's waste is another man's meal and all that. Nothing complex about it, there's enough to go around.

Like you said though, it shouldn't soley be about producing more food and distributing it- but rather helping developing countries become self sustainable and actually encouraging their development without forcing them to become dependent or at often worst, indebted to those offering the initial booster 'aid'.

The human has better shit to do than ensure quality of life for those starving and less fortunate? I guess that all depends how you define "better" and who is the one benefiting from that.

It may also be unfair say that the "perfect" vision of the future has to be associated with a hassled life. It can easily and realistically be the opposite. It's all just down to the level of self-organization we're willing to commit to.

To elevate economic growth above the quality of biological life on earth no longer has the excuse of our ignorance to hide behind.

[d-T-r]

http://rt.com/op-edge/monsanto-gmo-ecology-profit-411/

Nice new consise interview from RT with 'Jeffrey M. Smith, GMO researcher from the Institute for Responsible Technology'

SS: Do you disagree with the use of GMOs on purely scientific, medical grounds, or do you also have moral qualms as well?

JS: I have no problem with the technology per se. I think it’s important to have the technology if we can correct a defective gene in a human being with human gene therapy – that’s great. But that’s a risk that one person will take. Right now we can’t predictably and safely manipulate the genes in the way we are doing to protect health and the environment. So, to release the products of this infant science, which is prone to side-effects into the food supply and moreover into the environment where the self-propagating pollution of the gene-pool trough pollen drift and seed movement makes it irreversible – that’s not responsible at this time. Maybe in 50 to 100 years, maybe at some point in the future when we fully understand the DNA enough to make these manipulations – then it would be responsible to introduce GMOs into the outdoors or food.

SS: The advocates of GM crops say that they can help us combat poverty, starvation and diseases in the developing world – is there any truth in these claims?

JS: Not according to the experts, just according to the PR of the biotech industry. The world’s experts at feeding the world and eradicating poverty actually have the report, called “I-Stat” sponsored by the UN and the World Health Organization – and it concludes that GMOs in their current form have nothing to offer in feeding the world or eradicating poverty. There has been a promise to get people to try and promote the technology, accept the technology, but it doesn’t in fact even increase average yield, it reduces yield on average, according to independent science.
GMOs give tangible benefits only if you put blinders on

SS: But Jeffrey, from your point of view – are there any tangible benefits at all from GMOs?

JS: If you put blinders on – then yes. You see, the most popular genetically modified crop is called “roundup ready.” It’s produced by Monsanto, and they produce roundup herbicides, so the roundup ready crops are able to drink or withstand applications of roundup herbicides, which would normally kill a plant. So from a narrow farmers perspective of weeding – it’s easy, because you can spray over the top of the crops, kill all other plant biodiversity, but not the roundup ready crops. What they don’t look at are the health dangers for those who eat the crops that now have the roundup absorbed into the food portion. They don’t look at the damage to the soil, the damage to the ecosystem, the promotion of plant diseases – more than 40 of them in the US are the result of the roundup. If you look at the big picture, the current generation fails. If you narrow yourself down to one particular attribute, you can sing the praises of this flawed technology.

S: Tell me the bigger picture, how did Monsanto get so big?

JS: Monsanto is the largest seed company in the world. Their background is quite controversial – they were continually voted the most hated and most unethical company on Earth for years and years, [even] with stiff competition. They lied about the toxicity of their former products – PCBs, Agent Orange and DDT – and they have unprecedented control around the world over regulatory bodies.

This is exemplified by the US Food and Drug Administration, where the policy on GMOs was overseen by Monsanto’s former attorney, Michael Taylor. And the policy falsely claims that the agency wasn’t aware of any information showing that GMOs were significantly different – therefore the FDA requires no safety studies and no labeling. They leave it up to Monsanto to determine if their foods are safe, and Monsanto doesn’t even have to tell the FDA or consumers if it wants to slip a GMO in our food supply.

Now, Michael Taylor – after overseeing this policy – became Monsanto’s vice-president and chief lobbyist. Now he’s back at the FDA as US Food Safety czar.

By the way the documents made public from a lawsuit revealed that the overwhelming consensus among the scientists working at the FDA was exactly the opposite of that exposed in the policy. The scientists said GMOs would be dangerous, could create allergies, toxins, and new diseases, and should be tested. Monsanto’s takeover essentially of the FDA has been replicated around the world, I’ve been in 37 countries and I’ve seen how they “capture” regulators, ministries, departments, etc., and once that happens, they discredit and dismiss any adverse findings about GMOs – they don’t even read the dossier. Unfortunately, it’s a rubber stamp situation around the world and if you trace it back, it comes down to them doing it, based on Monsanto’s own research. We’ve caught them red-handed, rigging their research to avoid finding problems, and covering up problems when they persist nonetheless.

[nousd]

went to Saturday's rally & became a marshall for march thru Sydney
not that many of us still...maybe 400
but the 5 organizers are very active & are having some influence
tho fb closed down their page

I carried a sign that said:

Paul's Milk
Parmalat
funded by the Mafia

Paul's Milk was a local company taken over by Italian transnational Parmalat
who've been in court in Italy over collusion with the Comora etal
Just yesterday it was reported that they'd paid a spin doctor to dish dirt on their biggest Oz competitor


I've noticed since Occupy & recent anti-budget protests here,
greater engagement beyond the "lunatic fringe"
(I see meself more as your perverse ducktail )
recently I've been going to protests in a footie jumper
so onlookers can relate.

Any one else participate yesterday?

[test_recordings]

Didn't see anything where I am but GMOs are sensibly banned so I don't think people care