How can, and why should, 2010 become the year of Great Awakening? Who should awaken and what would they awaken to, or from? The Great Awakening is about global warming. It is about genetic manipulation of nature and about seizing ownership of life resources by a select and rich minority. It is about a denial of responsibility for the subsequent consequences of these actions, which could result in the extinction of life as has been known on Earth. Mostly, it is about how these wrongs can be made right through a collective re-commitment.
Regardless if one has faith in a higher power or not, it is difficult to ignore how the environment affects life on Earth. Simply quenching one’s thirst with a glass of pure water, or inhaling a breath of clean air, done with thoughtfulness, reminds one of our body’s reliance on our environment. We expect our environment to be nurturing and not polluted or dangerous. Like all things of value, the environment must be protected. At the very least, environmental responsibility requires awareness and thoughtful care. Ideally, awareness and care would inspire activism on a broader spectrum.
For the millions of years Earth has existed, development and change has occurred slowly and methodically. Species have flourished and perished, due to genetic strengths or weaknesses and their relative biological adaptability. Humans, with brains developed to far greater extents than any other of Earth's creatures, share many characteristics with other species. However, they are, if not the strongest or most agile, the smartest and most successful of all. In synchronization with nature, man has prospered. Nature took great care of man, he reciprocated, and both thrived. The relationship, however, has changed.
In contrast, many of today’s humans, particularly those who believe they control everything within their reach, are reaching for and gathering even more than they need. They do this even at the peril of their own species as well as other creatures; and often contaminating the very food, water and air, their own lives depend upon. By ignoring nature’s rhythms, modern man is writing a new story, one of extinction, framed by denial.
While some are aware of their symbiotic relationship to the environment, others are too greedy for material wealth to realize the harm they do. Material wealth, hidden under a blanket of industrialization and production, is nothing more than the acquisition of food, water and air, the same essential elements needed by the single celled creatures that first inhabited the planet. Some people believe that fortune is something far fancier but in reality, it is not. Without food, water and air life, as we know it, cannot exist. Those three elements control all that lives.
A Great Awakening obliges humankind to be responsible for the protection of food, water, and air from unhealthy molecular manipulations and contaminations. It requires humankind to recognize the sovereignty of the life source, seed or egg, and not strive to patent it for private gain. Most of all, it calls humankind to commit its superior abilities to safeguarding the purity and health of life’s three most important elements so that they may be safely passed to the generations yet unborn. Finally, as a being that expresses belief in a greater power, a Great Awakening would compel humankind to share, and assure access to, safe, healthy food, water and air for all other life on planet Earth.
Happy New Year to all and to all a Great Awakening.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Biologics - Food for thought.
If we are what we eat, as the phrase goes, and we value good health, exercise, and making healthy food choices, would we knowingly ingest bacteria or viruses? Of course not. However, viruses and bacteria are used to genetically modify crop seeds, which are slowly invading America’s food supplies. The science is known as biologics. For the nonprofessional, because bacteria and viruses can effectively penetrate cell walls, they are used as elite limo services to transport foreign DNA, proteins, and other organisms into targeted cells. In the case of genetically engineered foods the target cells are those of corn, beans, tomatoes, cotton and a host of other foods.
Biologics is the science of ‘recombinant’, or artificial DNA. Monsanto controls the genetically engineered seed market as well as the herbicide and pesticide markets. Herbicides and pesticides are required when growing GM seeds. In fact, farmers are required to sign contracts that bind them to exclusively use Monsanto’s Round-up herbicide, when planting “Round-up Ready” GM seeds. It should be noted that Monsanto refuses to make public laboratory results involving glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-up, and its relationship to abnormalities in rats.
Monsanto purports that genetically modifying seed is harmless, that it increases yield and, therefore, profit and, that it could solve world hunger. They trivialize the affects of such alteration of food, at the cellular level, while actively fighting those who would establish labeling laws that specifically identify foods that include GM ingredients. Without adequate labeling, information about what food contains GM ingredients, tracking health reactions to such foods by public health officials, and avoidance by the public, is almost impossible. Simply put, If genetically modifying food is safe, why the concern about labeling? What is the biotech industry afraid of?
Since World War II, as each revolutionary chemical was introduced to the public insecticides (DDT), fire retardants (PBDEs ) , herbicides (Round-up), Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) , and the myriad of others, repeatedly, failure by the FDA to test and adequately protect the public from their harm has caused suffering and increased pollution of our environment. Environmental pollution has escalated to the extent that newborns, which have been harder and harder to conceive these days, are found to be pre-polluted at birth . They have in their tiny new blood streams, many of the chemicals found in the chemical soup of life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Many consumers believe that biologics should not be involved in food production. Nonetheless, Monsanto remains a driving force to advance genetically modified food. Since they have positioned themselves for the greatest profit, they are at the center of much of the controversy. As revealed in the movie ‘The Future of Food’ Monsanto pressures across multi levels of government agencies, businesses, farming, and the legal systems, both nationally and internationally, with a single goal of controlling the worlds food production from proprietary seeds and herbicides to pesticides. Even the laboratories of many U.S. Land Grant Universities have become extensions of the powerful biotech community. There have been suggestions that their strong financial influence have successfully forced professors, who disagree with their influence, to leave the programs. Former Monsanto executive and board member have infiltrated government agencies, charged with protecting the public interest, from the FDA, EPA, US Chamber of Commerce, even to the US Supreme Court.
An example of Monsanto’s power in congress is Senator Lugar of Indiana, who presents himself as an environmental and energy conscientious leader and has received Monsanto's financial support for most of his career. He works hard for Monsanto, as is evident on his web site that publishes many of his pro-GM speeches. The consistent message is his commitment to Monsanto and GM farming. On July 2, 2008, he addressed the American Enterprise Institute . Monsanto representatives were blatantly present in the audience and were acknowledged by Senator Lugar. It was an instance which exposed the shadowy figure below the surface of Lugar’s career, and exemplified the extent of comfort Monsanto enjoys in its powerful influence.
It has taken but a short time for the biotech industries to accomplish such broad influence through infiltration and they have had help from the exploding big-box grocers, such as Wal-Mart, where the greatest number of GM foods is sold. Consumers are lead to believe that cheap food is, somehow, comparable to quality food and competition for grocers who offer food with integrity and quality is difficult. That said, it does not even speak to the extent of environmental damage and the potential to diminish, if not destroy, the worlds agricultural biodiversity that genetic modification of food represents.
Food is the basic currency of powerful civilizations and ours must be safe, healthful and desired by all nations. We should heed the rest of the world, which has rejected U.S. genetically engineered products .
If we are what we eat, we must demand that our food is safe and healthy, and produced in such ways as to not destroy the environment. We must continually ask that our government agencies, like the FDA, EPA and others, charged with the responsibility of assuring food safety and quality, protect American consumer’s health and the American family farmers, not Monsanto’s, and other biotech corporation’s, bottom lines.
Biologics is the science of ‘recombinant’, or artificial DNA. Monsanto controls the genetically engineered seed market as well as the herbicide and pesticide markets. Herbicides and pesticides are required when growing GM seeds. In fact, farmers are required to sign contracts that bind them to exclusively use Monsanto’s Round-up herbicide, when planting “Round-up Ready” GM seeds. It should be noted that Monsanto refuses to make public laboratory results involving glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-up, and its relationship to abnormalities in rats.
Monsanto purports that genetically modifying seed is harmless, that it increases yield and, therefore, profit and, that it could solve world hunger. They trivialize the affects of such alteration of food, at the cellular level, while actively fighting those who would establish labeling laws that specifically identify foods that include GM ingredients. Without adequate labeling, information about what food contains GM ingredients, tracking health reactions to such foods by public health officials, and avoidance by the public, is almost impossible. Simply put, If genetically modifying food is safe, why the concern about labeling? What is the biotech industry afraid of?
Since World War II, as each revolutionary chemical was introduced to the public insecticides (DDT), fire retardants (PBDEs ) , herbicides (Round-up), Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) , and the myriad of others, repeatedly, failure by the FDA to test and adequately protect the public from their harm has caused suffering and increased pollution of our environment. Environmental pollution has escalated to the extent that newborns, which have been harder and harder to conceive these days, are found to be pre-polluted at birth . They have in their tiny new blood streams, many of the chemicals found in the chemical soup of life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Many consumers believe that biologics should not be involved in food production. Nonetheless, Monsanto remains a driving force to advance genetically modified food. Since they have positioned themselves for the greatest profit, they are at the center of much of the controversy. As revealed in the movie ‘The Future of Food’ Monsanto pressures across multi levels of government agencies, businesses, farming, and the legal systems, both nationally and internationally, with a single goal of controlling the worlds food production from proprietary seeds and herbicides to pesticides. Even the laboratories of many U.S. Land Grant Universities have become extensions of the powerful biotech community. There have been suggestions that their strong financial influence have successfully forced professors, who disagree with their influence, to leave the programs. Former Monsanto executive and board member have infiltrated government agencies, charged with protecting the public interest, from the FDA, EPA, US Chamber of Commerce, even to the US Supreme Court.
An example of Monsanto’s power in congress is Senator Lugar of Indiana, who presents himself as an environmental and energy conscientious leader and has received Monsanto's financial support for most of his career. He works hard for Monsanto, as is evident on his web site that publishes many of his pro-GM speeches. The consistent message is his commitment to Monsanto and GM farming. On July 2, 2008, he addressed the American Enterprise Institute . Monsanto representatives were blatantly present in the audience and were acknowledged by Senator Lugar. It was an instance which exposed the shadowy figure below the surface of Lugar’s career, and exemplified the extent of comfort Monsanto enjoys in its powerful influence.
It has taken but a short time for the biotech industries to accomplish such broad influence through infiltration and they have had help from the exploding big-box grocers, such as Wal-Mart, where the greatest number of GM foods is sold. Consumers are lead to believe that cheap food is, somehow, comparable to quality food and competition for grocers who offer food with integrity and quality is difficult. That said, it does not even speak to the extent of environmental damage and the potential to diminish, if not destroy, the worlds agricultural biodiversity that genetic modification of food represents.
Food is the basic currency of powerful civilizations and ours must be safe, healthful and desired by all nations. We should heed the rest of the world, which has rejected U.S. genetically engineered products .
If we are what we eat, we must demand that our food is safe and healthy, and produced in such ways as to not destroy the environment. We must continually ask that our government agencies, like the FDA, EPA and others, charged with the responsibility of assuring food safety and quality, protect American consumer’s health and the American family farmers, not Monsanto’s, and other biotech corporation’s, bottom lines.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Fix Food Industry - Fix Healthcare
There is a story about a village near a river. One day, a villager saw a baby floating down the river. He ran to save the baby, only to find another floating down the river. The villagers came to help, when another and yet another baby came. Soon, all the villagers were occupied with saving the babies that were floating down river toward their village. Nobody thought to look upstream to find out where the babies where coming from, or why.
Nobody doubts that healthcare in America needs reform. Medical practice inefficiencies, rising insurance costs, over priced drugs, and a lack of access to quality care for all, are the babies floating toward us. Politics exponentially adds to the problem. Meanwhile, Americans enslaved, if not crushed, by healthcare costs often fail to see the snake in this box of pain, which is a broken food industry.
While everyone wants the system fixed, nobody wants to pay for it. Everyone wants better healthcare; unfortunately, few care enough about how such a broken system affects their neighbors. Politicians fear loss of campaign funding, from corporations potentially affected by healthcare reform legislation, while they attempt to make their constituents believe that they are working for the people’s best interests.
A look upstream would reveal unique funding sources for healthcare reform as well as a remodeling of the broken food industry. Taxing processed foods, laced with corn syrup, salt, and unhealthy fats, could yield new revenue as it forces a change to healthier ingredients in the nation's diet. Concurrently, outdated farm subsudies could be shifted to encourage local production of organic fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products and to also support healthy school lunches.
By taxing corporate farm operations, those using genetically modified seed that rely on excessive use of pesticides and herbicides, healthcare reform would be funded and healthy farming practices encouraged. This could remedy the agricultural disaster perpetrated on America’s farmers when post WWII chemical producers, seeking new markets for the war’s chemical surpluses, fathered post war farming techniques that are destroying the land and life throughout America’s heartlands today.
By taxing feedlot operations, which use inhumane and unhealthy production methods for beef, pork and poultry, additional new revenue could be generated. Such meats, grown with excessive chemicals and drugs, create health issues, which drive the need for more healthcare services. This would be yet another win-win situation.
Such a remodeling of the food industry would cause America’s fast food giants, one of the unhealthiest sectors of the food industry, to raise prices. Thus, choosing unhealthy foods, and creating a drain on the American healthcare system, would be a more obvious and conscious decision. It would also help curb America's addiction to sugar, salt and fat that has caused American's to be the fattest people in the world.
These actions could strike at the heart of our health and healthcare issues if Washington could just stop drowning in politics and look upstream.
Nobody doubts that healthcare in America needs reform. Medical practice inefficiencies, rising insurance costs, over priced drugs, and a lack of access to quality care for all, are the babies floating toward us. Politics exponentially adds to the problem. Meanwhile, Americans enslaved, if not crushed, by healthcare costs often fail to see the snake in this box of pain, which is a broken food industry.
While everyone wants the system fixed, nobody wants to pay for it. Everyone wants better healthcare; unfortunately, few care enough about how such a broken system affects their neighbors. Politicians fear loss of campaign funding, from corporations potentially affected by healthcare reform legislation, while they attempt to make their constituents believe that they are working for the people’s best interests.
A look upstream would reveal unique funding sources for healthcare reform as well as a remodeling of the broken food industry. Taxing processed foods, laced with corn syrup, salt, and unhealthy fats, could yield new revenue as it forces a change to healthier ingredients in the nation's diet. Concurrently, outdated farm subsudies could be shifted to encourage local production of organic fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products and to also support healthy school lunches.
By taxing corporate farm operations, those using genetically modified seed that rely on excessive use of pesticides and herbicides, healthcare reform would be funded and healthy farming practices encouraged. This could remedy the agricultural disaster perpetrated on America’s farmers when post WWII chemical producers, seeking new markets for the war’s chemical surpluses, fathered post war farming techniques that are destroying the land and life throughout America’s heartlands today.
By taxing feedlot operations, which use inhumane and unhealthy production methods for beef, pork and poultry, additional new revenue could be generated. Such meats, grown with excessive chemicals and drugs, create health issues, which drive the need for more healthcare services. This would be yet another win-win situation.
Such a remodeling of the food industry would cause America’s fast food giants, one of the unhealthiest sectors of the food industry, to raise prices. Thus, choosing unhealthy foods, and creating a drain on the American healthcare system, would be a more obvious and conscious decision. It would also help curb America's addiction to sugar, salt and fat that has caused American's to be the fattest people in the world.
These actions could strike at the heart of our health and healthcare issues if Washington could just stop drowning in politics and look upstream.
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