Meet Monsanto's number one lobbyist: Barack Obama

Dear Readers,

I prefer not to post political topics on my blog, however I was shocked to read this news article and felt that it should be shared here. My blog primarily deals with health, food, vitamins, medicines, and toxins. If you have been a long time reader of this blog then you know that I am no proponent of GMO foods on any level. 

Peace & Wellness,

~Kymeth

During his 2008 campaign for president, Barack Obama transmitted signals that he understood the GMO issue. Several key anti-GMO activists were impressed. They thought Obama, once in the White House, would listen to their concerns and act on them.

These activists weren't just reading tea leaves. On the campaign trail, Obama said: "Let folks know when their food is genetically modified, because Americans have a right to know what they're buying."

Making the distinction between GMO and non-GMO was certainly an indication that Obama, unlike the FDA and USDA, saw there was an important line to draw in the sand.

Beyond that, Obama was promising a new era of transparency in government. He was adamant in promising that, if elected, his administration wouldn't do business in "the old way." He would be "responsive to people's needs."

Then came the reality.

After the election, and during Obama's term as president, people who had been working to label GMO food and warn the public of its huge dangers were shocked to the core. They saw Obama had been pulling a bait and switch.

The new president filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA:

At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center.

As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.

As commissioner of the USDA, Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack. Vilsack had set up a national group, the Governors' Biotechnology Partnership, and had been given a Governor of the Year Award by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto.

As the new Agriculture Trade Representative, who would push GMOs for export, Islam Siddiqui, a former Monsanto lobbyist.

As the new counsel for the USDA, Ramona Romero, who had been corporate counsel for another biotech giant, DuPont.

As the new head of the USAID, Rajiv Shah, who had preciously worked in key positions for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of GMO agriculture research.

We should also remember that Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, once worked for the Rose law firm. That firm was counsel to Monsanto.

Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court. Kagan, as federal solicitor general, had previously argued for Monsanto in the Monsanto v. Geertson seed case before the Supreme Court.

The deck was stacked. Obama hadn't simply made honest mistakes. Obama hadn't just failed to exercise proper oversight in selecting appointees. He wasn't just experiencing a failure of short-term memory. He was staking out territory on behalf of Monsanto and other GMO corporate giants.

And now let us look at what key Obama appointees have wrought for their true bosses. Let's see what GMO crops have walked through the open door of the Obama presidency.

Monsanto GMO alfalfa.

Monsanto GMO sugar beets.

Monsanto GMO Bt soybean.

Coming soon: Monsanto's GMO sweet corn.

Syngenta GMO corn for ethanol.

Syngenta GMO stacked corn.

Pioneer GMO soybean.

Syngenta GMO Bt cotton.

Bayer GMO cotton.

ATryn, an anti-clotting agent from the milk of transgenic goats.

A GMO papaya strain.

And perhaps, soon, genetically engineered salmon and apples.

This is an extraordinary parade. It, in fact, makes Barack Obama the most GMO-dedicated politician in America.

You don't attain that position through errors or oversights. Obama was, all along, a stealth operative on behalf of Monsanto, biotech, GMOs, and corporate control of the future of agriculture.

From this perspective, Michelle Obama's campaign for home gardens and clean nutritious food suddenly looks like a diversion, a cover story floated to obscure what her husband has actually been doing.

Nor does it seem coincidental that two of the Obama's biggest supporters, Bill Gates and George Soros, purchased 900,000 and 500,000 shares of Monsanto, respectively, in 2010.

Because this is an election season, people will say, "But what about Romney? Is he any better?" I see no indication that he is. The point, however, is that we are talking about a sitting president here, a president who presented himself, and was believed by many to be, an extraordinary departure from politics as usual.

Not only was that a wrong assessment, Obama was lying all along. He was, and he still is, Monsanto's man in Washington.

To those people who fight for GMO labeling, and against the decimation of the food supply and the destruction of human health, but still believe Obama is a beacon in bleak times:

Please wake up.

Sources:
http://redgreenandblue.org

http://www.motherjones.com

http://fooddemocracynow.org

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/genetically-engineered-foods/

http://news.yahoo.com

JonRappoport
The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.
www.nomorefakenews.com

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/037310_Barack_Obama_Monsanto_lobbyist.html#ixzz27c6gVOKG

Fukushima radiation now detected in the U.S. food supply

Note: The next time you open a can, or pouch, of tuna you should consider about where it came from readers.  Because, Japan’s radioactive fallout is in our Bluefin Tuna, this ultimately means it could be in ANY tuna...and seaweed which grew off the coast of Fukushima has been found loaded with radionuclides. Remember, that back in early April workers at the nuclear power plant started to dump as much as 3 million gallons of contaminated water directly into the ocean. We have no studies or evidence, currently, which show how much radioactive material the Nori (seaweed)  is able to pick up. So when one eats this food material the effects remain to be seen.

Bottomline:  Unless you want some radiactivity with with your tuna consider saying no to seaweed with your sushi.

~Ky

Scores of experts and analysts have feared for months that it would happen, and now it has: Radiation from the heavily damaged nuclear power plants at Japan's Fukushima complex has made it into the seafood chain off the coast of America.

Small amounts of cesium-137 and cesium-134, both radioactive elements released after a major earthquake-caused tsunami damaged at least three reactors at the site along Japan's northeastern coast in March 2011, have been found in at least 15 tuna that were recently caught off the coast of California, scientists have said.

The finding suggests that the fish may have carried the contamination across the Pacific Ocean faster than wind or water has been able to do, and months earlier than wind and water brought debris from the damaged nuclear plant across the ocean to the shores of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, said Reuters.

Researchers said that, so far, the levels of cesium found in the fish are not high enough to harm humans if consumed, according to data published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

'Not a large amount at all'

Daniel Madigan of Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station did not make a determination about the safety of the fish, though he did say the amounts of radiation detected in the tuna are far less than Japan's safety limit.

"I wouldn't tell anyone what's safe to eat or what's not safe to eat," Madigan told Reuters. "It's become clear that some people feel that any amount of radioactivity, in their minds, is bad and they'd like to avoid it. But compared to what's there naturally [...] and what's established as safety limits, it's not a large amount at all."

Madigan said researchers found higher levels of two radioactive isotopes of the cesium element, 137 - which was present in the eastern Pacific before the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi - and 134, which is caused only by manmade activities and wasn't present before the tsunami smashed into the plant.

Since cesium 134 only exists through human activity, such as nuclear power plants and the manufacture of nuclear weapons, Madigan's team figured the 134 they were measuring had to have come from Fukushima.

"There was about five times the background amount of cesium 137 in the bluefin tuna they tested, but that is still a tiny quantity, Madigan said: 5 becquerels instead of 1 becquerel (It takes 37 billion becquerels to equal 1 curie; for context, a pound of uranium-238 has 0.00015 curies of radioactivity, so one becquerel would be a truly miniscule proportion)," Reuters reported.

Not much contamination, but how much is too much?

Bluefin tuna only spawn in the western Pacific, off the coasts of the Philippines and Japan. The researchers believe that the elevated radioactive isotopes came from Fukushima because of the way the tuna migrate across the Pacific Ocean. As young fish, some of them tend to migrate off the coast of California, and then remain there as they grow.

Judging by the size of the tuna examined (about 15 pounds), researchers believe the fish left the waters off Japan about a month after the accident.

Most of the radiation from the damaged plant was released only for a few days in April 2011. Unlike some other compounds, radioactive cesium doesn't sink quickly but instead remains spread out from the ocean's surface to the seafloor. That means fish can swim through it and ingest it through their gills, researchers said, or by either taking in contaminated sea water or contaminated organisms.

Madigan said bluefin tuna off Japan's coast soon after the accident probably had much higher levels of cesium 134 present in their bodies, perhaps as much as 40-50 percent more than normal.

Still, the fact that any radioactive contamination has showed up off the nation's coastline at all should be cause of concern because, as Madigan himself noted, it's hard to say what levels of contamination in our food are ultimately dangerous enough to cause harm.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.reuters.com

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html

http://www.sfgate.com

Occupy organic vegetable gardens - Rebirth of the Victory garden

During World Wars I and II, private citizens were encouraged to plant Victory gardens in an effort to support the war effort and take the strain off the food industry, providing more food for citizens living at home. Little gardens popped up all over the country and they were called Victory gardens because people envisioned a victorious end to strife, sadness and hardship. Victory gardens in the U.S. produced a staggering 40% of the food supply. The Victory garden campaign resulted in 5 million gardens tended by over 20 million Americans, providing over $1.2 billion in food by the end of WWII.

Victory gardens were planted on every available plot of land -- whether postage-stamp sized or covering several acres. The gardening campaign took the country by storm, with people being empowered by raising their own fresh, organic (because there wasn't anything else back then) fruits and vegetables; coupled with the hope of victory over adversity and better times to come.

Recently, a renewed interest in creating organic home vegetable gardens has arisen in the U.S., especially with the advent of genetically modified (GM) seeds and foods taking over shelves in grocery stores across the country. Gardens of all kinds are sprouting and flourishing in containers, on backyard fences, on decks, pallets and even in the earth. Many of the new gardens are being grown with organic, heirloom seeds to avoid the suspicious pitfalls of GM seeds. Creative methods of watering and fertilizing complement new garden ideas.

What's all the excitement about? The concept of victory over adversity in an economy that has broken millions of citizens and torn apart age-old communities still straining with the burden of war, has again reared its hopeful head from under the trash heap of discarded junk food and processed packages of chemicals and crap.

Backyard gardens promise natural foods that fortify and nurture the body and the earth; along with the freedom to choose what to plant and what to eat -- offering a new version of an old way of living.

How to occupy your vegetable garden

How can you participate in this grassroots side of the occupy movement? Plant a garden! Even if you only have a small patio hanging 30 floors above street level in the middle of a smog-filled city, get a few containers and some good dirt and plant organic heirloom seeds to grow tomatoes and herbs.

Learn about companion planting for natural pest control. Companion planting not only helps manage insects and other bothersome critters; it's a platform for planting seeds that help each other grow stronger and increases overall yields.

Compost, compost, compost. Throw your garden and cooking leftovers (fruits and veggies only, please) in an organic, bio-degradable compost pile and make your own dirt.

Teach your kids how to garden and grow their own food so they don't have to be dependent on the corrupt system.

If you don't want to garden yourself, offer some of your property to your neighbors for a community garden. Help them buy supplies in trade for some of the bounty they grow on your land.

Learn about biodynamic gardening, organic composting, heirloom seeds, raised beds, vertical gardening, natural irrigation methods, rain water collection and ideal areas for planting and pasturing fruit trees.

It doesn't take much to plant seeds in your garden. It's your right to choose what you put on your dining table and in your mouth, Plant a Victory garden and occupy your vegetable patch with earthly delights -- big or small. Add real fruits and vegetables to your diet and put health back into your life.

Sources for this article include:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/victorygarden/

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/crops_02.html

http://www.victorygardeninitiative.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_movement

http://www.yesmagazine.org

About the author:
JB Bardot is trained in herbal medicine and homeopathy, and has a post graduate degree in holistic nutrition. Bardot cares for both people and animals, using alternative approaches to health care and lifestyle. You can find her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001364941208&ref=tn_tnmn or on Twitter at jbbardot23

Source:  http://www.naturalnews.com/035834_victory_garden_vegetables_war.html#ixzz1ubWZxzqJ

Local farms use human waste as fertilizer, renamed "biosolids"

NBC Philadelphia reports that local residents in Lehigh County, located in eastern Pennsylvania, have been raising an issue with local and state authorities about the use of "granulite," a type of sewage sludge fertilizer made from human waste, on nearby farm fields. The so-called fertilizer has reportedly contaminated groundwater and left a disgusting mess all around town.

"There's a huge difference between using fertilizer and using human feces that's been treated with different chemicals," said local resident Bill Schaffhouser to NBC Philadelphia. "This stuff will end up in the food and meat they eat, the milk they drink, this is a real issue."

By renaming human waste as "biosolids fertilizer," wastewater treatment facilities, public utilities and farm supply companies that sell them apparently think it is safe to apply to farm crops. But in Pennsylvania, residents see it as sewage sludge that is polluting their water supplies, yards, creeks, and neighborhoods.

Back in 2010, the Food Rights Network (FRN) conducted tests on "organic biosolids compost" that the city of San Francisco was distributing to local residents as natural fertilizer. The "compost" was made of sewage sludge, and was determined to contain "appreciable concentrations" of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants; triclosan, a toxic antibacterial agent; and nonylphenol detergent breakdown components; as well as other chemical (http://www.naturalnews.com/029504_o...).

Turning sewage sludge into "fertilizer" may help keep less waste from being dumped in other places, but now much of it is being dumped on the food supply. Human waste, of course, is far different from animal manure gathered on small-scale farms, and applied in small quantities to crops -- the former is a toxic biohazard, while the latter is how crops have been fertilized for centuries.

"It's on the streets, it's all through our neighbor's yard, and it's supposed to be regulated but who's regulating it?" asked Schaffhouser. "We've got the chemicals going into the ground, got human feces going into ground (sic) none of it's normal, none of it's natural."

Sources for this article include:

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...

by: Jonathan Benson, staff wrtier
 

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034546_biosolids_fertilizer_human_waste.html#ixzz1iPOOPT5Q

14 signs that the collapse of our modern world has already begun

Note: I do not agree with everything in this article, however there are some valid points and wish to post it here on the blog.

A lot of people believe the world as we know it is going to end on December 23, 2012. Nonsense, I say. The far more honest answer is that the end of the world as we know it has already begun. And it doesn't mean the end of the world; it means the closing of one era and the birth of a new one. It is a transition between the ages. This particular transition, however, promises to be the most tumultuous and costly transition humankind has ever seen.

But don't wait around for December 2012 to look for the signs. Here are 14 signs that the world as we know it is unraveling right now. We are living through the end of one era and the birth of a new one. In the future, they'll look back and call this all one moment in history, but when you're living through it, it seems to move forward at almost a snail's pace. But make no mistake: We are living through the opening chapters of the end of the world as we know it, and on the other side of all this will emerge a new world that's very different from the one we know today.

#1 - Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis - At first it seemed like a fluke; but now it's a pattern. The weather is becoming increasingly extreme. Over 120 tornadoes recently struck the U.S. Midwest. Texas is on fire and suffering through an extreme drought. And where there aren't fires and droughts, there are floods. This is only the beginning... watch for more freak weather over the next 18 months.

#2 - The silence of the bees - Colony Collapse Disorder continues to accelerate across North America. We already know it's being caused in part by chemical pesticides (and possibly worsened by GMOs), but the chemical industry is engaged in a full-on cover-up to deny this truth while the pollinators of our world suffer a devastating population collapse.

#3 - The failure of nuclear science - The Fukushima catastrophe proves one thing: Scientists are dangerously arrogant in their planning of large-scale projects, and they fail to account for the awesome power of Mother Nature. Nuclear science promised us clean, green energy -- but now it has delivered a silent, invisible poison that's infecting our planet.

#4 - The vicious pursuit of Wikileaks - In an age of such rampant deceit, there is no room for the truth. So those who tell the truth (Wikileaks) are viciously pursued as if they were criminals.

#5 - The rise of the medical police state - The armed SWAT raids on Maryanne Godboldo in Detroit are only the beginning (http://www.naturalnews.com/032091_M...). The truth is that the medical system uses guns to force its vaccines and chemotherapy onto children and teens across America. The medical system has become so utterly useless, corrupt and dangerous that it must actually invoke guns in peoples' faces just to "convince" people to take its medicine. This is a gunpoint-enforced medical monopoly that exists as a threat to our health and our freedoms.

#6 - The increasing frequency of food shortages and crop failures - Notice the spike in food prices? That's just the beginning: Food prices will continue to skyrocket in the years ahead due to extreme weather, the loss of pollinators and the global contamination of crops by GMOs. Real food is becoming increasingly scarce in our world. You might want to think about starting a home garden...

#7 - The runaway destruction of the world by energy companies - The radioactive fallout from Fukushima isn't the only way in which energy companies are destroying our world: Don't forget about the Deepwater Horizon and the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- a spill that isn't over, by the way. They're still spraying Corexit in the Gulf one year later!

#8 - The continued GMO contamination of our planet - This may be the worst chapter in the coming collapse: The widespread genetic pollution of our planet through GMOs. This is a crime against nature and against humanity. It is a "gene spill" that may never be contained as it spreads its deadly DNA across the world's food crops, leading to crop failures and starvation (http://www.naturalnews.com/032167_g...). The use of GMOs is the closest thing to "Satanic" that you'll find in modern agriculture. The agenda behind this is pure evil.

#9 - The tyranny and criminal crackdowns targeting real food (raw milk) - When you can't even sell honest farm food to your neighbors without being targeted and arrested by the cops, something is terribly wrong with the world. But this is happening today, all across America. Now the feds are even targeting the Amish! (http://www.naturalnews.com/029322_r...)

#10 - The escalation of the counterfeiting of the money supply - In a failed economic system approaching collapse, the moronic leaders can only think of "solutions" that actually accelerate their own downfall. The runaway counterfeiting of money by the Federal Reserve (with its "quantitative easing" and other counterfeit methods) is a classic sign that the end of our current system is fast approaching. The economic insanities are obvious to anyone who can still do math.

#11 - The plummeting intelligence of the masses - One of the most disturbing signs that we're already in the collapse is the great dumbing-down of the masses. The drooling, CNN-watching television zombies who dominate our landscape offer absolutely nothing of value to the world. They are the "mindless consumers" who get vaccinated, watch television and eat processed, pasteurized junk food. They're on psychiatric meds and believe everything the government tells them. Most of these people, of course, won't make it through the collapse.

#12 - The complete and utter fabrication of the mainstream news - Much of the mainstream news is now utterly and completely fabricated these days: The reporting on Obama's long-form birth certificate; the news about the war in Libya; the coverage of the economy and the U.S. debt... it's all so utterly false and unbelievable that an intelligent person watching the news can't help but explode with laughter. It is a sign of this collapse that the information sources relied upon by the masses are unable to report the truth anymore and must resort to weaving politically expedient fictions on everything from health care and medicine to the fate of the U.S. dollar itself.

#13 - The ongoing pharmaceutical pollution of our world - Beyond the GMO contamination and the radiation contamination of our world, we are also experiencing the mass pharmaceutical contamination of our planet. It's not just the pharma factories that dump their products into the rivers (http://www.naturalnews.com/025415_w...); it's also the fact that well over half the population is now taking drugs almost daily, and those drugs pass right through their bodies and end up in the water supply where they contaminate the fish (http://www.naturalnews.com/025933.html). Even beyond that, the drugs end up in the human sewage sludge that's packaged and sold as "organic soil!" (http://www.naturalnews.com/029504_o...)

#14 - The radioactive contamination of the global food supply - Here's one that's really insidious: The global food supply is now contaminated with the radioactive fallout from Fukushima. We're told the levels are "low," but we're not told the truth of how radioactive cesium isotopes persist in the food supply for centuries. How is the human race going to survive its exposure to CT scans, radioactive food, chest X-rays, TSA body scanners and even the secret DHS mobile X-ray vans that can penetrate your body with X-rays as you're walking into a football stadium? The total radiation burden on the human race is now reaching a point of mass infertility. That may be the whole idea, actually.

It's accelerating, too

December, 2012 may be a useful date as some sort of mid-point in the crisis, or perhaps as a trigger date for some further acceleration of society's rapid unraveling. But make no mistake: We are already living in the collapse of our modern world. And you have a front-row seat! (Exciting, huh...

Think about what's happening around you these days. These are the signs of the last, desperate clutches of a civilization built on utterly unsustainable practices that don't value life on our world. These are the End Times of the corporate oligarchy; the monopolistic for-profit corporation machine that destroyed everything in our world in exchange for a slightly higher quarterly earnings report.

In the quest for more money, humanity has sacrificed its food supply, its pollinators, it's oceans, forests and soils. Greed-driven humans have used other humans as medical experiments and cannon fodder. We have created wars to sell more bombs, and we've invented disease to sell psychiatric chemicals.

These are the practices of a failed civilization... and one whose days are numbered. Watching it all crumble is far more interesting than watching it continue its destructive ways, of course, because those of us paying attention realize a future civilization must rise up in the place of this one after the collapse.

Say goodbye to the false power of institutions

It would be nice if our future leaders remembered the importance of liberty and personal responsibility, of course. The answer to all the world's problems, it turns out, is freedom -- freedom in medicine, freedom in economics and freedom from government tyranny.

Because, let's face it: The root cause of most these problems that are bringing down our world right now is bad government. It is bad government (Big Government) that approved the GMOs. Bad government enforced the medical monopoly and allowed the pesticides to kill the honeybees. Bad government drove us into inescapable debt and costly foreign wars. Bad government outlawed health freedom and protected the monopolistic practices of the food companies, drug companies and chemical companies.

The downfall of modern human civilization is, as you probably guessed, also the downfall of the very idea that Big Government creates a better society. Because if there's one idea that needs to stay dead after the collapse, it's the idea that We the People somehow need another group of people (government workers) to live off our hard work while hounding us with their false authority, directing every little detail of our lives.

What we need in our world isn't more government, but more freedom. If we had freedom, integrity and personal responsibility, we wouldn't even be facing the global collapse that has already begun. But alas, the human race is an infant species and it must learn some lessons the hard way, it seems.

This lesson should be long remembered: If you let the corporations, the banks and the governments run your economies, your farms and your lives, they will enslave you and steal your future while you sleep; they will inject silent poisons into the very world around you until you awaken one day to find that all you created has been destroyed. They will promise you paradise but deliver only death. Beware of any entity that is not a living person -- no government, no institution, no corporation has a soul, nor a heart, nor a conscience. They are forces of organized destruction that decimate those things we hold dear while delivering to us things that will only enslave us or harm us.

Beware the corporation; the government; the non-profit institution working as a front group for private industry. Never allow yourself to be ruled over by any institution which exists only as a fictional construct organized from the projection of human greed.

And be ready for the acceleration of the collapse. Because if you are reading this, you are the future of the human race. You have a duty to stay alive, keep your genes intact, and be around to help create the Next Society after this one crumbles into history.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032258_economic_collapse_2012.html#ixzz1gULxszvf