The Constitution of the United States vs. the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The TPP must be stopped!

— submitted by Jim Howe*
January 19, 2014

The Constitution of the United States was written to limit and define the powers of the government of the United States. It divides that government into three (3) branches, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The Bill of Rights was added to further limit the powers of government. The Constitution could not have been adopted without the Bill of Rights. The Constitution begins with “We the People”. It is written in plain English, takes up all of four (4) pages, and can be easily understood by “We the People”. It, and the Bill of Rights, were written as a defense against tyrannical government.

This article will reference several sections of the Constitution that are inconvenient to supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). (The full text of the Constitution can be found here: http://constitutionus.com/)

Over time, powerful economic interests have leveraged their economic power to purchase law-makers, change laws, have corporations defined as people, and had money defined as speech. Now they want to give international corporations special status above the rights of people and beyond the control of governments.

Supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership recognized, over five (5) years ago, that it could not be ratified if its provisions were known to the American people. Under the Constitution, International Treaties must be negotiated with the “Advise and consent” of the Senate and ratified by a two thirds (2/3) majority of the Senate. (Article 2, section 2, paragraph 2)

Negotiations for the TPP have been conducted over the past five (5) years. Six hundred (600) corporate advisors have been present to give their “Advise and consent” throughout the negotiations. The text of the TPP has not been released. Congress has been denied the right to see the text. (Congressman Grayson was allowed to view some of the text, but not allowed to take notes or have members of his staff view the text.) What is known about the text is from leaks. Information about what is known about the TPP can be found here:http://www.exposethetpp.org/

Because the TPP is an International treaty, Countries ratifying the TPP must change their laws to conform to the provisions in the TPP. Article 6, paragraph 2 provides for treaties taking precedence over state constitutions and state laws, and that the Constitution, U. S. laws, and treaties “Shall be the supreme law of the land. “ Therefore, if a treaty is ratified, laws have to be changed to comply with the treaty.

Economic gains for the U.S. adopting the TPP are projected to be 00.13 percent. ) That’s right 13 one-hundredths of 1% (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/net-effect-of-the-tpp-on-us-wages) If that increase in economic activity were distributed equally, and it won’t be, a person earning wages of $600.00/week would gain 78 cents/week. That 78 cents/week would be offset by higher prescription costs, loss of internet freedoms, export of jobs, and degraded environmental standards.

Read the entire article here:

The Constitution of the United States vs. the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Climate change the state of the science (data visualization)

USGS Release: Widely Used Herbicide Commonly Found in Rain and Streams in the Mississippi River Basin

From the files of the USGS.gov web site: It's raining Roundup Herbicide!

Glyphosate, also known by its tradename Roundup, is commonly found in rain and rivers in agricultural areas in the Mississippi River watershed, according to two new USGS studies released this month. 

Glyphosate is used in almost all agricultural and urban areas of the United States. The greatest glyphosate use is in the Mississippi River basin, where most applications are for weed control on genetically-modified corn, soybeans and cotton. Overall, agricultural use of glyphosate has increased from less than 11,000 tons in 1992 to more than 88,000 tons in 2007. 

"Though glyphosate is the mostly widely used herbicide in the world, we know very little about its long term effects to the environment," says Paul Capel, USGS chemist and an author on this study. "This study is one of the first to document the consistent occurrence of this chemical in streams, rain and air throughout the growing season. This is crucial information for understanding where management efforts for this chemical would best be focused."

In these studies, Glyphosate was frequently detected in surface waters, rain and air in areas where it is heavily used in the basin. The consistent occurrence of glyphosate in streams and air indicates its transport from its point of use into the broader environment.  

Additionally, glyphosate persists in streams throughout the growing season in Iowa and Mississippi, but is generally not observed during other times of the year.  The degradation product of glyphosate, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), which has a longer environmental lifetime, was also frequently detected in streams and rain.

Detailed results of this glyphosate research are available in "Occurrence and fate of the herbicide glyphosate and its degradate aminomethylphosphonic acid in the atmosphere," published in volume 30 of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and in "Fate and transport of glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid in surface waters of agricultural basins," published online in Pest Management Science. Copies of the reports are available from the journals or from Paul Capel (capel@usgs.gov).

Research on the transport of glyphosate was conducted as part of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program. The NAWQA program provides an understanding of water-quality conditions, whether conditions are getting better or worse over time, and how natural features and human activities affect those conditions. Additional information on the NAWQA program can be found online.

USGS Release: Widely Used Herbicide Commonly Found in Rain and Streams in the Mississippi River Basin

Concerned about your food? Don't panic, go organic!

Protecting Organic Seed Integrity: The Organic Farmer’s Handbook to GE Avoidance and Testing | OSGATA

Why Protect Organic Seed?
The organic seed industry is at the same time especially vulnerable to transgenic contamination and also a crucial link to reducing contamination. Organic seed, which by definition is free of genetically engineered (GE) contaminates, is the foundation of organic agriculture. Organic crops grown with contaminated seed will inevitably yield a contaminated crop. GE contamination, however trace, is unacceptable.

Compromised organic seed integrity has broad-reaching impacts on the viability of organic farms and the credibility of organic products. Organic farmers also risk the threat of patent litigation in the face of contamination. In order to limit GE presence in organic seed, growers need to become educated about best practices for contamination avoidance.
Ensuring the Integrity of Organic.
The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association has produced a manual, entitled Protecting Organic Seed Integrity: The Organic Farmer’s Handbook to GE Avoidance and Testing, to serve as a one-stop tool to help farmers, as well as seed handlers and seed companies, maintain genetic purity in organic seed, as well as organic food crops.

It offers pertinent guidance on seed contamination avoidance and testing protocols for the following at-risk crops (those with USDA-approved GE counterparts which are currently in commercial production): corn, soy, cotton, alfalfa, papaya, canola (Brassica rapa), sugarbeet, and squash (Cucurbita pepo).

The recommendations have been synthesized through an assessment of international literature, as well as solicited input from organic farmers, seed company professionals, and seed breeders familiar with isolation and purity concerns, along with implementation constraints in the field.

Resources for Organic Farmers.
The following resources are available as free electronic downloads. Please consider making a donation to OSGATA to ensure that we can continue offering resources to the organic seed community free of charge.



Protecting Organic Seed Integrity: The Organic Farmer’s Handbook to GE Avoidance and Testing.



Protecting Organic Seed Integrity: The Organic Farmer’s Handbook to GE Avoidance and Testing | OSGATA

The Littlest Boy. Or how to strap a nuclear weapon on your back and go to war.

You have to read this one. Training soldiers to carry back pack nuclear weapons right to the battle field. The height of insanity. We can't trust our government to do the right thing. We need more oversight, not more NSA spying on innocent civilians.



Entire article here:

The Littlest Boy

Organic Food vs. Conventional: What the Slate Article Missed | Inspired Bites

Yesterday’s article out of Slate telling parents not to worry about pesticides caused quite a stir.

It runs completely counter to the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the President’s Cancer Panel which urges parents to avoid exposing their children to these chemicals when and wherever they can.

How pervasive have these chemicals become?  Seeds are now produced using methyl bromide. Corn seed is still coated in neonicotinoids and still uses atrazine. Soy still uses diflubenzuron  and methomyl.  Do we have the studies to show that these chemical in combination are safe for children?  What is the compound toxicity of this on the developing digestive tract and immune system of a child?

A study published in Pediatrics found that the risk of having ADHD increases in children who have higher concentrations of dialkyl phosphate metabolites. The metabolites indicate exposure to organophosphates, pesticides that affect the nervous system, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

This is a controversy to serious to ignore.  On top of the concerns shared in the journal,Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control now reports that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in American kids under the age of 15.  1 in 2 men are expected to get it in their lifetime, along with 1 in 3 women.  Correlation is not causation, but in light of the combination of chemicals being used on and in our food supply, it merits investigation.

The author of the Slate piece, while feeding her own young children organic produce, free from synthetic pesticides, argued that organic foods may not be much healthier or more nutritious than their conventional counterparts.  The title of the piece is”Organic Schmorganic”, and it caused quite a stir.

A deeper investigation into pesticides reveals a few things that were not highlighted in the coverage.

While scientists out of Stanford recently analyzed vitamins and minerals, suggesting little variation between foods produced organically and those produced conventionally using a chemically-intensive agricultural system, food isn’t simply a delivery device for vitamins and minerals alone.

We are quickly learning in this industrialized food era that our food can be full of a lot of other things.  It has become a delivery device for artificial colors, additives, preservatives, added growth hormomes, antibiotics, pesticides, insecticides and so much more.

The term “organic” actually refers to the way agricultural products are grown and processed and legally details the permitted use (or not) of certain ingredients in these foods.

The details are that the U.S. Congress adopted the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990 as part of the 1990 Farm Bill which was then followed with the National Organic Program final rule published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The standards include a national list of approved synthetic and prohibited non-synthetic substances for organic production which means that organically produced foods also must be produced without the use of:

• antibiotics
• artificial growth hormones
• high fructose corn syrup
• artificial dyes (made from coal tar and petrochemicals)
• artificial sweeteners
• synthetically created chemical pesticide and fertilizers
• genetically engineered proteins and ingredients
• sewage sludge
• irradiation

Read entire article here:

Organic Food vs. Conventional: What the Slate Article Missed | Inspired Bites

Farmed and Dangerous Official Trailer

Frankenmosquitos

Exposing the TPP

"Our Food Is Dishonestly Priced": Michael Pollan on the Food Movement's Next Goal of Justice for Food Workers

Industry plays up the image of the food snob to keep us divided, but the stereotype hides a much more diverse and savvy movement, says best-selling author and food activist Michael Pollan.

Take a stroll through most grocery stores, and many of the products claim to be organically grown or locally sourced. The foodie movement has swept America in the last decade, thanks in no small part to the work of journalists and intellectuals who have championed the cause online, in print and on the airwaves.

Michael Pollan is inarguably one of the most influential of these figures. Pollan is most famous for his books, especially In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (2008) and The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006). He also contributes regularly to publications such as the New York Times Magazine, where his work has received numerous awards, and is a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. 

As organic, locally grown food has emerged as a cultural and economic counterforce to industrialized agriculture, critics have claimed it is elitist and accessible only to those with the resources to pay more for their nourishment. Pollan and his allies have responded, in part, by drawing the public's attention to the low-wage workers who work in the field, behind the counter, and in the kitchen. In recent years Pollan has supported the efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an organization dedicated to improving working conditions and wages for tomato pickers' in Florida; in December 2013 he sided with fast food strikers and their demand for a $15 dollar per hour wage. In an email missive for MoveOn.org (received by 8 million subscribers), Pollan wrote: "If we are ever to . . . produce food sustainably and justly and sell it at an honest price, we will first have to pay people a living wage so that they can afford to buy it." In his words, fair wages must be part of the push to democratize food.

Entire article here:

"Our Food Is Dishonestly Priced": Michael Pollan on the Food Movement's Next Goal of Justice for Food Workers

Want to Avoid GMOs? Look for This Label | Maria's Farm Country Kitchen

What do Cheerios and apples have in common? They are the latest and very public battlegrounds for the GMO debate. But these two mainstays of American childhood nutrition are headed in opposite directions: While the Arctic apple, genetically modified to not brown when it’s cut, is all but set to be approved for production; original Cheerios is now GMO free. And while the general public is wholeheartedly in support of knowing what is in its food, shoppers are still confused as to what all the labels really mean.

Now some of the very groups who dumped millions into defeating state GMO labeling laws across the country have changed tack and are pushing for a national GMO labeling law; one that requires labels only on GMOs “proved” to cause health problems. The problem? Patents and “intellectual property” laws not only severely restrict how GMOs can be researched, but also have provided an easy way for the companies to discredit study results they don’t like.

While food and seed giants figure out how to take the teeth out of GMO labeling laws before they even happen, there is good news for the more than 90 percent of American consumers who want to know whether or not something contains GMOs: We already have a label.

Certified-organic farmers and food producers can’t use GMOs. Ever. And there are strict regulations in place for certified-organic producers to avoid GMO contamination, including testing. As Melody Meyer, vice president of policy and industry relations at United Natural Foods, Inc., and a Rodale Institute business member, explained recently, “In November 2012, the NOP clarified through formal rule making that testing for prohibited residues in organic products, including GMOs, MUST occur periodically (on an annual basis), and that certifiers must investigate and issue noncompliance notices accordingly to organic operations that fail to meet the requirement.”

Entire article here:

Want to Avoid GMOs? Look for This Label | Maria's Farm Country Kitchen

New Hawai’i Bills Seek to Undermine Kauai and Big Island’s GMO Regulatory Laws | Latest News | Earth Island Journal | Earth Island Institute

Big Ag and their big money is out to take away home rule and let the continued poisoning of paradise. Once again we must fight to protect the land from biotech hooligans that test their newest chemicals without oversight. We had to sue and pass legislation just to get the giant chemical companies to tell us WHAT they were spraying next to schools! Now all that could be undone by preemptive laws from the state. We will not bow to our corporate masters! The new "plantation" owners will not win this one, we will fight to protect what we love.

New Hawai’i Bills Seek to Undermine Kauai and Big Island’s GMO Regulatory Laws | Latest News | Earth Island Journal | Earth Island Institute

Monsanto’s Bt-Toxins Found to Kill Human Embryo Cells ~ RiseEarth

Many individuals have heard it a million times, but for the uninformed, or those just looking to fuel their 2014 fire to finally defeat Monsanto and their cronies, you’ll be interested to know that Monsanto’s Bt-toxin is far from ‘safe’ as the chemical company claimed it would be when filing their papers with the FDA. New research from Canada show that BT toxins are showing up in pregnant women, and low and behold – they are killing human embryo cells. 2014 is the year of the horse, but we’re not through beating this one to death. 

It’s called reproductive toxicology, and just like their suicide seeds, these Bt toxins are starting to kill our own unborn children. This is no exaggeration. Hopefully reading further will compel you to take action. It is time to put Monsanto to rest, bankrupt them, and let the world know their ‘secrets’ near and far. 

Bt toxins are prominent in genetically altered crops such as corn, soy, wheat, and others, called Cry1Ab – and they can be lethal. Not only do these cry-toxins target the kidney cells of developing human fetuses, but when Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac are combined with RoundUp, they can delay apoptosis of human cancer cells. What’s worse, glyphosate, the main ingredient in RoundUp, also causes necrosis – i.e. the death of human tissue, and this happens even when the substance is found in much smaller amounts than what is currently being used on our agricultural crops. The stuff is still carcinogenic in the parts per trillion range. 
Read entire article here:

Monsanto’s Bt-Toxins Found to Kill Human Embryo Cells ~ RiseEarth

Japan Remains Hotbed of TPP Protest as U.S. Tries to Fast-Track Trade Deal, Crush Environmental Laws

Japan has been a hotbed of protest against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would establish a free-trade zone stretching from Japan to the United States to Chile, and encompass nearly 40 percent of the global economy. Now, new documents released by WikiLeaks show the White House may be ready to backtrack on a series of critical regulations in order to secure a deal on the trade pact, including legally binding requirements for pollution limits, logging standards, and a ban on the harvesting of shark fins. The draft version of the "environmental chapter" also reveals that the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations that are party to the TPP would rely on trade sanctions instead of fines if a country violates its obligations. The Sierra Club responded to the latest news saying that if the draft report were to be finalized, "President Obama’s environmental trade record would be worse than George W. Bush’s." Meanwhile, hearings begin today in Congress on legislation to establish fast-track authority that would allow Obama to sign the TPP before Congress votes on it. Broadcasting from Tokyo, we’re joined by Nobuhiko Suto, a former member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in Japan’s House of Representatives, where he was among the first legislators to point out the dangers of the TPP. He is the secretary-general of the group, Citizen’s Congress for Opposing the Transpacific Partnership. We’re also joined on the phone by Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch based in Washington, D.C.

Is Organic Really Better?

By Robyn O’Brien

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently weighed in for the first time on organic food, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that feeding kids organic fruits and veggies and organic meat just might reduce the risks of certain conditions and diseases and have some health benefits.

The President’s Cancer Panel also sounded alarm bells about chemicals and cancer, encouraging us to eat organic when we can, to reduce our exposure to pesticides and other additives being applied to our foods.

This is something I certainly didn’t do when my kids were younger, reflecting on all of the tubes of blue yogurt and packages of processed foods I’d served up.

When I first heard the term “organic” several years ago, I dismissed it. It connoted a “status” and conjured up two different images: lifestyles of the rich and famous or perhaps some alternative, hippie thing.

I was wrong.

The term “organic” actually refers to the way agricultural products are grown and produced. It legally details the permitted use (or not) of certain ingredients in these foods.  When I first learned about it, I thought it was a marketing tool.

The legal details are that the U.S. Congress adopted the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990 as part of the 1990 Farm Bill which was then followed with the National Organic Program final rule published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The standards include a national list of approved synthetic and prohibited non-synthetic substances for organic production which means that organically produced foods also must be produced without the use of:

• • antibiotics
• • artificial growth hormones
• • high fructose corn syrup
• • artificial dyes (made from coal tar and petrochemicals)
• • artificial sweeteners derived from chemicals
• • synthetically created chemical pesticide and fertilizers
• • genetically engineered proteins and ingredients
• • sewage sludge
• • irradiation

Wow, who knew that conventional, non-organic food could contain these ingredients?  Not many of us, since sewage sludge and artificial growth hormones aren’t on the label.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.foodrevolution.org/blog/is-organic-better/

Pharmaceutical CEO: Cancer Drug Is Only For Westerners Who Can Afford It

The gap between the haves and have nots is widening when it comes to basic human rights and needs.

In 2005, the FDA granted approval for a promising new cancer-fighting drug called Nexavar. Bayer took it to market shortly thereafter, and it is currently an approved treatment for late-stage kidney and liver cancer.

That is, so long as you live in the developed world. In a recently published interview in Bloomberg Businessweek, Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers said that his company’s drug isn’t for poor people.

“We did not develop this medicine for Indians…we developed it for western patients who can afford it,” he said back in December. The quote is quickly making its way across Indian news outlets.

The comment was in response to a decision by an Indian patent court that granted a compulsory license to a local company to reproduce Bayer’s drug. Under Indian patent laws, if a product is not available locally at a reasonable cost, other companies may apply for licenses to reproduce those products at a more affordable price. Nexavar costs an estimated $69,000 for a full year of treatment in India, 41 times the country’s annual per capita income.

In 2012, Indian pharmaceutical company Natco Pharma Ltd. applied for just such a license, and it was granted. The company began reproducing the drug at a 97 percent discount, offering it for just $177. Bayer has been appealing the ruling ever since, and in December Dekkers told Businessweek that he viewed the compulsory license as “essentially theft” before dismissing poor Indian cancer patients.

Read entire article here:

Pharmaceutical CEO: Cancer Drug Is Only For Westerners Who Can Afford It | ThinkProgress

What do you know about GMO?

Have you had trouble explaining GMOs to friends or family? Here is a quiz you can send them that will help enlighten them.

Quiz Brought to you by The Christian Science Monitor.

GM Food Quiz 

Keauhou Kona Farmers Market

His Holiness the Dalai Lama's New Year's Message for 2014

Mo' Fresh. Mo' Betta.™

Presidential Candidate Roseanne Barr Debates the Legalization of Pot on ...

Really, America, get a grip and legalize, marijuana, and hemp.

256 Year Old Chinese Herbalist Li Ching-Yuen, Holistic Medicine, and 15 Character Traits That Cause Diseases

It does not matter if this is true or not. For what he promotes will make you feel good today, and today is the only day we really have.

256 Year Old Chinese Herbalist Li Ching-Yuen, Holistic Medicine, and 15 Character Traits That Cause Diseases

Sunrise at Kona Hawk Farm

Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes

Finally, science is catching up with the old adage, "You become what you think about."

With evidence growing that training the mind or inducing certain modes of consciousness can have positive health effects, researchers have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body. A new study by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of intensive mindfulness practice.

The study investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.

The study was published in the Journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Read more:
Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your GenesTunedBody

Cheerios Goes Non-GMO | GMO InsideGMO Inside

Now this is some amazing news to start the new year! Cheerios goes Non-GMO!

Less than 48 hours into the New Year, and there’s big news to share. There’s no more GMOs in Cheerios.  On a new page launched over the holiday, General Mills announced that they no longer use genetically modified ingredients in original Cheerios.

“It’s the unique and simple nature of original Cheerios that made this possible – and even that required significant investment over nearly a year. Cheerios’ principal ingredient has always been whole grain oats, and there are no GMO oats.  We use just a small amount of corn starch in cooking, and just one gram of sugar per serving for taste.  So we were able to change how we source and handle ingredients to ensure that the corn starch for original Cheerios comes only from non-GMO corn, and our sugar is only non-GMO pure cane sugar. ”

It’s no coincidence that General Mills began investing in non-GMO Cheerios when it did. 

When GMO Inside began in November 2012, we chose General Mills as our first target for using genetically modified ingredients in Cheerios. Last year, when General Mills launched a customer feedback Facebook app, GMO Insiders promptly flooded the page, causing the whole project to shut down.

Read entire article here:

Cheerios Goes Non-GMO | GMO InsideGMO Inside

Mo' Fresh. Mo' Betta.™

Argentine Protesters vs Monsanto: “The Monster is Right on Top of Us” - Inter Press Service

MALVINAS ARGENTINAS, Córdoba, Argentina , Dec 2 2013 (IPS) - The people of this working-class suburb of Córdoba in Argentina’s central farming belt stoically put up with the spraying of the weed-killer glyphosate on the fields surrounding their neighbourhood. But the last straw was when U.S. biotech giant Monsanto showed up to build a seed plant.

The creator of glyphosate, whose trademark is Roundup, and one of the world’s leading producers of genetically modified seeds, Monsanto is building one of its biggest plants to process transgenic corn seed in Malvinas Argentinas, this poor community of 15,000 people 17 km east of the capital of the province of Córdoba.

The plant was to begin operating in March 2014. But construction work was brought to a halt in October by protests and legal action by local residents, who have been blocking the entrance to the site since Sept. 18.

On the morning of Saturday Nov. 30, troops arrived at the plant, as seen in this video posted on Facebook, and escorted several trucks out of the construction site. The trucks had forced their way past the roadblock on Thursday Nov. 28, when members of the construction union stormed into the camp set up by local residents, with the aim of breaking the blockade. More than 20 people were injured in the clash.

The protesters don’t like to describe themselves as environmentalists, and do not identify with any specific political party. Most of them are women.

In Malvinas Argentinas, one of the poorest districts in the province, everyone knows someone with respiratory problems or allergic reactions that coincide with the spraying of fields around Córdoba, one of the biggest producers of transgenic soy in this South American country, which is the world’s third largest producer of soy.

Doctors have also reported a rise in cases of cancer and birth defects.

But the final stroke was Monsanto’s plans for a local seed plant.

“I’m participating because I’m afraid of illness and death,” María Torres, a local resident, told Tierramérica*. “My son is already sick, and if Monsanto comes things will get worse,” she added, in the midst of a protest that this reporter accompanied in mid-November.

Her 13-year-old son was at home, with sinusitis and a nosebleed. “In Malvinas, a lot of people have the same symptoms,” she said.

Read entire article here:

Argentine Protesters vs Monsanto: “The Monster is Right on Top of Us” - Inter Press Service

It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them.
Noam Chomsky 

Sustainable Resolutions for Your Diet - NYTimes.com

Sustainable Resolutions for Your Diet - NYTimes.com

Trans Pacific Partnership Protest Interrupts Nancy Pelosi Event

Trans Pacific Partnership protesters caused a bit of a disturbance at a gathering hosted by Nancy Pelosi. The House Minority Leader initiated the event in order to commemorate the first ever White House “Status of Women” report. A group comprised primarily of college student activists urged Pelosi to vote against the trade deal which some are calling a “NAFTA on steroids” move.

The potential deal between the United States and Pacific Rim nations has been so closely guarded that Congress has reportedly been able to garner only a few details about the agreement.The free trade deal negotiations memos recently leaked to the media have swanned alarm among economists, labor unions, and environmental groups. The TPP involves 12 different nations and could give “radical new political powers” to international corporations, restrict banking regulations, and drive up the cost of prescription medicines, if predictions by opponents are accurate.

The Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TPIP) and the Trans Pacific Partnership would allegedly force the United States to “harmonize” food safety standards. Americans who are concerned that the USDA, FDA, and EPA agencies are not protecting the safety and integrity of our food supply and too eager to allow GMO production to move forward unchecked, and counted among those deeply concerned about the emerging partnership.

All of the countries which sign onto the trade agreement would have their food safety standards respected when exporting products. The Obama administration is reportedly using the Fast Track procedure to reroute the process around Congress and removing the possibility of the addition of amendments to the trade agreement. Fast Track was a process created during the the Nixon administration. The process essentially negates the powers of Congress.

Congress has reportedly been left out of the process and the governing body is not involved in the negotiations between the Obama administration and Trans Pacific Partnership group nations. Leaked TPP memos published by the Huffington Post indicate that the Obama administration has deemed the talks among the trade treaty partners classified and banned Congress from sharing the country’s negotiating stance with either the press corps members of the public. If the details in the memo are accurate, Congressional staffers have not been permitted to view the TPP documents either.

The US Chamber of Commerce and a host of American corporations support the Trans Pacific Partnership. One of the most hotly contested portions of the Trans Pacific Partnership plan involves the “corporate empowerment” portion of the document text. The insertion of such language was allegedly added upon the insistence of the Obama administration. This portion of the agreement would reportedly give international companies the authority to challenge American laws and related regulations in a privately run foreign court.

Read the entire article here:

Trans Pacific Partnership Protest Interrupts Nancy Pelosi Event

Eat your fruits and veggies this year!

Happy New Year!