Native Americans Promise ‘Direct Action’ to Stop The Keystone Pipeline By Any Means Necessary | The AntiMedia.Org

by: Jonathan Schoenfeld | The Anti-Media

Propositions are increasing for the development of a keystone pipeline. Because of potential environmental hazards and government theft of native american territory through eminent domain, organizations such as Honor the Earth, the Oglala Sioux Nation, Owe Aku, and Protect the Sacred have issued the following statements:

“The Oglala Lakota Nation has taken leadership by saying “NO” to the Keystone XL Pipeline. They have done what is right for the land, for their people, who, from grassroots organizers like Owe Aku and Protect the Sacred have called on their leaders to stand and protect their sacred lands. And they have: KXL will NOT cross their treaty territory, which extends past the reservation boundaries. Their horses are ready. So are ours. We stand with the Lakota Nation, we stand on the side of protecting sacred water, we stand for Indigenous land-based lifeways which will NOT be corrupted by a hazardous, toxic pipeline.”

Additionally the activists continued to urge others to contribute in the effort to combat the production of the pipeline. They implemented specific actions that contributors can practice as follows:

As Native Nations, we’re ready to protect our homelands from this pipeline, and we need to SHORE UP OUR SUPPORT of organizations like Owe Aku and Protect the Sacred, who are on the ground organizing in the Lakota Nation.

We also need to put the pressure on Barack Obama to recognize that:

1) The Lakota Nation – a sovereign governmental body – has united its government and grassroots against the pipeline, and the United States needs to honor treaty rights by denying the pipeline.

2) There is direct conflict of interest in the report issued by the State Department — the process is broken, and a new report which reflects the true environmental impact is needed.

3) This pipeline will, in fact, increase carbon emissions and cause grave and irreversible environmental harm globally. This pipeline would cause direct environmental harm — and put the well-being of all who live in relationship with the Oglala Aquifer at risk.

Canada Tarsands Image: Flickr

4) In recognition of our responsibilities to protect Mother Earth, Native peoples will not allow this pipeline to come across our treaty areas. We will defend our lives, and our mother Earth, and we need Barack Obama to do the same.

According to politicalblindspot.com:

Those who would like to become further involved and partake in seminars on knowing your rights, blockading and self-defense, first aid and social media, can receive additional information from groups such as Moccasins on the Ground. Debra White Plum of the Lakota Sioux nation is a trainer for the grassroots organization. She said that the group has been training Native activists for this moment for the past year.She says that the training has brought together many geographically distant native groups, fighting towards a common goal.

You can get involved personally and take more action against the Keystone Pipeline on 350.org.

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Native Americans Promise ‘Direct Action’ to Stop The Keystone Pipeline By Any Means Necessary | The AntiMedia.Org

Mexican chocolate, an act of resistance and revolution!

We live interesting times, where growing food can be a revolutionary act. We can return to our agricultural roots, for this is where we will find the lost part our soul. We can do this in our backyards, our empty urban lots, or where ever air meets soil, water, and human hands. Growing food resurrects us. Growing food to share with others enlivens us even more. I love growing food and I love connecting with the people that enjoy it.

A Hole in the Regulation of GMOs that Kudzu Could Fit Through - The Equation

The audacity of biotech borders on insanity. Check out this article on Scotts/Miracle Gro company's new GMO grass. This article appears on the Union of Concerned Scientist's web pages:

A little-noticed, almost nonchalant, article in the Columbus Dispatch last week portends substantial environmental and economic mischief.

Kudzu enveloping a Mississippi environment. It is not on the federal noxious weed list. USDA photo by Peggy Greb.

The article notes that Scotts Company is going forward with plans to commercialize GMO Kentucky bluegrass. Mentioned in passing was that this grass, engineered for resistance to the herbicide glyphosate (AKA Roundup), is not regulated by USDA, and that company employees will begin planting the grass at their homes.

What was that? Historically, unapproved GMO crops have been grown only in controlled plots, regulated and monitored by USDA (leave aside that these are not adequately regulated either). So why are Scotts employees allowed to grow this grass in an uncontrolled environment?

We have to go back to two little-noted decisions by USDA in July of 2011 to understand this. First, the USDA denied a petition from the Center for Food Safety to regulate the GMO bluegrass as a noxious weed under the Plant Protection Act of 2000 (PPA), despite fitting the agency’s criteria.

Second, USDA decided that because the genes used to make the GMO grass did not come from known plant pests (e.g., plant pathogens), and did not use a plant pest to introduce the genes into the grass, it would not be regulated as a possible plant pest. To grasp the importance of this, it must be understood that virtually every previous GMO plant or crop has been regulated as a possible plant pest.

These two decisions mean that the GMO bluegrass will not be regulated by USDA, and hence can be grown freely, even though it has not gone through the typical regulatory process. This has implications far beyond the specific case of GMO bluegrass.

In the earlier days of genetic engineering, the large majority of engineered crops contained genes or parts of genes from plant pests (such as from plant viruses), or used a modified bacterial pathogen (called Agrobacterium) to introduce the genes into plants.

But in most cases, it is now easy to avoid these constraints, as Scotts did. The use of pest genes as a reason to regulate GMOs was always unsupportable scientifically. Many genes from pathogens are no more (or less) harmful than genes from non-pathogens. But because our GMO regulations are based on inadequate laws already in existence in the 1980s, the agencies were left trying to fit a regulatory square peg into a statutory round hole, and came up with the pest-gene ruse.

Read entire article here:

A Hole in the Regulation of GMOs that Kudzu Could Fit Through - The Equation

Subway: Stop Using Dangerous Chemicals In Your Bread

Mo' Fresh. Mo' Betta.™

The Natural Effect

Mo' Fresh. Mo' Betta.™

Monsanto - Picking Up God's Slack

Farmers and Moms: Tackling Our Broken Food System | Inspired Bites

I love reading Robyn O'Brien's articles. She hits it so squarely on the head. Here is an article in response to the Monsanto Super Bowl ad.

“96% of American farms are still family owned. Which means on the farm the CEO is usually referred to as mom, and mom usually refers to her big farming operation as home,” began a Monsanto ad that ran during the half time of last night’s Super Bowl.

I’m named after one of these farmer moms.  Her husband died on the farm when he was 42.  She is this kind of CEO.

So I paid attention as the ad went on.  It was in partnership with the American Farmers.  It used moms.

As I listened, I thought of all of the moms working on farms that I have had the privilege to meet in this work.  They sit on both sides of the GMO aisle, some using this technology and the suite of chemicals required to grow genetically engineered foods, devoted to feeding our country, some opting out and using technology that does not require the use of RoundUp Ready chemicals.  I thought about the daughters of farmers that I have met, the science writers that are moms, the food entrepreneurs, the teachers, the attorneys and all of the moms that I have had the privilege of connecting with in this work.

And I thought about how all of us, regardless of whether we feed our kids genetically engineered food from large scale farms or food from our own gardens, want the same thing: happy, healthy kids and a strong country.

But that is not where we stand.  Too many of us have friends with children who have diabetes, allergies, asthma, autism, pediatric cancer and so much more.  And we’re all trying our best to feed our kids healthy food on the budgets that we have.

As I watched the ad, the words of a food industry executive (a “big food” industry executive) came to mind.  He’d shared them at a policy meeting: “No one would choose the food system we have today.”

These words had come to mind again last week, while working with two obese moms, struggling to feed their families healthy food on a restricted budget.  As one shared her frustration, her eyes welled with tears.  ”Why is the food that is so full of artificial ingredients and chemicals so cheap,” she asked, “while the food that is free from all of these additives and labeled organic so expensive?”

Clean and safe food, free from all of these additives, should be affordable to all Americans, especially in light of our escalating rates of diseases and the associated burden that health care costs are putting on our economy.

The entire article is here:

Farmers and Moms: Tackling Our Broken Food System | Inspired Bites

GM Purple Tomatoes Set for EU Legal Problems over Human Testing - Sustainable Pulse

Following the announcement last week that 1200 litres of GM purple tomato juice is being sent to the UK from Canada for testing, before the GM tomatoes themselves enter shops across the country, EU and US scientists have expressed serious concerns.

The aim is to use the GM tomato juice in research to conduct a wide range of tests including examining whether the anthocyanin they contain has positive effects on heart patients in UK hospitals. However, according to a number of EU and US scientist sources, these GM tomatoes have never been tested for toxicity in animal feeding trials, which is a legal requirement in the EU.

If regulators in the EU do allow human trials before animal testing, this will violate EU regulations for GMOs and at worst would border on a criminal act, given that it is possible that an adverse reaction might take place. Canadian regulators are also set for similar legal problems, if as expected they allow GM tomatoes to be sold in the country within 2 years.

The GM purple tomatoes were invented at the John Innes Centre in Norwich by a team led by Prof Cathie Martin. Due to EU regulations the tomatoes were then sent to Canada, where they were developed further.

The GM tomatoes contain the pigment, known as anthocyanin, which is an antioxidant and claims have been made suggesting that they could help fight cancer. These claims are based on the results of a small scale test on mice which has beenrefuted or questioned by experts, including the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and Cancer Research UK (CRUK).

GM Watch has outlined the main points regarding why GM purple tomatoes are not required and also a number of scientific points on why they could be dangerous to human health:

1. A general point about anthocyanins: There are over 200 types and they constitute the main red/purple pigment class found in common fruit and vegetables, e.g. red cabbage, red onions, berries, etc. (Note: the purple of beetroot is not an anthocyanin but another nonetheless valuable antioxidant.) Thus one can have a diet rich in anthocyanins without resorting to GM purple tomatoes. What Cathie Martin and her colleagues have produced is totally unnecessary given the abundance of anthocyanins already in food plants.

2. The Ti-plasmid transgene cassette contains a kanamycin (antibiotic) resistance gene, which would have been used in the initial selection of the GM transformants. They don’t mention the use of kanamycin selection in the methods section of their paper but there is no other way they could have conveniently selected for transformants. It is conspicuous they avoid mentioning this, perhaps in order to avoid attracting attention to it, in light of the fact that the EU has asked for antibiotic resistance genes not to be present in the final GM plant.

3. The transgenes involved are two from snapdragons and are a class of proteins known as “transcription factors”; ie proteins that control the expression of many other genes. Thus there is no way that these two transcription factor genes would have just turned on the target genes for anthocyanin synthesis and not interfered with the function of others. The data they present looking at gene expression profiles is inconclusive in this respect using a somewhat outdated, crude method compared to what can be done now. The tomato genome sequence has now been determined and so state-of-the-art methods such as gene-chip microarrays or better still total mRNA (transcriptome) analysis by high throughput sequencing can now be used to properly assess what the GM process has actually resulted in.

4. These tomatoes CANNOT be called substantially equivalent to the non-GM parent as they have a substantially different chemistry and composition compared to the non-GM parent.

5. No generic toxicity testing, either short- or long-term, of these tomatoes has been published and we must assume it has not been done. The only additional work published with these GM purple tomatoes is to show that high anthocyanin in the skin extends shelf life. No work has been done to see if nutrient content is preserved during the time of extended shelf life. If the nutrient content is not preserved, then it’s a rip-off in terms of what the consumer is getting.

6. The whole idea of GM “nutritionally enhanced” foods starts with two major conceptual flaws; (i) there is something wrong with the diversity of foods we have already and (ii) that high levels of a single nutrient is going to result in significantly improved health status – in this case, warding off cancer. This is nonsense on both counts.

So in allowing these GM tomatoes to be grown on their territory, the Canadian authorities, rather than being more “enlightened”, as Martin claims, appear to have been “endarkened” by pro-GM propaganda.

For those who are fixated on a purple tomato-related answer to cancer, a peer-reviewed study found that extracts of the fruit of non-GM anthocyanin-rich tomatoes inhibited two human cancer cell lines in a dose dependent manner.

Read entire article here:

GM Purple Tomatoes Set for EU Legal Problems over Human Testing - Sustainable Pulse

Dow Chemical: Destroying Our World