BDT-Up Close & Personal What You Need to Know

Consumers Fund on GMO's & Monsanto's Fear

"The other thing Monsanto doesn’t want you to know. We all know that Monsanto doesn’t want you to know which foods contain genetically modified ingredients (almost 80 percent of all processed foods), and which don’t. We also know that Monsanto doesn’t want us to know how genetically modified organisms (GMOs) affect our health, which is why the company refuses to allow independent testing of its GMOs (under pretense of protecting its patented technologies). And clearly, Monsanto doesn’t want you to know that labeling GMOs won’t increase food costs (it hasn’t in all the other countries where GMO labeling is mandatory by law). Or that it won’t provoke an avalanche of lawsuits against food retailers (that wouldn’t be the case under any of the proposed state GMO labeling laws). But here’s something else Monsanto doesn’t want you to know: that if we win even one state labeling law, we will deal a near-fatal blow to the biotech industry’s multi-billion dollar foundation of lies, greed and destruction. In November, voters in Washington State will decide on I-522, a citizens’ ballot initiative to label GMOs. The OCA has pledged $500,000 to the I-522 campaign. If we raise half of that - $250,000 – by April 1, a generous donor will match those funds so we can fulfill our pledge. So far, we’ve raised about $127,000. That means we have to raise $123,000 between now and Monday of next week. Can you help us reach our goal by April 1 with a donation today? You can donate online with a credit card or Paypal. Or you can mail a check. Or phone in your donation. You’ve been down this road with us before. You fought with us, you raised money with us, to pass a similar initiative, Proposition 37, in California last year. When we lost by a mere 3 percentage points (48.5% to 51.5%), you mourned the loss with us. But you also celebrated the fact that we’d mobilized more than 6 million voters in California, that we’d made “GMO” a household name, and that we’d turned the issue of GMOs in our food into a mainstream public health issue. A lot has happened since Nov. 7, 2012. Thanks to consumers like you who hammered the food companies that poured millions into defeating Prop 37, those companies have split from the biotech industry and are likely to sit out the battle over I-522. Thanks to your overwhelming support for Prop 37, more than 30 other states are working together on model language for statewide GMO labeling laws. And thanks to your criticism of Whole Foods for its failure to lend any meaningful support to Prop 37, the nation’s largest organic food retailer recently announced that it will voluntarily label GMOs in its stores in the U.S. and Canada. But we still need a win. We still need a state labeling law. And I-522 is our next best opportunity. Just as with California, a GMO labeling law in Washington State will force food companies to label nationally. And while a federal labeling law would likely be written by lobbyists to favor Big Food and Big Biotech, I-522 has been written with consumers’ best interests as top priority. The money you contributed to Prop 37 created huge forward momentum for the GMO labeling movement. It had an impact that still reverberates today. If we stop fighting now, we throw away our investment. Your investment. It’s not often that someone comes along and offers a $250,000 matching gift. Please help us take advantage of this generous gift and, more importantly, show Monsanto and the biotech industry that we are strong. We are determined. We will not give up this fight. Between today and April 1, your donation will be worth twice as much, as long as we reach our goal of $250,000. Every cent we raise will go directly to support the I-522 campaign. Please help us keep this fight alive with your donation today. You are the GMO labeling movement. And we are grateful for your passion, your energy, your commitment and your generosity. In solidarity, Ronnie Cummins National Director, Organic Consumers Association and Organic Consumers Fund P.S. Prop 37 would never have had the impact it had, without your support. Our $1.5 million donation to the campaign came from individual donations, from people like you. If you still believe in this fight, please donate today. Help us show Monsanto that we intend to win the GMO labeling battle!" From an e-mail I received asking us to post this.

Prop 37 Lies & Fraud

 OBAMA just signed H.R. 993 into law...Do we stand a chance against such legislation and politicians?

According to the dirty politics occurring in California, we need someone with about $80,000 to throw away to come to California and count Fresno County's ballots for Proposition 37.   Here's why...

 

According to Jon Rappoport..."There WAS a recount on the Prop 37 vote, and it was stopped cold

by Jon Rappoport

March 17, 2013

The relentless Brad Friedman of TheBradBlog ran this story down and broke it. There was, indeed, a recount of the Prop 37 vote.

Prop 37, the ballot measure that would have mandated labeling of all GMO food sold in California, went down to defeat last November, under suspicious circumstances.

So a small group, headed by Tom Courbat, former senior budget analyst for LA County, decided to challenge the vote.

In California, any voter can do that, if they’re willing to pay for it. And they have to pay for the recount county by county. They pick the counties they want to start with, they contact the county registrars, and they’re told what the price is. It’s different in each county.

So the group picked Orange and Sierra Counties. They paid the fee. The votes were recounted, and there was no appreciable change in the numbers.

The group decided Fresno County should be next. That’s when trouble came and whole thing blew up. The county clerk in Fresno, in charge of all voting processes, is Brandi Orth.

As The Brad Blog reveals, Orth came up with a staggering price for a vote recount. Here are a few of the details:

Orth stated there would be an up-front fee, due before the recount even started, of $18,000.

The cost per DAY of doing the recount? $4,000. This included five vote counters who would each be paid $46 an hour—to sit and count. Then there would be a three-person executive staff, each of whom would be paid an astonishing $92 an hour.

Note: In Orange County, the Prop 37 recount didn’t cost $4,000 a day. The fee? Only $600 a day!

But here is the best part. As Tom Courbat, the leader of the Prop 37 recount group, spoke with Fresno County Clerk, Brandi Orth, he suddenly learned he was being charged for the phone conversation—and also for Orth’s staff “getting ready” for a recount!

Understand this. No recount had begun. Courbat hadn’t given the green light for a recount. But, he was informed, he was already $4000 in the hole.

Courbat estimated a vote recount in Fresno County was going to cost his group $78,000 by the end of three weeks worth of work. They didn’t have the money.

The Fresno County recount was toast. And with it went any chance (even if one assumes a recount would be honest) that Prop 37 could be fairly reviewed in California.

At this point, I ran down a few facts about Fresno County. It’s the number-one county in the US for agricultural production; in 2007, $5.3 billion. Major employers? Kraft Foods, Del Monte Foods, Foster Farms, Zacky Farms, Sun-Maid. A local outfit, David Sunflower Seeds, is owned by the giant ConAgra.

Beginning to form a picture? Fresno is Big Agriculture, and the last time I looked, Big Ag isn’t rushing to support GMO labeling. They love Monsanto, crime boss of the GMO world.

Brandi Orth, who blocked the recount, was installed as Fresno county clerk a mere 10 months before Prop 37 went up before California voters. This happened, as The Brad Blog points out, because the previous county clerk, Victor Salazar, suddenly announced his retirement with three years left on his contract.

Who picked Orth as the new county clerk? The five members of the Fresno board of supervisors. I noticed that two of them, Phil Larson and Debbie Poochigian, were members of the Fresno County Farm Bureau.

That’s quite interesting, because in the run-up to the November Prop 37 vote, the Farm Bureau was one of the organizations that signed on to a large NO on 37 print ad.

---

Let’s recap. The recount on the Prop 37 vote is stopped cold in Fresno County (a major center of Big Ag), because the county clerk, Brandi Orth put up absurd, incredible, and arbitrary obstacles. Orth was selected for her job, in the first place, by a board of supervisors on which, at the very least, two of the five members were opponents of Prop 37.

Does the California state government and, in particular, the state attorney general’s office give this foul-smelling situation even a sniff? No.

Does the California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, who is in charge of all voting in the State, budge from her office and investigate, or better yet, go down to Fresno and personally install a fair and equitable and affordable recount of Prop 37? Of course not. She moves right along to other matters.

What does that tell you?

The stink from the blocked vote-recount goes all the way from Fresno up to the capital city of Sacramento and back down again.

Naturally, the major media give this story no play. They remain silent.

As I’ve detailed in other articles (under the ~/category/yeson37/ section of my blog), there are many reasons to reject the truth of the original Prop 37 vote in California, as well as any election in the State. But after these revelations, if you accept California vote-counts as real, you should check your sanity.

Source: The Brad Blog, “Forget About Fresno: How One CA County Clerk Stopped Prop 37′s Oversight ‘Recount’”

Jon Rappoport"

 

 

 

Help Stop GMO Farming!

From: "Food Democracy Now! Team"
Subject: farmers say, stop the frankenfish

Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013
Farmers say: "Call the White House to stop new GMO crops and GMO salmon. It's time to make a stand!"
Stand with Family Farmers Today!
Stand with America's Farmers to Tell President Obama to halt new GMO crops and stop GMO salmon!

Today we're only yards from the White House and it's a big day for America's farmers. In fact, it's a big day for farmers and eaters everywhere and we realize that people from all over the world are watching. Yesterday more than 30 family farmers, who traveled from across the U.S. and Canada, arrived in Washington DC to stand in federal court to ask for an end to the genetic contamination of their crops by GMO pollen and to protect them from Monsanto’s abusive patent infringement lawsuits.

For the past 16 years, Monsanto’s seed police have run roughshod over America’s farmers, suing more than 144 family farmers for patent infringement and settling out of court with another 700 farmers for undisclosed sums. At the same time, every year Monsanto sneaks onto the fields of more than 500 farmers and steals their plants to see if they contain the biotech giant’s patented genes. This is an outrage, but currently U.S. law allows this and as a result, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy.

Last night we had dinner with these brave farmers and we asked them what they wanted.

They said they wanted justice, not only for them, but also for you and for future generations and the planet.

Many of you have asked us what you can do to help these farmers and now we need your help!

Today, after our court hearing we will be gathering less than a hundred yards from the White House to send a message that America’s farmers and our food supply need protection and we need your help right now!

Click here to join America’s family farmers in calling President Obama to halt the approval of new GMO crops and to stop GMO salmon.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/749?t=9&akid=721.479479.K9r-Sp

We know people don't like to make phone calls, but now it's more important than ever to pick up that phone and make a call. The future of our food supply depends on it!

Right now 13 new genetically engineered crops are awaiting approval at the USDA, including GMO crops that are resistant to more toxic pesticides, such as 2,4-D (half the chemical component of Agent Orange) and dicamba, along with a non-browning GMO apple.

At the same time, the FDA recently cleared a final hurdle for the approval of AqauBounty’s GMO salmon when the agency ruled that the fast growing genetically engineered fish does not pose a threat to the environment. Already bureaucrats at the FDA have ruled that GMO salmon is safe for human consumption, despite no independent scientific research and only tiny sample sizes from the corporation that stand to benefit from its approval.

Despite the biotech industry’s assurances that GMOs are safe, new science is emerging that calls into question what they really know about the safety of their own genetically engineered products and also what they reveal to regulatory agencies when they apply for approval.

Already the first generation of biotech crops has failed in farmer’s fields and failed badly, creating more than 21 million acres of superweeds and a new breed of superbugs resistant to their genetically engineered toxins. What’s next?

Join Food Democracy Now! and America’s family farmers in calling President Obama to halt the approval of new GMO crops and stop GMO salmon until proper long-term safety tests are conducted.

Leaked documents reveal that even government scientists are dubious about the FDA’s own assessment. In fact, the FDA’s own assessment of AquaBounty’s studies to determine whether GMO salmon are safe for human consumption states that the studies contain “technical flaws” and provide “insufficient data”.

While a scientist at the U.S. Department of Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service goes so far as to say: “Maybe [the FDA] should watch Jurassic Park”!

For the past 20 years, the biotech industry has gotten away with rigging science and our regulatory system, while systematically abusing America’s family farmers, the very people who work so hard to feed us.

This time, they’ve had enough and they want you to lend your voice to stand with America’s family farmers. More than anything, the farmers said they wanted a return to fairness in our laws governing our food supply and integrity in our regulatory system, which giant corporations like Monsanto have been allowed to corrupt.

Join America’s family farmers today, call President Obama immediately to stand up for farmers and eaters everywhere to stop GMO salmon.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/749?t=13&akid=721.479479.K9r-Sp

Thanks for participating in food democracy,

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! team

Jon Rappoport's Unveiling of Prop 37 Fraud

“Prop 37 Vote-Fraud Update: 3.3 million Votes Still Uncounted”- Jon Rappoport In my personal opinion, we cannot ever rely on a vote count.  This election just may be more proof of that. The day after the election, when results were revealed so quickly, I wondered why people did not raise an eyebrow at the speed of it all.  But then I remembered how we have become a society that dislikes delayed gratification.  We want everything and we want it now.  Perhaps Proposition 37 and the fraud involved will awaken the sheeple of the world...or at least right here in the USA...to the entrapment of wanting instant gratification. As for Genetically Modified Organisms, it is time to do a little work, folks.  I highly recommend we stand together and make our phone calls and send our e-mails.  You need to call the number on each package that you lift from a shelf.  Ask them if they include ingredients made from GMO's.  Ask your grocer if the organic items you wish to purchase are from Genetically Modified seeds.  If they cannot answer you, ask for phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses so as you can find out for yourself.  After you receive an answer, if it is an unfortunate one, inform your grocer that you can no longer purchase that particular product.  If there is an overwhelming number of GMOed foods in that store, then inform the store manager, in writing, that you will no longer be shopping there. We need to apply pressure, no matter how futile it is for us as individuals.  As a group, we may start getting somewhere.  Let us inform them that we are not an ignorant public.  Write letters to stores listing the items you discovered had GMO's in them, asking that the store either stops carrying them or to at least place a label beneath the item so as the public may be informed.  Any store that refuses can be given the names of the stores that co-operate and that they will be the stores where you will be shopping from now on.  Friends who are in agreement can also walk into these same stores making these same demands with your list. I am referring to the more enlightened stores, not the mainstream stores, of course.  Health food stores, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and stores along those lines are to have pressure placed on them.  It is not fair that we need to make a shopping booklet, even if it is as notes in our phones, listing products that are safe to buy and products that are to be avoided, but, thanks to money, power, and the planned destruction of 80% of the population, we need to take our healthcare by the reins.  Post your results on your Facebook pages and web/blogsites.  Let us stand together instead of falling apart. An example: As of summer 2012, Quaker Oats: Old Fashioned has No GMO's and is not irradiated, but it is not organic. Calling businesses may be helpful in that they see how concerned we are.  For those of you who would prefer a quicker solution to finding non-GMOed foods, please visit the helpful website below. http://www.nongmoproject.org/find-non-gmo/search-participating-products/ Here is an excerpt of Mr. Rappoport's article to be found over at NaturalNews, where I have posted some articles myself. "Monday, November 12, 2012 by: Jon Rappoport (NaturalNews) When the networks and other media outlets made the early call on election night, claiming Prop 37 had gone down to defeat, there were millions of votes still uncounted. I just checked the California Secretary of State's website, which is the official center for vote results, and  there are 3,334,495 votes that remain unprocessed. Reading the county-by-county reports, the last date any of them reported in with numbers was November 8, three days ago.  Why is it taking so long for California to count all its votes? Why do so many remain  uncounted at this late date? Yes, some of them are what's called provisional votes. That basically means they were turned in with errors, and those errors need to be tracked down and corrected. That takes time." Please become informed and read Mr. Rappoport's article in its entirety at  http://www.naturalnews.com/037930_vote_fraud_Proposition_37_uncounted.html  It is beyond ridiculous that I have to ask this, but please sign the petition demanding that the votes be counted. http://signon.org/sign/prop-37-count-all-the?source=c.url&r_by=486575rticle For a list of companies to boycott due to their involvement with the No on Prop 37 camp, please read The Alliance for Natural Health's article at the following link. http://www.anh-usa.org/prop-37-we-be-back/

Friends Shouldn’t Let Friends Drive Their Lives

I wanted to let you know about an experience I had many years ago.  I was rising in love with a man named A. R., a man with whom I worked.  We'd get together for meals, go miniature golfing and do other fun activities together, and he'd even take me to visit the homes of various relatives.  One evening after dinner, I asked him if he’d ever take me on a date.  He looked at me as if I’d just asked him to eat a live worm!  Surprised by his reaction, I explained that because we spent so much time together, I felt like I was dating him already.  I explained that I also felt I was deterring other men from asking me out because it energetically as well as physically looked as if something was going on between us.  (Between you and me, at one point I had wondered if he was gay and I was the girl on the arm to convince those around us that he was straight.  Except for one thing, I was never on his arm.  He never even tried to hold my hand!)  Well, he finally scoffed and said, “I really like you a lot, but you’re white.”  I was so confused.  What does my skin color have to do with anything?  So what if he's Mexican and I'm not.  He explained that his family was already giving him a hard time because he had a white friend who was a girl, yet alone if I was his girlfriend.  He explained that he needed a good “Hispanic-Catholic girl who’ll meet with my friend’s and family’s approval."

Boy, you think you know someone when you’ve spent so much time with them.  I thought people who were prejudiced simply wouldn’t associate with a person of that particular color, culture, or heritage.  I had no idea people could have levels where they could be a friend in a limited way, but, ultimately, you weren't good enough in their eyes.  Wow, I figured I must’ve hurt somebody in a similar fashion in a past life and now the same kind of energy must be coming back to me.  But, I couldn’t believe that in the 1990’s there would still be humans out there who’d be willing to offer up this kind of karma.  Don’t people know about community yet?  Humans need to stand together, or we’ll fall. 

I took a deep breath knowing exactly how I felt.  If I wasn’t safe to be with this hater due to my packaging, how was there even a friendship to salvage?  Still, I kicked the feelings I had for him out of my cells, which was a process I could do, and we continued on as working-friends without seeing each other outside of work.  One day, he left that job-site, and we didn’t keep in touch.

A few years later, we found ourselves at a mutual friend’s retirement party.  He sat with me recounting all the wonderful things I’d done.  He finally said, “I don’t know why I can’t find a girl like you.”  I said, “That’s easy.  You’re not going to find someone like me in the outside package you want unless she’s completely Americanized and going to LRT meetings rather than to church.”  I stopped to let him think about that, and I turned to my own thoughts.  Fancy giving friends and family authority over your life!  He missed out on all the gifts we could have had for each other, and, most of all, he missed out on the very real possibility of interest just fading away naturally rather than stamping out a fire because it wouldn’t meet with approval.  What’s life for his future wife going to be like when it’s his friends and family members to whom she’ll really be married?  He is a shell.  They’re the ones dictating how things are to be run in his life.   Boy, was I pleased I found out when I did that I wasn’t good enough for him and that he wasn’t man enough for me.

Still, I couldn’t resist.  I leaned in toward him and said, “I’m single.  If you think I’m so wonderful, we could still go on a date.”  It was possible that in years of searching for a girl like me that he could’ve concluded that maybe we should go on a date, right?  He scoffed again, just like the first time.  “You’re still white.”

Happiness is something only you can embrace.  Community with fellow humans is something only we can create.  Just because an old, longstanding belief and practice was acceptable for our ancestors, it isn’t any reason for us to keep moving it forward into tomorrow.   Friends who insist on driving your life and making you wrong for following your heart and curiosity need to be examined themselves.  Is this person really being a friend?  Is the one you’re throwing away the true friend?  I think about A. R.  He may be married to the right package right now, but how happy is he when the qualities he so loved about me aren’t to be found in his community?  Marriage, as in all relationships, has its smooth sailing and its rough seas.  I can’t even imagine what that must be like when you marry who your friends think is acceptable and you sacrifice the one who interests you.

Just think about some of the complicated issues of our time.  Nano-particulates are raining down on us, intending to change us to a more robotic type of human.  GMO’s are altering our DNA.  Vaccinations are sacrificing our health and lives.  Governments are basically establishing slavery with some of their legislation.  Wouldn't it be nicer to face the struggles of life with the one you love?  Would you rather pass love up because your friend or relative said you should do so?  Friends shouldn't let friends drive their lives.