Would you ever support Monsanto’s GMOs?
A man named Brett Wilcox and his son have taken to country roads, running over 3000 miles, 20 miles at a time, in order to bring attention to the GMO monopoly that has taken over our country. They started from Huntington Beach, California on January 18, 2014, and arriving in Ocean City, New Jersey on July 19, 2014. The race has helped generate awareness over GMOs, and it also led to Wilcox bringing up a great point — could Monsanto ever ‘get their act together’ enough to convince the public to eat their GMOs?
According to Wilcox, there are around 53 reasons we simply cannot support GMOs that would need to individually be met before we could even consider doing so:
53 Reasons We Cannot Support Monsanto & GMOs
1. I’d need to believe that pesticide companies have a right to contaminate our biological & cultural heritage with GMOs. Petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides are absolutely raping US farmlands. Corporate farming just doesn’t work.
2. I’d need to believe that as government and industry leaders have concluded, U.S. consumers are too stupid to understand GMO food labels. We’re smarter than they think. And getting angrier all the time.
3. I’d need to agree with the U.S. Supreme Court that organic & conventional farmers have no legal recourse or protection from genetic contamination. Since when did we decide to give corporations more rights than people?
4. I’d need to believe that GMOs really are needed to feed a hungry world. Many countries have already proven that you don’t need GMOs to feed the world. Small-scale, organic farms are the way to go.
5. I’d need to believe that GMOs really are substantially equivalent to their natural counterparts. Which means, of course, I’d need to believe they no more merit patent protection than their natural counterparts.
6. I’d need to believe that GMOs should be pushed & promoted onto world markets before long term environmental, animal & human feeding studies have been conducted. In other words, I’dneed to believe that the Precautionary Principle is poppycock. If you want to know more about this concept, Nassim Nicholas Talib does a great job of explaining it and also why he calls the EU chief scientist a ‘dangerous imbecile’ for telling us we should all ignore the Precautionary Principle.
7. I’d need to believe that super weeds and superbugs are beneficial byproducts of GMO-based agriculture.
8. I’d need to believe that horizontal gene transfer is no different than traditional crossbreeding & hybridization processes. Farmers and gardeners have NOT been cross-breeding seeds like this for thousands of years, as they will claim within many a comment-section on anti-GMO articles. You can learn more about the difference between cross-breeding and GMO hybridization, here.
9. I’d need to believe that small-scale agro ecological family farms and their communities are best relegated to the history books.
10. I’d need to believe that Roundup is safe. Or if not safe, I’d need to believe that drinking and breathing Roundup, and feeding Roundup-contaminated breast milk to babies is more beneficial than not doing so. The stuff is 125 times more toxic than regulators admit. Enough said.
11. I’d need to believe that agrichemical poisons cease to be poisonous when we eat them. This one is one of the reasons I love Wilcox. In what world do the things we eat not affect us? From MSG to high fructose corn syrup, leafy greens to Vitamin C, everything has an effect on our biochemistry. Agrichemicals are no different.
12. I’d need to believe that good science includes bullying, shaming, belittling, intimidating, and silencing scientists and others who oppose GMOs.
13. I’d need to believe that good GMO related science includes sham research methods that produce sham research results.
14. I’d need to believe that pesticide companies have the right to control the editorial boards of scientific journals.
15. I’d need to believe that industry-influenced scientific journals have the right
16. I’d need to believe that killing super weeds and superbugs with ever more toxic chemicals makes moral, environmental, and fiscal sense.
17. I’d need to believe that GMOs really do have identifiable consumer benefits.
18. I’d need to believe that GMOs have never and will never contaminate their natural counterparts.
19. I’d need to believe that genetic contamination of native and natural plant and animal varieties benefits farmers, the environment, and human health.
20. I’d need to believe that chemical giants have no moral, ethical, or legal liability to the farmers’ whose crops and livelihoods are destroyed by GMO contamination.
21. I’d need to believe that turning plants into EPA-registered pesticide-producing factories provides lasting benefits to farmers, consumers, animals, and the environment.
22. I’d need to believe that privatizing seed through patents is ethical, responsible, and in the best interest of farmers, consumers, and the environment.
23. I’d need to believe that farmers have no right or business saving and replanting seeds.
24. I’d need to believe that Roundup resistant GMO crops really are safe for the environment, animals, and human health.
25. I’d need to believe that plant and animal biodiversity is of little value or importance.
26. I’d need to believe that agricultural imperialism that results from GMO patents benefits poor servant farmers more than it benefits chemical company masters.
27. I’d need to believe that turning GMO corn into ethanol is ethical and provides sound fiscal and environmental policy.
28. I’d need to believe that farmers should continue to grow GMOs in spite of the overwhelming consumer rejection of GMOs.
29. I’d need to believe that it makes sense for the government to burden organic farmers with fees, rules, and bureaucratic nonsense while subsidizing GMO farmers and the chemical companies that own the GMOs with U.S. taxpayer dollars for products that U.S. taxpayers neither need nor want.
30. I’d need to believe that pollinators are dispensable members of the web of life.
31. I’d need to believe that monocultures benefit the environment and reduce global warming.
32. I’d need to believe that doing business with and/or purchasing products containing GMOs is morally defensible.
33. I’d need to believe that Monsanto and the other chemical giants’ place the public good over their bottom line.
34. I’d need to believe that industry executives and scientists are wiser than Mother Nature and/or God.
35. I’d need to believe that the Earth’s seven billion inhabitants should trust Monsanto and gang.
36. I’d need to believe that agrochemical companies have the right to control political figures and processes through bribes, donations, and lawsuits.
37. I’d need to believe that regulation of the GMO industry is best performed directly by the GMO industry or only slightly less directly through the industry/government revolving door.
38. I’d need to believe that chemical companies have the right to control the GMO story spun by the mainstream media.
39. I’d need to believe that agrochemical companies have the right to fashion international trade agreements such as the TPP and TAFTA, agreements that are favorable to the GMO industry, agreements that supersede member nations’ rights to govern the industry.
40. I’d need to believe that parents who choose to feed their kids organic, non-GMO foodsare fear-based and irrational, and it’s good that the mainstream media exposes them to public ridicule, name calling, and shame.
41. I’d need to believe that pesticide industry executives routinely feed GMOs and associated poisons to their own children.I’d need to believe that a proper function of the U.S. State department includes the promotion of GMOs around the world.
42. I’d need to believe that the U.S. government and the World Bank have the right to provide aid to developing countries only when those countries agree to accept and promote GMOs.
43. I’d need to believe that labeling GMOs must be avoided at all costs, even if that means subverting the American democratic process as the industry has done in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Vermont, and indeed the entire nation. Why? Because GMOs are a skull and crossbones to the GMO industry. And if the market shrinks and dies, then millions of people will also die because GMOs are necessary to feed a growing world.
44. I’d need to believe that it’s good that Monsanto—the same company that produced andprofited from PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange—has seized control of much of our food supply.
45. I’d need to believe that agrochemical companies and/or farmers have no moral or legal obligation to disclose what, when, and where they spray Roundup and other toxins.
46. I’d need to believe that agrochemical companies and/or farmers have no moral or legal obligation to disclose where their GMO crops are planted.
47. I’d need to believe that the animals that refuse to eat GMOs don’t know what’s good for them.
48. I’d need to believe that killing the soil with repeated applications of Roundup and other poisons is the foundation of sound modern agricultural practices.
49. I’d need to believe that agrochemical companies have the right to enter public schools to indoctrinate our children regarding GMOs.
50. I’d need to believe the U.S. government has the right to destabilize foreign countries such as Ukraine in order to expand the U.S. corporate empire including the Biotechnology Industry with its patented, chemically dependent, genetically modified seeds.
51. I’d need to believe that the U.S. government has the right to use war and foreign occupation to force foreign farmers to use GMOs as it did in Iraq through Paul Bremer’s infamous Order 81.
52. I’d need to believe that we’re better off without the birds, fish, and other animals impacted by GMO-based agriculture.
53. I’d need to believe we can’t live without GMO.
Brett Wilcox has also written a book exposing many of Monsanto’s lies, but his 53 requirements for (never) supporting GMOs are rock solid enough for me.
