"With the president's signature, agriculture giants that deal with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds are given the go-ahead to continue to plant and sell man-made crops, even as questions remain largely unanswered about the health risks these types of products pose to consumers." — RT.com
So much for transparency in government decision-making... and transpareceny with the food you buy. I can only guess that Barack Obama will be taking a job at Monsanto at the end of his term. This is hard to see as anything less than a government conspiring against its citizens so that they are uninformed about the foods they eat.
I once again have to wonder what it's going to take for Americans to finally get fed up with a government that is BOUGHT AND PAID FOR by increasingly powerful corporations. No longer are we a government of the people, for the people, by the people... we're just up for the highest bidder. Republican... Democrat... whatever... political parties are just a tool to keep Americans at each other's throats while the real people in charge continue to shape the country to serve their interests.
And that does not include us.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about just three days ago... politicians being bought-off in plain sight without consequence. Pieces of shit like Senator Roy Blunt who worked overtime to fuck the American people get to keep smiling and keep getting paid with taxpayer money with no mark of shame for the massive betrayal he's party to.
If it were up to me? I'd tattoo that shit on his fucking forehead...
I DON'T GIVE A FUCK BECAUSE I'M RICH, BITCH!!!
Seriously... go read that article on Blunt... it is far worse than you're thinking. He's sucked so much special-interest dick that I have to wonder how much Photoshop it took to erase the scabs from his lips. This shit-stain is neck-deep in special interest money that fucking BOUGHT AND PAID FOR HIS SORRY ASS. He doesn't work for the people of Missouri or American citizens... he works for the bio-tech industry and just happens to be a Senator on the side so he can be more effective at his real job.
What does it take to be hung for treason in this country any more? This worthless piece of garbage CONSPIRED AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS AND THE US GOVERNMENT! All with -zero- consequences, because that's how we roll in this pathetic joke of a "democracy."
I wish this bullshit could surprise me anymore.
But I digress...
Many happy congratulations to President Obama and Congress for once again fucking over the country and selling out its citizens! I wish there was some kind of award we could give all of you to recognize this unprecedented level of caving to the special interest lobby... but, apparently, you're just doing your job. I wouldn't want to embarrass you.
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Damn dude. Rage much? Just flippin ya shit. I’m pretty bummed about the whole thing. Monsanto is one evil fucking company. Our only hope is to always vote for the challenger in these elections. Get the encumbents out of office. That’s my political party until we get a third rail.
Nail. Head.
I believe that Rand Paul said it best to Hilary Clinton during a Benghazi hearing. “If I were president I would have fired you”. We the people need to wake up and fire politicians who are not doing the job that we as individuals feel they should be doing. We have a president who has never sent a budget to congress on time, but never is late for vacations. We have a senate finance committee chairman, from my state, who has not passed a budget in four years. We have Randy Cunningham, a Vietnam Ace, now serving prison time for corruption. We the people need to become more smart about who we are voting for.
But where do you draw that line? If we’re using vacation as a yardstick, then shouldn’t President Bush have been fired because he took a whopping 1,020 vacation days in his two terms? Obama took “only” 131 days in his first term! – Or does vacation really matter when presidents in this day and age are able to run the country from wherever they are, and are never truly “on vacation” because the business of running the country never stops? And passing a budget is almost a joke at this point. Is getting your budget in on time, getting it passed by Congress, and then blowing past it really less a crime than not being able to turn in a budget at all because Congress won’t pass anything you come up with or compromise to get one written that will pass? – Or should the fucked up process of creating a budget for this country be looked at as the real problem?
In the end, I honestly don’t think it matters who is in office or what political party they are party to. Lobbyists will continue to buy off politicians and fuck over American citizens regardless, and THAT’S the big picture problem that needs to be dealt with. So go ahead and fire Obama and put in anybody you want… put back George W. Bush for all I care… it makes no difference now. The bigger problem of this country and its government being bought and paid for is pretty much the only thing that does. Everything else is window dressing because you don’t control what you don’t own.
I’m probably just naive, but this really feels like a “mountain out of a molehill” situation. Bypassing due process? Seems like it’s simply defining due process to include the ability for the Ag. Dept. to grant temporary exemptions during the review process for actual exemptions.
It is difficult to find any critical analysis of this rider that does not read like paranoid hysteria. I find lots of references that this law *requires* the Ag. Sec. to issue these temporary exemptions, but the law also includes that said exemptions include “measures designed to mitigate or minimize potential adverse environmental effects”. Again, assuming the Ag. Dept can be trusted — which, if untrue, seems like this whole issue is irrelevant — then these measures can effectively poison the exemption. Furthermore, the temporary exemption is only required until analysis of the petition is complete. It isn’t clear to me that there’s any reason such analysis cannot be expedited to the negative.
It just occurred to me why I am having such problems with this. It really reads just like all of the paranoid “the gov. wants to take our guns” and “why is the gov. buying so much ammo” rants. In fact, one of the comment threads I read on the Monsanto rider immediately connected these things as part of the gov. conspiracy to enslave the people and force-feed them GMOs.
The more I try to understand exactly what the problem is, the less clear it is. I’ve now gone back to read the section 411 of the Plant Protection act, which is the section this rider affects and it isn’t even referencing crops. Rather, it’s about the distribution of “plant pests”. Maybe I’m just not up-to-date on the science. Is Monsanto now delivering plant pests that will modify the DNA of crops “on the fly”?
Please understand, I’m not saying this is a good law. I’m just saying that I can’t seem to connect the dots to reach a conclusion that it is as dire as it seems to be made out to be, or even that it is bad enough to warrant a veto of the larger legislation. Certainly, this is a textbook example of Congress failing to properly vet amendments. Perhaps the fact that this is only valid for six months will result in the future version of this getting the attention it deserves (whatever that may be).
I don’t understand your context of “due process” here, but I am speaking of the term as it applies to the legal right of a citizen not to be subjected to harm by their government. I’d say forwarding legislation which protects and promotes GMO foods, THE SAFETY OF WHICH HAS YET TO BE DETERMINED, falls under this banner. If due process was followed, where was the judiciary review? Oh… there wasn’t one!
In any event, your missing my bigger point here, which is the bulk of my post and the entire reason I wrote this in the first place… our politicians are up for sale. Corporations are able to bypass due process and shape the laws of this country to benefit them, even if it may be a detriment for us. “Mountains out of molehills?” More like mountains being chipped away until there’s nothing left but a molehill. You’re focusing too much on this one bill as the problem when the big picture is that things like this are happening all the time. You don’t seem to find a problem with the legislation of HR 933 itself, but aren’t you bothered by HOW it happened? What it’s all adding up to? This is just one more step in a series of steps which allows bio-tech companies legal protection to continue selling seed, even if it is found to be harmful. But what happens tomorrow? What other corporate-sponsored (or written!) legislation will be bypassing review to become law? I mean, holy crap! You said it yourself… “this is a textbook example of Congress failing to properly vet amendments”… which leads me to ask why AREN’T you in a state of paranoid hysteria when something like this can happen? Back-door deals can create laws that keep citizens ignorant about the foods they eat… but it’s okay because it’s only for six months and the Department of Agriculture will protect us? How can they when they’re not even part of the game?
Well, call me paranoid if you will. But this is just a drop in a bucket that’s going to overflow completely one day. More importantly, it’s a terrible precedent of due process being circumnavigated by people with unlimited funds and the congressional shills they’ve paid for. God bless America.
I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords.
Ah, I think you found the reason for my complacency right there: I’m under no illusion that our corporate overlords are new. Subtleties like this aren’t going to lead to any substantive change. They only ways out are the rise of some truly benevolent and yet charismatic and Machiavellian politicians, or full out revolution. Until then, I’m lazy and well off.
This is such bullshit. I mean really?
Can you just run for president next time?
I was so disappointed that he signed it. He’s definitely not the president I hoped he would be, especially in his second term.
This is why i love to read this blog. You speak your mind in such a beautiful way. No sarcasm here.
I’m not sure it makes much sense to assign blame to the President for this as it seems that vetoing this bill, which included the Monsanto rider as a tiny provision, would have likely have been worse than signing it. Or maybe not. I’m really not sure. Certainly, without any sort of line item or rider veto power, the President has very limited ability to deal with these issues.
Sure, the President could veto any legislation containing riders he finds objectionable. I just can’t see that being a workable strategy.
In addition, while I find that I’m generally able to make sense of the legalize in legislation, I’ve read this rider several times and I still don’t quite understand its import. It seems to say:
If a crop has its non-regulated status removed, someone can petition the Secretary of Agriculture for a temporary permit for the crop. Such permit would include measure to mitigate harm from the crop. The duration of the permit is until the Secretary can complete the necessary examination of the petition.
Perhaps it’s more insidious than I read, but it seems like the point is to handle the situation where a crop is removed from non-regulated status and yet an exemption would eventually be granted but until it is, the crop would have to be destroyed. With this law, a temporary exemption could be granted until the determination is made on whether to grant a permanent exemption.
Now, if we simply don’t trust the Department of Agriculture to administer this, then that’s clearly a problem. But I’d argue it’s a much bigger problem than this legislation and renders the concern of this legislation moot.
Note that I was completely unfamiliar with any of this before your post and the 30-45 minutes of research I’ve done since is certainly insufficient to understand all of the details.
As far as Monsanto is concerned, I much more bothered by the fact that they have won patent infringement judgements against farmers that may have only infringed due to cross-pollination beyond their control. Ridiculous. Or, maybe they haven’t actually won any, but they’ve driven farmers bankrupt.
That is certainly a valid viewpoint, it’s just one that I cannot subscribe to. Not any more. This is a graphic that’s been floating around Facebook…
And this is my response to it…
“You know what? I absolutely do not care. I am getting so sick and tired of this bullshit that I would rather see the bill go unsigned and the country go down in flames before one more rider gets shoved through without due process. But not only did President Obama sign it, he did so WITH NO COMMENT OR EXPLANATION, which is just so frickin’ typical. And, because of that, this crap will continue to happen and continue to support big companies taking over our government and our country. There is no such thing as a “Must Pass” bill. President Obama should have refused, then hung this travesty around the necks of those piece of shit politicians who put it on the bill so everybody in the US knows WHY he COULDN’T sign it. So yes, I do blame President Obama, and it has nothing to do with his race. It has EVERYTHING to do with his promise for transparency in government being a complete lie. At the VERY LEAST he should have issued some kind of statement after signing it, explaining WHY he undercut American citizens with this fucked up legislation that BYPASSES DUE PROCESS and endorses a potential health risk of unknown magnitude. Whether valid for six months or eternity, it makes no difference… this is opening the door to corporations having more say in what Americans eat than the actual Americans eating it. And if that’s what this country has become, then it’s time to shut down and start over. Because if I have to hear “Well, it happens all the time and we just have to live with it or no bill will ever get passed!” as a pathetic excuse ONE MORE TIME, I’m going to vomit. Asshole politicians in the pocket of Corporate Amerika MUST be made to stand accountable for their betrayal of the public trust… or else we deserve exactly the country we get.”
makes me ill.
i have a friend who worked for monsanto many decades ago (dude is old). he said they had to park down the street, because the PAINT ON THEIR CARS WOULD PEEL OFF if they parked next to their workplace. as you can likely guess, he got lung and throat cancer after only working there a few years.
i’m so glad whatever they create in those plants goes into our food.
This: “I once again have to wonder what it’s going to take for Americans to finally get fed up with a government that is BOUGHT AND PAID FOR by increasingly powerful corporations. No longer are we a government of the people, for the people, by the people… we’re just up for the highest bidder. Republican… Democrat… whatever… political parties are just a tool to keep Americans at each other’s throats while the real people in charge continue to shape the country to serve their interests.”
I 100% agree. So much so I quoted it on facebook (with credit of course). I really wish people would wake up, get off the party lines and really look at what’s going on with our country… Realize we’re ALLOWING this to happen, repeatedly.
Bless you Tracie, you said it the way I should have. I should not have gotten into examples.
I read both your comments and Ren’s comments on this, and while I see Ren’s point in this possibly making this into a bigger deal than it is, I see more as this being a lack of transparency going on with Obama signing this bill without explanation. He has to know there would be some type of backlash on this. Explaining his lack of a veto is not feeding the trolls, it’s informing his supporters.
Maybe he forgot what he said in 2007, before he ran for president. Ever since Citizens United was put into place, we’ve given too much control to corporations over what government should keep a reign on.
But thanks to the many who say “the government has too much control” they appear to not have a single issue with capitalism being just as controlling over their lives, maybe in their hopes of becoming a billionaire CEO one day.
President Bartlet would never have signed that bill.
Three words: campaign finance reform. Question is, how the hell is that going to happen?