An end to GM crop development for Europe


Posted on February 14, 2012 by Ralph Metzner

Awareness of and resistance to food from genetically modified organisms is much greater in Europe than the US. The battles between the industrial food and chemistry corporations on the one hand and public health experts, food nutritionists and small-scale organic farmers on the other hand, have been raging for years in Europe, yet have barely begun to emerge into US public media awareness. The news reported below, from the Financial Times, reports a watershed development.

BASF, the German chemical giant, is to pull out of genetically modified [GM] plant development in Europe and relocate it to the US, where political and consumer resistance to GM crops is not so entrenched. The headquarters of BASF Plant Science will move from south-west Germany to Raleigh, North Carolina, and two smaller sites in Germany and Sweden will close. The company will transfer some GM crop development to the US but stop work on crops targeted at the European market – four varieties of potato and one of wheat. The decision … signals the end of GM crop development for European farmers. Bayer, BASF’s German competitor, is working on GM cotton and rice in Ghent, Belgium – but not for European markets. “This is another nail in the coffin for genetically modified foods in Europe,” said Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth. BASF battled for some 13 years before the European Union approved in 2010 cultivation of its Amflora potato, which was intended to provide high-quality starch for industrial customers. However, German test sites had to be put under constant guard and activists still succeeded in destroying potato fields.

From an article in Financial Times
, Jan 16, 2012.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6e074ee4-403e-11e1-82f6-00144feab49a.html#axzz1jkDcQbe9

The European public is well aware of the serious threats of GM food, yet the U.S. public, Seeds of Deception is a book by Jeffrey M. Smith, which exposes industry and government deception about the safety of genetically engineered foods. John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America, says of this book “clear, profound and unerringly accurate, .. tells you what you need to know about genetically engineered food – and what Monsanto won’t tell you.” For a ten-page summary click here.

For key articles from major media sources on the risks of genetically modified foods, click here.  This and the other two sources listed here come from the excellent wanttoknow.info series of websites.

This excellent website has a 12-page list and description of seasoned and respected journalists who have exposed mass media cover-ups on a variety of topics. The general public generally knows very little about this. For details on the work of these courageous and independent-minded journalists, click on this link controlled media. Here are excerpts from the revealing accounts of 20 award-winning journalists in the highly acclaimed book Into the Buzzsaw. These courageous writers were prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting major news stories. Some were even fired or laid off. They have won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer. A partial list of the journalists whose work was censored by the major media is Jane Akre, Dan Rather, Monika Jensen-Stevenson, Kristian Borjesson, Greg Palast, Michael Levine, Gary Webb, Joh Kelly, Robert McChesney.

Filed under: Ecology, Current Events, Science, Politics, Modern History, Economics & Finance | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Financial self-empowerment through local banking

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Ralph Metzner

The media clamor of confusing and terrifying news about job losses, home foreclosures, credit squeezes and bankruptcies is causing head-aches and heart-aches across the land, on a scale not seen since the “Great” Depression of the 1930s. Filmmaker Michael Moore in his Capitalism – A Love Story interviews (OH) Rep. Marci Kaptor, who avers, echoing other knowledgeable analysts and alternative media, that there has been a financial coup-d’etat in the US. This means that the productive economy (“Main Street”) has ben hijacked by conglomerates of giant financial and insurance corporations (“Wall Street”) who are intent solely on augmenting their own wealth.

In my book, Expansion of Consciousness (p. 74), I quote from an essay by John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney in the Monthly Review, “Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation”:

Key to the new financial system in the United States was the emergence of a “financial-industrial complex,” as major industrial corporations were drawn into the new system, shifting from equity to debt financing. …Concentration in finance grew hand over fist – a process that has only accelerated in the present crisis. As recently as 1990, the ten largest U.S. financial institutions held only 10 percent of total financial assets; today they own 50 percent. The top twenty institutions now hold 70 percent of financial assets. …Superimposed on top of the real or productive economy is a system that seeks to promote growth in production as a secondary effect of the promotion of speculative financial assets. Every crisis leads to a brief period of restraint, followed by further excesses …The root of the difficulty (in the real economy) remains a rising rate of exploitation of workers – indicated by the fact that, in 2006, the real hourly wage rate of private, non-agricultural workers in the U.S. was the same as in 1967, despite the enormous growth in productivity and wealth in the succeeding decades. Wage and salary disbursements as a percentage of GDP declined sharply from approximately 53 percent in 1970 to about 46 percent in 2005. Yet, as if in stark defiance of these trends, consumption at the same time rose as a percent of GDP.

A paralyzing sense of helplessness can result from recognizing this state of affairs – if one can even break through the obfuscating clouds of denial.  Fortunately, a course of action is available to the ordinary individual that can bring about a remarkable increase in personal responsibility and self-empowerment. This action is to move your money out of the big central banks and into local community banks and credit unions. I have done this myself and can vouch for the greatly increased sense of freedom and commitment to community that results from this course of action.

Catherine Austin Fitts, a former Assistant Secretary at HUD under the elder Bush and Clinton presidencies, who publishes a very enlightening and informative set of commentaries and blogs from her website at www.solari.com, had articulated the reasons for making this move some time ago. I highly recommend listening to her commentaries and interviews for unparalleled insight into the behind-the-scenes manipulations of the financial elites.

More recently, the PEERS newsletter has echoed the Huffington Post, in advocating the similar move to local financial institutions. Many consumers think these giant institutions have lost touch with customers and basic good business practices and are moving their money to community banks, especially those run as cooperatives and not focused on making profits for their shareholders. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post is spearheading a campaign called Move Your Money, which encourages people to move from the banking giants to smaller community banks. Please consider going local and supporting credit unions and community banks.

Filed under: Consciousness, Current Events, Ecology, Roots of War & Domination | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,446 other followers