The views of a pastor are the views of a pastor. Are Catholics running for office supposed to "renounce" their church based on any controversial political messages of the Pope (and Catholics are "supposed" to follow what the Pope says, while no one is ever expected to follow pastors in that way)? Who would treat Jews this way based on the political views of a rabbi?
Once we get real - stepping away from this dirty little racist game of "gotcha" which actually "gets" nothing at all about the lived life of the person - and look at ACTIONS and the tangible experience of the person toward others, then Hillary Clinton is standing in very deep stuff, having been historically involved with and now currently working with, one of the most despicable organizations on the face of the earth.
Rather than play such nonsense games as to go after someone's pastor, let's take religious principles seriously.
The Catholic Church has seven new mortal sins, the first among them - genetic engineering.
Hillary Clinton's involvement with Monsanto, world's largest genetic engineering corporation, presents an ethical and religious dilemma for faithful Catholics.
Hillary Clinton has long-term and current ties with Monsanto. Her campaign is run by, Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Masteller, a PR firm for Monsanto. http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
MMonsanto may be unfamiliar to most. But it is the driving force behind laws to ban labeling of milk, http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://blog.wired.com/... 2008/01/indiana-may-ban.html
http://consumerist.com/... monsanto-is-trying-to-ban-hormone-labeling-at-the-state-level
http://www.organicconsumers.org/...
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/... asiseeit.austin360blogs.com/entry. aspx?q=fa79c216-76f3-465f-91cc-9a5f016acaee ga3.org/campaign/Ohio_rBGH3
- genetically engineered (GE) food, cloned meat, sues has sued farmers for honest labeling; Ben and Jerry's has fought them for years to label their ice cream rBGH-free.
Monsanto is an immense presence in our lives, without most of us having ever heard of it.
(1) GENETIC MODIFICATION
"Pope John Paul II said ... using genetically modified organisms to increase production was contrary to God's will. He told farmers worldwide to
"resist the temptation of high productivity and profit that work to the detriment of the respect of nature ... when (farmers) forget this basic principle and become tyrants of the earth rather than its custodians ... sooner or later the earth rebels. ... [Iif modern farming techniques} don't reconcile themselves with the simple language of nature in a healthy balance, the life of man will run ever greater risks, of which already we are seeing worrying signs."
http://online.sfsu.edu/...
Others agree:
"The large-scale release of transgenic organisms is much worse than nuclear weapons or radioactive nuclear wastes, as genes can replicate indefinitely, spread and recombine. There may yet be time enough to stop the industry's dreams of turning into nightmares if we act now, before the critical genetic 'melt-down' is reached." -- Mae-Wan Ho
"I never imagined people would patent plants and animals. It's fundamentally immoral ... That violates the integrity of life itself, and our deepest sense of morality." -- President, Guaymi General Congress
http://home.clara.net/...
"GMOs threaten Kenya’s environment. ... We believe that God created life, and no one can own it, not even Monsanto ..."
The Thika Declaration on GMOs. Statement from the Kenya Small Scale Farmers http://www.grain.org/...
(2) HUMAN EXPERIMENTATIONS
Monsanto is conducting the largest biologic experiment in the history of the world, on all its people, without their knowledge or consent.
In blocking labeling - at state, national and international level - Monsanto is performing global experimentation on millions of people, who, in being prevented from knowing, are prevented from escaping.
Ethical Guidelines for Biotechnology:
"Responsibility for future generations requires maintaining the genetic integrity of all peoples and not using or studying their genes or those of their indigenous species without their express permission, truly informed consent and suitable compensation."
http://environmentalcommons.org/cetos/articles/codeethics.html
"Transgenes transferred into the wider environment cannot be tracked down ... A ripple effect on other species will take place, even if it cannot be predicted when such an effect will occur, to what extent, or in which species." -- Ricarda A Steinbrecher
"... [T]hese newly introduced microbial proteins is uncertain, unpredictable and untestable." -- Dr Nestle
http://home.clara.net/...
Marc Lappe, ethicist: ... [T]he major issue ... often missed in informed consent, ... that goes back to the Nuremberg Code: you can't ask somebody for informed consent unless they're freely situated to give that consent. ...[I]n this country, and particularly in other countries ... being bound ... to take [GE] food crops without disclosure ...they are doing so, people are not ...[free] to say yes or no." http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/...
Monsanto knows people have refused consent. From a leaked internal Monsanto report: "There is substantial opposition from the public, from the media, and not least, from retailers."
(3) POLLUTING THE ENVIRONMENT
Monsanto made PCBs. The Great Lakes areas is heavily polluted, fish, shellfish contaminated. PCBs, highest in cities, are detected up to north of the Arctic Circle.
Animals eating PCB-contaminated food get liver damage, has led to emaciated seabird corpses washing up on beaches, 400,000 birds dead from poultry-feed in Japan, polar bears, whales developing both sex organs, males unable to reproduce, serious reproductive risk to top predators.
In humans: systemic poisoning, liver damage, Yusho Disease, dermal and ocular lesions, unusual skin sores, poor cognitive development in children, altered estrogen levels and menstrual cycles, feminization of male embryos, intersex babies,, babies with male and female organs, cancers, and more ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Washington Post: "For nearly 40 years, while producing ... PCBs... in Anniston, Alabama, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a ... creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. ... [T]housands of pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew.
... Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if dunked into boiling water. They told no one. ... [T]hey found fish ... with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided "there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges." ... [A] company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered its conclusion changed from "slightly tumorigenic" to "does not appear to be carcinogenic."
http://www.commondreams.org/...
(4) SOCIAL INJUSTICE
Monsanto uses large-scale child-labour in Indian cottonseed production. An estimated-17,000 children, mostly girls, work ... ten to thirteen hours a day for ... Monsanto and their ... subsidiary Mahyco, getting no education, earning less than 40 Eurocents ... a day, exposed to poisonous pesticides like Endosulphan.
http://www.indiaresource.org/...
Millions of Vietnamese are suing Monsanto, maker of Agent Orange, for suffering, disfigurement, deaths. Vietnam vets are suing for effects from exposure.
Monsanto "drenched" Anniston, Alabama, a working-class town, in PCBs and hid dangers for decades. http://www.commondreams.org/...
" ... any farmer that buys their seed may not do research on the seed, may not resell the seed or give it away or provide it for their own family's use the next year if they want to replant the seed that they get from this years crop. ... This ... complete hegemony and control over a patented seed type ... violates the norms by which agriculture has been practiced over the millennia. ....
"... Monsanto has Pinkerton Guards going on crop fields ... a hotline in the Mid-west where farmers can ... report on their neighbors .... It's a terrible draconian system.
.... through satellites they can monitor already now who is doing what. And the idea is control. http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/...
... there is ... danger of relying of an increasing small number of genetic types for ... crops [The Irish potato famine taught that lesson.]. .... suddenly instead of having 38 ... varieties of soybeans ... [t]he farmer today no longer has a choice ... The objective of Monsanto is to completely convert the soybean crop from it's present 50% transgenic or genetically engineered mix to 100% ...."
http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/...
Monsanto currently holds 647, the most plant biotech patents. Their Technology Agreement enforcing those patents "opens farmers' books and fields to virtually limitless scrutiny and incursion."
Monsanto employee told one farmer, “We own you- we own anybody that buys our Roundup Ready products.” http://www.planetark.com/...
(5) CAUSING POVERTY
Monsanto patents its GE-seeds, claiming everything from them as "intellectual property." They have investigated 1000s of farmers and sued many.
Farmers found in violation of the agreement face huge liability. Bankruptcy is common, farmers losing land in their family for generations. http://www.planetark.com/...
One man said “When they [investigators] came up here, they were bragging to other farmers about all of the farmers they had put out of business.”
"Farmers are being sued for having GMOs on their property that they did not buy, do not want, will not use and cannot sell," says Tom Wiley, a North Dakota farmer
http://www.mindfully.org/...
... [A]ny farmer.. [planting] a Roundup-ready-crop has to pay an $8.00 per acre fee directly back to the company that makes the seed.
For some other crops, they pay technology fees of up to $32.00 per acre. ... outrageous prices for ... farmers in other countries to pay, much less the premium that they're already paying for the seed.
... these genetically manipulated seeds, particularly ... ones ... treated with an antibiotic ... [and] no longer can produce itself after ... one ... season, ... can kill off the natural seed bank in neighboring fields that farmers depend on for their - not only their livelihood, but just to stay alive.
.... people think ... [killing off] the weed is the advantage -- not realizing ... you're killing off a ... part of the ecosystem that supports life on earth .... causing ecosystem disruption on a gross scale and beneath the soil, we believe, ... also annihilating hoards of the key microbacteria and mycorhizzia fungal species .... needed to keep ... soil healthy to allow plants to grow in the future. http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/...
http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/...
(6) FINANCIAL GLUTTONY
"Monsanto enjoyed a lucrative four-decade monopoly on PCB production in the United States, and battled to protect that monopoly long after PCBs were confirmed as a global pollutant. "We can't afford to lose one dollar of business," one internal memo concluded. http://www.commondreams.org/...
"Of course, another major concern (of genetic engineering) is monopolies. The entire industry instead of being controlled by the small farmer and by consumer choice, is being dominated by corporate greed." Marc Lappe http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/...
[T]he biotechnology industry has been promoted on ... a very false and misleading premise: that the objective of this science is to feed the world. The initial objective of this science is clearly to line the pockets of the major corporations who design these products to tolerate and accept over-sprays of the chemical herbicides that they themselves produce. It had nothing to do with feeding the world. The initial yields of these products were less than the conventional yields .... http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/...
"It is clear that everyone is in it for the money. The risks can be dismissed by appealing to the benefits, and when the benefits are not forthcoming, the promises have to be kept alive. Biotechnology is the South Sea Bubble at the end of the millennium. -- Mae-Wan Ho http://home.clara.net/...
(7) TAKING DRUGS
Causing to be taken?
Aspartame is an addictive www.aspartame.ca/page_a13.htm and dangerous drug. http://www.rense.com/... During the Clinton Administration, Monsanto controlled FDA, approved Aspartame for use as sugar despite strong medical opposition. http://www.youtube.com/...
rBGH is a drug, and yet Monsanto prevents us from knowing where it is so it can be avoided. A 2007 FDA citizens petition has linked it to a 7-fold increase in breast cancer risk.
http://www.sustdev.org/...
The same year, a Monsanto-connected law firm http://www2.wabash.edu/... pushed a law to limit FDA citizens petitions. http://www.fdalawblog.net/...
Banned for athletes as a dangerous drug, Monsanto makes steroids for animals which show up in our food.
Monsanto "pushing" drugs on the entire population through our food.
Monsanto commits all 7 mortal sins and on a massive and global scale.
Hillary Clinton claims time in the White White as part of her 35 years of experience. She was either part of Monsanto's actions there or was silent. She has never renounced any portion.
Hillary Clintons' deep ties to Monsanto present a major religious dilemma for Catholics.
... and for anyone with ethical or religious principles.