Think "Milk."
Think Monsanto pushing rBGH in cows, with no labeling of the milk.
Think farmers being sued for saying their milk is rBGH-free.
Think farmers in Pennsylvania facing prison for selling normal raw milk.
Think a 7 fold increased risk of breast cancer from the unlabeled rBGH milk. http://www.sustdev.org/...
Think when it all began.
Think Clinton administration when Monsanto ran the FDA.
Think Monsanto altering the numbers in the studies.
Think FDA scientists fired telling congress about the fiddle of numbers.
Think Monsanto approving its own product - first GMO ever approved by FDA.
Think Monsanto hiring Burson-Marsteller to clean up the split milk. http://www.corporatewatch.org/...
Think pus in the milk and sick and dead cows and no labeling.
Think farmers threatened with confiscation of products if they said rBgh-free.
Think Burson-Marsteller running Clinton's campaign.
Think Clinton saying she is concerned about women and children and families and healthcare.
Think a 7 fold increased risk of breast cancer from the unlabeled rBGH milk. http://www.sustdev.org/...
Think Mark Penn, CEO of B-M at Clinton's side, and Charlie Black, head of BKSH, a subsidiary of B-M, running McCain's campaign, and Monsanto behind both.
Think milk.
"Milk does a body-politic good" if how serious this is becomes public knowledge.
See http://www.dailykos.com/... ("The other campaign in Pennsylvania")
See http://www.rideforfarmers.org.
Time to bring right and left and center together. Time to bring rich and poor together. Time to bring us all together. Our farmers are being destroyed - literally - and our food isn't fit to eat. And they are going after the alternative health system.
You are welcome to bring your interest in organic food
(Monsanto is pushing laws controlling what farmers can plant),
your increasing reliance on alternative medicine
(Monsanto is behind reorganizing the FDA and eliminating vitamin companies which will finish off alternatives),
your interest in decent food
(Monsanto is establishing control over food and wiping out farmers world-wide),
your concern for global warming
(industrial agriculture is a major contributor to global warming),
your caring for the poor
(all of this leaves people unable to fend for themselves, with no way off off the grid of corporate profits),
and contact rideforfarmers@comcast.net.
We are in this together and this is the moment to make that plain,
across issues,
across political divides,
across racial divides,
across class divides.
Brought together by milk. Come out and save your own lives.
And Clinton does have experience. It's in r-BGH milk which has B-M in it.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
"
Big Biotech's backlash against democracy. The growing rural resistance to frankenseeds has companies like Monsanto running to their allies in at least nine US states -- California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Dakota, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arizona, and West Virginia -- to pass or introduce legislation that would preempt local cities and counties that want to restrict the sale of genetically modified seeds. These bills (some of which would also overturn other local restrictions on factory farms and other unwanted land uses) represent a coordinated attempt to block the spread of GMO-free ordinances like the ones passed by citizens in Mendocino and Marin counties in California in 2004. Another local GMO-free law will be voted on in Sonoma County, CA this coming November. The well-coordinated corporate counterstrategy represents a desperate attempt to squash the new populist resistance to corporate rule. Like other laws passed in Pennsylvania, Sonoma's proposed ten-year moratorium is part of a greater fight for local decision-making authority that is spreading across the country. For more model state and local policies, go here."
http://www.corporatepolicy.org/...
A Paul Revere Ride for truth and the freedom to take care of ourselves. For property rights to be untouched. For milk itself. That we need to do this, says everything about how dangerous this country has become.
CONTACT: Ride for Farmers
rideforfarmers@comcast.net
www.rideforfarmers.org
404 291-1999
Who: Ride for Farmers - American farmers and their friends
What: A Paul Revere's ride to wake the American public with another desperate warning - Corporations are
destroying American family farming and with them - our food. A series of volunteer relay riders will
be participating.
This is a come-hell-or-high-water effort at a critical moment for our country's safety - for farmers, for our food, for our health.
If on any leg of the ride, we lack a horse and rider, we'll use trucks, cars, bikes, or plain ole feet, or any other means, to deliver this message on behalf of American family farmers and the American people.
Where: Across Pennsylvania, from Grove City through Clarion, Jefferson, Indiana, Clearfield, Cambria, Blair,
Huntingdon, Centre, Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Dauphin, Lebanon, and Lancaster counties.
When: April 2nd - April 21st over a period of almost 3 weeks. Ride ends in Lancaster County on Monday,
before the primary vote on the 22nd.
Why: To introduce the American people to Monsanto, to its deep ties to this presidential race, and to
how terrible things are now for our farmers and our food and health.
HEADLINE: "Paul Revere Ride across Pennsylvania to expose Monsanto connection to our politicians:
corporate control of USDA/FDA is destroying America's family farmers, food and health."
START DATE: High noon, Wednesday April 2nd, 2008
START POINT: Grove City PA, Venango County
Joseph Jenkins, Inc. Contracting, Consulting, Publishing, Retail Sales
143 Forest Lane, Grove City, PA 16127 USA
Toll free phone: 866-641-7141; Fax: 814-786-8209; Cell: 724-967-2504
web: josephjenkins.com
email: joe@josephjenkins.com
FINISH DATE: Monday April 21, 2008
FINISH POINT: Lancaster County - location to be determined
THE TRIGGER: NAIS - the National Animal Identification System - pushed by Monsanto (and others) through the USDA - is a last straw for many family farmers across this country. Already crushed by corporate control of the USDA and FDA and corporate Farm Bills, and now faced with NAIS, some farmers have sold off herds to escape the totalitarian control inherent in NAIS (information from Family Farm Defenders).
Using "food safety" as the excuse, just as NSA-spying uses "terrorism," both are vast overreaching for other and hidden (in this case corporate) purposes. NAIS will give corporations complete oversight of their competition's (family farmers') holdings and movements.
This ride is meant to help Americans finally recognize that
AMERICAN family farmers are in actual peril.
And along with our farmers, AMERICAN FOOD.
And with along with our food, AMERICANS' HEALTH.
It is all going to pieces because our democracy is going to pieces.
This Ride is based on Paul Revere's ride - sounding a warning -
which is the first and most basic democratic impulse of all,
to save one's fellow citizens
through information of impeding harm or oppression.
The public is as yet unfamiliar with Monsanto.
It is also, then, unfamiliar with its connections to the Clintons and what has already flowed from that.
Thought the Ride will make that public, Monsanto's connection to the Clintons, THOUGH, are only ONE dreadful example of how corporate corruption of our government not just frustrates real democratic life but is a literal danger to Americans' lives.
Our farmers' survival and American health is impacted by an INTENTIONAL absence of information about the food. That lack of information goes hand and hand with an absence of information on who has been involved. These are missing pieces the American public must have to act in their own interest - to save their family farmers and their food and their health and America as a democratic country.
Monsanto is the largest genetic engineering corporation in the world and has dramatically altered American food in the last decade and is a particularly giant and frightening presence for farmers.
Exposing Hillary Clinton's involvement with it is not a "gotcha" moment. It is about a real and disturbing history which even up to today affects every single one of us, AND which she has never renounced. Any "gotcha" aspects to it are only related to vast amounts of information which have not yet come out but which is readily available.
It is APPROPRIATE and NECESSARY to bring this material forward right now, nationally, as people are voting, especially in a state that barely beat back a ban on labeling of milk (pushed by Monsanto) and one that is only off the table for a few months, and may be on hold only until the campaign is out of Pennsylvania.
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MONSANTO CONNECTIONS IN THIS CAMPAIGN:
OBAMA: His campaign is run by David Plouffe and David Axelrod, part of AKP Message & Media, political consultants. http://www.kevo.com/...
(In December of 2007, Obama's campaign took on Moses Mercado, whose role may be to help win Hispanic voters. Previously, Mercado worked with Howard Dean at the DNC, for Richard Gephardt for six years, and before that for a Texas congressman. He has one year of experience with Ogilvy, a PR firm, for Monsanto, BBC, BP, Coca-Cola ...) http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
MCCAIN: His campaign is run by his senior advisor, DC Lobbyist Charlie Black. Charlie Black's firm, BKSH, is a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller, one of the largest PR firms in the world and a major PR firm for Monsanto, Blackwater, Exxon ....
http://rawstory.com/...
CLINTON: Her campaign is run by her long term advisor, now campaign strategist, Mark Penn, who is the CEO of Burson-Marsteller - Burson-Marsteller, one of the largest PR firms in the world and a major PR firm for Monsanto, Blackwater, Exxon ... http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/...
Clinton and McCain's campaigns are BOTH run by men working for Burson-Marsteller, which does major work for Monsanto.
BURSON-MARSTELLER: Burson-Marsteller (B-M), one of the largest PR agencies in the world, is one of the most reviled by those concerned with the environment (and other issues) for doing such things as helping its industry clients escape environmental legislation, or "sprucing up the image of some of the most repressive governments on Earth. B-M brings to bear state of the art techniques in manipulating the mass media, legislators and public opinion." http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/...
Of particular interest for this campaign, given Clinton's history in the White when rBGH was introduced, and that rBGh is still a very hot issue in Pennsylvania today, is that "FDA scientist, Dr Richard Burroughs concluded from analysing test data that Monsanto was manipulating the figures. In 1989 he was sacked after complaining to Congress that his superiors were suppressing his accusations. ... To deal with the expected controversy Monsanto assembled an army of PR companies to aid them of which [BURSON-MARSTELLER] was one." It was caught infiltrating an anti-rBGH group and posing to a writer as a journalist for ABC, attempting to get access to his material. http://www.corporatewatch.org/...
[B-M] famously advised the [bio-tech] industry to stay off the “communications killing fields” that are the “public issues of environmental and human health risk”, i.e. to avoid participating in any public debate on these issues. The strategy recommended leaving it to regulatory bodies and other third parties to deal with these issues, and to communicate through symbols and stories, not logic. A positive image of biotechnology may be created through highlighting new products and potential beneficiaries, and developing a very close relationship with the media; “EuropaBio must turn itself into the journalist's best and most reliable continuing source of biotechnology/bioindustries inspiration and information - the first-stop help desk where they get no industry propaganda but practical, editor-pleasing, deadline-beating, connect to interesting stories and personalities - even adversarial - relevant to their readerships.” http://www.corporatewatch.org/...
"Monsanto have used several prominent public relations companies in an all out media assault to achieve public acceptance of their GM products. These companies include the infamous Burson Marsteller ... Monsanto was accused of being arrogant and spreading misinformation. After a barrage of complaints an enquiry by the Advertising Standards Agency found that Monsanto adverts had been wrong and misleading on 6 of the 13 counts filed against them." http://www.corporatewatch.org/...
Monsanto continues to push rBGH and GE-crops, despite scientific studies indicating major disease risks, despite objections in this country and worldwide, and it is still working to ban labeling of milk (including in Pennsylvania) and of all GE-foods and food from cloned animals, and even internationally through preventing labeling of GE-exports.
The Ride For Farmers encourages media to look carefully at EVERY candidate and hold them all accountable for their Monsanto connections.
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INFORMATION:
Monsanto en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto made Agent Orange, PCBs, nuclear weapons components, pesticides, ... With that diverse background in death, it now is handling our food - genetically engineering hormones, making steroids, patenting GE seeds of every kind, cloning animals, while blocking "free speech" and fair competition (or it looks like that to me, when someone can't say what's good about their product), suing farmers, ...
Here is the history of the beginning of rBGH in dairy cows - which began during the 1990s, a time one candidate running for president claims as part of "35 years of experience."
MONSANTO:
- Monsanto people were put in charge of food, ... http://www.commondreams.org/...
- FDA okayed Monsanto's rBGH (bovine growth hormone), first GE-product ever approved.
- Despite bovine illness/death, FDA didn't recall or warn. http://www.wafreepress.org/...
- Despite scientific studies linking rBGH use to breast cancer, labeling was prevented. http://www.preventcancer.com/...
- When dairymen labeled their milk "rBGH-free," USDA actually threatened them with confiscation of their dairy products from groceries.
- With organic milk as the last way around unknown danger, FDA sought new "organic" standards - to include genetic engineering of plants/animals [good for Monsanto], food irradiation , sewage sludge fertilizer [good for Tyson]. http://query.nytimes.com/...
USDA backed down after a public response 20 times greater than to anything before. http://www.orpheusweb.co.uk/...
AMERICAN FOOD:
Oils: Indian sheep died eating from Bt cotton fields. http://btcotton.blogspot.com/... Our children eat Bt cottonseed oil in peanut butter, cookies.
Grains: 49% of corn acreage planted in Bt corn in 2007. www.ers.usda.gov/Data/BiotechCrops/adoption.htm French study indicates it causes kidney and liver toxicity. http://www.organicconsumers.org/... Monsanto controls US's two main crops, soy (90% GMO, 90% of traits "belong" to Monsanto) and corn, the largest crop (60% GMO, nearly 100% Monsanto "owned" traits). http://www.organicconsumers.org/...
Scientists say GE-corn may cause diabetes. http://www.organicconsumers.org/...
Meat: Steroids bulk athletes, Monsanto steroids fatten animals, our fattening children eat steroid-laced meats. FDA allowed "known TSE-positive (Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy - Mad Cow Disease) material to be used in pet food, pig, chicken and fish feed." Monsanto's GE-hormone increases risk sick cows are entering US food chain. http://www.consumersunion.org/...
Poultry: USDA weakened waste/contamination standards. Waste from transnational poultry industry is now implicated as the source of bird flu. http://www.globalresearch.ca/... The poultry industry is using the crisis to push out small farmers. http://www.ens-newswire.com/...
Milk: Scientific studies indicate Monsanto's rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold, increases colon, prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. Bill's USFDA put no restrictions, warning labels, or any labels. http://www.sustdev.org/...
Sweeteners: FDA granted blanket approved to Aspartame despite serious health concerns http://www.disinfo.com/... while working to keep Stevia, a natural sweetener, out of the US, despite over 900 studies indicating no health concerns. http://www.stevia.com/...
MOVES TO CONTROL LAWS, EDUCATION, INFORMATION AND TO SHUT OFF DEMOCRATIC AVENUES OF ESCAPE FROM GMOs.
Terminator genes: Plants become sterile after one season, requiring farmers to repurchase, and pose an apocalyptic risk of breaking out into nature. GE breakouts have contaminated maize http://www.slogefree.org/... and weeds, already. http://www.newscientist.com/...
NAIS: Monsanto, meat-packers, and USDA are pushing a National Animal Identification System, a corporate database tracking all small farmers' livestock. http://www.naturalnews.com/...
http://goexcelglobal.he.net/... But it will profoundly alters property laws, making the farmers only "stake-holders" in their land and appears to be a totalitarian take-over of all farm land. http://www.newswithviews.com/...
Consumer Protection: FDA and USDA employees, Ohio consumer advocate, connected to Monsanto. http://www.columbusdispatch.com/...
How many more consumer groups are being undermined?
Spying on farmers: Monsanto Pinkerton agents to go onto their property to check the farmer hasn't collected GE seeds - Monsanto's patented "intellectual property." Monsanto uses other means as well, to check up on farmers. http://www.patentprofits.com/...
Education: Monsanto is moving to control the land grant colleges and what is taught there? http://prorev.com/... id=3462&name=Donald-Danforth-Plant-Science-Center
Media: Monsanto funds a public television series about agriculture http://ourohio.org/...
while threatening media from airing news about its products. http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
Suing farmers: Monsanto sues farmers for accidental cross-pollination and wind spread http://www.cbc.ca/... Monsanto has a href="0 million budget and 75 person staff to prosecute farmers. http://www.grist.org/...
Court influence: Monsanto, through the Genome Project of the Department of Energy, has brought a delegation of Indian judges to the US to be "educated" (not "influenced," the director says) about genetic engineering
Transgenics: US team meets CJI. Gargi Parsai, The Hindu. 5 January, 2001. New Delhi
and approached numerous other countries as well. http://209.85.165.104/...
LAWS MONSANTO IS PUSHING:
+ taking all control over GE planting, from farmers, communities to give to a single state committee. http://www.rense.com/...
+ blocking labeling of milk and other GE foods http://nonais.org/... despite knowledge of problems. http://www.organicconsumers.org/...
+ undermining saving of normal seeds bureaucratically overwhelming and a privacy invasion. http://lists.essential.org/...
+ through the Farm Bill, holding a break in USDA crop insurance hostage to farmers' buying Monsanto GE seeds. http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Monsanto is one of the largest agri-businesses in the world. Industrial Agriculture has given us:
Cattle living in filth, 12,000-year-old seed loss, poultry industry implicated in bird flu, Mad Cow disease, bee colony collapse (there is none for organic beekeepers) http://www.globalresearch.ca/... poisoned soil, depleted water, Superweeds (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1882-geneticallymodified-superweeds-not-uncommon.html), lawsuits against farmers, loss of family farms throughout the world, ... farmers committing suicide (in India, on average one every 32 minutes). www.thehindu.com/2007/ 11/12/stories/2007111257790100.htm www.hindu.com/2007/09/07/stories/2007090761771500.htm www.hinduonnet.com/2007/ 11/15/stories/2007111554771300.htm
And global warming. http://www.indsp.org/... http://www.greenpeace.org/...
Bees and farmers, dead. Look at that again. Bees and farmers, the heart of farming, dead. Our canaries in the mine of industrial agriculture.
Monsanto uses child labor in India, http://www.indiaresource.org/...
Blacks, our poorest group, have to eat Monsanto's steroid/hormone/antibiotic-filled GE food.
Latinos' central food is corn; its GE version is toxic to the kidney and liver, and has contaminated normal corn in Mexico.
National Black Farmers Association (once 1,000,000 strong, now down to 18,000 farmers because of USDA discriminatory policies, is boycotting all Monsanto products.
Babies and children are drinking rBGH milk.
Women fearing breast cancer don't know the association and doctors have not begun warning.
Animals are suffering in the billions.
Children are eating Bt-corn in processed food, soft drinks, and candy.
Diabetes among men, women, and children is increasing dramatically.
Farmers are desperate, some selling herds, many selling farms to escape corporate driven USDA/FDA policies.
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CLOSURE:
for additional information
contact: Ride for Farmers
rideforfarmers@comcast.net
404 291-1999
WHAT: AN HISTORIC RIDE ACROSS PENNSYLVANIA by farmers and friends of farmers during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary to bring attention to the TERRIBLE PLIGHT of American family farmers, and opposing the corrupted, destructive government/corporate connection embodied in the Clinton/Monsanto (hidden) relationship.
SUMMARY: The Ride for Farmers is to warn Americans about Monsanto corruption of the USDA, FDA, our agricultural policies, our farm bills, and our politicians, and the danger is poses to farmers and farming itself, and to our health through GE-food.
HISTORY: This ride is a natural outgrowth of family farmers and ranchers' rage over NAIS, over genetically engineered and patented seeds, over increasing USDA regulations over food safety which simultaneously ignores the sources of the problems - the huge and filthy confinement of animals, the giant slaughter houses working as insane speeds, the immense increase in pesticides, feed with sick animals ground up into it, the great lagoons of contaminated feces - while destroying family farmers who have clean farms and natural conditions for animals.
America has Sinclair Lewis conditions all over again - and MORE - but the USDA/corporation ignores those and fools the media, while pushing for totalitarian regulations that do nothing to stop the filthy conditions, or to protect our health but the opposite, and which push honest family farmers - the only decent farming left - off a cliff.
American family farmers are at a breaking point but because of our corrupted government - as represented by Monsanto/Clinton - they can't go to the USDA or the FDA or expect adequate help from Congress, so they are going to Lancaster County, the home of Amish Farmers who have always done their best to leave free of government control, some of whom are now selling herds to escape NAIS.
The American people are in the dark about what has been happening to their farmers, and to their food and health.
(And they are going to stunned to learn that the Monsanto (and Big Pharma) controlled FDA has being reorganized into a drug company, and the new regulations they are imposing will eliminate vitamin companies.)
http://soundofcannons.blogspot.com/... 01/no-more-vitamins-or-their-companies.html
http://www.rumormillnews.com/... forum.cgi?noframes;read=117225
http://www.naturalnews.com/...
The promise of a free country for all, of protection from the control and power of the rich over the ordinary man, has been broken. The Ride for Farmers is going to Lancaster to share with the Amish the broken dream of being left to farm, to live, to work, to fend for and take care of ourselves even, in peace.
REQUEST OF AMERICAN MEDIA:
The Ride for Farmers asks the American media to help our (and their) American family farmers survive, to help the American public (of which they are a part) have unimpeded access to normal, clean, healthy food from family farmers, and all information about food, and full and uncontrolled access to supplements from small private businesses.
The Ride for Farmers asks the American media to help us unfasten corporate tentacles from the USDA and FDA so we (and they) will not be left to depend on corporations for food and for drugs and have no way to feed ourselves or treat ourselves otherwise.
There is no money in health. With access to good food and supplements, we won't need so many drugs and medical "stuff." That is an immense threat to those who make fortunes on illness.
We see our farmers are being cut off from ways to stay in business, from ways to reach us, and we are being cut off from ways to reach them and to take care of ourselves.
We are asking you to help to make true the American promise of freedom, of the right of the little guy to go into business or farming and make a decent living through hard work, without being used or destroyed by large special interests through our government.
These are your farmers, too, your food, too, your health, too, your choice, too, to use natural supplements to improve your family's health. We know you are controlled by corporate interests but at some point even they may see this is madness and their families cannot survive this either.
When Amish farmers are selling their farms because they can't handle the USDA regulations anymore, something has gone terribly wrong. It is why we are going to Lancaster, carrying that message to the American public.
We all feel the net tightening. PLEASE HELP US.
DISCLAIMER: The Ride for Farmers are not involved with any political party or any organization or backing any candidate, only trying to expose especially disturbing connections. Most of our politicians are deeply connected with and bought off by corporations. Perhaps this ride will put all politicians connected to Monsanto on notice and will make all politicians become aware of the American public's deep anger at how our government is being run by large business interests, not by or for citizens.
The material presented in our brochures and in the press release is public knowledge, merely collected into organized form. We are citizens who have read on these subjects and are including only a tiny portion of the horrifying things we have learned.
For instance, we now know that genetic engineering is many orders of magnitude different from "normal" business in its potential biologic ramifications and that it makes real the warning of Pandora'a Box - letting irretrievable things rush out into nature. Only the stark change to the world from nuclear fission and fusion offers a harrowing enough parallel. But genetic engineering goes further - it can combine and multiply.
There is a vast amount of material we did not include. We are ordinary citizens who may be wrong but are acting to inform others as best we can, giving them references so they can decide for themselves. We are all brothers and sisters and it is our obligation to share as much information as possible on the injustices to our farmers and on any health hazards, with each other. We wish the media had done it for us and hope it will now focus immense and urgent attention on these subjects.
Perhaps things are swell out there and rBGH is fabulous and Mad Cow-laced feed is great, and genetic engineering is the best thing since manna. But we are scared for our families and have not only a right to speak up and a moral obligation to do so, but as part of a human family, human beings since time immemorial, have warned each other about dangers to do with food. Over-warning is forgivable but silence in the face of possible dangers is never so. And since the food is not labeled and no one knows, it becomes more urgent than ever to put out as much of the missing information as possible.
Monsanto has been allowed immense influence and has done the things with that power that "appear" to be seriously threatening to our farmers and the American public. It is up to Americans to decide for themselves. We welcome any corrections to facts presented.
The industrialization of every tender and beautiful part of the natural world is coming back to haunt us. We hope, for all our children's sake, we are not too late to pull back from having altered plants and animals and farming itself, to their very core. We believe things have become dangerously contaminated, beginning with our government, by money and by an arrogant "science" that reassures us that Bt-corn is "just like normal" when wild geese and deer silently say otherwise by not eating it. http://www.globalresearch.ca/...
We see family farmers as the last honest men standing when it comes to food, and needing and greatly deserving our immediate protection. We see farmers as our own last protection in providing real food, clean food, safe food, and thus our protection against diseases.