Hillary Clinton got away with an amazing feat in Pennsylvania. In a dairy state, one in which there are two looming bans on milk - one to ban labeling of milk associated with a 7 times increased risk of breast cancer in order to promote it without anyone knowing about it, and one to ban good plain raw milk - her own disturbing connection to milk remained a secret. In a state where dairy farmers (and other farmers) are living in literal fear of Monsanto, the fact that Monsanto has been running her campaign (even with Penn in the shadows now), remained a secret.
And in a heavily Catholic state which has seven mortal social sins: genetic modification, human experimentation, polluting the environment, social injustice, causing poverty, financial gluttony, and drugs, she got away with having Monsanto guiding her for years and as the (now) hidden hand of Monsanto advising her campaign through Mark Penn (CEO of Burson-Marsteller, PR firm to Monsanto) - a corporation that whose actions grossly and killingly overflow each category of those sins. Monsanto, a corporation that makes one believe that "the anti-Christ" may not be a person. And yet she got Catholic votes. Because no one knew.
And it is about silence and its dangers in a democracy that I am writing now
Hillary Clinton went to Wellesley College where the motto is "Non administrari, sed administrare" - not to be ministered unto but to minister. An apt motto for a woman's college pre-sufferage, as women were asserting their non-child status and their own ability to lead. It seems so positive a motto for her campaign, for here she is, a woman, leading.
But the motto holds a contradiction. For me, the first part of the motto matters most - the "not to be ministered unto" part. It expresses a universal wish not to be controlled, not to be treated as a child, not to be spoken down to as a fool, not to be subservient to anyone ... and especially not to the implied ones who are doing the "ministering."
"Not to be ministered unto" throws into question what makes ministering to anyone acceptable or harmful.
At it here that I believe that Hillary Clinton's "ministering" has been a problem. It has kept vital information from the American people, information that they truly need to live their lives safely and wisely. I believe they have been made fools of, been made hapless objects, been put in literal danger, because that information has been and is still being withheld from them.
Here is where this story begins:
During the Clinton administration, when Monsanto employees were appointed to run the FDA and they approved recombinant bovine growth hormone - their own product - the first genetically engineered product ever approved, and cows were getting sick and some were dying and there was pus in the milk and other countries were banning our dairy products and there was a 1996 press conference of scientists who indicated a possible link to breast cancer, the milk was not labeled. There were no restrictions, no warnings, no labeling whatsoever. And when dairy farmers put rBGH-free on their products, they were threatened with the possibility of those products being confiscates off grocery shelves.
So, at a time (the Clinton administration) when genetic engineering of food was being introduced for the first time ever - a massive change to food and one that held potentially dangerous and unknown risks - that is when banning of labeling began, an enforced blindness coming down, information being intentionally withheld and those giving it out, threatened.
And information wasn't just covered up, it also got a "twist." FDA scientists went to Congress to report that the numbers on the studies of rBGh had been fiddled (and they were fired). In addition, the Clinton administration attempted to alter the organic standards to include genetically engineered foods, irradiated foods, and sewage sludge as fertilizer for organic crops. That is, science was corrupted and astoundingly misleading labeling (organic = genetically engineered?) was proposed.
To handle the controversy over the altered studies, Monsanto hired Burson-Masteller, one of the largest PR firms in the world (also representing Blackwater, Exxon Mobil, Dow, the Argentinian junta ....) to clean things up and to push GE-milk on the public - but without their knowing which milk was which.
Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Masteller has been Hillary Clinton's long term advisor, and until very recently, her campaign strategist. The Clinton campaign paid Burson-Masteller over $10 million for their services. The people replacing Penn (who is still there, advising from the shadows) are also associated with the biotech industry.
Instead of science, we have public relations. Instead of information, we have laws banning labeling. Instead of support for farmers, we have them being sued for being "misleading" in saying honestly that they do no use rBGH (or BST).
And then we have the incredible reality that a citizens' petition to the FDA in 2007 reported that 30 scientific journals showed an up to 7 times increased risk of breast cancer from rBGH milk (also increased risk of colon, lung and prostate cancer).
And in Pennsylvania, dairy farmers who make plain, simple, raw milk are facing bans and threats of jail.
I knew Hillary Clinton. I voted twice for Bill. I pulled for her. But I am a mother and grandmother and when I found out the years I spent desperately searching to figure out which milk was which, which cheese did not come from cows with hormones, which ice cream was safe, was related to Hillary Clinton, it is hard to describe how that felt. I deeply, deeply resent that my family was put at risk. I resent as a citizen that such fundamental information as which product came from a genetically engineered source was kept from me.
And I care enough about my country to feel the same sense of outrage that other Americans - my American family - were treated in this way, exposed in this way, controlled in this way. And it is still going on.
Hllary Clinton works closely with Monsanto people who are pushing the banning of labeling across the country, who are suing farmers for telling the truth, who are part of the USDA which I believe are creating raw milk scares to wipe out the remaining dairy farmers who are able to live outside of a corporate control. They have a direct link to customers who want their clean, safe, wholesome, pro-biotic, valuable milk www.westonaprice.org/children/rawmilk.html - which is the real competition to the pasteurized, homogenized, hormone-produced, antibiotics-used, agony-for-the-cow, industrialized, corporately-controlled-priced, white stuff they call milk.
rBGH is a genetically engineered product and genetic engineering itself is sorely untested and what tests are coming back - those that are independent of the biotech industry itself - are beyond worrisome. A French study of Monsanto's genetically engineered corn last year showed it caused kidney and liver toxicity. http://www.organicconsumers.org/... That is the main crop in the US. Scientists are now saying it may cause diabetes. http://www.organicconsumers.org/... Is that corn - across the whole American diet and in super whammy in high fructose corn syrup - what is causing the recent disturbing rise in diabetes across the culture?
But banning labeling of rBGh is not just keeping a label off of something. Because the thing being kept unlabeled is genetically engineering itself and potentially extremely dangerous, by not labeling it, millions of people are being exposed to a vast human experiment without being able to escape being part.
The Nuremburg Codes ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberg.htmlsays that to have human experiments, one must have "informed" "consent." We have neither information nor consent. We have intentional absence of information. And where people have found their own information, there is actual resistance of which Monsanto is aware. So, this is an enforced experiment which we are all trapped in. This isn't just some restraint of trade issue or even, much more seriously, a freedom of speech issue. Given the potential threat, these are crimes against humanity.
Pennsylvania is a dairy state and dairy farmers are AFRAID. And yet the connection to Clinton did not get out.
They are afraid to sell raw milk though they have done so safely for generations, maintaining their livelihoods and farms, and though there is a strong and growing demand from consumers. They are afraid of Monsanto and its lawsuits against them and of changes in laws (such as the recent one in Pennsylvania taking from farmers the right to plant what they choose, and from communities the right to exclude GE-crops from their area). They are afraid of the USDA and their state agriculture department and of the use food scares to corporate advantage by wrecking competition from real farmers. Raw milk scares, for instance, are going on now in Pennsylvania, setting up an ignorant public for a ban on sale of all raw milk. Meanwhile, the industrialized stuff they call milk is associated with a 7 times increased risk in breast cancer while raw milk is associated with a lessening of allergies and asthma. http://www.realmilk.com/... http://www.realmilk.com/
Non administrari, sed administare. Not to be ministered unto but to minister. If one is going to minister to anyone, it must be to treat them respectfully and honorably by giving them information they need to live and control their own lives. To minister to people and withhold basic information from them is not "ministering" but controlling and infantilizing - precisely what Wellesley women were objecting to before suffrage. To now turn around as a woman and treat the public in the same way, is not leading but damaging.
And forcing genetic engineering itself on the public, especially through a product heavily associated now with cancers, and forcing that product via enforced secrecy about which milk is even which, while misleading the public with large PR campaigns that milk is good for them - and all of this for the benefit of corporate profits and for one's own enhanced power and financial position - are horribly wrong.
This presidential campaign is about milk. That most basic, seemingly honest food. About the history of when it got perverted. About the history of when silence became the enforced means our government began using to deal with its citizens around something that even at that time was a question of dangerous concern. About the current banning of labeling and suing of farmers. About the attempt now to wipe out farmers who are selling raw milk. About the fact that the Clintons are not themselves yet labeled as part of this. About the fact that Monsanto is not labeled yet either, not known to the American public as controlling their food - genetic engineering being their new "industry" after years of making killing things like Agent Orange, PCBs, toxic dump sites, and pesticides.
To minister to others well, one must do so by strengthening them to look after themselves - by treating them with respect, by giving them information, but honoring their abilities to do right for themselves.
And it is in that context that Hillary Clinton's campaign in Pennsylvania, no matter the vote, was a failure. She should have been giving as much information as possible to as many people as possible so people are able to minister to themselves, be in control of their own lives, to be subject to no one. She should have been getting the USDA/FDA/Monsanto off the backs and off the farms and out of the lives of family farmers so they can stop being corruptly ministered to in ways that are literally destroying - and appear intended to destroy - them.
Hillary Clinton should not have gotten rural or Catholic votes in Pennsylvania and only through deceit did she. Once the American people learn the Clinton connection to milk, to Monsanto and to breast cancer risk from a genetically engineered product, the truth will guide them.
It is not enough for Hillary Clinton to say, only when asked, that she would label the food because she has been party to it not being labeled and is working with Monsanto which is currently pushing non-labeling from state to state.
Burson-Masteller have earned their 10 million because they have been able to turn Hillary Clinton's utter contempt for the American people and astoundingly callous disregard for their health, into seeming concern and attention to their needs. That public relations coup may even trump helping her win votes from the jobless in Ohio, made so after the Clintons' destruction of this country's manufacturing base through NAFTA. (She was party to it in claiming those White House years as part of her 35 years of experience, in claiming thorough knowledge of policy issues, in never having criticized it.). B-M can sell lies incredibly well.
And in that context, and in the context of milk dangerous to women, Hillary Clinton winning women's votes is remarkable - for its horror. And Hillary talking about food safety is a fantastic public relations stunt reaching the point of absurdity. Until she denounces Monsanto completely, denounces the years of non-labeling of genetically engineered foods which she was party to, exposes the greatly increased risk of breast cancer posed by the milk, and then profusely apologizes to the American people, she is standing eyebrow deep in deception. Because rBGH milk and its risks and hiding it from the American public while strongly pushing the consumption of milk, all for Monsanto profits, began during the Clinton administration.
Non administari, sed administrare. Exactly what all Americans and all American family farmers wish for themselves. It depends on the truth.
Let us begin:
"Got Monsanto?"