What Obama should know about Monsanto and Clinton w/action update

A fascinating and factual diary went by last night without the readership it deserved.  I've got nothing to add to it, I'm just hoping to get more Obama supporters to read it.  ScaredHuman reaches his arm out to us progressives and shows the wrist.  If Obama has the sense to take that pulse, he can make hay with the rural dairy farmers of PA.

The diary is long and full of well-supported detail  ScaredHuman was advised by several enthusiastic commenters to cut the diary down into smaller chunks and publish it as a series.  I hope that will happen, but meanwhile, it's time to get to work on PA so I'm hoping to speed things up a bit. I give you a very short summary below the fold and invite you to link-i-port on over there.

In Getting Real in Pennsylvania--About Pennsylvania, ScaredHuman ties the Clintons to Monsanto.  More significantly, he tells us that most dairy farmers in the state associate the Clintons with Monsanto wheeling and dealing.  Next we learn some details of how Monsanto is a hated burden for dairy farmers.

Recently Pennsylvania survived a Monsanto push to ban labels telling consumers if the milk was rBGH-free or not.

We learn why "survive" is the appropriate word here.  It turns out that liberals and PA dairy farmers are natural allies when it comes to truth in labeling.  And don't expect Hillary Clinton to be able to get any traction with the issue.  Our friend is inviting Obama to step into the breach.

Next comes an informative discussion of NAIS, how it has been forced on farmers by Monsanto, and what is wrong with it.  NAIS is the National Animal Identification System, which will allow Monsanto to keep track of every animal on a farm.  You need to read the diary to get the full implications of this.  Once again, this is an issue on which progressives and dairy farmers need to make common cause.

How is this for making you want to mobilize:

For farmers who buy its GE-seeds, Monsanto sends Pinkerton agents onto their property to make sure farmers don't collect GE-seeds - Monsanto's patented "intellectual property."  Monsanto also uses planes and helicopters to surveille farmers.

The issue of food safety also comes under scrutiny, with eye-opening results.

So, the Clintons are strongly associated with Monsanto in the minds of PA dairy farmers, and the way Monsanto is riding roughshod over the small farmers is almost perfectly analogous to the insulting, dismissive treatment we progressives have been receiving at the hands of the GOP.  I'm pimping this diary in the hopes that Obama supporters can stir up some votes in rural PA.  And it's a good education on a couple of matters important to progressives.

Here's a comment from ScaredHuman from his dairy diary:

Oh, believe me, these are their issues. I am in touch with farming groups around the county and they are so enraged by NAIS you have no idea.  Or how they feel about Monsanto, though many didn't know Monsanto was behind NAIS.  These issues are survival ones to them.  I am only trying to make the links between all the parts and to make them be compelling enough together, to possibly jump over into mainstream media attention for the farmers and on Hillary's current connection to Monsanto and Bill's really grotesque (as far as genetic engineering being released and all information shut down or warped and democratic processed subverted) history with them.

Update:  OrangeClouds115 has offered these two links with the following comment:

Those [These] are overviews on the issues from a progressive netroots point of view w/ links to action items and more info (incl past dKos diaries) on the bottom of the page.

Right now the action alerts are mostly for Missouri. We really need MO residents sending in their comments to their state govt this week!

rBGH-free labeling in PA:
http://www.recipeforamerica.org/...

NAIS:
http://www.recipeforamerica.org/...