This is a Call to Action for a Non-Hierarchical Occupation of Monsanto Everywhere
Whether you like it or not, chances are Monsanto contaminated the food you ate today with chemicals and unlabeled GMOs. Monsanto controls much of the world's food supply at the expense of food democracy worldwide. This site is dedicated to empowering citizens of the world to take action against Monsanto & it's enablers like the FDA, USDA, EPA, GMA, BIO, and the processed food companies that use Monsanto's products.
It takes a Biosphere as a whole to float harmoniously in the vacuum of space almost as though it were meant to be. To even toy with an act of summoning the logic of the vacuume or further to even attempt to act as though we are in one whilst in an interconnected Biosphere is an act and thought of quintessential silliness and hubris in the extreme.
Beginning Monday, September 17, at 11:30 am and continuing through that week, “Occupy UH Manoa-santo,” a public forum and encampment, was formed on the sidewalk at University & Dole Street. A rally was held at the Hawai’i State Capitol from 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm, followed by a discussion on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) at Thomas Square from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm. It featured guest speakers and a soap box. At 6:30 pm, a march commenced from Thomas Square and ended at University & Dole to join the encampment there. Documentaries, music, and other media were shown at the UH encampment media center.
“At the UH Manoa campus, you have CTAHR,” explains Blade W., “It stands for College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. They’ve received $620,000 from Monsanto to establish the Monsanto Research Fellows Fund. We’re setting up an encampment at UH to bring public attention to the University’s connection to this harmful form of agriculture.”
“Monsanto’s money has blinded the University to the downsides of GMO.” tells Michael Broady Jr., “When you listen to the official story, biotechnology seems like a positive thing. It is supposed to help farmers grow more food, prevent loss of crops, while Monsanto is able to provide the University with funding. However, those first two claims have not been substantiated, instead leading 250,000 farmers in India to suicide due to the increased dependence on Monsanto which comes with patented GMO seed. I urge UH CTAHR to question the paradigm of monoculture, which is not profitable if all factors are considered including damages to the environment and human health.”
I should add: With the great lengths taken and being took behind genetic modification at such fundamental levels, one conceivable scenario could be reached wherein the life cycle may become so totally alien in relation to what we know and perceive as human beings that it may take a billion years to truly become something we are used to calling again a balance. We may have times of mono sterility to wild and great swings of pre-cambrian explosions later in which it may be difficult for many to survive in a way that some may think of again of in a balance; if we as an ecosystem are able to achieve at all complex ecosystems it could be added.
Capitalism seems to be one of the major causes of this headlong and reckless pursuit, insanely fumbling with the very basis of life; trying to control it and emphasizing greed as capitalism does rather than the other paths and parts of human development as the way we decide to do things. There are other paths possible.
One of the most important legacies of the Occupy movement has been the sustained, focused campaigns that have emerged from the broad, diffuse protests that captured the world’s attention last fall. Occupy the SEC has kept up the pressure for the Volcker Rule, while Occupy Colleges is determined to end the student debt crisis.
Another powerful example is the expanding network known as Occupy Monsanto, which has emerged over the past eight months staging numerous protests at companies connected to the global trade of genetically engineered foods, known as GMOs.
(GMO foods are organisms which have had specific changes introduced to their DNA using genetic engineering techniques. The plants produced by Monsanto’s seeds are designed to be treated with toxic herbicides and pesticides, chemicals which have been suspected to increase allergies and have been linked to decreased fertility, asthma, organ failure and even, possibly, cancer. The jury is still out, but Occupy Monsanto sensibly argues that vegetables are fine the way nature intended them, and that Monsanto is devoting far more research to the financial metrics of GMOs than to the health implications.)
Trying to sustain its focus, Occupy Monsanto recently announced that it will organize a full week of protests in St. Louis, home of the Monsanto Corporation, on the anniversary of OWS, September 17, 2012. The protests based on the idea that Monsanto’s push to control agriculture poses a great threat not only to consumers in the United States but to farmers and communities throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia, will call on US legislators to mandate the labeling of GMO food, so consumers can decide whether to ingest these products or not.
Occupy Monsanto aims to aggressively confront and expose the industrial agriculture system head-on. “There is something wrong when a chemical manufacturer, the same company who made Agent Orange, controls the US food supply,” said activist Jaye Crawford.
“Wall Street and the American political elite have underestimated and even ignored our potential to effect rational policy change on GMOs which would include labeling for GMOs and restrictions on GMO cultivation,” says Gene Etic an anti-GMO campaigner based in Washington, DC. “If Occupy Monsanto’s anti-GMO actions are successful, after September 17 the media and increasingly more voters will ask tough questions about these experimental GMO crops especially within the context of the presidential election, as that office holds the power to determine American food policy,” says Etic.
The protests will vary in size and nature but are unified in rejecting the legitimacy of GMO food. Check out this interactive map with times, dates and locations of the more than sixty protests organized so far.
Dressed in contamination suits and waving around boxes of children’s cereal they say are pumped with Genetically Modified Organisms, protesters planted themselves outside of the International BIO Convention Monday to fight against a week-long meeting of mega-companies and biotechnology firms.
Chris Rotten holds up boxes of cereal in protest of genetically modified foods. Photo by Steve Annear
According to the group of activists, some of whom traveled all the way from Washington, D.C., while the “1 percent discusses industry strategies that compromise…biological heritage” inside the convention, protesters planned on educating the public, hosting sidewalk sessions, about pesticides, organic foods and anti-biotech initiatives.
“We are here to tell them to stop using GMO’s. Stop contaminating our food—we want organic farms, not giant industrial farms poisoning our people,” said Rica Madrid.
Madrid is a member of Occupy Monsato, a group fighting against the multinational agricultural company and producer of genetically engineered seeds.
The group, which banded with members of Occupy Boston and others during Monday’s protests, will be holding larger rallies against the company in the future.
Madrid said the Genetically Modified Organisms used in food produced by Monsato could have long term adverse health effects.
“We have no idea what the impacts will be in 10 or 15 years,” she said. “We can avoid these foods.”
Chris Rotten, who held a box of Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles while wearing a HAZMAT suit, asked people coming into the convention if they had their daily dose of “GMOs.”
“It’s should be ‘UnLucky Charms.’ We have been duped by the FDA,” said Rotten. “People don’t intend to be part of a corporate experiment. We are just guinea pigs.”
The convention, which runs from June 18 through the 21, is slated to bring thousands of biotech firms and businesses to the Bay State and pump close to $26.8 million into the local economy, according to officials from Mayor Thomas Menino’s office.
To attract some of those global businesses to the Hub, Menino and staff form the city’s Boston Redevelopment Authority have implemented a plan to “pitch hot prospects,” including tours of Boston’s life sciences clusters and meetups with CEOs.
“Boston is a global life sciences hub – a super cluster – it is innovation, collaboration and success. I’m pleased to invite the world to our city,” Menino said in a statement.
Governor Deval Patrick kicked off the week long event, welcoming businesses to Boston, during a speech this morning.
“Hosting all this talent from all around the world is a great opportunity for us to showcase our super-cluster here, build on relationships we already have and create some new ones,” said Patrick. “I look forward to meeting with top executives and government leaders to explore opportunities for collaboration and I encourage all BIO participants to do the same.”
Protesters did not go inside the event because the amount it cost to attend. They said they didn’t want to give additional money to the large corporations.
