Understanding the science and economics of GMO, as the Moyers piece explores, is helpful but I think it can also be a distraction to the immediate issue at hand: The voters of Vermont approved a law requiring the labeling of GMO-based ingredients in the food they eat.

There is a barrage of "cigarette science" and talking points being generated as the lawsuit against Vermont goes to court. Lots of red herrings, disinformation and personal attacks coming from the snack industry but the issue at hand is very simple:

We have the right to know what is in our food and to make our personal decision based on that knowledge. Period.

like Bill Gates who claimed that GMO was all about feeding the poor. Bill Gates is the same guy who said, in an internal memo discovered during lawsuits, "put the customer on a treadmill and force feed them upgrades."

Gates loves GMO because it is the same bloated, monopolistic business model he applied to software. The infamous EULA used on his software has a correlate in the GMO world:

(which is just a rebranded segment of his fortune, still under his management) are both invested in the food, biomed and educational corporations profiting from the activities that the foundation supports as a kind of R&D factory.

It's well worth one's time to sit through this 90 minute video:

Why Monsanto et al thinks GMOs will be different is a mystery.

At best they're thinking only of the corporation's interest within the narrow bounds in which they are culturally trained to understand it. Any other consideration of right and wrong would be in violation of their orders from God, erm, I mean, their "fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. If that means taking over the gene code and ruling the world for as long as possible, so be it. If forcing starving Indian peasants to pay annual tributes sounds like a James Bond villain's plot, so be it.

of usual suspects claiming they practically embody Science and everyone thinking otherwise is a fool and only GMOs can solve world hunger and those who oppose them are literally going to cause millions to starve, etc. etc.

Start a thread with a focus on the politics behind GMO and Big Ag, however, and how these fit into the food system generally, and the societal as well as the ecological impacts, not to mention the international politics... crickets from that side.

The big picture can't be addressed, because the role of GMOs as actually applied within the corporate business models is so decisively indefensible. They'd rather hype a few words from some icon who's a great astrophysicist and teacher of science but not a biologist or an economist, who threw off some blinkered smug comments that altogether avoid these issues.

A celebrity astrophysicist expressing support for the most destructive economic system ever devised gets more attention than a biologist who doesn't. But she's a furrner, I guess.

Nevertheless, thank you for this thread.

It's not the "science", it's the damn business model!

Cannot question his authority on this subject. Capitalistic society must accept Monsanto seeds and let them control the food. Just like medical insurance. We all know we have to leave these important issues to corporations.

GMO..

"4) I offer my views on these nuanced issues here, if anybody is interested:
a- Patented Food Strains: In a free market capitalist society, which we have all "bought" into here in America, if somebody invents something that has market value, they ought to be able to make as much money as they can selling it, provided they do not infringe the rights of others. I see no reason why food should not be included in this concept."

And, that's one of the gawd damn problems isn't it?.. the freaking gmo seeds "infringing on the rights" of other farmers who don't want their gd seeds blowing into their fields and gardens.

c- "Non-perennial Seed Strains: It's surely legal to sell someone seeds that cannot reproduce themselves, requiring that the farmer buy seed stocks every year from the supplier. But when sold to developing country -- one struggling to become self-sufficient -- the practice is surely immoral. Corporations, even when they work within the law, should not be held immune from moral judgement(sic) on these matters."

Nice of him to give "developing countries" a pass.

" e- Safety: Of course new foods should be tested for health risks, regardless of their origin. That's the job of the Food and Drug Administration (in the USA). Actually, humans have been testing food, even without the FDA ,since the dawn of agriculture. Whenever a berry or other ingested plant killed you, you knew not to serve it to you family."

Oh haha.. Talk about "flippant".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5333854

He seems in way over his head.

Last edited Sat Aug 9, 2014, 10:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Says NDT: "if somebody invents something that has market value, they ought to be able to make as much money as they can selling it, provided they do not infringe the rights of others."

Who is "somebody"? Corporate or human? Using what resources, what accumulation of prior knowledge? Combining what products of which collaborations? What is it to "invent"? In what sense did those claiming patents on the use of genes invent these?

Something that has market value can be a poison, or an addiction, or of great harm to people other than the consumer, of course. It can be something that we might want to restrict, we might even consider it more dangerous precisely because it has market value.

Furthermore, what creates market value, under what circumstances does something acquire this value, how does a market even come to exist? Demand is not a constant for the same things at all times, demand is also created, often enough through coercion and manipulation.

As much money as they can, really? Okay, we get it, even after 2008, an unreformed capitalist. Lots of those are about. Billionaires are justified, and after all they're needed as sponsors at the planetarium (given we have a limited public sector and all).

And of course, "infringe on the rights of others" - i.e., let's just cut that entire question out of this discussion.

On the whole, meaningless waffling.

"It's surely legal to sell someone seeds that cannot reproduce themselves..."

It surely is. So?

"Corporations, even when they work within the law, should not be held immune from moral judgement(sic) on these matters."

Oh, golly, they should not be held immune from moral judgement! That will stop them! Since when is anyone ever held immune from moral judgement by anyone for anything? This is completely without meaning, and full of weasel.

If bad practices by bad actors are legal, then the law should change.

And a voice like Tyson's should not be rationalizing it.

World's Big Infringers.. and many of us are fighting to hold them and their toxic environment the hell back.

Everyone has the right to make as much money as they can, long as the means are legal, and if this means starving people they are subject to our moral approbation, but it remains their right. He's not the only smart person to believe in that bullshit, they are legion. Fuck that. Is it because billionaires and a small operational power elite running the corporate and government machines decide which planetariums get funded and which should make way for new condo towers, perhaps? The blinders are his choice.

I've been a proponent of organic farming and a huge opponent of gmos for a long time now.

Nevertheless, as an authority on this issue, Shiva has obvious cred and qualifications as well as the arguments over the estimable astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Last edited Sun Aug 10, 2014, 12:38 AM - Edit history (1)

I know you're smarter than this.

It's time to acknowledge that she fooled you, and be an adult, and move on...

It's sick and wrong if you care about food security and honesty.

Cut the crap.

Last edited Sun Aug 10, 2014, 08:41 PM - Edit history (1)

To understand why mega corps fight labeling and what happens when someone gets monopoly hold on food.

It's one group of corporations (organic) trying to increase their profits via fear mongering.

Explains all the money for many, if not most, of the studies finding "GMO good."

every time someone patronizes the opposition with their limited science argument. Thank you for fixing the link and leading me back to it.

The real science, as opposed to what the pro-GMO fakers and pretend "skeptics" say, already speaks to the problems of flooding the world with BT and the like. (Apparently judges in some places are starting to get it.)

Curiously they seem to have different forms of science in most advanced industrial nations outside the United States, especially the ones not blessed with a beautiful glorious Monsanto of their own.

Honest-to-God high-tech countries ban GMOs and seem to think really bizarre things, like that micro-evolution by artificial selection actually works -- by which I mean that over-applying pesticides, herbicides and antibiotics is a really bad idea that's likely sooner or later to fuck over monoculture agriculture, if not a few hundred million people in the process. But hey, who's done the controlled study of this?! We get to find out the shocking answer about whether the theory of micro-evolution works in an uncontrolled study using the planet as the test case.

As another example, a bit off-topic, it's also the case that in almost all of these countries outside the U.S., they have this weird, pseudo-scientific idea that fluoride is not a tasty medicine for which ALCOA should receive billions in payments in exchange for allowing everyone to apply it to their teeth via its ingestion in drinking water. They actually think it's a pollutant, and don't want to pay public funds to administer it to their reservoirs. (This is why, for example, Germany's so toothless and they can't afford a dentist. They're all barefoot over there, it's shocking.)

Why does the world hate science, LWolf? Is it because they hate America?

.

hates it because it conflicts with the beliefs that are a crutch to them.

Others don't hate it, they just manipulate it, denying what doesn't fit their agenda.

Still others mistakenly treat science like a faith, closing their eyes and plugging their ears to all potentials that haven't yet been explored.

I find our compulsive attachment to those pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics horrifying. I like the idea that there are still places that resist them to some degree. And when it comes to science, we should always be looking beyond the isolated stats to the bigger, interconnected picture.

Fluoride, lol. I was at the dentist getting my teeth cleaned just last month. My hygienist looked at my xrays and was shocked, because at 54 I have 2 small cavities...one for each pregnancy 3+ decades ago, because the accompanying hormonal changes affect the environment in the mouth. She muttered, "You must have grown up in a state with fluoridated water." Nope. And I never had a cavity. I really don't understand why so many are determined that we have to ingest fluoride to have healthy teeth.

on fluoridation. Check this out:

Can we have a civilized talk about the U.S. water fluoridation industry?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025365715

I wonder why our Dentists and hygienists aren't reading outside of the U.S..

Feel free to go comment in that thread.