Look Out Kids–They Keep It All Hid
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is backing down from a disclosure rule that would have provided state regulators with critical information about genetically modified organisms, Tom Devaney reports in the July 17 edition of The Hill.
Last year, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service proposed sharing information with state regulators about genetically engineered organisms that are released in their jurisdictions. But the USDA now has withdrawn the rule because it said it found “potential vulnerabilities” that would have put farmers’ businesses at risk.
“We have decided to withdraw the proposed rule to ensure that our ability to protect confidential business information from disclosure is maintained,” the USDA wrote in the Federal Register.
Farmers who want to use GMOs must register with the USDA and apply for permits. The disclosure rule would have allowed USDA to provide state regulators with this information. The information farmers provide to the USDA is supposed to remain confidential, but if the agency shares it with state regulators, that could mean the information becomes public because states and municipalities represent “the public” the info thus becomes subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
So let me get this straight. If a farmer wants to grow GMO crops or use other genetically modified organisms on his or her farm, a permit is needed. So the Federal government (the USDA) can know who’s using GMOs of the farm, but states and municipalities can’t know because if the USDA shared the information, someone from the general public might file a Freedom of Information Request and find out who in their neighborhood is growing or using GMOs. And that would then harm the farmers’ businesses and violate their right to operate their GMO farms in secret.
So this means that not only are millions of dollars being spent by the biotech giants like Monsanto to prevent the public from knowing whether or not GMOs are in their food, but the Feds are keeping knowledge of who is growing and using GMOs on the farms from the public as well. It’s all hidden. It’s all secret. After all, if you knew GMOs were in your food, you might refuse to buy that food and that might harm the business of the food processors. And if you knew your local farmer was using GMOs on his farm, you might avoid his products or perhaps march on his farm with torches and pitchforks.
By extension, if you knew the toxic effects of Roundup and other chemicals in American food products, you might eat organic. Maybe that’s why the Food and Drug Administration has tested just a handful of chemicals for toxicity out of the tens of thousands allowed in the production of American foods and other products.
You see, the Feds are keeping a careful watch on the safety of our food system—but it’s the safety of the bottom lines of Big Ag, Big Chem, and Big Biotech that is being protected. You’ll eat your daily poisons and you’ll like them, dammit. Or you would if you knew where they were found and who’s using them. And what do these corporations think about us poor rubes who are kept in the dark and are demanding better regulation and oversight of the safety of our food supply? They say we want to institute “the nanny state.”
They criticize our calls for healthy food as “the nanny state” even as they are coddling their corporate money machines. If there’s a nanny state in America, it’s not found among the masses, who are drowning in debt and whose incomes are evaporating. It’s in the obscene profits of the corporations and the bloated salaries of the one percenters.
Just when did our government go over to the dark side, anyway? Remember when you were a kid and the cops and firemen were the good guys? Maybe that was a pipe dream. It used to be that big city cops would slap people around in some back room at the stationhouse. Or in prisons where the victims couldn’t complain.
But now it’s institutionalized and militarized. You’ve seen the pictures of the killer cops in Ferguson, Missouri—in full battle gear, with sophisticated battlefield weapons, riding around in armored personnel carriers, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowds of protestors. When did the cops come out of the back rooms of the stationhouse and start being the military used to suppress and oppress the people?
Seems to me that Ferguson and the GMO situation have a lot in common. Lincoln spoke of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I’d say that right now, it looks like we have a government of the big shots, by the military, and for the corporations.
So keep eating organic. It’s one good way to stand on the right side of history.
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