GMOs: THE CONTRAST BETWEEN CONGRESS AND THE DUMA
Many of you sent me these two stories, and some of you even did so in the same email, indicating that the readership here is probably seeing the same geopolitical stew brewing that I’ve been predicting for some time. In review them here in order to renew a prediction I’ve been making, and make a new one. The two articles are concerned with a possible complete ban on GMO importation by Russia, and, moving as always in the opposite direction, the Congress of the USSA is considering legislation banning GMO labeling:Dmitri Medvedev: Russia will not Import GMOs
USSA Congress Considers Blocking HMO Labeling
It is of course interesting that both of the articles emanate from RT, Russia’s international mouthpiece. And that is really the story here. We’re all familiar by now with the tactics the agribusiness giants such as Mon(ster)santo and DuPonzanto have practiced to ensure an unlevel playing field between GMOs and normal “heirloom” seeds and crops, even to the point of suing farmers who, through no fault of desire of their own, have had GMO crops discovered on their fields by the corporate spies. There is little to be said for such behavior on the part of these companies, other than that it is despicable.
More recently I’ve blogged about the calls in the Russian state Duma for a moratorium on GMOs, and for a prolonged inter-generational study of their effects, effects which a growing body of scientific literature is suggesting are not the wonderful boon to humanity that they are touted to be. In that respect, I’ve been suggesting for some time that in addition to the looming establishment of bilateral currency trade between the BRICSA nations, and the eventuality of their own mechanism of international financial clearing, that another blow would be struck against western financial and geopolitical power by taking direct aim at one of its largest sectors, agribusiness, and that it would do so via the issue of making GMOs an international geopolitical and human rights issue.
In this context, Russia seems to be bearing out the prediction, for such sentiments uttered by the Russian Duma are one thing, but when they come from the mouth of a former Russian President, Mr. Medvedev, himself a close ally and associate of Mr. Putin, the geopolitical signals being sent are clear and unmistakable. For the moment, Russia is confining that agenda to its own domestic policies, but I suspect that the announcement concerning the Duma, and now Mr. Medvedev, suggests they are following a careful and deliberate timetable, one leading to the eventuality that Russia may enter the international agribusiness market in direct competition with the western agribusiness giants. And the model will be clear: heirloom seeds, no royalties, and no KGB spies poking around farmers’ fields to ensure that no patented crops are appearing in violation of licencing agreements, no lawsuits against farmers, vs the practices of Mon(ster)santo, Duponzanto, and the like, which more closely resemble the practices of the KGB in substance and form. One can predict the inevitable market reaction… Russia, in other words, appears to be confirming my predictions and suspicions.
But what of the Congressional action? I suspect, this too, is but a stage in a wider and probably secret agenda cooked up in the frankenfood boardrooms of these hideous companies, who, confronted with growing market opposition, are simply resorting to the coercive power of the state to deny people and states reasonable access to information concerning the food they’re putting into their bodies. They won’t stop there… It is entirely possible, given then non-responsiveness and non-representative nature of the USSA’s governmental institutions and their inability to represent the people, but only too big to fail and too big to jail corporations and banks, that these corporations will seek the ultimate in their mercantilist dreams: a requirement that farmers grow nothing but their “scientifically tested and safe” products. By seeking such legislation, they’ve already declared themselves against freedom, and they won’t stop with a prohibition on labeling.
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