March Against Monsanto - Updates

[mad cow]

There are laws against fraud,they are hundreds of years old,I like them,it is one of the reasons I am not an anarchist.

Anybody should be able to put out as much or as little or no information about any product they are selling,if they lie,they are guilty of fraud and they should be punished.

Someone who labels their product fresh caught wild salmon filets from Alaska,non-GMO,$X.XX/lb.,should be punished if any word in that label is not true.
Someone who puts a sign next to his pickup truck by the side of the road saying fish,one dollar each,same thing.If somebody doesn't want to buy either product,don't buy it!

Now who do the marchers think they are going to drive out of business by mandating expensive testing and labeling everything under the sun,the huge corporate grocery stores or the dude with the pickup?

 

[GunnyFreedom]

No, but even the good readers have seen no explanation given for why people aren't bothering to hire a private lab.

Fraud doesn't suddenly become OK just because someone, somewhere might know about it.

And nobody on RPF's much less in this thread believes that the FDA is capable of, well, pretty much anything. What needs to happen is abolish the FDA and then all of this becomes a moot discussion. The FDA, however, is not getting abolished any time soon, so we have to deal with the reality we are faced with.

Calling a frogmato a tomato is fraud. All I, (or most anybody around RPF's on this subject) want, is to stop the fraud.

Any Federal level labeling requirements are unconstitutional. It would be Constitutional under the original intent of the commerce clause to require labeling for GMO foodstuffs that cross State borders, but it would not be effective, and would lead to unintended consequences. Therefore any labeling scheme at the federal level should be opposed.

Labeling requirements at the State level are both Constitutional and far more effective, but still not the best solution.

Instead, the best solution would be to add to the definition of fraud the claim that a GMO [product] is just a [product]. Therefore, for as long as a company is required to label ingredients, then any GMO ingredients must be identified as GMO or the labeling is fraudulent. Then, when we finally manage to abolish the FDA and labeling laws, the requirement goes obsolete and we are left only with the basic requirement "don't perpetrate fraud."

I admit that I am astonished at the passion of those in the liberty movement who are OK with -- and even vehemently defend -- the practice of companies passing off frogmatos as though they were tomatos, with the full regulatory backing of the FDA to keep such things secret from the public. How is fraud OK just because some random guy doesn't mind it? Should it be OK to sell pork products to a Jew or a Muslim calling it 'beef' just because a Christian doesn't care? Of course not.

And "hire a lab" is asinine. It's Ok to perpetrate fraud on people simply because we have the capability of spending $5000 for every meal to test it before we eat it? I don't think so.

Fraud is fraud. A frogmato is not a tomato, and when you sell me a frogmato while insisting that it is a tomato you are perpetrating a fraud.

People should have the right to consume GMO if they want, just like people should have the right to consume Drāno or heroin if they want. Putting heroin into my food in secret and telling me that it's OK because I can always have it tested before I eat it is not OK.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

Those people at the rally, however, think it's the FDA's job to regulate GMO products. That's why.

Um. I was a speaker at the rally and I don't think that. Indeed, I think the FDA is the problem. And I said so. And it got wildly applauded. So I'm not sure where you are getting that from. Is that something the media is saying or something the people involved were saying?

 

[Debbie Downer]

There are laws against fraud,they are hundreds of years old,I like them,it is one of the reasons I am not an anarchist.

Anybody should be able to put out as much or as little or no information about any product they are selling,if they lie,they are guilty of fraud and they should be punished.

Someone who labels their product fresh caught wild salmon filets from Alaska,non-GMO,$X.XX/lb.,should be punished if any word in that label is not true.
Someone who puts a sign next to his pickup truck by the side of the road saying fish,one dollar each,same thing.If somebody doesn't want to buy either product,don't buy it!

Well said. As long as GMO growers aren't labeling their products as GMO-free then the government has no right to ban their products or to force them to label in a certain way. The government only has the right to intervene when there is an accusation of fraud, in which case they should investigate and if they have sufficient evidence take the company to court.

If people want to buy GMO or are too lazy to check if their food is GMO or not then that is their problem. Let the free market decide. If there truly is a market for non-GMO foods then companies will produce them and label them accordingly. We don't need government mandates to keep up "safe."

Now who do the marchers think they are going to drive out of business by mandating expensive testing and labeling everything under the sun,the huge corporate grocery stores or the dude with the pickup?

+rep

What comes to mind is the "USDA certified organic" approval process. It literally costs thousands of dollars per year to remain in compliance. Guess who is able to afford it? Not your local farmer...and it's illegal to call your produce organic without the USDA certification. (There is a sort of exemption for growers who sell less than $5000 per year but they can't say it is "certified organic" or use the USDA organic logo and lots of other restrictions, including I believe selling to commercial vendors)

 

[donnay]

There are laws against fraud,they are hundreds of years old,I like them,it is one of the reasons I am not an anarchist.

Anybody should be able to put out as much or as little or no information about any product they are selling,if they lie,they are guilty of fraud and they should be punished.

Someone who labels their product fresh caught wild salmon filets from Alaska,non-GMO,$X.XX/lb.,should be punished if any word in that label is not true.
Someone who puts a sign next to his pickup truck by the side of the road saying fish,one dollar each,same thing.If somebody doesn't want to buy either product,don't buy it!

Now who do the marchers think they are going to drive out of business by mandating expensive testing and labeling everything under the sun,the huge corporate grocery stores or the dude with the pickup?

The dude in the pick-up truck is already being driven out thanks to government regulations and defending their crony corporate friends. But getting back to being able to sue for fraud. How do we prove it?

Some of us know that Aspartame is linked to brain cancer and other known ailments and diseases, but according to government and their cronies it is completely safe. It was introduced as a "sugar substitute"--then people started to wake up. Some independent studies were done and it was said that Aspartame was linked to all sorts of chronic illness and cancer--but government and cronies keeps on saying it is safe. Now they put it in things that do not even say, "Sugar-Free." Example: Read labels of chewing gum that DO NOT say "sugar-free" in a grocery store.

The same thing with Monosodium Glutamate except, they just hide it under different names to try to fool the public when reading labels. Of course they are doing the same with Aspartame too--the new names are; Neotame. and AminoSweet.

So what do you do? If you have no idea this is happening and should you or a loved one be stricken with a chronic illness, or worse, brain cancer how does one prove it?

The solution is educating people to these things. The March Against Monsanto is shining a light on the cockroaches, some people have no idea what these monsters have done and are intending to do to our food supply.

The agenda is control.


"If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population."
~ Henry Kissinger

 

[Debbie Downer]

The same thing with Monosodium Glutamate except, they just hide it under different names to try to fool the public when reading labels. Of course they are doing the same with Aspartame too--the new names are; Neotame. and AminoSweet.

Neotame is chemically a different substance to aspartame and AminoSweet is just a brand of aspartame, similar to Tylenol being a brand of acetaminophen/paracetamol.

 

[Warlord]

+1 to Gunny mentioning the FDA.

States can do what they like but most of these do gooders want Federal government action. Once you accept that premise you accept the arguments for an expansive state where the Feds can regulate every market or issue any mandate and this was never the intention.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

Well said. As long as GMO growers aren't labeling their products as GMO-free then the government has no right to ban their products or to force them to label in a certain way. The government only has the right to intervene when there is an accusation of fraud, in which case they should investigate and if they have sufficient evidence take the company to court.

The problem is 1) the FDA only allows sellers to label products "GMO Free" once the GMO components of that product become ubiquitous, meaning you can't get the GMO Free version from America, and 2) calling a GMO product as though it were a regular product is fraud. A frogmato is not a tomato, and selling a frogmato while calling it a tomato is fraudulent.

If people want to buy GMO or are too lazy to check if their food is GMO or not then that is their problem. Let the free market decide. If there truly is a market for non-GMO foods then companies will produce them and label them accordingly. We don't need government mandates to keep up "safe."

In case you haven't noticed, we haven't had a free market in the United States in over 100 years. If we actually had a free market then all of this would be irrelevant, and people could eat or not eat GMO as they want. It has nothing to do with laziness. The government, along with companies like Monsanto, are actively suppressing the disclosure of GMO in food. No matter how passionate we are to avoid GMO, none of us really have the resources to combat that suppression of information.

What comes to mind is the "USDA certified organic" approval process. It literally costs thousands of dollars per year to remain in compliance. Guess who is able to afford it? Not your local farmer...and it's illegal to call your produce organic without the USDA certification. (There is a sort of exemption for growers who sell less than $5000 per year but they can't say it is "certified organic" or use the USDA organic logo and lots of other restrictions, including I believe selling to commercial vendors)

Government is not the solution, government is the problem. I admit that I am astonished at libertarians who are OK with government intervening to suppress GMO disclosure, and think we are nuts for opposing that. If you don't care about GMO that's perfectly fine, I'm not trying to make it unavailable to you or anybody. All I'm asking is that you stop excusing the fascist government/food industrial complex from cramming the stuff down my throat without my knowledge.

--

I admit that I do not comprehend the frankly bizarre knee-jerk reactions of some people in the liberty movement to defend the force-feeding of GMO to people who do not want it. Suddenly big-government armed intervention is OK just because you personally don't care about the subject of government intervention? I don't give a damn if you don't care, I care, and government enabled fraud by force and deception is evil no matter how you slice it.

I don't want to prevent your free access to GMO if you want it, all I'm asking is stop supporting the governments efforts to cram the shit down my throat without my knowledge. Is that really too much to ask?

And yes, better-dead, it is the people defending this crap who are the fascists, not the people fighting it. The whole reason this is an issue at all is the corporatist arrangement between companies like Monsanto and the captured regulators of the FDA and the USDA. A fascistic system by definition. We are the ones fighting against the fascism, and you are the ones defending it. So calling us fascists is at best a kind of pot/kettle thing to be sure.

 

[Warlord]

People aren't being force fed it Gunny.... with enough effort you can avoid their products. Yes, it's difficult (and increasingly expensive) because they're pervasive but it's not impossible and people are not being force fed!

 

[GunnyFreedom]

+1 to Gunny mentioning the FDA.

States can do what they like but most of these do gooders want Federal government action. Once you accept that premise you accept the arguments for an expansive state where the Feds can regulate every market or issue any mandate and this was never the intention.

Which is why WE need to be involved to educate and direct them as to who the real enemies are. That's what I did, and it worked very, very well. The entire Greensboro event applauded loudly when I identified the FDA as the problem rather than the solution. We could have replicated that around the nation and ben a lot further along towards a genuine solution today.

You are right that most of these people do not know any better. The solution to ignorance is education. Educating them as to why the FDA is the problem and not the solution is our job. We should be doing it.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

People aren't being force fed it Gunny.... with enough effort you can avoid their products. Yes, it's difficult (and increasingly expensive) because they're pervasive but it's not impossible and people are not being force fed!

Well, the alternatives I have heard from the "liberty" movement are either grow your own or starve.

Sounds like force to me.

 

[Warlord]

Which is why WE need to be involved to educate and direct them as to who the real enemies are. That's what I did, and it worked very, very well. The entire Greensboro event applauded loudly when I identified the FDA as the problem rather than the solution. We could have replicated that around the nation and ben a lot further along towards a genuine solution today.

You are right that most of these people do not know any better. The solution to ignorance is education. Educating them as to why the FDA is the problem and not the solution is our job. We should be doing it.

That's why Warlord applauds your efforts to engage them and redirect their misdirected anger and outrage even if he doesn't agree with every point you make.

 

[Debbie Downer]

The problem is 1) the FDA only allows sellers to label products "GMO Free" once the GMO components of that product become ubiquitous, meaning you can't get the GMO Free version from America, and 2) calling a GMO product as though it were a regular product is fraud. A frogmato is not a tomato, and selling a frogmato while calling it a tomato is fraudulent.

A genetically modified tomato is still a tomato, especially since there is no legal definition of tomato. It is not fraud to label a GM tomato as a tomato, however it is fraud to label that tomato as GMO-free just as it is fraudulent to label a non-organic tomato as organic (of which there is a legal defintion).

 

[donnay]

Neotame is chemically a different substance to aspartame and AminoSweet is just a brand of aspartame, similar to Tylenol being a brand of acetaminophen/paracetamol.

Neotame is a modified version derived from the same chemicals as Aspartame--Neotame was fine tuned a little so it could be eligible for another patent and another name--same chemical structure.

Drinks, candy, and chewing gum are potential sources of hidden MSG and/or aspartame, neotame. and AminoSweet (the new name for aspartame). Aspartic acid, found in neotame, aspartame (NutraSweet), and AminoSweet, ordinarily causes MSG type reactions in MSG sensitive people. (It would appear that calling aspartame "AminoSweet" is industry's method of choice for hiding aspartame.) We have not seen Neotame used widely in the United States.

Aspartame will be found in some medications, including children's medications. For questions about the ingredients in pharmaceuticals, check with your pharmacist and/or read the product inserts for the names of “other” or “inert” ingredients.

Source:
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html

Neotame contains all the same chemicals found in aspartame and more: the amino acids L-aspartic acid and L-phenylalanine, plus two organic groups, one known as a methyl ester group and the other as a neohexyl group

Source:
http://www.janethull.com/newsletter/0410/neotame_what_is_it.php


Preapproval "Research" & History of Aspartame
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/history.faq

 

[GunnyFreedom]

A genetically modified tomato is still a tomato,

No, it's not.

especially since there is no legal definition of tomato. It is not fraud to label a GM tomato as a tomato,

Yes, it is.

however it is fraud to label that tomato as GMO-free just as it is fraudulent to label a non-organic tomato as organic (of which there is a legal defintion).

Except the FDA prohibits the labeling of GMO Free for any products not already ubiquitously GMO.

 

[donnay]

People aren't being force fed it Gunny.... with enough effort you can avoid their products. Yes, it's difficult (and increasingly expensive) because they're pervasive but it's not impossible and people are not being force fed!

That is completely naïve. 98% of the corn and soybeans grown in our country are GMO.

 

[Working Poor]

I saw aspartame mentioned above. The fda considers it safe. I wonder how many people know that airline pilots are not allowed to consume aspartame because of the risk of heart attack or seizure?

 

[speciallyblend]

I don't think it's so great.



Some people don't care, and they should be left out of this. That's what the people marching to expand the FDA don't acknowledge. People who do want to avoid Monsanto products are free to hire a private lab to tell them what's in a food-product. No sympathy for the marchers too lazy and uninitiated to hire a private lab, who'd sooner expand the role of federal government instinctively like pavlovian dogs.

in your utopia. so you say i need to have 90% of the food in store tested myself to make sure it is not gmo? unrealistic. There is no reason why all products should have a label with what is in it. hopefully you will let me borrow 1000's of dollars so i can test products as i see them. If you want to sell products . You should have to label the ingredients. They put wood pulp into banana nut and it is on the box, If it is gmo it should be labeled so. Then we actually have a choice. right now you suggest spending money to test our own food so we know if we can buy it. insane. I suggest companies actually tell you what is in the food before you buy it. so radical to know the ingredients.

 

[Debbie Downer]

No, it's not.

Prove it. Show me scientific evidence that a GMO tomato is not a tomato.

Yes, it is.

Where's the legal definition of a tomato making it fraud to label a GMO tomato as a tomato?

Except the FDA prohibits the labeling of GMO Free for any products not already ubiquitously GMO.

That's not true. All certified organic produce can be labeled GMO-free, as it must by law not contain GMOs. The US and Canadian governments do not allow manufacturers to label something 100% organic if that food has been genetically modified or been fed genetically modified feed.

Also there is the private, voluntary "Non-GMO Project" label. To carry the label, foods must comply with standards set by the organizers which is not FDA regulated. Look for this label:

 

[Debbie Downer]

If you want to sell products . You should have to label the ingredients.

So you propose using the threat of government violence to force people to label their products in a government-approved fashion?

Why not also force farmers to get a license to make sure they're growing food in a government-approved fashion, make butchers get a license and government-approved training, make food certification agencies government-approved, force supermarkets to be searched without a warrant to ensure compliance....

I suggest companies actually tell you what is in the food before you buy it.

Suggest it, but don't use the threat of government violence to force your "suggestion" on them. If a company doesn't label their food, don't buy it.