Good
blog post by Jon Rappoport on TPP and GMOs.
Excerpts:
From 2001 to 2008, a man named Islam Siddiqui was a staunch US lobbyist for, and vice president of, CropLife America. Siddiqui represented Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta—the biggest and most aggressive biotech GMO corporations in the world.
On October 21, 2011, Siddiqui’s new appointment (by Obama) was confirmed. He became the federal government’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator, and served in that position until he resigned on December 12, 2013. During his tenure, Siddiqui, Monsanto’s man, was up to his ears in negotiating the TPP.
On April 22, 2009, Siddiqui had addressed the press in a US State Dept. briefing disingenuously titled “
Green Revolution”:
“What we need now in the 21st century is another revolution… you would not do it just by conventional breeding. You need to have use of 21st century technologies, including biotechnology, genetic [GMO] technology… And these molecules, which are being used (inaudible), they are state-of-the-art technologies, using molecular biology. Especially in chemicals [pesticides], they have less harsh footprint on the environment, they are more green, in terms of the adverse effects and ecological effects. They are also tested more thoroughly.”
Siddiqui is a disinformation pro. For example, the most widely used pesticide in the world, deployed in conjunction with Monsanto’s GMO crops, was tested so “thoroughly” for safety that it is now declared a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. You may have heard of it: Roundup.
Siddiqui’s tenure negotiating US interests in the TPP surely favored big biotech, and all the companies who make their living selling GMO crop-seeds and pesticides.
The predicted outcome of the TPP vis-à-vis GMOs? It’s obvious. Nations who resist the importation of GMO food crops will be sued, in private tribunals, for interfering with “free trade.”
This is the future writ large, unless the TPP is derailed.
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Consider the local movement in Hawaii’s Maui County, where in the last election, citizens voted to block long-standing Monsanto/Dow experimentation with GMOs and their attendant pesticides, until an independent investigation could assess the health effects of those reckless open-air activities.
Monsanto immediately sued to suspend the force of the vote, successfully obtained an injunction, and the case has been hung up in federal court ever since.
Under the TPP, all successful local community actions against GMOs and their pesticides, anywhere in the 12-member countries, would be viewed per se as obstructions to free trade; and instead of engaging in a public and messy court battle, corporations could simply sue (or threaten to sue) the offending member country in a private tribunal, automatically defeat the local communities, and win a cash judgment.
Attempts to label GMOs, and previous laws allowing labeling in various countries, could be arbitrarily canceled.
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