“Fear is the best weapon to awaken the reader,” says Samanta Schweblin, the acclaimed Argentine author of “Fever Dream.” “Fear is what makes you drop a book and run to your computer to Google what is happening, and think, ‘Can this happen to me? Is this really happening?’”

“Fever Dream” certainly terrified readers across the globe after it was translated from Spanish into more than a dozen languages over the past few years. It was first published in English in 2017 and received ample critical acclaim, in part due to her considerable talent as a writer, but also due to the timeliness of the subject at hand: the horrors companies such as agrochemical giant Monsanto have inflicted on the planet and us all.

In her novella, however, Schweblin never names Monsanto, but rather tells the spine-chilling tale of Amanda, a city-dweller, mysteriously dying during a vacation to the countryside. Where does this horror story take place? you may ask. The answer is anywhere, given the multinational company’s harrowing reach. On her deathbed, Amanda is visited by a child who attempts to lead her and, perhaps more importantly, Schweblin’s readers, toward the realization that is likely on the tip of many readers’ tongues as the seemingly fictional ailments and occurrences start to form a familiar pattern. Wake up, the ghostly David seems to tell us as we all lie on our laurels during the planet’s death throes. “That’s the story we need to understand […] Don’t get distracted,” the child repeats over and over.

It is precisely as the global public begins to wake up, in large part thanks to young activists such as the courageous Greta Thunberg, to the barbarous damage done to the planet in the name of boundless greed that stories such as Schweblin’s can become an important tool in the fight against climate inaction. But this fever dream that feels inescapable currently is not just about climate change. According to writer Patricia Stuelke, “the recent resurgence of horror in feminist literary fiction in Argentina [and] the United States,” of which she considers Schweblin’s “Fever Dream” a prime example, is also undeniably a product of capitalism. Schweblin’s work,

… continues the long tradition Mark Stevens traces in which […] “a critique of [capitalist] horror,” he suggests, “produces horrific forms.” In this sense, the energy and aesthetics of the Argentine and international feminist remaking of the strike against capitalism’s “gore realities” are infusing, and perhaps being infused by, the feminist horror boom. These works repurpose horror conventions in order to confront the entangled forces of environmental destruction, financialization and extraction, and the exploitation of women’s labor.…

Graciously, Schweblin’s tales also make for great literature. Once looped into the eerily familiar stories the Argentine author crafts masterfully, it can be hard to put her books down, despite the creeping terror that inevitably takes hold. Both “Fever Dream” and her most recently translated collection of stories “Mouthful of Birds” have been nominated for the Man Booker International literary prize. “Fever Dream” is also currently being adapted by Netflix and is due to hit screens worldwide in 2019.

In a discussion about everything from agrochemicals to women’s rights, I caught up with Schweblin at her current home in Berlin, Germany, during a recent phone interview. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation translated from Spanish.

Natasha Hakimi Zapata: Before talking about your recently translated collection of short stories, “Mouthful of Birds,” I’d like to talk a little about your novella “Fever Dream,” a book I have seen described as an eco-horror.

The delirium depicted in your book is especially frightening to me because it sounds so familiar in this era of climate change. Can you tell me a little about why you decided to write about this topic?

Samanta Schweblin: Honestly, when I start writing a new story, I never start by choosing a topic, rather what I’m after is a kind of feeling, emotion, emotion in the reader.

The issue is not something that is self-imposed, but something that arises in the middle of the search for how to convey this feeling to the reader.

Of course, it’s charged with personal experiences, and information that I’m mulling over at that moment. When I started writing “Fever Dream,” which was in 2013—the end of 2012, the beginning of 2013—there was a very big controversy in Argentina. People were beginning to talk about something that had been going on for some time, but had not reached the media, which is the horror of the crops of an industry that is based on crops that abuse the agrotoxins.

The horror that this generated in communities, which were literally dying intoxicated, was huge. This is more or less where the topic came from—in a way I approached it as a concerned citizen.

In Argentina, “Fever Dream” was read as a very political novel. The reception caught me off guard because I think, it’s a novel that does not provide enough information to be called political, but of course it was the first novel, the first work of fiction, that addressed the subject of glyphosate and Monsanto.

I had not realized that what I was writing could have such a significant impact on society, but ultimately, I was writing about a topic that at that time nobody spoke of and that would be new to many people.

[As I was writing “Fever Dream”], I thought, “Can I afford to write about a topic like this and not denounce or name governors who had agreed to incredible laws that left citizens defenseless, or not mention nefarious statistics about the consequences of these fumigations or name brands, even?”

I was dealing with this struggle between journalism and fiction.

In the end what I realized is that the readers—myself included—always tend to forget the names, the statistics, the numbers; but we never forget terror when we really feel it. Fear is the best weapon to awaken the reader.

Fear is what makes you drop a book and run to your computer to Google what is happening, and think, “Can this happen to me? Is this really happening?”

That seemed to me to be a stronger weapon than any information I could offer in the book, information that ultimately the book could not hold well because the book is simply the story of a woman who is dying in a field.

Later I realized that it was a good decision and that many people responded by informing themselves once they [had read “Fever Dream”].

Another interesting political thing is that when this book began to circulate and to be translated—it has a lot of translations, I think it has 20 translations already, to different languages—I noticed something very interesting. In societies that are very clear about the danger of agrochemicals, the novel was read as political immediately. Without hesitation, they arrived at that reading.

Then there were the societies that did not have this information. There are a lot of issues that are discussed in the book about the consequences of fumigations in fields: thousands of spontaneous abortions, children with malformations, people with cancer, respiratory problems, animals that suddenly transform and die. [In these societies, people] read all this as fantasy, as if they were reading about ghosts and strange children and phantasmagoric animals that suddenly died. [Witnessing this reading of my book], I became aware of how fanciful societies become when they have no information.

NHZ: How fascinating. When I read “Fever Dream”, I immediately began to recognize precisely what I read in the news and it is not one single story, but many stories around the world, as you are saying. It is something that has not only happened in Argentina.

I think it was also a good decision precisely because it translates into this horror story and a story too, because we as readers connect a lot with the main characters—the dying woman and the ghostly child. It leaves us with a very strong impact.

SS: Sure. Do you know that a movie is being filmed right now?

NHZ: No, I did not know.

SS: Yes, they are filming at this moment in Chile and in Argentina. It will be called “Distancia de Rescate” [in Spanish]. It is being filmed by Claudia Llosa, who is an excellent Peruvian film director. I received a lot of offers, but when [Llosa’s offer] appeared I did not hesitate to say yes because I’d been following her work for a long time.

We wrote the script together and Netflix is ​​financing it, so in a very short time, it’ll be available to watch.

NHZ: That’s great! […] Well, I’d like to talk a little bit now about “Mouthful of Birds.” Many of the stories in the book deal with the subject that affect us daily, but are told through a surrealist narrative. What does surrealism permit you to convey that realism doesn’t? Do you consider it surreal? I do not know if I’m imposing my point of view.

SS: I think that some stories can be surreal at times, but I do not consider them surreal, although I do not deny your perspective at all. I love that you have that reading. Rather, it seems to me that they are stories that take place in the realm of the strange, of the abnormal.

Surrealism leaves room for more questions about the real world. It seems to me that [any type of surrealist work] questions the real and the normal from start to finish … On the other hand, it seems to me that these stories take place in the real and, at some point, break with it. Not all, but most. I like that moment of breaking the real, that moment where the normal disintegrates.

These stories were published for the first time 10 years ago. There are even some of these stories, such as “The Test,” “Headlights,” “The Heavy Suitcase of Benavides” and there is one more, now I do not remember which, [ … ] which were taken from my first very first book [which was published when I was] 22.

I think the book is the equivalent of what a painter would create when trying out a palette of colors for the first time.

I moved from genre to genre, but in general it is a moment in which I was thinking a lot, as I was entering the adult world, about the rules, about the codes, about what is established socially as acceptable or unacceptable.

I realize now looking back how uncomfortable I felt, how arbitrary I found that concept of normality. The idea that between you and me there is an intermediate point and that point is what we call normal. But in reality, neither you nor I are standing at the point, so the normal is an invention. […] if something does not fall within the norm, it does not mean that it does not exist or that it cannot happen. I think [“Mouthful of Birds” is composed of] stories that are always approaching that breaking point [I discussed earlier].

In fact, except for one or two stories that absolutely take place in the realm of the fantastic or the surreal, as you said, I believe that in all the rest, the element of the fantastic happens in the reader’s head. It would be strictly impossible to underline where the fantastic appears, that’s to say, what is an impossible occurrence in this world cannot be identified in the text. It is rather something that the reader utters in a low voice to themself, but in reality the text never makes it explicit.

NHZ: Going back to “Mouthful of Birds,” the first story in the collection “Headlights,” where we met a crowd of newly married and abandoned brides in a field, waiting, screaming and lamenting. In the end we see that their boyfriends were not very far away and they return to the scene of abandonment, not for their wives but for a single man that was left behind. Is this a comment on modern marriage and on the limited relationships that can take place between men and women under patriarchy?

SS: [laughs] I would never give away those clues. It seems to me that my intention is to question the entire scene. There is something very theatrical for me about marriage. Not marriage as in the civil act of getting married, but rather especially a Catholic idea of marriage, which is still very popular in Argentina, even among non-Catholics who wouldn’t dream of getting married without the white dress, church and a priest’s blessing.

There is a theatricality surrounding the clothes and formalities which to me represents a lot of ideas of marriage that are outdated. Our mothers and grandmothers have suffered them and now they sound a bit funny to us, and some don’t even seem outrageous anymore because of how far we’ve come.

That’s why [the story is] written in prose that seems to be very realistic, but deep down it’s so theatrical that it even has a choir of voices. I even think it’s theatrical also in terms of lighting. It’s a story that happens in the dark and every so often cars pass by or something happens that sheds light on the faces, and they are revealed and recognized.

NHZ: Speaking of women, I wanted to ask you a bit about how you see the situation of women in Argentina. I’m thinking of course about movements like “Ni Una Menos” that have developed as a protest against femicide and other forms of violence against women.

SS: Obviously, in order for movements like these to form, we need to have reached a very high level of incipient violence, which is terrible, but the reality is that these movements have made great changes in Argentine society, changes that they are even spreading to the rest of Latin America.

Really in these last two years, there has been a leap in the Argentine paradigm about women, and we owe it to these movements and also to all the women who fought in favor of the legalization of abortion.

Although abortion was not legalized [in Argentina], the fight was very strong; it was a cross-generational, political struggle. All the problems that Argentina was dealing with at that moment always seemed to divide us into A and B. But the problem of abortion seemed to touch everyone at the same time and that was very important because then, it seems incredible, but the abortion debate ultimately served as a bridge towards other discussions.

Though abortion wasn’t legalized, the topic made so much noise and it became so clear that the vast majority of Argentine citizens wanted to legalize abortion, that in some way it left the political system in crisis.

Imagine how strong the impact was. I think it was very good and, of course, this also brought a new energy to literature written by women in Argentina. Suddenly a lot of fiction writers … began to find places to publish, to be heard. So it is very gratifying to see that many doors have been opened for women in recent years in Argentina.

This does not mean that the extreme level of violence against women has decreased. And abortion remains illegal in Argentina. I am deeply ashamed that a democracy like Argentina’s does not have legalized abortion.

NHZ: It’s not just in Latin America where women are fighting for similar issues, but also in the United States and Europe with the #MeToo movement. I’m not sure it’s also reached Germany, where you live, but for example, it’s reached France. I think what we’re experiencing is a global change in women’s rights, or at least, in how we fight for them.

SS: Yes. I was thinking how on a global level, doors have been opened for literature written by women.

It’s funny because more than once I’ve been asked if I think this is a passing fad, and I’m stunned by that question because to me it’s not a fad. To me it’s about what half of humanity writes. It seems silly to think that this is just a passing trend.

It seems to me that what’s happening is that when a minority voice suddenly comes under the spotlight, it brings with it a very different world view: a very new voice, new themes, a freshness and a power that any voice that has been displaced until now contains. And that’s part of why writing by women around the world is so strong right now.

truthdig.com

Warning, plot spoiler: There is no Mr. Hyde side in this horror story of epic proportions; it’s all Dr. Jekyll. Like a script from a David Lynch creeper, Bayer AG of poison gas fame has finalized its $66 billion (£50bn) purchase of Monsanto, the agrochemical corporation that should be pleading the Fifth in the dock on Guantanamo Bay instead of enjoying what amounts to corporate asylum and immunity from crimes against humanity. Such are the special privileges that come from being an above-the-law transnational corporation.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing Bayer did after taking on Monsanto, saddled as it is with the extra baggage of ethic improprieties, was to initiate a rebrand campaign. Like a Hollywood villain falling into a crucible of molten steel only to turn up later in some altered state, Monsanto has been subsumed under the Orwellian-sounding ‘Bayer Crop Science’ division, whose motto is: "Science for a better life."

Yet Bayer itself provides little protective cover for Monsanto considering its own patchy history of corporate malfeasance. Far beyond its widely known business of peddling pain relief for headaches, the German-based company played a significant role in the introduction of poison gas on the battlefields of World War I. 

Despite a Hague Convention ban on the use of chemical weapons since 1907, Bayer CEO Carl Duisberg, who sat on a special commission set up by the German Ministry of War, knew a business opportunity when he saw one.

Duisberg witnessed early tests of poison gas and had nothing but glowing reports on the horrific new weapon: “The enemy won’t even know when an area has been sprayed with it and will remain quietly in place until the consequences occur.”

Bayer, which built a department specifically for the research and development of gas agents, went on to develop increasingly lethal chemical weapons, such as phosgene and mustard gas. “This phosgene is the meanest weapon I know,” Duisberg remarked with a stunning disregard for life, as if he were speaking about the latest bug spray. “I strongly recommend that we not let the opportunity of this war pass without also testing gas grenades.”

Duisberg got his demonic wish. The opportunity to use the battlefield as a testing ground and soldiers as guinea pigs came in the spring of 1915 as Bayer supplied some 700 tons of chemical weapons to the war front. On April 22, 1915, it has been estimated that around 170 tons of chlorine gas were used for the first time on a battlefield in Ypres, Belgium against French troops. Up to 1,000 soldiers perished in the attack, and many more thousands injured.

In total, an estimated 60,000 people died as a result of the chemical warfare started by Germany in the First World War and supplied by the Leverkusen-based company.

According to Axel Koehler-Schnura from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers: “The name BAYER particularly stands for the development and production of poison gas. Nevertheless the company has not come to terms with its involvement in the atrocities of the First World War. BAYER has not even distanced itself from Carl Duisberg’s crimes.”

The criminal-like behavior has continued right up until modern times. Mike Papantonio, a US attorney and television presenter discussed one of the more heinous acts committed by this chemical company on Thomas Hartmann’s program, The Big Picture: “They produced a clotting agent for hemophiliacs, in the 1980s, called Factor VIII. This blood-clotting agent was tainted with HIV, and then, after the government told them they couldn’t sell it here, they shipped it all over the world, infecting people all over the world. That’s just part of the Bayer story.”

Papantonio, citing Bayer’s 2014 annual report, said the company is facing 32 different liability lawsuits around the world. For the 2018 Bayer liability report, click here.

Before flushing your Bayer products down the toilet, you may want to put aside an aspirin or two because the story gets worse.

One of the direct consequences of the ‘Baysanto’ monster will be a major hike in prices for farmers, already suffering a direct hit to their livelihood from unsustainable prices. “Farmers have already experienced a 300% price increase in recent years, on everything from seeds to fertilizer, all of which are controlled by Monsanto,” Papantonio told Hartmann. “And every forecaster is predicting that these prices are going to climb even higher because of this merger.”

Yet it’s hard to imagine the situation getting any worse for the American farmer, who is now facing the highest suicide rate of any profession in the country. The suicide rate for Americans engaged in the field of farming, fishing and forestry is 84.5 per 100,000 people – more than five times that of the broader population.

This tragic trend echoes that of India, where about a decade ago millions of Indian farmers began switching from farming with traditional farming techniques to using Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds instead. In the past, following a millennia-old tradition, farmers saved seeds from one harvest and replanted them the following year. Those days of wisely following the rhythms and patterns of the natural world are almost over. Today, Monsanto GMO seeds are bred to contain 'terminator technology', with the resulting crops ‘programmed’ not to produce seeds of their own. In other words, the seed company is literally playing God with nature and our lives. Thus, Indian farmers are forced to buy a new batch of seeds – together with Monsanto pesticide Round Up – each year and at a very prohibitive cost. Hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers

But should the world have expected anything different from the very same company that was involved in the production of Agent Orange for military use during the Vietnam War (1961-1971)? More than 4.8 million Vietnamese suffered adverse effects from the defoliant, which was sprayed over vast tracts of agricultural land during the war, destroying the fertility of the land and Vietnam’s food supply. About 400,000 Vietnamese died as a result of the US military’s use of Agent Orange, while millions more suffered from hunger, crippling disabilities and birth defects.

This is the company that we have allowed, together with Bayer, to control about one-quarter of the world’s food supply. This begs the question: Who is more nuts? Bayer and Monsanto, or We the People?

It’s important to mention that the Bayer – Monsanto convergence is not occurring in a corporate vacuum. It is all part of a race on the part of the global agrochemical companies to stake off the world’s food supplies. ChemChina has bought out Switzerland’s Syngenta for $43 billion, for example, while Dow and DuPont have forged their own $130 billion empire.

However, none of those companies carry the same bloodstained reputations as Bayer and Monsanto, a match made in hell that threatens all life on earth.

News broke this week that Monsanto accepted a $66 billion takeover bid from Bayer. The new company would control more than 25 per cent of the global supply of commercial seeds and pesticides. Bayer’s crop chemicals business is the world’s second largest after Syngenta, and Monsanto is the leading commercial seeds business.

Monsanto held a 26 per cent market share of all seeds sold in 2011. Bayer (mainly a pharmaceuticals company) sells 17 per cent of the world’s total agrochemicals and also has a comparatively small seeds sector. If competition authorities pass the deal, the combined company would be the globe’s largest seller of both seeds and agrochemicals.

The deal marks a trend towards consolidation in the industry with Dow and DuPont having agreed to merge and Swiss seed / pesticide giant Syngenta merging with ChemChina, a Chinese government concern.

The mergers would mean that three companies would dominate the commercial agricultural seeds and chemicals sector, down from six – Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Dow, Monsanto and DuPont. Prior to the mergers, these six firms controlled 60 per cent of commercial seed and more than 75 per cent of agrochemical markets.

The Dow/DuPont transaction would combine two of the most storied names in US industry and create the world’s second-biggest chemical company behind BASF as well as the largest seed and pesticide company, surpassing Monsanto

Alarm bells are ringing with the European Commission putting its approval of the Dow-DuPont deal temporarily on hold, and the US Senate Judiciary Committee is about to hold hearings on the deal due to concerns about consolidation in the industry, which has resulted in increased seed and pesticide prices.

In response to the Monsanto-Bayer merger, US National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson issued the following statement:

“Consolidation of this magnitude cannot be the standard for agriculture, nor should we allow it to determine the landscape for our future. The merger between Bayer and Monsanto marks the fifth major deal in agriculture in the last year… For the last several days, our family farm and ranch members have been on Capitol Hill asking Members of Congress to conduct hearings to review the staggering amount of pending merger deals in agriculture today. We will continue to express concern that these megadeals are being made to benefit the corporate boardrooms at the expense of family farmers, ranchers, consumers and rural economies. We are pleased that next week the Senate Judiciary Committee will be reviewing the alarming trend of consolidation in agriculture that has led to less competition, stifled innovation, higher prices and job loss in rural America… all mergers, including this recent Bayer / Monsanto deal, [should] be put under the magnifying glass of the committee and the U.S. Department of Justice.”

For all the rhetoric that we often hear about ‘the market’ and large corporations offering choice to farmers and consumers, the evidence is restriction of choice and the squeezing out of competitors. Over the years, for instance, Monsanto has bought up dozens of competitors to become the largest supplier of genetically engineered seeds with seed prices having risen dramatically.

Consolidation and monopoly in any sector should be of concern to everyone. But the fact that the large agribusiness conglomerates specialise in a globalised, industrial-scale, chemical-intensive model of farming that is adversely affecting what we eat should have us very concerned. Do we want this system to be intensified even further just because their business models depend on it?

Farmers are increasingly reliant on patented corporate seeds, whether non-GM hybrid seeds or GM, and the chemical inputs designed to be used with them. Monsanto seed traits are now in 80 per cent of corn and more than 90 per cent of soybeans grown in the US. It comes as little surprise then that people in the US now consume a largely corn-based diet: a less diverse diet than in the past, which is high in calorific value, but low in health-promoting, nutrient dense food. This health-damaging ‘American obesity diet’ and the agricultural practices underpinning is now a global phenomenon.

By its very nature, the capitalist economic model that corporate agriculture is attached to demands expansion, market capture and profit growth. And, it must be accepted that it does bring certain benefits to those farmers who have remained in agriculture (if not for the 330 farmers who leave their land every week, according to data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service).

But in the US, ‘success’ in agriculture depends on over $51 billion of taxpayer handouts to over a 10-year period to keep the gravy train on track for a particular system of agriculture designed to maintain corporate agribusiness profit margins. And such ‘success’ fails to factor in all of the external social, health and environmental costs that mean this type of model is ultimately unsustainable. It is easy to spin failure as success when the parameters are narrowly defined.

Moreover, the exporting of the Green Revolution paradigm throughout the globe has been a boon to transnational seed and agrochemical manufacturers, which have benefited from undermining a healthy, sustainable indigenous agriculture and transforming it into a profitable enterprise for global capital.

And not just profitable for global capital – but its company managers too. For example, a few months ago, according to Reuters, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant could receive more than $70 million if Monsanto were to be taken over by Bayer. At the time, Monsanto said it was open to engaging in further negotiations with Bayer after turning down its $62 billion bid. The report shows how Grant’s exposure to shares and options meant he had an incentive to hold out for the highest possible sale price, which would not only be in the interests of shareholders but also increase the value of his holdings. Other senior figures within Monsanto would also walk away with massive financial gains.

These corporate managers belong to a global agribusiness sector whose major companies rank among the Fortune 500 corporations. These companies are high-rollers in a geo-politicised, globalised system of food production whereby huge company profits are directly linked to the worldwide eradication of the small farm – the bedrock of global food production, bad food and poor health, inequitable, rigged trade, environmental devastation, mono-cropping and diminished food and diet diversity, the destruction of rural communities, ecocide, degraded soil, water scarcity and drought, destructive and inappropriate models of development and farmers who live a knife-edge existence and for whom debt has become a fact of life.

A handful of powerful and politically connected corporations are determining what is grown, how it is to be grown, what needs to be done to grow it, who grows it and what ends up on the plate.

And despite PR platitudes about the GMO/chemical-intensive model just being part of a wider mix of farming practices designed to feed humanity, from India to Africaindigenous models of agriculture are being squeezed out (through false argument and deception) as corporate imperialism puts pay to notions of food sovereignty.

We should be highly concerned about a food system increasingly dominated by companies that have a history (seethis on Monsanto and this on Bayer) of releasing health-damaging, environmentally polluting products onto the market and engaging in bribery, cover-ups, monopolistic practices and what should be considered as crimes against humanity?

Despite the likes of Hugh Grant saying the Monsanto-Bayer merger will be good for farmers and “broader society”, most of all it will be good for shareholders and taxpayer-subsidised, state-assisted company profit. That’s the type of hegemonic rhetoric that’s been used down the ages to disguise the true nature of power and its beneficiaries.

It’s not so much the Monsanto-Bayer deal is a move in the wrong direction (which it is), but increasing consolidation is to be expected given the trend in many key sectors toward monopoly capitalism or just plain cartelism, whichever way you choose to look at it. It’s the system of industrialised, capital-intensive agriculture wedded to powerful players whose interests lie in perpetuating and extending their neoliberal economic model that is the real problem.

“We have justified the demise of family farms, decay of rural communities, pollution of the rural environment, and degradation of soil health as being necessary… The problems we are facing today are the consequence of too many people… pursuing their narrow self-interests without considering the consequence of their actions on the rest of society and the future of humanity.” Professor John Ikerd, ‘Healthy Soils, Healthy People.

truepublica.org.uk

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher based in the UK and India

On 13 April, the EU Parliament called on the European Commission to restrict certain permitted uses of the toxic herbicide glyphosate, best known in Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ formulation. Glyphosate was last year determined to be “probably carcinogenic” by the WHO.

The parliament’s resolution called for no approval for many uses now considered acceptable, including use in or close to public parks, playgrounds and gardens and use where integrated pest management systems are sufficient for necessary weed control.

The resolution, however, fell short of calling for an outright ban. Due to the various political maneuverings, a disappointing compromise was reached that called for the renewal of the licence for glyphosate to be limited to just seven years instead of the 15 proposed by the Commission.

The resolution and the vote to re-approve glyphosate for seven years are non-binding, and, on Wednesday 18 May, the European Food Standard Authority Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed will meet to decide whether glyphosate is to be re-registered for use in the EU.

In addition to the World Health Organisation classifying glyphosate as being probably carcinogenic to humans, various peer-reviewed studies have indicated strong links between its use and a range of serious diseases and deleterious environmental impacts, as presented by Rosemary Mason in the documents that are attached to this article.

Rosemary Mason has been campaigning about the harmful effects of glyphosate for many of years. She has sent various open letters accompanied by in-depth, fully-referenced reports to key figures in both Britain and the EU who are responsible for regulating the use of glyphosate and for setting the official narrative about this substance. In the attached downloads provided at the end of this text, you can access some of the documents she has sent to the EFSA, European Commission and other key bodies/figures since November 2015. They provide detailed descriptions of the impacts of glyphosate along with the ongoing saga of deception and duplicity that result in an ultimate failure to regulate.

It would be an understatement to say that Mason smells a rat: the kind of rat recently discussed on the Corporate European Observatory website, which describes the strategic position the biotech lobby has gained within the heart of policy/decision-making processes in the EU. And the kind of rat that underlies the collusion between this lobby and regulatory/policy bodies in Europe, which has been described many times over the years: for example, see William Engdahl’s recent piece here on the “cesspool of corruption” that underpins relations  between the EU, EFSA and the major pesticide companies; read how scientific evidence was sidelined in the EU here to get the use of gylphosate sanctioned; and, just to highlight the type of companies public officials and bodies are all too willing to jump into bed with, read how Monsanto appears to have hidden evidence of the glyphosate-cancer link for decades.

With reports emerging that the EC plans to relicense glyphosate for nine years, should we be too surprised about this when glyphosate sales account for $5.1 billion of Monsanto’s revenue (2014 figure)? The level of collusion between the biotech lobby and public officials suggest that the line between product promoting and regulating was crossed long ago.

In response to the WHO reclassification of glyphosate as being probably carcinogenic to humans, the EFSA responded with its own review and concluded a cancer link was unlikely. The way the review was manipulated to reach that conclusion has been roundly condemned by dozens of scientists.

Mason notes that there is currently a legal case in process against EU regulators, and. if anyone were to be found to be colluding with the pesticides industry over the licensing of glyphosate, there are likely to be severe penalties. Environmentalists have launched the case against Monsanto and EU regulators over glyphosate assessment. Details about this action are provided on the GMWatch website, where it states:

“If there has been deliberate manipulation of the new licensing procedure for glyphosate with the intention of approving a carcinogenic substance, then this would be defrauding 508 million EU citizens,” states Viennese lawyer Dr Josef Unterweger. For this reason Dr Unterweger is pressing charges on behalf of Munich Environmental Institute and the six environmental organisations: Global 2000, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, PAN Germany, PAN UK, Générations Futures (France), WeMove Europe, and Nature & Progrès Belgique. A report will also be submitted to OLAF, the European anti-fraud office.

The ongoing scenario surrounding glyphosate begs the question whose interests are ultimately being served? Those of 500 million Europeans or those of Monsanto, a corporation that will be put ‘on trial’ as part of a civil society initiative for crimes against nature and humanity and ecocide in The Hague on World Food Day, October 16, 2016 (see Monsanto’s track record here).

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has determined that prosecuting ecocide as a criminal offence is the only way to guarantee the rights of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected.

As for the symbolic trial, on the tribunal’s website, it states:

“According to its critics, Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, by manipulating the press and media, etc. The history of Monsanto would thereby constitute a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet.”

How long do the EC and the EFSA think they can continue to play the European public for fools?

Rosemary Mason’s documents contain a great amount of detail on the glyphosate issue and can be consulted here:

Glyphosate causes cancer and birth defects. Humans and the environment are being silently poisoned by thousands of chemicals

Open Letter to the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed

Open Letter to the European Commission and European Food Safety Authority

British journalists, politicians and farmers are being used as guinea pigs

The European Commission has shelved a legal opinion confirming that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) produced through gene-editing and other new techniques fall under EU GMO law, following pressure from the US government. A series of internal Commission documents obtained under freedom of information rules reveal intense lobbying by US representatives for the EU to disregard its GMO rules, which require safety testing and labelling.

The documents show that US pressure is focussed on potential barriers to trade from the application of EU GMO law. They suggest that the EU should ignore health and environmental safeguards on GMOs to pave the way for a transatlantic trade agreement. The next round of TTIP negotiations starts on 25 April 2016 in New York.

Nina Holland, researcher for Corporate Europe Observatory, says:

“The biotech industry has waged an under-the-radar campaign to get new GM products absolved from GM regulation. The TTIP negotiations are seen by industry across the board and the US government as the perfect opportunity to block EU processes that are supposed to protect public health and the environment. The regulation of new GM techniques is a case in point.”

Franziska Achterberg, EU food policy director for Greenpeace, says:

“The Commission must come out of the bushes and state clearly that gene-editing is genetic engineering. Europeans need to be reassured that the Commission will apply GMO rules to all GMOs, whatever way they’re produced. This is the only way to ensure that GMOs don’t enter the food chain untested and unlabelled.”

Dr Helen Wallace, Director of GeneWatch UK, says:

“Gene-edited crops and trees pose risks to the environment. Before they can be marketed, these risks need to be properly assessed.  Farm animals, fish and insects could all be gene-edited in future. Changes to nature could be irreversible if this industry is not regulated”.

Europe Observatory

Nevertheless, promoters of chemical-intensive agriculture and GMOs are fond of telling us all that traditional approaches to agriculture will not be able to produce enough food to feed the world. For example, the former UK environment minister flew to South Africa earlier this year to praise the apparent success of the ‘green revolution’ and to promote the supposed wonders of genetically modified (GM) crops. Paterson warned that a food revolution that could save Africa from hunger is being held back.

He rounded on opponents of GMOs and chemical-intensive agriculture by stating:

Not since the original Luddites smashed cotton mill machinery in early 19th century England, have we seen such an organised, fanatical antagonism to progress and science. These enemies of the Green Revolution call themselves ‘progressive’, but their agenda could hardly be more backward-looking and regressive… their policies would condemn billions to hunger, poverty and underdevelopment. And their insistence on mandating primitive, inefficient farming techniques would decimate the earth’s remaining wild spaces, devastate species and biodiversity and leave our natural ecology poorer as a result.

Proponents of GM crops constantly claim that we need such technology to address hunger and to feed a growing global population. We are told by the GMO biotech lobby that GM crops are essential, are better for the environment and will provide the tools that farmers need in a time of climate chaos. By seeking to denigrate traditional forms of agriculture, however, Paterson is attempting to close off these in favour of promoting external input intensive ‘solutions’ and proprietary technologies, such as GMOs, on behalf of global agribusiness corporations.

Some months ago, in defence of Owen Paterson’s claims, Professor Tony Trewavas of Edinburgh University, who specialises in plant physiology and molecular biology, stated in an open letter to me:

If agroecological approaches can currently match yield that can be attained by using modern farming methods then by all means use it. But if not and my understanding is that currently it cannot, then they should not be the farming method of recommended choice at present… When Africa has got its population increases under control and producing sufficient to feed everybody then alternatives like agroecology may come to the fore. No-one with any concern for humanity or the welfare of its population should currently consider any other alternative. The groups that campaign for this kind or that kind of farming method and destroy crops to try and bounce others into their point of view have lost that fundamental concern for their own species.

The claims and assertions of Paterson and Trewavas are wrong on many levels, as I have described in previous articles (see this, this and this). Smears, rhetoric and emotional blackmail are no substitute for rational debate. They are no excuse for ignoring reality either.

New research by the Oakland Institute shows the actual reality. It has released a report on 33 case studies that shed light on the success of agroecological agriculture across the African continent in the face of climate change, hunger and poverty.

Agroecology combines sound ecological management, including minimising the use of toxic inputs by using on-farm renewable resources and privileging endogenous solutions to manage pests and disease, with an approach that upholds and secures farmers’ livelihoods.

Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, says:

Released just two weeks ahead of the COP21 Conference in Paris, these case studies provide irrefutable facts and figures on how agricultural transformation – respectful of the farmers and the environment – can yield immense economic, social, and food security benefits while ensuring climate justice and restoring soils and the environment.

Owen Paterson says that Africa needs a new green revolution, more synthetic fertilizers and genetically modified crops, and the Gates Foundation as well as big agribusiness concerns such as Monsanto are pushing hard for this.

In response, Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute, who coordinated the Oakland Institure research, states:

These case studies debunk these myths and highlight the multiple benefits of agroecology, including affordable and sustainable ways to boost agricultural yields while increasing farmers’ incomes, food security and resilience.

The research highlights the wide variety of techniques and practices used to achieve these benefits, including plant diversification, intercropping, the application of mulch, manure or compost for soil fertility, the natural management of pests and diseases, agroforestry and the construction of water management structures.

The case studies show that agroecology is not a one-size-fits-all set of practices. Rather, techniques are adapted to meet specific needs and ecosystems. Indeed, farmers who practice agroecology are innovators and experiment to find the best solutions for themselves.

It is worth noting that agriculture, forestry, and other land use are responsible for nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The International Panel on Climate Change noted that emissions from these sectors have almost doubled over the past 50 years and could increase by an additional 30 percent by 2050. The use of synthetic fertilizers is the fastest growing source of agriculture GHG emissions, having increased 37 percent since 2001.

Ibrahima Coulibaly, President of CNOP-Mali and Vice President of the ROPPA (Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organisations of West Africa), says:

Our governments must now take decisive steps to actually support agroecological practices instead of promoting industrial food production systems that are contributing to climate change while making farmers poorer and more vulnerable to market fluctuations and weather hazards. We need our governments to ensure our children a future in which they can feed themselves with nutritious food in a healthy environment.

Since 2006, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to the tune of almost $420 million. This strategy for agriculture in Africa is a flawed attempt to impose corporate-controlled industrial agriculture at the expense of more ecologically sound approaches.

AGRA is part of a global trend that is being driven by big agribusiness corporations that seeks to eradicate the small farmer and subject countries to the vagaries of rigged global markets (see this andthis). Smallholder farmers are being displaced across the world and are struggling to preserve their indigenous seeds and traditional knowledge of farming systems. Agritech corporations are being allowed to shape government policy by being granted a strategic role in trade negotiations. They are increasingly setting the policy/knowledge framework by being allowed to fund and determine the nature of research carried out in public universities and institutes. And they continue to propagate the myth that they have the answer to global hunger and poverty, despite evidence that they do not (see this and this).

The Gates Foundation, Monsanto and Western governments are placing African agriculture in the hands of big agribusiness for private profit and strategic control under the pretext of helping the poor. And they are side-lining local farmers and organisation and using taxpayers’ money to help do it (see this).

Numerous official reports have argued that to feed the hungry in poorer regions we need to support diverse, sustainable agro-ecological methods of farming and strengthen local food economies: for example, see this official report, this report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and thisreport by 400 experts which was twice peer reviewed.

It is after all small farms and peasant farmers (more often than not serving local communities) that are more productive than giant industrial (export-oriented) farms and which produce most of the world’s food (see this report from GRAIN). The experience with GM crops shows that the application of GM technology is more likely to actually undermine food security and entrench the social, economic and environmental problems created by industrial agriculture and corporate control (see this other report from GRAIN and this article by Helena Paul documenting ecocide and genocide in South America due to the imposition of GM crops there).

What Paterson and the agritech cartel offer is more of the same by tearing up traditional agriculture for the benefit of corporate entities. The current global system of chemical-industrial agriculture and World Trade Organisation rules that agritech companies helped draw up for their benefit to force their products into countries (see here) are a major cause of structural hunger, poverty, illness and environmental destruction. By its very design, the system is parasitical, sucking the life from people, nations and the planet for profit and control (see here).

Forwarding some bogus technical quick-fix will not put things right. It represents more of the same. The globalised industrial food and agriculture system is failing to feed the world and is driving some of the world’s most pressing crises.

The success stories from Africa highlighted by the research discussed here indicate that agroecology puts farmers, including many women farmers, in charge their own future. Moreover, development is placed firmly in the hands of farmers themselves. However, while agroecology promotes low use of external inputs, it is a very knowledge-intensive system.

The Oakland Institute thus notes that transmission of this knowledge, adaptation to local contexts and appropriation by farmers and government technicians are essential for farmers and communities if they are to reap the benefits of agroecology. The case studies demonstrate how the expansion of agroecological practices can generate a rapid, fair and inclusive development that can be sustained for future generations. They also highlight just where investment should be going and where priorities should ultimately lie.

As I have stated elsewhere, the environment, the quality of food and our health are being sacrificed for corporate profit. The type of agriculture being pushed by the likes of Paterson an his agribusiness backers represents a form of looting based on what we can loosely call ‘capitalism’. The solution involves a shift towards agroecology and a reaffirmation of indigenous models of farming.

Scotland has taken advantage of new European Union regulations that permit it to opt out of being forced to allow GMO agri-business to gain access to Scotland. In its decision, the Scottish National Party (SNP) government in Edinburgh has broken with the Tory government in London, which has allowed the production of GMO crops. Opponents of GM foods argue that although the European Union law allows some nations to opt out of growing GM crops, it allows others to permit GM companies an opening into their agricultural sectors, thus circumventing current GM bans in Germany, Italy, and France.

As with every issue that pits neo-conservative governments against populists and progressive parties and movements, the neocons favor genetically-modified food cultivation and production, just as they favor continual warfare and inaction on the face of global climate change. The debate over genetically-modified food has exposed neo-cons as not only pro-corporate prostitutes but also as anti-humanist gargoyles and ogres who leap right out of the pages of Lord of the Rings.

The Scottish government issued an official statement on the ban: «The Scottish Government believes that GM policy in Scotland should be guided by what’s best for our economy and our own agricultural sector rather than UK priorities… there is no evidence of significant demand for GM products by Scottish consumers. To grow GM crops in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand».

To prevent contamination of Scottish crops by English GM seeds, a strict agricultural inspection regime must be established on the English-Scottish border, something that will be music to the ears of the pro-independence Scots and a nightmare to the English who want to preserve the increasingly-unworkable «United Kingdom».

The only Scottish Member of the European Parliament to serve on the body’s agricultural committee, Alyn Smith of the SNP, said that Scotland wants to have the reputation for growing and exporting natural foods, not adulterated GM products. Smith said while the SNP favors «carefully regulated research and development of GM foods», it does not want to jeopardize Scotland’s role as a producer of natural quality foods.

While Scotland has championed the anti-«Frankenfood» cause, the U.S. Congress voted to ban states from requiring food manufacturers to label their food as being genetically-modified. American agri-business, led by chief GM manufacturer Monsanto, does not want consumers to know what sort of genetically-adulterated food products they are eating. The first casualty of the Congress’s Act, inappropriately titled the «Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act» of 2015, was Vermont’s mandatory GMO labelling act. The federal legislation also neutralized similar GMO labeling laws in Maine, Hawaii, Oregon, and Connecticut. To illustrate the nature of Monsanto’s lobbying efforts to oppose GM labeling the firm spent $5.5 million to lobby against a GM labeling bill in the California legislature. The recent TPP summit on Maui was a bitter pill for the residents of the Hawaiian island who voted in a referendum to ban GM food from the island. Enactment of the TPP would strip residents of Maui to determine what kinds of crops are grown on their island.

The U.S. Congress opted to institute a GM industry-friendly national labeling act, which would place responsibility and standards for labeling GM products within the Big Agriculture-dominated U.S. Department of Agriculture.

One of the effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be an allowance for companies like Monsanto to sue nations banning or restricting GM foods in an unaccountable international courts called Investor State Dispute Settlement Tribunals (ISDST). The same holds true for the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). If the United Kingdom accedes to the TTIP, Monsanto could sue Scotland before an ISDST and potentially have scrapped Scotland’s GMO farming ban.

The roles of the TPP and TTIP are to circumvent national sovereignty and place corporations like Monsanto over the will of elected governments and the peoples they govern. In addition, under free trade agreements like the TPP, articles like this one criticizing Monsanto could result in costly lawsuits against author and publisher brought before ISDSTs. Constitutional guarantees of the freedom of the press and speech in the United States and other TPP and TTIP signatory nations are abrogated by «free trade» agreements designed to place the rights of multinational corporations over nations, states, provinces, counties, municipalities, and individual citizens.

U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio sounded the alarm about Monsanto and its corporate ilk in an interview with Telesur in April of this year. DeFazio said about the Obama administration and its hell-bent intentions to enact so-called «free trade» agreements like the TPP, «Call it the smoking gun. Proof that fast track and massive free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership are written by and for multinational corporations such as agriculture giant Monsanto. Instead of using trade deals as an opportunity to protect and strengthen consumer rights by joining the countries which require genetically engineered food to be labeled, this administration wants to benefit wealthy corporations at the expense of the public». DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, was calling out a Democratic president, Barack Obama, on the White House’s support for firms like Monsanto.

Russia and France have banned the cultivation of Monsanto’s GM products, including corn. Monsanto corn has been found to cause cancerous tumors in laboratory rats. However, the proto-fascist government of Ukraine has welcomed Monsanto and other GM companies with open arms. At risk is Ukraine’s large wheat-growing industry. Perhaps nothing more shows the link between neo-cons and GM foods as does the U.S. neocon support for the Ukrainian government and its dangerous agricultural policy meant to benefit Monsanto and destroy the individual Ukrainian farmer.

Monsanto’s very history as a company should result in skepticism and universal derision over its Frankenfood line of products. The firm was founded in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri by Chicago businessman John Francis Queeny, who obtained «seed money» for the company from his wife, Olga Mendez Monsanto, the daughter of Don Emmanuel Mendes de Monsanto, a Dutch Sephardic Jew whose family came to New Orleans via Curacao and the slave-borne Caribbean sugar industry. In fact, the Monsantos made much of their fortune from the transatlantic slave trade. From its roots in trading in African slaves, Monsanto now trades in adulterated food products and pesticides shown to be harmful to not only human health but also to livestock and bee, beneficial insect, and bird populations. Monsanto’s first major Frankenfood offering was the sugar substitute saccharin, a derivative of coal tar and which was sold to the Coca Cola Company. Saccharin has been shown to cause bladder cancer in humans.

Not coincidentally, just after President Obama’s trip to his paternal homeland of Kenya, seven Kenyan Members of Parliament from parliamentary committees dealing with Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperatives, Education, Research and Technology, Health, Environment and Natural Resources, Finance, Planning and Trade introduced legislation to lift Kenya’s ban on GMOs. Apparently, the Kenyans succumbed to the desires of an American president who is more interested in protecting the profits of Monsanto, whose initial financial backing came from a family of slave traders, than in the health of the people of Kenya.

From trading in human chattel to pushing harmful food products, Monsanto has become a fitting symbol for the GM industry. It is also fitting to ban Monsanto and its products and defy the corporate push for unfair and unbalanced trade agreements.

Campaigners and activists have described how global agribusiness players like Monsanto are threatening food security and food democracy. Monsanto and others have been able to capture or unduly influence government regulatory/policy agendas, important trade deals and global trade policies via the WTO. Monsanto is a major player and wields enormous political influence and receives significant political support.

Little wonder then that we now have campaigns specifically targeting Monsanto. While it is laudable and correct to highlight the actions of Monsanto and indeed its partners like The Gates Foundation, we should not be side tracked from developing a wider analysis to understand the underlying forces that drive companies like Monsanto.

A recent piece by Christina Sarich shows that any shares held by Gates or the individuals at the top of the Monsanto corporate structure like CEO High Grant or CTO Robb Fraley are dwarfed by those held by institutional shareholders, such as Vanguard, Capital Research and State Street.

While it is difficult to specify the individuals behind these entities and others like them in the financial-corporate world, existing research (and in the absence of data, informed speculation) indicates the name Rothschild crops up time and again along with Goldman Sachs, Loebs Kuhn, Lehmans, Rockefeller, Warburg, Lazard and Israel Moses Seif. Moreover, the eight largest US financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, US Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are entirely controlled by 10 shareholders and four companies appear as shareholders in these many of these: Black Rock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity. In fact, these four appear to be major stock holders in many major US and European companies. (See this broader breakdown of big money and ownership.)

Some try to divert your attention from these highly concentrated and overlapping patterns of ownership and the influence it brings by saying it all belongs in the realm of conspiracy theory and merely mouth tired cliches about ‘democracy’, but many of the families and individuals who own or control the world’s biggest corporations have not been sitting idly by. In some cases, they and their ancestors have been amassing wealth and exerting their power over a period of centuries. They haven’t appeared overnight, it’s taken them a long time for them to get to this stage and mold or set up institutions like the IMF, World Bank or WTO to do their bidding. So much so in fact that David Rothkpf estimates there are between 6-7,000 individuals who now form a global superclass.

Rothkopf is former managing director of Kissinger Associates and deputy undersecretary of commerce for international trade policies. In 2008, he published his book ‘Superclass: the Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making':

“The superclass constitutes approximately 0.0001 percent of the world’s population. They are the Davos-attending, Gulfstream/private jet–flying, money-incrusted, megacorporation-interlocked, policy-building elites of the world, people at the absolute peak of the global power pyramid. They are 94 percent male, predominantly white, and mostly from North America and Europe. These are the people setting the agendas at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, G-8, G-20, NATO, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. They are from the highest levels of finance capital, transnational corporations, the government, the military, the academy, nongovernmental organizations, spiritual leaders and other shadow elites. Shadow elites include, for instance, the deep politics of national security organizations in connection with international drug cartels, who extract 8,000 tons of opium from US war zones annually, then launder $500 billion through transnational banks, half of which are US-based.” Project Censored (Exposing the transnational ruling class)

Although we must not assume that this elite is a unified entity, there is an interlocking directorate of state-corporate entities that have a unity of interest in maintaining its wealth, power and the economic and political structures that facilitate this, while eradicating challenges to its power.

Through its control or membership of powerful think tanks, directorships, board memberships, horizontal and vertical integration of parent/sister corporate entities and cross-ownership, this club ensures the corporate media says what it wants it to say, opposition is muzzled, controlled or subverted, wars are fought on its behalf and the corporate control of every facet of life is increasingly brought under its influence – and that includes food: what is in it, who grows it and who sells it. Fail to understand the set up described here and you will fail to grasp that companies like Monsanto are but a tentacle of elite interests.

Jon Rappaport highlights how this interlocking directorate works on a company level by looking at Monsanto and Whole Foods. He shows that five out of the top 10 shareholders for each company – the holders of the most stock – are the same. The five are investment funds and they buy stocks in many companies. But this should not be regarded as some kind of conscious conspiracy to control the food market, although such a practice should not be discounted. Rappaport says these funds make automatic purchases of stocks, based on computer calculations and based on the rankings of companies.

The point is that when you focus solely on Monsanto, you may be failing to grasp the fact that if it weren’t Monsanto, or if Monsanto were to disappear, another company would appear because in a world of vulture corporations, profit compulsion and market capture, there is money to be made from GMO technology, markets to be ‘exploited’ and indigenous agriculture to be uprooted. The Rockefeller family and US agribusiness corporations realised this when they facilitated the ‘green revolution’ just as institutional speculators in land or commodity crops know it today.

Monsanto is integral to a system of globalisation that benefits Western oligarchs, which is underpinned by an increasingly powerful military-industrial complex that ensures these interests are served if other means fail (watch John Perkins here discussing his time as an economic hitman). And the result has often been highly profitable on the back of economic and social devastation. Look no further than Michel Chossudovsky’s analysis of Somalia or Ethiopia to see how agribusiness made a killing from policies that destroyed local economies and farming. The US and its corporations, facilitated by the IMF and WTO, effectively dismantle agrarian economies and then offer the problem as the cure.

Ultimately, the GM issue is not about ‘marching against Monsanto’, labelling or ‘choice’ – as important as all of that is – it is about the geopolitics of food and agriculture and challenging an increasingly integrated global cartel of finance, oil, military and agribusiness concerns that seek to gain from war, debt bondage and the control of resources, regardless of any notions relating to food security, good health and nutrition, biodiversity, food democracy, etc.

Instead of being informed about any of this, the public must listen to slick corporate mouthpieces like media-savvy Mark Lynas, or watch TV programmes like BBC Panorama that play fast and loose with facts and viewers’ emotions that tell us all is safe with GMO and this technology can rid the world of hunger. You see, it’s all about the ‘science’ (or debasement of it) and ‘helping the poor’ (while betraying a colonialist mindset) and nothing else, so we should just put up and shut up.

That’s the way they like it. Because any type of critical analysis that links the GMO issue with the system these neoliberal mouthpieces defend and which touches on the concerns outlined in this article is met with mockery and name calling from them – it’s all ‘anti-capitalist’ twaddle or conspiracy theory mouthed by a bunch of ‘green blob’, immoral, self-serving hippies, so they say.

They seem to think projection passes for debate. It doesn’t.

Colin Todhunter, counterpunch.org

The Transatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships have nothing to do with free trade.  «Free trade» is used as a disguise to hide the power these agreements give to corporations to use law suits to overturn sovereign laws of nations that regulate pollution, food safety, GMOs, and minimum wages.

The first thing to understand is that these so-called «partnerships» are not laws written by Congress.  The US Constitution gives Congress the authority to legislate, but these laws are being written without the participation of Congress. The laws are being written by corporations solely in the interest of their power and profit.  The office of US Trade Representative was created in order to permit corporations to write law that serves only their interests. This fraud on the Constitution and the people is covered up by calling trade laws «treaties». 

Indeed, Congress is not even permitted to know what is in the laws and is limited to the ability to accept or refuse what is handed to Congress for a vote.  Normally, Congress accepts, because «so much work has been done» and «free trade will benefit us all».

The presstitutes have diverted attention from the content of the laws to «fast track».  When Congress votes «fast track,» it means Congress accepts that corporations can write the trade laws without the participation of Congress. Even criticisms of the «partnerships» are a smoke screen.  Countries accused of slave labor could be excluded but won’t be. Super patriots complain that US sovereignty is violated by «foreign interests,» but US sovereignty is violated by US corporations. Others claim yet more US jobs will be offshored. In actual fact, the «partnerships» are unnecessary to advance the loss of American jobs as there is nothing that inhibits jobs offshoring now.

What the «partnerships» do is to make private corporations immune to the laws of sovereign countries on the grounds that laws of countries adversely impact corporate profits and constitute «restraint of trade».

For example, under the Transatlantic Partnership, French laws against GMOs would be overturned as «restraints on trade» by law suits filed by Monsanto. 

Cigarette companies can sue for warning labels on cigarette packs, because these labels discourage smoking and thereby constitute «restraint of trade».

Efforts to control environmentally damaging emissions would also be subject to damage suits brought by corporations. Under TTIP, corporations would be compensated for «regulatory takings», the corporate designation of environmental protection. Of course, this means taxpayers would have to pay damages to the polluting corporations. 

Countries that require testing of imported food, such as pork for trichnosis, and fumigation would be subject to lawsuits from corporations, because these regulations increase the cost of imports.  

Countries that do not provide monopoly protection for brand name pharmaceuticals and chemical products, and allow generics in their place, can be sued for damages by corporations.

Under TTIP only corporations can sue. Unions cannot sue when their members are harmed by jobs offshoring, and citizens cannot sue when their health and water supplies are damaged by corporate emissions. 

Obama himself has no input into the process.  Here is what is going on: The Trade Representative is a corporate stooge.  He serves the private corporations and will go on to a million dollar annual salary.  The corporations have bribed the political leaders in every country to sign away their sovereignty and the general welfare of their people to private corporations.  Corporations have paid US senators large sums for transferring Congress’ law-making powers to corporations. When these «partnerships» pass, no country that signed will have any legislative authority to legislate or enforce any law that any corporation regards as inimical to its bottom line.

Yes, the great promiser of change is bringing change. He is turning Asia, Europe, and the US over to rule by the corporations. America’s First Black President is proving himself to be the Uncle Tom of the corporations. Any and everything for the plantation owners and nothing for the slaves.

Only those who have sold their integrity for money sign these agreements.  Apparently Merkel, a Washington vassal, is one of them.

According to news reports, both of France’s main political parties have sold out to the corporations, but not Marine Le Pen’s National Front Party.  In the last EU elections, the dissident parties, such as Le Pen and Farage’s, prevailed over the traditional parties, but the dissidents are yet to prevail in their own countries. 

Marine Le Pen objects to the secrecy of the agreements that establishes corporate rule.

As Europe’s only leader, she speaks:  

«It is vital that the French people know about TTIP’s content and its motivations in order to be able to fight it. Because our fellow countrymen must have the choice of their future, because they should impose a model for society that suits them, and not one forced by multinational companies eager for profits, Brussels technocrats bought by the lobbies, and politicians from the UMP [party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy] who are subservient to these technocrats».

It is vital that the American public also know, but not even Congress is permitted to know.

How does it work, this «freedom and democracy» that we Americans allegedly have, when neither the people nor their elected representatives are permitted to participate in the making of laws that enable private corporations to negate the law-making functions of governments and place corporate profit above the general welfare?