We all know that politicians become politicians because they have that something, that spark of magnetism that sets them apart from the masses. And that little bit of attraction is what makes for a good politician. The unfortunate thing is, that in the modern world, those with that spark may not be in the financial position to further their ambitions. And that is why big businesses and rich people have taken these chosen ones, and groomed them with money and the spotlight of the media to become their personal representatives. And they do it with money. It takes a lot of money to get elected to office. A LOT of money in today's world. And any person out there that thinks that rich citizens and big businesses give political hopefuls LOTS of money with no expectations is pretty foolish indeed. For just one quick moment let's look back a ways to Charles Keating pounding on the door to the home of Dennis Deconcini and giving him and four other Senators a measly 1.3 million to stop the Feds from looking into the actions of Lincoln Savings. Good ol' Dennis and four of his Senate buddies did just that and the investigation was delayed a full two years. Dennis baby got an official Senate censure, Charles got to keep millions in offshore accounts that were never found. Dennis got to keep his share of the mil as well. Politicians do things for money, make no mistake about it.
The wise and wonderful leaders of our country actually don't like the process, not a single one of them wants to ever get caught taking money from their saviors in exchange for their assistance in elections. And the truth is, although EVERY single person in the country knows that this stuff is what happens, we can't prove it. At least not in a court of law in this big business controlled country. However, the leaders want to distance themselves from their sources of control, money, as much as possible and so they all came up with the most interesting concept for doing that. They created political action committees. PAC's. WOW, a coupe, a brainstorm, a miracle for every single politician out there. With a PAC, rich people and rich businesses can provide money to their chosen politico. And with the changes in the laws in 2010 that those money hungry politicians made regarding PAC's then they can now purchase media time and say anything they want to assist their chosen political hopeful, and not have to actually report the money spent as a donation to that politician. Their money went to a non-entity, a committee, not into the pockets of the chosen few. Aaaahhhh, but wouldst that these no-restriction PACs were here in 1972 and McGovern had the unlimited money that Nixon seemed to have access to, then perhaps the election might have gone a bit differently. Sigh, some things are nice to think about. Not that Nixon was a bad president or anything, I mean he did end the war like he said he would. Oh well, not something that matters in this discussion. It's just fun to speculate on an alternate reality. Hmmmm, makes me wonder where I would be in life if I had never met my second wife.
So, now we come down to the nitty gritty of it all; the EPA is going to RAISE the acceptable limits of residual glyphosate on most of the foods that humans consume. Yes, it's true, despite the overwhelming evidence that glyphosate is WAY WAY WAY more toxic to the human system than ever thought possible. Dr Swanson, shows specific evidence of toxicity. (Swanson) And Scientific American has this article about how toxic Roundup is to human cells (Scientific American) And the consumer hero Seralini tells us that Roundup and GMO's themselves need to be BANNED (Seralini) Roundup is conclusively shown to cause non Hodgkins Lymphoma and leukemia (Glyphosate) And of course the big one is the study shown that large scale usage of herbicides like Roundup are unsafe for the environment and is causing irreparable damage (Roundup Environment) A billion pounds of Roundup are applied to farms every year in the US alone. And the problem of course is that nature does what it does, and those weeds that are not killed by the outright application of glyphosate live and breed weeds that have resistance to the chemical, just the same way that bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics. It is called natural selection, and it is taught to EVERY single student in the US and most countries of the world. It is a pretty simple and basic concept of science, yet all of the scientists and corporate bigwigs at Monsanto and other genetech agribusiness companies want us to believe is not happening in the environment. Yet, they have pressured the EPA to raise the levels of glyphosate toxin in our foods so that farmers can spray ever greater quantities of the poison onto their farmlands in an attempt to combat the growing resistance of weeds to that very chemical. And the EPA is completely ignoring the evidence that the runoff from farm usage of glyphosate is poisoning the local environments by destroying aquatic systems all over the country as well as causing huge increases in cancers and other health problems to AmeriKans.
We know who controls the EPA now don't we.
The Environmental Protection Agency I thought was established to insure that we citizens could live in a country that was protected from poisons and toxins added to our environment. It does not seem to be that easy though now does it. Normal US citizens don't have the resources, money, or method to get those resources, money, into the hands of those that make decisions, nor do they even understand that they NEED to do such a thing. Most AmeriKans actually believe that the EPA is there to protect their interests as citizens, not protect and further the interests of big businesses. Mushroom people, that is exactly how the populace is treated by the industrial agribusiness controlled political system in AmeriKa. Mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed shit. Lies, shit. The EPA is basing the decision to increase glyphosate residues on foods for human consumption on research from Monsanto, one of the largest manufacturers of glyphosate in the world. The research from Monsanto is in direct controversy to research from independent labs and researchers all over the world. Research that has no direct connection to the money made from the manufacture and sale of the poisonous chemical that Monsanto wants, no, NEEDS to sell more of to further the lies that they tell farmers all over the world about how Genetically Modified crops are the only things standing between profit and world starvation.
If you go to the EPA website, (HERE) they give a huge list of things that you, as a citizen, can do to help in the fight against pollution in your community. A HUGE list. How do we, as citizens, fight the actions of the EPA to protect ourselves? That is not on the list.
It should be.
Well written and accurate piece Roy. I think the only way to stop these heinous crimes against humanity that corporations like Monsanto are committing is election reform. Take the money out of politics is our only chance and it will have to come grassroots by we the people ... Congress will never slap the hand that feeds them.
ReplyDeleteMy son always says that the best way to run the government is to have the Congress made up of citizens that volunteer to do the job, then have a lottery to select them. Makes sense to me, take the money completely out of it.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly what the founding fathers envisioned, but then again, what we have now is not either.