Where are we now concerning our seeds, our unaltered food, and our birthright? It appears that two steaming locomotive trains are barreling towards the finish line for some form of great control. On one track stretches passenger cars as far as the eye can see filled with aware farmers, concerned families, and food shoppers casting their daily monetary votes for organic, non-GMO food. On the other track, there is no diversity — there only exists corporate takeovers in the form of partnership trade agreements called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) perhaps best described by Arundhati Roy, author of God of Small Things and Capitalism: A Ghost Story, when she recently wrote:
“TTIP is a free trade agreement between Europe and the United States that aims to give multinational corporations the power to sue sovereign governments that do things that adversely impact corporate profits. Criminal acts could include governments increasing workers’ minimum wages, not seen to be cracking down on “terrorist” villagers who impede the work of mining companies, or, say, having the temerity to turn down Monsanto’s offer of genetically modified corporate-patented seeds.”
Over the recent years, people have increased their push back against corporate GMO control of seeds and food supplies. The labeling piñata appears to have finally burst as many states are introducing laws, following Vermont’s success, to label GMO food on their grocery store shelves. Like a strategic military type offensive, class action lawsuits against Glyphosate — Monsanto’s flagship product and 2A carcinogenic herbicide — and a rapidly educated medical and scientific community are flanking both sides of the GMO labeling inactive headed straight down the middle of the battlefield. To any casual observer overlooking this soft conflict raging just behind grocery store shelves, under farmer’s soil, and in your refrigerator right now, the sheer numbers and grassroots momentum appears to be an eventual checkmate for agrochemical corporations.
However, from the information gleaned so far, the TTIP and TPP appear to be the nuclear option by corporate interests. A scorched earth policy destroying free choice and community voices while rendering states rights and voting impotent. The gut feeling everyone gets when they read about the TTIP reveals a fight buried deep within the spirit of us all. A duty to no longer get pushed by the corporate bully. Most media will either spin the TPP and TTIP as “no big deal” attempting to cloak the trade agreements in a “we come in peace” outer shell. However, at this point in humanity’s food awakening, media outlets that run pro TTIP and TPP stories, or simply ignore the trade agreements, exponentially damage whatever remaining trust and integrity they possessed. The other angle from alternative media sources is a disempowering fear from the magnitude of such a deal. Speaking as if the TTIP and TPP are already forgone conclusions to get maximum clicks and readership. It’s been planned for years they write…decades even — the individual is no longer in the equation — now here is what to prepare for because all we do now is count the days till the hammer comes down. Regardless of what people say and write, there will always be options.
How will an international, corporate tribunal with questionable authority and limited enforcement tactics put down statewide, community by community agricultural civil disobedience in its endless manifestations? The options are forever endless when nonviolent creativity is activated and supercharged in this information age. If large numbers of citizens began sticking their own labels on food in the grocery store to designate GMO and non-GMO food, what would happen then? When the pro-GMO corporations have no answer to the continued small victories, we win. Are there provisions in the TPP and TTIP for when a country’s farmers burn their fields to protest GMO contamination like India, Hungary, and France have done? Where was big corporate food’s Plan B to keep control and enforce an unethical law when The People of California engaged in a day of seed sharing civil disobedience in protest of California’s seed law AB2470? There was and is no Plan B — corporations are forced to watch on the sidelines and calculate their losses as people take back their power. The options are forever endless when nonviolent creativity is activated and supercharged in this information age. If one person, Ron Finley, made Los Angeles change a law by simply planting a garden, what would an entire city of garden planting do? In a country where one and five children live in poverty and there are over 45 million people receiving government supplemental food assistance, do we really need vacant lawns and manicured, inedible landscape any longer in towns and large cities?
“TTIP is a free trade agreement between Europe and the United States that aims to give multinational corporations the power to sue sovereign governments that do things that adversely impact corporate profits. Criminal acts could include governments increasing workers’ minimum wages, not seen to be cracking down on “terrorist” villagers who impede the work of mining companies, or, say, having the temerity to turn down Monsanto’s offer of genetically modified corporate-patented seeds.”
Over the recent years, people have increased their push back against corporate GMO control of seeds and food supplies. The labeling piñata appears to have finally burst as many states are introducing laws, following Vermont’s success, to label GMO food on their grocery store shelves. Like a strategic military type offensive, class action lawsuits against Glyphosate — Monsanto’s flagship product and 2A carcinogenic herbicide — and a rapidly educated medical and scientific community are flanking both sides of the GMO labeling inactive headed straight down the middle of the battlefield. To any casual observer overlooking this soft conflict raging just behind grocery store shelves, under farmer’s soil, and in your refrigerator right now, the sheer numbers and grassroots momentum appears to be an eventual checkmate for agrochemical corporations.
However, from the information gleaned so far, the TTIP and TPP appear to be the nuclear option by corporate interests. A scorched earth policy destroying free choice and community voices while rendering states rights and voting impotent. The gut feeling everyone gets when they read about the TTIP reveals a fight buried deep within the spirit of us all. A duty to no longer get pushed by the corporate bully. Most media will either spin the TPP and TTIP as “no big deal” attempting to cloak the trade agreements in a “we come in peace” outer shell. However, at this point in humanity’s food awakening, media outlets that run pro TTIP and TPP stories, or simply ignore the trade agreements, exponentially damage whatever remaining trust and integrity they possessed. The other angle from alternative media sources is a disempowering fear from the magnitude of such a deal. Speaking as if the TTIP and TPP are already forgone conclusions to get maximum clicks and readership. It’s been planned for years they write…decades even — the individual is no longer in the equation — now here is what to prepare for because all we do now is count the days till the hammer comes down. Regardless of what people say and write, there will always be options.
How will an international, corporate tribunal with questionable authority and limited enforcement tactics put down statewide, community by community agricultural civil disobedience in its endless manifestations? The options are forever endless when nonviolent creativity is activated and supercharged in this information age. If large numbers of citizens began sticking their own labels on food in the grocery store to designate GMO and non-GMO food, what would happen then? When the pro-GMO corporations have no answer to the continued small victories, we win. Are there provisions in the TPP and TTIP for when a country’s farmers burn their fields to protest GMO contamination like India, Hungary, and France have done? Where was big corporate food’s Plan B to keep control and enforce an unethical law when The People of California engaged in a day of seed sharing civil disobedience in protest of California’s seed law AB2470? There was and is no Plan B — corporations are forced to watch on the sidelines and calculate their losses as people take back their power. The options are forever endless when nonviolent creativity is activated and supercharged in this information age. If one person, Ron Finley, made Los Angeles change a law by simply planting a garden, what would an entire city of garden planting do? In a country where one and five children live in poverty and there are over 45 million people receiving government supplemental food assistance, do we really need vacant lawns and manicured, inedible landscape any longer in towns and large cities?
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