Tomatoes and Osama

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By Linn Cohen-Cole (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Linn Cohen-Cole - Writer

Ooooh, did they have you all worried about tomatoes and salmonella? Have you been all upset the FDA couldn't track down the culprits? Were you assiduously following the tomato trail, wondering where it would lead? And did you find that suddenly, it was jalapenos all along? Geez, It's like tracking Osama and next thing you know, we're in Iraq after WMDs, and no one can find either.

Actually, it's very much like that. Fear, fear, fear. Upsetting the public, so everyone will be eager for a push for ... war. So, when it comes to tomatoes - scratch that, jalapenos - the public is scared again, and the government suggests more FDA power to track better those enemy germs and more regulations, it just like more troops and extensions of FISA.

WMDs. Oh my gosh. Rev up the military.

Salmonella. Oh dear, oh dear. Rev up the FDA.

Only ... didn't we get set up about WMDs, if I remember correctly?

Can one be tricked about tomatoes? Er, jalapenos? Would they do such a thing? Not actually lie to us? About our food? War maybe, but not food ...

I went hunting and I just found this boring tomato document:

http://www.secinfo.com/dsVQy.9Y3.x.htm

On page 10, it gets a little more interesting. Monsanto turns up.

That always makes the hair stand up on my neck. It's a bit like stuff to do with war or disasters and turning over a rock and finding Halliburton under there. It's not surprising but still it's kind of gross. And somehow it's hard not to think "Damn, these people are thorough."

I also saw this; http://www.secinfo.com/dS997.a3a.c.htm Page two has a lot of Monsanto in it.

Do those two documents indicate that Monsanto owns a lot of tomatoes, including those being imported from Mexico and under suspicion for salmonella?

I know that the FDA is run by Big Pharma and Monsanto is in there. Was the FDA goofing up by doing its job and actually going after tomatoes? Did it find the connection to Monsanto but couldn't end up saying so? (Has anyone lost their job for coming too close?) Would somebody go find a whistle blower to let us know what's up?

Suddenly turning on the poor jalapenos and laying things on them without even finishing being clear about the tomatoes seemed a little if-y to me. Did it to you? Even felt a little like playing into anti-immigrant feeling, on a vegetable level, if you know what I mean.

But back to the issue. Did the FDA, which couldn't somehow find the source of the salmonella, just shift away from tomatoes because they are Monsanto's tomatoes?

And is the whole scare not a little unlike the oil crisis what with oil is being hidden off shore click here so the whole economy is so threatened that the Bush administration can lift the ban on drilling as a parting (oh, goodness, I hope he IS parting) gift to his oily friends? A few big scares to get the last things they want out of us?

Are we getting tomatoes or jalapenos thrown at us so Bush can give his Big Druggie friends what they want, too - The Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008? click here click here

Oh, and in Pennsylvania where the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has been playing "gestapo" to such raw milk producers as horse and buggy Mennonites who have been doing producing real milk for generations - without the "help" of the government, thank you - the PDA has been harassing them by phone, trying to pin the salmonella outbreak on real milk. Be good, folks, or their pin it on you.

Basically, we seem to have a government that is completely lost when it comes to knowing how to do its job at all, but great at creating hysteria and ending up Iraq instead of Afghanistan, or going after jalapenos rather than tomatoes. In the process of such seeming incompetence, it miraculously does consistently well by its friends - the oil companies and Halliburton et al - and, now, it seems, by Monsanto. And what do we get? Dead people and extended FISA bills or the FDA Globalization Act.

So, next time you see a terrorist alert or food scare, for goodness sake, be brave. Because if you're not, next thing you know, there's be another bill out there to give the very last little straw of power we have left in this tattered democracy over to Bush and Buddies.

And try not to listen to the Food Safety Network from Kansas State University - full of warnings about raw milk and other things. Monsanto funded, wouldn't you know?
click here But, oddly, though rBGH milk, Monsanto's product, has a 7 fold increased risk of breast cancer, and increased risk for prostate and colon cancer, nary a warning.

When did we all fall down Alice's rabbit hole?

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Stop the FDA Globalization Act of 2008

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

Met libertarian and conservative farmers and learned an incredible amount about farming and nature and science, as well as about government violations against them and against us all. The other side of the fence is nothing like what we've been (more...)

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