"We need the World Bank, we need the International Monetary Fund, we need all the big foundations, we need all the governments to admit that for 30 years we all blew it, including me, when I was President. We blew it. We were wrong to believe that food is like some other product in international trade. And we all have to go back to a more environmentally responsible, sustainable form of agriculture." Former US President Bill Clinton, in a keynote address for World Food Day on 23 October 2008
A quote you all might like. What's it mean? His connections to Monsanto are still there and Monsanto "talks" sustainable, too. Click here.
His wife ran for president on a platform that pushed for merging the USDA and FDA into a mega Food Safety department. That would be merging Monsanto influence in both places, giving them more power. Is it only a coincidence that her long term advisor and campaign strategist is head of one of the largest PR firms in the world and represents Monsanto?
Vilsack said on January 26th, "I think before there can be any conversation about merging of entities or a single agency or anything of that sort, you've got to get the foundation right." Odd, since on February 4th and 9th, bills fitting Clinton's model were introduced that will do just that, making him out to be either a fool or slippery about throwing the media and public off balance.
The bills will industrialize everything about farming, determining precisely what farmers feed their livestock (it'll be GMO) and when, what medical regimen they have to use (it will be drugs Big Ag sells), what to spray (it will be Monsanto pesticides) and when and where.
Organic and grassfed is dead in an instant if they go through.
How fast can they be rammed through? Days? How fast will they be signed by a president who recently campaigned supporting small farmers and sustainable agriculture?
The bills are identical on the House and Senate side so there will be no debate. Hard to believe. The entire food system in our country is being made industrial, organic farming (and food) are set to be destroyed (for the sake of "food safety"), and our food supply is being taken over by multinational corporations. And there will be no debate.
Does anyone remember democracy? It's getting harder for me to.
I remember something recently about "grassroots" Do you? Something about transparency. Something about giving the public 60 days to comment. I could swear I remember something about "change."
Oh, well.
Here is Clinton's free trade gift to agriculture, still giving after all this time.
Now Hillary is getting in on the "agriculture" act - behind the scenes, at least, getting what she had wanted, which certainly pleases Monsanto. She goes Bill one or two or ten better. Her plan not only treats food as an industrial product (just what Bill says was a terrible mistake) but treats farmers themselves as industrial workers and their animals as data to be input and their crops as standardized widgets and the land as an industrial facility to be kept sterile.
Here is how Hillary Clinton and Monsanto approach the glories of nature and the wonders of farming: The Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009.
So, will Bill Clinton be back for another dinky mea culpa after real farming is dead, to say she got it completely wrong, too, and they should admit it? A bill in the US Congress:
To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health.
Senate version sent to committee on February 9, 2009, Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
We are not allowed to know what happens in committee. For some reason these things are secret and we can’t most times even know how anyone voted. As this site points out, if you do not have a Rep or Senator on the committees…….they don’t’ want to hear from you.
House version referred to committee on February 4, 2009, House Energy and Commerce and House Agriculture.
The bills in both the House and Senate are virtually identical. This means this whole thing was decided at the same time Smart Grid was inserted into the Stimulus Package. The House and Senate bills will lay the groundwork for NAIS and other programs, and Smart Grid will make them operable.
Both these bills appeared simultaneously in both houses, having been planned before the fact. This speeds them through committee and brings them to the floor to be calendared. Since both bills are identical, there will be motions to suspend the rules on debates. Meaning none will be allowed. Farmers say they will have to watch these closely as they will appear suddenly on probably the same day with the House voting first in the morning and the Senate in the afternoon.
