GMOs-- A Guest Post From Alex Law

Alex Law is running for Congress in South Jersey, across from Philadelphia, in a seat currently held by the brother of corrupt Democratic Party boss George Norcross. Blue America has endorsed Alex, and we urge you to read his post and get a feel for where he is on issues and what goes into his decision-making. If you like what you read, please consider making a contribution to his grassroots campaign.

The DARK Act makes absolutely no sense, and here’s why
by Alex Law
Candidate for Congress, NJ-01

This summer HR Bill 1599 was introduced to Congress. Dubbed the DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right to Know) by its opponents, it was reactionary legislation to Vermont, Connecticut and Maine’s 2014 laws that made GMO labeling mandatory on food packaging. The DARK Act makes absolutely no sense, and here’s why.

GMO means Genetically Modified Organism, and in this instance, is being used to describe agricultural products that have been genetically modified. There is a debate over whether GMOs are good or bad for our health, but that isn’t what this bill is about (incidentally, I don’t think there is compelling evidence that GMOs are always good or always bad). This bill is about the consumer’s right to know whether or not what they are eating contains GMOs. It is a pretty reasonable request for a person to have as much information as possible about the food they are feeding their children so that they can make a decision based on their personal values whether or not they want it. There is a fear from food manufacturers that disclosing that they use GMO foods will:

A. Increase costs

B. Decrease sales.

Part B of that fear may very well be accurate, but consumers should be entitled to know what they are feeding their families more than companies like Monsanto are entitled to gratuitous profits. To be clear, even if they disclose that they are using GMOs in their food, companies will STILL make a whole lot of money.

The Bill

This bill preempts states from requiring labeling of GMO food. Further, it prohibits states from preventing often inaccurate “natural claims”. The bill makes it impossible for the FDA to create a national GMO labeling system. It would also mandate the review system for the safety of GMO food to be based on industry science, which means the people making the food will determine if the food is safe.

*Unrelated to the content of the bill, but speaking to the duplicity of those who wrote it, HR 1599 is technically called "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015" which would make those casually searching about it think the bill was aiming to increase food labeling. To be clear, that is wildly untrue.

Analysis

Those reasons are why this bill makes absolutely no sense. States were trying to protect their consumers by require clear labeling of what went into food products sold to their citizens. Monsanto and friends saw this as a threat to business as usual and decided to spend a bunch of money lobbying Congress and the American public to paint themselves as reasonable and their opponents as hippie-rabble rousing left-wingers. It was cleverly done, but at the end of the day very inaccurate. Campaign contributions are likely why most elected officials that support the bill are supporting it.

Around the world, 64 other nations require GMO labeling because just like nutrition and ingredient labeling, it just makes sense. GMO labeling will not increase food prices. Companies change labels regularly for various reasons from new flavors, new logos, updated designs etc. The reason big companies are against this is likely because they fear smaller, truly natural farmers might be able to collectively steal market share when people know what’s actually in products. This is why voluntary labeling will not work. Voluntary labeling just leads to consumer confusion, as companies that produce food that is anything but natural can use loopholes and vague language in current laws to label their food as natural.

Duplicitous Congressmen like my opponent, Donald Norcross, have supported this bill even though they did their best to hide it. For example, in all of the preliminary votes, Donald Norcross voted against the DARK ACT. But, in the vote that counted, he switched sides and voted with the Republicans. DINOs like this undermine progressive values and in instances like this can be even more harmful than Republicans.

This isn’t an issue of whether GMOs are good or bad. This isn’t about natural versus “standard” food production. This is simply an issue about whether or not families should be able to know what is in the food that they buy so they can decide what they want to feed their children. In countries all over the world, people have that ability. It’s time we have it in America too.

Republicans Vote To Prevent Consumers From Finding Out What's In The Food They Eat

Wednesday, when I got home after a month in the hospital, I found a big stack of mail, including a copy of Neil Young's new CD, The Monsanto Years. And I got home in time to watch two of the most treacherous right-wing "Democrats," Blue Dogs Jim Costa (CA) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), cross the aisle and vote with the Republicans on a procedural resolution to advance what food activists are calling the Monsanto Protection Act.

This is a relatively simple issue. Food activists want to see potentially dangerous GMO food labeled so that consumers can make up their own minds about whether or not to feed it to their families. Monsanto and the GMO-Republicans, led by the Koch brothers' Mike Pompeo (R-KS), want to make sure that there is no labeling and that the states that have already passed labeling laws to protect their citizens-- Connecticut, Maine and Vermont-- are overruled. I guess the concepts of states' rights and small government are trumped in GOP minds when their Big Business allies squawk loud enough! The bill passed yesterday 275-150. 45 disgraceful Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with all but a dozen Republicans in favor. 

Among the Democrats who sold out their own constituents were the regular Blue Dogs and New Dems who tend to back the GOP in most things, plus easily corrupted crooks like Donald Norcross (NJ). After the vote, Alex Law, the progressive Democrat challenging Norcross' reelection, told us:

The dark bill that passed in Congress today with the support of my opponent Donald Norcross is a direct assault on the consumer's right to know about their food. It is transparently a bill bought and paid for by companies like Monsanto. It is an assault on democracy and an assault on states' rights and I would have voted against it.

One Los Angeles congressman, Steve Knight (R-Santa Clarita), voted for the bill. The progressive Democrat running against him, Lou Vince, was stunned. After the vote he told us:

This bill is incredibly important. Every person deserves to know what is in their food, and especially if their food contains potentially dangerous GMOs. The American people are not hurt by GMO labeling so there is no reason to oppose it, unless you are receiving money from large agribusiness firms like Monsanto. Every vote cast against GMO labeling is a vote against consumers, the right to know what you are consuming, and against the interests of average Americans. We need to stop Congress from serving as nothing more than a rubber stamp for the giant chemical corporations. As a congressman, that's exactly what I would do.

Do Republicans want to give you cancer? Probably not. Do they care about protecting you from it? Uh... no; they don't care. Or maybe they're just too stupid to understand. Earlier this year the World Health Organization declared glyphosate, the main chemical ingredient in Monsanto's weed-killer Roundup, a probable carcinogen.Yesterday House Republicans voted to exempt Monsanto's GMOs from labeling.

Pompeo's ironically named “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act” (H.R. 1599) has four toxic components:

• It forbids states from labeling GMO foods or enforcing existing labeling laws already passed in Connecticut, Maine and Vermont.
• It prohibits any state or local county or city oversight of GMO crops.
• It further weakens already nearly impotent federal regulations on GMO crops at USDA and FDA.
• And, outrageously, it allows GMOs to be labeled as "natural."

For two decades-- under corrupt Republicans and corrupt Blue Dogs (the House Agriculture Committee for years and years was like a Blue Dog caucus meeting)-- Monsanto and other giant chemical companies have basically been writing the rules and regulations behind closed doors, allowing their toxic chemicals and untested genetically engineered crops to receive rubber-stamp approvals at the FDA, EPA and USDA. "Americans," wrote John Conyers in an OpEd before the vote yesterday, "want to know what's in their food."

The Orwellianly-titled "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act," HR 1599, would bar the Food and Drug Administration from introducing mandatory labeling of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) foods and ban states from doing the same -- even if voters demand such labeling through a ballot measure. The bill would also block many state and local efforts to protect farmers and the public from concerns including seed and pesticide drift and would forbid states from making it illegal for companies to label GMO products as "natural," as Connecticut has done.

The bill is a serious attack on transparency and presents a dubious one-size-fits-all approach to federal policy making. Most importantly, it presents a potentially serious threat to our long-term health.

In a landmark report this year, the World Health Organization revealed a weed-killer called glyphosate to be a probable cause of cancer. The chemical, also known as Roundup, is considered safer than some other herbicides, but it's being used increasingly often in growing quantities as farmers around the world attempt to drown out new weeds that have become resistant to the chemical's effects. This overzealous use of herbicides is made possible by a recent innovation: corn, soy, and other crops that have been genetically engineered to withstand heavy use of the chemicals. The issue, therefore, isn't just GMOs on their own-- it's the increasing use of herbicides that GMOs enable.

This is why voters in Vermont passed a ballot initiative to require GMO labeling. It's why 64 countries around the world require GMO labels. It's why, according to recent polling, more than 90% of Americans support mandatory labeling for these crops.

The proposal before Congress this week isn't simply about denying Americans the right to know what's in their food. As the text of the bill stands right now, HR 1599 could potentially block state and local efforts to regulate GMO crops and related chemicals to protect farm workers and rural residents from economic and environmental damages. This is particularly troubling when you consider that there are hundreds of elementary schools within 200 feet of a corn or soybean field, according to the Environmental Working Group.

This should not be a partisan issue-- both parties purport to stand for transparency, and both parties should oppose a federal power-grab to prevent states and localities from making their own decisions regarding the protection of lives and property.

So why has the bill been introduced?

Proponents of HR 1599 claim it's essential to stop food labeling in order to prevent a spike in food prices. Yet companies change food labels frequently to highlight innovations, and countries with mandatory labeling have not encountered food price spikes attributable to anti-GMO backlash.

While proponents claim that their proposal will still allow voluntary GMO labeling, the bill, as it stands now, outlaws any non-GMO claim unless approved through a new certification process to be created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Given that it took the department more than a decade to establish similar certifications for organic foods, this would effectively stop farmers and food companies from advertising the purity of their own food. Meanwhile, many of the corporate lobbyists who champion this proposal are the folks who are fighting to reject the claims of leading scientists that the liberal use of glyphosate and other chemicals could harm human health.

Upton Sinclair, the author who appears to have awakened Teddy Roosevelt's interest in food safety, said it best: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

The fact that Congress is even considering a proposal to deny Americans basic information about their food speaks to overwhelming power of these corporate lobbyists over the public interest.

Worst Environment Secretary In UK History Picks A Fight With Neil Young Over GMOs

Plus: The Donald rips Neil off

Owen Paterson is a right-wing imbecile, a prominent climate change denier and the Conservative Member of Parliament for North Shropshire in England -- an area of the West Midlands so politically backward that it has elected a right-winger to every Parliament since 1832, when it was first established. Paterson was UK secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs from 2012 to 2014 and until this week was best known for his hysterical opposition to the banning of fox hunting. 

Now the man The Guardian dubbed "the worst environment secretary this country has ever suffered" has decided to pick a fight with Neil Young. Paterson penned an op-ed for Rupert Murdoch's NY Post, "How Neil Young, Greenpeace work to starve the world's poor." That's because Paterson is a shill for Monsanto and he and his GMO pals are offended that Neil's new album, The Monsanto Years, raises issues that Monsanto is desperately trying to cover up and mislead the public on. It's Neil's 36th album and his first with Willie Nelson's sons, Lukas and Micah, and their band, Promise of the Real.

The nasty Paterson claims, "The aging songwriter is following the lead of activists who claim that GMOs are harmful to health, farmers and the environment," and asserts Neil is "tragically wrong. In reality, GMOs can save millions of lives. It’s the environmentalists who are doing real harm."

He seems especially incensed by the lyrics "I love to start my day off without helping Monsanto. Monsanto, let our farmers grow what they want to grow. From the fields of Nebraska from the banks of the Ohio, farmers won’t be free to grow what they want to grow. If corporate control takes over the American farm with fascist politicians and chemical giants walking arm in arm."

"Monsanto," said Neil, "is the poster child for the problems we’re having with the corporate government." Lukas Nelson backed up the anti-corporate sentiment. "Nobody likes Monsanto," he told Rolling Stone last month. "I’m really proud to be on this side of history with Neil."

POSTSCRIPT: Trump, Latest GOP Music Thief

When Trump announced his comedic bid for the GOP nomination yesterday, about which Noah will have some thoughts this evening, he followed a long line of Republican intellectual property thieves using songs without paying for their use (which is, by the way, the law). Trump, who strutted up on the stage to brag-- falsely-- that he has a net worth of $9 billion, kicked off his campaign with Neil Young's classic "Rockin' in the Free World." Trump's campaign claims they paid to use the song, although it's apparent that Trump has never listened to the lyrics of this profoundly anti-GOP composition.

Neil is a Bernie Sanders supporter, and he stated flatly: "Donald Trump was not authorized to use 'Rockin' in the Free World' in his presidential candidacy announcement." Neil's long-time manager, Elliot Roberts, has contacted Trump's office and told them to stop using the song immediately.

I was once president of Reprise Records, Neil's label, and if I was still there I would be suing Trump for damages today, since his use of the song in that ugly racist announcement permanently devalues the composition and twists Neil's entire meaning. The only Neil song Republican politicians should be allowed to use in their campaigns is "Southern Man."

Will The TPP Allow Monsanto To Destroy Neil Young?

If Wall Street-owned Republicans and conservative Democrats manage to give Obama Fast Track authority and jam the TPP through the House, are they in fact granting Monsanto the right to sue Neil Young for all he's worth? Although Monsanto's headquarters are in Creve Coeur, that's Creve Coeur, Missouri, not France. Monsanto is the go-to place for genetically modified foods, although they have stopped manufacturing other dangerous products like DDT, Agent Orange and PCBs. Monsanto's life-threatening products are involved in lawsuits in India, Brazil, Argentina, China and other countries. And Monsanto uses lax campaign laws to bribe conservative American (and European) politicians, primarily Republicans and right-wing Democrats-- with "campaign contributions," lobbying and very aggressive revolving-door policies.

What's all this got to do with Neil Young? Neil's talking about a collection of new songs he's going release June 29 as an anti-Monsanto concept album. TPP will make it easier for Monsanto to sue him-- and his record label, Reprise/Warner Bros. Neil isn't unaware of the dangers of a lawsuit either. Last year when he announced he was boycotting Starbucks he said, "Starbucks has teamed up with Monsanto to sue Vermont, and stop accurate food labeling."

Young is taking things a step further now, releasing an entire rock album dedicated to slamming Monsanto. The album is called, fittingly, The Monsanto Years It is a collaboration between Young and Willie Nelson's sons, Lukas and Micah [who have a band, Promise of the Real].

Young recently previewed a clip of one of the songs from the album, "Rock Starbucks," according to Democracy Now! The lyrics are an unsubtle assault on the ethics of the Seattle coffee giant:

If you don't like to rock Starbucks, a coffee shop
Well, you better change your station 'cause that ain't all that we got
Yeah, I want a cup of coffee, but I don't want a GMO
I like to start my day off without helping Monsanto
Monsanto
Let our farmers grow
What they want to grow

Neil describes the new album, which has 9 songs, as "ecologically-environmentally focused." The track listing:

1. A New Day For Love
2.  Wolf Moon
3.  People Want To Hear About Love
4.  Big Box
5.  A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop
6.  Workin' Man
7.  Rules Of Change
8.  Monsanto Years
9.  If I Don't Know

Neil has also announced he'll be touring behind the new album in July. So far he's announced a dozen dates:

07/05 – Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
07/08 – Denver, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
07/09 – Denver, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
07/11 – Lincoln, NE @ Pinnacle Bank Arena
07/13 – Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center
07/14 – Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
07/16 – Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center
07/17 – Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
07/19 – Essex Junction, VT @ Champlain Valley Expo
07/21 – Wantagh, NY @ Nikon at Jones Beach Theater
07/22 – Great Woods, MA @ Xfinity Center
07/24 – Oro-Medonte, ON @ WayHome Music Festival



There have been reports that some of the countries negotiating the TPP pact-- including Australia, Canada and Malaysia-- are demanding exemptions from the proposed litigation rule that allows corporations to sue governments because of environmental, safety, labor and health regulations that harm their bottom lines, according to a secret text released by WikiLeaks. Last month Jedediah Purdy, a professor at Duke Law School, wrote at HuffPo about some of the dangers the TPP poses to Americans. He sums up those threats as a grave danger to democracy itself.

Democracy is the problem with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiation. It's the problem for TPP supporters because the trade deal has been secret so far-- known to the public only through leaks and rumors-- and because the Fast Track authorization that the Obama Administration wants would box Congress out of meaningful input on the treaty.

As Yale Law School international trade scholar David Grewal has pointed out, the TPP is about national regulation of domestic economies, issues like environmental, labor, and consumer safety law that are at the core of self-government. It's outlandish that this sovereign power is being bargained away in secret, with the final deal dropped before Congress in a take-it-or-kill-it package. So TPP critics have found that democracy is by far their easiest argument. In fact, given how much of the negotiations remain secret, just about the only informed argument they can make is that the secrecy itself is a problem. And it is a terrible problem. It should make the whole backroom arrangement illegitimate, at least until we all know what is in it.

But democracy is also a problem for TPP opponents, and in a subtler way. Consider: Who actually thinks the US Congress would be able to hold a reasoned debate on a complex trade agreement and deliver a sound judgment reflecting the will of the people? Who even believes that Congress holds reasoned debates, ever, or that there is such a thing as the will of the people, rather than fleeting gusts of public opinion and internet mobbing? If you think the TPP is a good thing, you definitely do not want to put it through the political process. TPP supporters don't, by and large, believe they are trying to put one over on a wise but unwary public: they believe democracy is broken, the public is ignorant and renders irrational decisions, and that Congress is no better (though sometimes teachable, thanks to lobbyists).

And who, honestly, doesn't believe something like this about US democracy today? Who really wants to submit their highest value, or the project they have worked on for decades, to this democracy? Really?

The press to fast-track TPP is a sellout of democracy, but it is also a symptom of a deeper collapse of faith in American self-government. Increasingly, people who want to get something done find ways around democratic lawmaking: private investment, nonprofit social mobilization, executive actions, lawsuits in the courts, anything but going to Congress. The TPP sellout of democracy has attracted so many supporters among well-intentioned, sophisticated, realistic people because, frankly, such people are used to disregarding democracy when they want to accomplish something important.

Acting like we have no democracy to protect-- in fact, believing we have none-- has vicious circular effects. The deep reason to be skeptical of the TPP isn't just that it an unlabeled pill; it's that once we swallow it, we surrender some of the power to shape our own economy to advance our own ideas of fairness, safety, solidarity, sustainability, and so forth. The life and aspirations of a democratic community should come before its economy, and give their shape to the economy-- not the other way around. That was certainly FDR's view during the New Deal, and LBJ's when he proposed the Great Society. But who really believes it now? Who wants the regulatory laws that these guys, the politicians now in power, and the people they listen to, would make?

From what we know of the TPP, it works as an economic policy straitjacket, locking its members into a shared set of market rules. It even brings in "investor-state dispute settlement"-- a fancy term for allowing foreign corporations to sue governments whose lawmaking interferes with their profits, outside the courts of law, in suits resolved by private arbitrators. All of that is fundamentally anti-democratic. It reverses the basic and proper relationship between a political community and its economy. But plenty of Americans are seeking just that reversal. Not all of them believe the market is perfect and magical; but they believe it works, more or less, and that democracy does not. They are more than half right that this democracy, "our democracy" (a phrase that's hard to say without irony), does not work. And that is the reality that makes their anti-democratic agreement so plausible.

So the movement against the TPP has to be more than that. It has to be organically and explicitly linked to a pro-democracy movement: one that works against money in politics, for stronger antitrust laws to reduce concentrated economic power, against the economic inequality that pulls Americans apart and isolates them in their insecurity, and for access to good education and political empowerment for everyone in this country.

...It's one of the famous clichés of American life that Benjamin Franklin, asked what the Constitutional Convention had created, replied "A republic-- if you can keep it." Anyone asked what the TPP's opponents are fighting for should reply, "A democracy-- if we can build it." Defeating the TPP would keep open the space for that building. Of course, then we would still have to build it.