To provide context this post was originally posted in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x494873And it speaks to so much more.
We really need to look to the basics of democratic power--who is counting our votes and how they are counting them (or not counting them), and what this may have to do with continued billions of dollars of funding for war that 75% of the American people oppose, and who has control of environmental regulation, and of much of our scientific research, and how this may be affecting adequate cautions and controls over new products, and over large global impacts of corporate industrial activity.
For instance, I don't think we have begun to understand what the corporate invasion of our universities has meant, in the defunding of objective science, and promotion of corporate-friendly research and results. We are certainly starting to understand what the Bushite control of the EPA means, as to honest scientific reports on global warming. Why isn't there more research on the bee die-offs and GMOs, and why wasn't this done BEFORE GMOs were permitted into the environment? How could such an important element of agriculture, and of all life on earth, have been ignored, in the proliferation of GMOs?
What this mad corporate free piracy (called "free trade") has meant, just simply in terms of tankers circling the globe and other polluting vehicles, and their contribution to global warming, receives little or no study, or mention anywhere, because the corporate rulers don't want it taken into consideration. The same with bees, I think. For instance, taking cotton from the highly polluted cotton fields of Uzbekistan, by tanker, to spinning factories somewhere in Asia, then hauling the cloth, in more polluting vehicles, to the Mariana Islands, where young women--imported by air or sea (in polluting vehicles) from extremely poor Asian countries, and indentured for their passage--end up sewing Gap jeans and other clothing, in sweatshop conditions--thence, once again in a tanker that is polluting ocean and atmosphere, the final manufactured product reaches US docks, where the goods are unloaded, and moved in yet more polluting vehicles all over the country, and sold to us at inflated prices, in shopping malls that encourage transportation by yet more polluting vehicles.
If someone wanted to design a system to kill the planet, this would be part of it. The other parts are deforestation and coal-burning, and a few other activities, which, if conducted on a limited scale, don't do that much damage (the earth has a lot of healing power), but on a worldwide corporate industrial scale, are wreaking havoc with all of the world's ecosystems, and may have already--just in a hundred years time--drastically altered the earth's temperature and weather, and certainly have irrevocably destroyed important components of many, many ecosystems--entire fish and bird species, for instance.
The people here who are saying that GMO crops have nothing to do with massive bee die-off's do not have enough caution about radical changes to the environment and to food systems. We know that impacts sometimes take decades to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt." The watchword should be caution--and, indeed, extreme conservatism--when it comes to altering anything so vital as our food system and other life-sustaining systems of earth. But the global corporate predators who are running things--Monsanto among them--have no "checks and balances" on them now, in the US, let alone the extremely conservative restrictions that should be placed on them by our government. They control the EPA and other regulatory agencies, and much of the research in this country. How can they be trusted in these circumstances?
We are seeing massive disruptions of earth's ecosystem--everywhere--affecting all habitats and numerous species, and all of it is very bad news. And we don't get half the bad news, I'm sure. The war profiteering corporate news monopolies make sure of that.
So, what should be our attitude about bee die-off's and GMOs? That some probably underfunded, heavily pressured scientists, operating in the teeth of Corporate Rule, have to prove the impact beyond a reasonable doubt? Or that such scientists, because they merely suspect an impact--because their research is incomplete, or hasn't yet been perfected as to method or focus, or is perhaps off track in some way--should shut up until they know more?
I think that, even with a mere suspicion, all GMO production and distribution should be stopped. World agriculture will continue. It is not dependent on GMOs. GMOs are not a natural part of the earth's biosphere. They are an economic entity--a profit-maker. In fact, many, many farmers around the world think they would be much better off without GMOs. Why favor Monsanto profits, if the consequence could be the end of all life on earth? This potential consequence requires extreme conservatism.
We are seeing multiple, complicated impacts of vast global industrialization, on all ecosystems. These can be very difficult to sort out. It may be impossible to prove that one particular impact leads to one particular consequence. We may never know what, exactly, caused bee die-offs. It is possibly a cumulative effect. And there is much reason to propose a halt to, or severe curtailment of, global traffic, of big industrial impacts--such as massive deforestation--and of any drastic alteration such as the introduction of GMOs, until we stabilize the earth and figure out what the hell we are doing. Trade is a human need and a human joy. It is part of our creative and adventurous spirit. But what we have now is not trade--it is monopoly, mono-culture and grave, tyrannical oppression by out-of-control corporate monstrosities. We must find a way to curtail them, and, if our political system fails--and it apparently is--then we must use boycotting, protest and public education. We are really up against it. The World Wildlife Fund gives our planet 50 years, at present levels of pollution and consumption. 50 years to planetary death. Is that what we want our legacy to be? The death of planet Earth?
The red flags on GMOs are multiplying. Whether bees are victims or not, we don't know for sure. And the very notion of altering the DNA of plant life should be a red flag in itself. This is yet another thing that should never have happened without vigorous, objective, long term research, on every conceivable impact, and close consultation with traditional farmers--who are the protectors and keepers of seeds, and especially of their variety. Monsanto has shoved traditional farmers aside. That should be enough of a red flag. When profit is the only motive, we all suffer, and our suffering may include utter catastrophe for all of us, and for all future humans, if we don't find a way to enforce extreme conservatism in the alteration of earth's life systems.
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