March Against Monsanto

'March Against Monsanto' Protesters Rally Against U.S. Seed Giant And GMO Products






(Yes that's Baconwrap's thumb people!)

I attended the protest myself, but was rather disappointed. The biggest message I got wasn't about Monsanto or labeling genetically modified produce, but rather "organic is better." Every speaker I heard kept repeating the phrase "organic is better." There were no scientists, physicians or nutritionists present. I really felt this whole protest was just to sell organic produce more-so than to raise questions about food labeling. I just kept hearing "organic is better" and occasionally "get Monsanto out of 'here'."

Truly history's greatest monsters.

I find Monsanto's business practices more detestable than their products.

My biggest complaint about Monsanto really isn't about their genetically modified stuff--though it should be labeled as such--but rather their draconian 'licensing' they do on their products, essentially allowing them to sue small family farms merely for having pollen from 'Monsanto licensed' plants growing in neighboring fields BLOWN IN to their own fields.

Coming from a small farming community, it's difficult to watch how badly they screw over the small family-owned operations around.

Who exports the most food? How do they do it? And what would happen if they didn't?

Should be a counter law-suit against that if they want to go that route. Why are they not growing their products in greenhouses to keep their pollen and seeds from blowing elsewhere? No one controls the wind currents of the planet, so how can small farmers be blamed for Monsanto's carelessness? Quite frankly, for the damaging affects being discovered about their crops effects in long-term cases, it should be considered that Monsanto farms are polluting other farms and should be held liable for ruining other farms crops.

The reason a lot of people protest is because they hear "Monsanto bad, organic good," but they don't really understand why.

I've heard this company's crops change the microbiology inside the human body. (Mainly the digestive tract) and some emerging research is said to be producing evidence that all sorts of maladies can be linked to this.

I'm not entirely sure if that's just demonizing propaganda, but the same line of research is showing that heavy antibiotic use causes the same problems so? (Both from food and medicinal)

Any over-ingestion of something can cause the micro-biology of a subject to change, and is a part of human evolution - which impacts social evolution. The difference is whether or not those claims are founded, or become welcome changes to the bodily structure. Some people are unable to cope, or are simply afraid of changing what they happen to like now.

Many protesters (not all, as there are some who legitimately care) are fools with more money than sense. They protest things they do not understand, or feel they should protest something, because the people in their social circle are doing it.

The basis on which the people in this article are protesting, isn't even on a logical level. It's basically "Herpaderp, durr ervirl" and "nurturarl irst bertter". As baconwrap pointed out, the ones he talked too weren't even informed as to why they were protesting, or what they were protesting against. There were no dieticians or nutritionists present (and there is honestly almost none EVER present) simply because they don't like to get caught up in the hype.

In all honesty, even if i would disagree with something, it would be nice to see atleast one person accurately describe the problems to which they could stage an actual protest, instead of this nickle and dime circus.

Large amounts of antibiotics kill off all bacteria, which is bad for your guts because there is some good bacteria needed in there. Not to mention, your body can build immunities and they won't work for future ailments.

I'm not entirely sure exactly how they genetically modify their products, but I imagine that genetic-altering is an art mankind is far from perfecting just yet, so there is the possibility of side-effects. From what I've gathered from people saying so far, is that something in the products attacks red blood cells or something to that effect. If I can find the link again, I'll post it.

I had read about the mice research regarding Round-Up Ready seeds prior. Which was why I was disappointed that this was NOT brought up at the protest. Literally they had a Trader Joes employee who kept repeating

And I was like ok that's great, what's your reason?

***one dosage of vancomyocin can cause GI issues lol

I like blowing people's minds about the whole Genetically Modified Organism debate, when the word "Frankenfood" comes up, I kinda have a shitfit at their ignorance.

Genetic engineering/Modification has existed since the agricultural revolution, the basics of it were first understood by Gregor Mendel (Mr.Pea Plants from Elementary Biology) much later than the first manipulative practices were used unwittingly, however, our current technology allows the process to happen much faster.

I think people would trip balls if they knew exactly what a "Natural Food" item looks like.

Bonus points is when the "Banana" comes into play from creationists. "It's perfectly designed to be held and ingested!" Because we've been manipulating the crop in favorable ways for five thousand goddamn years.

Just the number of FDA and other regulatory government employees that accept high paying positions a little later after passing a product during their term should set off some red flags.

While I hold them in their own special category of douche-baggary, they aren't really any different than any other company. They do whatever they have to in order to get their products to sell and make more money and to inhibit the competition. They just have some pretty massive capital, so they can pay off whoever they want, be it an FDA person or some third party testing company to fix some "studies". They aren't too terribly subtle about it either.

Dumbest quote in the whole article by far:


Not doing what you want is quite different from not complying with consumer demand. The fact that consumers are buying their product means that be definition they ARE complying with consumer demand. I wish we taught basic economics somewhere in those mandatory 12 years of public education.

It's the Wal*Mart debate all over again. "We dun want walmart in our town! Small bizness 4 lyfe! oh chicken and lightbulbs 1.99!{CONSUME!!}"

sadly it isnt working like that. They have also gone after people who help others harvest their own seeds if the farmer doesn't use Monsanto. Monsanto seeds are not oly modified to be resistant to insecticides and whatnot, but they also design them to not produce viable seeds. That way, farmers have to continually buy more and more seeds each year to maintain their harvest, as opposed to using heirloom seeds they can get for free from plants they have already harvested

S'why I said it should work like that! I remember when the thread about the patent or the first lawsuit about it popped up on here a few months ago and thinking, "There's no way people will go for that." Our government never ceases to amaze me though. Although, *** Nestle too for trying to say that all fresh-water should have to be bought and taxed because they think it's not a human right. (Despite us being 2/3 comprised of water!) As well as, without water, we would die within a few days to a week or so.

I like to troll the ignorant folks by first telling them it's dangerous and will turn into into mutants then getting them angry about dihydrogenmonoxide and the utter destruction it's wrecking on our planet. Later laugh my a$$ off once they actually take the time to google DHMO and get pissed.

Anything can be made to sound dangerous and life threatening by simply using the proper adjectives with half-truths and carefully controlled context. It's how the dictators of the world keep their respective populations controlled. Hell it's how most religious leaders keep their members faithful.

It's shocking how many people see the word "Genetic" and instantly think of X-Men/Mutations/Bad stuff.

My GF has done quite a bit of research on Genetics, GM crops etc. and lots of stuff she discovered is really amazing.

Without GM crops, we will start seeing worse hunger problems in the future. Supply is struggling to keep up with demand.

Human overindulgence is also a major factor in the need for GM crops.
Yeh... I'm talking to you, fatty.

Honestly this is the central issue. Environmental whacks desire to limit the number of humans on the planet yet don't have the balls to actually go about the process of committing genocide. So their passive aggressive answer is to attempt to enforce the most expensive / least efficient use of land / materials and thus limit supply and starve people out.

Making it to a certain pesticide that would usually kill the plant and everything else no longer kills the plant would be an example of usage

Science = good. It can find great things and improve life, reduce costs and just generally make the world a better place. Problem is, the driving factor for this isn't making the world a better place, but to make money. Making money is at odds with such goals.

Companies using bad science fueled by greed to manipulate government agencies and people in general to make a profit with 0 regard to human health and well being = bad.

GM stuff isn't inherently bad but this form is pretty new and the data is not well tested. Without good unbiased studies on how it really affects the food and what changes it makes in our own systems can be a bit terrifying. I'll agree that people in general starving is a much worse result than whatever effect GM foods will have on them but in the long term but if there is a problem that went undiscovered or was hidden, we're all going to suffer since it will affect nearly all of us.

Not new at all. Normally farmers and other professionals would carefully crossbreed plants to get the exact combination of genetics they wanted. They've done this throughout the centuries on everything from crops to dogs. On the grander scale nature does this, it's known as evolution. The only difference here is we're cutting out the middle man and the changes are happening in decades vs centuries. They already know what the changes will be, their just shortening the production cycle.



There is no effect. The human body isn't some super delicate machine that explodes if not perfectly tuned. We didn't get to the top of the food chain by being selective eaters, we go there by being able to eat practically anything to and including things that have been dead for awhile. There is absolutely nothing in these plants DNA that the human body can't break down or excrete.

You've been eating "GM" foods since before you left your mothers womb. Your father, your mother, your grandparents, your great grandparents, and pretty much your entire family tree has been eating "GM" foods. If it's been cultivated by humans, then it's been modified one way or another.

Now tell me, what happens when the human body ingests growth hormones?

There's nothing wrong with GMO's; only Mosanto's business practices.

GM'd food is generally simply "turning on" the traits you want and "turning off" the traits you don't. I get the impression that many think it's ALWAYS "introducing something not natural to the food" like some companies do with chicken to increase the weight etc.
Much like you can choose the color of your baby's eyes/hair by turning on/off the genes that deal with eye color. It's pretty similar.

Sure some GM'd stuff is unnatural and modified in other ways.

You bring up a good point regarding greedy companies etc.
People who think "GM is terrible" and rally to have it stopped is the reason no Govt. would consider switching to the better yielding GM crops (or even discussing it). So it's left in the hands of companies who's #1 goal is to make $$$ rather than citizens well being.

Bleh.

I would agree with this. I really hate companies that get over-protective of their market share and use anti-competitive practices.

The entire purpose of Government should be to ensure a free marketplace devoid of such practices, not to go around telling people who they can and can't marry (life partner / whatever you want to call it).

There is a lot I don't understand about all this but I'm curious if the gene they are splicing in are really as harmless to us as claimed? Genetics and biology are complicated and many things are interrelated. The entire basis of our science is that "We know what we know until something happens that proves it wrong"... Perhaps there's some risk that has been overlooked, on accident or on purpose that could cause issues. I just haven't seen anything to convince me of monsanto product's safety. I mean I wouldn't trust a company like this to be morally obligated to tell me if something WAS wrong considering how far they've gone.

It might be completely fine, in this case, but even if it is, I'll go another route because I don't want a company like this to see any more of my money than they already get.

Again, I'm not against the concept of bio-engineering food. I think it's a great idea and has a ton of potential. I just don't trust the people at the steering wheel.

Who the f*ck said anything about splicing? Splicing is when you introduce genes from a different species entirely in an attempt to create a chimera. GM food is just doing the same thing nature does only at a much faster rate. Instead of waiting dozens of generations to get a specific set of genes you can do so in one or two.

They do genetic mapping to document which genes do what, this is easy in plants, markedly harder in animals. They then go into a reproductive cell and insert the protein / DNA that they want into the proper position (maybe this is where you got the idea of splicing) and viola man made natural selection. DNA is the blueprint that cells use to build a creature from, changing it is the same as changing the blueprints for your house. Things only get dicey when you start mixing DNA from different families that normally would not be compatible (canine + canine would be ok but canine + feline would not).

That's more like experimental genetics. Most GM food is simply told on the genetic level to grow in a manner that is more beneficial to grower.

Think of it like a string of computer code (0=stem growth, 1=stem+leaf, 2=leaf only, 3=reproduction. )
The original code tells the plant to do this: (Tobacco plant or something you want leaf from)
000011111222222223333

Using genetics, you can change this code, by turning diff instructions on and off so the new GM'd plant would do this:
0001122222222222222333

This increases the desired yield (in this case the leaf) while directing less energy to stem growth/reproduction. The plants will be shorter, but more bushy, producing more yield in a smaller area.

If it was corn or something similar, you would force the stem growth to stop as soon as possible, mid time/high energy spent on leaf growth (so you have leaf quickly to absorb more of the sun's energy) then lengthen the reproduction cycle to increase bud yield.
0011122222233333333333

All the code is already there due to evolution. As plant's have evolved, certain genetic traits have been switched off in their DNA when they are no longer needed. You can change the color of a flower by turning on an ancient (now unused) gene that told it's ancestors to be a different color and turning off the "New Color" gene.

There would also be many many "X" (Evolved to not need this) between the numbers in the example that would be ignored unless you switched them on, and other things that control color/scent etc. All together = DNA

Well sure, behind every good protest is a corporate sponsor looking to make a quick buck. I first ran into this in the eighties when a friend of mine started his business renting out protesters and picketers.

The monsanto gene we are speaking of is a gene that makes crops resistant to roundup correct? Perhaps I'm mistaken and remembering some other issue but this is not a trait naturally occurring in these plants, they got it from somewhere else and have spliced it in to the "round up ready" line of plant seed.

Here... "Monsanto has developed Roundup Ready® Technology, which involves inserting a chimeric gene into a seed that allows the plant to advantageously continue to break down sugars in the presence of glyphosate."