Losing Control of Our Food Supply #2: Short & Sour: An admission from Monsanto

thank you again for this information
It really validates home gardening and “green” living and going back to our roots. Non-genetically altered seeds/fertilizers/foods/flowers etc. Now, isn’t THAT a challenge!

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Become a vicious rebel: share seeds!

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

Thanks Debbie for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

Ah yesss…
Where do I sign up to have the people who invented Agent Orange feed my children?

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

and a shiver runs down my spine

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Makes a good case for going back to growing “Herritage” seeds. The farms now must grow for maximum yield, hopefully with one picking. Taste and nutrition,come in well after ease and speed of growng and processing.

I heard that they are now working on a new bacteria for cheddar cheese that will take the bitterness out of ageing!! I like the bitter taste of sharp cheddar and the Acid taste of old style tomatos. But then I am a bit eccentric.

-- Earth laughs in flowers - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Me too OldPaul

Bob

-- I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. Alberta Canada Zone 3A or maybe 3B

I’m with you, too, oldpaul—if you don’t like the bitterness, don’t eat it .. but leave it be!

When will we ever learn? Don’t mess with Mother Nature!

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Best part of cheese!
If we keep on trying to fool Mother Nature, she will probably come back at us!

-- Eklectic, Follow my Bliss, South East Ontario 5a

In my mind, the 70’s commercial runs…
“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!” then the thunder clap…

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

I guess I’m surprised that we’re so surprised that such a corporation is using these tactics? History is repeating itself again with another of the world’s most precious commodities…look at oil, electricity, etc. Next we’ll see this happen to water.

-- Living on the square...Metro Detroit

yah.. history:
I was just talking about all this with my family yesterday about how this reminded me of how the “white folk” came over and bullied the Native Americans into signing away everything and got away with it because they didn’t know any difference… and the cowboy shows where there were wars over water rights…
yah.. same old history story!

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

If some of us do learn and then teach(talk) with others, it might do some good???

-- Eklectic, Follow my Bliss, South East Ontario 5a

Monsanto is into water too!
First they pollute, then nobody wants the water source; they buy it cheap. Next they clean it up and sell the water. Often this is in places where people still bring their water home in buckets from a communal source.
“Over the past century, global water supplies have been contaminated with the full gamut of Polluted Farm WaterMonsanto’s chemicals, including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup). So now the company, seeing a profitable market niche, is taking control of the public water resources they polluted, filtering it, and selling it back to the people. In short, Monsanto is making a double profit by polluting the world’s scarce freshwater resources, privately taking ownership of that water, filtering it, and selling it back to those who can afford to pay for it.”—OCA http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm#waterprivatization

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

Share and share the info is there, and free.

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

Actually, if I were Monsanto I would do the same thing. It’s just good business. They are in business to make money for themselves and their stockholders. The stockholders say make us money and that’s what the company does.

With that said, it points out my contention that people lose control of their lives because they give power to others. No one can have power over you unless you GIVE them that power. This attitude invades so many peoples lives…..”I don’t want to actually take any responsibility for my own life, but, if I have the resources, I can have some one else do it for me.”

We’ve given up power over our lives to so many factions it isn’t funny. The only reason a police officer can point a gun at me and arrest me is because the majority of people don’t want to deal with every day problems. So, we gave this responsibility to a select few. Our neighbors allow the police to do this because they won’t step in and say “WE’VE decided, as citizens, this arrest is not allowable. You, the police, work for US and WE tell you what you can do and cannot do.”

If there is a problem, we give these people the power to tell us what we can do and can’t. We’ve given them the power to say that we can’t say whether this is what we want or not. THEY will tell us if it is good for us or not.

If some one comes onto my property and threatens my life with a gun and I shoot them with ten witnesses around, the police will still arrest me whether those ten witnesses say it was jusified or not. Then the criminals family will sue me because I wasn’t justified in killing that person because they didn’t actually hurt me.

My feelings about this cover religion, IRS, government, military, area 51 (yea…that too) etc. If people weren’t sheep, we’d tell these people they can’t do these things.

The only thing we can do is take back that control. Like saving and sowing our own seeds to grow our own food. Sites like this where we can still exchange seeds and ideas and info. Not investing in “those” companies. Doing whatever we can to accept the responsibilities of our own lives and not letting some one control it for us. The more you do for yourself the less you need other people to provide you with things like lead tainted products, preservatives, GMO’s etc.

Robin, you’re gonna get me kicked off of here if you keep this up. I’m a closet rebel lookin’ for a reason to go to the pub and talk treason. For all you government agents reading this that’s a line out of “The Quiet Man.” If you don’t see any posts from me for 15-20 years, you guys will know where I am.

-- arborial reconfiguration specialist......Zone out....(USA 5)

gotta love a good bandwagon to jump on:)

“I” am the only one who has the power.

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Agreed.

I love the wry humor at the end too. Things said in jest…

One caveat: Unless you make absolutely everything yourself, do primary research on everything yourself to form your own opinions, you have given up control. People read things in the paper, and make a decision thinking that they have made up their own mind; however, what they read was provided to them. When someone shops for clothes, and carefully selects things that are their style, they often do not realize that their style is within bounds; bounds decided by someone else who provided the styles to choose from.

As an interdependent species, no one is completely unencumbered by the input of others. That said, I sure do try.

Unfortunately, I have medical problems—chronic, but not terminal at this point. I need doctors and toxins—I mean medications… My diagnosis took 2 years, and I knew the problem after a few months. Many who have Lupus have to wait up to 8 years for a diagnosis. Pardon my personal info there, but I am not ashamed of it. It is like eye color now—it’s there, it’s me, can’t change it.

So you see, I cannot move into the woods and avoid all the trappings thrust at me. Excellent doctors do not live next to the woods. Poop. Oh well, wait! that is another topic: compost!

Anyway, I agree that a company is in existence to make money. However, killing and stealing are avoided by many companies. Yes, there is always secondary damage too: we all use chemicals, cut trees, and kill habitat and animals in our existence somewhere along the line—even if we are not the ones actively doing it. Like catspaw said, someone is doing it for us. When we shop for the best price, we are advocating child labor, polluting the 3rd world, encouraging slavery, and shipping the sinking dollar elsewhere.

Doing what we can—within the extant confines of choices we make—is a best option in my view. I save and share seed! Woo-Hoo! ...while thumbing my nose at the establishment! I do make some clothes, but not all. I am not interested in fashion, so I recycle other clothes much of the time. However, being an intense hand gardener, I do go through gardening clothes quickly.

I stopped drinking Diet Coke! Nyaahh! to Monsanto on that one. We have a bay in the next town referred to as PCB Bay—that belongs to Monsanto too.

I turn my garden over by hand-no rototiller—and I have a lot of garden, about 2500 sq. ft. not counting the edible landscaping. If I had a choice, I have a horse team rather than a tractor.

Now that Monsanto has bought up so many seed houses, it is getting harder to avoid them.

Unfortunately, Monsanto probably has a stake in my medication (major frown). All I can say there is when I die, they cannot have what is stored in my liver back! No double-dipping! They cannot get 2 for 1 like they do in their water privatization scheme.

OK, now I am just sounding way out there! Let me return and say, I do what I can, I teach my kids to do what they can. I share the info so that others may have the opportunity to make choices that they didn’t know were theirs to make. I believe we can live without much of what is shoveled at us. Enough is as good as a feast. If one has enough, one has enough to acquire contentment. I must confess, I would like to go on vacation though…
Robin

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

I so agree with what you’ve said!
I laugh at commercials that tell teens to dress to be themselves -with their own style, but that style is based on what is being sold in the stores.

I am reminded of the interview with David S. ... “in the end I want my grandchildren to know that I tried”. I’m doing my best with the compromises that I make.
What do I need in life? Food, a roof over my head, clothing on my back (I do live in the northern hemisphere), and enough income to pay my taxes … (I’m sure there are a few more personal “needs’ in there but that’s a good start)

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

I can hardly wait for part three…maybe by then I’ll be over this flu bug and join in the rant!

-- http://woodsongsfurniture.com

get better soon Dennis…
ranting is educational and motivational

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Get well soon, and start ranting!

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA

I was almost afraid to come back here. I have a real knack for ruffling feathers. Glad to see that things here are taken as comments/opinions/general notations on life and not as “you better think the way I think or else” kinda stuff. I’ve left several forums because my opinions just weren’t what “they” wanted to hear.

It would seem that some people think that if you haven’t accepted their opinion as fact that you must be some kind of moron since my experiences couldn’t possible differ from theirs unless I was doing something stupidly wrong.

I have also instituted a moritorium on my rants and will confine them to my own posts if I should feel the need. I don’t say much until I have something to say, then…sometimes unfortunately, I purge what is inside. It becomes a matter of focus for me. So I shall focus on what I am here for and dis-embrace “them negative waves”. That’s another movie quote.

-- arborial reconfiguration specialist......Zone out....(USA 5)

yah.. “rants” are passionate expressions of opinions… things get out of control when goes beyond voicing opinion and “information” to personal attacks

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

I like a good discussion. I don’t like fights. If a person can logically make a point, I appreciate the effort to inform me. If someone starts bringing on a personal attack, it is not longer logical, and is a fight.

If I discuss something, I try to back it up, and give people a place to check out the info for themselves.

I think some good rants/discussions/opinions, etc. can go on and serve a purpose as lon as people don’t resort to Ad Hominem (against the man) attacks. Hey, you have 10 more eyelashes than me! That shows your wrong! Poop on stuff like that…nah, better save the poop for the compost and not waste it on such nonsense.

Thanks for all the great responses!
Robin

-- Robin282, Zone 7, SE Coast of MA, USA