The Obama-Biden administration has the power to make sure that everyone has good, clean food. Change This stewardship agreement!
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=090000648084de39
"Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited."
also see
"Rising Rhetoric on Genetically Modified Crops"in PR Watch, Volume 10, No. 1, 1st Quarter 2003.
"Their level of desperation appears to be increasing," says Michael Hansen, a scientist with Consumers Union in the US, who monitors the activities of the biotech industry as it lobbies for acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods. Hansen has watched with increasing alarm as the pro-GM lobby escalates its vitriolic attacks on critics.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rising_Rhetoric_on_Genetically_Modified_Crops
Eating Liberally Food for Thought by Kerry Trueman @ openleft.com
Obama's selection of GMO-lovin', bio-fuelish, feedlot-friendly Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture drew a resounding "Bleech!" from the blogosphere this week. Vilsack has a long history of Agribiz alliances that's giving progressive foodies a bad case of heartland heartburn.
Vilsack's cozy with that agrarian Antichrist, Monsanto, for starters--and if you don't know what's scary about that, you haven't heard that Monsanto's apparently hellbent on seizing control of our entire food chain. Kind of like a cheesy Austin Powers plot, except that IT'S REALLY HAPPENING...........
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10538
I formally congratulate our President Elect Obama and everyone involved for making this moment in our history a reality. I am not typically an emotional person. This makes my outburst of euphoric surprise (and happiness) as momentous as the magical seed of hope now planted inside me. When "possibility" manages to evict "cynicism" from an otherwise cemented mind, what is one supposed to do? I don't know about you, but I've taken the proactive roll of joining this community ( I am the ultimate anti-social type, so this is a big deal) and exercise my given right to protect my country and those I love through the power of free speech and information. So if the soapbox fits, I'm challenging everyone to wear it and join in on my concerns as well as fill the gaps in places I need informing.
Now on to business!
The media water cooler is vibrating from all the names being thrown about for Obama's cabinet. Now, I may not be able to add a juicy name to the pot yet, but I do know the criteria I feel must be followed in order for Obama's promises of an energy independent, strong economic and healthy nation to come to fruition. My first area of concern - agriculture,the safety of our food supply and the possibility of Tom Vilsack becoming our next Secretary of Agriculture.
Why?
Let's start with Tom Vilsack. He advocates genetically engineered crops and energy-intensive agricultural practices while toting an agenda for the United States to reduce its energy dependence on foreign countries and cutting our carbon. These are contradicting dogmas that cannot function together. Energy-intensive agriculture requires massive amounts of petroleum products. Everything from the machinery to the fertilizer. This type of agricultural practice not only strips the soil of nutrients and makes the land vulnerable to erosion (think of the dust bowl, but makes it impossible for farmers to make it without government subsidies. Our average commercial wheat grower loses 5 cents per bushel. Not to mention that the nutritional quality of our food and soil are degrading from one season to the next. If we are going to get away from being a petroleum dependent nation, such inefficient and costly practices must change over to what the organic and sustainable methods are providing in yield, nutritional quality and energy use.
Tom Vilsack's pom-poms for genetically engineered food are going to put the United States into not only an economic hole, but a health one as well. Economically, farmers are losing more and more of their seeds to crazed-mass patenting by the agro-influencing pharmaceutical corporations. Seeds, I may add, they have the God given right to raise and plant from one generation to the next. They are also losing crops to cross contamination. Seeds and crops are being patented and manipulated by agrochemical, bio-tech and pharmaceutical companies (MONSANTO, CARGIL, DOW...you know who you are) and there are no restrictions as to where and how they can plant and test their crops. This means that their genetically engineered pollen can ride the free wave of nature's wind and take over other farmers' crops, even the ones carefully tended to as Organic. Now why should that concern ME you ask? Well, our bodies are one big chemistry set. Everything we breathe, drink or put in our mouths breaks down and changes once it starts traveling through our body system. If you eat corn that has been altered by the DNA of a soil bacteria and an amphibian (no, I am not kidding), it means that "that" is going into you body and your body must react to "it". Now, would you eat a handful of dirt? No, because the bacteria and a whole host of other things in it will make you sick. Would you lick or eat a live frog? Probably not (unless you are one of those strange beings looking for a very desperate poisoning high). But your body is going to react to those foreign DNA intrusions and that can lead to everything from misdiagnosed asthma, hay fever or a very scary trip to the emergency room (don't even get me started on long term effects upon organs, reproductive systems and child development).
Our nation is suffering already (and perhaps due to GM tainting) from skyrocketing cases of cancer, diabetes, obesity, malnutrition, heart disease, bronchial infections and disorders, Celiac disease, and an alarming rise in autism. This is only naming a few and they are especially affecting our children and the poor. Now doesn't this make you concerned about our health care system? Yes, there is a direct link to the quality of our diets to the quality of our health. Most of what we suffer from is preventative, but only if we have the power to make decisions about our food. That is a right we all have, not only as Americans but as human beings and this right is threatened. Even now, the USDA is rushing through its rules on GE foods and pharmaceutical crops. This essentially takes protection away from us and makes it easier (and more profitable) for the companies behind the engineering. This puts money in their pockets and takes money out of ours as taxpayers and consumers. I don't know about anyone else, but I pay a lot for my health insurance and that is just to have it. We are in a healthcare crisis that President Elect Obama has put great emphasis upon within his agenda for our country. Remember, we can survive without gasoline, but no living thing on this planet will survive without food and water that functions in our bodies the way they are supposed to.
Back to Tom Vilsack. I realize he is a friend and has supported Obama throughout his campaign. However, if President Elect Obama is going to keep his word he needs people who's alliances will make his proposed policies a reality, and that means making sure their agendas don't contradict his own or that of the people's safety and health.
So for any other candidate for this position or any other cabinet placement, I ask this - if they are pro-gene tic modification or have MONSANTO (or any agrochemical, biotech, pharmaceutical company) on their resume, think hard and twice about considering them for a position of such importance and power. People may be poor, losing their homes or going through other hard times, but everyone must eat and an economy is nothing if all the people are dying or sick.
On a happier note, I'll be back next time with some info on agriculture and a green economy. If you want to do your own research, there are some excellent sites to check out. Here they are:
www.democracyinaction.org
www.centerforfoodsafety.org
Books to check out:
Cradle to Cradle by Wiliam McDonough & Michael Braungart
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamon
One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
Oh, and if President Elect Obama should choose to read these books ( or have read them already), it would make my year :}
Obama Presidency Will Galvanize 30 Million American Idealists and Reformers, and A Personal Memory of Paul Newman---new article by Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News
http://www.nowpublic.com/health/obama-presidency-will-galvanize-30-million-american-idealists-and-reformers-and-personal-memory-paul-newman
I have been writing some halacious (and I believe quite excellent) articles on the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY FOR AND LONG RANGE BENEFITS FOR AMERICA'S HEALTH, FOR DR. HOWARD DEAN III, M.D., to be considered an "early" member of Obama's Cabinet, if that wouldn't be too big a step down for one of his genius level intelligence, I say as Secretary of Health, or better yet, FDA Commissioner, to take federal regulatory power out of the hands and make it begin again to actually protect consumers.....
FDA Commissioner should be a Cabinet Level position, anyway...it oversees a full 25% of the entire US Economy , the segment based on Food or Drugs).
The 6 decades-long subservience to corporate demand and corporate profits, the influence of corporate lobbyists to destroy true consumer protection legislation at all levels, the international implications, especially Economic, of a total regulatory failure in the United States Food and Drug Administration: all of this needs to come to a rapid, almost immediate end, with a very strong consumer protection-oriented FDA Commissioner who is not going to open the Revolving Door at the FDA to corporations regulated by the FDA, and not going to constantly capitulated to the whims an profits of Big Pharma and Big Junk Food, dba Grocery Manufacturers of America, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Wrigley's Gum, Ajinomoto of Japan (the world's largest manufacturer of both Aspartame and of Monosodium Glutamate, and everybody's fist choice for monster corporation: Monsanto, etc.
I see no better choice than nor anyone else I would trust more to do that job than Howard Dean!
[Here is one of my first articles on this subject: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Medical-Corner-of-the-by-Stephen-Fox-080824-149.html] (I also want to see New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as Secretary of State and California Attorney General and former Governor Jerry Brown, as Attorney General) I frequently hear that such discussions, if they came from Obama, would be deemed "presumptuous" and "arrogant", some say by the press and others say from the Neocon Right Wingers. However, if he were to speak to that issue in the context of what he would like to achieve as President in the various key realms, Environment, Education, International, Defense, etc., and at the same time, mention some names of who the USA MIGHT see in charge of which Cabinet level positions: With some more obligatory brainstorming, THIS SEEMS LIKE A DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN TACTIC AND WAY TO SECURE FENCESITTERS AND UNDECIDED, especially in Battleground states.... Too bad if the Neocons label it "arrogant" or "presumptuous." I could care less what they think. This is not some mere campaign ploy, but a plan that would illuminate ALL Americans as to what his administration might achieve. In such a comparison with McCain, I am sure Obama would come out clearly on top.
Prediction: McCain will use the Bush 2004 Debate Tactic of Deriding Obama's Ostensible "Lack of Experience." Cheney used that as well in the VP Debates. You know McCain will hammer that, but describing Cabinet picks during the debates will blow McCain and his leaky boat right out of the tub! The Republicans will, in their fuzzy demented way, will remember how well this worked in 2004!I see clearly that if Obama would try this on a trial basis, here and there, before the first debate, ultimately he would be doing it for the right reasons, so that the American public might better comprehend his highest goals domestically and internationally, and it would open the door to perceptions of his candidacy, raising it above the National Enquirer propensities of the Republican Team in this election.
Obama should immediately ask Dwight Eisenhower's Granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, to appear at campaign major events in the Battleground states, for in the Senate Races, and in the Presidential Race. I am sure she would accept.
I have heard from at least 50 people in Florida that they are praying and begging for former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, to come to Florida, to dispell the vicious rumors the R's have spread throughout the elderly mostly Jewish community, that Obama is some kind of secret Muslim Terrorist. I am serious about such reports coming from South Florida, and I thus encourage Obama and Biden to invite Ed Koch to spend a month in Florida on their behalf, and to ask Susan Eisenhower to appear in older Rust Belt and Bible Belt rallies, where older fence sitters and undecideds will hear her grandfather, the last Real Republican, with great benefit for the Electoral Vote Tally. Respectfully offered, Stephen Fox Founder, New Millennium Fine Art a Santa Fe Gallery since 1980 stephen@santafefineart.com
Dear Obama Supporters: Please help me figure this out. I am baffled...
Why is it that journalists like this Ed Graney from the Las Vegas Review-Journal [his article follows below], and so many others like him all over the United States, collectively continue the despicable mythology of speaking so cheerily about drinking diet sodas, like it was some kind of fun thing that they frivolously insist on sharing or foisting on their ill informed readers?
Can they really be this stupid to be so oblivious the firestorm of medical evidence accruing against Coca Cola and the Diet Sodas, because of the aspartame metabolizing into methanol and formaldehyde in every single person who consumes them, or sugarless gums like Eclipse and Orbit (try to find a Wrigley's product that doesn't have aspartame!), and the product Equal, which breaks down the aspartame before it hits your stomach, making it 5 times more neurotoxic in coffee, tea, etc.
Maybe they know all of this and are getting paid bribes by the companies involved to produce mindless little puff pieces saluting and celebrating the entire Diet Coke Culture?
I work with a group of people including physicians like H.J. Roberts, Author of Aspartame Disease: An FDA Approved Epidemic, and Russell Blaylock, Author of Excitotoxins: the Taste that Kills. These are googleable; please read about them.
Our biggest firebrand and greatest inspiration is Dr. Betty Martini, D. Hum., Founder of Mission Possible International, dedicated to getting aspartame off the market all over the world. Betty keeps an entire movement of thousands of activists together, for no pay whatsoever....She was open to Obama's candidacy up to the point someone pointed out to her that about 20 years ago either Barack or his wife or both worked many years ago for the Law Firm of Ridley and Austin, who represented Monsanto, the corporation that held the patent for Aspartame after buying it from G.D. Searle, .....
I won't regale you with 5 years of articles but will ask you to take the time to read just these two:
RUMSFELD'S BIOWEAPON LEGACY AT:http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=8&contentid=2608&page=2
(Interestingly, this article has been pulled down (or knocked down by hackers?) several of the key websites on which it once appeared....
and what I wrote for the Hawaii Senate about Aspartame in the form of a genteel resolution asking the FDA to rescind its approval for the umpteen reasons included in the Resolution: this constitutes a fairly detailed and very accurate historical analysis of Aspartame, how it came on the market, and a smidgeon of the coporate lobbying and nefarious skullduggery resulting in it still being on the market, despite millions of sufferers' personal stories:
Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 191, 2008 [sponsored by the Honorable Suzanne Chun Oakland, Hawaii State Senator, cosigned as sponsors by 44% of the Hawaii Senate, yet still shot down surreptitiously in the Health Committee, when Senator David Ige of Pearl City, declined to even schedule a hearing for this Resolution! The retails associations and their lobbyists were hard at work on this one, afraid that it could come up for a debate and a vote on the Senate floor.]:
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/Bills/SCR191_.htm
Personally, I think it is a hypocritical and ghastly joke that Coca Cola is such a big sponsor of the Olympics. They are only doing it to increase their sales in China and a few other nations, and to legitimize their infernal and deadly products in the minds of the naive, the stupid, and the very young.
I have repeatedly written articles, blogs, editorials, and comments that Obama must recognize how serious all of this is, and at the very least appoint a real consumer protectionist to be the FDA commissioner, instead of the corporate serving slug we now have.
Nixon ordered that cyclamates be taken off the market and their FDA approval rescinded.
A few years later, in 1981, Reagan (as a favor to his buddy Rumsfeld who had been passed over for Vice President, remember?) ordered the outgoing FDA to do nothing further, until the new FDA Commissioner, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, could take his first action, to approve Aspartame, despite the FDA having turned it down for the prior 15 years.....This "earned" Donald Rumsfeld, then CEO of G.D. Searle, the patent holder, at least $15 million.
This is a vile and despicable story, one of the dirtiest and most sordid chapters in the already massively checkered history of the FDA, which I am continuing to ask Obama to put an end to when he is elected President of the United States, by Presidential Order.
Dr. Howard Dean III, M.D., will be in Santa Fe in a few days, and I hope to ask him about this further. Will keep you posted in this blog at mybarackobama.com
Truly,Stephen FoxContributing Editor, Santa Fe Sun News
stephen@santafefineart.com
_________________________________________________________________________________
Aug. 18, 2008 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
OLYMPIC POSTCARD: COCA-COLA FORGES BRAVE, NEW WORLD
ED GRANEYREVIEW-JOURNAL
I've always been a Pepsi guy. Diet Cherry. Good stuff. But you should see what Coca-Cola has planned for the future. Any day now, a Coke Zero is going to drop right out of your iPhone.
(http://www.lvrj.com/news/27084214.html)
(http://www.reviewjournal.com/webextras/)
The company has been a sponsor of the Olympics for 80 years, and its large exhibit center here in Beijing stands near the swimming and track and field venues.
One main display is for the WE8 campaign, which is eight aluminum bottles designed by Chinese art students.
They had eight themes from which to work: active optimism, individual perseverance, uplifting moments, peace on Earth, global harmony, human collaboration, healthy world and happiness.
Once the artwork was completed, some of the world's leading musicians were asked to interpret the works through music.
The company is also testing a machine that drops your drink of choice down a chute and ice forms once you shake it a few times. I'm guessing the next machine they unveil will drink it for you.
Another exhibit is a touch-screen machine where you choose your drink from any of the WE8 bottles, and then download the design and its specific song to your cell phone. We live in an amazing world.
As a person who consumes food grown in the US and as a mom, I am very concerned with genetically engineered foods and the potential for harm that they cause. I came across a letter written to Hillary Clinton with a lot of interesting information (and sources for the claims being made) on a website called localforage.com and I thought I would post it here as well.
The following letter was written by Linn Cohen-Cole and posted to a raw dairy news group. I'm posting it here as I watch the evening news waiting for the California primary results to come in.
The issues presented in the letter regarding Monsanto are real and urgent, and Ms. Cohen-Cole has done a good job discussing the links between Monsanto and the Bill Clinton administration. (Yes, we're talking about the same Monsanto that is most likely involved in the contamination of 56 Superfund sites, wanton and "outrageous" pollution, and has plans to patent a genetically-bred "superpig"), but her discussion focuses on Bill Clinton and not Hillary Clinton. People can determine for themselves how much of the blame should by association go to Hillary.
I wasn't previously aware of any relationship between the introduction of GMOs in our food supply and Clinton administration shenanigans until I read this letter, so it was an eye-opener for me. I did a little bit of investigation tonight and could not find any direct rebuttals to the the letter. But then again, I don't have 12 hours to devote to a proper research effort. Is this a smear campaign? It doesn't seem like it. It seems like a really pissed off mom-citizen who wants people to know what the backstory is. The letter has been published in quite a few places so perhaps a rebuttal is in the offing. Until then, I leave you with the letter and the very compelling links within it so that you may do your own fact-checking and verification. If you discover anything that either confirms or denies the information presented in the letter, please post a comment. ~Carla
An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton from a Wellesley College Alumna
by Linn Cohen-Cole
Dear Hillary,
By polling logic, I should be your supporter - Democrat, older woman, white, liberal. I was even in a dorm with you in college. I have pulled for you for years. But something this past summer fundamentally changed my responsibility to my children and grandchildren. In the time I have left in my life to protect them and others, I need to speak out.
I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra, India, about farmers committing suicide. Monsanto, a US agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards) from big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto, again) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had larger debt than they'd ever experienced
A Second Letter to Hillary Clinton on Her Ties to Monsanto
Poor Ohio
By LINN COHEN-COLE
This is my second letter to you. I am writing again because I feel badly for you that you seem not understand what is wrong.
You are going into Ohio soon. The issue is that you don't travel alone.
Your and Bill's history with Monsanto is going with you.
Your campaign strategist, Mark Penn, goes as well, putting Monsanto by your side.
What does Ohio have to do with you and Monsanto?
Did you know that dairy farmers there had the battle of their lives to prevent the banning of rBGH labels on their dairy products? Let me put that into plain English.
Monsanto tried (and may try again) to make sure dairy farmers in Ohio, and across the country--have no "real" freedom of speech. What simple thing are Ohio farmers denied saying? "We don't put GE crap in our cows."
Dairy farmers want to tell that truth, consumers want it. You'd think that'd be simple. Yet, farmers - the only ones telling the public the truth - are doing so in the absence of governmental help and, in fact, up against it, as it favors Monsanto.........
ARTICLE- http://www.counterpunch.org/cole02212008.html
U.S. farmers have planted millions of acres of corn and other crops that have been genetically engineered to resist pests, and the growers want to export such produce freely. But in Europe, where genetically altered crops have been dubbed Frankenfoods, governments have imposed labeling rules and safety tests that have restricted U.S. imports.
Friction between the United States and Europe over the foods issue torpedoed last year's World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Seattle and now threaten to erupt into a transatlantic trade war.
In a last-ditch effort to settle their differences, U.S. and European leaders agreed in May to create a 20-person Biotechnology Consultative Forum, representing pro and con interests on both sides of the Atlantic.
In a letter appointing the U.S. members of this advisory forum, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked them to suggest a compromise on labeling, safety testing and other regulatory issues, and to present it to the next U.S.- European economic summit in December.
To build support for this compromise effort, the State Department asked environmental and consumer opponents of bioengineered foods to nominate their representatives to the biotech powwow.
But this gesture backfired when the State Department ignored the nomination of consumer representative Michael Hansen -- a scientist with Consumers Union -- and instead gave the post to Carol Tucker Foreman, a Capitol insider who recently took over food issues for the Consumer Federation of America after 18 years as a lobbyist.
What angered critics most is that during her lobbying days, Foreman helped Monsanto -- the firm most closely identified with genetically engineered foods -- win approval for bovine growth hormone, a chemical that stimulates milk production.
``We think it's a big mistake to appoint a person to represent consumers who's been so closely tied to the biotech industry,'' said Dan Seligman, the Sierra Club's representative on trade issues.
A U.S. government official, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the State Department is aware of the flap created by Foreman's appointment but believes the committee -- which includes Norman Borlaug, the father of the ``green revolution'' -- represents ``a broad range of civil society.''
Foreman, 62, was on vacation, and associates at the Consumer Federation of America said she could not be reached for comment.
But federation Executive Director Stephen Brobeck called it ``absurd'' to suggest that Foreman, who has worked on Capitol Hill for 40 years, would be beholden to Monsanto because she did some ``modest consulting'' for the company five years ago.
``I would challenge anyone to identify any statement or action since she's returned to CFA that did not serve the public interest,'' Brobeck said. ``People in this town move between the private, public and nonprofit sector all the time.''
Foreman's career exemplifies Capitol Hill's revolving door.
An Arkansas native, Foreman came to Washington in 1961 as a Senate staffer, became executive director of the Consumer Federation of America in the early 1970s and was appointed an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Carter administration.
In her government role, Foreman earned praise and criticism from consumer colleagues. Foreman helped persuade Congress to eliminate a co-payment requirement that had kept millions of people from getting food stamps. But she also relaxed poultry inspection rules that favored big chicken farmers like Arkansas' Tyson Foods.
But what really irked critics is what Foreman did after she left USDA in 1981 to form her own lobbying firm. In addition to helping Monsanto get USDA approval for bovine growth hormone, she also lobbied for Olestra, Procter & Gamble's fat substitute, and consulted with tobacco giant Philip Morris.
Critics concede that Foreman's corporate involvements never damaged her Democratic Party credentials and marvel at how her Arkansas roots
--her brother is Jim Guy Tucker, the former Arkansas governor and Whitewater figure -- enhanced her access in the Clinton administration.
``It didn't surprise me at all when the White House nominated her to this international committee,'' said John Stauber, co-founder of the Center for Media and Democracy, a Madison, Wis., nonprofit that tracks lobbyists.
``She's trusted and tight with the Democratic Party, she isn't threatening to industry and she has managed to retain consumer credentials,'' Stauber said. ``Who better to try to smooth over these differences (between Europe and the United States) and make the world safe for the export of genetically engineered foods?''
A source close to the transatlantic commission said Foreman was chosen because she is a pragmatic dealmaker who is more interested in compromise than confrontation.
Some of Foreman's critics also seem to prefer that the transatlantic compromise effort fail. Lori Wallach, a trade specialist with Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C., said if U.S.-European differences over genetically engineered foods spark a trade war, it could topple the entire WTO framework which, in her view, favors corporate profits over worker and consumer interests.
Meanwhile, those who want the commission to achieve a compromise are running out of time. The first meeting of the transatlantic forum probably won't occur until September because many of the European members are on vacation.
``My hope for the forum is to bring the United States around to regulatory approval and labeling policies that are more consistent with the European policies,'' said Rebecca Goldburg, a scientist with Environmental Defense, a nonprofit advocacy group. Goldburg was appointed by the State Department to fill the environmental slot on the transatlantic committee.
``But we have an incredibly broad charge and a limited amount of time,'' she said.
An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton from Another Wellesley College AlumnaHillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?By LINN COHEN-COLEDear Hillary,By polling logic, I should be your supporter -- Democrat, woman, white, liberal. But this past summer I saw a News Hour show on farmers committing suicide in Maharastra, India, which affected me deeply. I started learning what was happening to farmers and to food and how the Clintons are connected.........ARTICLE- http://www.counterpunch.org/cole02082008.html
Sent: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 7:55 pmSubject: Notes From a Hermit 2/7/08 - letter to Hillary
Yikes. Maybe the lobbyists can push it back a day and dress up as farmers for Halloween.
