The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
from Vanity Fair
by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele May 2008
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small—a really small—country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics.
Read the full article at Vanity Fair
Stumble It!
But if this corporate mafia is permitted to continue to grow, take over everything, using terror tactics, it won't be long, before the private armies of this mafia will be permitted to carry arms and set up KZ camps.
It also shows who and what politicians and governments are working for.
Ed Deak.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 627001.ece
Then there is problem of the ludites which seek to halt progress....
A return to 17th century agriculture means mass starvation.
Millions of acres have no been lost to food production on account of chemical use. I was involved in the Green Revolution racket from its beginning and we realized it 50 odd years ago that it can only lead to disasters on the long run and it is happening now, especially in human health.
At the same time, millions of food producing farmers have been forced off and their lands lost to sustainable production to fill the insatiable demands of the agribiz mafia.
We can't grow any grains here on account of the climate, neither do we have any topsoil to grow many things, but, over the past 29 years, we have developed soil building and food production systems that could feed hundreds of millions, if governments and their brainwashed economists would dare to get on with it.
The one thing that people should realize, once and for all, is that human labour doesn't cost anything to the real economy, because it is energy neutral and we have lots of it, and also unlimited amounts of time. Many would be happy to work on the land on sustainable food production, but our criminal economic theory and paid off governments won't permit it. They'd rather see people starve than look for logical solutions, outside the "wealth creation" fraud.
Ed Deak, Big Lake.
The earhters are like the muzzie yearning for a return to a time that never was.
Turds. Nothing but stinking little turds with nothing to back them up.
Your posts stink up the world.
Brent
This is not new. Hybred seeds have long been protected but the product of hybred seed is not viable or produces a degenerate plant so such hybred vigour is limited to the first planting. Saving seed is an act of futility. The problem is these self-replicating seeds.....somehow this must be addressed legally. The dilema is stiffling R & D or what?
I can see no solution satisfactory to both the breeders and the customer/farmers.
Making mandatory buying a specific product from a specific company is obviously not cricket. However, intellectual property has to be respected or you have a situation such as China where copywrites and patents are meaningless.
Why? Why must the patenting of ideas (intellectual property) and therefore removing those ideas from the sum of human knowledge be respected?
This is not new. Hybred seeds have long been protected but the product of hybred seed is not viable or produces a degenerate plant so such hybred vigour is limited to the first planting. Saving seed is an act of futility. The problem is these self-replicating seeds.....somehow this must be addressed legally. The dilema is stiffling R & D or what?
Again, why? Seeds that farmers have cultivated for thousands of years are taken by Montaso and mutated - and those mutations then patented. Then the pollen infects other farmers crops, and the farmers lose access to what generations before them had created because they don't have as good of lawyers.
It's not futile, saving seed is the way crops adapt to changing conditions, and it is the way it's been done for generations.
I can see no solution satisfactory to both the breeders and the customer/farmers.
On that we agree.
I can see no solution satisfactory to both the breeders and the customer/farmers.
Gosh, if only there were some place where a bunch of people concerned with learning could do research. Maybe our tax dollars could go to them to produce safe, patent-free seeds that have the properties we need.
If only there were such a place
If only there were such a place
That would mean government research. The only successful such project was the Manhattin Project and technically it was less a research project than an engineering task. And then there is matter of funding. Should Canada fund such research, at great cost to give away????
monsanto pig
In short, Soviet type collectivization with imaginary capital and fraudulent science, instead of bayonets, in the fraudulent name of "free enterprise". Brothers under the skin.
Hybridization is not genetic modification. And my farming experience goes back to 1948, to this day.
Ed Deak.