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Sunday, November 4, 2012

We Can't Take It Anymore: Prop 37

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We're sharing a link to a video you should watch, and we will tell you why. Here's the link:
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http://www.therealfoodchannel.com/videos/gmos-genetically-modified-food-1/how-safe-is-your-food.html
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The Guide's editor has covered politics elsewhere for years, having edited a print political journal and a weekly newspaper column, and more.
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He's written plenty -- elsewhere -- through and about the current and seemingly endless campaigns that finally end at the ballot box on Tuesday. He's kept all that out of the Guide.
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But Proposition 37, on the California statewide ballot, has such profound repercussions that it must be examined and carefully evaluated beyond the dismissal it is receiving in corporate-controlled media.
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"The fat-cats are being short-sighted," says the editor, "Because the health of all Americans is the largest component of our economy. It's bigger, by orders of magnitude, than exports. Beyond all that is immediately obvious, there are critical implications FOR exports, for our ability to export food, agricultural and processed food-based products, and other compounds that have a crop-based origin," he says.
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That's true because health reaches far beyond the costs of a reactive health care system. And it's important to remember that nearly every other nation has a health care system that is funded by its taxpayers and freely accessible to all its people. Hence, governments of those countries must act prudently to limit exposures to health risks that could end-up causing economic impacts.
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The most important risks of the past were pesticides and similar toxins. Most nations have banned these more aggressively than we have.
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The newest risk is growing exponentially. It comes not from toxins applied to growing plants or injected into growing animals, but from the genetic modification of the food crop plants and animals themselves.
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Genetically Engineered (GE) and Genetically Modified (GM) foods are taking-over America's agribusiness. And we don't even begin to understand the myriad, perhaps infinite, implications and repercussions.
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For big agribusiness, the motivations are simple: higher and very predictable crop yields, size-weight-cosmetic uniformity of product, crops that poison the insects that traditionally prey on them, and higher profits.
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For the traditional chemical giants now engaged in genetic engineering on an industrial scale, like Monsanto, as well as for startups that chase the next perfect-size ear of corn, or peach, or grain of wheat, or apple, the simple incentive is the vast fortune to be reaped.
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This happens in the US because our health care system is a free-for-all that is free for nobody, but the implications of messing with things that have health impacts are beyond the worries of those who can make money messing with things.
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It could not and does not happen in Europe.
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In fact, 61 other nations require clear labeling of everything that is genetically modified. Other nations have all but banned "frankenfood" outright.
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But not America. So we are frankenfood central, and our people are unwitting guinea pigs in a vast experiment. Our rates are skyrocketing, far faster than anywhere else on the planet, for childhood obesity, childhood and adult diabetes, serious and life-threatening gastrointestinal diseases and dozens of other syndromes, maladies, conditions and diseases, including inflammatory maladies that, research is proving, are at the root of countless other health risks and even fatal diseases.
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Frankenfoods are increasingly implicated. Some medical studies show clear causality. Yet the economic lout of one of America's few growth industries has kept Congress from Use
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Now, it comes down to California. The Golden State is an agricultural juggernaut. It is also the place that launched reforms, innovations, trends, and technologies. And now those aspects are colliding in the war over Proposition 37.
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Scarey, slick ads are all over TV, funded by Big agribusiness money, trying to scare voters with the specter of astronomically high food prices if 37 passes. It's all they have to campaign with.
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You can distill it all down to a single, simple question: Do you want to know what you're eating?
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If you'd like to examine some scientific evidence to convince you that you should want to know, here's a link:
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http://www.therealfoodchannel.com/videos/gmos-genetically-modified-food-1/how-safe-is-your-food.html
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It's a very watchable, very compelling, and non-biology-major video.
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In summation, an enusiastic and wholly necessary "YES" on Proposition 37.
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View the video at the link. You can and should sharr it widely. For all of us, it is not simply about the most precious thing we have -- our health -- it is also about the future of an economy where all have a stake, instead of the short-term profits of one industry that is, for all intents and purposes, enriching itself by poisoning us.
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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide's regular focus and content, with all the weekend's events,is available just below or in the sidebar at left, depending on which edition you are reading.
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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll take a chance that you'll get this comment. I see you really want all comments by email. But I want to thank you for writing this. I am one who was wavering about prop 37. I was maybe going to fall for all the ads against it. Then I went to find music for tonite and learned about what is going on for real with prop 37. I knew prop 32 was a big money acam and I should have know that the people for that one are the same rich jerks against prop 37.
Thanks!
Benny Ruiz

Anonymous said...

Wanted to shoutout to ya for doin this. Good on ya!
Chris

Anonymous said...

[edited for profanity to keep our family-friendly site rating] That video sceered the sh*t outta me. Guess I knew they f**ked with everything to make more money, but good god. We need to pass that number 37! Elaine

Anonymous said...

I have been wondering if I would vote. I was a first time voter in 08, for Obama. I was really excited. Then reality. Political bastards won't do anything unless its for their rich supporters who buy their campaigns. Then I read the Rolling Stone article last week on how Obama is really just a firewall against everything I would never want to see happen. That's about right, and I decided to vote. I came to this whole election late and have not sorted out all these Propositions. Well you just helped me get one of them right. I'm sending the video link to my whole list.

Anonymous said...

You must be a vegatarian. I know you are a tree hugger. It would do no good to call you a liberal because you would think it a compliment and it is not. You liberals want to regulate everything. Get this, I'll try to get itthe thru your head: Business exists to make money. Regulating costs money. My taxes and what business pays to deal with getting tegulated. If there is no profits there is no jobs. The world will buy what we grow because where else will they get it? Besides we give most of it away anyhow. No on 37 to keep your job (not YOUR job in the liberal media, but everybody elses who WORKS for a living) and no on 37 to keep my trip to the grocery store cheap.

Gus

Anonymous said...

I am not used to reading anything here that's ignorant. The comment from Gus is ignorant.
- Mary

Anonymous said...

37 all the way! My main reason to vote!!! Allan

Anonymous said...

Dammit. Thot or at least hoped this wuz one place to get away from election crap. Cept this one aint crap. Monsanto must be stopped before we become mutants.
Rodney

Anonymous said...

I just read to my bf what you wrote. He is driving and we could not hear volume on video. So I just read to him. Guess what: Think I finally got him to open his mind instead of just his mouth. Wanted to say thanks for what was needed to do that. Ali

Anonymous said...

Cmon everybody. Get this and other info with truth on 37 to all your peeps!!!! Marty

Anonymous said...

So like why are all these comments from anonymous?

- Larry, the editor said...

Editor here, RE: Why comments are anonymous...
Our policy is to protect your name and contact info unless you tell us to use one or both.

- Larry, the editor said...

Right now, 9-10 pm Sunday, is a documentary called "Bitter Seeds" on KLCS, Los Angeles. It's about Genetically Modified (GM) foods.

- Larry, the editor said...

Here's another video link. This one details how Genetically Modified (GM) seeds are engineered in ways that require more pesticides. Ultimately, the harvested crop is onthe your table, and the agticiltural workers received pesticide exposures all along the way. It is NOT "Better living through chemistry." If you caught the beautifully-told and horribly sad video, "Bitter Seeds" on KLCS last night, this will resonate. If you missed that, watch this:

http://www.therealfoodchannel.com/page/20866.html