Election Bang: Maui bans GMO crops
by Jon Rappoport
November 5, 2014
Note: To those few of you who are spending big bucks to fund GMO-labeling ballot measures, I’m taking you to school in this article. Read the whole thing, especially the last part. If you want more lessons, get in touch.
Okay. Here we go.
They got into Monsanto’s face. They accused Monsanto/Dow of spreading poison.
They didn’t say, “You have a right to know what’s in your food and we’re all nice people, and reasonable people have a right to disagree.”
They hit it hard.
The Maui SHAKA Movement and voteyesmaui.org and other activists won by a very narrow margin—and instituted a temporary ban on new Monsanto/Dow GMO crops in Maui County.
Their corporate opposition spent $300 for every vote they got. And lost.
A tip of the hat and a bow to Maui County activists.
You know what you’re doing. You’re local. You experience, first-hand, the Monsanto Roundup poison. You see something, you do something.
The ban/moratorium can only be overturned after an environmental impact statement is submitted to the Maui County Council, and after a 2/3 vote to overturn.
Without doubt, the Maui activists will monitor that process very closely and expose corrupt Council members and the upcoming parade of low-life Monsanto lawyers, PR flacks, and bagmen carrying cash for bribes.
Ultimate victory isn’t guaranteed by any means, but this is a real battle, not a mock one.
Colorado lost its GMO labeling ballot measure last night, and so did Oregon.
But Maui proved, in its own backyard, that banning poison is more powerful than labeling it.
The major funders of the labeling campaigns should write some fat checks to voteyesmaui.org and SHAKA, and then also buy ads on big websites: MAUI KNOWS HOW TO BEAT MONSANTO.
Let the world know.
In the end, this isn’t a consumer campaign, it’s a war against lying corporate poisoners.
Saying Monsanto can keep poisoning doesn’t cut it.
Update: Ballot Measure P in Humboldt County, California, passed by a wide margin. Measure P “prohibits the propagation, cultivation, raising, or growing of genetically modified organisms in Humboldt County.”
Good work, Humboldt. Another ban.
***Let me explain something. The GMO-labeling ballot measures are really PR campaigns, and they keep some degree of awareness alive about GMO crops.
They’re not full educational campaigns, because the amount of teaching they do is superficial, despite their claims to the contrary.
PR is slogans. Education is much, much deeper, and it certainly includes aggressive information about the horrendous effects of Roundup, among other GMO issues.
Education requires getting people to stand still long enough to actually learn something important. It isn’t a brush-off.
So here’s the point. If these GMO-labeling ballot campaigns are really PR, then why not redirect the PR against Monsanto and the other corporate criminals, instead of monotonously hammering away on “the right to know what’s in your food”?
There’s nothing to lose (after labeling defeats in California, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon), and everything to gain.
Monsanto is building this reality: GMO foods are wonderful and safe and the planet benefits.
So far, the counter-reality is: let Monsanto and their allied farmers grow their food, as long as the consumer can ID it on the label and reject it, if he wants to.
That’s going to win the day?
That’s the superior new reality?
That’s suicide through lack of imagination and courage.
Take a few million of the dollars now being spent on pro-labeling campaigns and, instead, put it into video web ads that play all over the world:
For example:
A destitute farmer (and his family) stands in front of his wasted, dusty, super-weed-choked field, states his name, and says: “I’m an American farmer. Monsanto lied to me and killed my farm and my livelihood with their poison called Roundup. And it doesn’t even work. The weeds it was supposed to knock out are bigger than ever. Monsanto strangled my soybean crop. They ruined my farm. And my daughter is sick from the Roundup poison…”
Then…boom. A few of your cold-eyed, take-no-prisoner attorneys stroll into the frame, and one of them looks into the camera and says, “Hello, Monsanto. Thinking of suing us for this ad? Bring it, baby.”
A man pushes a large trunk on a dolly into the frame. He opens the trunk and takes out sheaf after sheaf of papers.
The attorney says, “Monsanto? This is the evidence that shows you’ve been lying to the people about how safe GMO food is, and you’ve been lying about your poison called Roundup. See you at the first deposition. It’s going to be a DOOZIE, Monsanto.”
A large red title appears at the bottom of the screen: BAN GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD.
It fades out, to be replaced by another title:
SEND MONSANTO CRIMINALS TO PRISON.
Something like that. For starters.
Other ads will follow.
Increase public awareness? Create a page-one controversial news story from one end of the planet to the other?
Are you kidding?
Monsanto sues and it’s a five-year story. Monsanto doesn’t sue and they’re cowards. Either way it’s a big-time winner.
THIS is PR.
PR for the public good.
To those of you who are spending big bucks to fund GMO-labeling ballot measures:
I’m taking you to school. If you want more lessons, get in touch.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
Jon – Your agenda for putting Monsanto et. al on the hot seat sounds like a much more effective approach.
If you want more lessons, get in touch.
I teach nutrition classes at the Anacortes Senior College, and spend a great deal of time explaining GMO’s and their harmful effects to my students. Last night I showed the documentary by Dr. Akiba Green, DO, titled: “15 Harmful Effects of GMO Foods on Your Health. It was well received and launched an intense discussion and Q&A session. Please keep me informed. Heather Burke Professor, Anacortes Senior College Anacortes, WA
You GET it! Mahalo from Maui!
After linking your poignant comments here to my Facebook page, with the caption “What if Monsanto is actually funding the ‘GMO labeling initiatives’, while also funding campaigns to defeat the ballot posturing? By playing both sides, they would be framing the issue in such a way that even should an initiative pass, they still come out on top. There’s a better way…” it’s apparently censored so as to not be visible from the Home page.
Always shoot straight right into in the Bullseye.
Rappoport for President! (Although who would want that poisonous job….)
Amen to that, they are poisoning us all and they are winning as long as they are allowed by us to keep poisoning us and our entire planet . No amount of labeling is going to clean the soil or stop the poisonous GMO mutated plants from spreading the way plants naturally spread their seed by being picked up by wind, bees and birds.
If Monsanto can keep this debate going they can win the game, as no one is stopping the poisonous GMO plants they created or the poisonious “weed killers” sprayed on them. The future looks bleak if they are not stopped, add the chemtrails/ geo- engineering and you have disaster planet.
It may take a bubble cityto save what is left of the non-polluted plants and soil and even then there will have to be a way to cut the covered ground itself off from the surrounding uncovered polluted soil.
Monsanto needs to be stopped of course and then we all need to monitor what is going on as they may just morph into something else. We must never let this happen again. It will take the planet decades to recover, possibly several hundred as it is. And of course there will always be those GMO plants somewhere seeding themselves, but I am hoping that they are unable to live without the heavy aluminum soil they grow in and the “weed killers” they require and therefore die off in fairly short order, once no longer cultivated!!
[…] http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/election-bang-maui-bans-gmo-crops/ […]
My sentiments exactly Jon. All my neighbors donated big bucks to the GMO labeling efforts, but to me it has always seemed like choosing the lesser of two evils. Supporting the labeling of GMO’s is a subtle validation of GMO’s as food. It’s sort of like saying that we should just ‘label rapists’, instead of outlawing or banning rape altogether.
Jon, I love you and your reporting.
Do you know that there is a video ad for mcdonalds mcrib at the end of your comments section?
How ironic since this article is about GMO and likely mcrib to be nothing more than gmo goop at best.
Well, thought you might want to know this. Your article is funny in that bizarrely true but can’t possibly be true so just have a laugh kind of way. My position is
No GMO.
It’s not gmo “food”. it’s gmo poison and i don’t eat it or buy it or feed it to animals. I boycott grocery stores and buy from Amish and “organic” farmers direct. Clean meat protein and vegetables, a little fruit and it’s perfect diet.
Bless up, Jon, Thank you for your hard work.
Kudos Jon for energizing us.
We can learn from Maui’s bold initiative and channel our frustration,resentment and powerlessness in a pro activist way.
Very timely I just posted my own http://cierrasplayground.com/?p=1268 this is what I noticed and was astonished. Just followed you an feel free to do the same.
I don’t even believe at this point that FrankenFoods are even “alive”; I believe that they go through the motions of growing.
I have been buying >95% organic since 1977. Even though the transformation toward organic seems to grow exponentially so does the Monsanto pushback. ‘Wish there was more I could do.
[…] After the citizens of Maui just voted to stop Monsanto and Dow from further GMO development, Monsanto filed suit. […]
[…] In Hawaii, we have a far different situation. Voters on the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai, against all odds, have managed to pass measures that would block Monsanto (and other biotech giants) from continuing t…. […]
[…] In Hawaii, we have a far different situation. Voters on the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai, against all odds, have managed to pass measures that would block Monsanto (and other biotech giants) from continuing t…. […]