Tuesday, December 23, 2008

the choices of our president elect

this was in my email box this morning. i am trying to be patient and maintain hope, but for each good choice barack obama seems to make for his cabinet, there seem to be several bad choices. he did say he was going to reach across the aisle, but i am beginning to think that in reaching across the aisle, he is abandoning the other side, the side that got him into office. i find his choice of rick warren as pastor for the invocation at his inauguration a serious spit in the left eye. the least he can do, in something as symbolic and "non political" as an invocation, is pick someone whose opinions are less publicly known, someone inclusive and all-affirming. obama should not be alienating his voters with choices that are symbolic. anyway, the below is yet another installation to a cabinet whose road to "change" is beginning to look less about change and more about same. please do sign the petition below; if we want to hold obama to our expectations, we have to make our voices heard.

Friends,

In spite of 20,000 e-mails from organic consumers and, in apparent contradiction to his announcement that he wants an organic garden at the White House, Obama has chosen Tom Vilsack, a strong bio-tech proponent supporting genetically engineered crops, cloned animals, etc., to run the Department of Agriculture. As you will see below, Vilsack is truly Monsanto's boy. He pre-empted the local votes of towns and counties who had voted to disallow GE seeds!

It's still possible to block Vilsack's confirmation with a massive support of the petition drafted by the Organic Consumer Association. It's easy to sign on at this link.

or from the Organic Consumer Association website. Your email will be sent to your Senators and the President-Elect's office.

The article below gives further details.

PLEASE POST THIS TO YOUR E-MAIL LISTS!

Thanks!

Gerhard Bedding



OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Vilsack-is-not-just-totall-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-081218-394.html

December 18, 2008

Vilsack is not just totally pro-biotech, he is committedly anti-democracy By Linn Cohen-Cole
Excerpts from this article, chosen by Gerhard Bedding:

Vilsack, according to The Organic Consumer's Association, was named Governor of the Year by Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the biggest pro-genetic engineering lobby in existence. Why? Not for nothing. Because he'd championed local transgenic R&D corporations like Trans Ova, which clones cows. Vilsack was also the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership. Vilsack speaks for biotech. He is the man who helped wipe out the local votes of many towns and counties who had voted not to allow genetically engineered seeds

haphazardgourmet.blogspot.com/2008/11/tom-vilsack-emerges-as-frontrunner-for.html

OCA names six reasons Vilsack was a terrible choice:

* Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack's support of genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, especially pharmaceutical corn:
http://www.gene.ch/genet/2002/Oct/msg00057.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/drugsincorn102302.cfm

* The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was also the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership.
http://www.bio.org/news/pressreleases/newsitem.asp?id=200...

* When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning dairy cows.

* Vilsack was the origin of the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, which many people here in Iowa fought because it took away local government's possibility of ever having a regulation on seeds- where GE would be grown, having GE-free buffers, banning pharma corn locally, etc. Representative Sandy Greiner, the Republican sponsor of the bill, bragged on the House Floor that Vilsack put her up to it right after his state of the state address.

* Vilsack has a glowing reputation as being a schill for agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto. Sustainable ag advocated across the country were spreading the word of Vilsack's history as he was attempting to appeal to voters in his presidential bid. An activist from the west coast even made this youtube animation about Vilsack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmoc4Qgcm4s
The airplane in this animation is a referral to the controversy that Vilsack often traveled in Monsanto's jet.

*Vilsack is an ardent support of corn and soy based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.

"Vilsack lobbied hard to get seed pre-emption bills into state legislative bodies, beginning in 2005. These bills seek to control the use of seeds on the state level, and thus deny local communities (and small farmers, and even backyard farmers) the power to establish their own regulations for protection from genetically engineered seeds. If seed pre-emption bills become law, citizens will not be able to regulate where genetically engineered crops are grown, the creation of GE buffer zones, or the banning of pharmaceutical crops, among other things. The use of seeds becomes entirely regulated by government, and opens the door to human and plant exposure to every adverse effect of genetically engineered crops. --And simultaneously ruins biodiversity, because once transgenic seeds prevail, there's no going back. Seed pre-emption bills have been introduced in sixteen states, and the battle is ongoing. But Vilsack has been one of the chief architects of looming biodiversity disaster, and there's no reason to believe he'd halt his love affair with genetic engineering and Big Ag just because he's working for Obama."
haphazardgourmet.blogspot.com/2008/11/tom-vilsack-emerges-as-frontrunner-for.html

Philip F. Incao, MD
Steiner Holistic Medicine
P.O. Box 894
276 North Spruce St.
Crestone, CO 81131-0894
Phone/Fax: 719-256-5647
philip@drincao.com

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