The Right To Know March A Lesson In Democracy

The Right To Know March

October is non GMO month and there is no more of a better time to spread the truth about these organisms than now. Since the early nineties Monsanto and other companies such as Bayer and Syngenta have been working behind the scenes to foist these organisms on us without the general population being aware of their presence in food or how they got there. They have used their special relationships with governments and regulatory agencies around the world to skirt every law and moral boundary. They have lied to, bullied and led farmers into relationships that wound up taking their livelihoods and their lives from them. They have done nothing to feed the over one billion people in our world starving and have exacerbated deforestation, biodiversity loss and monoculture. All this while using these governments to state that these organisms are no different than those found in the natural world when clearly they are in order to circumvent responsibility by labelling them in order to make a profit.

From October 1-16 this month however, people are marching from NYC to Washington DC to call for labelling of GMOS. To call for consumer choice. To call for upholding democracy. To protect our environment. To protect our biodiversity. To protect our farmers. To protect our children. To protect their lives. In a world where we see multinationals in collusion with governments continuing the status quo of amassing wealth at the expense of all of the above, there is no more important time to speak out for our rights to disclosure, environmental democracy and food sovereignty.

The link above leads you to the site for The Right To Know March with a LiveStream hook up. And while I myself cannot march physically, I will be marching virtually and supporting this organization in any way I can. I am also hoping to be in DC on Oct.16 (World Food Day) when they march into DC. I wish to stand with them in solidarity to tell those in Washington who now continue this same exclusionary and dangerous policy that it must change.

As I wrote in a previous commentary:

"With any crisis we are now in regarding our planet, we have one hope: ourselves. Our consciences, our morals, our reasoning, our logic, our love for our families, our love for the Earth, our sense of justice and yes, even our spirituality that tells us in line with the scientific facts as presented to us that we in large numbers have the ability to take back our food, our planet and our futures. So even in the face of what Monsanto has been able to accomplish I remain hopeful of the global food movement having major victories in the coming year. But we must remain focused, cohesive, determined and yes, even angry. We must remain so for the following:

For the farmers of India and their families, especially the widows of those whose lives were cut short by BT cotton.

For the American farmers whose farms and livelihoods are under threat from Monsanto’s strong arm tactics in their desire to control all seed.

For the deforested lands of South America stripped to create a monoculture that has left many poor farmers poorer and sicker in the wake of greed over sustainability, and exacerbated a climate crisis no cap and trade scheme can heal.

For the soil of our Earth, its skin, that cries out for help to us as it is eroded, stripped, abused, and toxified for profit.

For our water, polluted, toxic, acidic, filled with pesticides and run off as the cost of industrial agriculture.

For our children, who deserve a cleaner, safer, more natural world to live in.

Let this year be the year to truly hold Monsanto as an example of all of those things to be the first step in our moral imperative to save this planet and in turn the human species and all others we have so cavalierly dismissed in our desire to be masters of the universe."

The time is now.



Please be well, Dr. Shiva.