Got Chemicals?
David Kurtz notes in his TPM blog post that Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) has their panties in a twist over the First Lady's organic garden and has written to defend the chemically intensive farming practices as a necessity of modern farming.
It should come as no surprise that the Crop Life network is championing the use of chemicals since they began as the fertilizer industry trade group and continues to be supported by folks like Russell Turner.
Turner was herbicide Product Development Manager, Herbicide Marketing Manager and State Regulatory/Government Affairs Manager at DOW before serving as a CropLife America rep.
What is surprising is that the chemical industry isn't head over heels with all the key appointments that President Obama has handed them.
There's Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebeilus who is about to enact a law stripping consumers of the right to know their milk comes from cows not treated with genetically altered hormones and is poised to head HHS which will be given sweeping new powers to hinder small organic farming under the new Food Modernization Act with HR 875.
There's Tom Vilsack as head of USDA, the biotech Governor of the Year, long standing champion of privatizing the food supply and stalwart supporter of Monsanto. As Biotech Governor Vilsack funneled millions to TransOva with the promise of job creation and economic returns. So far it has produced a virtually monopoly for cloned food for TransOva and an approval for feeding it to consumers without safety tests.
Then there's Obama's pick for the White House Food Safety Working Group. Michael Taylor, Monsanto lobbyist and creator of the legal loopholes allowing biotech foods to be untested and unregulated by creating a novel legal definition of "substantial equivalence" so that the scientific creations would be seen as equal to traditional foods for consumers.
It's revolving door politics at their functional best! There's Monsanto's attorney Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court helped make sure that the foods are no so equal as to interfere with corporate patents and fees for growing them though.
Best of all there's Hillary Clinton who has deeper ties to agribusiness and whose husband's Administration did more to promote the Monsanto's hormone dairy and global biotech expansion than anyone could have hoped.
Armed with a deregulated status of biotech crops and support from taxpayers tucked into the legislation that mandates everything from USAID dollars to develop new privatized seed strains in the third world under Global Food Security (S-384) to State preemption bills banning communities from controlling what is grown locally.
The biggest surprise is that CropLife isn't giving an award to President Obama for his vision, which is a dream come true for agribusiness and ignoring the efforts of his wife.
Michelle may be able to put a fresh face on what happens on the outside of the White House and even change what is served to the First Family and guests, but the rest of the Nation will be swallowing more toxic ingredients and policy than ever before.
That's the kind of change the agribusiness giants Wall Street can applaud and the banking windfalls should serve as the guide. Taxpayers and consumers are the only ones who should be complaining as we watch the next deregulated industry cash in on corporate rules.
