By Organic Consumers Assn.On Thursday, October 10, activists posing as biotechnology industry lobbyists and processed food industry insiders delivered “Monsanto’s Minions Awards” to the members of Congress who have worked the hardest to keep their constituents in the dark about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in America’s food supply.
The activists represented the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and Occupy Monsanto.
Following the delivery of the awards to Congressional offices, the anti-GMO activists, posing as the Biotechnology Industry Awards Committee (BIAC), attempted to block entrances to the Congressional office buildings to stop corporate lobbying during the shutdown.
The action, modeled on the one Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies did at the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1967, involves dumping out briefcases of cash on the X-ray machines at the entrances where lobbyists are waiting in line to go through the metal detectors and enter the Congressional office buildings. The corporate lobbyists are expected to lunge for the fluttering bills just as the stock traders did, creating a melee that will shut down the entrance.
Lobbyists scurrying to grab dollar bills is an apt metaphor for what’s happening during the shutdown. They are here meeting with the Congresspersons they supported financially during the elections to create or protect federal laws that boost their profits.
“The legislative pressure-cooker created by self-inflicted deadlines and crises like the fiscal cliff, the shutdown and the debt limit are the worst way to write legislation. Corporate lobbyists are here to take advantage of the situation. That’s how we got the Monsanto Protection Act in March. We’re here to try to stop that kind of thing from happening again,” said Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association, dressed for the day as Jennetta Kontamy-Nashun, Biotechnology Industry Awards Committee lobbyist.
Monsanto, the target of the anti-GMO activists’ ire, is a company that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign donations in each election cycle and millions of dollars every year lobbying. In exchange, Congress subsidizes its genetically engineered food and makes sure it isn’t labeled or safety-tested.
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'No Monsanto!': World marches against GMO food
Published time: October 12, 2013 19:06
Edited time: October 13, 2013 01:44
Edited time: October 13, 2013 01:44
Activists
carry signs during a protest against chemical giant Monsanto in Durban
on October 12, 2013. (AFP Photo / Rajesh Jantilal)Thousands took to streets across the world’s cities on Saturday to protest the use of GMO products, with Giant Monsanto being the main target. Over 50 countries have been taking part in the march for world food day, and across 47 different US states.
Berlin, Strasbourg, Chicago, London, Sydney and Mumbai are just a few of the 500 cities worldwide involved in the rallies, with each one drawing hundreds.
The demonstrators have been calling for the permanent boycott of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and “other harmful agro-chemicals,” according to March Against Monsanto’s official webpage. Protesters wielded large banners denouncing GMO products, and donned fancy dress: In Washington DC a group dressed as bees to highlight the impact of insecticides on bee populations.
Anti-GMO
(genetically modified foods) protestors put a chain at the site
entrance of US seed company Monsanto on October 12, 2013 during a day of
action against the company, in Monbequi, southern France. Banner (R)
reads: "No to a world according to Monsanto". (AFP Photo / Pascal
Pavani)In Berlin, people expressed displeasure at the food giant for a number of reasons, ranging from long-term health concerns to the chemicals used in Monsanto products.
“There a Smartstax corn that Monsanto has made…it is a corn that resists six different types of herbicide, so you can spray it with six different chemicals and it won’t die,” Heidi Ostermannm, a nutritionist participating in the Berlin march told RT.
“It also produces two insecticides in its own kernels and you can’t wash it off – I don’t even know if technically that’s food. In my mind as a nutritionist, that’s no longer food,” she said.
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