I'm sure there aren't many who believe Billo when he advocates using
glyphosate as table salt, nor nearly as apt to believe safety statistics
generated by people hired away from Philip Morris to whitewash glyphosate
as tidily as they previously whitewashed cigarettes. I'm also sure not
many people would trust any statement generated by Monsanto researchers,
once aprised that of their long & continuing history of lying & falsifying
data, their thirty years of insisting agent orange was as safe as
glyphosate is now being only the tip of the iceberg. The more recent issue
of their claiming bovine growth hormone does not remain in the milk you &
I buy was based on data revealed to be falsified.

But even knowing nothing Monsanto claims can be relied upon, and at best
it is wrong, dangerous, & unnecessary to use RoundUp, people use it
anyway, a mite guiltily, perhaps furtively, but the endless need to weed
the garden wears some gardeners down, and maybe just this once, just this
tenth, just this spot, just this weed -- and it's just impossible to set
foot in a garden store without being tempted by toxins that promise easy
shortcuts for this or that.

Would it change anything to know that Monsanto is politically active
against free speech? Because they are.

By means of lobbying & paying huge amounts of money to Congress, Monsanto
was handed a special law that made it illegal to mention on organic
products such as milk or corn flour that it is completely free of
genetically engineered products. Armed with this special legistlation
written specifically for Monsanto, so that stating mere facts is
criminalized, they have gotten the government involved in suppressing
factual labeling. They simultaneously going into civil courts to sue
organic farmers out of business -- because even if Monsanto loses, they
can better afford the legal costs -- whenever any advertisement or
newspaper editorial or commentary of any kind implies even indirectly that
genetically engineered products or bovine growth hormones (major Monsanto
products) might be less than ideal. The goal is to stop farmers from even
mentioning if their products are free of GM products, and using as their
premise the idea that even to mention its lack implies that its inclusion
is harmful therefore they have a civil suit for slandering their products.
They really don't care if they're wrong or right; they just want to stop
the discussion and honest labeling; they want to stop organic farming
because their profits hinge on the success of chemical-dependant farmers;
& they want the public to be as unaware as they can possibly keep people.

So even if Billo weren't being absurdist when stating glyphosate could be
safely used as table salt and good science about glyphosate can be had
from the same hired guns who previously whitewashed tobacco... even if
that were in some alternate universe actually plausible, even then, we
should not support a company that is against free speech.

Fox TV, lately trying to sue Al Frank out of his constitutional write to
satirize Fox TV, is also joining forces with Monsanto to stop free speech
about genetically engineered products:
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/fox.html
And you thought only in their trashiest "news" editorials were they
far-right Republicans.

Here's a legal expert's take on Monsanto's ongoing assaults on free speech:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/comment...4_jackson.html
The important statement to take out of this is: THE MONSANTO SUIT
UNDERMINES FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. Period.

I remember organic farmers being sued by Monsanto as long ago as fifteen
years, when I was a volunteer at the Food Coop and first became aware of
their more sinister tactics in trying to stop organic farming by whatever
tactics they could concoct. So this is nothing new, andtheir current
attempts to drown a small New England dairy in legal costs for selling
growth-hormone-free milk is merely the latest of hundreds of campaigns
Monsanto has undertaken. It's about time one of these disgusting acts
against small, honest farmers became a cause celebre, & Monsanto seems
finally to have awakened the wrath of civil rights attorneys.

If I don't want bovine growth hormones in my milk, I should be permitted
the right to select an organic product that has none. In almost any other
country this information is available, and some countries have even banned
these Frankenfood hormone-tainted products for human consumption. But in
the good ol' USA, Monsanto was able to pay Congress to back their desire
to criminalize merely stating genetically engineered products and hormones
are not used. Monsanto's claim that the growth hormone is safer than table
salt is beside the point. The claim is itself highly questionable & they
Monsanto was caught (again!) in the this past year falsifying data about
this hormone. But even if it WAS completely safe, I should be permitted
the right to select products without growth hormone if I want, whether
from paranoia, over caution, because I hope for better treatment of cows
than occurs on chmically-boosted factory lines, or because my religion
doesn't permit it. By Monsanto's reasoning it could become illegal to
mention a product lacks PORK because to mention it contains pork implies
it is unhealthful. I sure as hell don't want to eat pork because the pork
industry got the kind of special laws Monsanto has been given that would
deny me the right to know what has pork in it, with the pork industry
suing kosher restaurants the way Monsanto is suing organic farmers.

Make no mistake. These people are not satisfied merely to poison you for
profits. They want to take away your civil rights as well. The people who
lied about Agent Orange will lie about everything. And there's nothing
liars hate more than the truth, as the light of truth always shows them
out to have none on their side.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/