Monsanto

[Clara T]

History
The Monsanto company was created in 1901 by John Francis Queeny (photo ()). Named after his wife, Olga Mendez Monsanto, the name Monsanto has since, for many around the world, come to symbolize the greed, arrogance, scandal and hardball business practices of too many multinational corporations. A couple of historical factoids not generally known: Monsanto was heavily involved during WWII in the creation of the first nuclear bomb for the Manahttan Project via its facilities in Dayton Ohio and called the Dayton Project headed by Charlie Thomas, Director of Monsanto's Central Research Department (and later Monsanto President) <1> (http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev25-34/chapter2.shtml) <2> (http://books.nap.edu/books/0309050375/html/338.html) and it operated a nuclear facility for the federal government in Miamisburg, also in Ohio, called the Mound Project until the 80s. Also "In 1967, Monsanto entered into a joint venture with IG Farben" "It is the German chemical firm that was the financial core of the Hitler regime, and was the main supplier of Zyklon-B to the German government during the extermination phase of the Holocaust" <3> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben)<4> (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=3960); IG Farben was not dissolved until 2003. For a short Monsanto history see <5> (http://stlcin.missouri.org/history/peopledetail.cfm?Master_ID=1826).

Monsanto and the pollution of Anniston, Alabama
In the Washington Post article (Jan 1, 2002) "Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution PCBs Drenched Ala. Town, But No One Was Ever Told" a grim story of Monsanto's treacherous behavior in Anniston Alabama was revealed. It is summed up in this chilling paragraph: "They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew." <6> (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A46648-2001Dec31) <7> (http://www.chemicalindustryarchives.org/dirtysecrets/annistonindepth/intro.asp) For more click here Monsanto and the pollution of Anniston, Alabama.

The Roundup Ready Controversy
(Note: In addition to the issues raised on this page, there are a host of other concerns with genetic modification. Furthermore, the issues and statistics in the fast-paced biotech world are ever in flux. The reader is encouraged to visit the other websites below for more and up-to-date info.)

Monsanto is considered the Mother of agricultural biotech. Their "Roundup Ready" crops have been genetically engineered to allow direct application of the Monsanto herbicide glyphosate allowing farmers to drench both their crops and crop land with the herbicide so as to be able to kill nearby weeds without killing the crops (3). "RR soybeans are heavily herbicide dependent" <8> (http://www.mindfully.org/GE/RRS-Yield-Drag.htm)<9> (http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE2/RRS-Troubled-Benbrook.htm) says Charles M. Benbrook, an expert in the field. For more click here Monsanto and the Roundup Ready Controversy.

Terminator Technology
Monsanto also came under heavy public fire with their "Terminator Technology", a.k.a. "suicide seeds", in which they developed and planned to market seeds that, after one season's growth would not germinate again forcing farmers around the world to buy their seed from them every year rather than saving their best seed for the next years planting, a traditional and economical practice <10> (http://www.grainfields.com/monsanto/savingseedsbringslawsuits.html). Seed saving has had the benefit of allowing farmers to continually improve the quality of their crops through careful artificial selection. Fears were also expressed that Monsanto's terminator genes could spread to wild plants. In 1999 Monsanto called the program off, however there are disturbing indications that they may be planning to resurrect it. <11> (http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/promise042403.cfm) <12> (http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=389)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto#History

[Clara T]

1. MONSANTO'S MANAGEMENT

MONSANTO'S MANAGEMENT


Charles Thomas served as Clinton Laboratories project director from 1945 to 1947. He later became president of the American Chemical Society and the Monsanto Company.
During the war, security concerns required officials to refer to Clinton Laboratories by its code name, X-10. The personnel of Monsanto Chemical Company, the new operating contractor, continued this practice in the postwar years. The remote Appalachian location of Clinton Laboratories, along with unpaved streets and spartan living conditions, presented an easy target for ridicule. Metallurgical Laboratory personnel in Chicago called X-10 "Down Under," while Du Pont personnel labeled it the "Gopher Training School." In official telegrams, Monsanto's staff referred to Oak Ridge as "Dogpatch," taking their cue from Li'l Abner, a popular comic strip lampooning "hillbilly" Appalachian life. Such ill-concealed scorn did not bode well either for postwar Monsanto administration or Laboratory research. (See related article, From Installation Dog to Katy's Kitchen.)

The choice of Monsanto as contract operator of Clinton Laboratories seemed logical because of the Laboratories' focus on chemistry and chemical technology. Monsanto was also interested in becoming a key player in nuclear reactor development. Charles Thomas, Monsanto vice president, was the driving force behind the company's entry into nuclear science. A famous chemist, Thomas had established a laboratory at Dayton, Ohio, that Monsanto purchased in 1936, making it the company's central research laboratory. (See related article, Promethium Unbound: A New Element.)

In 1943, General Groves gave Thomas and Monsanto responsibility for fabricating nuclear triggers at the Dayton laboratory. When Thomas also agreed to supervise the operation of Clinton Laboratories in 1945, he merged both facilities into a single project and appointed himself project director, although he kept his main office at Monsanto's corporate headquarters in St. Louis.


James Lum became executive director of Clinton Laboratories in 1945.
When Whitaker and Doan left Oak Ridge, Thomas decided to establish a dual directorship at Clinton Laboratories with both directors reporting to him. For executive director in charge of general administration and operations, he selected James Lum, who had assisted him in managing the Dayton laboratory. As Lum's assistant, he brought in Prescott Sandidge, who had managed Monsanto phosphate and munitions plants.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev25-34/chapter2.shtml

[Clara T]

2. In 1967, Monsanto entered into a joint venture with IG Farben.

IG Farben

IG Farben trademarkIG Farben (short for Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG) (and also called I.G. Farbenfabriken) was a German conglomerate of companies formed in 1925 and even earlier during World War I. Farben is German for "paints", "dyes", or "colors", and initially many of these companies produced dyes, but soon began to embrace more and more advanced chemistry. The founding of the IG Farben was a reaction to Germany's defeat in the First World War. IG Farben held a near total monopoly on the chemical production, later during the time of Nazi Germany. It is the German chemical firm that was the financial core of the Hitler regime, and was the main supplier of Zyklon-B to the German government during the extermination phase of the Holocaust. Before the war the dyestuff companies had a near monopoly in the world market which they lost during the conflict. One solution for regaining this position was a large merger.


During the planning of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, IG Farben cooperated closely with the Nazi officials and directed which chemical plants should be secured and delivered to IG Farben.
In 1941, investigation exposed a "marriage" between Standard Oil Co. and I.G. Farben. It also brought new evidence concerning complex price and marketing agreements between duPont, a major investor in and producer of leaded gasoline, U.S. Industrial Alcohol Co. and their subsidiary, Cuba Distilling Co. The investigation was eventually dropped, like dozens of others in many different kinds of industries, due to the need to enlist industry support in the war effort. However, the top directors of many oil companies agreed to resign and oil industry stocks in molasses companies were sold off as part of a compromise worked out.

IG Farben built a factory for producing synthetic oil and rubber (from coal) in Auschwitz, which was the beginning of SS activity and camps in this location during the Holocaust. At its peak in 1944, this factory made use of 83,000 slave laborers. The pesticide Zyklon B, for which IG Farben held the patent and which was used in the gas chambers for mass murder, was manufactured by Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung), a company owned equal 42.2 percent in shares by IG Farben and which had IG managers in its Managing Committee.

Due to the severity of the war crimes committed by IG Farben during World War II and the extensive involvement of the management in the Nazi atrocities, the company was considered to be too corrupt to be allowed to continue to exist, and the allies considered confiscating all of its assets and putting it out of business. Instead, in 1951, the company was split up into the original constituent companies. The four largest quickly bought the smaller ones, and today only Agfa, BASF, and Bayer remain, while Hoechst merged with the French Rhône-Poulenc Rorer to form Aventis, now based in Strasbourg, France.

After the Holocaust, I.G. Farben joined with Americans to develop chemical warfare agents. Together they founded the "Chemagrow Corporation" in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chemagrow Corporation employed German and American specialists for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. Dr. Otto Bayer was I.G. Farben's research director. He developed and tested chemical warfare agents with Dr. Gerhard Schrader.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben

[bobthedrummer]

10. Some interesting facts regarding Bayer and DHSS.

Bayer was facing problems and possible lawsuits in August 2001 concerning defective products.

Former DHSS Sect. Tommy Thompson hired Jerome Hauer from SAIC on 9/10/2001. Hauer is a biological warfare specialist.

Immediately after 9/11, but well before any indications of a possible anthrax attack ( or any other biological attack at all) Thompson and Hauer promoted the use of Bayer's Cipro in the federal government.

Thompson purchased 300 million doses of Cipro from Bayer.

How did Thompson and Hauer have the foresight to promote the use of Bayer's Cipro, which is specifically for anthrax, well before the eventual anthrax attacks?

No one has ever been charged in the anthrax attacks-we don't hear about the status of those investigations today either.

Hauer was promoted to be in charge of Public Health against biological attacks.

Thompson bragged about his negotiating skills with Bayer for the 300 million doses of Cipro while innocent Postal Service employees were exposed in HOT ZONES and other victims infected.

It gets even murkier when we consider the facts about clandestinely recruited Nazis working in national security related positions and finding a political home in the RW of the Republican Party-but that is another coincidence.

[Kellanved]

13. unlikely

It seems that IG Farben is being used in the article to show a connection to Nazi Germany. Most likely the Joint-Venture was with one of the post IG-Farben companies and not with IG Farben itself.

[mb7588a]

3. There's a good clip

in the movie "The Corporation" about these bastards.

I reckon it was about antibiotics in milk?

[Clara T]

5. Labeling Issues, Revolving Doors, rBGH and Bribery

Labeling Issues, Revolving Doors, rBGH and Bribery
An issue of growing concern is the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods <35> (http://www.thecampaign.org/). Many have questioned why it is that while consumers in Europe have the right to know through labeling which foods contain GM ingredients and thus to make an informed choice consumers in the United States, purportedly the bastion of freedom, democracy and the "free market" in the world are denied this same right. Polls indicate that the great majority of Americans who are aware of the issue want labels <36> (http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/newpoll102303.cfm). Attempts to accomplish some kind of labeling have repeatedly been rebuffed due to tremendous opposition from biotech, which fear loss of sales if people know <37> (http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Pages/grain/news/newsarchive/02biotechnews/020919bionews3.html) <38> (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-10-09-genetic-labels_x.htm). In 2002 Oregon tried and failed to pass just such a labeling initiative (Measure 27). The campaign cited big money and misinformation propagated by biotech as contributing to the defeat <39> (http://www.voteyeson27.com/campaign_statement.htm). For more click here Labeling Issues, Revolving Doors, rBGH, Bribery and Monsanto.

Monsanto and Fox: Partners in Censorship
Courtesy of Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

By all accounts, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson are tough, bulldog reporters--the sort of journalists you'd expect to make some enemies along the way.

That, according to Florida TV station WTVT, was why it hired the husband-and-wife team with much fanfare in November 1996 to head the station's "news investigative unit." Now, in the wake of their firing barely a year later, the Fox network affiliate is accusing them of theft for daring to independently publish the script of the story that they were never allowed to air. For more see Monsanto and Fox: Partners in Censorship.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monsanto recently made news when it decided to withdraw its GM wheat from the market due to worldwide opposition. <40> (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1213958,00.html) Environmental risks (http://www.worc.org/pdfs/WheatCWBEnviroReportJune2003.pdf) of GM wheat.

California's Mendocino County as of March 2, 2004 became the first county in the nation to ban the growing of genetically altered crops and animals <41> (http://www.gmofreemendo.com/press_releases/2004-03-03.html) via ballot Measure H despite a massive campaign against it from the usual suspects.

Monsanto was the creator of several attractions in Disney's Tommorrowland <42> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Sponsorships). Often they revolved around the the virtues of chemicals and plastics. Their "House of the Future" was constructed entirely of plastic, but biodegradable it was not. "After attracting a total of 20 million visitors from 1957 to 1967, Disney finally tore the house down, but discovered it would not go down without a fight. According to Monsanto Magazine, wrecking balls literally bounced off the glass-fiber, reinforced polyester material. Torches, jackhammers, chain saws and shovels did not work. Finally, choker cables were used to squeeze off parts of the house bit by bit to be trucked away" <43> (http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Monsanto-Disneyland-HomeoftheFuture.htm). However another of their synthetic inventions, Astroturf, survives.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto#Labeling_Issues.2C_Revolving_Doors.2C_rBGH_and_Bribery

[Clara T]

4. Genetic Pollution a deliberate strategy?

Genetic Pollution a deliberate strategy?
Organic farms are increasingly finding that via cross-pollination their pure food has been contaminated with GM DNA thus ruining their businesses <18> (http://www.saveorganicfood.org/information.php#threat) <19> (http://www.biotech-info.net/inevitable.html). "In 2002, Ontario farmer Alex Nurnberg had tests conducted on his 100-ton harvest of organic corn. Twenty tons were found to be contaminated by GMOs, which Nurnberg believes were blown by the wind from the corn on a neighboring farm. 'I was not ready for it. I feel such a wrath about it,' says Nurnberg" <20> (http://www.saveorganicfood.org/). For more see here Monsanto and Genetic Pollution.

G.M. Trees and Grasses
Food crops are not the only area Monsanto and others have hoped to cash in on with their technology, also with frightening consequences, a range of genetically engineered "designer" trees and forests are also high on their list.

From trees modified to withstand Monsanto's Roundup to trees designed with a reduced lignin content (it's lignin that gives trees their strength and rigidity) to appeal to the paper making and construction industry to "terminator trees" which don't produce seeds. This has met with fierce resistance from activists and scientists alike, but again, to no avail <21> (http://www.stopgetrees.org/staticpages/index.php?page=20040818172848846) <22> (http://elonmerkki.net/forestforum/uk/index.html) <23> (http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/old_growth/wakeup/gmo.html) <24> (http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/trees.asp). Already there has been a contamination issue with the GE papaya tree, the world's first commercially planted genetically engineered tree, which enraged local farmers in Hawaii <25> (http://www.stopgetrees.org/). For more see Monsanto and Genetically Engineered Trees.

The Indian Suicides
Farmers in India are finding that the "biotechnology revolution" is having a devastating effect on their crop lands and personal debt levels. "In 1998, the World Bank's structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds which needed fertilizers and pesticides and could not be saved" Says Vandana Shiva, leader of the movement to oust Monsanto from India. For more see here Monsanto in India

Mexican Maize Mischief
Monsanto has employed (http://www.bivings.com/what_others_say/what_others_say.html) the services of a firm called Bivings Group which used a phony e-mail campaign to persuade the prestigious science journal Nature to retract the Chapela and Quist paper finding that GM maize had escaped into Mexico - the first time in the publication´s 133 year history that it had ever retracted a paper <26> (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,715153,00.html) <27> (http://search.guardian.co.uk/search97cgi/s97networkr_cgi?QueryText=bivings&Action=Search&Collection=archive_artifact&ResultTemplate=Archive_Artifact.hts&SortSpec=VdkPublicationDate+Desc) see also Monsanto's World Wide Web of Deceit (http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit_index.html). The architect of the deception is thought by some to have been Monsanto´s Jay Byrne who was also active in attempts to shut down web sites critical of Monsanto <28> (http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=27) see also Biotech's Hall of Mirrors (http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/16-2matthews.html).

Chapela and Quist have since been vindicated as it turns out that GM maize has indeed invaded Mexico. Says Science 3/1/2002 "Surprisingly, even Quist and Chapela's most strident critics agree with one of their central points: Illicit transgenic maize may well be growing in Mexico.... At a 23 January meeting in Mexico City, CINVESTAV official Elleli Huerta presented preliminary PCR findings indicating that transgenic promoters, mostly CaMV 35S, were present in about 12% of the plants. In some areas, up to 35.8% of the grain contained foreign sequences, INE scientific adviser Sol Ortiz Garcia told Science last week." "This is the world's worst case of contamination by genetically modified material because it happened in the place of origin of a major crop. It is confirmed. There is no doubt about it." Jorge Soberón Secretary of Mexico's National Biodiversity Commission told the London Daily Telegraph, April 19, 2002 <29> (http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2002/sp02v8n2.html#notes). See also <30> (http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=410). Also see CARMA International and this Spinwatch article on the Congress of Racial Equality (http://www.spinwatch.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=344) for more on Monsanto's PR tactics.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto#Genetic_Pollution_a_deliberate_strategy.3F

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. MonSatan. Self interest at the expense of any and all others. nt

[dennisnyc]

7. Monsanto has expanded into the vegetable seed business, too.

Be aware of where your vegetable garden seeds are coming from!

"In January 2005 Monsanto announced that they were buying Seminis for $1.4 billion in cash and assumed debt. Noted for its aggressive advocacy of genetically modified crops and its dominance in biotechnology, Monsanto will now have a major presence in the vegetable seed business for the first time. No one knows if or when they will incorporate transgenes into their vegetable varieties."

Seminis is a major supplier of seeds to many seed companies!

check out www.fedcoseeds.com Fedco has dropped all Monsantl/Seminis seeds for year 2007 and are marking their remaining stock in the 2006 catalog!

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/monsanto.htm for more information

[Clara T]

8. Monsanto as well as other Pharma giants

have been aggressively pursuing seed co. acquisitions and now own a phenomenal % of seed cos.

The future of food is in our hands. We must resist the Gene Giants in every way possible as if our lives depended on this, for it does. Literally.

www.highmowingseeds.com

[TroubleMan]

9. K&R...Monsanto is one of the most evil companies, ever.

Their terminator seed actually threatens the lives of millions of people.

[leftchick]

11. "Round-Up" Should have been banned 15 years ago....

we will see more and more cancers because of this herbicide. These people are fucking criminals.

[Clara T]

18. Glyphosate Efficacy is Slipping and Unstable Transgene Expression

Troubled Times Amid Commercial Success for Roundup Ready Soybeans
Glyphosate Efficacy is Slipping and Unstable Transgene Expression Erodes Plant Defenses and Yields
Dr. Charles M. Benbrook / Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Center, Sandpoint Idaho 3may01
AgBioTech InfoNet Technical Paper Number 4



2. Inserting transgenes into major plant metabolic pathways is a risky proposition that is likely to lead to unanticipated consequences, especially when plants are stressed by unusual weather, pests, or infertile or imbalanced soils.

When plants are stressed, transgene expression may be silenced or otherwise disrupted as a secondary consequence of the plant's normal physiological response to the source (or sources) of stress. Even modest and short-term depression in the production of key regulatory aromatic amino acids in RR soybean varieties can tip the competitive edge toward opportunistic pathogens.
Once pathogens gain a head start, the plant will have to invest energy in fighting them back and containing their spread. This diversion of energy sometimes extracts an irrevocable yield penalty, despite the fact that the plants and the harvested soybeans appear perfectly normal and "substantially equivalent" upon harvest at the end of the season.

3. The lack of independent research on the ecological, agronomic and plant defense consequences of RR soybeans, until well after regulatory approvals and widespread market penetration, blindsided regulators and has heightened the vulnerability of farmers.

It is remarkable that over 100 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans were planted in America before publication in 2001 of the first university data documenting the sometimes serious depression of nitrogen fixation in RR soybean fields.

Ignorance creates a false sense of security and sets the stage for trouble. The U.S. regulatory system is better at avoiding problems that dealing with them once a technology is entrenched, with profits and market share to defend. In the case of RR soybeans, the regulatory system's ability to ferret out risks and resolve uncertainties was, in effect, silenced because regulators had little to go on in formulating questions.

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE2/RRS-Troubled-Benbrook.htm

Go here to make a difference
www.highmowingseeds.com

Or here: www.seedsaversexchange.com

We will plant the seeds of life ourselves so the seeds of death sown by Monsanto wither in the wind.

[leftchick]

24. thank you for the links Clara

:hi:

[nosmokes]

12. thanks for posting this clara t!

this is why organics and fighting to maintain high standards for the organic label are so important. every day it seems another study reveals another potential problem with the prevalence of pesticides in our world today, from low testosterone levels in males to higher breast cancer rates in women of child bearing age, and that's just the headlines i saw yesterday or the day before. withe peak oil here or juyst around the corner we need a change of how we look at things, especially the important stuff like where and how we get our food and our clothes and our electricity and building supplies.

eat/buy local
eat/buy organic
eat/buy fair trade

break the chains!

[bobthedrummer]

14. kick

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Monsanto. The lovely people who brought us Agent Orange.

[texpatriot2004]

16. Monsanto is EVIL! nm

[Greyhound]

17. The poster-boy for execrable corporate amorality.

Again, ignorance is the only explanation I can conceive of to excuse the continued existence of this, and many other corporations.

[G_j]

19. Bush & Monsanto

http://www.purefood.org/Monsanto/MonBushAdmin.cfm
http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Lbushmonsanto.htm

BUSH AND MONSANTO
***************************

The information below is from Robert Cohen, Executive Director of the Dairy Education Board. (http://www.notmilk.com). It shows how the corporations control our government so as to continue to dilute and even poison our food supply in the name of profit.
<snip>

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT
Monsanto's lawyer was appointed to the Supreme Court by George Bush, Sr. The deciding swing voter gave the election to George, Jr. That justice: Clarence Thomas, Esq.

SECOND
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals, purchased by Monsanto.

THIRD
Ann Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture, was on the board of directors of Calgene Pharmaceuticals, purchased by Monsanto.

FOURTH
Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health, was a supporter of Monsanto in Wisconsin. He received $50,000 from biotech firms is his election run, and used state funds to set up a $317 million biotech zone in Wisconsin.

FIFTH
Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was the vice president of corporate strategy at Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company. Eli Lilly and Monsanto developed the genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. Lilly "owns" the European "franchise." Daniels' presence insures that the bovine growth hormone will one day be approved for use in Europe.

SIXTH
The House of Representatives Agriculture Committee Chairman, Larry Combest (R-TX), named Richard Pombo to head Agriculture's dairy, livestock, and poultry sub-committee. Pombo will have enormous power in chairing this committee. In 1994, the Dairy Committee considered a bill that would label milk and milk products containing the genetically engineered hormone. The Dairy Committee stalled the proposed bill until the 1994 elections. When the 1994 session of Congress expired, the bill died. It was never even voted upon. A subsequent investigation of Pombo revealed that he accepted money directly from Monsanto while voting on a bill that impacted Monsanto's future, and the future of biotechnology.

SEVENTH
Last, but not least. John Ashcroft, Attorney General. The one man out of 535 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate receiving the greatest amount of financial support from Monsanto. He received five times the amount of money as the congressman finishing second.

Where do Americans finish in this stranger than fiction real-life drama?
Last.

[Clara T]

20. Agribusiness, Biotechnology, and War

Agribusiness, Biotechnology, and War
Ending destructive technologies

By Brian Tokar

Virtually all of the new, technology-based industries of the past century have been products of wartime. World War I ushered in the widespread use of mechanization and the beginnings of aviation. World War II brought us nuclear power, modern rocketry, and cybernetics. The corporate giants of the automobile, chemical, and electronics industries all made massive fortunes profiting from war and helping fuel the 20th century’s unending arms race.

While some may view the growth of these industries as social benefits emerging from warfare—just as we were instructed during the 1960s and 1970s that we should be grateful for the space program because it brought us Teflon—critics of technology advance a more skeptical view. Technologies are rarely neutral “tools” that can be applied equally to socially useful or destructive ends. Technologies are embedded in their particular social matrix. The priorities that shape the design and implementation of a given technology will significantly determine what ends it may or may not be used to advance. Therefore technologies designed to advance wartime agendas may become the means by which those agendas are entrenched in other social domains.

The case is most compelling where technologies have been developed to advance very specific capitalist priorities. Since the 19th century, for example, new technologies have been introduced into manufacturing in order to minimize the need for highly skilled—and often well organized—workers. In one instance, Cyrus McCormick’s son introduced pneumatic molding machines at exorbitant cost into the plant that manufactured his father’s famous reapers, even though this innovation increased production costs and decreased the quality of iron castings. The goal was to facilitate replacing unionized iron workers with unskilled, unorganized labor.

This pattern continued throughout the 20th century. Historian David Noble has documented in detail how design choices governing new semiautomated machine tool technologies after World War II were made to both repress labor militancy and advance Cold War military agendas. This was the beginning of the “permanent war economy” in the U.S., and also the period when military norms of “command and control” became most firmly entrenched in industrial production, transforming industrial design practices for at least a generation. In agriculture, hybrid seeds were introduced to farmers on a large scale in the 1930s, and a rapid increase in crop yields soon followed. But other innovations in plant breeding and cultivation were equally available at the time that may have offered even greater benefits for farmers; the alternatives, however, were far less amenable to creating commercial monopolies in marketable seeds.

When we examine how our food is grown today, it becomes clear that most of the chemical “tools” taken for granted by modern agribusiness are products of warfare. Is this an indirect consequence of the tragic history of the 20th century or does it suggest that the currently dismal state of our soils, fresh water supplies, and rural economies is an outgrowth of agribusiness’s emergence from wartime in some important ways? Virtually all of the leading companies that brought us chemical fertilizers and pesticides made their greatest fortunes during wartime. How can this help us understand the ever-deteriorating quality of mass produced food? What does it tell us about the new technologies of genetic manipulation that every one of these companies posits as the centerpiece of the current generation of crop “improvement” technologies?

http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/sep02tokar.html

[G_j]

21. it is worth thinking about these connections

I was just thinking about the recent revelations about Teflon.

another good article from Z-Mag
they have some great stuff!

[Clara T]

22. A look into Monsanto's connection with IG Farben is revealing

No Gods ~ No Masters

Corporate Chemists From Hell

Farben was Hitler and Hitler was Farben. (Senator Homer T. Bone to Senate Committee on Military Affairs, June 4, 1943.)
One of the great business success stories of the twentieth century was that of the German chemical industry. It was also the story of how a mighty industrial behemoth called I G Farben came close to dominating the world.

IG Farben (short for Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG) (and also called I.G. Farbenfabriken) was a German conglomerate of companies formed in 1925, with some having their origins in the First World War. Farben is German for "paints", "dyes", or "colors", and initially many of these companies produced dyes, but soon began to branch out in to more complex fields of chemistry. The founding of the IG Farben Company was primarily a reaction to Germany's defeat in the First World War. IG Farben eventually came to hold a near total monopoly on the chemical production during the era of the Third Reich. It was the German chemical firm that was the financial focal point of the Hitler regime and the principal supplier of poison gas to the Nazi racial extermination program. Before the war the dyestuff companies had a near monopoly in the world market which they ultimately lost as a result of the ultimate defeat of Germany.

<snip>

Moreover, shortly after the War I.G. Farben joined with Americans to develop chemical warfare agents. Together they founded the "Chemagrow Corporation" in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chemagrow Corporation employed German and American specialists for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. Dr. Otto Bayer was I.G. Farben's research director. He developed and tested chemical warfare agents with Dr. Gerhard Schrader.

Subsequently in 1967, Monsanto entered also into a joint venture with IG Farben.

The twenty-four directors were the ones dubbed ‘the devil’s chemists’. Yet the accused were not Nazis, nor even extremists. They were sober businessmen, engineers and scientists of great intellect and distinction. When their government called upon them to help the war effort, they responded - just as they had to calls for help from operas and art galleries, even charities in happier times.

They had not broken any laws - they had just tried to do what they were designed to do – make as much money as possible. But, in the process, did they break any moral law?

For a more extensive history of I G Farben and relevant related events before and subsequent to the Second World War be sure to read Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler which can be read online at:

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/

More Here:http://www.skeptic.ca/Corporate_Chemists_From_Hell.htm

[G_j]

23. 'Suicide Seeds' Could Spell Death of Peasant Agriculture, UN Meeting Told

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0126-07.htm

Published on Thursday, January 26, 2006 by OneWorld.net

'Suicide Seeds' Could Spell Death of Peasant Agriculture, UN Meeting Told
by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS - Groups fighting for the rights of peasant communities are stepping up pressure on governments to ban the use of genetically modified ''suicide seeds'' at UN-sponsored talks on biodiversity in Spain this week.
''This technology is an assault on the traditional knowledge, innovation, and practices of local and indigenous communities,'' said Debra Harry, executive director of the U.S.-based Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism.

The group is among organizations urging United Nations experts to recommend that governments adopt tough laws against field testing and selling Terminator technology, which refers to plants that have had their genes altered so that they render sterile seeds at harvest. Because of this trait, some activists call Terminator products ''suicide seeds.''

Developed by multinational agribusinesses and the U.S. government, Terminator has the effect of preventing farmers from saving or replanting seeds from one growing season to the next.

The product is being tested in greenhouses throughout the United States. Opponents fear it is likely to be marketed soon unless governments impose a ban.

''Terminator seeds will become a commercial reality unless governments take action to prevent it,'' said Hope Shand of the Canada-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration (ETC Group).


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