9 December 2001
RE: HYPE, HOPE AND BETRAYING THE HUNGRY
Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 20:26:32 +0000
From: "premilla dixit" <premdixit@hotmail.com>
To: ngin@icsenglish.com
Dear Friends,
We all know the last time 'world' agriculture "fed the poor", the "poor" owned their land, fed themselves AND FED US.
THEY ARE STILL FEEDING US.... BUT WE HAVE LEARNED TO NOT MERELY TO BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS US BUT TO DEGRADE, DEHUMANIZE AND 'DISAPPEAR' THEM. These nameless, faceless, historyless members of our species are mere shadows on the edges of our thriving.
WE HAVE PLACED THEM THERE, so we may, with impunity, CONSUME THEIR LIVES --not merely the product of their labor-- even as WE PRETEND our lives are dedicated to --feed the people who feed us.
What hurts most, is that the few among us who seem to have a shred of conscience left, cannot be trusted, when put in places of high responsibility, to exercise this charge in the interest of undoing this horrible reality.
USDA Secy. of Agriculture Dan Glickman is a case in point. What is the meaning of his confession:"What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn't good because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you're against it, you're Luddites, you're stupid. There was rhetoric like that even here in this department. You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view on some of the issues being raised. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric that everybody else around here spouted; it was written into my speeches"- Dan Glickman, quoted in "OUTGOING SECRETARY SAYS AGENCY'S TOP ISSUE IS.GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 25, 2001.
So just why did Dan "pretty much spout the rhetoric.. everybody else around here spouted", because it was : "immoral" or "luddite" or merely expedient because "it was written into my speeches"? WHAT DID YOU REALLY THINK, DAN ?
I replay Dan Glickman's 'addmission' in other words...:I was unable, entrusted with the very serious office of the USA SECY OF AGRICULTURE, the most powerful office anyone could hold in GLOBAL AGRICULTURE, an office whose policies I know HAVE A VERY DECIDED EFFECT on the fate of people and the planet, to stop an unproven and dubious so-called science, which I suspect is potentially a serious threat to the very WEB OF LIFE WE CALL THE FOOD-CHAIN, because someone had written my support of it into my speech! Also, I did not want to be accused of being a Luddite for opposing it. Also, I did not wish to be called immoral for opposing it. I DID NOT LET THE AMERICAN PEOPLE and the people of the world know about my crisis of confidence in my own convictions and character while I was in office, because I feared losing my job. It was a good job, I liked the power and prestige, and I have also have a family to feed you know. I can speak candidly now because my conscience is troubled and I need to make peace with myself. It is now up to you to do something about it.
Could Glickman atleast now gather his courage and come forth more visibly and relentlessly to right the wrongs he aided and abetted?
May Life give him courage,
Premilla
---
"There are 800 million hungry people in the world; 34,000 children
starve to death every day. There are those who consider this a tragedy,
and then there are the biotech companies and their countless PR firms,
who seem to consider it a flawless hook for product branding. It is an
insult of the highest and most grotesque order to turn those who live from
day to day into the centerpiece of an elaborate lie. ...the companies
who make [GE foods], and the flacks who hawk their falsehoods, offer us
a new definition of depravity, a new standard to plunge for in our race
to care least, want more, and divest ourselves of all shame."
- Michael Manville - Welcome to the Spin Machine
http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/2001/04/biotech/