It’s Time to Break Up Monsanto

From Food Democracy Now…

Last year the Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Agriculture held a series of 5 hearings investigating anti-competitive practices in the food and agricultural sectors. The hearings were historic and gave a vital opportunity for hundreds of thousands of America’s farmers, agricultural workers and citizens to call for an end to agribusiness’ excessive monopoly power. ¹

Last December, Food Democracy Now! delivered more than 200,000 citizen comments to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney with your demands to break up the worst abusers. ²

Nowhere are these abuses more prevalent than in the extreme market share enjoyed by the seed and chemical company Monsanto, which has a virtual stranglehold on seed supplies in crucial sectors that has severely limited farmers’ choice in what seeds they can buy. Monsanto’s control of the seed market is so high that 93% of soybeans, 82% of corn, 93% of cotton and 95% of sugarbeets grown in the U.S. contain Monsanto’s patented genes. ³

Not only is this level of market share allowing Monsanto to jack prices up on farmers because there’s no competition, but it also threatens our democracy as Monsanto uses their corporate power to influence our regulatory agencies, like the USDA, EPA and FDA, as well as Congress and the White House.

It’s time to fight back and the only way to do that is to make sure that the Department of Justice continues their investigation into Monsanto’s anti-competitive business practices.

Click on the link below to automatically add your name to the letter asking for the Department of Justice to break up Monsanto. It’s time to stand up for farmers and our democracy. Tell the Department of Justice that it’s time to do what’s right!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/357?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=7

Over the past two months the biotech industry has gotten their way in Washington with the approval of three new genetically modified (GMO) crops. First GMO alfalfa, then GMO sugar beets and most recently an industrial GMO corn for ethanol.⁴

The common link between these crops, except for the fact that they’re bad for farmers and the environment, is that they face virtually no oversight once they’re planted and their genes are allowed to contaminate neighboring fields and our food. These multinational corporations are not required to submit rigorous, independent peer reviewed studies prior to approval, but are allowed to submit their own corporate science to the federal government for approval.

To date, no petitions for approval of GMO crops have been denied. The only way to reign in the abuse that determines the quality and safety of the food that you and your family consume is to put pressure on the Department of Justice is to make sure that they follow through on their investigations into Monsanto’s abusive practices.

Last year seven state attorneys general launched an investigation into whether or not Monsanto “has abused its market power to lock out competitors and raise prices” while the DOJ is investigating anti-competitive practices with Monsanto’s marketing abuses in limiting access to seeds for farmers and competitors through manipulative contracts.⁵

It’s time to end Monsanto’s abuses, tell the DOJ to do their job and complete this investigation. It’s clear that abuses of farmer’s rights are taking place and the U.S. government needs to stand up to them now!

Click on the link below to automatically add your name to the letter calling for the DOJ to protect our democracy and break up Monsanto!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/357?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=9

Thanks for taking action — your support is greatly appreciated! We need your help to keep the pressure on! If you can, please consider chipping in as little as $10 to help us continue this fight.

http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/donate/133?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=12

We rely on folks like you to keep us going. Thanks again for your support.

Thank you for participating in food democracy —

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team

Sources:

1. “DOJ’S Holder Calls for Historic Era of Antitrust Enforcement in Agriculture”, March 16, 2010.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/352?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=14

2. “Your Voices Were Heard Loud and Clear in DC this Week, Thanks for Standing Up for Family Farmers”, Food Democracy Now!, December 10, 2010.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/353?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=16

3. “Monsanto’s Dominance Draws Antitrust Inquiry” Washington Post, November 29, 2009.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/354?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=18

4. “Update: Obama Goes Rogue on GMOs, Tell Him to Say NO to Monsanto”, Food Democracy Now!, February 15, 2011.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/355?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=20

5. “Monsanto 7-State Probe Threatens Profit From Gene in 93% of Soy”, Bloomberg, March 10, 2010.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/356?akid=303.53115.iz1tE2&t=22

 

Peace or a Sword? – Galatians for Lent

For this Friday’s Darkwood Brew post, I raise a troubling Galatian question about religious pluralism and/or ‘division for the sake of freedom’ vis-a-vis Paul in Galatians 3. I’d love to see you interact with it here.

Dangerous Meals – Galatians for Lent

I’ve written a post over at Darkwood Brew that could get me in trouble. Here’s how it opens:

“Jesus (peace be upon him) is unambiguously mentioned over 25 times in the Qur’an,” the young Imam explained to us at the Raleigh Islamic Center this week. “This is many more times than even the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).” I was learning this in a very unique context – about 30 Christians and 30 Muslims got together Wednesday night for an unusual act of friendship: Sharing our distinctive understandings on Jesus, and sharing a meal.

Apparently, sharing meals in the manner of Jesus is controversial then as it is now: When I posted, later that night, on my Facebook Wall about what a great time I had, my online ‘friend’ count immediately went down. In the past, when I’d posted a positive story (or even neutral observation) regarding Islam, huge fights would break out on my Wall. Once-civilized Christians would say the most ignorant and hurtful things. I’ve had some painful-but-necessary online connection-purges since the initial e-skirmishes a year or so ago, but judging by the self-selection, it looks like I may have missed a few people…

Continue reading here!

Falling Upward

This life is a descent

To the center

Passed dissent to dissenter

Holy contagion

Scared discontent

(Gives way to)

Sacred malcontents

Who don’t pay this rent

(Which, after all, is too damn high)

But embrace the feast spread out;

The locusts and wild honey

of

Downward

Mobility.

Upward,

Falling

We don’t cling to the branches

But instead

eat straight

from the root.

Note: I have not yet read Richard Rohr‘s Falling Upward, but I’ll bet it’s good. Its very title touched off an inner impulse that’s been composting in me for some months now; hence this poem.

If Darwin Prayed – Bruce Sanguin

If you listen to the pundits, contemporary people are increasingly divided between godless scientists and superstitious religionists. Those who attempt to bridge the gap between science and faith are portrayed as either wild-eyed fundamentalist creationists or self-hating liberals throwing Jesus under the bus to be more palatable to a modern age. Thankfully, pastor and author Bruce Sanguin defies all of these stereotypes in his prayerbook If Darwin Prayed. As a person who’s serious about both the historic faith of the Church and an open-hearted embrace of contemporary science, Bruce has given us a treasure trove of prayers that can form a liturgical backbone for the 21st century.

As Bruce puts it, “These are new prayers for a new era. They spark the spiritual imagination back to life and reorient us to a mystical unity with the universe, Spirit, and all of creation. Emerging out of the conversation between the science of evolution and spirituality, these prayers continually surprise with their earthy wisdom and a profound celebration of life. They awaken in us a sacred impulse to evolve in and toward the heart of the divine.”

For worship leaders, the prayers follow the season of the Christian year. You’ll find prayers you can use for every season of the year as well as for special occasions like communion and baptism – even Trinity Sunday! As an aid to private devotional practice, they awaken the soul to a cosmic identity – being the presence of the evolving universe in human form. The prayers are also being used as devotions to open small groups, cohorts, and Sunday schools.

 What others are saying:

“The spirit expressed in Bruce’s Sanguin’s inspired prayers is not just intelligent and innovative, it’s juicy! It transcends the split between charismatic evangelical Christianity and better-reasoned but less-inspiring mainstream Christianity. The living presence of God shines through the words of these intelligent prayers. May that power help Bruce serve the birth of a new dynamic Christianity for a new millennium.”

—Dr. Terry Patten — co-author, with Ken Wilber, of Integral Life Practice”

Bruce brings radical thoughts and poetry of evolutionary Judaic-Christian lineage. It goes beyond religious rhetoric and into incarnate imagery and insights. The Cosmic Christ is presented as He should be, more than, greater than, and all in all for all-time. Synchronizing prayers that invoke life to body, soul and spirit in the now and for tomorrow.”

— Robert Ricciardelli, Converging Zone Network 

“There are two ways to truly explore an evolutionary panentheistic Christianity.  One involves a bunch of books with tons of footnotes and the other is prayer.  Bruce’s prayers are composed with the hand of a poet, the heart of minister, and the kind of eye opening sincerity you just can’t help but lean into the integral vision they inspire.”

— Tripp Fuller, co-founder, Homebrewed Christianity Podcast

“Earthy, yet cosmic; scriptural, yet poetic; scientific, yet spiritually inspiring – Bruce Sanguin has created a compilation of immense liturgical worth, but also a timely source of nourishment for the spiritual seekers of the 21st. century.”

— Diarmuid O’Murchu, Author of Evolutionary Faith

“Until evolution and the new cosmology become the context of our faith, spirituality and worship, the wonders of nature as recently revealed by science will remain intellectual abstractions. This is why Bruce Sanguin’s adventurous new book is an important contribution to the current dialogue of religion and science. Surely the great geologist and spiritual master Teilhard de Chardin is smiling on Sanguin’s work.”

— John F. Haught, Ph.D, Senior Fellow, Science & Religion, Woodstock Theological Center

“Today, there is no shortage of wonderful books on prayer, but Bruce Sanguin in his book, If Darwin Prayed, blends wonder, contemplation and Holy Mystery in prayers that resonate deeply with co-creators embracing their connectedness with all that is.  These cosmic prayers for the liturgical seasons are uniquely inspiring for pioneers on the sacred path of conscious evolution, evoking a coherence of heart, mind and soul.”

—  Barbara Marx Hubbard, Founder of The Foundation for Conscious Evolution, author of Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential.

“If Charles Darwin had not been in a spiritual muddle because of the inadequacy of his era’s dominant theology, he might well have prayed with the power and passion of Bruce Sanguin. Some people dismiss Christian theology that embraces scientific evolution as arid. But they have not experienced Sanguin’s deep, earthy, joyous prayers. The outpourings in this book shimmer with mystical connection. Their psychological insights elicit shudders of recognition. They offer direction for our sacred paths.” 

—Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun spirituality columnist