When a meal consists of simple elements you have put together yourself, every swallow has a meaning. It's not hard to make the connections between what you are eating, and Nature and human society in general. There was corn growing, people harvested it and ground, packed and sold the grain, and now you eat it. There was a carrot, you pulled it from the ground and now you eat it. The sun radiated energy that flowed through space, bathed the Earth, the corn and carrot used that sunlight energy to convert air, water and nutrients into substance, and now you eat that substance. One eats with feet flat on the ground, in a knowing communion with the Universe's broad patterns."

—Natchez Naturalist Newsletter, November 10, 2002

WE'VE BEEN TENDING THIS LAND A LONG TIME. All of us, and our peoples, somewhere, have done this. The Egyptians had irrigation figured out as early as 5000 BC, and the wheat, barley, and flax they grew by the Nile's edge allowed Dynasties to rule for thousands of years. That amazing cycle of inundation and dispersal of mineral-laden silt made the entire civilization of Ancient Egypt possible. We can find generations of farmers in Ireland, farmers who truly understand the hardship of such toil, whose primary crop was stricken with a fungus that for years decimated the crop, a crop (the potato) first developed by South American indigenous over 7000 years ago and perfected by the Incas in the Andes (and nowadays grown somewhere and shipped somehow to our fast food joints all over, where anyone can walk in and buy some "fries.") Maize, chiles, tomatoes, bean and squash were produced in plenty by the Olmec tribes of Mexico, motherland of all corn, everpresent corn—ground in bowls in California, ground in bowls in Peru, ground in bowls in Inishmurry, Sligo, Ireland. The Vietnamese with their rice paddies, the Incas with their steppes, the Native American Indians who insured the Pilgrims survived by teaching them to grow maize, and who understood that even sunflowers could yield food. The Russian farmers, who rediscovered the same sunflower as food in the early 1800s. Since humankind began, you can travel the world and always find the same thing: a unique and spiritually essential relationship between humans and the planet that is agriculture. While you may find the farmers taxed by the government at every turn, you do not otherwise find anyone interfering with what seems such a basic human right. In this way, there is always the idea that a human can be free, free to explore the life and role that the Universe and the planet and the stars offers each person; free to find and make their own destiny. And always, with the ability to feed themselves at hand.

La tierra es de quien la trabaja. (The land belongs to those who work it.)"

—Emiliano Zapata

But this fundamental, final freedom is not as absolute as you and I would like to believe. And tenets that are true for you and me, and perhaps in ideal, are not so dear to the Empire-Forgers we call Government.

The future belongs to those who are willing and able to adapt.

—Thomas C. Dorr Under Secretary for Rural Development, addressing Land ‘O Lakes Board of Directors Washington, D.C.on April 5, 2006[PDF]

While political parties in the United States argue over whether or not we drill in Alaska or off the American beaches, or set up shop in Iraq; while left and right political factions do battle over the power and rights involved in whether or not to allow the human seed take root within the garden of the womb, there is an even deeper and more insidious power play unfolding right before us. Yes, even more deadly and dangerous than our "War on Terror" is the War on Terra Firma.

Control the oil and you can control entire continents. Control food and you control people."

—Henry Kissinger

I WANT TO CARVE IT INTO MY ARMS, carve it into stone, carve it into steel and into the walls and streets and public monuments of every nation that GREED KILLED THIS PLANET. There is nothing truer or more important to be said, there is nothing more pressing that we realize, there is nothing of greater relevance that we need let our descendents know. If time wears away the statue of liberty and the hypocritical words etched at her feet; if dust grinds away the faces of Big Ben and Mount Rushmore eventually; if every name on the Vietnam War Memorial is worn down to nothing but silt, let these words remain: GREED KILLED THIS PLANET.

Behind every decision based on how much profit could be made in an action is harm to the human heart and to the body of the world. Somewhere down the line looms a cost greater than any margin given to those who try to cheat the balance owed the Universe. Behind Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as Mad Cow Disease, lies the decision to feed animals bits of themselves to save money on feeding them. Behind the Iraq invasion and occupation lies America's voracious appetite for fuel, military contracts, and control of the Strategic Ellipse. Behind Bush's desire to keep Wall Street workers at their jobs lies the decision to lie to rescue workers and New Yorkers about the danger of the toxic fallout of 9/11. Behind the desire to have meatier, heavier, more profitable farm animals lies the decision to inject growth hormones into them. Behind the desire to make profits from nowhere are sweatshops maintained, cancerous agents declared safe for inhalation, and ulcer medicine that is known to cause brain damage in lab animals and birth defects when eaten by pregnant women now in almost every treat in your cabinet.

And now, the desire to squeeze every last coin from every last person has tainted our very food supply. This rampant germ of Greed threatens our very independence from those who would make themselves over from They Who Supply, Ship, and Package the Food, into Those Who Control All Food.

It began with gene-modification. Farmers (mostly American, as 70% of all GMO ("Gene Modified Organism") foods are grown in the USA) began to utilize the perks of the new science of genetic modification of crops, and for what seemed to be understandable reasons. Modifications that had not to do with control of the flow and profit of agriculture, but in guarding against parasites. An agenda we can all support. But isn't this exactly how every Evil begins? With seemingly good intention, and usually aimed at making something easier for us, or more comfortable, or in letting Man be lazier, or get something for less. Again, trying to cheat a balance in life that will not be cheated. After all, a vampire enters our dwelling in only one fashion. Smiling, and with our permission.

The next most common GM crop is an insect-resistant corn, called Bt corn. Two companies dominate this crop: Dekalb (recently acquired by Monsanto), and AgrEvo, a joint venture of Hoechst and Schering. Bt corn principally targets corn borers, and in the U.S. these crops now occupy 6.5 million hectares, representing one-fifth of the country's corn production. (Technology Review, "Biotech goes wild," Jul-Aug/99)

Bt corn is created by inserting into the crops a gene from the Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a bacteria found naturally in soil; this gives the plants a toxic protein that kills the pests that feed on them. (San Francisco Examiner, "You say potato, they say pesticide," 7/11/99)

It is true that farmers have before now used spray that uses gene-modification technology, first evidenced in the Bt sprays used that have been used for years to deter parasites and crop infestation. However, the science of modifying crops by tinkering with the genes of the plant itself has simply not been tested long enough. And it hardly makes sense to run such "tests" on our food supply. Especially when there are already very troubling signs regarding human reaction to the GMO maize.

...[T]he crop plants differ from the sprays in two important ways. First, the sprays usually contain Bt formulations that are quite specific against certain lepidopterans. However, the Bt genes inserted into crop plants have often been engineered to be toxic to a wider array of pests, increasing the risk of nontarget effects. In addition, these plants crank out high doses of the toxin (10-20 times the lethal dose) over the entire growing season, unlike the spray versions which are short-lived."

—GENETIC PEST CONTROLS

Aside from this, there is already evidence that this Bt Maize is harmful to both man and animal. And if that is the case, what is the point of such a "food?"

There has been great concern that genetically engineered crops might increase allergies or immune sensitivity in the population. Soon after Monsanto’s genetically engineered soy was imported into the UK, for example, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50 percent. (No follow-up studies were conducted to confirm a link.) At a Russian press conference held on 11 December 2003, a group of scientists announced that the number of people with symptoms of allergy increased by three times over the past three years, and that the increased consumption of genetically engineered foods by the population might be the cause. Allergies are similarly on the rise in the U.S., where genetically engineered foods are eaten regularly.

—Bt-maize (corn) during pollination, may trigger disease in people living near the cornfield, Terje Traavik, PhD

So, ignoring climbing allergy rates, and that those living next to pollenating Bt corn have become quite ill, the whole affair has begun innocently (if you can call having a culture's Prime Directive be "Mass Production and Profit Over the Health of the Planet" innocent); as just another way to tweak current systems in order to make them more profitable. More insect resistance, less blight, stronger crops. It all sounds rational, as long are you are not living by a philosophy based on nature, balance, and health. If you feel that any modification of living things in the name of a more economically viable, or sanitized product (or Just Because We Can) is a positive change, then you are well on your way to playing God in half a dozen ways.

This is exactly what is happening.

The United States Government has been financing research on a genetic engineering technology which, when commercialized, will give its owners the power to control the food seed of entire nations or regions. The Government has been working quietly on this technology since 1983. Now, the little-known company that has been working in this genetic research with the Government’s US Department of Agriculture-- Delta & Pine Land-- is about to become part of the world’s largest supplier of patented genetically-modified seeds (GMO), Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri. [...] The seeds would only produce one harvest. After that the seeds from that harvest would commit ‘suicide’ and be unusable.

—F. William Engdahl, 2006

Monsanto holds a "dominant position in the GMO seeds and agri-chemicals market along with the unique DP&L Patent No. 5,723,765, Control of Plant Gene Expression." In line with thier agenda to "dominate world food and plant seed use" (Engdahl), they have developed two types of seeds, called Traitor and Terminator. The Traitor seed line will produce crops that die after a certain point if a particular chemical is not introduced (so that seeds cannot be "stolen" by farmers who want to escape the prostitute/brothel arrangement in store for them whereby they are trapped in a cycle of dependence and turning profit for someone else), and the Terminator seed line suicides after one yield. So that it cannot be replanted, and so farmers have to scurry back to their "dealers," Mansanto/Tyson Foods/USA to get more.

Never before, in this writer's lifetime or any he knows of, has this level of control over such a basic human staple as food been levied against the citizens of this world. It's one thing to dress cheap food up fancy, underpay the farmers, and overcharge the consumers. That's life in the big city, baby. But this attempt to corral all food dollars under a patent that may very well end up the state-certified seal of our own doom is an attempt to alter the very global system of how food propagates itself. For infected crops that hybridize with GMO lines such as Terminator do not produce viable seeds. And while your humble narrator is no scientist, this seems an agenda that surely reeks of hubris and disaster.

Monsanto is thrilled about their new laboratory concoctions, but not everyone is as happy about recent advancements in GMO crops. There have been more than a few signs of resistance to the proliferation of GMO foods, most notably in the UK (though most of the sources I can find place these actions before 2001).

A federal judge in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul has temporarily banned Monsanto from marketing "Roundup Ready" soybean seeds until Brazil's government can regulate and define the rules of bio-safety. (San Francisco Chronicle, "Test-Tube Crop Divides Brazil," 8/17/99)

Activists in Europe regularly vandalize newly planted plots of gene-altered crops, grocery chains are refusing to carry engineered food, and food processors are hiring DNA fingerprinting labs to verify their product's genetic purity. (Washington Post, Biotech Food Raises a Crop of Questions, 8/15/99)

Attacks on GM crops in fields worldwide have increased, especially in Europe. Some of these attacks have been directed at farms where experiments were being conducted to answer the biotechnology-safety questions the protesters themselves pose. (Wall Street Journal, "Greenwar," 8/9/99)

Of course Monsanto—along with its rich protector, the US Government—is pushing back, and making it quite clear what their goals are.

Growing rejection of GE crops in the South – including the rejection of US food aid containing GMOs – is attributed by the US government to the flow-on effects of the EU’s 'scare tactics' and 'fabricated fears' over the environmental and health risks of GMOs. In reality the US use of the WTO as a political weapon to roll back and prevent GMO restrictions is intended to have flow-on effects on the South, by demonstrating that comprehensive regulation of GMOs, including bans on GE crops, will be met with trade sanctions. As it moves to force open markets for unwanted GE crops and pre-empt biosafety measures that restrict GMOs, it is the US that is engaged in scare tactics." —Greenpeace, Renewed Aggression by a Rogue State [PDF]

Those who support the idea of "Free Trade" as America proposes it, must also believe that a country should not be permitted to decide for itself that GMO food is unhealthy for their people and pass laws or restrictions on the imports. This would, of course, hinder the agenda of flooding their markets with this GMO food.

Under WTO rules on free trade in agriculture, countries are forbidden to impose their own national health restrictions on GMO imports if it is deemed to be an ‘unfair trade barrier.’ It begins to become clear why it was the US Government and US agribusiness which during the late 1980’s pushed at the GATT Uruguay Round for creation of a World Trade Organization, with its supranational arbitrary powers over world agriculture trade. It all fits into a neat picture of patented seeds, forced on reluctant WTO member nations, under threat of WTO sanctions, and now of Terminator or suicide seeds."

—F. William Engdahl, 2006

And while Monsanto, Delta Pine and Land, and everyone else involved is supplying the press with the stock reassurances that gene-modification of plant life is to solve the world hunger problem, or that these seedlines were never meant to be commercialized, or that there is nothing devious in the works, examination of their dealings and progress tells a completely contradictory story.

In a report from Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), it appears that 'terminator' and 'traitor' technologies have not been halted, in spite of promises from Monsanto and AstraZeneca to not commercialize them. ... In the report, Harry Collins from Delta & Pine Land Seed Co. is quoted saying: 'We've continued right on with work on the Technology Protection System [Terminator]. We never really slowed down. We're on target, moving ahead to commercialize it. We never really backed off.'"

—"RAFI says terminator seeds on fast track," Source: RAFI website, 25 February, 2000.

What is the "Target?"

The Anglo-Swiss Syngenta joined with Monsanto in declaring solemnly that they would also not commercialize their work on GURTS or Terminator suicide seed technology.

That 1999 announcement took enormous pressure off of Monsanto and the agribusiness GMO giants, allowing them to advance the proliferation of their patented GMO seeds globally. Terminator could come later, once farmers and entire national agriculture areas like North America or Argentina or India had been taken over by GMO crops. Then, of course, it would be too late.

[...]

Relations between Monsanto, Delta & Pine Land and the USDA, on closer scrutiny, show the deep and dark side of the much-heralded genetic revolution in agriculture. It proves deep-held suspicions that the Gene Revolution is not about ‘solving the world hunger problem’ as its advocates claim. It’s about handing over control of the seeds for mankind’s basic food supply—rice, corn, soybeans, wheat, even fruit, vegetables and cotton—to privately owned corporations.

—F. William Engdahl, 2006

NAFTA, like many other manuevers of a similar kind, is designed to destroy the ability for anyone to resist the machinations of the greedy corporations aligned with the US government. We've seen the effect this "Free Trade Agreement" has had on Mexico, already. But NAFTA is not a fluke, nor is it the only element to the overall plan that these men enact. It should also be noted that the biggest shareholder of Delta Pine and Land is the Stephens group, and the Stephens group is one of the biggest shareholders of Tyson Food (Enhdahl).

The Arkansas International Development Corporation brokered a deal between Indonesia’s Lippo Group and Arkansas’ Tyson Foods that opened Indonesia to import Tyson Foods industrially -produced Arkansas factory farm chickens. One food Indonesia does not need to import is certainly chickens. The cheap Arkansas imports destroyed the fragile economy of domestic Indonesian small family chicken farmers."

—F. William Engdahl, 2006

With Terminator patent rights, once a country such as Argentina or Brazil or Iraq or the USA or Canada opened its doors to the spread of GMO patented seeds among its farmers, their food security would be potentially hostage to a private multinational company, a company which, for whatever reasons, especially given its intimate ties to the US Government, might decide to use ‘food as a weapon’ to compel a US-friendly policy from that country or group of countries.

D&PL claims, ‘One application of the technology could be to control unauthorized planting of seed of proprietary varieties…by making such a practice non-economic since non-authorized saved seed will not germinate, and, therefore, would be useless for planting.’"

—F. William Engdahl, 2006

The war—the true Long War—rolls on. The invaders and conquerors of nations will never rest. Those who believe the world and all her bounty can be ravaged, stolen, commandeered, and controlled at the expense of the masses they oppress will continue—until the day either they or all of us die—to wage this war. The war against the indigenous and non-corporate, non-State-affiliated rolls on. And the oppression and control of Mexico—as well as other nations—continues.

The recent history of Mexico, that of the last five hundred years, is the story of permanent confrontation between those attempting to direct the country toward the path of Western civilization and those, rooted in Mesoamerican ways of life, who resist. The first plan arrived with the European invaders but was not abandoned with independence. ”

-Guillermo Banfil Batalla

MEXICO, THE LAND THAT GAVE THE WORLD MAIZE. The land from where, for 8 - 12 thousand years, every single variety of corn has originated. Mexico, the land of my father, and his father's father; the land where hard working farmers who desire just to live a life where they can feed themselves and thier families and make an honest living are being crushed by the corporate hand of greed.

Of course. What greater threat could there be to an agenda of wiping out the idea that humans can feed themselves than a nation that is mostly farmers? What better way to eradicate this threat than to destory their ability to compete in the market? What better way to continue the persecution of these people than to squeeze them until they are forced to seek sustainence closer to the border, where they may be shot or jailed?

Mexico saw the danger posed to the Mexican people and to their major crop and outlawed the use of GMO corn in their country. But wouldn't you know, Monsanto's little army of brooms can't be contained so easily, and only time will tell how many lives will be swept away in thier little miracle-gone-haywire.

...Mexico's recent confirmation that American-manufactured, laboratory-modified genes have somehow appeared in cornfields in Mexico's remote hills has fueled an impassioned debate over 'transgenic' products and their potential impact on human health, the environment and the survival of Mexico's traditional corn varieties.

The government announcement in February gave credence to claims by a team of California scientists that they found lab-created genes in corn in Oaxaca three years ago. But it did not solve the mystery of how the genes got there despite a 5-year-old ban on planting transgenic crops in Mexico."

—"Altered corn ignites furor in Mexico," April 29, 2004, Chicago Tribune Hugh Dellios

The uncontrolled spread of genetically engineered plants -- recently proven again with tests of GMO grasses -- far beyond the fields where they were planted is one of the strongest arguments the film makes for introducing safeguards.

The film questions why the U.S. government hasn't required GMO foods to undergo the rigorous testing required of medicines created by recombinant DNA technology, and why it has resisted efforts to require GMO labeling on foods, as Europe does.

Suggesting an answer, the film ticks off all the government officials who have links to Monsanto, including Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Attorney General John Ashcroft."

—""2005 Audience Award Winning Documentary The Future of Food"

To think of the effect our mad science is having upon such a sacred crop, one that has fed so much of the world for so long. How casually we upend the world's history and natural order, how cavalierly, how proudly, even. I don't know if you believe in spirits, or gods, or ghosts, or who came before. But if I did, I would be sure right now that there are some very angry energies being roused; that there are thousands of years of growth that we are now ripping out by the root. And if there is karma to be paid for this, who can we blame?

This new science; these man-made seeds so traitorous and fatal to Nature's own system are being planted everywhere we want to dispel Her and instead, insert the ever-sure, ever-bloody hand of Man.

And so, the governments and the corporations who rule this world continue their relentless attack on the Natural Planet and Human, and a simple, humble way of life. Never content with thier own piece of land, they desire the land under my feet, and the land under yours. Never content with thier own pocket of goods, they want most of mine, and most of yours, as well. Never able to trust in the cosmic flow, they must clamp down their irons of intervention and try to shackle good fate and fortune into riding along with them, wherever it be they sail. They want no person independent from the State, they work hard to deprive you and me of true freedom and liberty; they foment death and disease and dependence, tell us to open up and let Freedom® come marching in, and then they send their dark, destructive visions of terror festering and rushing across the world like a plague. And that is what these men bubble up in thier orgiastic power grabs. A plague that spatters like acid over the pockmarked heart and hands and minds and souls and eyes of the free-thinking, earth-loving, heart-driven human being. For if ever Evil were to rule the earth, it would immediately understand that the biggest threat to its dominion would be the unfettered, unchained, unpolluted, undiminished, unashamed, and unlimited human soul. And it would send out many a seed with which to plant corruption, and rot out the center.

USDA’s Phelps stated that the US Government’s goal in fostering the widest possible development of Terminator technology was ‘to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and to open up new markets in Second and Third World countries."

[...]

Delta & Pine Land is well-placed globally to proliferate its suicide seeds now, with the corporate and financial clout of the giant Monsanto company. Delta & Pine already has subsidiaries including D&PL Argentina, D&PL China, D&PL China PTE in Singapore, Deltapine Paraguay, Delta Pine de Mexico, Deltapine Australia, Hebei Ji Dai Cottonseed Technology Company in China, CDM Mandiyu in Argentina, Delta and Pine Land Hellas in Greece, D&M Brazil Algodao of Brazil, D&PL India, D&PL Mauritius Ltd."

F. W. Enghdahl