Aftermath News

Independent | May 4, 2008

By Geoffrey Lean

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world’s poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world’s richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn.

Cargill’s net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world’s largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.

Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of the world’s largest fertiliser companies, saw its income for the three months ending 29 February rise more than 12-fold, from $42.2m to $520.8m, on the back of a shortage of fertiliser. The prices of some kinds of fertiliser have more than tripled over the past year as demand has outstripped supply. As a result, plans to increase harvests in developing countries have been hit hard.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that 37 developing countries are in urgent need of food. And food riots are breaking out across the globe from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso, from China to Cameroon, and from Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates.

Benedict Southworth, director of the World Development Movement, called the escalating earnings and profits “immoral” late last week. He said that the benefits of the food price increases were being kept by the big companies, and were not finding their way down to farmers in the developing world.

The soaring prices of food and fertilisers mainly come from increased demand. This has partly been caused by the boom in biofuels, which require vast amounts of grain, but even more by increasing appetites for meat, especially in India and China; producing 1lb of beef in a feedlot, for example, takes 7lbs of grain.

World food stocks at record lows, export bans and a drought in Australia have contributed to the crisis, but experts are also fingering food speculation. Professor Bob Watson – chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who led the giant International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development – last week identified it as a factor.

Index-fund investment in grain and meat has increased almost fivefold to over $47bn in the past year, concludes AgResource Co, a Chicago-based research firm. And the official US Commodity Futures Trading Commission held special hearings in Washington two weeks ago to examine how much speculators were helping to push up food prices.

Cargill says that its results “reflect the cumulative effect of having invested more than $18bn in fixed and working capital over the past seven years to expand our physical facilities, service capabilities, and knowledge around the world”.

The revelations are bound to increase outrage over multinational companies following last week’s disclosure that Shell and BP between them recorded profits of £14bn in the first three months of the year – or £3m an hour – on the back of rising oil prices. Shell promptly attracted even greater condemnation by announcing that it was pulling out of plans to build the world’s biggest wind farm off the Kent coast.

World leaders are to meet next month at a special summit on the food crisis, and it will be high on the agenda of the G8 summit of the world’s richest countries in Hokkaido, Japan, in July.

LA Times | Jan 4, 2008.

MEXICO CITY — Farmers in this country organized scattered protests Tuesday and Wednesday as the final trade barriers on U.S. corn, beans, sugar and milk fell with the full implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement on New Year’s Day.

Corn and beans are staples of the Mexican diet and subsistence crops for millions of farmers. Opponents of NAFTA said the free entry of relatively cheap U.S. corn would devastate rural Mexico and help spur more immigration.

But the government of President Felipe Calderon celebrated the end of the trade barriers, whose gradual elimination began in 1994 when the treaty among the U.S., Mexican and Canadian governments took effect.

Agriculture Secretary Alberto Cardenas said that 90% of the imports affected by the final barriers already entered the country free of tariffs in 2006, and that the effect on local producers would be minimal.

Still, about 100 Mexican farmers partially blocked the border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, carrying signs that read “Without Corn There Is No Country.”

Protesters blocked several of the traffic lanes entering Mexico for much of Tuesday and part of Wednesday, according to news reports.

Miguel Colunga Martinez, leader of a local peasant group, told the El Paso newspaper El Diario that protesters would “inspect” all trucks crossing the border and stop any carrying farm goods. “Up to now, not a single trailer has passed,” he said.

Mexico’s tortilla producer association said the final implementation of the treaty would reduce the number of Mexican corn producers and could lead to a 20% to 30% increase in the price of tortillas. It gave no details.

“We will not have the weapons to compete with the growers of the United States and Canada, who will sell corn cheaper than it’s produced here,” said Lorenzo Mejia Morales, president of the National Union of Mills and Tortilla Producers.

Mexican agricultural officials say NAFTA benefits their country by allowing Mexican farm products into the United States.

“We have become the principal supplier of fruits and vegetables into the United States,” Cardenas said in a news release, citing onions, avocados, mangoes and watermelons as examples of successful Mexican exports.

At the same time, Mexican imports of U.S. corn have risen from less than 1 million metric tons in 1993 to 9.9 million metric tons in the 2006-07 marketing year that ended in July, according to statistics from the U.S. Agriculture Department.

The majority of the imports are of yellow corn, which is used to feed livestock and to make corn syrup. There are about 1.5 million corn farmers in Mexico and most grow white corn, which is used to make tortillas.

NAFTA critics say Mexican farmers cannot compete with their American counterparts because the government subsidies they receive are paltry compared with those given to U.S. farmers.

Global Research | Jan 2, 2008

Reviewing F. William Engdahl’s “Seeds of Destruction” - by Stephen Lendman (Part I)

by Stephen Lendman

Today, we’re all lab rats in an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown. Once GM seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps.

Bill Engdahl is a leading researcher, economist and analyst of the New World Order who’s written on issues of energy, politics and economics for over 30 years. He contributes regularly to publications like Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine, Grant’s Investor.com, European Banker and Business Banker International. He’s also a frequent speaker at geopolitical, economic and energy related international conferences and is a distinguished Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization where he’s a regular contributor.

Engdahl also wrote two important books - “A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order” in 2004. It’s an essential history of geopolitics and the importance of oil. Engdahl explains that America’s post-WW II dominance rests on two pillars and one commodity - unchallengeable military power and the dollar as the world’s reserve currency combined with the quest to control global oil and other energy resources.

Engdahl’s newest book is just out from Global Research: “Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation” and subject of this review. It’s the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply and why that prospect is chilling. The book’s compelling contents are reviewed below in-depth so readers will know the type future Henry Kissinger had in mind in 1970 when he said: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

Remember also, this cabal is one of many interconnected ones with fearsome power and ruthless intent to use it - Big Banks controlling the Federal Reserve and our money, Big Oil our world energy resources, Big Media our information, Big Pharma our health, Big Technology our state-of-the-art everything and watching us, Big Defense our wars, Big Pentagon waging them, and other corporate predators exploiting our lives for profit. Engdahl’s book focuses brilliantly on one of them. To fully cover its vital contents, this review will be in three parts for more detail and to make it easily digestible.

Part I of “Seeds of Destruction”

In 2003, Jeffrey Smith’s “Seeds of Deception” was published. It exposed the dangers of untested and unregulated genetically engineered foods most people eat every day with no knowledge of the potential health risks. Efforts to inform the public have been quashed, reliable science has been buried, and consider what happened to two distinguished scientists.

One was Ignatio Chapela, a microbial ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley. In September, 2001, he was invited to a carefully staged meeting with Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, Mexico’s Director of the Commission of Biosafety in Mexico City. The experience left Chapela shaken and angry as he explained. Monasterio attacked him for over an hour. “First he trashed me. He let me know how damaging to the country and how problematic my information was to be.”

Chapela referred to what he and a UC Berkeley graduate student, David Quist, discovered in 2000 about genetically engineered contamination of Mexican corn in violation of a government ban on these crops in 1998. Corn is sacred in Mexico, the country is home to hundreds of indigenous varieties that crossbreed naturally, and GM contamination is permanent and unthinkable - but it happened by design.

Chapela and Quist tested corn varieties in more than a dozen state of Oaxaca communities and discovered 6% of the plants contaminated with GM corn. Oaxaca is in the country’s far South so Chapela knew if contamination spread there, it was widespread throughout Mexico. It’s unavoidable because NAFTA allows imported US corn with 30% of it at the time genetically modified. Now it’s heading for nearly double that amount, and if not contained, it soon could be all of it.

The prestigious journal Nature agreed to publish Chapela’s findings, Monasterio wanted them quashed, but Chapela refused to comply. As a result, he was intimidated not to do it and threatened with being held responsible for all damages to Mexican agriculture and its economy.

He went ahead, nonetheless, and when his article appeared in the publication on November 29, 2001 the smear campaign against him began and intensified. It was later learned that Monsanto was behind it, and the Washington-based Bivings Group PR firm was hired to discredit his findings and get them retracted.

It worked because the campaign didn’t focus on Chapela’s contamination discovery, but on a second research conclusion even more serious. He learned the contaminated GM corn had as many as eight fragments of the CaMV promoter that creates an unstable “hotspot.” It can cause plant genes to fragment, scatter throughout the plant’s genome, and, if proved conclusively, would wreck efforts to introduce GM crops in the country. Without further evidence, there was still room for doubt if the second finding was valid, however, and the anti-Chapela campaign hammered him on it.

Because of the pressure, Nature took an unprecedented action in its 133 year history. It upheld Chapela’s central finding but retracted the other one. That was all it took, and the major media pounced on it. They denounced Chapela’s incompetence and tried to discredit everything he learned including his verified findings. They weren’t reported, his vilification was highlighted, and Monsanto and the Mexican government scored a big victory.

Ironically, on April 18, 2002, two weeks after Nature’s partial retraction, the Mexican government announced there was massive genetic contamination of traditional corn varieties in Oaxaca and the neighboring state of Puebla. It was horrifying as up to 95% of tested crops were genetically polluted and “at a speed never before predicted.” The news made headlines in Europe and Mexico. It was ignored in the US and Canada.

The fallout for Chapela was UC Berkeley denied him tenure in 2003 because of his article and for criticizing university ties to the biotech industry. He then filed suit in April, 2004 asking remuneration for lost wages, earnings and benefits, compensatory damages for humiliation, mental anguish, emotional distress and coverage of attorney fees and costs for his action. He won in May, 2005 but not in court when the university reversed its decision, granted him tenure and agreed to include retroactive pay back to 2003. The damage, however, was done and is an example of what’s at stake when anyone dares challenge a powerful company like Monsanto.

The other man attacked was the world’s leading lectins and plant genetic modification expert, UK-based Arpad Pusztai. He was vilified and fired from his research position at Scotland’s Rowett Research Institute for publishing industry-unfriendly data he was commissioned to produce on the safety of GMO foods.

His Rowett Research study was the first ever independent one conducted on them anywhere. He undertook it believing in their promise but became alarmed by his findings. The Clinton and Blair governments were determined to suppress them because Washington was spending billions promoting GMO crops and a future biotech revolution. It wasn’t about to let even the world’s foremost expert in the field derail the effort. His results were startling and consider the implications for humans eating genetically engineered foods.

Rats fed GMO potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more vulnerable to infection and disease compared to other rats fed non-GMO potatoes. It got worse. Thymus and spleen damage showed up; enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines; and there were cases of liver atrophy as well as significant proliferation of stomach and intestines cells that could be a sign of greater future risk of cancer. Equally alarming - this all happened after 10 days of testing, and the changes persisted after 110 days that’s the human equivalent of 10 years.

GM foods today saturate our diet. Over 80% of all supermarket processed foods contain them. Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils; soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat and other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream and peanut butter). They’re unrevealed to consumers because labeling is prohibited yet the more of them we eat, the greater the potential threat to our health.

Today, we’re all lab rats in an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown. The risks from it are beyond measure, it will take many years to learn them, and when they’re finally revealed it will be too late to reverse the damage if it’s proved GM products harm human health as independent experts strongly believe. Once GM seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps.

Full Story

Daily Mail | Jan 5, 2008

By SEAN POULTER

A breed of Frankenfood is being introduced into human diet and cosmetics with potentially disastrous consequences, experts said last night.

Academics, consumer groups and Government officials are warning that the arrival of nanotechnology threatens dangerous changes to the body and the environment.

The particles it uses are so small - 80,000 times thinner than a human hair - that they can pass through membranes protecting the brain or babies in the womb.

Nano health supplements, such as antioxidants, are already on the market while the first of hundreds of new foods are expected to arrive in the next 12 months.

However, the products are being introdeduced without any regulation or independent assessment to ensure they are safe - mirroring the controversy over the launch of GM foods ten years ago.

Some critics have talked of the threat of the creation of a “grey goo” of tiny particles with hidden harmful properties.

Prince Charles has said it would be “surprising” if the technology did not “offer similar upsets” to thalidomide - the morning sickness drug that caused children to be born with deformed limbs.

Professor Vicki Stone, Professor of Toxicology at Napier University in Edinburgh, is concerned about unforeseen side effects.

“We know very little about the ability of nanoparticles to move around the body, to accumulate or to be excreted, or their potential to cause toxic effects in organs,” she said.

However, nanotech advocates have remarkable claims for the technology. For example, foods are in development that are said to stave off the aging process.

On a more trivial level, they suggest it would be possible to create a fizzy drink that changes flavour according to the number of times the can is shaken.

The consumer group Which? is about to launch a nanotech campaign arguing that consumers need to be consulted on the risks and benefits before it is too late.

The food and farming department Defra has published an independent report which admits there are serious gaps in safety data.

It warns: “There could be very significant implications for business and the wider community if potential risks are not identified and managed before any harm to the environment or human health may be done.”

The report - Characterising the Risks Posed by Engineered Nanoparticles - states there is a shortage of research money.

It says the resulting absence of basic information about the particles means “it will be difficult or impossible to develop any general understanding of nanoparticle toxicology”.

The report adds: “Transfer across biological barriers - e.g. to the brain or foetus - should be studied. Research into how long these tiny particles persist in the body is urgently needed.”

It warns that work assessing human toxicology is being hamstrung by “profound difficulties in accessing relevant funding for these longer term projects”.

Research by Which? found six out of ten people (61 per cent) have never heard of nanotechnology.

Sue Davies of Which? said: “The benefits that nanotechnologies can offer consumers are really exciting.

‘But before the market is flooded with products, it’s crucial the Government addresses the lack of scientific understanding about how some nanoparticles behave.”

The European Food Safety Authority last year held a conference on the future of food.

Dr Donald Bruce, an expert on food and ethics, told delegates that the arrival of nanotech foods has many similarities with GM products.

US corporations attempted to introduce GM before an effective safety regime could be established.

“One of the things to ask is do we need the benefits claimed by the producers?’ he said. ‘Also there is the underlying notion that we are tampering with nature.”

Environment minister Phil Woolas admitted there were gaps in knowledge, but denied the Government was failing to provide enough research cash.

Tiny particles that have generated great hopes and growing concerns

Nanotechnology involves using a substance in particles that are so small that the substance takes on new properties.

The name of the technology comes from the size of the particles - one nanometre in diameter - a millionth of a millimetre. Reduced to this size, materials can suddenly show very different and unexpected properties.

For example, an opaque substance such as copper becomes transparent, or an inert metal such as platinum becomes a catalyst and triggers chemical reactions.

Advocates argue that such particles can be organised to work together to deliver specific effects in a piece of equipment or in the human body.

They can be used to build miniature hard drives that have an immense memory, so allowing further miniaturisation and sophistication of products such as computers and mobile phones.

Washing machines have been developed that release silver nanoparticles that will kill bacteria in dirty washing.

Sun creams have been created so they become transparent rather than chalky white.

In medicine, it is claimed that nanotechnology will allow the creation of drugs that reach and treat a problem quickly.

Manufacturers are working on nanotech foods and supplements that are also designed to deliver specific health benefits.

Similarly, firms are working on developing anti-ageing foods, where nanotech particles associated with renewing the skin from the inside could be included in everyday products such as yoghurt, spreads or breakfast cereals.

The technology promises huge riches for firms which develop winning applications.

One of the first group of nanoparticles being utilised are fullerenes - tiny hollow carbon balls and tubes. They are very heat resistant, strong and conduct electricity.

The football-shaped C60 fullerene is being used in some anti-ageing products. The creams are said to reduce fine lines and firm the skin.

C60 has some antioxidant properties in that it kills the rogue chemicals which damage cells. However, a high dose can itself damage cells.

Some nano particles are known to mimic the harmful effects of asbestos on the lungs. Consequently, they have the potential to trigger lung cancer if inhaled.

HenryMakow.com | Oct 14, 2007

By Jean D’eau in Hungary

In a recent interview* with Lyn Forester de Rothschild we learn that she and her husband Evelyn de Rothschild are investing hundreds of millions to become the queen and the king of India`s fruits and vegetables. India is already the first world producer of fruits, and the second of vegetables and until today its production was essentially consumed by the over one billion Indian population.

Lyn and Evelyn de Rothschild have recently decided to make big money in exporting the Indian fruits and vegetables to the European and Japanese markets. The diverse agro-climatic zones of India make it possible to grow almost all varieties of fruits and vegetables while the labor cost is a tiny fraction of the European or Japanese: Lady de Rothschild is looking forward to pay the Indian workers $2 a day.

Even with the transportation and duty costs, the Indian fruit and vegetables are likely to bankrupt the European and Japanese farmers. In Europe, most of these farmers are heavily indebted as the EU paranoid sanitary norms as well as the packaging requirements of the supermarkets have forced them to invest in expensive machinery and infrastructures.

When the Indian fruits and vegetables arrive in Europe, most of these indebted farmer families will have to say goodby to their farms which will be confiscated by the banks. Many of the still remaining independent European farmers are producing fruit and vegetables since the independent livestock and wheat farmers have already been decimated by the “market economy” making profitable only the giant exploitations in these sectors.

The foreseable bankruptcy of the European fruit and vegetables` farmers will fatally result in that entire agricultural communities will have to leave the rural areas in order to survive. In his recently published book, “The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook”, David de Rothschild (son of Evelyn de Rothschild) is promoting urban living in order to economise energy and thus stop the “man-made climate warming”.

Although a growing number of independent researchers are refuting the “man-made warming” new religion, we are free to believe in it but we are also free to connect the dots and understand that the globalist elites need to have a tight physical control over mankind and that such a control is only possible if we are all herded into the cities.

Due to this project to massively import in Europe cheap Indian fruits and vegetables, many of the European farmers might have soon to experiment the “urban living” solution of David de Rothschild to the “man-made climate warming”; meanwhile, David`s parents will burn oceans of fuel to coolstore and transport the Indian fruits and vegetables all the way to Europe and Japan

There is another likely consequency of a massive increase of the Indian fruit and vegetables` exports. As said previously, the over one billion Indian population is consuming almost all of the national production. When this will be reoriented by the Rothschilds toward the vast European and Japanese markets, it`s improbable that such an increase of the Indian production can be reached that the quantity available for the Indian consumption will remain sufficient. Moreover, at that point, the logic of the market economy is likely to inflate the fruit and vegetables` prices on the Indian market which will achieve to deprive most of the locals of these important nutritional resources.

As most of the Indian households cannot afford meat, the main nutritional resources are rice, fruits and vegetables. A shortage in fruits and vegetables in India can only result in an increased malnutrition and mortality. We can also suppose that the intensive agro-technology which will have to be used by the Rothschilds` farmers in India will involve the repetitive use of pesticides which is likely to sterilize soils and poison water reserves in a few years, just as it did in many parts of Europe. It is stunning to see how the Rothschilds new agro-business project may well fit also in this other prioritary globalisation agenda known as the depopulation of the Third World.

Last but not least, considering the crucial importance of the fruits and vegetables on the Indian market, a massive price inflation of these products might well start a general inflationary cycle in the Indian economy. Just as it is the case with China, the rapidly expanding Indian economy poses a growing threat to the Western corporations. Put the inflationary worm in the Indian apple and the whole Indian economy can be infected…

BBC |  Jul 24, 2007

Scientists have genetically modified goats to make a drug in their milk that protects against deadly nerve agents such as sarin and VX.

These poisons are known collectively as organophosphates - a group of chemicals that also includes some pesticides used in farming.

So far, the GM goats have made almost 15kg of a drug which binds to and neutralises organophosphate molecules.

Details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

The drug, called recombinant butyrylcholinesterase, could be used as a protective “prophylactic” drug and also to treat people after exposure to nerve gas.

The US Department of Defense is funding the development effort by biotech firm PharmAthene to the tune of $213m (£105m).

It regards the drug as a promising way to protect its troops against exposure to nerve agents on the battlefield.

Butyrylcholinesterase could also be stockpiled for use in the event of a terrorist attack on a city with chemical weapons.

It is an enzyme that is made in small quantities by the human body.

The compound can be purified from blood, but the yields are poor.

However, the team at PharmAthene has been able to produce butyrylcholinesterase in large, commercial quantities and, the company says, at a reasonable cost.

Tough task

“It is a very difficult molecule to produce. There is a long history of people trying to produce this in everything from insects to yeast to bacteria and mammalian cells,” said Dr Solomon Langermann of PharmAthene, a co-author on the PNAS paper.

“None of them has been able to produce anything beyond milligram amounts. In the goat, we can make two or three grams per litre.”

The researchers inserted DNA for making the human form of butyrylcholinesterase into a “vector” molecule. This vector is then introduced into a goat embryo.

This allows the human gene to be incorporated into the goat’s DNA sequence. The resulting female animals, all healthy, produced large quantities of butyrylcholinesterase in their milk.

The high yields are partly down to “control elements” - stretches of DNA added, along with the human gene, to the vector molecule.

These control elements regulate how much of the enzyme the goat produces and ensure that most of it is produced in the milk, rather than in other tissues.

Safety trial

Once the enzyme was purified from milk, the scientists injected it into guinea pigs, and saw that it remained active in the bloodstream.

The commercial name given to the butyrylcholinesterase enzyme is Protexia.

Dr Langermann said that Protexia was more effective than the combination of the drugs atropine and 2-PAM currently carried by soldiers for protection against nerve agents.

“Those (older) drugs get cleared from the blood very rapidly. Even if the soldier were to survive, they would have very severe neurological damage,” he told BBC News.

“With Protexia, you would survive and be able to go back on the battlefield.”

It is also effective against a variety of different organophosphate poisons.

The product is still several years from entering use; it needs to pass a safety trial and seek approvals from the US government.

“The super rich in America enjoy power and prerogatives un-imaginable to most of us. Who can conceive of owning a private empire that includes 100 homes, 2,500 servants, untold thousands of luxuries, and untold millions of dollars? America has a royal family of finance that has known such riches for generations. It is, of course, the Rockefellers. Money alone is not enough to quench the thirst and lusts of the super-rich. Instead, many of them use their vast wealth, and the influence such riches give them, to achieve even more power. Power of a magnitude never dreamed of by the tyrants and despots of earlier ages. Power on a world wide scale. Power over people, not just products. For more than one hundred years, since the days when John D. Rockefeller Sr. used every devious strategy he could devise to create a gigantic oil monopoly, enough books have been written about the Rockefellers to fill a library. I have read many of them. And to my knowledge, not one has dared reveal the most vital part of the Rockefeller story: that the Rockefellers and their allies have, for at least fifty years, been carefully following a plan to use their economic power to gain political control of first America, and then the rest of the world. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes, I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.”

- Lawrence P. Mc Donald, Member of Congress, Introduction to The Rockefeller File by Gary Allen, November 1975

The Rockefeller Standard Oil monopoly octopus of total domination systematically infiltrating every sphere of human activity

NewsWithViews.com | Jun 22, 2007

by Deanna Spingola

Ordinary people are content with providing the basic necessities and perhaps a few luxuries for their families. But, for some individuals, the ultimate ego trip, always taken on another’s expense account, is the pursuit of pertinacious power. “In bygone days the rare individual with a manic desire for power seized a throne, or led conquering armies. Now that is all passé. Today, more worlds are conquered in board rooms than on battle fields. And what happens on bloody battle fields is often the result of decisions made in board rooms.”[1] The ultimate price is paid by those who are squandered in battle without a moments thought by the elite purveyors of war and bloodshed.

“All of us can name plenty of tyrants and despots from the past. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin - these men brought misery and death to millions of people in the course of realizing their own perverted ambitions. But because the overwhelming majority of people do not possess such a psychotic thirst for power, they find it all but impossible to recognize its presence in others.”[2]

For lack of appropriate options, we vote for the lesser of two evils, totally unaware of who the real “deciders” are - members of regularly convened secret societies. Elite Bilderberg-CFR qualified candidates, often rewarded for services already rendered, are properly tutored, groomed and installed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Campaigns, well-scripted debates and elections are enacted to perpetuate the illusion of free elections. Abundant, biased media exposure dispensed by government-friendly talking heads enthusiastically tout disputable qualifications while ignoring legitimate, ethical candidates who are actually qualified.

Before the earliest days of the world’s first alleged billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, who viewed competition as a sin, super-rich bankers have promoted and financed world government in an attempt to not merely control a nation but to control the entire world and all of its resources. Wal-Mart, agri-business, the military industrial complex, and monopoly media eliminates competition and quashes an authentic free market. If it is under government policy and regulation, it is not free.

The original Ruthless Rockefeller - John D. managed, by bribery, coercion, violence, dynamite explosions and sabotage to crush or control any and all local oil refining competitors within a year. Imagine, people using life-endangering explosives to further their own agenda! What a concept! The ultimate and most effective way to destroy competition is to use politics, the biggest of all businesses. Rockefeller became the epitome of a corporate capitalist. Not to suggest that members of congress were on the take, but well-placed campaign contributions to character-challenged individuals benefited Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Things have certainly not changed!

“John D. specialized in operating through others, just as the family does today. He hired agents everywhere; among competitors’, politicians and in the media.” He found plenty of people who could be bought. … Rockefeller’s industrial espionage system was by far the most elaborate, most sophisticated and most successful that had ever been established.” … “For a long time the public didn’t realize how powerful he was because he kept insisting he was battling firms that he secretly owned outright. This same tactic is applicable to countries - communistic arch enemies may simply be another purchased commodity. “His real rivals were forever discovering that their most trusted officers were in his pocket.” “By 1890, Standard was refining 90 % of all crude oil in the United States and its worldwide operations were expanding rapidly.”[3]

By 1974, the Standard Oil Trust and its subsidiaries, known by various names (Mobil, Standard of Indiana, Standard of California, Chevron, Sohio, Phillips 66, Marathon, et al), managed to defeat efforts to minimize their influence and power and were selling petroleum in more than 100 countries through 300 subsidiaries. Rockefeller shares were divided among their banks, foundations, universities and other entities. Benevolence towards one’s own philanthropic organizations, while maintaining power and control, is akin to taking money from one pocket and putting it in another.

In addition to oil, the Rockefellers are international bankers - so international that Standard Oil was of critical assistance to Nazi Germany’s, preparation for World War II. Germany, importers of petroleum, lacked the crude petroleum that was necessary to fight a modern war. The Bush family also subsidized Nazi efforts. Alternatively, they ultimately manufactured synthetic gasoline from their domestic coal supplies using a process developed and financed by the Standard Oil laboratories in partnership with I.G. Farben.[4]

Rockefeller also subsidized the Bolshevik revolution, built an oil refining factory, and lent them millions of dollars - all for access to Russia’s vast natural resources. Minus the revolutionaries, Russian leaders desired the American form of government which would have benefited all Russian citizens. Communism stifled that development. The installed Communist leaders were not in charge - they were merely agents! Economic power builds political power in any nation including our own!

Rockefeller, known for his stinginess, used a Public Relations firm to enhance his image and to sell or disguise the idea of pre-war military preparation and the collaboration between Wall Street and I. G. Farben to the American public. This tactic is used today to sell war. At Rockefeller’s request, the PR firm also created a glowing book, entitled USSR, to enhance the image of the Soviet Union even while Stalin was murdering millions of his own citizens. The potential of Soviet oil was apparently worth it.[5] To dispel his miserly reputation, and on the counsel of the PR group, Rockefeller donated more money to foundations, the first of which he established in 1901 - The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

“Those who believe that Rockefeller even in the health field is phony, point out the fact that Rockefeller monies have been used to degrade natural prevention of sickness and disease through vitamins and health foods and promote the use of drugs. Drugs are manufactured mainly from coal tar derivatives and, besides being in the oil business, the family has for decades been heavily invested in the giant drug manufacturing concerns.”[6]

Rockefeller banks - First National City Bank and the Chase Manhattan Bank, which was created by the 1955 merger of the Rockefeller-owned Chase Bank with the Kuhn, Loeb controlled Manhattan Bank. From 1991 to 2004, multiple mergers occurred ultimately combining four of the largest and oldest banking institutions in New York City, in July 2004 with the merger of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank One Corp. to form today’s J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.[7] They are the largest credit card issuer in the U.S. - which earns them lots of consumer interest from a debt-burdened middle class!

In addition to oil and banks, the Rockefeller family has or had stock in IBM (so helpful in keeping track of the Jews in Hitler’s Germany), Eastman Kodak, General Electric, Texas Instruments, and Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. In 1976, the Rockefellers owned a significant portion of about 50 major American companies. In addition, their agents, as of 1976, sat on the Boards of Directors of nearly 100 corporations.[8] They also have vast real estate holdings in land and buildings. Additionally, they have interests in major insurance, airlines, media, food, chemical, pharmaceutical, automobile, distillery companies.

The calculating Rockefellers have deliberately endeavored, through their front men and agents, to influence innumerable institutions in order to control American society: government, business, energy, banking, the media, religion and education. By 1910 the mention of a graduated income tax was appealing. “The best way for the Rockefeller-Morgan insiders to eliminate growing competition was to impose a progressive income tax on their competitors while making sure the law contained built-in escape hatches for themselves. Actually, very few of the proponents of the graduated income tax realized they were playing into the hands of those they were seeking to control.”[9] Nelson Aldrich, the insider’s Senatorial agent and maternal grandfather of David Rockefeller, was instrumental in getting a Constitutional amendment (the 16th, never legally ratified) allowing Congress to impose an income tax, one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto.

The super-rich hide their profits and ownership of mega corporations in “tax-free piggybank” foundations where they can buy, sell, hold real estate and securities. They pay no capital gains tax, no income tax and the funds just multiply. In addition, foundations finance like-minded non government organizations (NGOs). Foundation money established the National Education Association (NEA), a licentious lobby. The Rockefeller Foundation backed the Marxist educator, John Dewey. It gave substantial funding to institutes of higher learning, especially schools of education, buying and promoting a Socialist-Fascist mentality. Progressive, non-traditional education and permissiveness, with substantiating textbooks, was enthusiastically advanced with hundreds of millions of dollars from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, a mere tentacle of the monstrous Rockefeller enforcement mob. “Those who control education will over a period of several generations control a nation.”[10]

To influence religion and therefore morality, foundation money bankrolled the Union Theological Seminary and the Federal council of Churches. Rather than theology, churches veered towards a communal, socialistic approach to mankind’s challenges. A capitalist, pretending to uphold free enterprise, yet he financed and promoted socialism, a dastardly system that eradicates personal initiative, rejects property ownership, and dispels marketplace competition.

John D. Rockefeller, a Machiavellian monopoly capitalist, used the government to promote his interests and callously suppress or totally exclude healthy competition. The true role of a legitimate government is to protect the rights and property of all citizens. However, socialist-fascist public servants, complicit with big business for their own financial advancement, care little about their oaths to the Constitution or the citizens. “To control commerce, banking, transportation and natural resources on a national level, you must control the federal government.”[11]

To further implement his cutthroat agenda against the United States, Rockefeller created the Council on Foreign Relations, a by-invitation-only forum, for influential leaders in the fields of finance, numerous foundations, academics, law, commerce, the media, and politics. For decades, members of this Elite Establishment have permeated the State Department, the Defense Department, all three branches of government - presidents, vice presidents, Secretaries of State, Senators, Representatives and Justices of the Supreme Court. CFR-affiliated foundations include: The Carnegie Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, among others.[12] These foundations fund many of the U.N. programs while portraying themselves as constitution-friendly conservatives.

Environmental groups, intent on changing the world, have affected private property rights in America. These groups include the Nature Conservatory, National Wildlife Federation, the World Wildlife Federation, the Greenpeace Foundation, and the Sierra Club, once a very benign group. They have all received money from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and others.[13]

At the same time that the Rockefeller Foundation and others are funding environmentalist groups, they are also funding the advancement of genetically modified foods. Pesticides, rather than enhance growth, impacts the soil’s health which influences the ability to create healthy food which ultimately affects a nation’s health. The Green Revolution, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, systemized agriculture which ultimately included the use of expensive chemicals, the demise of the independent farmer and our nation’s food supply under the control of a few multinational corporations. The monstrous Monsanto uses government connections to get patents on natural products, like apples. Patents should never be issued on natural products but only on invented items. Their connections also lead to the use of expensive, profit-producing dangerous pesticides.

We are obediently goose-stepping our way quickly into the New World Order and it doesn’t make any difference which party occupies the White House or which party has a majority in Congress. Left, right, conservative and liberal -all are equally culpable. Public servants (yes, they are servants) on both sides of the aisle, belong to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) whose primary efforts are focused on creating a tyrannical New World Order. The majority of our public servants, obviously unaccountable to the constituents, function as wolves protecting the sheep. They are either incredibly inefficient or glory-seeking collaborators who long ago eradicated the Constitution, the rule of law, which makes them all guilty of perjury, perhaps even treason.

Green Left | Jul 14, 2007

by Annolies Truman

Recent attacks on the organic food industry are about discrediting it to soften up the public to accept genetically modified (GM) crops, Dr Maggie Lilith of the Conservation Council of WA and the Say No to GMO campaign told Green Left Weekly.

“The spate of recent claims that organic food is riskier and linked to health scares seems to have come from proponents of GM and those with a vested interest”, said Lilith, who is also a member of the Fremantle Organic Growers Association. “The claims about the safety of organic foods are unfounded and aim to spread misinformation to the public.”

On April 12, a syndicated piece by Bettina Arndt entitled “Organic myths pose real risks to health” appeared in newspapers across Australia. The article is a savage attack on the organic food industry and consumers who choose its products.

“The organic food industry is booming with ever more people deluded into thinking that paying two or three times more for organic food products will provide them with healthier, safer food”, stated Arndt.

In an attempt to portray organics as backward and unscientific, Arndt quotes British Lord Dick Taverne as saying, “What is most worrying about the whole organic product movement is the underlying notion that scientific progress is inevitably bad and we are all better off reverting to primitive, ‘natural’ ways of doing things.”

Lilith disputes this unscientific claim. “Organic systems rely on modern scientific understanding of ecology and soil science as well as traditional methods of crop rotations to ensure fertility and weed and pest control”, she said.

“Moreover, organic production aims to be sustainable and reduce dependence on non-renewable resources. The soil is not depleted as under conventional agribusiness practices. Organic produce is not covered in toxic chemicals as no pesticides or artificial chemicals are used. Animals are not treated with synthetic growth hormones or drugs.”

Arndt also quotes Taverne glorifying GM crops: “If people were really worried about the effects of pesticides in farming on wildlife or human health, they should promote pest-resistant GM crops, which reduce pesticide use … The solid scientific support for the safety and efficiency of GM crops means nothing to blinkered souls who trust instincts over science.”

Janet Grogan, a leading activist with the Say No to GMO campaign, described Arndt’s article as “a thinly veiled pro-GM rant against organic foods”.

“It was misinformed and biased. Arndt cites two cases to prove the dangers of eating organic foods, neither actually linked to organically-derived produce.”

“What’s more, her list of experts comes from pro-GM groups. Lord Taverne is the chairman of the pro-GM lobby group the Association of Sense in Science. His book was lambasted in the Guardian newspaper as … mingling myth with fact.”

A month later, on May 16, an article appeared in the West Australian, promoting the idea of growing GM cotton in the Ord River district of northern WA and attacking organic growers.

A key GM scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, claimed opponents of the scheme were largely “self-serving organic farmers and ill-informed environmental activists”. Peacock was instrumental in developing GM cotton while working at the CSIRO. Some 100 hectare trials of GM cotton along the Ord have already been approved by the WA government.

Lilith is scathing about Peacock’s criticism. “It’s the pro-GM groups who are self-serving, interested only in making profits at the expense of farmers and community health. Moreover, GM cotton should be considered a Trojan horse as it leaves the door open for other unwanted GM crops.”

Another attack on organics followed soon after. The May 22 edition of the Bulletin contained an exclusive titled “The Truth About Organic Food”. Two large photos of shopping baskets graphically illustrate the expense of organic food over conventional.

Lilith contests the claim that organic food is expensive, saying, “A lot of supermarket pre-packaged food costs far more than organic staples. The typical household spends far more on junk food, or alcohol, or take-aways than on fruit and vegetables.”

“The Bulletin article also ignores the nutritional benefits of organic produce”, Lilith told GLW.

“Scientific evidence shows that fresh organic produce is more nutritious than non-organic food, containing higher nutrient levels, more vitamins, minerals, cancer-fighting antioxidants and enzymes.”

But the Bulletin article does concede “consumption of organics is growing at 25% to 44% per year, outstripping the rise in organic food production at 6% to 15% … in 2000, there were 7.6 million hectares under organic management, with a value of $19m. By 2006, that had grown to 12.3 million hectares valued at $400 million.”

According to Annie Kavanagh, president of the Organic Growers Association WA, suppliers are finding it difficult to keep up with the demand from consumers.

Across Australia, in addition to the 12.3 million hectares under organic cultivation, a further 1.1 million hectares land is being prepared for organic certification. In 2006, there were 176 listed organic processors and producers in WA, compared to 58 in 2002. This shows a 300% increase in four years, which reflects the increasing demand for organic produce.

Perhaps this trend explains why the GM lobby is so keen to demolish the credibility of organic agriculture.

GMO crop contamination of the general environment, agricultural areas and food supplies is one of the biggest crimes being committed in the world by Big Agribiz like Monsanto and BASF, yet the media largely ignores it. GMO’s constitute one of the worst potential hazards to both health and the environment, while people have been brainwashed into believing that natural climate change is the biggest problem. So most of their attention is placed on running around telling people to accept global  government, change their lightbulbs and cut back on their lifestyles, instead of grappling with the real issues. I’ll say no more because most people are just too dumbed-down to grasp what is happening to them.

PW

EurActiv | Jul 17, 2007

Following a Council of Ministers stalemate, the Commission has announced that it will approve a genetically modified potato for use in industrial processes and livestock feed. NGOs have reacted critically, arguing that the safety of the new crop cannot be assured.

Approving genetically modified organisms (GMOs) involves a request for authorisation by a producer. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is then mandated to conduct a scientific assessment and to report to the Commission, which then submits its decision on the matter to the Council.

In the event that the Council cannot reach a majority for or against authorisation, as was the case on 16 July 2007, the matter is handed back to the Commission, which is free to authorise the GMO based on a special regulatory procedureexternal .

Both the special regulatory procedure and the role of EFSA have been the subject of criticism (EurActiv 05/12/05 and 10/03/06), and the Commission has decided to introduce practical changes to EFSA’s GMO-approval process (EurActiv 12/04/06).
Issues:

The EU has approved GMOs only on a handful of occasions, and a de-facto approval moratorium for approving new GMO crops has been in place since 1998, largely in response to NGO pressure and public concern about the potential health risks of GMOs.

* BASF’s potato

The potato in question is a blue variety that is used primarily for industrial starch production. Developed by German chemicals giant BASF, the potato is intended for use in the production of glossy magazine covers, for example.

In April 2004, BASF requested authorisation of the potato, and the Commission published a favorable decision in December 2006, following a scientific assessment by EFSA, which concluded that cultivation of the potato did not pose any “relevant” health risks.

* Antibiotic resistance

In addition to starch enhancing genes, the potato contains antibiotic-resistant marker genes (ARMGs).

Public health watchdogs and environmental NGOs are concerned that ARMGs might be transferred from plants to bacteria, thus rendering bacteria resistant to antibiotics and undermining the effectiveness of antibiotics for treating certain infections in humans.

Another concern is that if parts of the potato, such as skins and other non-starch parts, are also used to feed livestock (as requested by BASF), then the GMO would ultimately enter the food chain on a more widespread basis.

Positions:

BASF intends to begin commercial cultivation of the potato in 2008, and is confident that the product presents no health risks. “EFSA has repeatedly stated that [it] is for humans, animals and the environment as safe as any conventional potato,” the company stated.

Commission spokesperson Barbara Helferich assured journalists in Brussels on 16 July that the Commission is making “120% sure that this product is absolutely safe”. “We will approve the potato,” she said.

Greenpeace is calling for “an urgent review of EFSA’s role in the authorisation of GMO’s”, arguing that the food safety body’s authorisation process is flawed and, in this case, ignores a 2001 directiveexternal  that mandates the phasing-out of antibiotic resistant marker genes by 2004.

Friends of the Earth Europe is sceptical: “The risk of contaminating future crops is ignored. As they grow underground, it is virtually impossible to harvest all potatoes from a crop. Potatoes therefore grow back the following years and future crops could be contaminated with the genetically modified variant.”

GMO crop contamination of the general environment, agricultural areas and food supplies is one of the biggest crimes being committed in the world by Big Agribiz like Monsanto and BASF, yet the media largely ignores it. GMO’s constitute one of the worst potential hazards to both health and the environment, while people have been brainwashed into believing that natural warming of the earth is the biggest problem and so most of their attention is placed on that hoax instead of the real issues. I’ll say no more.

PW

EUbusiness | Jul 16, 2007

Friends of the Earth Europe has welcomed EU member states’ rejection of the latest application to grow GMOs in Europe, as the EU Agriculture Council today failed to approve the commercial growing of a genetically modified potato. There have now been no new GMOs grown in the EU for ten years.

Helen Holder, GMO Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe said: “Too few EU member states support growing genetically modified crops, and now yet another has been refused authorisation. National governments recognised the safety risks of growing this GM potato, as they have with previous applications. Now the decision is in the hands of the European Commission and we urge it to reject it too.”

Today’s vote was on an application to grow the genetically modified potato for use in industrial processes like making paper. The producer - German chemicals giant BASF - has also applied for approval to use the same potato in food and animal feed and acknowledges that contamination of the food chain is possible.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) gave the GM potato the green light, but has been criticized for overlooking several important health and environmental risks:

* Antibiotic resistance marker gene: the potato contains a gene which can convey resistance to antibiotics. Under EU law, genes of this kind should have been phased out by the end of 2004. EFSA acknowledges that the cultivation of this potato could lead to antibiotic resistance, yet argued that this did not pose a “relevant” risk to human health or to the environment.

* The risk assessment, required under EU law, fails to fulfil legal requirements. Basic information on the health and environmental safety of the GM potato is missing; in particular there is only an analysis of effects of surrounding wildlife on the potato, rather than looking at the impact of the GM potato on the environment.

* Effects on health have not been sufficiently investigated. A number of irregularities, ncluding toxicological differences that could have serious implications for food safety, have imply not been probed either by BASF or by EFSA

* BASF admits that food contamination is likely: the potato has been genetically modified by he chemical giant BASF to increase its amylopectin content, which is used to produce starch. lthough it is not intended to enter the food chain, BASF have issued a separate application or use in human food and animal feed, stating that “it cannot be excluded that amylopectin otato.. may be used as or may be present in food”.

* The risk of contaminating future crops is ignored. As they grow underground, it is virtually impossible to harvest all potatoes from a crop. Potatoes therefore grow back the following years and future crops could be contaminated with the genetically modified variant.

“No new GMOs have been grown in the European Union for 10 years now and research show that GMOs actually stimulate the economy less than green farming measures. It is time to accept that there is simply no market for genetically modified crops.”

“The big GMO companies claim that using genetically modified potatoes in industrial processes is an environmentally-friendly option, but this is absurd considering the associated health and environmental risks,” Ms Holder added.