http://www.biodev.org/archives/Beehive.jpg

Company Research on Genetically Modified Foods is Rigged
By responsibletechnology.org
Nov 21, 2007 - 7:02:14 PM

In 2004, four advocates of genetically modified (GM) foods published a study in the British Food Journal that was sure to boost their cause <1> According to the peer-reviewed paper, when shoppers in a Canadian farm store were confronted with an informed and unbiased choice between GM corn and non-GM corn, most purchased the GM variety. This finding flew in the face of worldwide consumer resistance to GM foods, which had shut markets in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. It also challenged studies that showed that the more information on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) consumers have, the less they trust them. <2> The study, which was funded by the biotech-industry front group, Council for Biotechnology Information and the industry’s trade association, the Crop Protection Institute of Canada (now Croplife Canada), was given the Journal’s prestigious Award for Excellence for the Most Outstanding Paper of 2004 and has been cited often by biotech advocates.

Stuart Laidlaw, a reporter from Canada’s Toronto Star, visited the farm store several times during the study and described the scenario in his book Secret Ingredients. Far from offering unbiased choices, key elements appeared rigged to favor GM corn purchases. The consumer education fact sheets were entirely pro-GMO, and Doug Powell, the lead researcher, enthusiastically demonstrated to Laidlaw how he could convince shoppers to buy the GM varieties. He confronted a farmer who had already purchased non-GM corn. After pitching his case for GMOs, Powell proudly had the farmer tell Laidlaw that he had changed his opinion and would buy GM corn in his next shopping trip.

Powell’s interference with shoppers’ “unbiased” choices was nothing compared to the effect of the signs placed over the corn bins. The sign above the non-GM corn read, “Would you eat wormy sweet corn?” It further listed the chemicals that were sprayed during the season. By contrast, the sign above the GM corn stated, “Here’s What Went into Producing Quality Sweet Corn.” It is no wonder that 60% of shoppers avoided the “wormy corn.” In fact, it may b e a testament to people’s distrust of GMOs that 40% still went for the “wormy” option.

Powell and his colleagues did not mention the controversial signage in their study. They claimed that the corn bins in the farm store were “fully labelled”—either “genetically engineered Bt sweet corn” or “Regular sweet-corn.”

When Laidlaw’s book came out, however, Powell’s “wormy” sign was featured in a photograph, <3> exposing what was later described by Cambridge University’s Dr. Richard Jennings as “flagrant fraud.” Jennings, who is a leading researcher on scientific ethics, says, “It was a sin of omission by failing to divulge information which quite clearly should have been disclosed.” <4>

Jennings is among several scientists and outraged citizens that say the paper should have been withdrawn, but the Journal refused. Instead, it published a criticism of the methods by Canadian geneticist Joe Cummins, and allowed Powell to respond with a lengthy reply. <5>

In his defence, Powell claimed that his signs merely used the language of consumers and was “not intended to manipulate consumer purchasing patterns.” He also claimed that the “wormy” corn sign was only there for the first week of the trial and was then replaced by other educational messages. But eye witnesses and photographs demonstrate the presence of the sign long after Powell’s suggested date of replacement. <6>

This incident illustrates how so-called scientific papers can be manipulated to force conclusions favorable to authors or funders and how peer-reviewed journals may be complicit. While the subject of this particular study provided ammunition in the battle to deny choice to consumers in North America, there is similar “cooked” research in the more critical area of GMO safety assessments.

SECRET, INADEQUATE, AND FLAWED

THE UNPUBLISHED INDUSTRY STUDIES SUBMITTED TO REGULATORS ARE TYPICALLY KEPT SECRET BASED ON THE CLAIM THAT IT IS “CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION.” THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA IS ONE OF MANY ORGANIZATIONS THAT CONDEMN THIS PRACTICE. THEY WROTE:

IN THE JUDGMENT OF THE EXPERT PANEL, THE MORE REGULATORY AGENCIES LIMIT FREE ACCESS TO THE DATA UPON WHICH THEIR DECISIONS ARE BASED, THE MORE COMPROMISED BECOMES THE CLAIM THAT THE REGULATORY PROCESS IS ‘SCIENCE BASED.’ THIS IS DUE TO A SIMPLE BUT WELL-UNDERSTOOD REQUIREMENT OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD ITSELF—THAT IT BE AN OPEN, COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT ENTERPRISE IN WHICH ANY AND ALL ASPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ARE OPEN TO FULL REVIEW BY SCIENTIFIC PEERS. PEER REVIEW AND INDEPENDENT CORROBORATION OF RESEARCH FINDINGS ARE AXIOMS OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, AND PART OF THE VERY MEANING OF THE OBJECTIVITY AND NEUTRALITY OF SCIENCE.” <7>

Whenever private submissions are made public through lawsuits or Freedom of Information Act Requests, it becomes clear why companies benefit from secrecy. The quality of their research is often miserable, incompetent, and unacceptable for peer-review. In 2000, for example, after the potentially allergenic StarLink corn was discovered in the food supply, Aventis CropScience presented wholly inadequate safety data to the EPA’s scientific advisory panel. One frustrated panel member, Dean Metcalfe, MD,—the government’s top allergist—said during a hearing, “Most of us review for a lot of journals. And if this were presented for publication in the journals that I review for, it would be sent back to the authors with all of these questions. It would be rejected.” <8>

Submissions to the US Food and Drug Administraion (FDA) may be worse than in other countries, since the agency doesn’t actually require any data. Their policy—overseen by Monsanto’s former attorney who later became the company’s vice president—says that biotech companies can determine if their own foods are safe. Anything submitted is voluntary and, according to former Environmental Protection Agency scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman, “often lack sufficient detail, such as necessary statistical analyses needed for an adequate safety evaluation.” Using Freedom of Information Requests, Gurian-Sherman analyzed more than a fourth of the data summaries (14 of 53) of GM crops reviewed by the FDA. He says, “Our evaluation found that the biotechnology companies provide inadequate data to ensure their products are safe.” <9>

UNSCIENTIFIC ASSUMPTIONS ARE THE BASIS OF APPROVALS

“Most or all of the conclusions of food safety for individual GM crops are based on inferences and assumptions, rather than on actual testing,” says Professor E. Ann Clark, who analyzed submissions to Canadian regulators. For example, rather than actually testing to see if the amino acid sequence produced by their inserted gene is correct, “the standard practice,” according to research analyst William Freese, “is to sequence just 5 to 25 amino acids, even if the protein has more than 600 in total. If the short sample matches what is expected, they assume that the rest are also fine. If they are wrong, however, a rearranged protein could be quite dangerous.”



Monsanto’s submission to Australian regulators on their high lysine GM corn provides several examples of optimistic assumptions used in place of science. The GM protein produced in the corn is also found in soil. The company claimed that since people consume small residues of soil on fruits and vegetables, the protein has a history of safe consumption. An independent calculation by the Centre for Integrated Research on Biosafety (INBI), however, reveals the weakness of this argument. Based on the amount of GM corn protein an average US citizen would consume (if all their corn were Monsanto’s variety), “for equivalent exposure” of the protein from soil “people would have to eat between 80-800 million (males) or 60-700 million (females) kilograms of soil each day, or nearly as much as 10,000kg/second 24 hours a day seven days a week.” INBI estimated that the normal exposure to the protein from soil residues was actually “about 30 billion-4 trillion times less than exposure through corn.” <10>

In addition, certain nutritional components of this GM variety (i.e. protein content, total dietary fiber, acid detergent fiber, and neutral detergent fiber) lie far outside the normal range for corn. Instead of comparing their corn to normal controls, which would reveal this disparity, Monsanto compared it to obscure corn varieties that were also substantially outside the normal range on precisely these values.

Epidemiologist Judy Carman points out that GM “experiments used some very unusual animal models for human health, such as chickens, cows and trout. Some of the measurements taken from these animals are also unusual measures of human health, such as abdominal fat pad weight, total de-boned breast meat yield, and milk production.” In her examination of the full range of submittals to authorities in Australia and New Zealand, she says that there was no proper evaluation of “biochemistry, immunology, tissue pathology, and gut, liver and kidney function.” <11> Writing on behalf of the Public Health Association of Australia, Carman says, “The effects of feeding people high concentrations of the new protein over tens of years cannot be determined by feeding 20 mice a single oral gavage of a given high concentration of the protein and taking very basic data for 13-14 days . . .The acute toxicity testing proposed as adequate would simply not pick up cancer, teratology or the long-tem effects of nutrient deficiencies or increases in anti-nutrients.” <12>

http://www.monsantosucks.com/Images/biohazr.gif

HE SCIENCE OF RIGGING STUDIES

When independent researchers published a study in July 1999 showing that GM soy contains 12%-14% less cancer-fighting phytoestrogens, Monsanto responded with its own study, concluding that soy’s phytoestrogen levels vary too much to even carry out a statistical analysis. Researchers failed to disclose, however, that they had instructed the laboratory to use an obsolete method of detection—one that had been prone to highly variable results. <13>

WHEN AVENTIS PREPARED SAMPLES TO SEE IF THE POTENTIAL ALLERGEN IN STARLINK CORN REMAINED INTACT AFTER COOKING, INSTEAD OF USING THE STANDARD 30-MINUTE TREATMENT, THEY HEATED CORN FOR TWO HOURS.

TO SHOW THAT PASTEURIZATION DESTROYED BOVINE GROWTH HORMONE IN MILK FROM COWS TREATED WITH RBGH, THEY PASTEURIZED THE MILK 120 TIMES LONGER THAN NORMAL. UNABLE TO DESTROY MORE THAN 19%, THEY THEN SPIKED THE MILK WITH A HUGE AMOUNT OF THE HORMONE AND REPEATED THE LONG PASTEURIZATION, DESTROYING 90%. (THE FDA REPORTED THAT PASTEURIZATION DESTROYS 90% OF THE HORMONE.)



TO DEMONSTRATE THAT INJECTIONS OF RBGH DID NOT INTERFERE WITH COW’S FERTILITY, MONSANTO APPARENTLY ADDED COWS TO THE STUDY THAT WERE PREGNANT PRIOR TO INJECTION.

AND IN ORDER TO PROVE THAT THE PROTEIN FROM THEIR GM CROPS BREAKS DOWN QUICKLY DURING SIMULATED DIGESTION, BIOTECH COMPANIES USED THOUSANDS OF TIMES THE AMOUNT OF DIGESTIVE ENZYMES AND A MUCH STRONGER ACID COMPARED TO THAT RECOMMENDED BY THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION.

METHODS USED TO HIDE PROBLEMS ARE VARIED AND PLENTIFUL. FOR EXAMPLE, RESEARCHERS:
USE HIGHLY VARIABLE ANIMAL STARTING WEIGHTS TO HINDER DETECTION OF FOOD-RELATED CHANGES

KEEP FEEDING STUDIES SHORT TO MISS LONG-TERM IMPACTS

TEST EFFECTS OF ROUNDUP READY SOYBEANS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN SPRAYED WITH ROUNDUP

AVOID FEEDING ANIMALS THE ACTUAL GM CROP, BUT GIVE THEM INSTEAD A SINGLE DOSE OF THE GM PROTEIN THAT WAS PRODUCED INSIDE GM BACTERIA

USE TOO FEW SUBJECTS TO DERIVE STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RESULTS

USE POOR STATISTICAL METHODS OR SIMPLY LEAVE OUT ESSENTIAL METHODS, DATA, OR STATISTICS

USE RIGGED OR IRRELEVANT CONTROL GROUPS, AND EMPLOY INSENSITIVE OR OBSOLETE EVALUATION TECHNIQUES

Monsanto’s 1996 Journal of Nutrition study <14> , <15> provides plenty of examples of scientific transgressions. Roundup Ready soybeans are engineered to withstand the normally fatal effects of Monsanto’s herbicide called Roundup. Monsanto scientists published a feeding study that purported to test their soybeans’ effect on rats, catfish, chickens, and cows. The study has been used often by the industry as validation for safety claims. According to Dr. Arpad Pusztai, however, “It was obvious that the study had been designed to avoid finding any problems. Everybody in our consortium knew this.” Pusztai was commissioned at the time by the UK government to develop rigorous testing protocols on GM foods—protocols that were never implemented. Pusztai, who had published several studies in that same nutrition journal, said the Monsanto paper was “not really up to the normal journal standards.” Pusztai says that if he had been asked to referee the paper for publication, “it would never have passed.” He’s confident that even his graduate assistants would have taken the study apart in short order. Some of the flaws include:



Researchers tested GM soy on mature animals, not young ones. Young animals use protein to build their muscles, tissues, and organs. Problems with GM food could therefore show up in organ and body weight. But adult animals use the protein for tissue renewal and energy. “With a nutritional study on mature animals,” says Pusztai, “you would never see any difference in organ weights even if the food turned out to be anti-nutritional. The animals would have to be emaciated or poisoned to show anything.”
*
Even if there were an organ development problem, the study wouldn’t have picked it up since the researchers didn’t weigh the organs.
*
In one of the trials, researchers substituted only one tenth of the natural protein with GM soy protein. In two others, they diluted their GM soy six- and twelve-fold. <16> Scientists Ian Pryme of Norway and Rolf Lembcke of Denmark wrote, the “level of the GM soy was too low, and would probably ensure that any possible undesirable GM effects did not occur.”
*
Pryme and Lembcke, who published a paper in Nutrition and Health that analyzed all peer-reviewed feeding studies on GM foods as of 2003, also pointed out that the percentage of protein in the feed used in the Roundup Ready study was “artificially too high.” This “would almost certainly mask, or at least effectively reduce, any possible effect of the .” They said it was “highly likely that all GM effects would have been diluted out.” <17>
*
Proper compositional studies filter out effects of weather or geography by comparing plants grown at the same time in the same location. Monsanto, however, pooled data from several locations, which makes it difficult for differences to be statistically significant. Nonetheless, the data revealed significant differences in the ash, fat, and carbohydrate content. Roundup Ready soy meal also contained 27% more trypsin inhibitor, a potential allergen, which might explain the sudden jump in soy allergies in the UK beginning right after Roundup Ready soy was introduced. Also, cows fed GM soy produced milk with a higher fat content, demonstrating another disparity between the two types of soy.

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One field trial, however, did grow GM and non-GM plants next to each other, but this data was not included in the paper. Years after the study appeared, medical writer Barbara Keeler discovered the data that had been omitted. It showed that Monsanto’s GM soy had significantly lower levels of protein, a fatty acid, and phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. Also, toasted GM soy meal contained nearly twice the amount of a lectin—one that may interfere with the body’s ability to assimilate other nutrients. And the amount of trypsin inhibitor in cooked GM soy was as much as seven times higher than a cooked non-GM control.
*
The study also omitted many details normally required for a published paper. According to Pryme and Lembcke, “No data were given for most of the parameters.”
*
And when researchers tested the effects of Roundup Ready protein on animals, they didn’t extract the protein from the soybeans. Instead, they derived it from GM bacteria, claiming the two forms of protein were equivalent. There are numerous ways, however, in which the protein in the soy may be different. In fact, nine years after this study was published, another study showed that the gene inserted into the soybeans produced unintended aberrant RNA strands, meaning that the protein may be quite different than what was intended. <18>

http://www.outandoutnutter.co.uk/gmfood/images/monsanto.jpg

In Pryme and Lembcke’s analysis, it came as no surprise that this Monsanto study, along with the other four peer-reviewed animal feeding studies that were “performed more or less in collaboration with private companies,” reported no negative effects of the GM diet. “On the other hand,” they wrote, “adverse effects were reported (but not explained) in independent studies.” They added, “It is remarkable that these effects have all been observed after feeding for only 10–14 days.” <19>

TOXIC GM FOODS COULD HAVE BEEN APPROVED

Two GM foods whose commercialization was stopped because of negative test results give a chilling example of what may be getting through. Rats fed GM potatoes had potentially precancerous cell growth in the stomach and intestines, less developed brains, livers, and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, and damaged immune systems. <20> GM peas provoked an inflammatory response in mice, suggesting that the peas might trigger a deadly anaphylactic shock in allergic humans. <21> Both of these dangerous crops, however, could easily have been approved. The problems were only discovered because the researchers used advanced tests that were never applied to GM crops already on the market. Both would have passed the normal tests that companies typically use to get their products approved.

Ironically, when Monsanto was asked to comment on the pea study, their spokesperson said it demonstrated that the regulatory system works. He failed to disclose that none of the company’s GM crops had been put through such rigorous tests.

RAMPANT UNRELENTING INDUSTRY BIAS

Industry-funded research that favors the funders is not new. Bias has been identified across several industries. In pharmaceuticals, for example, positive results are four times more likely if the drug’s manufacturer funds the study. <22> When companies pay for the economic analyses of their own cancer drugs, the results are eight times more likely to be favorable. <23> Compared to drug research, the potential for industry manipulation in GM crop studies is considerably higher. Unlike pharmaceutical testing, GM research has no standardized procedures dictated by regulators. GM studies are not usually published in peer-reviewed journals and are typically kept secret by companies and governments. There is little money available for rigorous independent research, so company evidence usually goes unchallenged and unverified. Most importantly, whereas drugs can show serious side-effects and still be approved, GM food cannot. There is no tolerance for adverse reactions; feeding trials must show no problems.



Thus, when industry studies show problems (in spite of their efforts to avoid them), serious adverse reactions and even deaths among GM-fed animals are ignored or dismissed as “not biologically significant ” or due to “natural variation s.”

Numerous reports including peer-reviewed articles and part 3 of the book Genetic Roulette are replete with examples of rigged research. But making these public does not seem to curtail its practice. Consider the wormy corn of the British Food Journal. Not only has the editor refused to retract the paper, he has not even agreed to reconsider its Award for Excellence. A blatant propaganda exercise still stands validated as exemplary science.

In the critical arena of food safety research, where the health of society is caught in the balance, it is entirely unacceptable that the biotech industry is without accountability, standards, or peer-review. At our expense, they’ve got bad science down to a science.



THIS ARTICLE IS BASED ON PART 3 OF THE BOOK, GENETIC ROULETTE: THE DOCUMENTED HEALTH RISKS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS, BY JEFFREY M. SMITH. www.GeneticRoulette.com

Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of the new publication Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, which presents 65 risks in easy-to-read two-page spreads. His first book, Seeds of Deception, is the top rated and #1 selling book on GM foods in the world. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which is spearheading the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America. Go to www.seedsofdeception.com to learn more about how to avoid GM foods.

http://foodconsumer.org/7777/8888/T_echnologies_40/112107022007_Company_Research_on_Genetically_Modified_Foods_is_Rigged.shtml

This is really annoying. Consumer choice models, pseudo-science and fear campaigns can never be allowed to drive public food policy.

That website is "a production of eshoppers.com" and eshoppers.com is an Internet hustle being used to sell advertising.

I swear, Monsanto itself must be behind this sort of crap. It certainly advances their interests.

Seeds of Deception is a crock of shit, as well.

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/TakeAction/index.cfm

Here is their "take action" advice:

[div class="excerpt"]Educate Yourself

Quickly become an expert on GMOs. It’s as easy as using the information provided on our website to learn about the health risks of GMOs and how to avoid them. Keep current on these issues with our e-newsletter, Spilling the Beans.

Buy Non-GM

Start eating healthier now! Buy non-GM and organic food products and ask local store managers to carry non-GMO products. Download the Non-GMO Shopping Guide. Use it when you write out your shopping list. Keep it with you whenever you shop and buy products listed in the Guide. Store it inside your reusable shopping bag, put in your coupon holder or checkbook, or leave it in your car. Visit the NEW Non-GMO Shopping Guide website! Click here.

Join the Campaign

It's free! Become a member of the Campaign and you’ll be a part of the Non-GMO tipping point. Combining your purchasing power with that of other health-conscious consumers will take us to the next level in the rejection of GM foods. If you are able, support our work financially as well.

Involve Others by Taking Local Action

Tell friends and family members about the health risks of GMOs and how to avoid them. Share what you have learned with them. Help create a buzz about the issue:

* Hold a house party and show the DVD, The World According to Monsanto.
* Meet with parents and others to inspire schools to offer non-GM school meals.
* If you are a healthcare professional, use our materials as a resource to educate your patients on the health risks of eating GMOs.
*
* Inspire restaurants to offer non-GM food.

Watch this space for tips, checklists and guides to help you organize events and energize others to join the Campaign.[/quote]

The "NEW Non-GMO Shopping Guide website!" is another hustle, connected to the same guy as the other sites are, Jeffrey Smith.

http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/SG/AboutUs/index.cfm

Is there anything more evil on the planet than commercial hustles posing as progressive politics? Playing on people's fears and the food crisis to turn a buck. It is worse than, and no different than the right wing astro-turf bullshit out there.

These people must be suppressed.

They must have a template they teach at whatever seminars some jackass runs for these 'social activists'.

Imagine if the charter school and other privatization schemes continue to grow ( a certainty I guess.)

Then imagine that advocacy groups spring up talking about the most egregious aspects and behavior of "Educorp" - analogous to the "Monsanto" scarecrow. "Educorp" - and all of public education - is then called "conventional education." Then, people are told how the big bad gubmint is in league with "Educorp," and it is credible because a revolving door between "Educorp" and the Department of Education does in fact exist.

Is all of this being done to protect and restore public education? To beat back the commercialization and privatization of education? Not if it goes the way of organic advocacy, it isn't. It would all be for the purpose of smashing the last vestiges of public education, while peddling "alternative" schools, private schools and turning a buck. Phony non-profits would be set up, and the public would then be "educated" on the horrors of "conventional education" - public education and the big bad gubmint. "We need choices!" would be the cry. "We need to educate the public so they make better choices! (click here to buy the 'better' products.)" The demand would be for NO regulation or public role in education at all - it would all be about "free choice."

What is the difference between "educating the public about the dangers of conventional agriculture" and "deceptively hustling your commercial products by using clever marketing techniques?"

This particular operation is clearly a hustle along the lines of Dr. Mercola, but the non-profits that are not directly selling anything are no better. There is a revolving door now between organic commercial ventures, the non-profit advocacy groups, and the ag schools. Why? What is driving this? There is money in organic, a lot of money. Also, there are many non-profits that do nothing but "educating the public" which amounts to running solicitations for donations with fear campaigns. "They are poisoning you. Send us money so we can fight it." But the "fighting it" aspect merely amounts to running more fear campaigns to raise more donations so they can run more fear campaigns, all the while enjoying perks and benefits and nice salaries while producing nothing and having little or no independent accountability. The rare times that anything is actually done outside of the fund-raising and grant-seeking activities, it will be something like what just happened in Michigan where organic groups successfully lobbied the legislature to exempt them from health, safety and quality inspections by the Michigan Department of Agriculture. They are promoting de-regulation, privatization, and "free markets." They get liberals to support that right wing agenda by appealing to their "personal values" - otherwise known as emotions, feelings about things, and scaring them. "Look out! Pesticides!" is no different than "look out! Palin!" for driving people the direction you want them to go in order to grab money and power.

The problem with GMO is privatization, not "frankenfood." Fighting privatization with privatization cannot possible be a good thing. "Buy our products instead of theirs. Give us money instead of them. We are nicer people who care a lot more." That is precisely analogous to the Democratic party hustle. "Is organic perfect? No. But it is better than the alternative!" The "converting people to new belief systems" and "gradual change" and "personal values" bs is pervasive throughout liberalism.

What possible justification and rationalizations can there be for continuing to dabble in liberalism? We should have to fall back on the same old same old bs:

"Is that organization perfect? No, but at least they are (raising public awareness, at least they are not 'Monsanto,' at least they are doing something blah blah blah.)"

"Is here a commercial or self-serving political angle behind the advocacy? Well, yeah, but how else can you get things done in this society without money?"

"Is that organization actually achieving any of its goals? Well, no, but these things take time, and we are up against (Palin, the elites, the tea baggers, and this is a center-right nation, and most people are lazy and stupid and shopping at WalMart blah blah blah, so we have to just keep educating people so they will make the "right choices" if we are going to have progressive change and we need to take baby steps.)"

"Is that organization discussing root causes, applying class analysis? Well, no, but they are moving in that direction. You can't expect people to just change their beliefs overnight." Yeah, right, and "once we get in office, then we can swing to the Left, but first we need to be in power, and then meanwhile we can work to get progressives elected on the local level. It may take generations, so don't be impatient. We are trying to turn an ocean liner around. Until we change people's beliefs, nothing can be accomplished." aspect merely amounts to running more fear campaigns to raise more donations so they can run more fear campaigns, all the while enjoying perks and benefits and nice salaries while producing nothing and having little or no independent accountability. The rare times that anything is actually done outside of the fund-raising and grant-seeking activities, it will be something like what just happened in Michigan where organic groups successfully lobbied the legislature to exempt them from health, safety and quality inspections by the Michigan Department of Agriculture. They are promoting de-regulation, privatization, and "free markets." They get liberals to support that right wing agenda by appealing to their "personal values" - otherwise known as emotions, feelings about things, and scaring them. "Look out! Pesticides!" is no different than "look out! Palin!" for driving people the direction you want them to go in order to grab money and power.

The problem with GMO is privatization, not "frankenfood." Fighting privatization with privatization cannot possible be a good thing. "Buy our products instead of theirs. Give us money instead of them. We are nicer people who care a lot more." That is precisely analogous to the Democratic party hustle. "Is organic perfect? No. But it is better than the alternative!" The "converting people to new belief systems" and "gradual change" and "personal values" bullshit is pervasive throughout liberalism.

What possible justification and rationalizations an there be for continuing to dabble in liberalism? We should have to fall back on the same old same old bullshit:

"Is that organization perfect? No, but at least they are (raising public awareness, not "Monsanto," doing something blah blah blah.)"

"Is here a commercial or self-serving political angle behind the advocacy? Well, yeah, but how else can you get things done in this society without money?"

"Is that organization actually achieving any of its goals? Well, no, but these things take time, and we are up against (Palin, the elites, the tea baggers, and this is a center-right nation, and most people are lazy and stupid and shopping at WalMart blah blah blah, so we have to just keep educating people so they will make the "right choices" if we are going to have progressive change and we need to take baby steps.)"

"I that organization discussing root causes, applying class analysis? Well, no, but they are moving in that direction. You can't expect people to just change their beliefs overnight." Yeah, right, and "once we get in office, then we can swing to the Left, but first we need to be in power, and then meanwhile we can work to get progressives elected on the local level. It may take generations, so don't be impatient. We are trying to turn an ocean liner around. Until we change people's beliefs, nothing can be accomplished."

Whole Foods runs an expensive seminar series "how to dream up, have manufactured, and hustle your new organic product." Paraphrasing a little there. "Your idea could lead to a product that will be selected for inclusion in the exclusive Whole Foods catalog!" Ka-ching.

Here in Michigan there is an unholy alliance between entrepreneurs, the ag college outreach and extension, and the liberal advocacy groups (all the same crowd, meeting to sip wine, with different "players" (or is it "stake-holders?") merely "wearing different hats" but all "supporting the same progressive cause."

The USDA, the state ag departments, and the ag colleges have always done a certain amount of programs to help farmers with sales, in recent times especially with direct sales as a hedge against collapsing wholesale prices due to crop futures speculation, globalization and free trade. But now that has become perverted to mean entrepreneurs catering to an upscale crowd with gourmet and boutique food items - led by the winery mania - who then can get the imprimatur of the colleges, public funding and assistance, free promotion from the public institutions, and exemption for regulation and inspection. All of that has little or nothing to do with agriculture, but since funding to the ag colleges has been slashed they are easily bribed (oops, I mean to say "they are innovating and responding to the changing economic and political realities by developing strategic partnerships with the private sector." What was I thinking?)

In Detroit we have the mother of all fucked up privatization schemes, with entrepreneurs, the ag college outreach and extension services, the liberal foodie advocacy groups, plus the state park service, the city government, and con men and real estate hustlers as "stake-holders" and "players." The supposed goal? Turn Detroit into farmland. Amazing to me that anyone takes this seriously.

We have to ruthlessly an relentless battle against pervasive liberalism in all of its guises and manifestations, we have to get sharper at identifying it and analyzing it, we need to attack it from rock solid ground.

Your singin' a familiar song here but you haven't said anything about the article.

Of course the organic industry and all their activists schlock sucks. This article doesn't even get into any of that even if the link takes you to snake oil.

And you might try a different analogy, although in some unintended way it is appropriate, as "conventional" agriculture sucks just as badly as "public" education does and for similar reasons.

The problem is that there is such a thing as GMO and "frankenfood" is part of that problem.

All of this is of course the natural movement within investors influence and has nothing to do with the well-being of people, we all know that.

But as relates to this specific article your comments are tangential at best.

The article starts out with a discussion of consumer preferences, and ends with the usual "Monsanto" idiocy, as though if we were to change people's beliefs and take down a few bad actors in the corporate work - along with eliminating the last remnants of public health and safety inspection and testing - that all would be well. I don't know how to see that as anything other than politically reactionary.

Of course the corporations are fudging the research and misleading the public. That is happening everywhere and is not specific to GMO food. Does the article lead readers to that conclusion? No, we are to see one specific (and presumably unusual and isolated) area of a few bad actors doing a few bad things.

I am not going to argue against public education, public agriculture, nor Unions no matter how corrupted, because it is the interests of the working class that are under assault in all three areas, it is the concept of public ownership that is being attacked, and what is being offered up as an alternative is free market Capitalism, albeit with an organic or green label slapped on it. The fact that those things "suck" doesn't tell us much. Everything sucks under Capitalism.

"Public education", if that's what you are now calling it, isn't broken and isn't somehow "recently" being tainted by capitalism as it's intent was always to provide grist for the business mill. The fact that charter schools and other private "solutions" are heinous doesn't change this. Argue for public schooling all you want but it was never an institution intended to strengthen the working class though there certainly have been many individuals within that institution, still are, who would like for that to be the case and fight against the tide for this.

As for the 'Monsanto' idiocy you allude to I must have missed it. Specify. Your entire screed, though in general I sympathize with your core points, has little relation to this piece, your attempts at drawing connections are tenuous.

Public agriculture? When was that? Are we back to 40 acres and a mule?

I don't know what you are talking about, or what the problem you have with what I posted is.

while you are absolutely right that public education has been always been designed to prepare a work force, in this country, for the business mill, at least the premise of being from public funds is something that needs to be protected? to have private agencies be paid via public funds to run schools is taking this one step further away from a venue where teachers can, at times, provide some true educaton within a formulated system. just sayin'...

It is very sad that as the needs of the business community become less demanding of a learned work force, that the people are becoming less educated...recent articles do state, however that the business community is starting to rue just how diminished the
preparedness of the work force is... hoist in their own petard?

Wanted to include this to discuss later:



The article starts out with a discussion of consumer preferences, and ends with the usual "Monsanto" idiocy, as though if we were to change people's beliefs and take down a few bad actors in the corporate work - along with eliminating the last remnants of public health and safety inspection and testing - that all would be well. I don't know how to see that as anything other than politically reactionary.

Of course the corporations are fudging the research and misleading the public. That is happening everywhere and is not specific to GMO food. Does the article lead readers to that conclusion? No, we are to see one specific (and presumably unusual and isolated) area of a few bad actors doing a few bad things.

I am not going to argue against public education, public agriculture, nor Unions no matter how corrupted, because it is the interests of the working class that are under assault in all three areas, it is the concept of public ownership that is being attacked, and what is being offered up as an alternative is free market Capitalism, albeit with an organic or green label slapped on it. The fact that those things "suck" doesn't tell us much. Everything sucks under Capitalism.


From here:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/06

Universal public education - isn't that self-explanatory? Now, whether or not there should be any education at all, and aside from what is taught there, the issue is between education only for the rich, or universal free public education. I can't imagine anything where the choice, and the side we take, could be more clear.

Why don't we get rid of public transportation while we are at it, since it just takes people to corporate jobs and is used by the military?

Are we to imagine that if there were no public education, that then everyone would be free from any chance that they would be trained and become a work force for the Capitalists?

Yes, public education trains people to be part of the workforce, but that is only given that they are in fact being educated. Were they not being educated, the training would be easier, not more difficult. People don't become wage slaves because they got an education, but rather because they have no choice. That wouldn't change were they not educated. Education wasn't required in order to train the slaves as a workforce. Should slaves not have been taught to read, because that would have made them more valuable to the slave owners?

Without public education, we would have an illiterate working class. Given that we are going to be wage slaves for the Capitalists with or without education, are we better off literate or illiterate?

we could have piss all over the sidewalks.

Most analogies are odious.

No, it's not self-explanatory. There are actual real life details. Your defining what the issue is, in your mind, ignores what the issues actually are.

Maybe you are in denial as to what the public education system is in america and what it has always been, what it's actual, very real not assumed, purpose is and has always been.

Perhaps you're just a romantic.

acceptable education system, period. Now, we find ourselves within a capitalist society where the education system is skewed for the benefit of the capitalist class - as is everything else in this society. It seems quite unacceptable to throw the baby out with the bath. No education is not better than capitalist skewed education; at least with the latter, there is a chance for the working class to break out. But to say that some other form of education is preferable would seem to say that "home schooling" is the answer? Forming together in small enclaves and teaching children on the outside of the society? Not a good answer, I think.

This ties into the food supply, as well. We could band together into enclaves and grow our own - but could we? Just as we have to maintain an income in order to keep mind and body together, keep a roof over our heads, etc., we also need to be able to purchase food that we have some confidence in. Currently, the surest way of food quality is through government regulation and standards. I know too many farmers who may be right-wing wannabes, but they are not corporations. There are corporate farms and many of their practices are much less than ideal, but going with some kind of unregulated "underground" food supply or opting for food grown without any regulations or standards, I think, is unacceptable.

I may not have an adequate grasp of this issue, and if so, I am more than willing to be corrected.

Explain what the issues actually are, and what the public education system is in america and what it has always been.

Good post.

Question, Dhalgren - what do people mean by "corporate farms?" (no right or wrong answer, I just wonder what it is people imagine or are talking about when they use that term.)

Farmers may not be corporations, but they are owners, or landlords, and the same social dynamic happens as everywhere else.

By the way, here is s common scenario - someone inherits their parents' farm, doesn't want to farm and so leases out the farm to people who do want to farm. Who is the farmer? The passive owner of the land, or the person working the land? Government subsidies go to the person who owns the farm, not to those working it.

where the farmer has in some way obtained something like a "franchise". I know of several chicken farmers, who have become "Tyson Farms" - even though the farmer is still the farmer and still "owns" his farm (as far as I know).

My in-laws, up in Minnesota, owned a dairy farm and there was talk of "Meadowland" or "Land-o-Lakes" or someone buying farms, but I am not sure exactly what "buying" meant, since most of the farmers seemed to stay on their farms.

I think that "corporate farm" is more of a shorthand for the farm's relation to the community, maybe? Good question. I am often guilty of using terms and phrases that I simply take for granted, maybe shouldn't so much...

by attempting to provide needed services, education, legal, medical, they created the beginnings of an alternative to capitalist society. I suspect that aspect of their mission was alarming to the owners and one of the reasons they were persecuted so fiercely. Likewise the urban farmers of LA and mebbe the even the 'back to the land' folks of days gone by. Dependency is a requisite of an oppressive society, it seems that all attempts to break it get squashed. While I like the idea these efforts have been too small and isolated to survive, nonviable. Capitalist society cannot be ignored, it won't allow that, it must be attacked.

"The best defense is a good offense."
Johnny Unitas

The trend is in that direction - control over farms by fewer and fewer people. "Vertical integration" is what we call it. For example, WalMart and a few others now have control over the fruit packers who then have control over the growers. It is a David and Goliath situation. How long before WalMart takes over the packing tier, as is happening in poultry and hogs? WalMart may as well own them now in terms of controlling them. How long before the packers grab up distressed fruit farms? (distressed because the packers are paying low prices because WalMart is paying low prices).

It doesn't much matter what form it takes, money is power and the corporations have all of the money and all of the clout so you are working for them one way or the other.

It seems to me that "corporate" doesn't tell us much. What is the difference if the corporation actually owns the farm, or just controls it through market clout? Everyone is becoming a sharecropper one way or another.

in America was designed by and for the capitalist elites. Here are some suggested resources:

http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/educationhistorytimeline.html

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/76/bb/0e0181b0c8a0469baca79110.L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1187773

Sloppy bit here but more food for thought:

Education as Cultural Imperialism

What is at stake is, as Carnoy reminded us, a form of education as cultural imperialism, or as Freire says, a form of cultural invasion. As a result of these policies, countless thousands of "minority" young people drop out of school, fail to complete their secondary education or fail to complete their degrees, developing a culture of resistance and failure similar to Paul Willis’ "lads". What these "failures" reveal is the tendency of the educational system to operate within a particularly narrow and somewhat confusing definition of culture, often equating it with nation and in the process erasing traces of actual cultural difference through assimilationist policies of nationalism and nationhood. Tomlinson distinguishes four realms of cultural imperialism. He cites media imperialism, the imperialism of nationality, the cultural imperialism of global capitalism and the imperialism of modernity.

The system of education, insofar as it fills an important hegemonic role in society, operates to shape cultural reality in the latter three of these realms. It does so first of all by framing and making real an imaginary sense of nationhood which mitigates against dissident groups. It promulgates values which accept and reinforce the ethic of competition and hierarchy which are the very foundational elements of capitalism, and finally it supports forms of knowledge, themselves deeply implicated in modernist notions of "progress" as well as instrumental rationalism, which marginalise and silence other modes of experience and perception. It carries out these processes in ways which are mutually legitimating and which result in a general reinforcement of existing structures of authority and power in our society. The authority thus supported then reciprocally reinforces particular and specific forms of authority within the educational structure itself.

In other words, education reflects and supports the values and the continued dominance of a particular social group, and this social group reciprocally authenticates those forms of educational practice, establishing them as a normativity. Through this normalising process, marginalised internal dissent renders axiomatic the dominance of the system's own values. Within the context of Western hegemony we can see that each of these processes and structures are connected and linked through the ownership of the means of production of cultural knowledge. In other words, it is precisely the dominant culture in any given society which has in its possession the overwhelming means to reproduce and to give expression to its position of cultural dominance, or as Marx once put it:

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; i.e., the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production...”

The means of domination need not be coercive, in fact cannot be coercive lest they generate a resistance which would be destabilising and perhaps counter-productive. Hegemony is, rather, a persuasive process by which the dominated are persuaded to participate in their own domination by the use and adoption of such meta-identities as those promoted by colonising conceptions of nationhood, and education plays a fundamental part in the creation of such uniformalising categories.

...

http://tonywardedu.blogspot.com/2007/10/cultural-pluralism-education-and.html

Let's not romanticize about this crap. The American public education system isn't broken. It is working as designed. It is doing the proper social engineering and stratification for which it was intended.

Much of this silliness reminds me of those who wish to "reform or fix" the Democratic party or have America "return to Democracy." The reality is that America is a wrecking ball not because of some flaw in the process, the American public education system is a stifling conformist mill for the business class not because somehow it's liberating potential was subsumed by meddling capitalist but rather the roots of these entities established quite precisely what we see today. There are no inconsistencies here, there was no veering from some noble path, everything is moving along in keeping with it's design.

http://www.moralhygiene.com/assets/stills/1/GoodCitizensAt%20School2.jpg

Certainly you must as you are pontificating about this.

Nostalgia creates a fuzzy lens Mike.

the public education system in this country any more than you can reform the American political system.

It's not a baby it's an ogre. Get rid of it, the bath and the bath water.

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/erdrich/boarding/marr.htm

Capitalist controlled "education" is tightly connected to assimilation- inseparable.

There is no such thing as "no education" and it is much easier to raise the political conscience of the "uneducated" or "undereducated" than it is to affect the educated classes.

George Jackson and many others teach us this.

I will be checking out these resources...hate to have to work in this system, but they really haven't figured out how to control my discipline, visual art, to the degree that they would like...so I'm a tad freer...

NCLB, RTTI... teach kids how to do exactly what is needed, my tiny hope lies in what I said above, they fuck up and have to back pedal... the few of us who really get this just break the rules as much as we can... try to tell the kids the truth... try to get the kids to think...

"The common schools
are the stomachs of the country
in which all people that come to us
are assimilated within a generation.
When a lion eats an ox,
the lion does not become an ox
but the ox becomes a lion."
...Henry Ward Beecher*

"If the Great Spirit had desired me
to be a white man
he would have made me so
in the first place.
He put in your heart
certain wishes and plans;
in my heart he put
other and different desires.
Each man is good
in the sight of the Great Spirit.

It is not necessary,
that eagles should be crows."
..Sitting Bull (Teton Sioux)




http://home.epix.net/~landis/PrattPupilsinFrontofPratts%27QuartersCarlisleIndianSchool1885L.jpg
Student body assembled on the Carlisle Indian School Grounds.
Photo courtesy of Carlisle-www.army.mil


Carlisle Indian Industrial School History

Note: I use the term "Indian" throughout this article to identify the peoples of the various autochthonous nations within the U.S. borders,
who were affected by and recruited for the Indian School experiment,
in keeping with the written accounts of the historic period during the school's existence.

PRATT, FT. MARION PRISONERS AND HAMPTON.


The story of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School begins with a brief introduction to its founder. Richard Henry Pratt spent eight years (1867-1875) in Indian Territory as an officer of the 10th Cavalry, commanding a unit of African American "Buffalo Soldiers" and Indian Scouts. During this time, he was stationed at Ft. Sill, OK, 60 miles east of the site of the Battle of the Washita where Black Kettle (Cheyenne) was killed in 1867.

Pratt came into contact with Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho who had been placed on reservations in the area of the Red River near what is now the Texas and Oklahoma borders. He, his scouts and freed slave soldiers, participated in the many campaigns to keep the Indians on the reservations and away from the encroaching settlers. But Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors continued with their raiding parties in search of game and buffalo. Scant provisions and lack of supplies on the reservations made it impossible for the Indian people to thrive, forcing such raids.

Constant complaints about inadequate government rations brought no relief. After filing numerous reports describing rancid beef, inferior and diseased livestock, poor grains and lack of provisions, Pratt developed a distrust and loathing of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) which endured throughout his military service. This deep hostility began while he was administering supplies on the reservations and eventually led to his resignation as the superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School in 1904.

Frustrated by unsuccessful attempts to 'bring in' the most recalcitrant of the 'hostiles', the United States instituted a plan to incarcerate them. In April, 1875, seventy-two warriors from the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo Nations, were rounded up for exile to St. Augustine, Florida. There they would be held hostage in exchange for the ransom of the good behavior of their kinfolk with Richard Henry Pratt as their jailer. These men were shackled and transported by rail to Ft. Marion Prison far from their homelands to a hot, humid climate unfamiliar to them.

Shortly after their arrival, Pratt removed the prisoners' shackles, cut their hair and issued them military uniforms. The Indians were expected to polish their buttons and shoes and clean and press their trousers. After a time, they were organized into companies and given instruction in military drill. Eventually, their military guards were dismissed and several of the most trusted Indian prisoners were chosen to serve as guards.

Local women, curious about these prisoners, volunteered to teach them to read in exchange for archery lessons. The Indians were given art supplies to illustrate on paper, their early days as buffalo hunters. With colored pencils, they drew many beautiful pictographic ledger drawings, over a thousand of which survive today. They collected, polished, and sold sea beans as trinkets. They were eventually given the freedom to leave the fort unchaperoned and some found employment as day laborers in the neighboring communities.

St. Augustine in the 1870's was the vacation spot of choice for New Englanders traveling by steamboat down the East Coast. Here Pratt came in contact with several benefactors who expressed an interest in the welfare of the Indians who were beginning to resemble white men. During this era, Pratt's philosophy of Indian education began to take shape.

Quaker and missionary reformers explored new methods to 'civilize' the Indians. They were uncomfortable with extermination policies and began to formulate ideas of assimilation. These methods appealed to Pratt, who was already experimenting with his Ft. Marion charges. He agreed that to 'civilize' the Indian would be to turn him into a copy of his God-fearing, soil-tilling, white brother. By the end of their term of incarceration (1878), Pratt had convinced 17 prisoners to further their education by enrolling in the Hampton Institute in Virginia.

Hampton was founded in 1868 by Samuel Chapman Armstrong. It was a government boarding school for African-American children designed to educate by training "the head, the hand, and the heart". Its goal was to train and return them to their communities to become leaders and professionals among their people. This fit Pratt's developing philosophies about assimilation, with the exception of returning to community. He began to formulate a model similar to Hampton - but exclusively for Indians.

In an address to a convention of Baptist ministers in 1883 Pratt wrote: "In Indian civilization I am a Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked." So Pratt began his aggressive and relentless quest for a school of his own to begin his work. He lobbied Washington; he contacted his wealthy supporters in the East and convinced the powers that be that his experiment would be a success. He would take Indian children from the reservations, remove them to a school far away from tribal influences, and transform them.

RECRUITING THE FIRST STUDENTS
By mid 1879, Pratt had secured the permission of the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, and Secretary of the War Department McCrary to use a deserted military base as the site of his school. Carlisle Barracks in central Pennsylvania was chosen. It was a former cavalry post that had been closed after a petitioning campaign by the local community found the Sunday parades disruptive to their church going activities. Sensing potential trouble from the townspeople, Pratt approached the town fathers of Carlisle for approval for his school and was able to get the support of the community which provided him with favorable petitions.

In September 1879 - Pratt, accompanied by Miss Mather, a former teacher and interpreter from St. Augustine, headed to Dakota Territory to recruit the students he had been instructed to enroll in his new Carlisle school. These were to be children from Spotted Tail's Rosebud reservation and Red Cloud's Pine Ridge Agency. Pratt's instructions were to recruit 36 students from each reservation.

He arrived at Rosebud first to meet with Spotted Tail, Milk, Two Strike and White Thunder. Spotted Tail was skeptical. He was reluctant to send his and others' children to be trained in the ways of the men who had violated their treaties and trespassed in their Black Hills. But Pratt was persistent and urged Spotted Tail to reconsider, using the argument that had his people been able to read the white man's words, the treaties would have been better understood and such violations might not have occurred.

Pratt illustrated the problem of communicating such important decisions by insisting they could not speak in confidence, just the two of them - owing to Spotted Tail's inability to speak the white man's language. It was necessary for an interpreter to translate the words spoken, and perhaps the interpreter was not truly conveying the real meaning of their words. It seems not to have occurred to Pratt that had he been able to speak the language of Spotted Tail, greater understanding might have taken place.

Pratt also predicted that no matter what happened, the white man would keep coming and coming and that Spotted Tail's people must "be able to meet him face to face and take care of themselves and their property without the help of either an interpreter or an Indian agent." Spotted Tail consulted with his tribal headmen and after a long time, returned with his consent. "It is all right. We are going to give you all the children you want. I am going to send five, Milk will send his boy and girl, and the others are going to send the rest."

After persuading Spotted Tail, Pratt headed west for Pine Ridge. There he met with Red Cloud, American Horse, Young-Man- Afraid-of-His-Horses and other leaders. He told them of Spotted Tail's consent and got the approval of the Pine Ridge head men. Red Cloud had no children to send, but sent a grandson. American Horse sent three children. All in all, 82 children from both agencies were sent to Carlisle after medical examinations determined their fitness.

While Pratt was securing the children from Dakota, two of his former prisoners were recruiting potential students from their nations. Both Etadleuh (Kiowa) and Okahaton (Cheyenne) agreed to find more children to send to the first off reservation boarding school for Indian children.

Luther Standing Bear was among the first wave of students to travel to Carlisle. He described the journey east in his book, "My People, the Sioux". He talked of traveling on a moving house - his first experience on a railroad car. As they pulled into stations along the way, crowds of curious people peered into the trains, anxious for a look at these 'wild' children. Pratt had telegraphed Chicago of their stopover and the newspapers had publicized the journey. This was only three years since the Battle of the Greasy Grass in which Custer had been killed.

The group arrived at Carlisle in the middle of the night, October 6, 1879. They stepped off the platform to be greeted by hundreds of townspeople, welcoming them and accompanying them to the army post. But when Pratt, Miss Mather and the children arrived at the empty military post, tired and hungry, there were no provisions awaiting them. No bedding, no food, no clothing - none of the requested necessities. Once again, Pratt had been thwarted by the BIA. The children slept on the floor in their blankets.
SCHOOL LIFE
Teachers were waiting at the school to begin their work. Pratt had hired a full complement of staff, both for academic and industrial instruction. They had been carefully selected and were ready to begin as soon as the children arrived. Pratt left immediately to collect the second wave of students - the Cheyenne and Kiowa recruited by his former prisoners. During his absence, Mrs. Pratt and several teachers took charge of the children to begin the process of assimilation. One of their first responsibilities was to hire a barber to cut the children's long hair. For the Lakota, the cutting of hair was symbolic of mourning and there was much wailing and lamenting which lasted into the night.

Upon arrival of the second wave of Cheyenne and Kiowa children, the requested provisions had still not arrived but for the least important item - an organ. The children were housed in dormitories and classes began immediately. The school was structured with academics for half day and trades, the other half. Half the group learned reading, writing and arithmetic in the mornings, and carpentry, tinsmithing, blacksmithing for the boys, or cooking, sewing, laundry, baking, and other domestic arts for the girls in the afternoons. The other half learned their trades in the mornings and academics in the afternoons.

School life was modeled after military life. Uniforms were issued for the boys, the girls dressed in Victorian-style dresses. Shoes were required, as no moccasins were allowed. The boys and girls were organized into companies with officers who took charge of drill. The children marched to and from their classes, and to the dining hall for meals. No one was allowed to speak their native tongue.

Discipline was strictly enforced - military style. There was regular drill practice and the children were ranked, with the officers in command. A court system was organized in the hierarchical style of a military justice system, with students determining the consequences for offenses. The most severe punishment was to be confined to the guardhouse. The old guardhouse, built by Hessian prisoners during the Revolutionary War, still stands.

An ambitious printing program was developed at the school and the school newspapers were popular among the local folk, available at the post office and by subscription throughout the country. This became a small source of income to supplement funding by the government which was always inadequate. The publications also provided Pratt with a platform from which to publicize his experiment and perpetuate his views on education.

Funding was also secured from the benefactors who had tracked Pratt's activities since his days at Ft. Marion. Among his supporters were former abolitionists and Quakers who were eager to be involved in his success and who often visited the school. They were treated to special programs - concerts and dramas, written and performed by the students. Brochures for these programs were printed at the school and publicity for special programs were spread via the school newspapers.
ADJUSTMENT AND RESPONSE
Zitkala Sa (Dakota) wrote about her early experiences after arriving at a boarding school in Indiana. She described the trauma of having to wear hard, tight fitting shoes and confining dress instead of moccasins and loose shift. She tells about hiding under her bed trying to escape the strict matron's domination and how the matron and the other girls tried to find her. It took her some time to adjust to her new school life. But she did, became an accomplished writer and the darling of the New England literary circle in the late 1800's. She taught at the Carlisle school for a few years, but didn't see eye to eye with Pratt. After some of her works were published, Pratt used the school newspapers to publicly criticize her for her story, "The Soft-Hearted Sioux", in which a young man returns to his reservation unable to effectively participate in tribal life after his exposure to the boarding school experience.

The earliest newspapers featured letters from the students written to their families back home. In September 1882, "THE SCHOOL NEWS" printed the following from Harry Shirley to his father:

"A HAPPY LITTLE CADDO BOY WHO CAME LAST MONTH, WRITES HIS FIRST LETTER HOME. My Dear Father: - I thought I would write you a few lines and I like the place very much and there was one Negro boy got killed on the railroad and we have a very nice farm and cold water to drink and would send my Bow and arrows and how is my little pony getting along I would like to know how are you getting and would please send me some money and we have a great many boy and is great many girls and the boys have a small house I wish they play the band and I have a bed to myself. And I am coming home in two years from now if Capt. Pratt will let me and how are you getting along with the big house and will you tell me in your letter when you write and we got at Carlisle on Thursday and when we got here I did not like the place but since I have being here two or three days I have got used to the place and I like it very well but when we got I felt very home sick and be sure and send my bow and some spike arrows. And we go to church every Sunday. And I have a blue suit to where and there was one Shyenne boy shot himself with a pistol and how is Mrs.Cornet folks getting along Mr. and Mrs. Blankshiy folks getting and the boys have a nice green lawn in which play Kicking a football and how are you getting along with your stock."

Pratt lobbied politicians for support for the school. He often visited Washington or entertained dignitaries at Carlisle. One of his early supporters was Senator Henry Dawes, author of the General Allotment Act, the US government policy which resulted in the loss of more than 40% of tribal lands. Pratt's assimilationist policies for education for Indians coupled with Dawes' checkerboarding allotment legislation formed a perceived potential solution for the "Indian Problem" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

In addition to the academic and industrial programs, music and art classes were taught at Carlisle. According to Standing Bear's book, My People, the Sioux, when the first students were given paper and pencils, they pulled their blankets over their heads and began to draw pictographic images depicting their lives as they remembered from their days on the plains. These drawings represent the imagery of buffalo hunting, courting ceremonies, special ceremonies and everyday village scenes. There are three Harry Shirley drawings among these drawings. This is the same Harry Shirley (Caddo) who wrote the letter home asking about his little pony. About 50 of these early drawings are extant.

Music was also an important part of the Carlisle curriculum. Every student took music classes and many received private instruction. A band leader was hired, and the Carlisle Indian School band became a popular parade addition. The band performed at football games and traveled to expositions and competitions. It was featured at every Presidential Inaugural Parade during the life of the school. Dennison Wheelock (Oneida) became the first Indian band leader and after his tenure, his brother James took up the baton.

Choral music was also encouraged and soon the school had several choirs. Regular "entertainments" were held at the school. Visitors were often treated to musical performances and some old-timers still recall the Indian School concerts.

In 1900, Richard Pratt surveyed his teachers and asked them to compare their students to the non Indian students they had taught before coming to Carlisle. Their comments were published in the February 1900 issue of "The Red Man" (school paper). Among these comments:

"...they have been systematically taught self-repression. They are also close observers and render nature with truth; Miss S. commends the Indian's 'true eye', also regards them as 'more patient and painstaking than white children.' She was struck at first with the marked stillness, the 'reposeful feeling' in a room full of Indian pupils. In the natural sciences, and in civil government - a favorite study - they are more at home. Miss W., teacher of the Juniors, declares that her pupils show superior ability in solving for themselves problems in physics and physical geography. She thinks that, 'with sufficient training, some will be found to have special gifts for original research.' Discipline is universally admitted to be easier than in white schools.. This may be explained partially by the fact that here the children are under continuous discipline, from which there is no appeal. The problems quite different in a reservation day school. The easier control was attributed by some, however, to the Indians' 'patience' and 'lack of nervous irritability,' while others thought 'they are more in earnest than the average white child - they really want to learn.' It was Prof. B's opinion that while we found here many unevenly developed characters and strong idiosyncrasies, owing to a lack of systematic home training, yet 'he had seen more genuine beauty of character among these Indian children than among any others he had ever known'. 'They seem', he said, 'to be remarkable keen judges of human nature. I believe that we have lost some things by civilization - among them this native unconscious keenness. I do not suppose they formulate it to themselves at all, but instinctively, as it were, these children seem to size you up with wonderful quickness and accuracy'. 'If they possess one quality', he added, 'that is all but universal, among them and in which they are our superiors, it is that of personal dignity'.

Several of the teachers found that the older girls were self-conscious and embarrassed by the presence of the boys. It was on that account, said one, that the boys excelled in recitation, while the girls usually did better written work. It is hard work to persuade an Indian girl, in school for the first time, to stand up and recite at all in a class with boys. It is contrary to all their ideas of modesty and propriety. Miss S., who teaches vocal music, says that 'the Indians have a strong sense of rhythm, but are deficient in ear. The male voices are rather better than the female, and there is an unusually large proportion of tenors, owing, perhaps to the habit of singing in unison, with the men singing falsetto, in tribal music.'"

Pine Ridge Sioux children of American Horse and High Wolf: Bear Don't Scare, Lone Hill, Singer, Frank Twiss, Daisy Glade, Lucy Day, Mary Bridgeman
Courtesy of Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center

Maggie, a Sioux girl, dictated this letter to an interpreter for publication:

"Carlisle Barracks, PA, Jan. 24,1881.

My dear father: AMERICAN HORSE:- I want to tell you something, and it makes me feel very glad. You tell me that my brother is married and that makes me feel very glad. My cousins, and brothers, and I are all very well, at this Carlisle School. We would like to see you again. I am always happy here, but lately I sometimes feel bad, because you tell me that my grandfather is getting very old. Tell me how my brothers are. I would like to see my brother's wife's picture. Tell my brother Two-Dogs to write to me again. Miss Hyde's father died two weeks ago, and I am very sorry. I remember all of my friends. If you don't answer my letter soon, I'll feel bad. I don't always answer your letter soon, but it is because I can not write. As soon as I get so that I can write myself, I will write as often as I can. Tell Brave Bull that Dora (Her Pipe) has been a little sick, but is most well now. Tell if my grandfather is well. If he gets sick tell me. You wrote to my cousin Robert and told him that you had a house to live in, and lots of pigs and cows and such things, and I was very glad. You've got a white man's house to live in now and I am anxious to learn all that I can, so that I can come home by and by and live with you. I hear that they have a big school out there and it makes me very glad. If you can, come again, and tell me if you can come again, when. I want to tell you that some more girls and boys came here. Twenty-five. Fifteen of them are girls. There are a great many of us here now, and Capt. Pratt is very kind to us. That is all I want to say now. Give my love to all of my friends. Your daughter, Maggie Stands-Looking."


Maggie Stands Looking was among the first wave of children brought from Rosebud. She was the daughter of American Horse. According to Pratt in his book, "Battlefield and Classroom," Maggie had difficulty adjusting to the demands of her new lifestyle at Carlisle . She once slapped Miss Hyde, the matron, when Hyde insisted that Maggie make her bed every day and keep her room clean. Instead of retaliating, Miss Hyde stood her ground and Maggie acquiesced.

THE OUTING SYSTEM


Like most of the Carlisle students, Maggie was enrolled in the Outing Program. [See 1907 Outing Contract, between student William Peters (Chippewa) and patron, Isaiah Gibble. ] Instead of returning the Indian children to their families during the summer months, the detribalizing process was continued by placing them for hire with non Indian families. After her arrival to her country home, Maggie wrote this letter to the Superintendent:

"Dear Captain Pratt: What shall I do? I have been here two weeks and I have not bathe. These folks have no bath place. Your school daughter, MAGGIE STANDS LOOKING"

Pratt advised her to do as he had done on the frontier...[after] filling a wash basin with water and "rubbing myself well, have had a bath that made me feel as good as jumping into a river." He signed his letter - "Your friend and school father," R.H. Pratt.

Pratt often referred to himself as the school father. He wrote in the June 16, 1893 Indian Helper: "George Kirochuma writes that he has a very nice country home and that the 'folks are all kind to me all the time.' Mr. R. with whom George lives says he cannot spare him to go home, and George feeling that he is in a place where he is wanted says he does not want to go. This is the secret of the solution of the Indian question, and there is no other."

For the farmer, businessman, or craftsman, the Outing System provided a source of cheap labor in the home and on the farm. Some children remained with families year-round and went to the local public schools with their non-Indian siblings. This, to Pratt, was the ultimate means of acculturation.

"SOMETHING NOBLER AND HIGHER"
Pratt was driven by his strong desire to see the Indian become an imitation of the white man. This article from the March 18, 1898 school newspaper, the "Indian Helper" embodies Pratt's assimilationist philosophy. This is his response to a letter asking for Indian stories:

WANTS INDIAN STORIES "'I am inclined to say that the 'HELPER' is a good little paper, but I would think it would interest its readers more if at least one of the inside pages contained some interesting stories or would describe the Indian a little better by telling how he is tamed and brought up,' writes one of our Eastern subscribers. We thank our friend for his interest and kindly suggestion. The author of the letter evidently has the idea of Indians that Buffalo Bill and other showmen keep alive, by hiring the reservation wild man to dress in his most hideous costume of feathers, paint, moccasins, blanket, leggins, and scalp lock, and to display his savagery, by hair lifting war-whoops make those who pay to see him, think he is a blood-thirsty creature ready to devour people alive. It is this nature in our red brother that is better dead than alive, and when we agree with the oft-repeated sentiment that the only good Indian is a dead one, we mean this characteristic of the Indian. Carlisle's mission is to kill THIS Indian, as we build up the better man. We give the rising Indian something nobler and higher to think about and do, and he comes out a young man with the ambitions and aspirations of his more favored white brother. We do not like to keep alive the stories of his past, hence deal more with his present and his future."

Pratt is often quoted as saying "Kill the Indian, save the man".

Of the 10,000+ Indian children who attended the Carlisle school over its 39 year life span, most returned to the reservation. Some of the returned students, much to Pratt's dismay, joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Pratt disliked the Wild West shows and was upset that he was forced to share exhibition space with Cody at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. Proud of the fine displays recognizing the stellar accomplishments of his Indian students, Pratt railed against the exploitation of Indians for show.

Enrollment at the Indian School began to swell as more and more nations' children were recruited. The original group of 82 grew to yearly averages of 1,000 students, necessitating more living and classroom space. The students built an administration building, a gymnasium for athletics, shops for the industrial training, and a chapel for worship on the grounds.

A cemetery was also needed.

The Carlisle Indian School Cemetery

At the Carlisle school, as on the reservations, the health of many Indian people was in peril particularly after European contact. Some students were stricken with tuberculosis or smallpox. Others could not cope with the severe stress of separation from family and tribe. Most of the children who became ill were sent back home to their families, but some did pass away at the school and are buried there.

From Luther Standing Bear’s book, Land of the Spotted Eagle, we hear the stories of an Indian informant who wrote about the deaths at Carlisle. He wrote about the responsibilities of a challenged youth, determined to make his family proud by braving the unknown, anticipating the possibility of never returning. His fears may have been exaggerated in their concerns about being killed, but the dread faced by his relatives and friends back home were realized in the numbers of Rosebud Sioux children buried in Indian Cemetery at Carlisle.

During the first five years of the Carlisle experiment, at least ten burials were of deceased children enrolled from Spotted Tail's Rosebud Agency. Three of the girls and two of the boys had traveled to school with the fifteen-year-old Luther. Their ages ranged from twelve to eighteen years. Two of these children who had arrived October 6, 1879 also passed away on the same day – fourteen months later.

"It was a sad and mysterious coincidence by which two of our pupils were taken from us by death on the night of the 13th of December, both of them being from the same agency and the same band of Sioux.
ERNEST, Chief White Thunder's son, was sent to the hospital in October to receive treatment for a slight sore throat. The applications being disagreeable he would not submit to them. He rejected not only medicine but nourishment, so that he became so weak and exhausted that when toward the latter part of his illness he was willing to recover, the most strenuous efforts proved powerless to save him. He was the only son of his father who was most anxious he should become an educated, useful man.
MAUD, (Little Girl) the daughter of Chief Swift Bear, was a bright, impulsive, warm-hearted girl, much loved by her school mates. She came to the Training School suffering from diseased lungs, and so had not strength to resist pneumonia which seized her. She was the first girl to die here, and the first Sioux out of more than ninety connected with the school.
Funeral services were conducted by Professor Lippincott, and the double burial is one which will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.

EADLE KEATAH TOH., Vol. 1 No. 3, p. 3. December 1880.

White Thunder was among the very first tribal head men Pratt visited to recruit children. The chief agreed to send a son and daughter to Carlisle, as did Milk, Spotted Tail, and others from the first group from the Rosebud. Pratt's letter of December 13, 1880, to White Thunder informing him of his son's illness, contradicts the obituary published after the boy's death. In the letter, he assured the father that the boy had been fortified with good food and that Ernest's friend, Robert American Horse, was stationed at his side to care for him.

Two days later, Pratt sent the following letter to Chief White Thunder:

My dear Friend,
Yesterday when I wrote you I told you that I would write to you when we buried your son and tell you all about it because I know you want to know that we did what was right.
I had them make a good coffin and he was dressed in his uniform with a white shirt and collar and necktie. He had flowers around him that some of the ladies brought for the white people love to get flowers for their friends who are buried. Six of the Sioux boys who were Ernest's good friends carried the coffin into the chapel and then the people sang about the land where people's spirits go when they are dead. The minister read from the good book and told all the teachers and the boys and girls that some day they would have to die too. He told them they should think a great deal about it and they must be ready to die because none of the teachers or scholars could tell when the time would come for them to die.
Then he prayed to the Great Spirit we call God. He prayed for you and for the other friends of your son that the Great Spirit would take away all your sorrow.
Then they let all the boys and girls go and look once more at their friends, because Chief Swift Bear's daughter had died on the same night that your son did, and we buried them at the same time.
The teachers and boys and girls cried a great deal because their hearts were sad. After that all the people walked down to the graveyard slowly and then put the coffins in the graves and the minister said more words and prayed again to God and then we filled the graves up, just the way our people always do.
My friend my heart is heavy when I write to you about your son but I want you to learn about the good book and what it says. That was the best thing we taught your son while he was alive.
I shall not forget you my friend, and I hope your heart will always be good toward me.
I look upon this detachment of children away from your people somewhat as you would look upon a party sent out to gather a quantity of buffalo meat or even sent out to make war upon some other people or to capture horses from some other people. You know how that is, my friend, how that very often there are some who never come back and such is the course of things in this life. We must expect death to come to some of us in a good cause as well as in a bad cause.
I find that I have two pictures of Ernest which I think you will like to have.
Your friend,
R. H. Pratt,
Lieut.

Despite his passing in December 1880, Ernest White Thunder’s photograph continued to be advertised for purchase in the April 1881 Eadle Keatah Toh.

The deaths of the relatives of Swift Bear and White Thunder on the same day, were of particular concern back home at the Rosebud Agency. Illnesses contracted at boarding schools, or brought to school from home communities were the typical communicable diseases so prevalent at the boarding schools: tuberculosis, trachoma, measles, pneumonia, mumps and influenza. ”Every off-reservation school had its own graveyard.”

Of the 192 native American Indian children buried in the Carlisle Indian School Cemetery from more than three dozen nations, the Apache represent the greatest number.

When Geronimo was arrested and sent to Ft. Pickens, Florida, the Chiricahua Apache women and children were sent to St. Augustine to the Ft. Marion prison. Conditions there were unspeakable. Food was scarce, disease rampant, and there was terrible overcrowding.

In 1886, Pratt traveled to the fort and chose 62 of the older Apache children to be removed to Carlisle. Many of these children were sent to Pennsylvania against the wishes of their grieving parents, who protested their departure, trying to hide them. Asa Daklugie was among this group along with the sons of Chatto, the scout who had helped General Crook convince Geronimo to surrender. Geronimo's son, Chappo was also sent with these children. One-fourth of the graves in the Carlisle Indian School cemetery hold the remains of these Apache children. Chatto's son Horace is among them.

Geronimo visited Carlisle en route to Washington for the inaugural parade of Teddy Roosevelt in 1905. He and head men representing several nations - American Horse and Hollow Horn Bear (Lakota), Little Plume (Blackfoot), Buckskin Charlie (Ute), and Quanah Parker (Comanche) rode on horseback through the streets of Carlisle, dressed in regalia. These six men addressed the students of the school, with Geronimo speaking the following words recorded in the "Carlisle Arrow",
March 9, 1905:


"My friends: I am going to talk to you a few minutes, listen well to what I say.
You are all just the same as my children to me, just the same as if my children are going to school when I look at you all here. You are here to study, to learn the ways of white men, do it well. You have a father here and a mother also. Your father is here, do as he tells you. Obey him as you would your own father. Although he is not your father he is a father to you now.

The Lord made my heart good, I feel good wherever I go, I feel very good now as I stand before you. Obey all orders, do as you are told all the time and you won't get hungry. He who owns you holds you in His hands like that and He carries you around like a baby. That is all I have to say to you."

Chiricahua Apache's from Geronimo's band as they arrived in Carlilsle in 1887 and after the assmimilation process began to take hold.

http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html

Activists storm field, crush GM maize
Crops planted illegally but no globalists'raid condemned
09 August, 16:30

Activists storm field, crush GM maize (ANSA) - Pordenone, August 9 - A group of 70 no global activists on Monday staged a lightening strike against a field of genetically modified (GM) maize, crushing all the plants and effectively preventing their harvest.

The GM crop at Vivaro, near the northeastern town of Pordenone, has been at the centre of a storm for the last two weeks, after the farmer who planted the maize, Giorgio Fidenato, announced it was ready to be harvested.

Some 70 activists, dressed alike in white overalls, were able to stomp on all the plants before police arrived and dragged them away, a spokesman for the Ya Basta anti-GM group said.

"Our action was aimed against the violence that GM crops wreak on the environment and on humans," said Luca Tornatore.

Despite widespread opposition to GM crops by most Italian farmers, the action was nevertheless roundly condemned by all. Pro-biotech group Futuragra said the raid was "an act of vandalism" and the result of "terror sown by the media" against GM crops. Farmers' union Coldiretti, which actively campaigns for organic agriculture, blasted the anti-globalists, saying that "the law must always be respected".

But Coldiretti also criticised officials for having dallied on the issue. Last week several members of the largest opposition group, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), joined MPs of the governing coalition's rightwing Northern League party at a press conference outside the Senate to protest the lack of an "effective response" to the situation at Vivaro.

An umbrella organization coordinating efforts against the crops, the Task Force for an Italy Free of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which represents 27 conservation, farming and environmental associations, called for the "immediate destruction of fields where GM maize is grown".

It warned of a "devastating impact on the local environment, wild fauna and the crops of other farmers" if pollen from the maize was allowed to disperse.

Greenpeace attempted to storm the field last week and numerous representatives from the GMO-Free Italy Task Force erected a protest camp next to the land.

The governor of Friuli Venezia Giulia where Vivaro is located, Renzo Tondo, has vowed that the law will be upheld and any infringements will be dealt with swiftly.

The president of the neighbouring region of Veneto, former Italian agriculture minister Gianluca Zaia, voiced support for Greenpeace, warning that cross-contamination from the crop could have a catastrophic effect on local agriculture.

Agriculture Minister Giancarlo Galan condemned Monday's raid, likening it to attacks carried out by Fascist thugs.

"I hope police will identify those who took part in it because they are a group of violent and intolerant thugs of the worst sort," he said, stressing that officials had been working with local authorities to analyse the crops.

Fidenato, who heads the pro-biotech Federated Farmers (AF) association, claims he acted lawfully in planting the seeds and likened GMO critics to Nazis "with their irrational fears of biological-racial contamination of the plant species".

Although there is no outright ban on the cultivation of GM crops in Italy, a long-running legal tangle effectively prevents farmers from doing so.

Farmers are technically allowed to grow GM crops provided they first obtain permission under procedures to be drafted by the agriculture ministry.

However, these procedures have never been finalized.

After months of foot dragging, a 2006 ministry circular eventually halted the drafting process entirely until regional governments agreed on local measures to prevent cross-contamination between GM and traditional crops.

But four years on, regional governments have still not agreed on definitive coexistence measures and, despite a January court ruling ordering the ministry to finalize the authorization procedures anyway, it has not yet done so.

Fidenato started lobbying local officials to allow him to plant GM crops in 2007 but received no reply.

"At this point, since they haven't said no, I take it I can go ahead," he said, shortly after announcing he had planted the GM maize earlier this year.

The issue of GM crops is particularly explosive in Italy.

As the second-largest producer of organic crops in Europe and the fourth largest in the world, there is widespread fear of the potential damage resulting from accidental GM contamination.

Coldiretti has issued several reports suggesting that widespread public hostility to GM crops would not only damage the domestic market for farm produce but would also result in a 60% drop in exports.

http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/collection/rubriche/english/2010/08/09/visualizza_new.html_1879746811.html

I am not talking about "taking over" or "reforming" the public education system, nor am I defending it. I am comparing the article you posted to apologies for the school privatization movement.

I am saying that every point you are making about public education can be made - more so - about the article you posted and the movement it represents and the people behind it. I object to an entrepreneurial "free market" scam masquerading as dissent or criticism, and compare that to the privatization of public schools, and you immediately assume I am defending the public education system and off on a tangent we go.

Certainly, if there is nothing redeemable in the public education system, there is absolutely nothing redeemable in the article.

Sorry, gotta call you on this one Mike. When time allows this weekend I will completely de-construct everything you have said which is why I saved your comments.

You are pretty much talking out of your ass here my friend when you are saying anything at all.

I am saying your comparison is not only odious but you are contradicting yourself here in your comparison. This latest statement goes a long way to show this.

In any case you have said little to nothing about the article itself but it was you who went off on some ridiculous tangent, fastidiously ignoring the article to suit your agenda, perhaps when you clicked the link and decided there were aspects of the sidebars that you loathed you decided to go into your boilerplate anti-activist shakedown (which by the way I like when it's relevant).

Let's face it Mike if you were tasked to write an analysis, pro or con, of this article and what we received was the entirety of your comments to this point you could not even have received an 'F' as you haven't offered anything directly relevant.

Just make your case.

I did read the article - I just re-read it now thinking perhaps I missed something, and it is worse than I remembered. Complete piece of garbage. And I did click the links - that is how I discovered what the people writing that are up to - which you objected to as irrelevant. Guess I shouldn't have clicked the links.

Haven't we all been victimized enough by vague charges of having a hidden agenda? Please describe exactly the agenda you think I have and how that is relevant to this discussion.

What is my "boilerplate anti-activist shakedown" and how would the sidebars interfere with that? You are making the insinuations here - back them up if you can.

I am attacking liberalism and libertarianism, just as I always have. In this case, merely because they are talking about Monsanto and GMO people reading it suspend critical judgment and assume that anyone who seems to be against Monsanto and GMO must be an ally, and anyone objecting just have a secret agenda and be an enemy. Haven't we had enough of that.

I say the guy is a self-promoting hustler playing on people's fears, that the piece is politically reactionary, and that it is all in the service of him making a buck.

If pubic education is hopelessly irredeemable and in service of Capitalism, then WTF about this guy? He IS a Capitalist running a snake oil hustle and scam. Of course he is singing the right tune - "GMO, GMO, Monsanto, Monsanto."

Now, are you seriously going to continue to imply that I am defending Monsanto or GMO?

that you did not read the article.

Please cite where I said that. Again such an opening by you puts on full display your inability here to comment cogently on this matter.

What I have said was you never addressed the article itself. Guess what Mike, you still haven't.

So here you are with an opening statement which is demonstrably false suggesting someone else's comment is off. Hard to take you seriously.

But it gets worse.

Your paranoia gets you into even deeper confusions as you apply a dose of red herring to the recipe. Nowhere was anyone implying you are or were defending Monsanto so again cite where that is done or retract.

But it gets worse.

You state I "continue" to imply which suggests this is ongoing or it has been done in some serious of posts or conversations which of course puts on display, yet again, your inability to think clearly here. Since this has been a continuing thing you should have no problem bringing forth the evidence. Of course there is none as on this point, and the others, you are full of shit.

Gotta say Mike your comment here is just one of the dumbest I've seen from you in some time.

BTW the article has been around for some time and was published long before it found it's way to the site it is currently linked to. No matter you keep mumbling to the shadows if you wish on this.

And as stated before I will pick up that gauntlet when time permits and absolutely demolish all of your half-assed conflations as relates to this particular piece.

All I said was that I did read the article, and re-read it, and thoroughly investigated the site, including who owns it and what else they own. What is wrong with saying that? From your remarks, I thought I may have missed something there.

I have no idea what you are trying to invoke in people's minds by talking about my "agenda" and motives. I am not paranoid - you have made several hostile and accusatory posts.

Throwing around insults does not an argument make.

How about you make your case, and explain the value of the article rather than merely attacking me? Forget about me and my motives and agenda, and what is and isn't dumb or paranoid, and simply make your case about this.

Define "the article itself" for me. I have addressed the article insofar as I can see. What is it that you see as important and want us to get from it that you think I missed? What is the main theme of the article, in your view? What should the reader take away from it?

Part A: "We consumers are not getting a chance to make the right choices, because business people (some of them) are lying to us."

Part B: A bunch of science-y stuff with examples of how research has been corrupted and misrepresented by industry (duh, no surprise there) and some examples of possible hazards from biotech presented in a disjointed and misleading way (understating the dangers, not overstating them, and stripping them of any meaningful political context.)

Part C: Monsanto is evil. Everyone knows Monsanto is evil. Really, really, really evil.

Now, that is the same template used for many articles coming from the libertarians and marketers about food and medicine. What is in the middle of those articles is not helpful, it is just meant to make the article sound authoritative and well-documented.

Then, Part D is "click here" to buy some stuff or make a donation.

So it is all about consumer choice, the problem is described as some sort of morality play of a few bad actors, some science sounding stuff is thrown around to impress people, and then we "take action" by sending the people who put this junk together some money.

"We need to make better choices; here is the information to educate you to make the right choices; here is the wrong choice; here is the right choice." That is a sales pitch, pure and simple.

I don't know what else you want in the way of analysis. The article doesn't warrant any more than that. If you see something more meaningful or important in it, simply explain what that is.

about what the education system used to be or what its intent has been and continues to be. But you are caught in the middle on this, as we all are when dealing with the capitalist system we inhabit. The same thing that you say about education (or the food production and distribution system) is exactly true about all and everything within this society. Every warehouse, gas station, shoe repair and sandwich shop is in the same boat and the same situation as is education - it is all for the benefit and profit of the owners; if it weren't, it wouldn't be here. Now, it behooves us to use the existing system to the best of our (as a group) abilities and to do the best we can in countering the negative affects of the dominant society. The working class, at this stage of development can no more separate itself from the dominant society than it can overthrow it. The capitalist society will use everything at its disposal to indoctrinate, subdue, oppress, and assimilate the working class - the working class must understand this and thwart it as much as possible, but the idea of separating from the dominant society in some way, I can't, at this point, understand. And if that isn't what is being suggested, then what is? That public education is bad? I agree. Are Charter schools better? I don't think so, I think they are worse. Would some kind of workers commune schools be preferable? Absolutely! Are we in a position to advocate or actualize such things? I don't know.

I know that most working folks cannot obtain food apart from the main, established food distribution system - they haven't the money and they haven't the time. Communal food production may be a good alternative in some places and for some workers, but I have no idea how wide spread that could be established - or how such things would be financed in this setting.

We need to make sure that "reform" is not what is being advocated either up front or as an unstated, yet logical, end result. If we ought to abandon the public food distribution system or the public education system, then we need to abandon them for immediate replacements. Neither education nor food production and distribution can wait for something to "develop", something needs to be ready on day one. Otherwise, we need to know how to overcome the negatives of the capitalist systems involved and in the meantime work like hell toward the final mass solution.

I hope this rambling shit made sense...

Part A: Fail- nothing of use said here. The reader learned nothing from this statement.

Part B: Fail- irrelevant to any meaningful discourse on subject. The reader would be unable to gain any insight into topic from comment.

Part C: Fail- only derisive playground repetition used by analyst. Reader would begin to think analyst is simply a pompous gasbag.

Part D: Fail- says nothing about article though placed under heading of "analysis of article." Reader would be considering serious comprehension problems on part of analyst or desire by analyst to steer reader away from article.

Using public school gradation overall this thin gruel of analysis must sadly be given an 'F' even under the most lenient of grading systems.

For intellectual rigor and honesty an 'F' is given to this analysis.

For interest and comprehensive coverage of topic an 'F' must also be given for this analysis.

For creating strawmen, the use of red herrings and other manners of obfuscation and poor analogies the analyst is given an 'A+.'

For consistency and integrity in countering critique an 'F' must be given as analyst was unable to even remember or cite factually accusations which he made on a single day.

For coy arrogance the analyst receives the highest of marks an A++ on this account to be sure.

The opportunity for us, and the only horse we have in this race, is to oppose privatization both in education and the food system. That does not defend the system or prop it back up, that makes use of a chance to radicalize people. Neither agronomists, horticulturalists and researchers in the ag system, nor teachers, signed up to promote Capitalism. Does the system within which they work serve to promote Capitalism? Yes, of course. However, the people promoting various privatization schemes and free market solutions and partnerships with corporations in both food and education are outright promoting Capitalism and are doing much more to defend and prop up the system. The fact that they rant about the sad state of both and about corporate abuses - in the absence of any serious political analysis - should not be cause for us to see them as allies. They rant about the sorry state of public schools and the food system for the purpose of turning a buck and getting a foot in the door for further privatization.

People want to eat and work and learn. Others want to work to provide those things. They can see that this is becoming more difficult. The people promoting the privatization schemes - charter schools, CSA, organic and alternative food choice models - play on that and are working against our efforts to show people that the problems in ag and education are caused by Capitalism.

I say we should align with those resisting privatization in the food system and in education rather than with those offering alternative privatized solutions and who base their criticisms of the system on that goal of privatization. They are not left wing, they are not anarchists and their social criticism is highly suspect.

Then tell us what of value we are to take away from the article.

We have discussed this article before...

http://populistindependent.virtual.vps-host.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=697

Her is what I said the first time you posted this -

[div class="excerpt"]

Postby Mike » Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:57 pm

Irony: GMO crops are classified as "food" and that means there is a presumption of safety and they are exempt from more rigorous testing, so Monsanto's products are fast-tracked to the market.

Meanwhile, I was involved in an enormous fracas with the FDA when the FDA declared cherries to be "a drug" - based on a USDA program to educate the public about health benefits from eating cherries, so the growers were threatened with fines and imprisonment for selling drugs without the proper testing and certification.

What is needed:

1. A moratorium on the introduction of GMO crops

2. Revisions to and strengthening of the testing infrastructure

3. Food should be handled by the USDA, and drugs by the FDA, with a stricter definition of "food" and stricter regulation of consumables that are not food. Cherries are food. GMO crops are something else - let's call THEM drugs.

4. Strict prohibitions and safeguards against corruption of research and regulatory agencies by private interests.

Now, what message does the public get from chlamor's post? Anything that would lead them to supporting those four priorities? Monsanto is bad, but does that mean Syngenta is off the hook? Flying back and forth from BT corn to Roundup to Agent Orange to GM soy to who knows what else - there is no coherent message. It cannot possibly educate the public in any meaningful way - the average person couldn't even follow the various issues that are all tossed together willy-nilly.

Let's just grab one paragraph -

"When independent researchers published a study in July 1999 showing that GM soy contains 12%-14% less cancer-fighting phytoestrogens, Monsanto responded with its own study, concluding that soy’s phytoestrogen levels vary too much to even carry out a statistical analysis. Researchers failed to disclose, however, that they had instructed the laboratory to use an obsolete method of detection—one that had been prone to highly variable results."

WTF does that say? Nothing. Read through it. There is no "there" there. It is nonsense and it is propaganda. For what purpose? For whose benefit?

It pisses me off, because the activities of firms like Monsanto are a serious threat to agriculture and to public welfare and this nonsense not only cannot touch them, it deceives and misleads the public and prevents any serious criticisms of Monsanto from being heard. The only place this can lead is to upscale consumers buying products that are labeled "GMO free!" sold at a premium, and presented as the solution to the problem. Bullshit. That is reactionary and actually aids and strengthens corporate agri-business.[/quote]

Just FYI

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/14/judge-revokes-usda-approv_n_682325.html


Judge Revokes USDA Approval Of Monsanto's Genetically Modified Sugar Beets, Orders Review

MICHAEL LIEDTKE | 08/14/10 10:41 PM | AP

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has revoked the government's approval of genetically altered sugar beets until regulators complete a more thorough review of how the scientifically engineered crops affect other food.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White Friday means sugar beet growers won't be able to use the modified seeds after harvesting the biotechnology beets already planted on more than 1 million acres spanning 10 states from Michigan to Oregon. All the seed comes from Oregon's Willamette Valley.

Additional planting won't be allowed until the U.S. Department of Agriculture submits an environmental impact statement. That sort of extensive examination can take two or three years.

White declined a request to issue an injunction that would have imposed a permanent ban on the biotech beets, which Monsanto Co. developed to resist its popular weed killer, Roundup. Farmers have embraced the technology as a way to lower their costs on labor, fuel and equipment.

The Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance and Sierra Club have been trying to uproot the biotech beets since filing a 2008 lawsuit.

Andrew Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety's executive director, hailed Friday's decision as a major victory in the fight against genetically engineered crops and chided the Agriculture Department for approving the genetically engineered seeds without a full environmental review.

"Hopefully, the agency will learn that their mandate is to protect farmers, consumers and the environment and not the bottom line of corporations such as Monsanto," Kimbrell said in a statement.

Attempts to reach the Agriculture Department for comment Saturday were unsuccessful. Monsanto, based in St. Louis, referred requests for comment to the America Sugarbeet Growers Association, which pointed to a Saturday statement from the Sugar Industry Biotech Council.

In the statement, the sugar beet council said it intends to help the Agriculture Department come up with "interim measures" that would allow continued production of the genetically altered seeds while regulators conduct their environmental review.

If a temporary solution isn't found, the planting restrictions are likely to cause major headaches for sugar beet growers and food processors.

The genetically altered sugar beets provide about one-half of the U.S. sugar supply and some farmers have warned there aren't enough conventional seeds and herbicide to fill the void. The scientific seeds account for about 95 percent of the current sugar beet crop in the U.S.

"The value of sugar beet crops is critically important to rural communities and their economies," the Sugar Industry Biotech Council said Saturday.

White expressed little sympathy for any disruption his decision might cause. He noted in his 10-page ruling that regulators had time to prepare for the disruption because he had already overturned the deregulation of the genetically altered beets in a decision issued last September.

The Agriculture Department "has already had more than sufficient time to take interim measures, but failed to act expediently," White wrote.

Organic farmers, food safety advocates and conservation groups contend genetically altered crops such as the sugar beets could share their genes with conventionally grown food, such as chard and table beets.

Those arguments helped persuade another federal judge in San Francisco to stop the planting of genetically altered alfalfa seeds in 2007 pending a full environmental review that still hasn't been completed.

Monsanto took that case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in June overturned an injunction against the company's sale of the modified seeds.