The difference between dogs and cats :-)

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The difference between dogs and cats :-)

What’s Really Going On: Bahrain vs. Ukraine, Can You Spot the Difference?

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What’s Really Going On: Bahrain vs. Ukraine, Can You Spot the Difference?

The Difference Between a Farmer and a Global Chemical Corporation

We are witnessing a strange, though remarkably predictable public discourse, where State lawmakers claim that those “truly serious about supporting local farmers” must abolish Counties’ rights “forever,” and transnational corporations call themselves “farmers.” Legislators attempt to contort the “Right to Farm” into a mechanism for chemical companies to evade health and environmental concerns, as water grabs by these same companies undermine the actual rights of farmers. Meanwhile, the Hawaii Farm Bureau advocates the interests of a few mega-corporations as synonymous with the interests of local farmers (despite never having asked the farmer members that they professedly speak for).

The intentional blurring in the difference between farmers, and the global corporations that use Hawaii as a testing ground for their new technologies, demands some clarity.

Dow is the largest chemical company in the US. Their list of manufactured goods includes napalm, chlorpyrifos (used as a nerve gas during World War II), plastics and Styrofoam. They have managed nuclear weapons facilities, and more recently diversified into the coal business. Dow has refused compensation or environmental cleanup for the over half a million victims of the Bhopal pesticide plant disaster. They have been charged by the EPA for withholding reports of over 250 chlorpyrifos poisoning incidents, and only upon recent government mandate began to address their century-long legacy of dumping dioxins into Michigan’s waterways. They have knowingly allowed their pesticide product DBCP to cause permanent sterility in thousands of farm-workers.

DuPont started as a gunpowder and explosives company, providing half of the gunpowder used by Union armies during the Civil War and 40% of all explosives used by Allied forces in World War I. During peacetime, DuPont diversified into chemicals; some well-known products include Nylon, Teflon and Lycra. World War II was particularly advantageous for DuPont, which produced 4.5 billion pounds of explosives, developed weapons, contributed to the Manhattan Project, and was the principal maker of plutonium. Along with Dow, DuPont was rated in the top five air polluters for 2013 by the Political Economy Research Institute. DuPont is responsible for 20 Superfund sites, and is recipient of the EPA’s largest civil administrative penalty for failing to comply with federal law.

Syngenta was formed through the merging of pharmaceutical giants Novartis and AstraZeneca’s agrochemical lines. They manufacture highly dangerous pesticides like paraquat and atrazine that are banned in their home country of Switzerland, but used largely in poorer countries (as well as Hawaii). Paraquat is a major suicide agent. Syngenta has lobbied exhaustively in the European Union to block a ban on its bee-killing neonicotinoids, including threatening to sue individual EU officials. It has hired private militias to murder farmer activists. Syngenta is responsible for 18 Superfund sites in the US.

BASF is the world’s largest chemical company, and makes plastics, coatings (automotive and coil coatings), fine chemicals (feed supplements, raw materials for pharmaceuticals), and agricultural chemicals. During World War II it was part of IG Farben, dubbed the “financial core of the Hitler regime,” and the primary supplier of the chemicals that were used in Nazi extermination camps. For nearly three decades following the war, BASF filled its highest position with former members of the Nazi regime. Five of BASF’s manufacturing facilities in the US rank amongst the worst 10% of comparable facilities for toxic releases. In 2001 they were fined by the EPA for 673 violations related to illegal importation and sale of millions of pounds of pesticides.

Monsanto was founded as a drug company, and its first product was saccharin for Coca-Cola — a derivative of coal tar that was later linked to bladder cancer. They have manufactured some of the world’s most destructive chemicals, including Agent Orange (with Dow), PCBs and DDT. Monsanto was heavily involved in the creation of the first nuclear bomb and in 1967 entered into a joint venture with IG Farben. Monsanto is a pioneer of biotechnology; their first product was artificial recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). They have sued food companies that have labeled their products as rBGH-free. They are a potentially responsible party for at least 93 Superfund sites.

Clearly these corporations are not “farmers.” But what, then, of their impact on farmers?

The task of a corporation is to aggressively and competitively use their capital to make more of it. In addition to financial benefit in weapons, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and plastics, the aforementioned corporations now fatten their earnings in our agri-food system. Most notably, when court decisions in the 1980s opened the door to exclusive property rights on seeds and other life forms, they turned their eye to the profitability of dominating the agricultural inputs market.

disinformation

The Difference Between a Farmer and a Global Chemical Corporation

Difference Between Conscious and Subconscious Mind

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Difference Between Conscious and Subconscious Mind

So Putin Wants to Make a Difference in Syria? Here"s How He Can Do It

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) talks to journalists in the far eastern city of Vladivostok. (Alexei Nikolskyi/Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dulcet editorial in the New York Times this week sounded like the opening aria in a charm offensive aimed not just at preempting the use of U.S. military force in Syria but also at winning a Nobel Peace prize. Already, a Russian educational foundation has written the Norwegian Nobel Committee to suggest Putin as a nominee.

Putin’s manifesto contains a number of truths – and even more silky evasions. The most dangerously disingenuous is the argument that any U.S. use of military force without a United Nations Security Council Resolution would violate international law – while failing to mention that Russia and China have blocked three separate attempts to address the mounting death toll in Syria. That’s like the boy who killed his parents, then asked the judge for leniency because he’s an orphan. By vetoing any Security Resolution with teeth, Russia and China make a mockery of the UN – then screech when the United States threatens to give up and circumvent it.

Let’s face it: Few international miscreants reform themselves without the threat of being ousted by domestic foes or weakened by external military force. Assad’s promise to surrender the chemical arsenal he didn’t admit he had, only after President Obama’s threat to use force, is one example of this historical truism. Another is Putin’s own escalating crackdowns on dissent. His crudely homophobic laws and his sending Pussy Riot to prison for dissing him are not Nobel-worthy impulses.

If Putin, whose brutal war in Chechnya killed or displaced tens of thousands and who has been Assad’s chief arms supplier with weapons best suited for killing Syrian civilians, now wishes to recast himself as the world’s great defender of international law and security, let none of us stand in his way. In fact, the international community can help Putin change up his governance style, get some mojo for his global leadership on peace and nonproliferation, and deliver an even better speech than President Obama gave in Stockholm.

Here’s how:

1. Once he’s done getting Assad to surrender his chemical weapons stash, Putin should take a victory lap by insisting the Security Council pass a resolution banning all countries and nonstate actors from transferring weapons to Syria or face “grave consequences.” Putin is a master at having it both ways. Without acknowledging that more Syrians have been killed with Russian-supplied weapons than with poison gas, he could with a straight face insist that all countries stop feeding the flames in Syria so that his Geneva II peace process can flourish.
    


2.  Russia goes first. Putin can show up the self-righteous Washington types and secure his place in history with a single phone call to the state-owned weapons exporter Rosoboronexport, ordering a halt to sales to Syria. Pesky human rights organizations have been reporting that Assad’s goons have sent Rosoboronexport a shocking letter that reads like a shopping list for urban atrocities. Israeli news organizations say that in exchange for Assad giving up chemical weapons, Russia agreed to resupply Assad. But a second phone call would stop the mystery ships that are leaving the Black Sea port of Oktyabrsk and disappearing, presumably to deliver their lethal cargo of arms for Syria.

3. Send Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the Security Council to announce that Russian arms shipments have stopped, and demand that Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Qatar, and then the United States also cease proving arms to the rebels. Threaten to impose Russian financial sanctions against any who refuse to comply. This could include trade sanctions against Iran and possibly Lebanon if it fails to curtail arms smuggling to Syria.

4.  Broker an unconditional, immediate ceasefire in Syria. Begin a round of shuttle diplomacy between Assad regime officials and the rebels to bring all sides to peace talks. Offer Assad and his family asylum in Dagestan if he leaves the country.

5. If Assad refuses to comply, order the Russian Finance Ministry to find and freeze Assad family assets, reputed to be worth about $ 1.5 billion. Promulgate regulations ordering Russian banks to halt any transactions with the Syrian Central Bank or the Commercial Bank of Syria. Investigate Assad’s maternal uncle, Mohammed Makhlouf, who according to Reuters, is overseeing the Assad family fortune from an apartment in Moscow.

6. Augment the Russian military advisors reportedly on the ground in Syria with Russian political trainers. Show Syrians how secular democracy can be made to work, and counter Al-Qaeda’s political influence. Fund Syrian non-governmental organizations to conduct peace and reconciliation programs among the many religious and ethnic groups in Syria – but make sure the groups report the foreign origins of their funding.

7. Announce a 10-fold increase in Russian contribution to UN refugee assistance funding.  So far the U.S. has kicked in roughly 26 percent of the nearly $ 3 billion in assistance that has been contributed toward helping the nearly six million Syrians who have been displaced by the fighting, while Russia has given only 0.6 percent.

8. Take in thousands of Syrian refugees. The United States has begun a modest effort to consider some of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees for resettlement. Putin can outdo Obama receiving thousands of Syrians refugees, even temporarily, as Germany is doing.

Putin closes with a homily to Americans that whether a country is rich or poor, large or small, “God created us equal.” Okay, Syria’s a humanitarian, moral, and political disaster. Putin has an equal opportunity to start being part of the solution. 

Master Feed : The Atlantic

So Putin Wants to Make a Difference in Syria? Here"s How He Can Do It