Stepping back and looking over the last 40 years, I sense a large problem, the "elephant in the room" that is not being discussed. Let's for a moment pay a little attention to the elephant. The reality that we are loosing in our current strategy. It's a loss highlighted by many wins, but no victory.
I was a child raised by second generation farmers. My grandpa bought a farm in south Texas and settled down to a life of growing and feeding the world. He embraced all the science advantages offered through the 50's, 60's and 70's. My dad would tell stories of how they would spend the day spraying the crops, with bars mounted on the front of the tractor, literally driving through the spray in an open cab. At the end of the day he could stand his pants up in the corner, so saturated with chemical that they were too stiff to fold. That chemical, among other things, was DDT. For 30 years, my grandpa and dad used science, to the fullest. It was a welcome weapon against the evils of farming (weeds, pests, etc). It was not until the 70's when my dad retired from farming to take on a business life, that they realized something was wrong. Common sense kicked in with the realization that every new chemical release was later marred by health concerns, removed from the market, and replaced with another chemical. It was a never ending cycle of promise, failure, promise, failure.
Ultimately my dad turned to organic farming for our in town 1 acre family garden, but it was too late. While grandpa never suffered serious health problem...The damage was done. My dad died of cancer. My older brother (who used to help on the farm) died of cancer a few years later. My nephew, just in his 20's, also died of cancer a few years later. No reasonable explanation for any of their deaths except the agricultural science.
The point is, our world is dying... Slowly... children first. Not from GMOs, but from the very concept of chemical based agriculture. Certainly GMOs are the peak of the destruction, and if left unchained these semi-foods will be the nail in the coffin relegating untold millions to health problem for generations to come. BUT... amidsts all this talk of banning GMOS, there is an elephant in the room... The fact that we are talking about GMOS today tells me we have already lost the bigger battle.
I remember the 70's when organics first began making a comeback and a stand. The battle then against conventional agriculture used the SAME arguments as the battle today against GMOs. "conventional agriculture causes cancer" was the cry. A few listened, the government stepped in and defined "organic". And you know what happened? Today virtually every family alive has a family member with cancer. The prediction of the 70's came true, cancer is rampant today. It is so rampant in america that it is accepted as "normal". In hindsight.... we lost the battle against conventional agriculture. America has accepted it as normal and acceptable, and accepted the health consequences as a normal part of aging.
I am not proposing that we stop the battle against GMOs, rather that we go on the offensive instead of continuing on the defensive. Defense has never and can not win a battle. period. Fighting each new wave of bad from "the enemy" of conventional agriculture says one thing, there are more waves coming. Small battles are won here and there and we feel good about it, But in reality our children are loosing, because there are always new waves of bad coming out!
Instead of fighting the enemy's battle (fighting the latest wave of bad and ignoring the waves before that were once the latest wave of bad) we need to go back to the beginning. Where is that? Bottom line.. ORGANIC is not even enough. We need, as a society, to be pushing to go back to "beyond organic" instead of just settling for the government definition of organic. The choices in the store should be "beyond organic, organic, poisonous". That's it. We should be spending our time explaining to the public how conventional agriculture is killing our children and our nation. How the whole thing has been a awful lie for over 50 years. Look around you, find ONE family that has no serious health problem.. just one! can you? probably not. This is not from GMO's, but purely from conventional and heavily processed foods.
GMOs are bad. certainly. They are more bad than anything ever devised by man. They must be stopped. But stopping them will not fix any existing problems, only prevent things from getting even worse. If we stop all gmos today, our next generation is still lost. PERIOD. It will be a hollow victory. The battle is not only about GMO, it is about 90% of the food sold in the grocery stores today! The battle is about 99% of the food available in restaurants today!
If we realized how sick we are as a nation, we would be picketing every restaurant, every grocery store, that sells non-organic food. We would be pushing with all our might to return to the day prior to chemical and poison based agriculture. Every feed store offering non-organic feeds. Every hospital feeding sick patients non-organic processed foods. Every retirement home feeding food from boxes, cans, and bags. Every school lunch full of preservatives and poison, devoid of nutrition. THAT'S reality.
The war is not against GMOs, that's only today's skirmish. whether we win or loose today, the reality of a nation slowly dying , children first, is before us. ONLY a return to small family organic and beyond organic farms will save our future. Stopping gmos would make us feel better inside but still our children die from poison and malnutrition.
I make no apologies for the long winded nature of this post. This is something I am VERY passionate about. I have watched too many loved ones die horrible deaths at the hands of modern agriculture. I have watched too many children suffer from conditions non-extent a few generations ago. It is time to take the fight on the offensive, and start reversing the death spiral we are in. Who will stand up? Who will stop supporting business and organization that offer non-organic foods? Who will picket restaurants that sell poison food-like substances to our children? Who will demand local hospitals ONLY buy from organic farms to feed our sickest?
Who?
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