A Hybrid of Half-Truth

The Monsanto Corporation, as I understand it, sells genetically modified seed corn which can survive exposure to pesticides and herbicides far better than any ordinary vegetation can. Thus, with a crop of the G.M.O. corn, you can saturate a field with poison, and the corn will survive. So you don't have bugs eating the corn, or weeds choking it. But you also _don't_ have clean _soil_ that would be healthy for non-modified plant life again anytime soon; and the leftover poison enters the water table.



Last night, Carol and I watched a public-television report about the damage being done by dependency on G.M.O. food crops. The above illustration was just one of the problems addressed; and the audience was urged to read a book on the issue, titled "Seeds of Death." I believe that all of the _scientific_ allegations made in the broadcast were in fact accurate -- more accurate than a lot of the scare talk about global warming. There has to be a reason why so many other nations reject the use of Monsanto's mutant seeds. But "grafted in" with the scientific information was a persistent _political_ bias. Over and over again we were told, not only that _Monsanto_ in particular was doing harm to Earth and humanity, but that the very _existence_ of privately-owned corporations was the _inherent_ cause of all evil. Corporate influence here, corporate influence there, got to look out for that horrible corporate influence; and _government_ could never be evil _unless_ it was corrupted by corporate influence.

         
                   
Public television's deep-rooted preference for Marxist collectivism revealed itself when one of the experts featured in the broadcast spoke about "access to food" being insufficiently considered; poor people were not getting "THEIR SHARE." The _political_ dogma that redistribution is what matters most thus came to the surface. And we sure didn't hear a word about the historical fact that a redistributionist system _itself_ often blocks that all-important "access to food." About thirty years ago, the liberal media gushed with admiration of the "We Are The World" fundraising project for the benefit of Ethiopian famine victims; but those media militantly _refused_ to report, afterwards, how the _Marxist_ dictator Haile Mengistu intentionally _prevented_ the food aid from _reaching_ his own starving subjects.
               
                 
                 
The industrial realm and the political realm are both _vehicles_ by which selfish, hard-hearted men can pursue power and privilege for themselves. By all means, let environmental and health issues like the impact of G.M.O. crops be brought to light. But pretending that evil _only_ originates from free enterprise, pretending that the sacred cow of government is guaranteed to save us if only that icky free enterprise is abolished, is the richest manure being spread on the fields today.