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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
And the main source of the "Monsanto caused suicides" thing, Vandana Shiva, is one of those people.
It's hardly the only stupid thing she's spewed too. She's also claimed that fertilizer is bad because it's a product of war. Oh, and she's also tried to claim that GM Os cause autism and SARS. She's also tried to equate farmers using GM Os with rape. I'm not even joking.
Honestly, she'd fit right in with the USA Green Party.
edited 2nd May '18 5:58:26 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedBut yes, my anger is generally related to the fact in 2009 alone, 17,000 Indian Farmers committed suicide, usually by drinking Monsanto Pesticide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av6dx9yNiCA
The body count for Monsanto's practices are not theoretical, they're massive and starvation war via debt.
Edit:
I'm unconvinced by the rebuttals as one can be against Monsato while thinking genetic engineering should be encouraged strongly.
Sorry, but drinking pesticides has been a common form of suicide in rural areas regardless if they are from Mosanto or not. Specially since being a farmer is a profession that does take a massive toll on the emotional and physical well being of a person.
And I speak that as a witness of the things I've seen, heard and indirectly dealt with, since my brother manages a strawberry production farm and some of his works does involve solving the problems of the farmers he helps manage, and a good share of those problems are emotional.
Suicide rates among farmers, regardless of them being American, Indian or Brazilian are high. Not only the job is hard and stressful, the communities usually lack any sort of support for things like depression and financial troubles, since a failed crop can mean complete and total bankruptcy, plenty of farmers simply resort to suicide when how badly things turn out to be or drink themselves to death
Also your document barely mentions Monsanto, only that pesticide injection is the common method of suicide and the change of policy regarding farming subsides along a change in production has resulted in a lot of debt for the smaller farmers. Which makes blaming Mossanto's pesticide for the suicides have as much sense as blaming Ford or Toyota for all automobile deaths or the Golden Gate bridge for all the people who jump to their deaths from it or Budweiser for alcoholism.
If there is anything you could draw from that document is the total incompetence of the Indian government in handling the policy changes and their impact on smaller producers when they removed the subsides for farming.
Monsanto shady business practices do deserve to be legally punished and regulated, but they fall into Antitrust and monopoly issues rather than being the cause of suicides by pesticide poisoning.
And GM Os aren't a real problem, by far they represent a boom in the farming sector and helped deal with food scarcity by providing higher yields than regular crops for the same farming area. If you want to deal with Monsanto shenanigans then focus on their business practices, not the product.
She is on Deepak Chopra levels of stupidity when it comes bio-activism, she attained messianic levels of worship in Vegan, natural supplement and All-Natural Snake Oil communities.
edited 2nd May '18 6:47:53 AM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent legesHence why this is a better argument against a GMO monopoly as opposed to GM Os themselves.
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
Yes, they do have a trademark on several popular GMO seeds.
Basically the counter for them has been governments and NG Os making their own GMO seeds and putting their patterns in the public domain, like it was done with Golden Rice.
Inter arma enim silent legesSo Mueller has raised the possibility of a Grand Jury Subpoena.
1/ Today the @washingtonpost reported that Mueller raised the possibility that he could subpoena Trump to testify before the grand jury if Trump declined an interview.
2/ One way Trump can avoid testifying if he is subpoenaed is by taking the Fifth. He has the absolute right to refuse to testify if his answers would tend to incriminate him, unless Mueller immunized him and he had no liability for committing state crimes.
3/ Obviously taking the Fifth would have some political cost, so to avoid that cost, Trump could try to fight the subpoena in court. No sitting president has ever been subpoenaed to testify in a criminal proceeding, so there is no prior Supreme Court decision on the issue.
4/ One case that is similar is United States v. Nixon, when the special prosecutor obtained a subpoena ordering Nixon to produce documents and tapes. Nixon refused, citing executive privilege. The Supreme Court unanimously ordered Nixon to comply with the subpoena.
5/ The Supreme Court famously concluded that "no person, not even the president of the United States, is completely above the law; and the president cannot use executive privilege as an excuse to withhold evidence that is "demonstrably relevant in a criminal trial."
6/ Another similar case is Clinton v. Jones, a civil lawsuit filed by Paula Jones against Clinton during his presidency about alleged sexual harassment prior to his election as president. Clinton argued that a sitting president could not be sued during his term of office.
7/ The Supreme Court concluded that "the federal courts have power to determine the legality of the President's unofficial conduct," noting that "like every other citizen who properly invokes that jurisdiction, [Jones] has a right to an orderly disposition of her claims."
8/ In Jones v. Clinton, the Supreme Court didn't address whether courts can compel a president to appear at a specific time and place to testify. It also did not address whether courts have the power to determine the legality of a president's *official* conduct.
9/ Later, when independent counsel Kenneth Starr sought to have Clinton's testimony in his criminal investigation, he subpoenaed Clinton to testify before a grand jury—exactly what Mueller suggested he may do here. But in the face of the subpoena, Clinton agreed to an interview.
10/ If Trump fights the subpoena, I expect he will ultimately lose. In the Nixon and Clinton cases, the Supreme Court ultimately found that the president was not above the law. As the Court noted, presidents since Monroe have responded to questions in judicial proceedings.
11/ But this fight would be unprecedented, and no one can say for sure what would happen in the Supreme Court. One thing is certain—the court fight would take months to play out, pushing out the date of Trump's testimony, which could be helpful for political reasons.
12/ This potential legal challenge helps explain why Mueller has gone out of his way to negotiate with Trump's team regarding an interview. An agreement regarding an interview would avoid a time-consuming and costly legal challenge and allow him to continue moving forward. /end
edited 2nd May '18 7:13:21 AM by megaeliz
Since a while ago we were talking about about dated polls showing Generation Z to be very conservative, here's a more recent one (small sample, but good enough):
https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/180444_crosstabs_POLITICO_v1_DK-2-1.pdf
- Trump: 75% disapprove, 19% approve.
- Favoured Party: 58% democratic, 20% republican.
- Paris Agreement: 67% stay, 9% leave.
edited 2nd May '18 8:32:56 AM by Grafite
Life is unfair...Doesn't look super conservative to me.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I forgot to mention.
Trump doubled down on his "Space Force" idea a few days ago.
edited 2nd May '18 9:15:42 AM by megaeliz
I mean, say what you will about Trump, but I think it's about time we had some space marines.
Leviticus 19:34I'd rather not militarize space. A few battles up there and we could start an orbital debris catastrophe — a chain reaction that would make low Earth orbit impenetrable by our spacecraft for centuries.
Edit: I wonder what the Flat Earthers think of Trump's "Space Force" idea.
edited 2nd May '18 9:29:40 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Exactly
And that would also violate the terms out the Outer Space Treaty
.
- the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;
- outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;
- outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;
- States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;
- the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;
- astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;
- States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities;
- States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and
- States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.
edited 2nd May '18 9:31:24 AM by megaeliz
The mere militarization of space has never been questioned—we already have spy satellites up there, and the Soviets even tested armed space stations in the 1970s. The treaty applies specifically to weapons of mass destruction, that is, nuclear weapons.
And speaking of nuclear weapons, war with North Korea is averted, at least for the time being. That's great, right? Not really. See, Trump's approval rating—as a result of this—has cracked 40% for the first time in months. And this might make it harder for the Democratic Party to run against the Republicans in the midterm elections. The more people like how the Republicans are doing, the less likely they are to vote Democrat in the midterms, and ultimately in the 2020 Presidential election too.
edited 2nd May '18 9:31:35 AM by ElSquibbonator
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I mean, that's only true as far as Republicans and some Independents go. I'm pretty sure the majority of Democrats are gonna firmly vote Democrat, because they don't have the memory of goldfish and still recall all the shit Trump has done. The most it will do is encourage some disaffected Republicans to not stay home and to flip some Independents that were probably leaning right anyway.
edited 2nd May '18 9:36:03 AM by danime91
Militarization of space has gotten plenty questioned for being stupid, impractical, completely useless for achieving any sort of policy goal, and for being a great way to make Kessler Syndrome a reality.
It's nothing more than metaphorical dickwaving to think anything useful can be accomplished by trying to take actual military action in an environment where you're completely exposed, will be destroyed in a single hit, and cannot dodge.
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While I'm not going to say that's impossible I don't see any reason to think that's particularly likely or plausible, the factors that make a devastating Blue Wave plausible are not going to disappear just because there is diplomatic success in Korea.
Maybe if we were talking about a normal Republican who has the basic self-control necessary to build off of that it might be plausible but we're talking about Trump, he is quite skilled at snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory due to his lack of self-control and persistent myopia.
edited 2nd May '18 9:43:22 AM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang- Favoured Party: 58% democratic, 20% republican.
- Paris Agreement: 67% stay, 9% leave.

If someone commits suicide by locking themselves in a garage with a running car, do we blame the car manufacturers? I realize that this argument could have some uncomfortable parallels with the gun debate, but the most important problem here is people killing themselves, not the tool with which they do it.
There are perfectly valid reasons to be critical of Monsanto, but it's irrational to attach guilt to Monsanto's products by association, or to the concept of GMOs as a whole. I can understanding someone boycotting them because of their business practices, but I've offered the opinion before and I'll say it again here that the vast majority of people getting hate boners over GMOs are doing it because of pseudoscience, not politics.
edited 2nd May '18 5:51:05 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"