Finite Circuit

leftish:

For the past several weeks, rumors of a “Secret Farm Bill” being hatched behind closed doors in Washington between only a handful of legislators and industrial agriculture lobbyists have been leaking out of Congress. Last week those rumors hit panic mode.

According to multiple sources in DC, the most corporately entrenched Senators and Representatives of the Ag committees are locked behind closed doors on Capitol Hill with agribusiness lobbyists trying to carve up the 2012 Food and Farm Bill in an intentionally hurried process that will kill any needed reforms for protecting family farmers, the environment and improving healthy food opportunities for all Americans.

If corporate greed gets its way, family farmers and food reformers will possibly be locked out of the conversation on reforming food and farming policy until 2017. It’s no wonder people are marching in the streets!

Click here to make a call to kill the “Secret Farm Bill”. We need your voice today - now more than ever. If you support local family farmers and sustainable agriculture for our future, please join this call to action.

If you think the ghouls of Halloween are serving up a frightening brew, wait until these creepy members of Congress write your Food and Farm Bill behind Closed Doors!

The Four Horsemen of the Farm Bill Apocalypse

Zombies of the Haunted House:

1. Frank Lucas – (R-OK) Current Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee

Lucas is so in the tank for industrial agriculture that earlier this year he proposed a hearing on the “over-regulation of agricultural biotechnology”.

Not surprisingly, during the 2009-2010 election cycle, Lucas received more than $317,000 from agribusiness interests, including $16,000 from Monsanto and $15,000 from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. What do you think they want now?

2. Collin Peterson (D-MN) Former Chair of the House Agriculture Committee

Peterson is widely known as “Cargill” Peterson for his love of defending industrial agriculture and has taken millions of dollars from agribusiness firms during his career; including $19,999 from Monsanto and $21,750 from the American Farm Bureau during the 2010 election cycle.

Vampires of the Seditious Senate:

3. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee

Rumors point to Stabenow as leading the push for the “Secret Farm Bill” because she doesn’t want to have to deal with crafting this complicated piece of federal legislation during an election year.

If you think Stabenow’s willingness to throw out real reform of U.S. food policy because she doesn’t want the “headache” during an election season, consider the fact that during the 2012 election cycle, from 2007 to now, Stabenow has pocketed more that $483,000 in agribusiness PAC and individual donations and is currently the top recipient of Agricultural Services & Products donations. Priceless!

Kind of gives new meaning to the term, “Perks of the Senate”.

4. Pat Roberts – (R-KS) Senate Agriculture Committee – Ranking Member

Roberts is a known industrial ag favorite, that during the 2009 Senate confirmation hearing of Secretary Vilsack he went so far as to draw an outrageous picture of organic farmers as GQ reading porch sitters. If that weren’t bad enough, Roberts has already grabbed more than $706,000 in agribusiness cash for the 2012 election cycle, including political donations from the National Corn Growers Association, DuPont, Pfizer and Syngenta.

Click here if you want to tell these congressional leaders that they work for the American people and that you want to end the collusion between corporate greed and Congressional misdeeds. Tell Congress to Kill the Secret Farm Bill today!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/483?akid=398.293303.kYMKSE&t=10

Why the 2012 Food and Farm Bill Matters

There is nothing more essential and personal to us than the food we eat and the water we drink. Agriculture policy dictates the quality, availability and health of our food resources. U.S. food and ag policy is far-reaching throughout the world, determining the fate of all those who eat.

Typically the Farm Bill is conducted every five years, involving a lengthy process of public hearings in Congress and meetings with stakeholders across the country. At risk with this secret deal are vital reform programs of commodity subsidies (already on the chopping block), funding for conservation, organic conversion and important nutrition programs. 

While members of Congress are working to find ways of cutting the budget, the currently proposed cut of $23 billion from the 2012 Farm Bill by members of Congress ag committees and the $33 billion in cuts proposed by the White House should not be made in haste or in any secretive backroom bargain that excludes the voice of the American farmer and eaters while taking advice from agribusiness lobbyists.

In a democracy, we deserve transparency and accountability, and in few places is this more personal or necessary than determining our food policy, where all stakeholders deserve a seat at the table, not simply those with the largest financial interest.

Click here to make a call to kill the “Secret Farm Bill”. We need your voice today - now more than ever. If you support local family farmers and sustainable agriculture for our future, please join this call to action.

Senate Ag Committee Leadership:

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) - Chair of Senate Agricultural Committee - call: (202) 224-4822

Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) Ranking Member Senate Agriculture Committee - call: (202) 224-4774

House Ag Committee Leadership:

Congressman Frank Lucas (R-OK) Chair House Committee on Agriculture - call: 202-225-5565

Congressman Collin Peterson (D-MN) Former Chair House Committee on Agriculture - call: (202) 225-2165

We are committed to this fight now, more than ever - please join us. Together, our voices will create the future we hope for.

Thanks for being a part of the solution and participating in food democracy,

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team

[NOTE* from Leftish - THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!  PLEASE LEND YOUR VOICE AND MAKE A FEW PHONE CALLS!]

[When] there’s money to be made, both workers and the environment are expendable.  Just as jobs migrate if labor can be had cheaper overseas, I know workers who were tossed aside when they became ill from the foul air or poisonous chemicals they encountered on the job.

The fact is: we won’t free ourselves from a dysfunctional and unfair economic order until we begin to see ourselves as communities, not commodities.  That is one clear message from Zuccotti Park.

Polluters routinely walk away from the ground they poison and expect taxpayers to clean up after them.  By “externalizing” such costs, profits are increased.  Examples of land abuse and abandonment are too legion to list, but most of us can refer to a familiar “superfund site” in our own backyard.  Clearly, Mother Nature is among the disenfranchised, exploited, and struggling.

fearandwar:

Reference No.: 2 Monsanto

April 1998 

**Confidential**
**Internal Official Use Only**

Reference Sheet On Pesticide Use

*    Of all insecticides used globally each year, the amount used on cotton: 25%.

*    Number of pesticides presently on the market that were registered before being tested to determine if they caused cancer, birth defects or wildlife toxicity: 400.

*    Amount of time it takes to ban a pesticide in the U.S. using present procedures: 10 years.

*    Number of active ingredients in pesticides found to cause cancer in animals or humans: 107.

*    Of those active ingredients, the number still in use today: 83.

*    Number of pesticides that are reproductive toxins according to the California E.P.A.: 15.

*    Number of pesticides found to cause reproductive problems in animals: 14.

*    Most serious cause of groundwater pollution confirmed in California: agricultural chemicals.

*    Number of pesticides found in drinking wells of California since 1982: 68.

*    Number of California wells affected: 957.

*    Number of farming communities affected: 36.

*    % of the total U.S. population supplied with drinking water from groundwater: 50%.

*    Number of different pesticides documented by the E.P.A. to be present in groundwater in 1988: 74.

*    Number of states affected: 32.

*    Most acutely toxic pesticide registered by the E.P.A.: aldicarb (used frequently on cotton).

*    In California between 1970 and 1994 amount of total aldicarb used on cotton: 85 to 95%.

*    Number of states in which aldicarb has been detected in the groundwater: 16.

*    Percentage of all U.S. counties containing groundwater susceptible to contamination from agricultural pesticides and fertilizers: 46%.

*    Number of people in the U.S. routinely drinking water contaminated with carcinogenic herbicides: 14 million.

*    Percentage of municipal water treatment facilities lacking equipment to remove these chemicals from the drinking water: 90%.

*    Estimated total costs for U.S. groundwater monitoring: US$900 million to 2.2 billion.

*    Estimated costs for U.S. groundwater carbon filtration cleanup: up to $25 million per site.

*    Percentage of all food samples tested by the FDA in 1980 which contained pesticide residues: 38%.

*    Of the 496 pesticides identified as likely to leave residues in food, the percentage which FDA tests can routinely detect: 40%.

*    Average number of serious pesticide-related accidents between World War II and 1980: 1 every 5 years.

*    Average number of serious pesticide-related accidents between 1980 and the present: 2 every year.

*    Increase in cancer rates between 1950 and 1986: 37%.

*    Number of Americans who will learn they have cancer this year: 1 million.

*    Number who will die from it: 500,000.

*    Cost to U.S. of cancer in terms of lost production, income, medical expenses and research resources: US$ 39 billion each year.

*    Highest rate of chemical-related illness of any occupational group in the U.S.A.: farm workers.

*    Pesticide-related illnesses among Monsanto farm workers in U.S.A. each year: Approximately 300,000.

*    Number of people in the U.S. who die each year from cancer related to pesticides: 10,400.

Copyright 1999 Monsanto All Rights Reserved

Evidently emails are coming next.

climateadaptation:

Drilling will commence summer 2012 in the Chuckchi Sea, where Alaska and Russia meet. Environmental groups fume. Shell pleased. Rare species at risk.

Here is a round up:

• Approves former President Bush’s stalled plans to drill in Arctic
• Earth Justice sues
• Native Alaskans are pissed: “We have a right to life, to physical integrity, to security, and the right to enjoy the benefits of our culture. For this, we will fight, and this is why we have gone to court today. Our culture can never be bought or repaired with money. It is priceless,” Caroline Cannon, president of the Native Village of Point Hope, said in a press release.
• Shell Oil is pleased
• Crude prices drop
• Pew Center blasts Obama for politics over science stance, issues white paper
• University of Texas receives $5.6 million grant to study “safe oil extraction” without disturbing wildlife/ecosystems
• Home to thousands of rare species including bowhead, beluga, narwhals, and grey whales; ice, bearded, ribbon, and spotted seals; polar bears; puffins, auklets, sea ducks, and penguins; and cod, sharks, and eels.
• NASA reports sea-ice 2nd lowest levels ever recorded in the Chuckchi/Arctic
• National Snow & Ice Data Center: 40% lower than average ice extent - a loss the size of California, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington states combined