… and a Guaranteed Profit for the Corporations and Bankers regardless of the opinions or outcomes of public protests.
A Tale of Milk and Honey from the UK/EU Homeland
Did you read the one by George on the TTIP negotiations?
Yep, so did I.
Worried?
Me too.
That makes two of us. But would you vote against it. Assuming we get a vote, which according to all the rumors flying around we won’t anytime ever. It’s a closed door, secret society. A totally classified and utterly controlled set of negotiations.
Negotiations which will create the biggest set of changes to our democratic freedoms for hundreds of years. Something we the people, destined to be influenced by it, have no right to know about. That is according to the corporate committee that are steering this entire project.
The odd thing is that despite all the media coverage on the usual daily smoke screens and shenanigans of political wrangling in the Commons, the lobbying bills squeaky progress to the Lords, an escaped terrorist dressed in a burka and the complete who’s who of UK cyber spy masters and snoopers before a House Of Commons Select Committee there has been precious little mentioned anywhere in the press and media regarding this trade deal of the century.
In fact there has not been one fully informative and genuine piece of information other than the odd unsubstantiated rumor and the usual bland package deal delivery known worldwide as the Bought and Bribed Corporation news.
Just like the apologies from the press for wrongful accusations which appear in two column inches of plain text without a real title and placed conveniently among the sleazy ads section … just so you know they’re being sincere … the Bought and Bribed Corporation promotes these items in an altogether different way. But no less hidden.
Nothing more than a one liner snippet with no visuals. Blink and you miss it, cough and you hear nothing. Wonderful! In fact, you won’t even see a photograph of any of The Negotiators. Good title for a film eh? Secretive, sinister, heavily disguised, coming soon to a negotiating table near you. The Negotiators! Starring all the usual suspects from the Corporate world.
Well there wouldn’t be any newsworthy items to read now would there? It’s not in the Corporate fat cats and corrupt bankers best interests to include us in any of their little deals.
Truth be told, this little charm offensive is designed to permanently enslave the populous into a cycle of spend, spend, spend on stuff they don’t need, by using ever more persuasive adverts that promise to give them what they really want and need to stay ahead of the Joneses, all the while increasing the individual debt burden still further and basically keeping them in the dark, or if they catch a glimpse of the truth, too scared to object to anything they dislike for fear of being sacked, evicted or imprisoned on a minor technicality… like complaining about the governments policies for instance based on internet search preferences or blog postings and thus losing the ability to keep up with the repayments. What a shame!
Hence, the UK government’s urgent rush to introduce a lobbying bill disguised as an attack on the corporations unfair influence on government decisions. But the truth is the lobbying bill has turned out to be directed not at the corporations but at the ordinary charitable organisations, environmental groups and numerous civil liberty and aid NGOs instead.
The imposition of the lobbying bill would make it virtually impossible for these and many other civil liberty groups to raise any issues with our good old UK Government. Especially during the year before a general election.
Then we have Smart Stax just approved in the EU despite the overwhelming opposition of the people. So much for democratic representation.
The multi-genetically modified crop from hell complete with several toxin-producing elements designed to corpse the bugs and grubs and a side serving of double herbicidal resistant traits to boot. Oddly enough it’s not even been tested for its combinatorial effects between the insecticidal properties and its double herbicidal element. The EFSA haven’t even requested a feeding trial. Bizarre behavior from the one group that most people in Europe believe to be the protectors of food standards and health.
All these individual pieces form part of a huge jigsaw puzzle of corporate plotting and prior planning and preparation for what is to come. Which is to secure total and absolute control over the masses. This sneaky maneuvering started many decades ago but precisely when is difficult to pin down. It differs nation to nation. But as time has progressed, it is clear to see that these Free Trade Agreements are a starting point of the globalization of corporate control and they are anything but free to the targets of their rules and regulations and ultimate control. Similar efforts to control trade have been made by EU nations.
One such early event for the UK was joining the then EEC or European Economic Community, formerly called the Common Market. We tried to join earlier but President de Gaulle said ‘Non!’. We go back a long way with the French, historically speaking.
From just before the UK joined the EEC we busied ourselves by disemboweling the currency with decimalization, deregulation of industry on a national scale and distancing ourselves from our Commonwealth trading partners of many years standing. All to make the corporate pill easier to swallow and our entry into the EEC possible. And we, the populous, were led by the hand to the future. To the land of milk and honey.
Oh, yes, the promised land. A unified Europe. Milk subsidized by the EEC, now called the EU, and shipped to Europe from the UK only to be bought back again with a little extra volume of import on top. All to make the economic trade figures look impressive and fiddle the books at the same time. Apparently not one set of EU accounts have ever been signed of as balanced and approved for at least the last ten years. But don’t take my word for it. Go check it out for yourselves.
Then we have honey being contaminated by GM pollen and the bees being killed by pesticides. But despite the EU suspension on the use of neonicotinoids, one of the chief suspects in contributing to Bee and pollinator insect declines, the two years will be insufficient to show any change due to a little known fact about these neonicotinoids.
They accumulate in the soil.
Yes, folks, that’s right. Ask Bayer. They made a balls up of their calculations when they conducted their field trials in the UK and submitted graphs showing no accumulation of this pesticide in the soil. It was only when they had to resubmit their research documents for their full approval certification some time later in 1996 that they submitted their revised report with the new graphs inside, and did so without telling anyone of the changes. Otherwise known as ‘least said, soonest mended’.
Our ministers, bless them one and all, didn’t even spot the difference because they assumed the research report was the same as the first one so they didn’t go through it with a fine tooth comb. So now the steady accumulation in the soil of these pesticides, which are systemic as well as neurotoxic, have now most certainly reached a level which ‘IS’ above the fatal threshold of all pollinator insects, and even with a suspension of the pesticide the residues will continue to kill pollinator insects because the crops will still be grown on contaminated ground and will continue to take up these accumulated residues despite there being no new applications.
The hedgerow shrubs and trees and the field margin vegetation will also continue to take up these residues too. After all Honey Bees will forage for pollen and nectar anywhere as will all the pollinator insects.
But what about our declining bird life? Is there a link to their decline and these chemicals too? What about the decline in habitat that everyone keeps banging on about? Yes that has an impact but not just leaving less land for them to live so much as forcing them to increasingly rely upon intensively farmed farmland vegetation and crops for food.
Research showed that it took very few treated seeds to kill a Grey Partridge, which incidentally is an endangered species in the UK. Its quite a bird too. Songbirds which live and forage in hedgerows are so much smaller and would need less toxin to kill them. Also their food supply includes insects so if all these insects are foraging on contaminated pollen and nectar then they too are carriers of these toxins as well aren’t they?
All this uncertainty needs examining despite what the agri-chemical companies keep claiming. The imposition of the ‘Precautionary Principle‘ should be the first step but the corporations have squealed so loudly about lost profits and Treasury Ministers have squealed so loudly about the impact on economic growth and the Chancellor has made it clear that economic growth is the most important issue for the UK, that it has been permanently sidelined in the UK and is on life support in the EU.
So the upshot of all this is that come the end of the two-year suspension there will be no change in the decline rate of pollinators. The EU suspension will be lifted and a declaration will be made that says there is no proof of harm. And the pollinators and honey bees and bumble bees will continue to decline and the agri-chemical industry will continue to gloat at our failed opposition saying that it isn’t their chemicals to blame. Well bless my soul!
But it doesn’t even end there.
Now the EU Commissioners, who incidentally are not elected but merely appointed by the member states, have decided to change the wording of a recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling on GMO contamination of pollen in honey.
You see they cannot change the ruling of the ECJ because they are not allowed to overrule the highest court in Europe. So instead they want to change the wording. Instead of pollen being classified as an ingredient in honey, which is what it is, (as it isn’t essential to the production of honey but exists in every jar), they want to reclassify it as a constituent of honey. Pollen is food for bees. It is not a constituent of honey. It plays no part in its production. It only happens to be there because like our factories that make biscuits and cakes have to declare their products as having come from a factory where nuts are used because of potential contamination risks, pollen just happens to be there and becomes an additional ingredient of honey by virtue of it being a part of the beehive environment, but it doesn’t do any harm to it.
So why is the EU Commissioners decision so important? Well we have a limit on GMO contamination of our food.
It goes like this:
At present food and feed with any ingredients above 0.9% GM has to be labelled. Below this level, labeling can only be avoided if companies can prove the GM presence is “adventitious or technically unavoidable.”
So if they allowed this rule to stand it would effectively stop the advance of GMO’s throughout the EU and put an end to GMO food, too. Hooray!
Whoa! Slow down! Its not over yet. In December the European Parliament will be asked to vote on this little change and you can bet your life the EU Commissioners will push hard. They have a vested interest as they are pro GM and they desperately want to clear the decks for GMO technology to become as much a part of Europe as it is a part of the US lifestyle. In fact it fits in with the TTIP negotiations neatly, as one little snippet that has leaked out puts it the negotiations are including a total relaxation of our GMO controls to allow for the onslaught of Monsanto, Dow, DuPont et al into our agricultural and food production system.
After all they have been eating GMO food for 20 years without any harm…?
Yet the TTIP negotiations go on with barely a word of opposition. Even the UK parliament with a history of protecting our sovereign rights in the past have failed to even mumble a single word of dissent against this deal. Actually there are a few members of parliament who actually want this deal done.
After all they don’t want us lobbying them and they don’t want us doing things on the internet without their knowledge and they don’t want us to feel safe on our own streets. So why would they want us to be free?
Because they are scared of us!
Oh, yes, people! The UK and EU sure is one hell of a promised land!
Many thanks to all the many people who have provided me with links, information and guidance. Also to a certain young lady for proof reading this article and correcting my atrocious spelling. She knows who she is. :)