Actor Mark Ruffalo got the chance to do something that many of us could only dream of doing when he told off the CEO of Monsanto, Hugh Grant, in the Green Room at CBS while Ruffalo was waiting to do a segment about his new movie, “Spotlight.”
Ruffalo writes at EcoWatch.com that it was an uncomfortable move for him, but a necessary one, as “we must call out the people who are doing horrible things when they do them.”
On December 2, Ruffalo was waiting to go on the air to discuss Spotlight when he spotted Grant “worm his way through the strong questions he was getting from the CBS team.” Ruffalo says Grant’s “handlers” had obviously been prepping him for such interviews by supplying him with slick non-answers to interviewers’ questions.
“I simply told him this:
‘You are wrong. You are engaged in monopolizing food. You are poisoning people. You are killing small farms. You are killing bees. What you are doing is dead wrong.’
A bead of sweat broke out on his head. ‘Well, what I think we are doing is good,’ Grant replied.
‘I am sure you do,’ I told him.”
The actor, who portrayed the Hulk in “The Avengers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” claims Grant told him that Monsanto needs to do a better job with their messaging, but Ruffalo vehemently disagrees.
He writes to Grant at EcoWatch that it’s not Monsanto’s message that’s the problem, it’s the awful things the agribusiness giant does.
“People don’t walk around making horrible stories up about good companies because they got nothing else better to do with their time. People like you and your company are horrible because … you are horrible. No matter how much jumping around you do on morning shows (where no one can really nail you down for the horrible stuff you do), you will still always be horrible and people will always greet you the way I did, when you go around trying to cover up the fact that you are horrible.”
No wonder Monsanto is one of the most hated companies in the world.
The piece ends with Ruffalo pointing out that in 2003, Monsanto settled a lawsuit for $700 million with 20,000 Anniston, Alabama residents who alleged that a Monsanto plant contaminated local rivers, lakes, soil, and air with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), causing cancer, birth defects, and neurological disorders in local residents.
We write extensively about Monsanto, and we’re more than familiar with the many ways in which the company is trashing the planet with no concern for human beings whatsoever. Finally, this ecocidal monster is being held accountable for its actions.
It came to light last week that several activist groups have teamed up with food and farming experts to sue Monsanto for its crimes against humanity.
We reported on December 3:
“The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, along with dozens of global food, farming, and environmental justice groups announced at the United Nations conference held recently in Paris that an international court of lawyers and judges will assess Monsanto’s criminal liability for their atrocious acts.
“The court, in The Hague, Netherlands, will use the UN’s ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ developed in 2011 to assess damages for Monsanto’s acts against human life and the environment.”
The court will also consider whether to reform international criminal law to include crimes against the environment as a prosecutable offense.
Monsanto has been accused by well-respected researchers of demanding for 4 decades that incriminating data and reports showing that glyphosate causes cancer be sealed as proprietary trade secrets in order to keep the information out of the public’s view.
Too bad for Monsanto that more people than ever are learning of the company’s questionable actions.
Sources:
[1] EcoWatch