Rural Americans Lunch With Lobbyist or Cash For Clinton
copyright © 2007 Betsy L. Angert
Once again, the Clinton Clan exceeds expectations. It is widely known that the Senator and her spouse are inexorability linked to lobbyist money. The public understands Hillary Clinton’s unwillingness to commit. The American people accept that she cannot know what her friend, the son of Bill’s best bud, will leave behind. Whether we discuss war or children, George W. Bush has abandoned all. Thus, the stroll down the breezeway to the Oval Office will not be an easy jaunt. There is much damage to undo, re-do, or create anew.
Hillary holds out hope. She does not know what she will find in White House that George built. She will not assert that she can stop the Iraq war by 2013. She will put more troops in Afghanistan. Universal Health Care, well, she commands all Americans be insured. However, she offers little to those unable to pay the premiums. Hillary wants to help . . . those that help her, and lobbyists do.
The former First Lady indebted to Industrialists, Insurers, and Capitalists, invites Rural Americans in Iowa to lunch with her entourage in a corrupt and corporate lap. Luxury is on the menu as is the loot that lets her continue as she as. With mega-millions in her purse, and she, deep in the pockets of polluters, now professional Genetic Engineering despoilers such as Monsanto Hillary Clinton howls and hollers, “Vote for me.” I am your girl! Senator Clinton offers an Invitation to Rural Americans for Hillary Lunch and Briefing. She reaches out to voters in Iowa. The one time occupant of the White House wishes to express, those outside the beltway matter.
So later this month, according to THIS INVITATION, the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is holding a “Rural Americans for Hillary” lunch and campaign briefing at the end of this month . . .
. . . but she’s holding it in Washington, DC . . .
. . . at a lobbying firm . . .
. . . and specifically, though it’s not mentioned in the invitation, at the lobbying firm Troutman Sanders Public Affairs . . .
which just so happens to lobby for the controversial multinational agri-biotech Monsanto.
You read that right: Monsanto, about which there are serious questions about its culpability regarding 56 Superfund Sites, wanton and “outrageous” pollution, and the decidedly unkosher (and quite metaphoric) genetically-bred “Superpig.”
. . . A company that the website “Ethical Investing” labels “the world’s most unethical and harmful investment.”
Holding an agri-summit in the plush halls of the lobbyists for Monsanto doesn’t sound like the kind of “rural Americans,” a presidential candidate would necessarily want to be photographed with.
Particularly if Clinton’s two primary opponents — former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. - don’t take money from lobbyists and are trying to depict the frontrunner as too much a part of the corrupt Washington system, lobbyists, corporate America, et al?.
But then again, it doesn’t say Clinton will attend this luncheon — just senior staffers and congressional endorsers! (Is that better or worse?)
Response from the Clinton campaign to come.
Perhaps, Hillary will not appear at the luncheon in the posh offices of Monsanto. A physical appearance might pollute the already murky land and sea of scandal. At the Yearly Kos August Convention we might recall Hillary Clinton spoke of how lobbyist indeed worked for the people. However, some question the potential President’s truth.
Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution
PCBs Drenched Ala. Town, But No One Was Ever Told
By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post
Tuesday, January 1, 2002; Page A01Anniston, Ala. — On the west side of Anniston, the poor side of Anniston, the people ate dirt. They called it “Alabama clay” and cooked it for extra flavor. They also grew berries in their gardens, raised hogs in their back yards, caught bass in the murky streams where their children swam and played and were baptized. They didn’t know their dirt and yards and bass and kids — along with the acrid air they breathed — were all contaminated with chemicals. They didn’t know they lived in one of the most polluted patches of America.
Now they know. They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents — many emblazoned with warnings such as “CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy” — show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew.
In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they found fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided “there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges.” In 1975, a company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered its conclusion changed from “slightly tumorigenic” to “does not appear to be carcinogenic.”
Monsanto enjoyed a lucrative four-decade monopoly on PCB production in the United States, and battled to protect that monopoly long after PCBs were confirmed as a global pollutant. “We can’t afford to lose one dollar of business,” one internal memo concluded.
Perchance that is the reason Monsanto now sponsors the presumed future President of the United States, Hillary Clinton. They say it is not what you know, but whom that helps. It is important to associate with persons in high places if you are to ensure profits. Monsanto illustrates the wisdom of the statement, “Follow the money,” or “Follow the leader.” With fifty percent of the votes in her camp, Clinton can certainly secure earnings for all those companies that endorse her. Senator Clinton, with the help of rural Americans physically and financially invested in agriculture, can give credence to the Monsanto movement towards Genetically Engineered crops.
A Bridge Too Far.
GreenPeaceRio Grande, Mexico - Mexicans are being forced to swallow Monsanto’s seeds of destruction, while back in the US, Monsanto is not allowed to grow its genetically engineered (GE) cotton for fear of GE contamination. To expose this double standard our activists blocked a trainload of GE contaminated maize as it crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico.
It’s not just a case of double standards - the US administration continues to ride roughshod over the rights of people around the world to say no to genetically modified organisms.
The latest scientific analysis shows that one third of US maize entering Mexico is contaminated with GE varieties from Monsanto. Mexico is the centre of diversity of maize, one of the world’s three most important food crops and it’s at serious risk from GE contamination.
Teosinte, for example, is the wild relative of maize. Recent scientific research from the US found that genes from GE crops could rapidly take over those in wild relatives like teosinte. When most of the wild populations of teosinte are already under threat, contamination from escaped GE maize could push them over the edge.
Yet the US and Monsanto have no scruples in dumping their GE maize into Mexico, even though, back in the US, Monsanto is not allowed to grow its GE cotton in the South of Florida, because of concerns about contamination of related cotton species.
Perchance, the rural Americans invited to this luncheon will be briefed on what is good for the goose or the gander. Genetically Engineered seeds may be on the menu. Whatever is served, we can be certain there will be more cash for candidate Clinton. Citizens impressed by her interest will likely cast a ballot for her. Monsanto has.
Sources of Slop . . .
Wait, There's More!
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