AMTV News: UN Arms Treaty, China Slowdown, Syrian Show of Force

Topher Morrison

AMTV News

This is AMTV News, I’m your host Topher Morrison.  Today is Monday July 9^th 2012.

Americans Up in Arms Over UN Treaty

Forbes & The New American

Meet the latest bright idea to walk out of New York, the UN’s “Small Arms Treaty.”  Flanked by humanitarian rhetoric this internationalist effort is aimed at one thing, ensure the monopoly of violence stays with the governments of the world – hardly a demographic with a respectable human rights record.

The Obama administration has thrown its full support behind the treaty and therefore to subordinate the Constitution’s 2^nd Amendment guarantee and with it the police powers of the sovereign s tates:  The treaty is said to impose:

-       tougher licensing laws

-       confiscation and destruction of weapons deemed in violation

-       elimination of semi-automatics referred to prejudicially as “assault weapons”

All this backed by the same administration that signed off on the biggest weapons deal in the history of the planet to that bastion of civil rights – Saudi Arabia.  July 27^th is the deadline for the treaty, any surprise it’s right before Congress’ August recess?

Would-be Terrorist Caught at Olympic Park

London Telegraph

For months the chatter about London has been of terror plots.  To be sure, the Olympic grounds will be protected by the largest peacetime security operation ever seen  in Britain.   The heightened attention has nabbed a 24-year-old ex con rumored to have fought with Somali Al Qaeda affiliate al-Shahaab last week ending a flurry of 14 terror-related arrests across Britain – all based purely on suspicion.  In a nation fearing extremists around every corner, even within it own police ranks and boasting a camera on every lamppost expect more arrests as the opening ceremonies approach and due process is eroded.

Syria’s Show of Force

Associated Press

“Naval forces conducted an operational live fire excersise on Saturday.”  Launching missiles from sea and coast, helicopters and missile boats the Syrian government displayed its ability to repel foreign aggression.

Western nations have been beckoned to intervene on behalf of opposition forces who claim over 14,000 deaths since the start of the uprising, but Syria’s powerful network of allegiances stretches from Tehran to Beijing impeding political efforts at subduing Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime and western efforts to overthrow it.  Foreign intelligence services, however, are supporting a shadowy network of insurgents steadily encroaching on Damascus threatening further escalation of violence as pro-Assad forces scramble to survive.

Chinese Demand Slows, Reflecting Global Trend

Reuters

China's consumer and producer prices eased more than expected in June, inflation data on Monday showed, signaling falling demand for goods from the world's second-biggest economy.  The economy overall is seeing its slowest full year of growth since 2002 – albeit at a 9.2 percent clip.  Falling prices indicate not just declining input prices, but declining demand from foreign customers reflecting a weakening global economy.

Monsanto’s Full Court Press

Activist Post

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been linked to infertility, weight gain, organ dysfunction and the desctruction of the environment.  Nearly 20 states are considering “Right to Know” legislation, forcing producers to label food containing GMOs and prohibiting false representation as “natural” or “naturally made” from appearing on such products.   Monsanto and Dow ally StopCostlyFoodLabeling.com launched a campaign claiming malicious costs and warning of a legion of trial lawyers taking advantage of the system.  Both claims are handily debunked, Americans have the right to know what they’re eating.

Catch our in depth commentary and analysis of stories like these at GreeneWave.com and PurpleSerf.com part of the AMTV network.

Genetically Subsidized Food: Just Label It

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

You are what you eat, but what are you eating?  GMO?

Since 1967 Americans have benefited from the fact they generally knew what was in the food they purchased.  When America ceased to be a predominantly agrarian and rural society, one that grew and raised its own food locally, it became dependent on convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants and a massive commercial supply chain.

The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson provided a level of transparency and piece of mind to Americans who were now removed from producing their own sustenance.  Since the late 1980s that piece of mind has been seriously called into question and the idea that the quality of the American food supply is anything, but clear has reached a crescendo.

While there are many things that affect the quality of our food the most insidious and surprisingly still little known products are genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  They are produced by a relatively young set of genetic engineering techniques referred to as recombinant DNA technology, pioneered by Herbert Boyer, founder of the famous biotech firm, Genentech.   The technologies infuse genetic material from plants, animals, bacteria and even viruses to create transgenic organisms, which are designed to fulfill a variety of functions.  In 1978, Genentech artificially produced insulin, the hormone used to regulate safe blood sugar levels, using a particular strain of E. coli.

The applications seemed infinite and the need obvious, but another branch of genetic modification also emerged under the guidance of Advanced Genetic Sciences and the Monsanto Company.  This branch, however, has had very little to do with the treatment of disease – quite the contrary.

The now 111 year-old Monsanto’s first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin sold to the Coca-Cola company.  The agribusiness has since offered the world a bountiful mélange of dubious goodies.  Since the early 1940s the good men and women of Monsanto among other things have helped develop the nuclear weapon, given us the infamous pesticide DDT, Agent Orange (Round Up’s big brother) for use in Vietnam, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBST) to grow our cattle, and ultimately lead their scientists in 1982 to create the world’s first genetically modified plant cell.  Nothing less than a sterling history, to be sure.

GMO food has since infested our food supply and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little to regulate it or provide us with the necessary information in order to make informed decisions about our diets.

Twenty years ago Dan Quayle’s “regulatory relief initiative,” part of a broader effort to get government out of the way of growth exposed Americans to genetic contamination.  His FDA policy created by former Monsanto lawyer, Michael Taylor, was predicated on the idea that genetic engineering was the same as traditional plant breeding and therefore required no new regulations.  Over the last 20 years we have seen Mr. Quayle was wrong that GMOs are “substantially equivalent” to natural food.  Natural food isn’t linked to:

• Mental illness
• Gastrointestinal problems and obesity
• Infertility
• Birth defects
• Autoimmune diseases
• Food Allergies
• Cancer
• Poisoning water
• Ravaging the environment (declining bee population, butterflies too)

Herbicides are one thing, but designing a consumable organism, each with its own little pesticide factory within, for mankind to eat prime facie sounds like bad news yet testing and proffering results are handled on a volunteer basis.  It has taken an army of independent scientists, lawyers, investigative journalists and bloggers to expose what was almost as obvious with the tobacco industry – they are lying to us.

We talk a lot about crony capitalism and conflict of interests in the banking, military industrial complex, and green energy sectors, but agricultural businesses are so often neglected from this critique in the mainstream media.

I was once told by a lobbyist I know about how amazingly incestuous Washington D.C. can be, look for yourself and this is just one sector of the economy.  Make no mistake about it.  Our government and its cronies have their hands in everything.

Vote With Your Dollars

 

Thanks to the diligent efforts of activists and concerned citizens we have the ability to negotiate this minefield of genetic garbage – a non-GMO shopping guide.  With tools like these we can vote with our dollars and promote healthy alternatives to our genetically subsidized food supply.  Another obvious tactic to route these nefarious corporations like Monsanto is to grow your own food and reconnect with what has been a part of our lives for millennia – growing our own food.  You don’t have to be outside the city to make it happen either, just see Urban Farming and VermiSok (grows food outdoors in 115 degree weather with food waste called Worm Wine).

SeedsNow.com based out of California, for example, provides an astonishing array of non-GMO, non hybrid, heirloom seeds so you and your family can remain self-sufficient and healthy for the rest of your life.  Don’t just vote with your dollars, vote with your seeds.  Enter promo code ‘Greene10′ for a 10% discount.

In the meantime organizations like these will give you every opportunity to know where the next battle is to be fought in the effort to raise awareness and start labeling GMO products.  The latest success of course being the “Millions Against Monsanto” money bomb, which raised $2 million to promote California’s ballot initiative to label GMO products.  If this agricultural giant, one of the leading economies in the world, falls to reason the GMO threat will be well on its way to being extinguished.

Think about it.  Many countries around the world have outright banned GMO products and are being dragged through world trade courts because of it.  This isn’t the best course of action.  Merely labeling GMO products and refusing to participate in the charade will nullify and dismantle their GMO invasion.

Resources:

• Just Label It
• LabelGMOs.org
• Organic Consumers Fund
• CArighttoknow.org
• Food Democracy Now
• Mercola.com
• Natural News
• Non-GMO Project

It is important to note that aversion to sound policy is bipartisan as usual.  It is absolutely necessary, therefore to vote to remove from office those who promise not to allow lobbyists in their administration and also to label GMOs only to do the exact opposite.

Rise of Real Environmentalism

Chuck Norris
World Net Daily
September 25th, 2011

          Would you know if you are eating genetically engineered foods?

          The Los Angeles Times recently reported that, with no labeling on such foods, few realize that they are doing just that. Genetically modified crops comprise 93 percent of all soy, 86 percent of all corn and 93 percent of all canola seeds planted in the U.S., and are used in an about 70 percent of all American processed food.

          The Times went on to say that the Pew Center, Consumers Union and Harris Interactive polls over the last decade have shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans would like to see genetically modified foods better regulated and labeled. Despite that, President Obama's administration has approved an "unprecedented number of genetically modified crops," like ethanol corn, alfalfa and sugar beets.

Read the rest of Chuck Norris' op-ed at World Net Daily.

GRAPHIC: United States of Fatamerica

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Image Source: polyvore.com

In the chart below you'll notice a frightening and endemic issue of which I though had already been covered in the media ad nauseam, I mean Oprah made a career out of it right?  However, if this graphic has anything to say, the American public evidently have not had their fill of cautionary tales.  I mean God man, even our animals are becoming alarmingly obese!


It is a well known fact that when Europeans or Asians visit the ol' US of A they are quite alarmed with the portion size and with good reason.  Something has happened since the 1950s when fast food hit the scene and when a Big Mac patty was a mere 3oz!  Much like how Walmart dictactes prices to its suppliers and changes the way they make products McDonald's, Burger King, etc. have revolutionized the way we raise and grow our food in this country much to the detriment of their avid customer.  


Quality has been compromised on mutliple levels as unnatural genetically modified organisms (GMO) are introduced to our diet, the effects of which are just now being understood in mainstream science, and as chemicals, viruses, bacteria are finding their way into our meals with increasing regularity.  It doesn't stop there either, the packaging our food often finds itself is laden many times with Bisphenol-A (BPA) which is linked to hormonal imbalances, cancer, and in men actually aids in repelling women.  What we mentioned here doesn't even address obesity!


Sometime between "eat your vegetables" and "...I'm lovin' it" Americans for the most part have stopped caring what they put in their bodies.  Just look at some of the startling statistics below!  From the way obesity disproportionally affects women to increases in the amount of fuel our airlines have to purchase in order to haul the mother load across the country our diets are evidently as out of control as our politics. 

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++

Image Source:MPHDegreePrograms.com & oBizMedia.com