Sunday, November 1, 2009

Obama Salts Ag Dept With Monsanto, ConAgra Frankenfoods Flunkies

“We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.” --Candidate Obama.

Did you really think so? After Tom Vilsack was named AgSec? Really?

Bwaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Over the last month, Obama nominated two more “BIG AGRA” power brokers–Roger Beachy and Islam Siddiqui–to key governement positions, putting agribusiness executives in charge of our country’s agricultural research and trade policy.

(Wanna bet this a tacit apology made "politically necessary" by the "Dal-Obama's" need to restore perfect balance, bipartisanship, and harmony, after the accidental affront and embarrassment caused to the BIG AGRA interests by rebuke implicit in Michele Obama's 'natural garden' planted on WhiteHouse grounds...This guy is so fucking gutless...)

Siddiqui was a paid flack, and front-man for the crop-poison lobby, the American Crop Protection Association, and a shill for GM/frankenfoods. And Beachy's the former head of the Donald Danforth Plant Research Center in St. Louis, MO, and a long-time flunky for Monsanto, Named to head NIFA, (National Institute of Food and Agriculture), Beachy controls where research funds are spent in the U.S. This is not good news for proponents of sustainable and organic agriculture.

For his part, Siddiqui, who last month was nominated to be the Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the Office of the US Trade Representative, has been a registered pesticide lobbyist and most recently the Vice President of Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America. In a previous stint at the USDA, Siddiqui was responsible for trying to set the national organic standards to allow irradiation, sewage sludge and GMOs to be considered “organic.” Fortunately, over 230,000 outraged Americans rose up and stopped this.

Most recently, Siddiqui’s CropLife MidAmerica sent First Lady Michelle Obama a letter saying that her “organic” garden made the pesticide lobby group “shudder”. Who would have thought months later that President Obama would be trying to give a lobbyist like Siddiqui a job?

While Beachy is already at work at the USDA, Siddiqui must be confirmed by the Senate. We have until Nov. 4th, (when the Senate Finance committee will vote) to make a difference.

Tell the president to DUMP Monsanto’s men!

I'm sure he'll listen, aren't you?

DOTOF™: Mark Crispin Miller's News From Underground:

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This is little different from Obama's Treasury & economic team - the "experts" he chooses are all insiders, with not-so-well hidden "hidden" agendas. Me? I'm still thinking that a half dozen randomly chosen citizens would make better policy than the so-called "experts"... in just about any field. Why is no one listening to us?