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Health & Fitness

Real Issues of This Election

We have the power to discern the corruption in the game.

The real issues of this election are not going to be addressed in the main stream media, in the debates or in political speeches.  They won’t be resolved by taking sides in the increasingly polarized partisan brinksmanship or by trusting that one candidate will be anything more than the “lesser of two evils”.  We think we have no meaningful power in this game. The main stream carnival barkers call us to the table and distract us with their skillful sleight of hand.  They know we have the power to discern the corruption in the game, but are too caught up by the chatter of the barker and the multiple diversions.

For example, will we be able to get the Monsanto friendly FDA to label GMOs?  GMOs have been falsely sold as the solution to world hunger though they have proven to be exactly the opposite and have contributed to the demise of crop and human health.  The film, “Genetic Roulette” which can be found at full length on YouTube, is an excellent expose on the issue.  The issue to consumers is access to knowledge about the alterations to the genetic structure of food and the effects on animal and human health and reproduction.  Meanwhile, the stated goal of Monsanto is the eventual ownership by patent of all seeds, creating a monopoly on food production.  Natural seed and food production which is compatible with human health is not in the interest of chemical monoculture.

This is a case of the coyotes and the foxes both digging up through the bottom of the hen house and poisoning the chickens.  Both parties are heavily involved with the corporate chemical monoculture version of agriculture.  We have no choice but to demand the labeling of our food to protect ourselves and our children from the proven dangers of GMO food.  Our right to know what is replacing our natural food cannot be honored as long as the FDA, the governmental regulatory agency meant to protect consumers has a revolving door policy with Monsanto.  Our right to choose safe food, to know when natural foods have been altered by GMO contamination will continue to be ignored until the corruption at the FDA is eliminated.

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I support the labeling of GMO as a disclosure issue, just the same as labeling any other potentially dangerous or toxic substance.  I also support a major house cleaning at the FDA and all related agencies that deal with food safety and the elimination of interference by Monsanto and the biotech industry.

Obamacare or Romneycare?  They are both modeled after the Romney Massachusetts plan.  Both will give your complete medical and personal history to the insurance companies and the healthcare industries on a RFID chip.  Both will consolidate the influence of the pharmaceutical companies over the availability of natural health care alternatives and in doing so will discourage health care choices, privacy and personal freedom.

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What about the wars?  Both Presidential candidates support the corporate influence of the Military Industrial Complex and privatized mercenaries to instigate conflicts and set the course for our involvement in wars around the globe.  Both support the increasing militarization of police and the supplanting of our civil rights as part of the post 9/11 surveillance society.  Both candidates supported the NDAA of 2012, authorizing indefinite detention without charge.   George Bush’s War on Terror has become a war on our civil rights and a war by intimidation upon the American people as well as a War of Terror perpetrated through our unwilling participation upon peoples around the world.

While we are focused on whether America is a corporate run government or a government run corporation we are missing the fundamental point that both choices only mean that the revolving doors between government, multinational corporations, pharmaceutical companies  and other special interests have replaced democracy and the republic with a powerful conglomeration of interlacing interests who can use the US Military to muscle their way into new conquests and bury the American taxpayers in generational debt to pay for their expenses.

It almost doesn’t matter who sits in the White House or who gets elected to Congress.  Their role is little more than that of carnival clowns.  What’s worse is that when we registered as voters, we contracted to let these clowns speak on our behalf and bind us to their decisions. 

The multinational corporate main stream media traded its role as the people’s watch dog for the lucrative if lazy position of mouthpiece for the moguls of power and industry a long time ago.  Only the questions of think tank advisors ever make it to the evening news. The real questions are still being ignored.

How are we really going to rebuild our communities after the money totally fails?  We’d better be planting new victory gardens.  ‘And why is the path of globalization laid out as a progressive certainty to which all peoples should espouse rather than the consolidation of lands and resources under the control of those who have already stolen the wealth and power of the entire planet?

Are we still too distracted by the carny show?  I think not.  But now that we know it’s all a game, what are we going to do?

For my part, I will vote my conscience, even if I have to write in a candidate’s name.  Peacefully following my conscience is my personal enactment of meaningful power.  After the election, I will formally cease to contract my vote to any other until democracy and the republic are restored.

Marie Oliver

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