The Monday Night Muse - October 12 2015

If you want to know what’s going on in the world, there are places that will tell you the truth, not paint you a picture, maintain the status quo or be part of any international/inter-business synergy.

This is one of those places.

Stories, truths and angles that you need to know and have probably been sheltered from by the powers that be or your own search bubble.

Every Monday evening.

 

TTIP 'would remove people's rights to access basic human needs'

Access to basic rights such as energy running water could be jeopardised by multinational corporations, according to a new report into two free trade deals.

The report states that the agreements could allow all public services to be tied into commercial deals that would place profit above the rights of individuals to access basic services.

According to the report, titled Public Services Under Attack, such deals would be “effectively irreversible”, allowing multinational corporations to sue governments that try to regulate the cost of public services if it could be proved companies’ profits would be harmed.

Both agreements, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) with the US the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) with Canada, are currently being negotiated.

It is claimed that all public services  including health, education and energy could be at risk of privatisation.

Under current WTO agreements, access to water is regarded as a basic human right. The new trade agreements would effectively undermine this, according to John Hilary, the executive director of War on Want, one of the campaign groups behind the report .

He claims that in a worst-case scenario, if individuals were unable to pay their water bill, they would be denied access to it. “Suddenly, instead of water being considered a human right, it would be treated as a commodity and people could be cut off if they can’t afford it,” Mr Hilary told The Independent.

 

Previously, the UK Government  has insisted that public services such as education and the NHS would be protected from such action.

In November last year, the UK Government published a document on the deal, Separating Myth from Fact, in which it states: “TTIP will not change the way that the NHS, or other public services, is run.

“The European Commission is following our approach that it must always be for the UK to decide for itself whether or not to open up our public services to competition.” But Mr Hilary believes the public should be sceptical of such assurances. He said: “There is no truth in the government’s claim that public services are safe in TTIP. Corporate lobbyists have made sure that key services such as health, education, post, rail and water are to be opened up to the private sector, and treaties such as TTIP will lock in that privatisation for ever. As a result of the lobbying by these special interest groups in the services sector, it’s quite clear that public services are in the frame and any claim to the contrary is bogus.”

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Facebook paid less than £4,500 tax in the UK last year

 

Social media giant Facebook’s UK arm paid just £4,327 in company taxes according to its latest published accounts.  

Facebook claimed that it takes tax obligations seriously.

A spokesman for the giant said: “We are compliant with UK tax law and in fact all countries where we have employees and offices.”

A single worker on the UK average salary of £26,500 would pay £3,180 in income tax and £2,213 in national insurance contributions, some £1,000 more than the conglomerate paid in 2014.

Facebook's UK revenues were £105 million while the company made profits of $2.9 billion globally.

Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, John O’Connell, said: “Taxpayers will be justifiably confused and angry about this tax bill. We have to ensure our taxes are simple to eliminate loopholes, and that taxes are low to increase our competitiveness so that companies choose to base themselves here.”  

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Europe's 'last dictator' re-elected 

"I advise you to follow the law...you know what will happen” - actual quote 

In a landslide victory, Alexander Lukashenko has won a fifth term as president of Belarus.

Long-standing opposition figures barred from standing in yesterday’s vote and state media gave Lukashenko uniformly positive coverage. The president ran against three unknowns, only one of whom campaigned.

Lukashenko has warned the opposition against protests that could derail the lifting of Western sanctions imposed over rights abuse allegations.

Lukashenko won 83.49% of the vote with nearest rival Tatiana Korotkevich collecting just 4.42%.

While Lukashenko allowed an unauthorised opposition rally in the capital to go ahead without police intervention on Saturday, he warned that he would not tolerate such protests after the vote.

“The polls close at 8pm and I advise you to follow the law,” he said, adding: “You know what will happen.”

Ridiculing runner-up Korotkevich, Europe’s longest-serving leader said she could not handle ruling a country because she is a woman.

“The president here has masses of powers, from security to the economy, that so far a person in a skirt cannot carry out,” he said.

The previous elections of 2010 led to mass street protests against his victory, triggering a crackdown during which a number of leading opposition figures were arrested.

Lukashenko’s subsequent incarceration of his opponents led to his international isolation and the imposition of Western sanctions against him.

That could now change. A mooted EU move to suspend the punitive measures, also following the surprise release in August of the country’s last political prisoners, has sparked an outcry from Belarussian opposition figures who have waged a long campaign against authoritarianism.

But opposition leader Mikola Statkevich — who was pardoned in August after spending five years in jail — told AFP: “If they are together with this murderer, this criminal, then democracy is just words.”

Lukashenko had the lowest result in the capital Minsk where 65.58% of voters backed him, while in a striking figure, 20.6% in Minsk voted against all candidates, the most popular option for those who opposed the long-serving leader.

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And finally... 

Peking Bad: school teacher held in China's latest drug swoop

A secondary school teacher has been arrested by police in China following a six-month investigation into his methamphetamine empire.

The 35-year-old, named as Lu, taught teenagers at a school in the city of Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous Region in south-west China. After becoming addicted to drugs and losing his job, Lu transformed himself into a basement chemist producing drugs at home in order to feed his own habit, the People’s Daily newspaper reported.

Photographs published in Chinese state media showed an array of chemicals and glass flasks laid out around the alleged criminal’s flat.

This the latest in a list of cases in the Asian country to echo the story of Walter White, the main character in the AMC's drama Breaking Bad. China’s meth boom has so far spawned at least four homegrown Walter Whites. Before Guangxi unmasked Lu this week, there had been reports of similar figures being put out of business in Hubei, Shaanxi and Guangdong provinces.

China has witnessed a surge in the use of meth - or bingdu – in recent years and the substance has overtaken heroin as the drug of choice for millions of addicts.

North Korea is also thought to boast its own army of disgruntled chemistry teachers channeling synthetic drugs into the rapidly expanding Chinese market.

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And this week's Who buys this crap?  moment of the week goes to...

http://reserveaspotinheaven.com/

Yes folks, you read that right. A website SO ludicrous  it inspired its own segment on The Monday Night Muse!

We have found a ridiculous  website to rival the claims of scientology and the indulgences scandal of the 16h century Catholic church. 

You can even give a loved one the gift of eternal happiness. The only problem is, how to revert back to a regular gift next Christmas? Suddenly going back to buying jewelry would be an anti-climax.

Check out the website for yourself. This has to be seen to be believed.

Never accept the world with which you are presented.

Things you need to understand about refugees

A truth – over 50% of all refugees are children

For every man we are shown fleeing police in France and for every vagrant we see climbing aboard a truck in Calais on the news seemingly every day, there is a child who needs food and shelter. We have this image of men, willingly breaking international law and hoping across borders to, at least in our minds, sponge off a system designed for us!

The truth is that these people are escaping war, famine and terrible situations and traditions such as female circumcision – a brutal and all too popular practice in the third world – for their children’s futures. Who are we to deny them the opportunity to give those people, those fellow humans, the chance to make things a bit better for their next generation?

In 2014, 34,300 asylum claims were made by unaccompanied children: the highest number since records began. These are children of all ages, running away from their homes fearing for their lives.

A truth – we can afford to help

We complain that they are coming here to sign on or to take ‘our’ jobs. The fact that there is a culture of social welfare scamming by Irish ‘natives’ is lost on these complainants, as is the fact that those jobs are, in many cases, done for employers who pay little, if any, tax. Yet the Irish media doesn’t report on these facts. The vast majority of Irish people still accept the narrative that the national broadcaster spews in their direction and use little agency to filter through the agenda.

The fact is that only 14% of all refugees make it to the developed world and make a minuscule dent in our economies, especially here in Ireland, than compared to the tax dodging exercises of certain musicians with offshore bank accounts and the aforementioned conglomerates who abuse our corporation tax system.

Google paid 0.14% tax between 2005 and 2011. That works out at €10m per year. Had the company paid the usual income tax rate of either 12.5% or 25% (depending on circumstances), Google would have paid €537m or €1.1bn per year. The asylum system costs €150m per year. Surely this discrepancy cannot be ignored by even the least empathetic mind.

Even taking a moment to assess and compare the needs of the parties should draw empathy from even the most barbaric of humans. Tax dodgers or human beings in need of food and shelter. Those are the choices we are presented with and by repeating the narrative of the media we are standing by and are as responsible for their troubles as the wars that displace them.

If we can send aid to Israel, one of the world's wealthiest countries, we can do more to help those who actually need it.

A truth – we are responsible

The fact is that many of these refugees come from countries which are worn-torn because of our actions. More than half of the world’s refugees come from just three countries; Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. I don’t think a history lesson is required to prove our part in those conflicts.

We cannot continue supporting invasions and war in these countries expecting there to be no consequences. The displacement of millions upon millions of people is a direct result of our international policies.

We are reaping what we have sewn.

Cause and effect.

A truth – they have to go somewhere

These displaced people, in the majority of circumstances, do not face the option of ever returning home. Indeed, in most cases, there is no home to go to. So what do they do? What have we Irish done for hundreds of years? Indeed, what have we humans done for as long as we have existed? We migrate. We move. We go to a place where we can prosper and thrive, not merely survive.

Lumping millions of displaced people in one place is not an option either. Our ‘great minds’ got together after the Second World War and decided to lump all the Jews in Palestine. Look at how that country is now; a war that never looks like ending and countless deaths and suffering. 

The most pertinent truth – we are all the same

When I say we are all the same, I don’t mean it in a malnourished, whinging, head in the clouds, lefty, socialist, Marxist, tree-hugging kind of way. I mean that we do it too. Every person we know that has traveled to Australia, Canada or the USA. The generations of us that have left our circumstances in the Emerald Isle and sought fortunes overseas. The thousands of us, myself included, that have wanted to better themselves. We are all the same.

The difference? Some collection of suited bureaucrats sat at an international meeting and decided which nations’ people should be allowed cross their borders. The difference between an immigrant, a refugee and tourist on a working holiday visa is mere politics.

When we endured famine in Ireland, did we sit around and suffer, waiting for things to get better? Some of us did and those were the ones who perished. The survivors, the ones who refused to give in fled Ireland and headed off around the world. This emigration and illegal crossing of international borders are the reason so many Irish people are alive today. Without this flagrant breaking of the law we are so quick to chastise, many of us would not be here today.

For any Irish person to criticise those risking their lives to save them is among the biggest hypocrisies I can imagine, we have literally been doing it by the boatload for thousands of years, we still do it and will continue to do so.

Sovereignty is a myth and is nothing more than a symptom of bureaucracy. These international borders we seek to protect all of a sudden are nothing more than a stick with which to beat the victims of our xenophobia.

Never before have the signs of NIMBYism been stronger and more damaging.

 Never accept the world with which you are presented.

Cecil the lion - hypocrites everywhere

The news that Cecil the lion had been killed brought indignation amongst the internet's morality police and free-thinkers alike and rightly so. Luring an animal from safety, brutally wounding the beast and trailing it for over 40 hours, as it did its very best to get away from the savage trophy hunters, deserves a reaction.  Using nothing to defend itself but its own natural instincts, the 14-year-old king of the jungle was eventually killed by firearm. Mistreated, he was forced to endure an agonising and torturous death, bereft of any sentiment at human hands and rationality.

Uproar and indignation at this tragedy is an adequate response. But why? Why now? Why is the death of a lion so publicised and part of the zeitgeist? Millions of animals, including many lions, die on a regular basis, most of which at human hands. So why does Cecil's unjust end reserve particular criticism? One word: celebrity.

Cecil was about as well-known as a lion can get having featured on television, on news stories and in a particularly poignant Louis Theroux documentary on hunting from 2007. People feel this need to familiarise themselves with people and things and to grow an attachment with them for no other reason than to feel that attachment - it's human nature. The problem is that we attach aspiration to this admiration. We aspire to dress/live/look like the Kardashians. We want to be able to have the wedding just like Michelle Keegan had, caked in fake bake and all. We want to live in the Big Brother house and voyeuristically put ourselves into that confinement, wondering what we would do in those moments of high drama. 

Celebrity and a need to emulate have overtaken our basic desires and have stunted our creativity, restricting human interaction on a meaningful level and have propelled our perceived relationship with those on the screen above those with whom we can actually share a life and a conversation.

We wanted to meet Cecil and to feed him, to pet him and to become his friend. We loved Cecil and while this in itself is understandable; he was a beautiful and unadulterated creature, he was not ours to use and if the affection lies with animal kind then we are, above all else, hypocrites. Why do we mourn the loss of an animal we knew only through the testimony of others above the ones that we abuse every single day?

The very symbol of the animal kingdom dying at our hands for sport is a tragedy but this happens every single day. There was a Cecil on your plate at lunch time and there was a Cecil on your plate for dinner. Your shoes, jacket and belt are made of a Cecil. Your cereal floats in milk made for Cecil's offspring. Your car is trimmed with Cecil's skin. Your perfume and make up have been sprayed into the eyes of Cecil to see what effect it will have on you. "But they were not lions", you may say. The difference between the death of a lion and the death of a cow, pig or lamb? Education and empathy.

Before you chastise a heartless Minnesota dentist for doing something horrendous, inhumane and unnecessary, remember that the very same thing happens every day in your name, to give your life luxury. Horrendous, inhumane and unnecessary luxury.

There are those, lacking in subject knowledge that will claim there is a difference between the hunter and the casual meat-eater. Indeed there is; the hunter understands and witnesses the horrors whereas the closed doors of the abattoir save our poor eyes from the suffering our torturees are forced to endure for our seemingly endless quick fixes of hunger and fashion sense. This is the very definition of unnecessary.

The difference between Cecil the lion and the countless Cecils that are tortured and killed for you? Critical thinking.

Never accept the world with which you are presented.

Hillsborough - facts you may not know

Today marks the 26th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster (15 April 1989) at the 1988–89 FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, England.

A crush resulted in the deaths of 96 people and injuries to 766 others. 

It remains the worst stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the world's worst football disasters.

Below are some facts on the Hillsborough disaster of which you may not be aware. These facts were found via research and inquiry and were substantiated before publication. These are written on the premise that you have a basic knowledge of what happened that fateful day. I implore you to research this topic yourself, to discover the true horror of that day and to delve into the darkest day in football history. I haven't even scratched the surface.

 

Some of the lies -

The report

The possibility of fans attempting to gain entry without tickets or with forged tickets was suggested as a contributing factor. South Yorkshire Police suggested the late arrival of fans amounted to a conspiracy to gain entry without tickets. However, the total number of people who entered the Leppings Lane end was below the official capacity of the stand.

Accusations that the behaviour of Liverpool fans contributed to the disaster centred around consumption of alcohol before the game and attempts to enter the ground without a ticket. Although it was clear many fans had been drinking, Lord Taylor unequivocally stated that most of them were: "not drunk, nor even the worse for drink". He concluded that they formed an exacerbating factor and that police, seeking to rationalise their loss of control, overestimated the element of drunkenness in the crowd.

The findings concluded that 164 witness statements had been altered. Of those statements, 116 were amended to remove or change negative comments about South Yorkshire Police. South Yorkshire Police had performed blood alcohol tests on the victims, some of them children, and ran computer checks on the national police database in an attempt to "impugn their reputation". The report concluded that the then Conservative MP for Sheffield Hallam, Irvine Patnick, passed inaccurate and untrue information from the police to the press.

  

Margaret Thatcher

Papers released by the Hillsborough Independent Panel show the then PM Margaret Thatcher ordered the Government’s response to the Taylor report in August 1989 to be toned down so it would not appear to attack South Yorkshire Police.

Paul Middup

Following the disaster, a rumour spread that there were fans urinating on the bodies of the victims. Former Secretary of the South Yorkshire Police Federation Paul Middup, when pressed on this rumour by The Sun newspaper, confirmed these rumours as fact, claiming them to indeed be true. Mr Middup did not check if these rumours were true and verified the story regardless, blaming other football fans. 

He said: “I didn’t take steps to confirm it, I accepted what people told me.” The Sun printed the story. Mr Middup claims that fellow officer Ben Fiddler gave him the information. Mr Fiddler has since passed away. 

Mr Middup also declared that he witnessed "drunken" Liverpool fans outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles “stampeding” in when the gate was opened. Footage showed that as many as 30 of the fans whose lives came to an end that day came through Gate C eight minutes before kick off and not the "stampeded" Leppings Lane after the game had kicked off - almost one third of victims. 

Mr Middup told the court he had read the interim Taylor report into the disaster after it was published. But Michael Mansfield QC, representing 75 of the families, said: “I am going to suggest to you, if you read the report and were interested in a balanced approach, you would have noted that, wouldn’t you.” 

Mr Middup said: “Whether I didn’t take proper notice of that particular part, I don’t know."

The effects you never hear about - 

Broken marriage

Angela Woolfall's husband Michael survived the disaster due to the CPR of fellow football fans. Crushed in the crowds, he suffered severe nerve damage in his leg and broken ribs from the resuscitation. His life and marriage spiralled out of control for years before he and his wife divorced in 1998. 

"None of us blames Michael for what happened, and we're all still friends. The most important thing is that he's alive. But I lost my husband at Hillsborough, and that gets overlooked", said Angela.

Suicide

'Ian' was caught in the crush but managed to survive that day. He attended the game with his best friend 'Joe'. 'Joe' never made it home.

'Ian's' wife 'Joan' spoke of the aftermath of the disaster.

"'Ian' was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder just a few weeks after the disaster. He wasn't seriously injured, but he was a wreck. He was a man's man and he said he didn't need help, so he went straight back to work. Two weeks later he came home from his night shift, went upstairs and smashed the bathroom up. He wasn't an aggressive person, but he couldn't handle the emotions. 

"'Ian' was never the same after Hillsborough. He was like a coiled spring. The least thing, he would get worked up. He was always on edge. He's been gone two years now. We had his funeral in the church we got married in, and it was lovely, really comforting. Nothing will ever be the same again."  

 

How the players were effected - 

Peter Beardsley

"I went to a funeral of one of the victims, in Burnley. The family were magnificent with me, but I found it really hard. 

"I'd only been to one funeral before that, but this one was for a teenage boy. I can go to funerals now, of young children who I've met in hospital and who've died. And as sad as it is, I can cope with it now. But I couldn't then. It was terrible. 

"The likes of John Barnes, Alan Hansen and Kenny Dalglish were better men than I was. They went to so many funerals. Kenny and his wife Marina went to over half of the funerals. They went to three in one day on more than one occasion. From the moment the disaster began, right to the end, Kenny was unbelievable." 

Kenny Dalglish

“I don’t know how many funerals I went to in total but Marina and I went to four in one day. We got a police escort between them.

“They were all harrowing. All those families mourning the loss of their loved ones. Most of the church services finished with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. I couldn’t sing through any of it, I was too choked up.

"I just stood in a daze, trying to come to terms with what had happened.”

 John Aldridge

“If I hadn’t become a footballer it is almost certain I would have been in the Leppings Lane terrace on Saturday, April 15, 1989. But fate decreed I was not there as a fan but as a player, oblivious to what was going on.

“When the full extent of the disaster unfolded, my emotions were of great sadness for the victims whose only mistake was choosing the wrong day to watch a football match. Yes, time does heal, but if I am still alive on April 15, 2039, the 50th anniversary of Hillsborough, I will shed tears.

“That is because I shed tears every year on April 15. Not out of ritual, obligation or duty but out of a deep sense of grief for the lost and a genuine feeling for the loved ones they left behind.”

Steven Gerrard

“Tears, anger and confusion tore through all of us. We hadn’t known Jon-Paul was at the game. He went to Anfield all the time but an FA Cup semi-final was a special treat.

“His mum, Jackie, had somehow managed to get a ticket. But Jon-Paul never returned from the match – those words will haunt me forever. Every time I see Jon-Paul’s name cut into the marble outside the Shankly Gates, I fill with sadness and anger.

"I have never let anyone know this before but it’s true, I play for Jon-Paul.”
 

John Barnes

“People wept all the way home. All the wives were crying. I was crying. Kenny was crying. Bruce said he was considering quitting.

“Although I never thought about giving up football I understood what Bruce meant. Those fans went there to watch us and there we were on to a luxury coach going home as they were being laid out in a mortuary.

"As we travelled back across the Pennines, their mums and dads were making the reverse journey to identify their children’s bodies.”

True tragedy brings out the worst in people

The vitriol of Steven Cohen

In April 2009, football fan and World Soccer Daily host Steven Cohen horrified the football world when he gave his opinions on the events of that day. It must be pointed out that his figures and "facts" are pulled out of the air.

“People showing up without ticket, hell bent in getting into somewhere where they shouldn’t be going because they don’t have tickets, is the root cause of [the Hillsborough Disaster].

“I’m yet to read anybody write in this weekend’s Sunday papers in England, where they’re all doing big commemorations about the 96, and why we should never forget and how it’s changed the game, nobody discusses the 6-8,000 who showed up without tickets and my argument has always been, if those people don’t show up, this never happens."
 

Other facts -

The original inquests in Sheffield, which concluded on March 28 1991, were the longest running in British legal history.

It was later estimated that more than 3,000 supporters were admitted to the central pens - almost double the "safe" capacity.

At 15:06, a policeman ran on to the pitch and ordered the referee to stop the game. In the chaotic aftermath, supporters tore up advertising hoardings to use as makeshift stretchers and tried to administer first aid to the injured.

 Of the 96 people who died, only 14 were ever admitted to hospital.

The youngest fan to die was Jon-Paul Gilhooley, aged 10.

The eldest fan was Gerard Baron, aged 67.

Four days after the disaster, the Sun newspaper published a story under the headline The Truth, and claimed that fans had picked the pockets of victims, and attacked and urinated on police and rescue workers.

In 2006, Anne Williams, the mother of 15-year-old victim Kevin Williams, took a case to the European Court of Human Rights challenging the verdict of the original inquest. She claims her son was still alive at 16:00 on the day of the disaster and did not die from traumatic asphyxia. The court rejected the case in March 2009 on the grounds that the time period for her challenge had expired.

In September 2012, the Hillsborough Independent Panel panel found that police had deliberately altered more than 160 witness statements in an attempt to blame Liverpool fans for the fatal crush.

A report revealed "multiple failures" by other emergency services and public bodies that contributed to the death toll.

41 of the 96 who died could have survived.

Never accept the world with which you are presented.

Never stop asking questions.

Justice for the 96.

Monsanto, Roundup and autism: 1 in 2 American children affected by 2025

Roundup.

Kills weeds, fast.

Is cheap.

Gets the job done.

But what else does it do?

Dr Stephanie Seneff, a senior MIT scientist, co-authored a report in April last year (that was only ratified in November) that found Roundup directly responsible for ever-increasing levels of neurological damage. The report found that the herbicide Roundup, a signature product of agro-giant Monsanto, uses glyphosate as its active ingredient. The study focused on the exposure of humans to glyphosate and found that the ingredient damages gut bacteria. According to Dr Seneff, when gut bacteria is altered by outside influences/toxins, it cannot break down nutrients (amino acids and vitamins etc), starving the brain from the essentials it needs to maintain and develop.

“Many neurological disorders including autism, depression, anxiety disorder and Parkinson’s disease are associated with abnormal sleep patterns, which are directly linked to pineal gland dysfunction. The pineal gland is highly susceptible to environmental toxicants. Two pervasive substances in modern industrialised nations are aluminium and glyphosate, the active ingredients in the herbicide Roundup. In this paper, we show how these two toxicants work synergistically to introduce neurological damage.”

In the paper, Dr Seneff and her colleagues, Chen Li and Nancy Swanson, provide irrefutable evidence linking the use of Roundup and autism in young people. Dr Seneff got her data on glyphosate use on crops from the Department of Agriculture and correlated the data with the CDC data on neurological disorders.  

So what was Monsanto’s defence? They claim that Dr Seneff and her independent team made a “correlation/causation” error. They also claim that increasing cases of autism and the increasing use of Roundup “may not be directly related”.

Monsanto hired three “internationally recognised toxicologists” to publish a risk assessment of the use of glyphosate and Roundup. This assessment found that Roundup and glyphosate had “low acute toxicity”, that the use of Roundup- “does not pose a health risk to humans” and that “Glyphosate is not a carcinogen”.

It is not clear how they came to these conclusions. The three “internationally recognised toxicologists” are not named. The report is not fully published and is inconclusive. In the report, they claim to have fed mice and rats “extremely high doses of glyphosate every day for two years”. It has long been established that the testing of products and substances on rodents for a presumption of knowledge on human reaction is futile, given the differences between human and rodent DNA.

There was a law recently passed regarding GMO labelling, stating that all GMO producers must declare what’s in their products. Monsanto are challenging the law under the first amendment, claiming that the law will force them to “speak” against their will.

“This is crazy”, you may say.

However, this follows the Citizens United ruling that gives corporations the same rights as people. Monsanto claims that their “corporate constitutional rights are being violated”. Ridiculously, Monsanto have a case.

You may decide to avoid using Roundup to avoid ingestion of glyphosate.

I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.

Glyphosate has been around since the 70s. It is regularly used with crops, especially wheat and genetically modified soy and corn plants. If it contains wheat, corn or soy, it probably has been exposed to glyphosate. Soft drinks, bread, milk, soy milk, and many other products contain this deadly ingredient.

In 2000, autism was prevalent in 1 in 150 children. In 2010, autism was prevalent in 1 in 68 children.

That is an increase of almost 120% in just 10 years. 

 

Never accept the world with which you are presented.

Never stop asking questions.