Vermont says NO to GMO ignorance, oppression and slavery of consumers with new mandatory GMO labeling law

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor 

(NaturalNews) Most of you reading this have no idea how desperate the biotech industry has been to block GMO labeling laws: they've committed election money laundering crimes, hired negative P.R. trolls, paid major publishers to place character assassination hit pieces against activists, unleashed threatening phone call campaigns to intimidate people, strong-armed science journals into suppressing valid science, intimidated universities where GMO labeling speakers were scheduled to speak, vandalized wiki pages and much more (some of which you wouldn't even believe). Make no mistake that the biotech industry and the Grocery Manufacturers of America are a criminal cabal of propagandists who will do almost anything to block GMO labeling laws. They respect no ethics, no science and no law. They are, in effect, "biotech terrorists" who use mafia-style tactics to protect their profit interests.

This week, the great state of Vermont -- the same state that was the first to abolish slavery -- has now passed a mandatory GMO labeling law that Gov. Peter Shumlin has said he will sign. This law, labeled "114-40," will require mandatory GMO labeling of foods by July 1, 2016.

The law is the first "clean" GMO labeling law to be passed in America, requiring no triggering events by neighboring states. It is an enormous victory for grassroots consumer activism and a massive defeat for the biotech industry and its army of anti-science intimidation operatives.

As ABC News writes (1):

Americans overwhelmingly favor such requirements for foods containing genetically modified organisms, but the industry fears a patchwork of state policies. The Vermont bill says genetically modified foods "potentially pose risks to health, safety, agriculture, and the environment" and includes $1.5 million for implementation and defense against lawsuits expected from the food and biotech industries.

Now the biotech industry will try to sue Vermont to keep consumers in the dark

With tens of millions of dollars already thrown at other campaigns in California and Washington, the biotech industry is now expected to try to sue Vermont to block the application of the law. This is akin to the biotech industry screaming, "Slaves should not have been freed!" by fighting the will of the People as history progresses. America will never go back to a time when GMOs were the dirty little secret of the food supply, and Vermont will be just one of many states that believes in the freedom of consumers to know what they are eating just as strongly as the state believed in the freedom of African-Americans.

If left to the biotech industry, we would all be slaves to their food supply poisons, shackled to a steady supply of cancer-causing foods engineered to grow deadly poisons that have already been proven to cause organ damage and cancer. GMO producers would be just fine with that as long as they got paid as the "plantation owners" controlling the food supply. We would all be enslaved -- whites, blacks, browns, Asians, you name it -- to a system of total food secrecy by which the biotech companies could engineer the national food supply to serve their profit interests while sacrificing the health of the public.

Here's what GMOs did to lab rats in a famous scientific study:

Vermont says NO to unlabeled GMOs

With the passage of this new law, Vermont has taken a stand and said, "Enough is enough!" We the People deserve the freedom to make a choice about what we buy and consume. Those who wish to avoid genetically engineered ingredients must be offered the opportunity to do so through accurate food labeling. Those who are ignorant about GMOs and don't care about the issue can still buy their poisons and feed those poisons to their children, sadly. But at least it's their choice. Accurate GMO labeling gives consumers the freedom to choose what they want.

That makes us all wonder why the biotech industry is so desperate to block GMO labeling. If GMOs are harmless and even "good for you" as they claim, why wouldn't GMO labeling actually be a feature that would boost sales for those who love to eat GMOs? I think they need to come up with a new version of Corn Flakes, in fact, emblazoned with the label claim, "Now fortified with EXTRA GMOs!"

Vermont expects to be sued by the biotech industry

Vermont lawmakers really deserve huge credit for making this happen. With the passage of this law, they've made history for humanity.

But the biotech industry, of course, wants to destroy this law, censor the food labels and keep consumers ignorant and uninformed in much the same way that plantation slave owners would not allow slaves to learn how to read. Reading books and reading labels both have the same purpose: to gather meaningful information and empower you with knowledge. Any corporation, institution or Grocery Manufacturers Association that deliberately attempts to block knowledge on food labels is in effect endorsing the very tactic of ignorance that was used against plantation slaves.

The biotech industry will spend millions of dollars to make sure people stay ignorant, too. As USA Today reports (2)

The state anticipates legal trouble. Included in the bill is establishment of a fund of up to $1.5 million to help pay for the state's defense against a lawsuit. People will be able to contribute voluntarily and any money the state attorney general wins in other court settlements can be added. If the state loses a lawsuit, legal costs are estimated at $5 million to $8 million.

Even then, Vermont lawmakers are willing to go to battle with the insidious biotech industry over this important principle of allowing consumers the freedom to choose.

Why the biotech industry wants to keep you a slave

Freedom is an elusive thing, you see: if you don't stand up and demand it, it will be stolen from you day after day, silently, insidiously, and at the hands of truly evil corporations that quite literally want you to be a slave to their monopolistic aims. For the biotech industry, their "perfect world" would look like this:

• All seeds are patented and owned by one dominant multi-billion-dollar corporation.

• All farmers are forced to buy all seeds from this corporation, thereby enslaving farmers in modern day "company store" from which they can never escape.

• All consumers are denied the right to know what they are eating by censoring food labels to make sure GMOs are never listed.

• All scientists and activists who dare to raise questions about the human safety and environmental safety of genetically engineered foods are systematically threatened, intimidated, silenced and even ostracized from the "scientific" community. No science that questions GMOs will be allowed in any science journal, EVER.

• All lawmakers are bought off or threatened to the extent necessary to receive their support for voting against GMO labeling laws.

That's the perfect world of the biotech industry, and make no mistake when I say that's what they are aiming for: total domination, ignorance, slavery, scientific censorship and corporate imperialism.

We the People will not stand for your poisons, your lies and your mafia tactics against real science

Thankfully, Vermont has just handed the biotech industry a firm, "NO!"

We will NOT allow our farms, our seeds, our food and our health to be dominated by an evil, imperialistic corporate cabal that seeks to enslave us all.

NO, we will NOT sit back and do nothing while you poison our families and our children with your toxic foods.

NO, we will NOT remain silent as you threaten and intimidate scientists and science journals with your corporate-warped anti-science, anti-knowledge agenda.

And NO, we will NOT surrender to your destructive aims that threaten seed diversity, the genetic integrity of the ecosystem, the viability of the food supply and the long-term health of the world population.

Enough is enough. America has already said NO to slavery, NO to school segregation, NO to Hitler and his Holocaust and NO to Big Tobacco, an industry which once ran the same anti-science intimidation agenda now invoked by the biotech industry.

It's time we all said NO to genetically engineered foods forever. End this scourge against civilization by first labeling and then outlawing genetically engineered foods.

We do this in the name of humanity, in the name of protecting life, in the name of scientific integrity and with the intention of peace, prosperity and love for a better world.

Watch my "Just Label It" video for a fun musical interlude that celebrates this message (originally released in support of Prop 37):

UPDATE

Vermont Right to Know Goes to Washington

December 12, 2014

On Wednesday December 10th approximately 700 protesters from 22 states descended on Washington D.C. to protest a hearing on HR.4432 otherwise known as the DARK Act (Denying American’s Right to Know Act). The Act aims to preempt and overturn Vermont’s first in the nation GMO labeling law without creating a national mandatory labeling standard. On hand at the rally were members of the Vermont Right to Know Leadership team Will Allen and Cat Buxton, as well as Rep. Kate Webb, one of the lead sponsors of Vermont’s labeling law. Despite waiting for hours to enter the hearing room the protesters were turned away when the chambers were filled. The crowd then moved to rally on the lawn of the Rayburn office building.

Will Allen, manager of Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford spoke at the rally, and commented afterward saying “There were people here from all over the country, two buses came from Michigan, there were also people from Indiana, Florida and Maine. Everyone who spoke was so eloquent and passionate about their right to know what is in their food. I was really impressed by Jonathan Emord, who spoke fervently about the Pompeo bill being an assault on states’ rights and the fundamental right of people to know what is in the food they are eating.” Emord, a nationally known attorney, who specializes in Constitutional issues, provided written testimony to the Vermont Legislature supporting the legal standing of the Vermont labeling law.

Inside the hearing room Rep. Webb testified on behalf of Vermonters and the state’s labeling law. Rep. Webb said, “I was asked a number of questions by members of the Sub-Committee about Vermont’s GMO Food Labeling bill that primarily focused on the provision that prohibits the use of the term “natural” in the labeling of foods that are genetically engineered. Because the sub-committee’s focus is on health they didn’t address the broad issues of environmental impacts and concerns of religious groups that VT’s bill covers.” Rep. Webb reported that she also met with Congressman Welch and with staff from Senator Leahy’s office while in DC. All of Vermont’s federal delegation is strongly supportive of states’ rights to require labeling of GMO food and they are co-sponsors of federal legislation to require mandatory labeling. Rep. Webb said, “There is some hope among the Vermont delegation that the Pompeo bill, the ‘DARK Act,’ will not get to see the light of day.”