A massive turnout of kiwis at 17 actions around the country have sent a strong message to the Government saying ‘TPPA, Don’t Sign’, according to It’s Our Future.
“The Government has spent the last five weeks since TPPA negotiations concluded on a comprehensive PR mission to tell New Zealanders that this deal is supposedly in their best interests. Today, over ten thousand kiwis nationwide proved that PR mission has failed,” said It’s Our Future spokesperson Edward Miller.
“New Zealanders have learnt not to swallow the ‘Trust Me’ propaganda peddled by Minister Groser,” said Edward Miller.
“For the past six years we’ve been told about a gold-plated El Dorado trade bonanza. This has failed to materialise, yet the corporate wishlist has weaved its way through the completed text.”
“Now that we have the TPPA text it’s becoming clear that this deal as is bad as we’ve been expecting. Kiwis haven’t been fooled,” said Miller.
Interesting timing with Operation katipo underway in the South Island. Do we really need to be promoting war? What of peace. Our nuclear free stance? Is it all just rhetoric by a country that’s hell bent on serving the corporations? Witness Key’s determination to rope us into the TPPA.
Between November 17 and 18, Wellington will host 200 of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers at the Defence Industry Association Annual Forum. Despite the PR spin, this 2 day event, more appropriately called a weapons conference, promises to be a bonanza for companies who are in the business of selling products that are designed to kill, maim and destroy.
As one of several New Zealand cities that are members of the ‘Mayors for Peace’ global initiative, Wellington should not be hosting this event – particularly when this year’s principal sponsor is Lockheed Martin. This US-based company is a major manufacturer of nuclear weapons and delivery systems for the US and the UK. It is nothing short of a travesty that Lockheed Martin is being given the red carpet welcome in a city that has prided itself on its nuclear free status for over three decades. And it was…
(Collective-Evolution) “Studies that link Genetically Modified (GM) food to multiple human health ailments are not the only thing that has millions of people questioning the production of GM food. There is fact that previously classified secret government documents exist which show how the Bush administration developed ways to retaliate against countries that were refusing to use GM seeds, for example. If information about our food needs to be concealed from the public domain, then something has gone seriously wrong with the food industry. It’s great to have an organization like WikiLeaks shed some light into the world that’s been hidden from us for so many years…”
Targeting Certain Countries
“The cables reveal that the State Department was lobbying all over the world for Monsanto and other major biotech corporations. They reveal that American diplomats requested funding to send lobbyists for the biotech industry to meet with politicians and agricultural officials in “target countries.” These included countries in Africa, Latin America, and Europe…”
“This is just one example that clearly shows how giant corporations pretty much dictate government policy. These food corporations are responsible for forcing independent agriculturists to go out of business. They control the world’s seed supply, forcing farmers to become dependent on their seed. Monsanto and corporations like it have created patented GMO seeds and are preventing farmers from seed saving and sharing, resulting in a dependence on their genetically modified product…”
See our Corporations page for more on how corporations operate. Watch ‘The Corporation’, on that page, for the finer detail of their workings. You’ll be surprized at the far reach of their persuasion & the lengths they go to to maintain control. This is why we need to oppose the TPPA (protest coming up on 14th November). Corporations are about profits and they will guard those to the death almost. They use well paid lawyers in their large armoury of tactics. GMOs are being resisted world wide now that more of the truth is out. Research GMOs for yourself if you’re not up to speed with them. Much of our food, particularly soy and corn is already GM, and it isn’t labeled. It has never been proven safe and there is much data now to cause you to want to refrain.
Contrary to media spin, the TPPA has not officially been signed yet. This is from itsourfuture.org.nz regarding the upcoming national day of action.
EnvirowatchRangitikei
14 November is another Nationwide Day of Action against the TPPA!
“The political tradeoffs have been done and the text has now been sent to Tokyo to undergo the ‘legal scrubbing’ process. As we expected there are very few trade benefits, while the deal gives corporates and foreign investors a lot of power to run roughshod over our democracy.”
But it hasn’t been signed, and the fight continues!
“Here Is A US Senate Report Proving That Your Government Is Spraying YOU And It Is Harming The Soil, Agriculture, Livestock, And Humans. Since This Is A US Senate Report It Is No Longer Conspiracy But Fact. The US Govt IS Conducting Geo Engineering For 68 Years.”
“Lawsuits filed against agribusiness giant Monsanto are mounting, with the latest one being filed last week in Delaware.
That lawsuit is just one of a growing number of suits alleging a link between glyphosate exposure and cancer. Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. Three law firms are representing the plaintiffs in the case, which claims that Monsanto “led a prolonged campaign of misinformation to convince government agencies, farmers and the general population that Roundup was safe,”according to Reuters. [1]
It could be the start of a “mass tort” against Monsanto.
In September, similar lawsuits were filed in New York and California…”
“Mr. Barrie Trower, a British physicist who was a microwave weapons expert and who worked for the Royal Navy and the British Secret Service, talks about the health effects of WiFi and other forms of microwave radiation.
Mr. Trower came out of retirement because he was concerned that the microwave frequencies and intensities to which children are exposed in schools are similar to those used for microwave weapons.”
When a Royal Navy Microwave weapons expert tells us Wifi is killing us, we really ought to be taking heed of the warning. It’s the same old story though … because the threat is invisible we think it’s not happening. Educate yourself and listen to Prof Trower’s advice. Another excellent watch on the topic is Take Back Your Power. You will learn there of one woman’s shocking discovery after the terrible loss of her adult son to brain cancer. He had lived in a University hostel placed right near a cell phone mast, and there had in fact been multiple similar deaths to cancer by young people living previously in the same room as her son. These threats are very real. You will find more info and links on our EMF and Smart Meter pages.
Our supposedly ‘clean green’ country (and don’t get me wrong, I love my country) is sold to the world as being GE/GMO free. I’ve been repeating this often on here that we are not. (Read a quote from the Green Party on GE animal feed). Back in 2000 Nicky Hager wrote in his book ‘Seeds of Distrust’ that GE Corn was grown here in several different locations, without the public’s knowledge and obviously without their consent. Once uncovered, the PM at the time,
PM Helen Clarke initially ordered the GE corn be pulled up … then did an about turn (‘Seeds of Distrust’ by Nicky Hager)
Helen Clarke ordered the crops be pulled up and disposed of, however after some discussion and clearly corporate persuasion, the crops were left in and went to full term and harvest. How many other organic or otherwise crops were contaminated? Who knows given the industry is inclined to secrecy and an aversion to labeling of anything containing their poisonous products? As a result of all this the bar of acceptance levels was raised a little higher, widening the previously thin end of the wedge so to speak. It’s happening by increments folks. So here now we are being told of a 15 year excursion into biological experiments on genetically modified/engineered (whatever you like to call tinkering with nature) cows … and note, with ‘disastrous results’.
EnvirowatchRangitikei
Read the article here, from Sustainable Pulse:
NZ Cows are fed GE stock feed
“GE Free NZ ‘s report on “GE Animals in New Zealand: the first fifteen years, 2000 – 2015”, documents the world’s first field trials of genetically modified cows, bred to express one of six transgenic protein traits in milk for use as bio-pharmaceutical products. Agresearch has conducted the research at their Ruakura facility in Hamilton.
Using AgResearch’s own records, the report catalogues a sad and profoundly disturbing story that has characterised the genetic engineering (GE) trials.
The surrogate and transgenic cows suffer from chronic illness, reproductive losses, sudden unexplained deaths, and severe deformities.
In the course of fifteen years of experimentation, many thousands of transgenic embryos, predominately developed offshore in private partnership laboratories, have been used…”
“Omission and selective reporting of important experimental data to the media has enabled AgResearch to avoid scrutiny into the tragic results of using animals as bioreactors.”
On ‘The Dangers of Willful Blindness’ …. “Gayla Benefield was just doing her job — until she uncovered an awful secret about her hometown that meant its mortality rate was 80 times higher than anywhere else in the U.S.
But when she tried to tell people about it, she learned an even more shocking truth: People didn’t want to know. In a talk that’s part history lesson, part call-to-action, Margaret Heffernan demonstrates the danger of “willful blindness” and praises ordinary people like Benefield who are willing to speak up. (Filmed at TEDxDanubia.)” TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more. Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate
Here’s an illustration of what one person’s research into hidden environmental hazards can turn up. You would think people would be pleased to be warned however not so. In this instance nobody wanted to hear why their town’s death rate was 80 times higher than anywhere else in the US. I encounter similar disbelief when I relate the hidden dangers of Smart Meters and other RF radiation risks, and chemicals in our food, water and air. Too often people only begin to take this all seriously when bad health strikes. We need to remember again, corporations are about profits for their shareholders and these come first. Any environmental risks are only disclosed (if at all) in very fine print which few read. Corporations are not devoted to the good health of their buying customers … we the people need to fulfill that mandate. Be warned.
“The Whanganui District Health Board has summoned a senior hospital doctor to a disciplinary meeting because of his views on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists …Whanganui DHB tries to stop senior hospital doctor talking about the TPPA
The Whanganui District Health Board has summoned a senior hospital doctor to a disciplinary meeting because of his views on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS)…“It’s outrageous that this health board apparently considers its unacceptable for doctors to express an opinion on matters affecting patients and their ability to deliver the best possible health care to New Zealanders,” he says…”
This article from itsourfuture.org.nz clearly illustrates who the Government departments (former, they are now largely corporations) are in bed with. Why should a medical doctor not be speaking up about risks to customers regarding the TPPA Trojan Horse? Because their employers are in bed with corporate entities. NZ was once a welfare state in reality, now it is in name only, care for all is now a distant memory.
Prior to previous governments’ borrowing from the IMF our nation had free health care for all, free education and full employment. We looked after our own. That has all gone as our current generation fully pays for the conditions hidden within those loans … corporatization, privatization, the flogging off of our assets and the ultimate outcome … we are now the tail and not the dog. The borrower is servant to the lender. Goodbye sovereignty, hello debt slavery. This TPPA is basically the final nail in the coffin. We’ve been sold out completely by our government/corporation NZ.
“For decades Oxfam has campaigned for trade rules and intellectual property standards that give poor countries a fair deal, such as protecting their right to access affordable medicines for public health. Despite mass public mobilisation against it, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) was signed in October 2015. We believe the deal sets a dangerous precedent for democracy, transparency and future trade agreements.
“Oxfam joined a High Court case asking the New Zealand Government to release the secret text before it was signed. We also highlighted the potential harm the TPPA could bring in terms of poor people being able to access life-saving medicines, governments being accountable to the will of their people, and multinational corporations challenging government laws to protect public health and the environment.
In December 2013, 26,000 signatures were handed in, calling for release of the draft text. Then in August 2015 a petition of 100,000 signatures was delivered to Parliament.”
“The TPPA is nothing more than a power grab by overseas corporates, and delegates should actively campaign against it …” (Stephnie de Ruyter, Democrats for Social Credit)
Other News on the TPPA
TPPA Signing Should Be Treason
“The incredible irony is that in Greece, where former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was putting together a monetary system to enable Greece’s collapsing economy to continue to function in the event that the European Troika threw them out of the Eurozone, he is facing charges of treason”.
“In New Zealand, where the prime minister and trade minister are willing to sign an agreement enabling overseas corporates to sue taxpayers for loss of profits, they are likely to be awarded an honour by a future government”.
If you’re not up to speed with the TPPA and what it means visit itsourfuture.org and sign up for updates. Watch this short clip also from Youtube:
We will be further in the mire as all with any insight know and have been loudly telling us for years literally. This is a Trojan Horse for the corporations and as always with the aforementioned, they veil their plans in great sounding rhetoric. ‘Good for us all’ is their cry and ‘nothing to worry about’ which, does not add up given the whole negotiation process has been BEHIND CLOSED DOORS! They wanted us not to worry about something they refused to share the details of, with those whom it will most concern. Go figure fellow Kiwis! This is just not rocket science. Corporations are about power and control of all resources so that … they can maximize their profits … bottom line. If you’re not familiar with the machinations of corporations visit the Corporations page on the site and educate yourself by watching the documentary there entitled ‘The Corporation’. Oh, and remember, your country is a corporation.
An article in the Manawatu Standard reports on a Waitangi Tribunal Hearing that began in Levin today, 5th October 2015
A visit to the Horowhenua district earlier this year led me to discover the shocking history of this lake, in particular, the way the owners, the Muaupoko Iwi have been treated throughout the whole process. (Lake Horowhenua is near Levin). Download and read the whole history of the Lake and how it was incrementally taken over, a long but essential read to understand the background of this story:
“In the beginning.. Not content with the land they lived on, it wasn’t long before the settlers of Levin coveted the lake as well. Lake Horowhenua belongs to Mua-Upoko who had been forced to watch helplessly as ancestral lands, placed in ordinary property titles, disappeared through scurrilous means. A Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry had ferreted out fraudulent activities, not only by those purporting to represent the tribe but by Central Government itself…” Read more here.
The polluted Lake Horowhenua
Stories like this one are not rare in our indigenous histories … they are just generally unreported in mainstream media. It is also the typical scenario where the costs of preventing environmental damage are ignored in favour of short term profits. The lake has seen decades of pollution (1950s-70s) in the form of human sewage that completely polluted both the food sources and the livelihood of Muaupoko and caused many to leave. Then there has been the surrounding farming and agricultural runoff. Muaupoko who have endeavoured to keep the lake clean have been vilified and maligned as being not the true owners. The official history in fact, also borne out by today’s article in the Standard, reveals their ownership has been whittled away from them incrementally by convoluted land laws and processes, and “left with “a mere sliver” of the 50,000 acres it once had”, again typical in our histories. The lake’s kaitiaki, Phil Taueki has been involved in an ongoing uphill battle in that respect with locals, Council and Police in his efforts to stop ongoing pollution. He featured recently on Kaitiaki Wars (available on demand) and also in this news item from Marae TV on the history and on the Horowhenua District Council’s stance. Taueki states that the lake, “… a prized taonga” has been “turned into the town’s toilet…”
The lake is now so polluted(video)* it was dubbed in a 2014 Listener article as the ‘Lake of shame’. It is not safe to drink or to swim in. A National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research scientist reported in 2012 that the “water in Lake Horowhenua is so toxic that it could kill a small child.” There were plans this year (2015) for swimmers to commemorate ANZAC by crossing the lake (once the training venue for Lord General Freyberg before WWI) however the cost to clean it up was $2.886 million, clearly not a priority. The non priority status of this issue is reflected in the tight time frame given it by the Crown for this hearing, a fact highlighted by Land Claim lawyer Leo Watson.
EnvirowatchRangitikei
Crown Concedes it Failed to Protect Lake Horowhenua from Pollution
By NICHOLAS MCBRIDE “The Crown has conceded it failed to protect Lake Horowhenua from pollution, breached the Treaty of Waitangi on multiple occasions and left the Muaupoko iwi virtually landless.
The Waitangi Tribunal hearing opened at the Horowhenua Events Centre in Levin on Monday, with 22 claims looking at Lake Horowhenua, Hokio Stream and the Horowhenua land block.
“We believe this will be one of the most profound hearings we will have in this district,” Judge Caren Fox said on the opening morning of the tribunal.
In its written submission, released before the hearing, the Crown acknowledged that the Muaupoko iwi had “well-founded grievances”.
It breached the Treaty of Waitangi and this allowed Lake Horowhenua to become polluted…
In the opening submissions for claimants, lawyer Leo Watson, speaking on the Hokio A land claim and Horowhenua Lake claim, said the Crown had perpetrated wrongs against Muaupoko, causing “profound generational impacts”….
the Crown had not acted in good faith, not talked with Muaupoko and had failed to protect the lake.
It had also been left with “a mere sliver” of the 50,000 acres it once had.”
Our pretend government aka corporation is borrowing $27 mill a day to keep us afloat, and has spent $6.2 mill on a house that is double the value of surrounding houses. It’s not a house it’s a mansion fit for a king. Our corporation is also flogging off our state housing, whilst many Kiwis are homeless and doesn’t give a toss about kids in poverty. Here then is a blatant example of ‘let them eat cake’. Something has gone terribly wrong with this country that once stamped out poverty and homelessness. Our CEO is a banker folks, he’s not a leader. He simply poses as one.
In case you missed it, the corporatization of our nation & its former government departments has led to a bottom line of maximizing profits. People no longer matter.
“Would you like to own a $6.2 million house in Hawaii? Good news – you already do. But bad news – the Government has bought the place for a diplomat.
It has inspired Story to start up a brand new segment called Silly Spending.
One of the many real estate ads for the home describes it as “ultimate modern luxury”.
“The crystal chandeliers are a great touch. The whole effect is one of a jewel box.”
It is 570 square metres of exceptional floor plan. It’s about four times bigger than your house, if you live in an average New Zealand home.
It’s got a pool and spa deck and it’s one block from the beach. The house is almost twice the average price of houses around it.
We bought the pad last year for diplomat Rob Kaiwai. He’s New Zealand’s first-ever Consul-General in Hawaii. We set up that posting last year to help out the 14 diplomatic postings we already had across the United States.
If you’re thinking he might need his house for high-powered meetings, that’s what the office in downtown Honolulu is for.”
Will Allen is a former professional athlete who played basketball throughout college at the University of Miami and post-college in Belgium. Though he has also held jobs in corporate America, Allen has spent the last 21 years in a completely different profession: urban farmer. http://www.cornucopia.org/2015/05/meet-will-allen-the-urban-farmer-starting-his-own-revolution/ #farmer #food #urbanfarmer
A 3 minute clip here of Will speaking about urban gardening
Who Owns the World?
People have been separated from the land planet wide, the root of many of our ills. Less than 15 pc have ever owned the land. This is a crime/injustice that’s been covered up. Read Kevin Cahill’s ‘Who Owns the Planet’ or watch videos of his lectures. Very revealing. The Queen owns one sixth on her own. And has been well active in confiscating lands for eons. Indigenous peoples were frequently made to work for the colonizer by introducing taxes only payable in the colonizer’s currency … presto. Off the land, off traditional means of survival, growing food. Now today paupers on their previously owned lands and growing food for agribusiness. This is why the so called ‘third world’ starves. For an expose on that read Susan George’s ‘How the Other Half Dies’.
In summary, our spiritual connection with the land has been severed, along with our ability to properly nourish our bodies with fresh living food …. and the roots of this state of affairs can be found largely in capitalism and greed for profits … where earth’s land, peoples and resources have all been co-opted for that purpose.
The feature image is from Taihape’s (NZ) Vanessa’s blog here. She is also on our page here along with more info on Ron Finley (also on Youtube) who is quoted as saying ” Growing your own food is like printing your own money”.
Here is more evidence that the poor don’t matter in a market driven capitalist environment. In a wealthy environment you have your food delivered or you drive to the shop. In a poor neighbourhood you either walk for miles or take a bus and can carry home only a small amount. These neighbourhoods typically have no shortage of liquor outlets or fast food stores. Ever enterprising predatory capitalists always milk the poor of the little they do have. The result of course is poor health. In this doco we see a grocery store has become a dialysis centre & no fresh food stores for three miles… “an epidemic” they say … “a global problem” …
EnvirowatchRangitikei
Published on Mar 4, 2015
VSUOfficialChannel on Youtube
“Across Virginia – from Hampton to Richmond, Petersburg to Lynchburg to Wise County and all points in between – approximately 17.8 percent of Virginia’s population live in food desert. This documentary was produced by VSU as part of a study on food insecurity in the College of Agriculture. (Produced by Jesse Vaughan & Cedric Owens – Co-Producer Dr. Jewel Hairston – Narrator Daphne Maxwell Reid)”
From the Daily Blog … a look at how capitalism works and why the rich are getting richer on the backs of everybody else:
By Douglas Renwick
“There is a standard view of how capitalism is supposed to work given by the media. It goes something like this; capitalism is a system where people come together to freely exchange goods and services, including labour. Businesses compete competitively to give the most efficient outcome, and the profit motive gives incentive for innovation. People who become rich do so because they work hard to offer the market what it wants while the poor do not, so this wealth inequality is to a large extent the natural workings of the market. This is an imperfect but the best possible system.
That is I think the standard view given in the media, and I think most of it can be debunked while the rest can be turned on its head. I’ll be critiquing this view, but also give my own view of how I think Global Capitalism works. I’ll give what I think are realistic and viable solutions to the faults of Global capitalism at the end.
Capitalism is always seeking to make profit, and it was able to make profits in the period from 1945-1971 in the productive sector of the economy, and under this system there was high economic growth which was relatively egalitarian
the productive sector reached a certain capacity in the 1970’s, increasing productivity became less profitable … profits went into the FIRE economy … finance, insurance, real estate
the banking sector became wealthier and got turned into an institution that gambles rather than investing in productive things
the economy is now a system that is normally stagnant, and only grows when it is driven by speculative bubbles which eventually crash
real wages stagnate, as they have in New Zealand since 1984, while corporate profits go way up ……”
Corporations owe no allegiance to anybody except their shareholders. Behemoths with legal person hood, they focus solely on maximizing profit … personal ethics are foreign. If you are of the older school you will have noted that for more than two decades now loyalty to staff is a thing of the past and consequently, staff hold little loyalty to their employers. We’ve all heard stories of folks who worked for companies that put out the rumour there was a possibility staff would be cut … so everybody sweated it out for months wondering if they were selected to go. It had the effect of causing folks to look for work elsewhere which saved the boss the job. Then there are stories of folks arriving at work and being told, pack your bags, you no longer have a job as from today. A far cry now from the days when an employee worked 30 odd years for a company and retired with a gold watch. Watch The Corporation documentary and learn how the attributes of a corporation are literally psychopathic. In light of their modus operandi, this article makes complete sense. Personally I prefer to boycott companies like these. Why not join me? If nobody buys their stuff then their whole raison d’etre falls flat. Read the article.
(ANTIMEDIA) San Bernardino National Forest — “An ongoing investigation by The Desert Sun into Nestle’s contentious bottled water operations in drought-stricken California first disclosed that the company’s permit to draw water had a rather astonishing expiration date that occurred over a quarter century ago, in 1988. Recently, the Sun reported an update in the investigation with a jaw-dropping twist: the Forest Service — not Nestle — is the agency primarily responsible for failing to renew Nestle’s permit.
In fact, judging by the government agency’s complete inability to even review Nestle’s long-expired permit — not to mention the lucrative job a retired Forest Service supervisor currently enjoys — there is an arguable case that collusion and corruption are at the heart of the entire issue…”
This five minute broadcast is an eye opener … from Dr Michael Parenti, one of my favourite authors/lecturers/activists. The beginning of my journey into discovering the many lies perpetrated on the West by the powers that be was Walter Rodney’s ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’. The latter is a well documented treatise on how that rich continent, Africa, has been milked from the days of Cecil Rhodes onwards … Rhodes was that decorated gentleman and son of the British Empire who dreamed that white people would rule the world and said quite unashamedly:
“We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labour that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories”
The big lie they used to cover their exploitative activity was that they came to benevolently share the fruits of civilization. This was sheer humbug and were it so the recipients would now be prosperous. Instead they feature highest in all the negative stats of their respective countries. The latter is explained away by shifting the blame onto the recipients (eg. ‘they’re lazy) … an easy feat since perpetrators own the media. Listen to Parenti encapsulate it in a nutshell how this process continues on today:
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JP Morgan and other Western mega-banks have already begun stealing depositors’ money, according to sources at the Asian Development Bank and an American millionaire who reported his own funds were stolen.
A couple of years ago I came across a book in a garage sale called ‘Circle of Poison’. Published in 1981 it documents a trail of intriguing scandal regarding the export of banned pesticides from industrial countries to the third world. Products banned in the US saw the sellers simply exporting the separate ingredients to be assembled offshore for sale to unsuspecting customers oblivious to the products’ banned status. Many of these products were then duly sprayed on produce that would be returned to the country of the original banning. ‘Banning problem solved’ as it were. One of the authors David Weir describes how he came upon this scheme. Following a ban in the US of cyclamates, he discovered the ingredient in a packet of Kool-Aid he purchased whilst in Afghanistan. This began his trail of inquiries back in the 1970s which eventually led to an article in the US magazine, Mother Jones in 1979 entitled ‘The Corporate Crime of the Century’ and eventually to the book Circle of Poison. It was found that not only were toxic ingredients being exported, but defective medical devices, lethal drugs, known carcinogens, contaminated foods and other products deemed unsafe for American consumption as well. The results of this dumping are horrific.
“400 Iraqis died in 1972 and 5,000 were hospitalized after consuming the by-products of 8,000 tons of wheat and barley coated with an organic mercury fungicide, whose use had been banned in the U.S.
No one knows how many children may develop cancer since several million children’s garments treated with a carcinogenic fire retardant called Tris were shipped overseas after being forced off the domestic market by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)”. (from Mother Jones … more examples in the article)
Lomotil, an effective prescription-only anti-diarrhea medicine sold in the U.S., fatal in amounts just slightly over the recommended doses, was sold over the counter in Sudan, advertised as a product that was used by astronauts during the Gemini and Apollo space flights and also recommended for use by children as young as 12 months. Another item was Depo Provera, a birth control injection. This was banned in the United States because it caused malignant tumors in beagles and monkeys, yet is sold by the Upjohn Co. in 70 other countries, where it is widely used in U.S.-sponsored population control programs. It is currently also prescribed by GPs in New Zealand. Watch for an article on this product. I intend to research it soon. And the dumping of unwanted stuff is still going on by all appearances. More on that in another post. It does illustrate perfectly the utter disregard corporations hold for the health of the public. Again their bottom line is profits.
Here is the Mother Jones Article:
The Corporate Crime of the Century
It’s called dumping: When the U.S. government forces a dangerous drug, pesticide or other product off the domestic market, the manufacturer then sells that same product—frequently with the direct support of the State Department—throughout the rest of the world.
Tom Mboya was the hope of the western world. Bright, energetic, popular and inclined to be democratic—he was a born leader who, Washington hoped, would rise to power in Kenya and help keep Africa safe for United States commerce. In 1969 he was shot down in the streets of Nairobi. An emergency rescue squad was by his side in minutes. They plugged him into the latest gadget in resuscitative technology—a brand new U.S. export called the Res-Q-Aire. What the rescue team didn’t know as they watched Tom Mboya’s life slip away was that this marvelous device had been recalled from the American market by the US government because it was found to be totally ineffective. The patient died….Read More Here
Here is some enlightening weekend viewing. Learn why our respective nations have undergone such radical changes in recent decades. The oldies among us will tell you this. Things are not as they were.
New Zealand has changed dramatically since the late ’80s when the new neo liberal economic policies called Rogernomics set in. We are now the reapers of that earlier Government’s folly, and paying a price. Where once we had full employment and no debt, we are now in debt … big time (climbing $27 million per day) and subject to the control of big business. Borrowing millions per week to stay afloat? Our grandparents must be turning in their graves. That was the unfortunate ‘NZ Experiment’ that sold us down the river, and with our assets now going … going … gone, we no longer enjoy the sovereignty we once had. They sold off our family silver as it were under the fancy name of ‘privatization’. (A new term, note, that gives a professional air and shifts the focus off what is really happening). We were told it was to pay our national debt but we are now more in debt than ever … it clearly hasn’t worked. Our country is now a corporation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our government departments likewise. There is your clue. Corporations have one bottom line: PROFITS.
As an early NZ settler of colonial times stated:
The whole and entire object of everyone here is making money, the big fishes eating the little ones (‘The Rich List’, G Hunt p 29)
So ‘filthy lucre’ if you like was uppermost back then as well … the driving motive for expansion to other shores was not as we’ve been led to believe … to bring civilization and Christianity … these were merely by-products.
With this corporatisation everything began to operate on a business model, and instead of people with related background experience matching the kind of government department they served, we saw people appointed with purely business skills. Their focus became figures and profitability, not people, so social service and health departments were required to predict their costs in advance based on historical data. Quite a feat when dealing for instance with child abuse. Government departments were subjected to restructuring (the new catch word given to the changes … known also in other countries by other names like ‘structural adjustment’) and told it was so they could all work smarter. In fact, where I worked at the time, I likened it to musical chairs. When the music stopped there were less bums on seats in the office. And the music kept playing, and the seats kept disappearing. The folks on the ground inherited more work from their now absent colleagues, and the CEOs inherited fatter salaries to ensure (I suspect) the new status quo remained. It was a classic case of smoke and mirrors and happened across the board. Friends of mine in other professions complained of being buried in mountains of new paper requirements, the face of their jobs completely changing, and leaving less time for people.
So now we see evidence of this business model everywhere, with their whole raison d’etre being profits, while the memory of a caring welfare state is becoming more and more elusive by the year. In rural communities it still sticks out like a sore toe because it clashes with their longtime ethic of community and caring.
On that note, as you ponder on the origins of our (and many other countries’) demise into the debt abyss … grasp an overview of the root cause of these problems in ‘The Biggest Bank Heist Ever’. It is all about making money, the big fishes eating the little fishes. Remember, it is a mythical illusion that all can succeed under capitalism. Wakefield himself of the NZ Company openly stated that they would keep the price of land high enough so that not all could own any (1).
References
(1) Miller J (Early Victorian New Zealand) p 4
Video Description
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This article from Stuff.co.nz illustrates that our elderly are staying in bed to keep warm and avoid turning on heaters, citing some bills of $500! The article here does explore possible reasons for escalating power bills and offers assistance and advice for those who are struggling. As a matter of interest however, smart meters are known to escalate power bills so if any of your loved ones are suffering in this way, you could be a little proactive on their behalf and check out if this is the reason. I know of a pensioner in a tiny one b/r flat who barely has her oil heater on, who is getting $300 power bills! (Mine is $200, same scenario, with heater on most days in winter … no smart meter, I got it removed when some power companies were removing them). Another person I know, their bill, AFTER the SM installation (nothing else changed re consumption, appliances or anything) … escalated from $400 to $1000, I kid you not. The Take Back Your Power website documents all this kind of info, and locally to NZ, the stopsmartmeters nz. website. Just saying as this is often the cause of higher bills although power companies deny it. If you get the chip removed from them (you may need to find a power company that will do it, shop around) the bills could go down or at least you’ll have eliminated that ticky box. I know that sometimes it is just high usage, but in some cases it is the meter.
I do feel for the elderly, this is not right they are cold in winter because of predatory power companies. Contact Energy in the year to June 30, produced a 17.6 per cent increase in net profit of $234 million. They appear to be doing fine, however we should be looking after our old people not ripping them off. These are the ones who did the hard yards in their younger years … so we should be looking after them in their older years. They built the society we have today that is quickly disappearing thanks to corporate sell outs. Vis a vis the current disappearance of our State Housing stock.
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”
~ Mahatma Ghandi
To check if Smart Meters are the cause of high electricity costs, for further info on Smart Meters in NZ and for other links go to: https://envirowatchrangitikei.wordpress.com/smart-meters/ It’s recommended you watch Take Back Your Power, the award winning documentary by Josh del Sol. You can watch it at their website, or I have a copy available for loan to folks in the Rangitikei. Believe me, all you need to know about Smart Meters is in this documentary.
This is from Christina Sarich at naturalsociety.com:
“Nestle CEO Tim Brown was asked in a radio interview recently if the company would consider halting their water extraction from a national forest in drought-stricken California….”
Are they going to stop?…. Nope …
“Water privatization, as they’ve made clear, is their goal. Nestle’s former CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe also has a long history of disregarding public health and abusing the environment to take part in the profit of an astounding $35 billion in annual profit from water bottle sales alone. It is clear that this corporation doesn’t think clean drinking water is a human right…”
Some important truths here about Genetically Modified Organisms (from GMO Free USA) … and a reminder why we need to eliminate known and suspected carcinogens from our environments. As I repeat often on this site, cancer statistics are now one in three. That is far far too high, and the powers that be need to get serious about eliminating the KNOWN risks, as well as the suspected, instead of acting like cancer is a mystery. It’s not. Please read Dr Samuel Epstein’s book called ‘The Politics of Cancer’, or watch the excellent documentary called ‘The Idiot Cycle’ featured here two days ago. They are forever searching for cures whilst both ignoring and suppressing the existing cures, and failing to look at the causes, many of which have already been exposed by independent research. Folks are wising up however and seeking alternative help for themselves, as did the Northland man who used IV Vitamin C to cure his cancer (note this man had had all the chemo he could have and was sent home to die). To learn of the many cures that exist for cancer now see also on YouTube, Cancer is Curable Now and Every Cancer Can be Cured in Weeks, Dr. Leonard Coldwell. Additionally you can visit the website called The Truth About Cancer. There are some of their docos on YouTube plus they occasionally show online their whole series exposing how the medical industry switched its focus from holistic healing to treating symptoms with pharmaceuticals. These are excellent documentaries that feature qualified health professionals including oncologists.
Currently we have an online petition seeking to curtail or stop the spraying of glyphosate (Roundup) in our Rangitikei District’s public places. Glyphosate which is used liberally in our district was recently re classified by WHO as a Class 2A carcinogen, meaning it probably causes cancer. Our Council however continues to ignore the research and WHO’s announcement, whilst on the other hand, many countries are banning it. For further information on glyphosate please visit the Glyphosate page on this site. If you are from the Rangitikei or connected with it in any way, please consider signing the petition. It is surely wiser to eliminate all known and suspected carcinogens.
“1/3 of the food currently produced worldwide is thrown away every year.. to help prevent this travesty, France just passed new legislation banning stores from purposefully ruining food … requiring all supermarkets 400 square feet or larger to donate unsold food to charity, for animal feed, or for farming compost.”
In recent weeks we’ve had some intriguing contrasts on this front. In NZ and the UK private organizations have been redistributing waste supermarket food to the needy, then in a town in Spain, we have a Mayor of 35 years seizing food from supermarkets to redistribute ‘Robin Hood’ style, to the poor. He sees speculation in food, and rightly so, as a disgrace. Food he says, is a right. This Mayor has also put the clamps on housing speculation and folks there in Marinaleda can own their own home for $19 a month… so long as it’s never sold for profit.
“We need to rethink our values, the consumer society, the value we place on money, selfishness and individualism,” says their mayor, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo.
Then in the US of America a young woman has been sacked for giving free cafeteria lunches to children who had no lunch money (see video at the link). Seventy one cities in the US have been trying to pass ordinances forbidding the donation of food to the homeless.
” … 90-year-old World War II veteran Arnold Abbott made national headlines when he got busted by cops in Fort Lauderdale, Florida twice in one week—for giving out food to homeless people. While serving a public meal on November 2, Abbott told the Sun-Sentinel, “a policeman pulled my arm and said, ‘Drop that plate right now,’ like it was a gun.”
What’s the planet coming to? Generosity being criminalized … for what? Much of the food being denied the poor is only headed for landfills anyway. Hopefully other nations will follow the lead on this and practice some civil disobedience to get the message across. It’s not as if the poor will be shopping elsewhere and affecting profits. And profits are the underlying agenda in all of this. Take an hour out and watch ‘The Corporation’ documentary. You will learn from that that profits are the bottom line for corporations. They are not about helping people and the insanity of many of them needs to be challenged. Preventing people from feeding the poor simply isn’t right.
Since it’s Queen’s Birthday this weekend (not her official birthday which is 21st April) here are a few pertinent facts you may like to ponder:
Queen Elizabeth is the largest landowner on earth; she has legal ownership of over one sixth of the planet’s surface. The Commonwealth, including Britain, occupies 9,900 mill acres of the earth’s 36,000 mill acres.
in the UK the Queen is the sole legal owner of all land. Everyone else has either of the following forms of tenure: (a) freehold defined as ‘an interest in an estate in land, in fee simple.’ (a medieval term for the sum paid to represent the fact that freehold was actually a tenancy and that the monarch was the ultimate landowner). (b) Leasehold, an interest in an estate in land, in fee simple, for a term of years’.
The corporation called ‘NZ’ (your country Kiwis) is registered as owned by the Queen, on the Securities & Exchange Commission’s (SEC) website, Washington DC.
During WW2 11 million acres of land was seized by the British Govt., with minimal and in some cases no compensation paid.
In the UK, Australia, Canada, NZ and anywhere else there are Crown lands, the relevant Govts can seize land without compensation, acting in the Queen’s name … they can also use the Royal Prerogative (feudal powers) to do the same, beyond the reach of parliaments.
The Queen owns as a private person, about 637,000 acres with a value of over $9,200 million.
For nearly 10,000 years of known history, those claiming ownership of land on the planet has been between 0.2% and 3% of the population, whilst the remaining 97-99% owned nothing. The land owners exclude the majority from owning any by crafting their own land laws and perpetuating the fallacy that land is scarce because there are too many people on the planet.
If all the land on the planet was divvied up equally to all (this calculates roughly to one tenth of an urban acre or two of rural) poverty could be eliminated.
From ‘Who Owns the World’ by Kevin Cahill and Rob McMahon
Kissinger: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”
GE feed is already being fed to some of our farm animals … it is unlabeled as GE so farmers can give no guarantee it’s not
They’ve been doing it by increments for decades. Once they own all the seed companies, you will have no other option than buying their genetically modified seed which we already know is dangerous to health. GE feed is already fed to some of our NZ animals … so it is in our food… be aware and treasure your organic/heirloom seed like gold.
Some history here … in the late 1980s a bill was passed in NZ (now world-wide) called Plant Variety Rights (PVR) or Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR). This allowed companies to emasculate seeds, removing their ability to reproduce by removing the reproductive organs. This meant of course that you couldn’t save seed from the resultant plants and would be forced to return to the store and buy another packet of seeds next season. Now what good could transpire from such an arrangement except profits for the …. yes …. the corporation? Corporations are about profits not the well being of populations. They are not averse to suing poor farmers for saving seed, something they’ve done for thousands of years. How helpful is that for struggling farmers from struggling nations? Already in poorer nations the promise by Monsanto of greater yields with their emasculated seed (aka genetically modified) have fallen flat and these farmers find themselves in very great debt instead, many committing suicide.
Just ten companies own 67% of the world’s proprietary seed market, and of that, Monsanto owns 23% and DuPont 15%. Need I say more? Do take the time to research this topic for yourself. You can read the full article on Monsanto at permaculture.co.uk:
” … Monsanto is buying heirloom seed companies. They are also buying the trademarks to a number of heirloom seeds. This means that you may think you are supporting an heirloom seed company but in reality the company is owned by Monsanto… “
This signals a warning to folks with money in the bank. Banks are not averse to trimming your accounts as they already did in Greece. That was the Open Bank Resolution (OBR). When their poor practices fail it is you the customer who tends to be paying for their mistakes. Educate yourself and be warned. Here your savings will be taxed.
“The new compulsory control is provided in the 2015 Australian budget, so that everyone who has any savings must pay taxes on their savings. The measure is expected to serve as a global test balloon for Europe and North America, who will watch for the outcome in Australia. If there is no massive resistance of Australian savers, the rest of the world should expect this outright confiscation very rapidly…”
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