Big Organic sold out the clear mandatory GMO labelling cause – Organic Consumers Association
In the wake of the progression of the DARK Act through the US Senate, the two pieces below by the Organic Consumers Association should be read by every American and etched into their memory.
Item 2 says that the battle for clear mandatory on-package GMO labelling was sold out by Big Organic.
The link below has more information from the OCA, along with how to thank those Senators who voted against the DARK Act.
1. Highway robbery
2. Organic traitors
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1. Highway robbery
Organic Consumers Association, 8 July 2016
https://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/organic-bytes-515-highway-robbery-monsanto-style
Late last night (Thursday, July 7), 63 U.S. Senators voted to rob you of the right to know what’s in your food.
If you watched any of the Senate “debate” (limited to 30 hours) on the Roberts-Stabenow DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, you heard one after another of these 63 Senators misrepresent this industry-written bill as a “uniform federal mandatory labeling solution”.
If you’ve been working on this issue with us for weeks, or months or years, you know that’s a lie.
The bill passed last night is intended to hide information (behind electronic codes) from consumers, not provide it — in plain English, on a label.
The bill passed last night is intended to exempt the vast majority of GMOs from even having to be hidden behind codes, much less labeled in plain sight.
The bill passed last night is voluntary — it contains no enforcement mechanism, no penalties for non-compliance.
The bill passed last night is an attack on democracy, an attack on states’ rights. It not only overturns Vermont’s carefully considered and fairly debated mandatory GMO labeling law, but as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted in his speech on the Senate floor, this bill overturns nearly 100 other state laws. (Sanders pushed hard to stop this bill).
The bill passed last night is a fraud, an affront to the nine out of 10 Americans who want what citizens in 64 countries already have—the basic right to know what’s in our food.
The 63 Senators who sided with (and took hundreds of millions of dollars from) Monsanto and Big Food, stole your right to know, and whatever shred of belief you might still have had in the democratic process.
But they did not steal your power to boycott any brand or company that refuses to label GMOs. They did not steal your determination to take back an unhealthy, toxic, corrupt corporate food and farming system.
On Wednesday (July 6), during the cloture vote (which assured that the Roberts-Stabenow bill would not be open for discussion or amendments), OCA led a protest on the Senate floor. That protest led to the arrest and detainment, for over 24 hours, of our political director, Alexis Baden-Mayer. We didn’t change the vote. But we took a stand.
The Roberts-Stabenow bill will now go back to the U.S. House, which in July 2015 passed its own version of the DARK Act. If the House and Senate reach an agreement, Congress will vote on a bill to keep you in the dark. That bill will then land on President Obama’s desk.
We will continue to fight it all the way. We hope you will, too.
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2. Organic traitors
Organic Consumers Association, 8 July 2016
https://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/organic-bytes-515-highway-robbery-monsanto-style
There’s nothing worse than being betrayed by one of your own — unless you’re betrayed by more than one of your own.
While pretending to work on behalf of consumers who want mandatory GMO labeling laws, some of the “big names” in the organic industry actually helped cut a backroom deal on the Roberts-Stabenow bill, a bill that isn’t mandatory, doesn’t require actual labels, and exempts the most common GMO ingredients.
The growing list of Organic Traitors includes the head of Whole Foods Market, Walter Robb; Gary Hirschberg, the CEO of Stonyfield Farm and the pseudo-pro GMO labeling group Just Label It; the Environmental Working Group, represented by Scott Faber, former head lobbyist for the pro-biotech Grocery Manufacturers Association; UNFI, the largest wholesaler of natural and organic foods; and the OTA, led by “natural” brands such as Smuckers and White Wave, and represented by their Board Chair Melissa Hughes from Organic Valley.
These self-selected “Good Food” and “Organic” leaders told Congress members behind closed doors that the organic community would accept an industry-crafted DARK Act “compromise" — the Stabenow/Roberts bill — which eliminates mandatory GMO labeling and preempts the Vermont law with a convoluted and deceptive federal regime for QR codes and 1-800 numbers, exempts the most common GMO ingredients, comes with no firm guidelines for implementation, and no provisions whatsoever for enforcement.
In fact, by some calculations, the Organic Trade Association alone persuaded 7–10 Senators to betray you, and vote for the DARK Act.
That’s right, while you were working your hearts out to get labels on GMO foods, the Organic Traitors were working just as hard — to make sure you don’t.
Read Ronnie’s [Cummins] essay:
https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/organic-traitors-team-monsanto-and-gma-dark-act