Blacklisted by Monsanto
Fred Burks
Examiner, September 25 2009
http://www.examiner.com/x-6495-US-Intelligence-Examiner~y2009m9d25-Blacklisted-by-Monsanto

Monsanto has placed me on their blacklist, I've just discovered. Though I've personally served Clinton, G.W. Bush, Gore, Cheney, and thousands of other influential individuals in my 24 years as a language interpreter, this is the first time I've ever found myself blacklisted.
 
It all began back in 1986, when I started work as a low-level contract language interpreter with the U.S. Department of State in the Indonesian language. I gradually moved up the ranks and was very excited to find myself in the White House for the first time in 1995, interpreting for President Clinton in an important meeting with President Suharto of Indonesia. In years following, it was an honor and a pleasure to serve presidents and top officials from numerous countries, as I eventually became the State Department's top Indonesian interpreter.
 
Yet in 2004, the State Department for the first time required us to sign a new contract swearing all interpreters to secrecy about "any information known to them by reason of their performance of services." The only exception was if we obtained written permission of our superiors. After hearing from my supervisors that there was no way around this, I sadly resigned. If they had simply added "any information which could conceivably threaten national security," I would have been happy to sign. As this new requirement reflected the excessive secrecy being promoted by the Bush administration at the time, my resignation was even reported in an article in the Washington Post.
 
Though I resigned from my work with the government, I have continued to do occasional interpreting work in the private sector. My discovery of being blacklisted by Monsanto occurred just this week, as I was negotiating a private gig. When I learned that the client was Monsanto, I took a deep breath. In my extensive research into deep politics, I had discovered that Monsanto has done more damage to public health than just about any other corporation. I wasn't sure I wanted to interpret for them.
 
Yet I never had to make that decision, because word came back from the person arranging the contract that my name was on Monsanto's blacklist! Wow!!! The fact that Monsanto even has a blacklist is interesting in itself. The fact that I was on their blacklist was even more astounding.
 
I had to wonder what I had done that might have earned me this "honor" with Monsanto. Could it be the recent examiner.com article I wrote titled "Obama appoints Monsanto fox to guard food safety hen house"? This article showed how Monsanto executives have rigged the game in the biotech industry, so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way of promoting dangerous genetically modified (GM) food. They didn't care that numerous studies showed many rats and other animals died when fed GM food. Monsanto executives manipulated the study reports to ignore this little detail.
 
Or was I blacklisted because I manage a popular website exposing major cover-ups of which few are aware. This revealing website clearly shows how Monsanto is endangering public health in many ways. The website has a list of excerpts from major media news articles reporting on the manipulations and deception of Monsanto and others regarding GM foods. Links are provided to the original articles for verification of the many disturbing facts presented. The website also features a powerfully revealing essay by one of the top GM researchers, Jeffrey Smith, which points to Monsanto as the single corporation most endangering public health.
 
Watch the 10-minute video below to see how Monsanto prevented two courageous reporters at Fox News from reporting the proven health dangers of bovine growth hormone in our public milk supply. The hormone is produced and promoted by Monsanto.
 
For a longer, excellent documentary focused on Monsanto's undeniable role in strong-arming farmers to use genetically modified seeds, and their efforts to monopolize the entire seed market in our nation, click here. I fully acknowledge that I do not support Monsanto's policies of secrecy and placing profit above public health. Even so, I was quite amazed to find that corporations even have blacklists like this for interpreters, and that I'm on Monsanto's list.
 
I invite you to join me in spreading the word about Monsanto's blacklist and their policies which endanger public health. The box below provides several ideas on what you can do both to educate yourself further and to put pressure on Monsanto to change their ways. I also invite you to comment below and let readers know what you think. Should our government enact laws to make corporations place public health above profit? If so, how best can we make that happen?
 
Fred Burks served as personal language interpreter to Clinton, Bush, Cheney, Gore, and other top dignitaries in secret meetings. As part of an international network of researchers and news analysts, Fred obtains and disseminates key, reliable information about powerful, yet little-known forces which shape our world. For more, see articles and links in the right column of this page.