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Cecilia Garza and James Trimarco report: "Although a ballot initiative to label foods containing genetically modified organisms failed in California, the organizers behind the measure say their movement is better organized and larger than ever before."

Organizers with the Yes on 37 campaign drive over the Golden Gate Bridge in a sculpture-topped car. (photo: Lynn Friedman)
Organizers with the Yes on 37 campaign drive over the Golden Gate Bridge in a sculpture-topped car. (photo: Lynn Friedman)


Full Speed Ahead for Food Movement, Despite GMO-Labeling Loss

By Cecilia Garza and James Trimarco, YES Magazine

10 November 12

Although a ballot initiative to label foods containing genetically modified organisms failed in California, the organizers behind the measure say their movement is better organized and larger than ever before.

upporters of California's Proposition 37 are not giving up the fight after Tuesday's rejection. In fact, they're saying that the organizing around the initiative helped forge a diffuse group of individuals interested in healthy food into a powerful, organized movement.

"The Organic Consumers Association is a million strong," said Ronnie Cummins, the founder and director of that group said on a conference call on November 7. "We have 5 million people on our email list and we're looking forward to continuing this battle."

Proposition 37 would have required the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and banned the use of the word "natural" to market products that contain GMOs. While the initiative won urban coastal counties such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, it lost in the state's central valleys.

"We just didn't have the funds to compete on the air" in those regions, said Stacy Malkan, media director at California Right to Know. "Many of those voters were getting their news from TV and we couldn't compete with them."

Companies like Monsanto, DuPont, and Pepsi poured nearly $50 million dollars into opposing the measure-about seven times what its supporters were able to raise-and spent most of the money on television and radio ads.

Throughout the campaign, the truthfulness of advertisements opposing the measure came into question. At one point, the No on 37 campaign ran an ad that identified Henry I. Miller, an opponent of the measure, as a professor at Stanford University. The campaign was forced to pull the ad after Stanford announced that Dr. Miller was not a professor there.

Multiple Strategies Going Forward

Despite these frustrations, the mood was bright on Wednesday among supporters of Proposition 37, who were already discussing plans to introduce a similar ballot initiative in Washington state in 2013. Such an measure would need 325,000 signatures in order to significantly exceed the requirements for inclusion on the ballot, and organizers on the ground have already gathered half of that, according to Cummins.

Activists are making preparations for a similar effort in Oregon, although signature gathering there has yet to go into full force. Meanwhile, GMO-labeling bills have been introduced in the state legislatures of Connecticut and Vermont, which do not have a ballot initiative process.

Alongside efforts to implement GMO labeling in individual states, the food movement is putting pressure on the federal government. Dave Murphy, co-chair of the Yes on 37 campaign, explained that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled in 1992 that GMO crops are "equivalent" to traditional crops and therefore did not require labeling.

"We believe that there is evidence that GMO crops are not equivalent and now is the time for the FDA to review that policy," Murphy said. He added that the "Just Label It" campaign had collected more than one million signatures on a petition asking the FDA for a review and that the Center for Food Safety has said it is prepared to sue if the administration fails to respond.

Another achievement of the Yes on 37 campaign was the education of consumers, Cummins said. People had previously thought that products marketed as "natural" were "almost organic but cheaper."

The Yes on 37 campaign opened the conversation and changed that, he said. "�Natural' is a marketing term and has nothing to do with health or environmental sustainability."

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+82 # Walter J Smith 2013-07-16 20:36
Obama has effectively resigned as President of the United States.

He has devoted all of his attention to lobbying for Wall Street.

He needs to lose the title the voters gave him, because he has radically betrayed the office, and disrespected it at every turn.
 
 
+44 # puppets 2013-07-17 08:25
Walter, I couldn't agree more. It's not GOP vs Dems anymore, it's Corporate against us. They are both the same.
 
 
+13 # JSRaleigh 2013-07-17 23:03
Still, think how much worse it could have been if the other guy had won. Neither of Obama's opponents would have put the brakes on Wall Street. Both would have accelerated the corporate takeover.
 
 
+37 # cordleycoit 2013-07-16 22:58
WAs this unexpected. It is the third step to world rule by the four hundred. And the left waltzed on.
 
 
+18 # Nominae 2013-07-16 23:38
Quoting cordleycoit:
WAs this unexpected. It is the third step to world rule by the four hundred. And the left waltzed on.


Quite a few people "waltzed on". For absolute decades, this plan was keep strictly secret by all of the countries involved. Every time the slightest detail was leaked, the entire group went further underground, and changed their name altogether.

By the time they were calling themselves the SPP, only "Democracy Now" dared to report on them. That resulted in the typical "pulling their heads back in the sand", and re-emerging during the latest leaks as the TPP. However you cut it, these clowns are well along in their plans to eliminate National Borders, National Regulations, and National and Local Environmental requirements, etc.

Plans are well in place for turning North America into one country under Corporate Law alone. There are plans to have
shipping routes from Alberta Canada thru the U.S. roughly parallel to the existing U.S I-35, and continuing thru down to the West Coast of Mexico, where the Mexican Oil Refineries and shipping ports are located.

Google away, or, better yet, go to "Democracy Now dot org" for details.
 
 
+23 # Texas Aggie 2013-07-17 09:26
It isn't the left that is pushing this. Corporate honchos have a definite inclination to the right. This is the right wing wet dream come true.
 
 
+40 # m... 2013-07-16 23:19
'Privatization' is destroying our Republic.., possibly even civilization and life on earth.

The entire 'Smaller Government' political effort as sold and foisted since the 80s has since become the biggest Flim Flam ever perpetrated.
That 'Talking point'-- the eternal Republican hue and cry for 'Smaller Government' is the ConJob Umbrella TalkingPoint under which America has been changed into something completely alien to anything envisioned by Our Founders.
My Father went off to Europe to defeat Fascism.
Look where we're at now.

After 3 decades of Corporate Driven Conservatism WE actually have a Smaller Government of, by and for the People.
In its place, we now have a dodgy 'Government by Lobby' brought about by greedy people through corrupted, dodgy Legislation, rampant deregulation schemes, the de-taxation of the Corporate class, and the transformation of all Tax Payers into Corporate Cash Cows through Privatization Schemes.
It is a monumental, ongoing ConJob that has led to the largest transfer of wealth in human history from 99% of everyone to a super wealthy-powerfu l few.

I ask Conservatives who decry so called 'Big Government' to define what constitutes Our Government now-- and how it ACTUALLY works (or does not).
Who and what purposes does it serve?
And while you are at it, Show me the 'Free Press' in America, the one our Founders envisioned to be the watchdogs of OUR Freedom. Where is that Press?
 
 
+11 # ladymidath 2013-07-16 23:43
Okay, please explain to me, why are people still supporting Barak Obama?
 
 
+19 # Texas Aggie 2013-07-17 09:27
Because the Mittster would have been even worse.
 
 
+28 # L H 2013-07-17 00:38
Thank you to the Japanese people for protesting! I'm signing every petition I can find. This is dangerous for our food sources, and more dangerous in its destruction of our sovereignty, our Constitution, and what's left of our democracy. We need to make lots of noise about this!
 
 
+32 # OpportunityForAll 2013-07-17 04:29
"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder." -George Washington

Time to get money out of politics altogether! Sign the petition at MoveToAmend.org NOW, and get on their mailing list! Reform is coming.

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
- Patrick Henry
 
 
+19 # Rita Walpole Ague 2013-07-17 05:42
Let's take a look at the evil writing on the wall...

Must keep their bottomless coffers overflowing, now mustn't the Kochs and their fossil 'fooler' cohorts.

After all, what better way than frack us and Mother Earth to death, while getting their greedy mitts on the getting scarcer and scarcer sources of drinkable water. Lots and lots of $$$$$ for the villainaires, as they charge we the sheeple through through the ceiling for H2O. Hells bells, might even be more profitable for the evil, greedy ones than is fossil 'fool'.
 
 
+17 # tm7devils 2013-07-17 07:49
NAFTA...TPP...T AFTA... Why dilly-dally, why don't they just lump them all under one heading - TOWCA (Take Over the World Corporate Agreements) and be done with it?
 
 
+19 # keenon the truth 2013-07-17 07:54
These deals would also allow foreign corporations to sue the federal, state and local governments over laws and policies that violate the "trade" deal, but protect us from unsafe food, dirty water and dangerous fracking. It's outrageous!'

Change the word 'foreign' to 'American,' and this is how many Japanese feel about it. At the moment so many of the chemicals used in American farming, and the food additives allowed by the FDA are forbidden here in Japan, We are scared about what we will be forced to accept without redress. We have been holding out against most GMOs, but i guess those days are over.
 
 
+17 # MidwesTom 2013-07-17 08:15
As the big banks and insurance companies buy ip more and more farms, and deploy massive farming techniques, expect more and more problems with our domestic food supply. The big guys just want production, no matter how many chemicals it takes. They never leave a field regenerate by planting clover for a season.
 
 
+5 # Texas Aggie 2013-07-17 09:29
For further evidence that the PTB aren't really all that bright, look at the price of alfalfa these days and tell me that it wouldn't make sense to use that in a rotation.
 
 
+12 # walt 2013-07-17 08:43
One more attempt by the corporate world to take even more control than they have already. The USA is virtually a plutocracy and now, like Hitler in the 1930's, the big money powers want even more.

It's very sad that Mr. "Change We Can Believe In" Obama is pushing this. What a complete disappointment he is. We already have seen the results of the NAFTA and now they want more!
 
 
+10 # jwb110 2013-07-17 08:56
These trade agreements are an unfortunate set up for another World War. Many of the countries potential signees of the agreement have a greater history of violence in their streets than we do. Many of their citizens also have a longer history and certainly a longer memory of life under the heel of some petty despot. The Koch's and the other 1%ers have already grasped more than they can defend. There are 99% more of us than them. The sad commentary is that it will come to war and the remapping of the actual countries involved. Smaller less grasping nation states will have a better shot at freedom "to" and freedom "from" the makers of their own unhappiness.
Canada may stay intact. The US will be carved up along the partisan lines of the last 30 years. Europe and the EU will fall and who knows what that might look like. Malaysia's masses will finally get that that group of islands is a big country and can wield a lot of power in its region. Russia and China may stay intact because their citizens have no concept of being free from the heel of someone.
Pride goeth before a fall.
The main thing for the people of this country is to not give up hope that things will change. They will but not along the lines that were normal in the past. Underground movements, resistance movements, computer movements, those will be the field on which the Oligarchs will fall. We only need to look at history to support the truth of it.
 
 
+13 # SW1 2013-07-17 11:35
All of this gabbing is fine but who has started a protest down Main Street USA?
The Japanese have done it. Where is our revolt? Are we not angry enough? Protests and riots can occur because of the Zimmerman result, but no one revolts about the govt destroying our water supplies. Why. What is it worth? When our water supply is destroyed, don't worry there will be bottled water available to purchase thanks to Slim Pickens who is buying up water sources as we speak. Own the supply is the way to go. Wake up people, get some protests organized. Stop the slop with the lips.
 
 
+6 # Nominae 2013-07-18 16:45
Quoting SW1:
.....When our water supply is destroyed, don't worry there will be bottled water available to purchase thanks to Slim Pickens who is buying up water sources as we speak. Own the supply is the way to go.


Slim Pickens was an American actor who is no longer among the living.

I think you may be referring to T. Boone Pickens, a Texas Oil Billionaire who got out of pumping oil, and *INTO* pumping water, as you mention, out of the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas
many years ago. At one point he was selling that water to buyers in Dallas for use in their swimming pools.

Since the aquifer runs from Wyoming to Texas, his plan raised no eyebrows for awhile, but *now* the Texas portion of that same deep aquifer is GONE. Dry !

So, your point is well-taken. Water WILL be available from a man named Pickens, at, no doubt, *true* Texas-Sized prices !
 
 
+6 # WeMustEvolve 2013-07-18 12:28
I will be protesting this latest travesty with MoveOn. They are one of the big groups but there are others that know that there is no substitute for millions in the street.

Americans have been largely dumbed down by conservative policies. Big corporations that now own and run the government figured out they can pacify most Americans with big malls, houses, TVs, computers and fast food. We are a sad shell of where we were headed in the 1970's.
 
 
+6 # WeMustEvolve 2013-07-18 15:22
Giant right wing Wall Street corporations like the Koch Brothers have literally taken over the United States government. They will stop at nothing until all dissent and protest is dead and we are all their worker slaves. My poor, poor children how can I tell them?
 
 
+6 # Kathymoi 2013-07-18 15:48
How can we influence trade agreements? We don't get to vote on them? We don't get to know what they are promising unless we read RSN, maybe. How do we get a foot in the door with these deals?
 
 
+4 # RobertMStahl 2013-07-18 16:47
The only way to do that is for the people to see that the bond market has been destroyed already, that there is no salvaging the relationship between supply (of dollars) and demand in relation to restoring bond value, much less maintaining it in the clouds where it is now, and that the trillions of dammed up dollars padding the accounts of the asymmetrically criminal is also being used to support inside trading, the short selling of paper gold and silver, thereby forcing bullion banks to lower the price of the real thing. It goes back to the current design, to 'frack' the originally good intentions (i.e. the road to hell is paved with..) of fractional reserve lending, being able to lend more than what you have, then hedging to inflate it further as every 'good' CEO will side with. If everyone bought silver, the dollar would have to go back to the barn, where, apparently, all things progressive have never left.
 
 
+1 # DurangoKid 2013-07-19 09:21
Obviously, these corporate types do not see the left as a threat. How can we change that? How can we get them to wet themselves whenever they think of ripping us off? Suggestions, anyone?
 

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