New Year's Revolution, Frankenfish, and the Traitor Boycott
Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association
ESSAY OF THE WEEK
New Year’s Revolution: Connecting the Dots
Despite our best, often heroic efforts, the New World Order of post-2012 is shaping up to be downright scary.
How is it possible that tens of thousands of non-profit organizations and millions of health, environmental and justice-minded citizens have been stymied by the deadly "business-as-usual" practices of a ruthless Corporatocracy hell-bent on disaster?
Single-issue organizing and a fragmented activist rainbow will never be able to overthrow the Corporatocracy and resolve the most serious threat that humans have ever faced in our 100,000-200,000 year evolution: runaway global warming and climate meltdown.
How can we do better in 2013? We need a New Year’s Revolution, says OCA Director Ronnie Cummins!
Tell the FDA: No Frankenfish!
Obama Clears the Way for Approval of First Genetically Engineered Animal
Take a little DNA from a Chinook salmon, and a little growth hormone from an eel-like creature called an ocean pout, and what do you get? A frankenfish that grows twice as fast as wild salmon – and just as rapidly grows the profits of a biotech company called AquaBounty Technologies.
In a last-minute holiday gift to yet another biotech company that wants to play god with our food, the Obama administration has cleared the way for the FDA to soon approve the first genetically modified salmon.
Bad idea, says the Consumers Union, the advocacy and policy arm of Consumer Reports, which called the Environmental Assessment (EA) of the proposed frankenfish "flawed and inadequate."
The FDA is expected to approve AquaBounty’s frankenfish after a 60-day public comment period – unless consumers, activists and common sense prevail. Here are the three top reasons to tell the FDA “NO FRANKENFISH”:
1. Harmful to human health: FDA has allowed this fish to move forward based on tests of allergenicity of only six engineered fish—tests that actually did show an increase in allergy-causing potential, according to Michael Hansen, PhD, Senior Scientist with Consumers Union.
2. Harmful to wild salmon population: Only 95% of the GE salmon may be sterile, and the rest fertile. Even 1% equals thousands of fish. Plus the fish at the egg production facility in Prince Edward Island, Canada, will not be sterile. All it takes is for some of these frankenfish to escape, and the world’s wild salmon population will be at risk.
3. Not Labeled: Without GMO labeling laws, you’ll have no way to avoid the frankenfish that will end up in grocery stores and fish markets.
It’s going to take hundreds of thousands of us telling the FDA “NO FRANKENFISH” in order to have an impact. Please make your voice heard today!
Learn more
Four More Days. Can We Count on You?
When you fight, you sometimes win; when you don’t, you always lose. - Rebecca Solnit
Against impossible odds, you stood with us this year against some of the most powerful and corrupt companies in the world. Together we fought Monsanto, DuPont, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and other corporations for the simple right to a label on food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
We may not have won the GMO labeling battle in California, though a recount could challenge the narrow 49%-51% loss. But in 2012, thanks to you and millions of consumers, we accomplished what we hadn't been able to accomplish until now: We made GMO labeling a mainstream, public health issue.
We couldn't have done any of this without you. So, what’s next? Will the momentum we built over more than a decade, and which culminated with the Prop 37 election on Nov 6, come crashing down in 2013? Or will we come back stronger and more fiercely determined than ever?
You can count on us to fight tirelessly in 2013 for safer food and a healthier, more sustainable world. Can we count on you? With only four days left, we are still $45,000 shy of our year-end fundraising goal of $200,000. Please make a year-end, tax-deductible donation today. Thank you!
Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)
The Traitor Boycott: Honest Tea. Honestly?
Hard to believe, but that last bottle of Honest Tea you bought probably helped defeat Prop 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.
Honest Tea started out as a nice little company, making a certified organic beverage. Then along came Coca-Cola. Coke bought Honest Tea for one reason: to make money. Lots of it. Since acquiring a 40% stake in Honest Tea in 2008, Coca-Cola has tripled the brand’s sales, to $72 million. In 2011, the giant beverage company bought the remaining 60% of Honest Tea.
Yep, Coca-Cola loves you. You help boost profits. Unfortunately, the giant beverage company spent $1.7 million of those profits to defeat Prop 37 and your right to know about GMOs.
One of the original founders of Honest Tea, Seth Goldman, still runs Honest Tea. He says he supports GMO labeling laws, but only at the federal level. Of course he knows, just as we all do, that as long as ex-Monsanto gun Michael Taylor is heading up the FDA, a federal GMO labeling law doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing.
It’s time to tell Seth Goldman we’re done buying Honest Tea until Coca-Cola, Honest Tea or Goldman himself, support statewide GMO labeling initiatives. And by “support” we mean throwing real money into the fight to label GMOs.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Seth Goldman why you’re boycotting Honest Tea and how he can change your mind
Learn more about the OCA’s boycott of all the Traitor Brands
Download your wallet-sized boycott guide
Download a poster-sized boycott guide
Order printed copies of the boycott guide or poster
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
The Perennial Plate: An American Food Trip
In May of 2011, chef and activist Daniel Klein and activist-cameragirl Mirra Fine set out across the country to tell the stories of real food in America. They recorded 7 Terabytes of footage, travelled 23,000 miles across 42 states and made 50 short films (one a week) for a year. Watch some of their favorite moments from the road in this video.
Little Bytes
Essential Reading for the Week
Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, 2013 as Year Zero for Us - and Our Planet
'I'd Rather Fight Like Hell': Naomi Klein's Fierce New Resolve to Fight for Climate Justice
White House Stalls Critical EPA Report Highlighting Chemical Dangers to Children
Fight Industrial Factory Farms Now!
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Eden Foods is one of the few national organic food producers who goes beyond the USDA Organic Standards. Although Eden Foods is USDA certified, their products do not bear the USDA seal, because they say the USDA standard really represents a "minimum standard" that Eden Foods goes far beyond.
ronniecummins@organicconsumers.org