- geoffrey saign
- Saint Paul, MN
- United States
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Why isn't there more coverage of the Right2Know March, 300,000 from NY to DC happening right now, Oct 2-16th, to get GMOs labeled???
GMOs are threatening food stability worldwide, threaten health worldwide in our food supply, and there is so much money spent on news orgs, even PBS, that no one is talking about this march to get all GMOs labeled. WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT'S IN OUR FOOD!
geoffrey saign
Debra Smith 200+
geoffrey saign
Andrea Morisette Grazzini 30+
I'm with you re: "It's time to reshape things."
Andrea
Karina Eisner 10+
This is a cause very dear to my heart, I am passing the word as we speak...
I'll try to send links of the event to newspaper and local TV, had publications in the past and maybe there is still an open door for me ;-)
Also, if they are not receptive, universities will be. Doing that too, internet is great! Grass roots as well as up above, anything but crossed arms...
Any leaflets online that I can print? Going to a think tank of sorts at a local college tomorrow... perfect for this!
geoffrey saign
Andrea Morisette Grazzini 30+
Exciting to hear of your energy and engagement efforts around this!
I'm eager to hear where and what feedback you get from publications and people you connect this movement to.
This relates to my interests in social contagion effects I consider critical as a participatory researcher. To capture and communicate the scaffolding you, Geoff and others are building "on the fly" for this movement and echo/amplify the reverberations, could -- as you know -- elicit a potentially transformative impact.
Part of the secret sauce of large culture change efforts is showing the polycentric effect that economist Elinor Ostrom speaks of as critical for creating the multi-sector depth that makes civic movements successful.
Andrea
Karina Eisner 10+
(Curious, what does a participatory researcher do?)
Not much to report as far as responses yet, but at least the info is out there.
More or less everyone I know is making a huge transition already towards organic, even though, judging for what Geoffrey says, we may be in delusion here, as what we think is organic actually is in part GMO.
My friends are excited that maybe a law will be passed, but I do not expect much action... this side of the country is traditionally very quiet... Not sure Texas is a good candidate to be one of those big centers you mention... still, we take it one day at a time.
geoffrey saign
Andrea Morisette Grazzini 30+
Here is food guru Mark Bittman on the impact of social protest movements like OccupyWallstreet and Right2Know:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/finally-making-sense-on-wall-street/?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp#preview
Andrea
geoffrey saign
geoffrey saign
Laurens Rademakers 50+
American freedom is basically the freedom to consume. Nothing more, nothing less. Sad, but true.
Andrea Morisette Grazzini 30+
What if consumer America stopped swallowing so much and started walking off the corporate calories to free their body of GMO toxins, catalyze depression-fighting endorphins and capture the imaginations and attentions of a few high-level public health pundits and policymakers minds via media coverage?
Might be a happy solution on a few fronts, if not all. And beats the alternative of couch-potatism induced pathologies produced and abetted by "consume or die" histrionics.
And, I bet you good chocolate on this one:
If enough people participate, there WILL be execs who see the PR possibilities and policymaking prudence of joining this and other movements.
Remember -- if I win: GOOD, non-GMO chocolate ;-).
(Did you know moderate "doses" of such seratonin-stimulating chocolate can be good for both physical and psychological health?)
Andrea
Laurens Rademakers 50+
believe it or not, as it happens, I work in the cocoa sector. I produce organic cocoa beans in Cameroon. So the bet's not a challenge for me :-)
Andrea Morisette Grazzini 30+
Hmmmm, this IS interesting.
And -- a very good sign, I say! That the universe, mother earth, the organic cocoa bean sector, et al, are with me on this one!
I look forward to my "winnings." ;-).
Andrea
Andrea Morisette Grazzini 30+
Part of the reason is consumer media is funded by consumer products, including genetically modified meat, produce and pharmaceuticals. Most produced with the help of Monsanto (best known advertising-wise as producer of herbicides like RoundUp), but more ominously (but of course not advertised) Monsanto is the company behind Agent Orange, PCBs, bovine growth hormone. The company is involved in 90% of GMOs.
Which are far less visible to most journalists who are scrambling to get easily begotten articles out. "The World According to Monsanto" (here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-world-according-to-monsanto/) is an award-winning documentary that compellingly lays out all the layers behind GMOs.
The Occupy Wallstreet group should be quite interested in the Right2Know March. Their efforts are directly related. While they sit tight (which they should continue doing) they can elevate Monsanto's complicity with Wallstreet. While Right2Knowers walk, they can elevate Occupy Wallstreets concerns, too. Here is a related TEDConversation: http://www.ted.com/conversations/5900/why_is_there_is_little_or_no_m.html
Both movements can and will get more press if they keep up and sustain their focuses, while also co-evelating their parallel interests in clear ways.
It would be a good idea for Right2Knowers to flood editors with reminders of how this is a story at the forefront of an evolving wave of citizen movements that are and will even more so change the landscape of US politics.
If media want to break the stories, they'll scramble now to cover groups like this. I expect they will. Any media who are in bed with consumers will have to cover movements like this once the story is "broken" by one of them. So, the smart media will cover it. No matter how they are funded, unless they are owned by Murdoch & Company, journalists want to bring real news to the fore.
Even Fox, et al will follow when it is.
Andrea
Frans Kellner 100+
I saw it years ago and several others afterwards.
Little effect it has though, maybe that's to change.
Love your writings.
Andrea Morisette Grazzini 30+
There is growing energy around movements like these that gives more hope than when the documentary first came out.
It echoes earlier periods of populist engagement, which did succeed in sustained cultural evolutions. The key is to keep and build the energy of many.
Protest is one way, there are others, too. The biggest key of all is ongoing visibility via compelling numbers of diverse people and groups willing to connect concrete efforts.
Andrea
Karina Eisner 10+
I have been aware of Monsanto for over 20 years, and yes, they are extremely resourceful.
Consumers have power, but ignorant consumers don't...
Sabin Muntean 30+