The Case for Mandatory GMO Labeling
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| Source: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seeds-of-Truth/202013183163923 |
The Case for Mandatory GMO Labeling
by Mike Adams
Global Research Canada, June 18, 2012
Now that the GMO labeling ballot measure has been officially accepted onto the California ballot, Monsanto is gearing up its propaganda campaign that aims to convince people you don't need to know what you're eating! Trust us, we're the food companies! We never lie, do we?
For the record, I'm an opponent of most government mandates against individuals. When the government says you have to give your children vaccine shots, that's a violation of your liberty. When Mayor Bloomberg says you can't buy a 16 oz. soda in New York, that's a violation of your liberty, too -- even though I am opposed to soda consumption in general.
When the government says you can't drink raw milk, or you can't treat cancer with medicinal herbs, or you have to get EPA approval before building a house on your own neighborhood lot, those are all examples of government mandates against individuals gone terribly wrong.
But this GMO labeling ballot measure is not a government mandate against the People. In fact, it's quite the opposite: A People-powered mandate against the corporations.
Forcing corporations to tell the truth
It is the People of California, after all, who developed this GMO labeling ballot measure, gathered the signatures, and put it on the ballot. And the point of it is solely to keep corporations honest about what they put in our food. It is, technically, merely an extension of existing food ingredient labeling laws, and I can't think of a single person who would argue that food companies shouldn't even be required to list food ingredients.
For the record, I've actually lived in a country where food ingredients were not required to be listed on labels. It was a nightmare trying to avoid MSG because food companies consistently and tirelessly seek to deceive consumers about what they put into foods. Without labeling laws, we would all soon be eating melamine, human fetal cells, and mystery chemicals of dubious origin (even beyond what we're already eating).
If the GMO labeling issue were up to the government of California, there would be no ballot measure whatsoever. The biotech industry rules over corrupt government bureaucrats and politicians because it can always buy sufficient influence to kill any legislative initiative. Such is the reasoning behind a people-powered ballot measure: It is the one lawmaking mechanism still available to the People who can bypass corruption and go straight to the voters. Of course, even if passed, the ballot measure is subject to state Supreme Court interpretation, and that's an important measure to make sure the masses of any state don't enact a law that would deprive other people of their constitutional rights and liberties.
But GMO labeling is a threat to no one other than the deceptively-operated biotech industry itself. GMO labeling is an effort to force corporations to simply tell the truth on food labels so that moms, dads, children and everybody else can know what they're buying and eating.
For the record, I've actually lived in a country where food ingredients were not required to be listed on labels. It was a nightmare trying to avoid MSG because food companies consistently and tirelessly seek to deceive consumers about what they put into foods. Without labeling laws, we would all soon be eating melamine, human fetal cells, and mystery chemicals of dubious origin (even beyond what we're already eating).
If the GMO labeling issue were up to the government of California, there would be no ballot measure whatsoever. The biotech industry rules over corrupt government bureaucrats and politicians because it can always buy sufficient influence to kill any legislative initiative. Such is the reasoning behind a people-powered ballot measure: It is the one lawmaking mechanism still available to the People who can bypass corruption and go straight to the voters. Of course, even if passed, the ballot measure is subject to state Supreme Court interpretation, and that's an important measure to make sure the masses of any state don't enact a law that would deprive other people of their constitutional rights and liberties.
But GMO labeling is a threat to no one other than the deceptively-operated biotech industry itself. GMO labeling is an effort to force corporations to simply tell the truth on food labels so that moms, dads, children and everybody else can know what they're buying and eating.
The proper use of regulatory power
The People forcing their state government to mandate honest food labels is one of the few legitimate applications of government regulatory power. This is true even if you believe, as I do, that government is too big, too oppressive, too arrogant and way too expensive. Today in America, we suffer from bloated government that has become a serious threat to the liberty of the People. Yet to take that argument and use it to say that GMO labeling mandates are an encroachment of liberties is a logic error: this mandate is directed solely at corporations with a proven track record of deceiving the People. In no way is GMO labeling encroaching upon individual rights or liberties. If anything, it actually empowers individuals with accurate information about their free market choices of what they're buying.
The free market requires accurate information about products
One of the most fundamental concepts of the free market is that both producers and consumers benefit from access to accurate information about what they are buying or selling. This is fundamental to the efficiency of any free market. But biotech companies selling GMOs want the market to be a one-way mirror -- they know what's in the food but you don't!
Consumers therefore don't know what they're buying, and thus you don't have a free market... you have a contrived market where products are deceptively labeled to make sure that consumers do not have access to accurate information about what they're buying.
Think about it: the successful selling of GMOs depends entirely on consumers not knowing they are buying them. Nearly every other product is sold because people actually want it: People buy vitamin C because they want vitamin C. They buy whole wheat bread because they want whole wheat. But they only buy GMOs because they are not aware they are buying GMOs.
Genetically engineered food ingredients, in other words, are purchased entirely by accident by nearly everyone who buys them. That's not a free market. That's not transparency. That's deception. It is what destroys consumer confidence in the free market, thereby harming the efficiencies of the market itself. How many corn-based food products, for example, are entirely avoided by informed consumers today merely because they suspect those products might contain GMOs even if they don't?
Consumers therefore don't know what they're buying, and thus you don't have a free market... you have a contrived market where products are deceptively labeled to make sure that consumers do not have access to accurate information about what they're buying.
Think about it: the successful selling of GMOs depends entirely on consumers not knowing they are buying them. Nearly every other product is sold because people actually want it: People buy vitamin C because they want vitamin C. They buy whole wheat bread because they want whole wheat. But they only buy GMOs because they are not aware they are buying GMOs.
Genetically engineered food ingredients, in other words, are purchased entirely by accident by nearly everyone who buys them. That's not a free market. That's not transparency. That's deception. It is what destroys consumer confidence in the free market, thereby harming the efficiencies of the market itself. How many corn-based food products, for example, are entirely avoided by informed consumers today merely because they suspect those products might contain GMOs even if they don't?
If GMOs are so good, why don't the food companies want them listed on food labels?
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To learn more about GMO labeling:
1 comment:
"Now that the GMO labeling ballot measure has been officially accepted onto the California ballot, Monsanto is gearing up its propaganda campaign that aims to convince people you don't need to know what you're eating!"
That's why i hate Monsanto company, they don't want people know what are the risk of GMO. I hate them.
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