change? // Current TV

Breitbart.tv » College Acquaintance: Young Obama Was ‘Pure Marxist Socialist’

Interesting, watch the video at the link, couldn't seem to get it to link from... more

Monkey_Films
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3 years ago
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Monsanto's man in the Obama administration

Michael R. Taylor's appointment by the Obama administration to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 7th sparked immediate debate and even outrage among many food and agriculture researchers, NGOs and activists. The Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. from 1998 until 2001, Taylor exemplifies the revolving door between the food industry and the government agencies that regulate it. He is reviled for shaping and implementing the government’s favorable agricultural biotechnology policies during the Clinton administration.

Yet what has slipped under everyone’s radar screen is Taylor’s involvement in setting U.S. policy on agricultural assistance in Africa. In collusion with the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations, Taylor is once again the go-between man for Monsanto and the U.S. government, this time with the goal to open up African markets for genetically-modified (GM) seed and agrochemicals.

In the late 70s, Taylor was an attorney for the United States Department of Agriculture, then in the 80s, a private lawyer at the D.C. law firm King & Spalding, where he represented Monsanto. When Taylor returned to government as Deputy Commissioner for Policy for the FDA from 1991 to 1994, the agency approved the use of Monsanto’s GM growth hormone for dairy cows (now found in most U.S. milk) without labeling. His role in these decisions led to a federal investigation, though eventually he was exonerated of all conflict-of-interest charges.

Taylor’s re-appointment to the FDA came just after Obama and the other G-8 leaders pledged $20 billion to fight hunger in Africa over the next three years. “President Obama is currently embedded in a bubble featuring some of the fervent promoters of the biotech industry and a Green Revolution in Africa,” says Paula Crossfield in the Huffington Post. Before joining Obama's transition team, Taylor was a Senior Fellow at the D.C. think tank Resources for the Future, where he published two documents on U.S. aid for African agriculture, both of which were funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Rockefeller Foundation funded the first Green Revolution in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s, and in 2006, teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In Taylor’s 2003 paper “American Patent Policy, Biotechnology, and African Agriculture: The Case for Policy Change,” he states: “The Green Revolution largely bypassed sub-Saharan Africa…African farmers often face difficult growing conditions, and better access to the basic Green Revolution tools of fertilizer, pesticides, improved seeds, and irrigation certainly can play an important role in improving their productivity."

In an interview with AllAfrica.com, Obama echoed Taylor's sentiment: "I'm still frustrated over the fact that the Green Revolution that we introduced into India in the '60s, we haven't yet introduced into Africa in 2009."

Yet as Crossfield points out, “There are very good reasons why we have never introduced a Green Revolution into Africa, namely because there is broad consensus that the Green Revolution in India has been a failure, with Indian farmers in debt, bound to paying high costs for seed and pesticides, committing suicide at much higher rates, and resulting in a depleted water table and a poisoned environment, and by extension, higher rates of cancer. If President Obama is lacking this information, it is his cabinet that is to blame.”

While AGRA may not benefit African farmers, it will certainly benefit Monsanto. Some estimate that Monsanto controls 90 percent of the global market for GM seeds.

end of excerptMichael R. Taylor's appointment by the Obama administration to the Food and Drug... more

JanforGore
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3 years ago
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Spending 102 billion a year on 800 worldwide military bases is bankrupting the country

The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.

Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.

Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in our already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is designed to be a true embassy -- a place, that is, where local people come for visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers, intelligence officials, and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large contingent of Marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick get-aways.

While it may be comforting for State Department employees working in dangerous places to know that they have some physical protection, it must also be obvious to them, as well as the people in the countries where they serve, that they will now be visibly part of an in-your-face American imperial presence. We shouldn't be surprised when militants attacking the U.S. find one of our base-like embassies, however heavily guarded, an easier target than a large military base.

And what is being done about those military bases anyway -- now close to 800 of them dotted across the globe in other people's countries? Even as Congress and the Obama administration wrangle over the cost of bank bailouts, a new health plan, pollution controls, and other much needed domestic expenditures, no one suggests that closing some of these unpopular, expensive imperial enclaves might be a good way to save some money.

Instead, they are evidently about to become even more expensive. On June 23rd, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic which, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the U.S. military out of Manas Air Base (used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), has been persuaded to let us stay. But here's the catch: In return for doing us that favor, the annual rent Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to $60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is convinced it needs this base to store and trans-ship supplies to Afghanistan.

continued at the linkThe U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest... more

JanforGore
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3 years ago
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Lawsuit: White House won't release visitor records

This is rich coming from two administrations that condone spying on Americans. From... more

JanforGore
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3 years ago
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0 comments

High Times > Tell Obama to Stop the Raids!

what's up with this crap mr. obama

sickinjersey
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4 years ago
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5 comments

Donors list raises fears over Hillary Clinton role as Secretary of State

Bill Clinton has raised millions of dollars from governments and politicians in the... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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1 comment

Pregnant man pregnant again - Congrats DUDE!

(above - pregnant, but the bun isn't baked very much yet) LOS ANGELES (Reuters... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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4 comments

Nvidia Ion Platform: Atom gets GeForce - Yeah gamers and geeks are drooling.

Nvidia is looking to capitalize on this popularity by offering its own Atom-capable... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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3 comments

Iraqi Security Officials Detained - Interior Ministry Generals Among Those Arrested

BAGHDAD, Dec. 18 -- At least 34 Iraqi security officials inside Iraq's Interior... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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1 comment

Oil prices collapse endanger plans to transform. Gulf states save and diversify

As Gulf states' earnings ballooned in recent years on the back of soaring oil... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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1 comment

Worse than the Grinch, holiday-themed malware can make your life hellish!

Worse than the Grinch is a new threat to personal computers that comes disguised as a... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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1 comment

Treasury: New York firm is a front for Iranian bank, money laundering or worse?

WASHINGTON — In the latest and perhaps most unusual attempt to choke off... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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1 comment

Planner of Rwandan massacres convicted of genocide - 63,000 to go.

ARUSHA, Tanzania – A former Rwandan Army colonel behind the 1994 slaughter of... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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2 comments

Gay leaders furious with Obama - Not the Change Gays anticipated?

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to deliver the... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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1 comment

Up to 25 Iraqis accused in Saddam party plot - under Sunni Rule

BAGHDAD – More than 20 employees of Iraq's Ministry of the Interior have... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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1 comment

Illinois HIGH court rejects attempt to remove governor

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – With the Illinois Supreme Court rejecting an effort to oust... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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2 comments

Liberals voice concerns about Obama - Not enough "change"?

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry –... more

arcticspirit
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4 years ago
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6 comments

Lehman, Merrill Lynch, big donors to Obama and McCain

Barack Obama and John McCain, who criticized and called for more regulation of Wall... more

JanforGore
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4 years ago
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