Help to STOP Monsanto - Organic Consumers Assoc.

Reblogged from https://action.organicconsumers.org/content_item/oca-email?email_blast_KEY=1356594

You be the judge. If you could be “judge for a day,” which of Monsanto’s crimes would you take the most satisfaction in prosecuting? Would you hold the world’s most famous corporate criminal accountable for poisoning the people of Monte Maíz, Argentina—the “City of Death”—where glyphosate has caused a huge spike in miscarriages and cancer? Would you bring down the hammer of justice on Monsanto for making the lives of India’s farmers so desperate that nearly 300,000 of them have committed suicide? Or would you look closer to home, where here in the U.S. Monsanto's calculated infiltration of regulatory agencies resulted in the unleashing of cancer-causing GMO's into our food system without safety testing? Where non-GMO farmers whose crops are contaminated by nearby GMO crops are sued by Monsanto for “illegally growing” the company’s patented seeds? Where Monsanto's attacks on independent scientists and journalists have ruined careers? And most recently, where the Biotech Bully’s big spending corrupted our democracy to the point where Congress ignored the will of 90 percent of American citizens and instead, at Monsanto’s bidding, stripped Americans of the most basic right to know if our food has been contaminated with toxic pesticide-drenched GMOs? Monsanto’s crimes against human health and the environment, on a global scale, are well-documented. And yet, with great arrogance, diabolical planning and riches acquired at the expense of human suffering and irreparable harm to the environment, Monsanto carries on with business as usual, even as it looks to merge with yet another corporate criminal, Bayer. With less than a week to go, we are far short of our fall online fundraising goal. Fortunately, corporate heroes like Mercola.com and Dr. Bronner’s have stepped up with a matching funds offer—but we need your help to raise $85,000 by midnight Friday, September 16. If like us, you believe Monsanto has to be stopped, please make a contribution today.  You can donate online, by phone or by mail, details here. On October 15-16, in The Hague, Netherlands, a panel of five distinguished international judges and numerous lawyers will hear testimony from 29 witnesses representing five continents. OCA will pay for many of these witnesses to fly to The Hague, so they can tell the world how Monsanto has devastated their lives, their farms, their careers, their countries. The International Monsanto Tribunal is a citizens’ initiative. It is being organized by the people, to give Monsanto’s victims a voice, on an international stage. While the opinions that will be issued by the judges are non-binding, this tribunal, as has historically been the case with citizens’ tribunals, will create grassroots pressure on governments and the United Nations to hold Monsanto legally liable for its criminal activity. I am on the Monsanto Tribunal organizing committee, and OCA is making a substantial financial commitment to the tribunal, because we believe this initiative is a necessary step in bringing down what is arguably one of the worst multinational corporations in history. But the Monsanto Tribunal is just one example of our ongoing work to expose Monsanto and its allies. We have much more work to do. In 2017, OCA will work tirelessly to expose the health hazards of glyphosate and other poisons peddled by Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and the rest. We will test as many food products as we can, for as many toxic chemicals as we can find—and pressure the mainstream media to publish our results. We will go after the food companies that mislead consumers with blatantly false product labels. We will continue to provide financial support to US Right to Know, a nonprofit dedicated to exposing the lies behind slick PR campaigns by biotech, food and pharmaceutical companies, and attacks on scientists and journalists. We will launch a massive education and media campaign exposing the link between Monsanto and a factory farm system that produces toxic food, pollutes more water and air than any other industry, treats workers unfairly and inflicts unconscionable suffering on animals. It would be easy to give up this fight—especially after Monsanto’s masterful manipulation of Congress, which led to passage of the DARK Act. But giving up is exactly what Monsanto wants you, all of us, to do.