SUBHEAD: Many of the 600 GMO company workers passionately testified for their jobs at the hearing the other day.
By Fred Dente on 3 August 2013 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2013/08/on-kauai-we-are-all-victims.html)
Image above: Audience for public hearing on Bill 2491 on 31 July 2013 at the Kauai Veteran's Center. Photo by Juan Wilson.
I’m for Bill #2491 to be passed unanimously, with amendments for strict enforcement of it’s provisions. This commentary will serve as my public testimony.
I’m a U.S. Veteran for Peace and, for over 30 years, I grew organic Italian garlic in Washington State. One thing I have been doing for years here on Kauai is to boycott Kauai Coffee. Those big red tanks along the highway aren’t filled with lemonade for their workers. Eliminate the poison, and I’d be happy to buy locally.
I attended the 7/31/13 hearing for several hours in the evening. Many thanks to KKCR community radio for pre-empting regular programming to broadcast almost all of the 12 hour hearing live. I was able to hear much of the testimony in my car as I was doing the day’s business.
Thanks to the Kauai County Council, the Veterans Center and the Police Deptartment for a most amazing day and night of peaceful testimony. Although representative democracy is practically dead on national and state levels, it still works sometimes locally. Because of Gary Hooser’s vision and leadership, with support from Tim Bynum, thousands of citizens have become active on this vital issue. We must have this kind of participation if we are to have a sustainable future here on Kauai. The option is to continue to allow ourselves to be overrun with cancer poisons, military madness and the gridlock of more out of control “development” and tourism nightmares.
The front page of TGI on 8/1/13, the day after the marathon public testimony, is one of the best I’ve seen since I started reading this paper in 1978. With an obvious headline reference to America’s Civil War times, and the great photo of the Rivera Brothers shaking hands, this front page is a classic illustration of the division and the passion of the two sides of this issue. A good sign for Kauai is that journalism is improving, thanks in large part to citizen journalists, bloggers, community radio activists and whistleblowers. Without a strong and independent, non-biased fourth estate, it’s back into the stone age for all of us.
Four of the big six mega-billion dollar chemical companies, who have been masquerading as seed farmers on Kauai for many years, are a huge part of the post WWII military/industrial complex. They have helped to create a toxic soup on Planet Earth, and they are partly responsible for untold worldwide death, destruction and disease. They must be stopped from their diabolical control of all of us, especially here on Kauai where we have allowed this once pristine paradise to become the laboratory for their horrors, and for us to become their guinea pigs and lab rats and collateral damage in their bottom lines.
Kauai’s toxic legacy began many years ago, even before the testing of Agent Orange (AO) in the early 60’s. Thanks to the UH and the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service, AO was tested and sprayed here in high concentrations, and many millions of lives and countless square miles of the earth have since been decimated, including hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel, and their Families. After the “successful” testing, Monsanto and Dow and others raked in their billions supplying AO to our military for their genocidal purposes.
A few years ago, I was doing research interviews for a PBS documentary about the effects of AO on Kauai workers and people living in the area of the testing. I’ve personally spoken to many who worked in the fields, and several innocent citizens who were sprayed by airplanes that blanketed the area with 2-4D and the other killer components of Agent Orange. Many cancers resulted rapidly, and the lives of humans and animals were horribly changed forever, including excruciating deaths. There have been an untold number of cancer-related deaths and diseases among the collateral damage of the chemical death merchants, here on Kauai. The filmmakers couldn’t continue the project because no one was willing to come forward, for fear of public embarrassment, and because of the threats of government intimidation and punishment.
Many of the 600 chemical company workers passionately testified for their jobs at the hearing the other day. They are neighbors and Family members and Friends and fellow citizens. How many are brainwashed by corporate plantation speak, and the threat of losing their jobs? Knowingly, unknowingly, or in denial, they are the primary victims of the poisoning of our island.
Just like the Kauai workers who handled and mixed and sprayed the Agent Orange all over the Wailua Homesteads, who accepted the jobs, bought the lies of the Army, the UH, the Hawaii Deptartment of Agriculture and the government regulators who are in bed with the manufacturers and the military.
Although the people of Hawai`i recently forced them to stop GMO taro experiments, the mad scientists at the University of Hawaii (UH) are experimenting with new ways to play God with our food, and all the rest of our environment. According to Ching Yuan Hu, associate dean of research at the UH Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the university is engineering seeds for disease-resistant bananas, a new variety of papaya, and Spanish lime, and who knows what else?
We must pass Bill #2491, as a great start to ridding Kauai and the rest of Hawaii and the planet of these chemical death monsters. Kauai, as much as ANY place on earth, owns this legacy of weapons of mass destruction. God/Goddess gave us all we need to live a clean healthy life without the corporate poisons and their profiteering.
Council members, please make this a unanimous vote. Take a precautionary principled stand to protect our precious health and well being. We can be world leaders if we want to be. And, we will take care of the 600 workers and their Families because we love them, as we love our own Family.
It’s so simple to use the Golden Rule and common sense. That’s what we elected you to do. Be strong and bold in your leadership, and truly represent the health of the People and the Aina.
.
By Fred Dente on 3 August 2013 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2013/08/on-kauai-we-are-all-victims.html)
Image above: Audience for public hearing on Bill 2491 on 31 July 2013 at the Kauai Veteran's Center. Photo by Juan Wilson.
I’m for Bill #2491 to be passed unanimously, with amendments for strict enforcement of it’s provisions. This commentary will serve as my public testimony.
I’m a U.S. Veteran for Peace and, for over 30 years, I grew organic Italian garlic in Washington State. One thing I have been doing for years here on Kauai is to boycott Kauai Coffee. Those big red tanks along the highway aren’t filled with lemonade for their workers. Eliminate the poison, and I’d be happy to buy locally.
I attended the 7/31/13 hearing for several hours in the evening. Many thanks to KKCR community radio for pre-empting regular programming to broadcast almost all of the 12 hour hearing live. I was able to hear much of the testimony in my car as I was doing the day’s business.
Thanks to the Kauai County Council, the Veterans Center and the Police Deptartment for a most amazing day and night of peaceful testimony. Although representative democracy is practically dead on national and state levels, it still works sometimes locally. Because of Gary Hooser’s vision and leadership, with support from Tim Bynum, thousands of citizens have become active on this vital issue. We must have this kind of participation if we are to have a sustainable future here on Kauai. The option is to continue to allow ourselves to be overrun with cancer poisons, military madness and the gridlock of more out of control “development” and tourism nightmares.
The front page of TGI on 8/1/13, the day after the marathon public testimony, is one of the best I’ve seen since I started reading this paper in 1978. With an obvious headline reference to America’s Civil War times, and the great photo of the Rivera Brothers shaking hands, this front page is a classic illustration of the division and the passion of the two sides of this issue. A good sign for Kauai is that journalism is improving, thanks in large part to citizen journalists, bloggers, community radio activists and whistleblowers. Without a strong and independent, non-biased fourth estate, it’s back into the stone age for all of us.
Four of the big six mega-billion dollar chemical companies, who have been masquerading as seed farmers on Kauai for many years, are a huge part of the post WWII military/industrial complex. They have helped to create a toxic soup on Planet Earth, and they are partly responsible for untold worldwide death, destruction and disease. They must be stopped from their diabolical control of all of us, especially here on Kauai where we have allowed this once pristine paradise to become the laboratory for their horrors, and for us to become their guinea pigs and lab rats and collateral damage in their bottom lines.
Kauai’s toxic legacy began many years ago, even before the testing of Agent Orange (AO) in the early 60’s. Thanks to the UH and the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service, AO was tested and sprayed here in high concentrations, and many millions of lives and countless square miles of the earth have since been decimated, including hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel, and their Families. After the “successful” testing, Monsanto and Dow and others raked in their billions supplying AO to our military for their genocidal purposes.
A few years ago, I was doing research interviews for a PBS documentary about the effects of AO on Kauai workers and people living in the area of the testing. I’ve personally spoken to many who worked in the fields, and several innocent citizens who were sprayed by airplanes that blanketed the area with 2-4D and the other killer components of Agent Orange. Many cancers resulted rapidly, and the lives of humans and animals were horribly changed forever, including excruciating deaths. There have been an untold number of cancer-related deaths and diseases among the collateral damage of the chemical death merchants, here on Kauai. The filmmakers couldn’t continue the project because no one was willing to come forward, for fear of public embarrassment, and because of the threats of government intimidation and punishment.
Many of the 600 chemical company workers passionately testified for their jobs at the hearing the other day. They are neighbors and Family members and Friends and fellow citizens. How many are brainwashed by corporate plantation speak, and the threat of losing their jobs? Knowingly, unknowingly, or in denial, they are the primary victims of the poisoning of our island.
Just like the Kauai workers who handled and mixed and sprayed the Agent Orange all over the Wailua Homesteads, who accepted the jobs, bought the lies of the Army, the UH, the Hawaii Deptartment of Agriculture and the government regulators who are in bed with the manufacturers and the military.
Although the people of Hawai`i recently forced them to stop GMO taro experiments, the mad scientists at the University of Hawaii (UH) are experimenting with new ways to play God with our food, and all the rest of our environment. According to Ching Yuan Hu, associate dean of research at the UH Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the university is engineering seeds for disease-resistant bananas, a new variety of papaya, and Spanish lime, and who knows what else?
We must pass Bill #2491, as a great start to ridding Kauai and the rest of Hawaii and the planet of these chemical death monsters. Kauai, as much as ANY place on earth, owns this legacy of weapons of mass destruction. God/Goddess gave us all we need to live a clean healthy life without the corporate poisons and their profiteering.
Council members, please make this a unanimous vote. Take a precautionary principled stand to protect our precious health and well being. We can be world leaders if we want to be. And, we will take care of the 600 workers and their Families because we love them, as we love our own Family.
It’s so simple to use the Golden Rule and common sense. That’s what we elected you to do. Be strong and bold in your leadership, and truly represent the health of the People and the Aina.
.
1 comment :
Anybody else noticing people on Kauai aging prematurely? I sure do.
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