Monsanto announced plans to sue Maui, Hawaii after voteres passed a moratorium on GMO

Last Tuesday, the voters on the Hawaiian island of Maui passed a moratorium on genetically engineered crops. The very next day, Monsanto announced plans to sue Maui to block the law from going into effect. Monsanto and its allies spent more than $8 million to convince voters to defeat the GMO moratorium and still lost. So now they’re sending an army of lawyers to overturn the will of the people.

Maui is one of the most biologically diverse places on earth -- but it's being turned into one giant, open-air biological experiment by the rampant use of GMO crops and pesticides. Monsanto, Dow, BASF, and other huge biotech companies have flocked to Hawaii because the climate allows them to plant and grow seeds that they can sell all over the world. Today, nearly 10 percent of all Hawaii's farmland is owned by just five biotech firms, including Monsanto.

That’s why Maui voters have been asking their elected officials to do something about GMOs and the heavy pesticides that go with them. But the politicians, most of them funded by Monsanto, have ignored the people. So earlier this year, they took matters into their own hands, collecting thousands of petition signatures to force the issue to be put before voters directly as a citizen referendum. Last Tuesday, the voters spoke: no GMOs on Maui.

Whatever you think about GMO crops and pesticides, it's just wrong for a corporation to use legal action to intimidate the public and override the democratic process. That's why it's so important we stand up, and stand together, whenever Monsanto tries to use these dirty tactics.

The information provided above was sent to me in an email by an organization that get's people to sign petitions to stand up for a cause (this one being Monsanto) and because that goes against T&Cs I won't link that article. I still think the message said within is very important.

I did, however, find a news article that talks about this.
Monsanto strikes back after Maui voters support GMO moratorium

Monsanto has been going on a suing spree and going after any state that tries to oppose them or passes a law that requires GMO labels.

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Four national organizations whose members would be affected by Vermont's new labeling law for genetically engineered foods filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court challenging the measure's constitutionality.

"Vermont's mandatory GMO labeling law — Act 120 — is a costly and misguided measure that will set the nation on a path toward a 50-state patchwork of GMO labeling policies that do nothing to advance the health and safety of consumers," the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in a statement about the lawsuit.

The state Legislature passed the labeling law in April, and Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the bill in May. The labeling requirements would take effect July 1, 2016.

Lawsuit challenges Vermont's GMO labeling law

Looks like even the U.S Supreme court is in bed with Monsanto:

The US Supreme Court upheld biotech giant Monsanto’s claims on genetically-engineered seed patents and the company’s ability to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertently contaminated with Monsanto materials.

Supreme Court hands Monsanto victory over farmers on GMO seed patents, ability to sue

a reply to: Sabiduria

So whats the point of having democracy if corporations will just overturn your vote...
F monsanto!

originally posted by: snypwsd
a reply to: Sabiduria

So whats the point of having democracy if corporations will just overturn your vote...
F monsanto!

With a genetically modified pineapple.

a reply to: snypwsd

Does Democracy still exists in the U.S?

I know that you vote for president, your vote doesn't count so it makes sense that corporations can overturn your vote too.

Monsanto is one of the most evil corporations on the planet.

Period.

Bravo Hawaii and Vermont!

WOW good for them. We always hear versions of the saying "if you don't like the law. change it"....and that is what the people did.

And now this damn POS corp. is going to court to sue them.

I really hope some millionaire/billionaire shadow people step up and fund lawyers for the people of Maui. You know monsato will have an army of lawyers looking for any loophole or mis-wording in this law to invalidate it.

And hopefully also the people will stand up and bring monsatos disregard for the peoples choice of the handling of their homeland.

If monsato goes through with this lawsuit, I smell the end of something big...

Got to be in the running for most evil company ever.

a reply to: snypwsd
So whats the point of having democracy if corporations will just overturn your vote...

but we dont live in a democracy,,its a Republic...i.e "The Rule of Law" , the problem is it has become currupt , run by lawyers and corporations & special interest groups that lobby to get the laws passed that make themselves the big winners, Now only those with the big pockets & resources to hire a "Dream Team" can afford their own particular brand of Law

originally posted by: snypwsd
a reply to: Sabiduria

So whats the point of having democracy if corporations will just overturn your vote...
F monsanto!

It certainly doesn't feel like much of a point when the system established to assure constitutionality goes against the larger public interest. Unfortunately, anyone can bring a case up against the passage of a state law should it impact them in a way that they deem as wrongful/unconstitutional. The judicial branch is meant to be a check against the passage of laws, both at the state/local level and at the congressional level, as a part of our whole "checks and balances" system to assure the constitutionality of any law by holding it against the "law of the land" (Constitution). On top of it, how this case fares is really going to determine the outcomes for other states and their potential desires to create a similar law. If Monsanto wins this case, then that becomes a precedent and the tendency within the judicial system is to respect precedent via stare decisis.

It sucks because, quite frankly, I think that the public absolutely has a right to decide what products can be sold on their shelves and, most especially, a right to know what it is they are eating (ie. the Vermont case is b.s.). There is no Constitutional amendment that I've seen that says "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). But Monsanto has everything to gain and little to lose by taking it to court. I'm sure that they will probably acquire the finest legal team that money can buy to pit against those state lawyers. One can only hope that common sense rules the day but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Monsato is evil. Although GMOs saved our papayas I believe that is the exception here in Hawaii, otherwise it shouldn't be allowed. On November 4 Maui voters voted to ban all GMOs (thus why Monsato is suing). If Monsato gets what they want I will be speechless.

a reply to: Sabiduria

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.... and they will fall.

Monsanto has taken some very big hits out there in the international arena, not so much here in their own back yard, but I see them taking small but productive hits here also.

Organic farming is growing, becoming more affordable. After about 50 years of seeing traditional farming and the small farmer decline, we now see a reverse in that long trend.

As of 2001, the estimated market value of certified organic products was estimated to be $20 billion. By 2002 this was $23 billion and by 2007 more than $46 billion.[7] By 2012 the market had reached $63 billion worldwide.

en.wikipedia.org...

Monsanto has been making some pretty desperate moves towards survival lately, and using the courts to get their way is very desperate, as more and more people are turning not so much away from the issues of GMO's but more so the strong arm tactics that the big chemical companies employ.

Look what a relatively few people have done in the Ferguson ordeal. Drew national spotlights. If people want to riot over One lone incident ( I know there are underlying issues) affecting basically one man and his family, Imagine what could happen if the court overturns the will of the people for the profit of the corp.

This got me thinking on just what is Bill Gates doing buying all the farm land here in Northern Florida. Even the hay farm I worked at. Seems he is into Monsanto pretty heavy.

Soon all crops will be GMO thanks bill.

a reply to: Connman

Gates owns a substantial chunk of Monsanto.

Gates owns 500,000 shares worth 23 million US dollars (or more) of Monsanto stock.

The article linked also addresses the very same question as yours, unanswered of course.

Yesterday Gates opened himself up to questions from online users via the social sharing site Reddit, in which he posted an open interview of sorts known as an ‘Ask me Anything’ post. This is essentially an invitation for questions that the subject will answer via text. While I had a large number of questions for Gates, such as if he actually eats GMOs himself, I simply asked him: “Why did you buy 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock?” Unsurprisingly, the comment received a large degree of feedback. Users asked Gates to please respond to the question, and several others posed similar variations to Gates that all went unanswered (as to be expected)

naturalsociety.com...

a reply to: Sabiduria

The Nerve of Monsanto. I recently made a post regarding Monsanto's new forum.
We need to give them the shame and disgrace that they deserve. Death to Monsanto.

a reply to: ckhk3

In the article (without the link) it talks about why Hawaii has become such a hot zone for GMO.

People who are in favor of GMO say "We need GMO to feed everyone, it's the only we can do it" but that is a lie. Between Aquaponic food farms & utilizing existing cropland, How existing cropland could feed billions more, there would be no one starving and no one dying from starvation/malnutrition.

a reply to: Sabiduria

Monsanto has been going on a suing spree and going after any state that tries to oppose them or passes a law that requires GMO labels.

What's that ole saying?

A picture is worth 1000 words?

a reply to: Sabiduria

This is THEM wieldng the TPP:

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the potential to become the biggest regional Free Trade Agreement in history. . . .

The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddique.  If ratified the TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented right to demand taxpayer compensation for policies that corporations deem a barrier to their profits.

. . . They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.

Putting Profits Before Populations
Monsanto, the TPP and Global Food Dominance

Welcome to the machine...

originally posted by: Connman
This got me thinking on just what is Bill Gates doing buying all the farm land here in Northern Florida. Even the hay farm I worked at. Seems he is into Monsanto pretty heavy.

Soon all crops will be GMO thanks bill.

I think ole Bill is trying to be a futurist. Why would he buy farmland in Northern Florida? Well, look at what has happened with the dips of the polar vortex over the last few years. It reaches all the way down up until...Northern Florida. Investments in Monsanto also mean genetically modified plants that can be tweaked to be resistant to things that might normally kill the natural version of the same plant. Drought resistance, cold resistance, parasitic infection--and all those things would be likely to also change right along with any presumed climate change. Control the food and well, technically, you control the world.

Everything happens for a reason is the conclusion that I've come to and what Gates is doing isn't mysterious at all. He is a proponent for climate change and he's actually been putting his money where his mouth is for several years now. If you also recall, he invested heavily in the high tech and heavily secured clonal germ repository somewhere in Scandinavia, iirc a couple years ago. Basically, a plant ark to store heritage plants. Hell, even the vaccine stuff is, again, most likely related to predictions of the impacts of climate change models in terms of infectious diseases. He's put money into every critical aspect of climate change--loss of previously viable croplands, increased infectious disease/pathogens for plant, animal and human, and loss of heritage crops. Those are the three biggies that can be found by perusing scholarly papers on the subject of prediction models.

There's your answer as to what Gates is up to.

**In a super short version of the above, Gates is a prepper--just a very rich one.

a reply to: Witness2008

People should be more concerned with what GMO does to plants, animals and humans. Even if a person never buys a GMO product, they can still end up having GMO mess with their RNA because the animal they ate was fed GMO products.

Abstract:

Our previous studies have demonstrated that stable microRNAs (miRNAs) in mammalian serum and plasma are actively secreted from tissues and cells and can serve as a novel class of biomarkers for diseases, and act as signaling molecules in intercellular communication. Here, we report the surprising finding that exogenous plant miRNAs are present in the sera and tissues of various animals and that these exogenous plant miRNAs are primarily acquired orally, through food intake. MIR168a is abundant in rice and is one of the most highly enriched exogenous plant miRNAs in the sera of Chinese subjects. Functional studies in vitro and in vivo demonstrated that MIR168a could bind to the human/mouse low-density lipoprotein receptor adapter protein 1 (LDLRAP1) mRNA, inhibit LDLRAP1 expression in liver, and consequently decrease LDL removal from mouse plasma. These findings demonstrate that exogenous plant miRNAs in food can regulate the expression of target genes in mammals.

Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA

Female rats fed genetically modified (GM) soya produced excessive numbers of severely stunted pups with over half of the litter dying within three weeks, and the surviving pups are sterile.

These alarming findings came from the laboratory of senior scientist Dr. Irina Ermakova at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The experiments began two years ago, and the initial findings hit the world press when Ermakova was invited to speak at the 11 th Russian Gastroenterological Week in Moscow in October 2005.

GM Soya Fed Rats: stunted, dead or sterile

Now some will say that this study is invalid due to the 4 "experts" who criticized her work but it should be noted that those "experts" were so intent upon "shooting the messenger" that they criticized aspects of her work on which they themselves had no expert knowledge. The editor of Nature Biotechnology,(who published the article) Andrew Marshall himself is forced to admit this. When asked whether the four would be acceptable as referees in a peer-review process, he replies evasively that for "some aspects" they might be included. But in practical questions about feeding studies or regarding animal physiology and toxicology all four referees should have had professional expertise. They had sought additional expertise, says Marshall. One can imagine where. Because the four men are not impartial or unknown. They are all well known as GM spokesmen, with a variety of relationships with industry.
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