Another Lost Generation of Americans 

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Actually, they’re not lost geographically.  We see them every day on the cable news channels and the evening news of the broadcast networks.  This decade they call themselves the “Occupy Wall Street” Group.  I believe they are lost, unrecoverable, as productive, patriotic, Americans.  I’m no shrink, but I believe they will carry a degree of bitterness, for the reminder of their lives, as a result of America’s rejection of their attempt to force a socialist form of government on a nation of people who love freedom. The risk was theirs to take.  History will record their failure -- a failure they will never be able to put behind them. They will drag it like an anchor throughout their lifetime. They have made their choice and they now must live with the consequences.

These people have been around since Vladimir Lenin.  They are espousing the socialist/communist line and they are SOOOOO DUMB they don’t have a clue they are being used by the shadowy figures organizing and financing their infantile protestations.

Those dirty, smelly, boorish, idiots are disposable tools of the leftist power brokers, themselves the mortal enemies of capitalists and democracy.

They are supported by the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Nazi Party, the Democratic Party …… .  We should add the labor unions to this OUTSTANDING gaggle of anti-capitalist left-wingers.

They don’t know WHAT the want – but they want it NOW.  It is the primal cry of an infant seeking attention. 

If you are expecting anything good to come of the rent-a-riot crowd in our streets these days, you should reconsider.  This whole “OWS” movement is going to end in disaster.  This ain’t my first rodeo.  I have seen this before. It always ends in tragedy.

As the shrillness of the demonstrators mounts, the public’s tolerance level will fall.  At some point in the future, a tipping point will be reached and blood will be spilt and lives lost.  It is the nature of clashes between groups of human beings.  We call them wars, civil wars, insurrections, riots,

Demonstrations, and at their inception – “protests.”

Power brokers the world over always use the youth to fight their wars and secure their goals.  They use youth’s own overestimation of themselves and their intellect.  For the most part they are that point in life at which they are dumb as posts.  Their minds are mushy and pliable and easily melded into a gestalt or group mentality in which even a coward feels powerful.   They think and act as a single animal with multiple voices expressing thoughts not their own.  They are pitiful creatures. But then, so is a mad dog.

They are the flotsam of our society. They take pride in soiling themselves, our cities, and our society with their witless demands that Americans hand over their freedom and their wealth to an omnipotent government THEY believe will redistribute the collective wealth of America “fairly.”

Grown-ups understand that life is not “fair.”

Economic fairness equals socialism.  Under socialism, the government owns all the wealth of the nation.  The government then doles it out, as IT sees fit, in order that ALL its citizens suffer equally.  Winston Churchill understood that and said so many times.

The protesters we see in America’s streets today are a product of America’s failed educational system, including America’s institutions of “higher” learning.  They have no clear understanding of who they are as Americans.  They are no longer tethered to America’s history and heritage.   Like our current one-term President, Obama, they feel they are citizens of the world rather than citizens of America.  They lack the basic knowledge of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into founding and building this nation while, at the same time, winning its freedom from a despotic king -- and maintaining its freedom through the sacrifice of the lives of their forefathers. 

They are not “Americans’ in the truest sense of the word.  They are “Globalists.”  The blame for this lack of patriotism toward a country that nurtured them is, in my opinion, the fault of America’s failed educational system. 

As I said above – they are flotsam.  They have no attachments, no allegiance, to anything, or anyone, but themselves.  They give new depth to the meaning of “psychopath.”  They have no empathy or remorse for their behavior.

Freedom of speech is one thing.  But attempting to FORCE your will on a society that chose, long ago, to forsake a socialist form of government based on the historical record of socialism’s failure as a workable way to govern and for the pain and anguish it brings to those forced to live by it’s tenants.

America has been deeply wounded by the 1960’s forerunners of the OWS movement.  They have infiltrated our educational system, our clergy, and our government.  Today we are paying the toll for their infectious influence on all three institutions.

Be warned, America.  A second wave of leftist destruction is about to strike our foundational institutions.  It is already too late to turn the tide.  Now we can only face it and stand strong, refusing to give even one inch to the terminal disease that rots the soul of a nation and insures its demise.  Look upon the face of socialism.  Look upon the faces of those who would force YOU to bend to their will and betray your heritage as Americans… your precious freedom. 

J. D. Longstreet      

The Right To Choose – Eor Farmers in Haiti ... Paul Driessen

The Right To Choose – for Farmers in Haiti
Anti-corporate activists pervert “social justice” and perpetuate poverty in Haiti
By: Paul Driessen

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The Monsanto Company is learning a valuable lesson in Haiti: no good deed goes unpunished at the hands of radical anti-corporate elements of Western society.

Like so many other concerned citizens, Monsanto responded to the tragic January 12 earthquake that further devastated this impoverished country. It worked for months with Haiti’s Agricultural Ministry to select seeds best suited to local climates, needs and practices, and to handle the donation so as to support, rather than undermine, the country’s agricultural and economic infrastructure.

From Monsanto’s extensive inventory, they jointly chose conventionally bred hybrid (not biotech / genetically modified / GM) varieties of field corn and seven vegetables: cabbage, carrots, eggplants, onions, tomatoes, spinach and melons. Instead of giving the seeds to farmers, the company worked with the USAID-funded WINNER program, to donate the seeds to stores owned and managed by Haitian farmer associations. The 475 tons of hybrid seeds will then be sold to many thousands of farmers at steep discounts, and all revenues will be reinvested in local agriculture.

Other companies and donors are providing fertilizers, insecticide and herbicides that will likewise be sold at a discount. The companies, Agricultural Ministry, farmers associations and other experts will also provide technical advice and assistance – much as the USDA’s Cooperative Extension System does – on how, when and whether to use the various hybrids, fertilizers, and weed and insect-control chemicals.

The goal is simple. Help get the country and its farmers back on their feet, improve farming practices, crop yields and nutrition levels, and increase incomes and living standards.

The reaction of anti-corporate activists was instantaneous, intense, perverse, patronizing and hypocritical. Monsanto wants to turn Haiti back into “a slave colony,” ranted Organic Consumers Association founder Ronnie Cummins. Hybrid and GM seeds will destroy our diversity, small-farmer agriculture and “what is left of our environment,” raged Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, leader of the Peasant Movement of Papaye.

Other self-anointed “peasant representatives” waded in. The seeds are genetically modified and “will exterminate our people.” Farmers won’t be able to afford the seeds or feed their children. The fertilizers are carcinogenic. Fungicides on the seeds are toxic poisons. “Seeds are the patrimony of humanity.” We support “food and seed sovereignty.” Traditional seeds and farming practices “provide stable employment” for the 70% of Haitians who are small farmers. And of course, “Down with Monsanto.”

Various U.S. churches and foundations chimbed in. “Spontaneous” protests were organized in several Haitian and American cities. At one, hundreds of marchers wore identical shirts and hats, which even at a combined value of just $5 represented two weeks’ income for average Haitian farmers: 40 cents a day. One wonders how many would have shown up without these inducements.

Indeed, this abysmal income underscores the terrible reality of life in this island nation, even before the earthquake, and the perversity of this campaign against “corporate control of the food system.” Instead of “seed sovereignty,” the activists are ensuring eco-imperialism and poverty sovereignty.

Forty years ago, Haiti was largely self-sufficient in food production and actually exported coffee, sugar and mangoes. Today, the country imports 80% of its rice and 97% of the 31 million eggs it consumes monthly. Two-thirds of Haiti’s people are farmers (roughly equivalent to the United States just after the Civil War), but their crop yields are among the lowest in the Western Hemisphere.

Few of Haiti’s rural families have running water or electricity, and women spend hours a day cooking over open fires. Many contract serious lung diseases as a result, and life expectancy is twelve years lower than for people on the Dominican Republic side of the island.

Google satellite images reveal a lush green eastern DR two-thirds of Hispaniola – in stark contrast to the deforested, rutted, brown, impoverished Haitian side, from which enormous quantities of soil are washed into the ocean every year. Roads are so rutted and awful that Peace Corps workers report traveling four hours by truck to go 60 miles. Many rural people cannot afford to feed their children, leaving hundreds of kids in poor highland areas literally starving to death.

Hybrid seeds can help Haitians climb out of this morass. They’re no silver bullet, but they are one of the cheapest, easiest and best investments a farmer can make. By simply planting different seeds and adding fertilizer, farmers can dramatically increase crop yields. A similar Monsanto donation of hybrid maize (corn) seeds and fertilizer to Malawi farmers in 2006 generated a 500% increase in yields and helped feed a million people for a year.

In the United States, organic and conventional farmers alike plant numerous hybrids. They cost more than traditional, open-pollinated seeds, but the payoff in yield, revenue, and uniformity of size, quality and ripening time makes the investment decision easy. Between 1933 and 2000, U.S. corn yields likewise expanded fivefold – thanks to hybrids, fertilizer, irrigation and innovative crop management practices – and today, hybrid or GM hybrid crops are planted on virtually every American field.

Some of the Haitian corn donation will be used to improve chicken farming and egg production. Most will likely be used in staples like sauce pois – corn mush topped with black or red beans combined with coconut milk, hot peppers, onions, garlic and oil. The thickness of the bean sauce reflects a family’s income, and “wealthy” families often accompany the sauce with rice, instead of corn mush. The veggie seeds will add variety to family diets, and provide a source of income via sales at local markets.

The hybrids will also help Haiti adopt truly sustainable farming practices: higher crop yields, greater revenues and better nutrition for more people, at lower cost, from less land, using less water and fewer pesticides, requiring less time in fields, and enabling more farmers to specialize in other trades and send their children to school. In short, greater opportunity and prosperity for millions.

And yet, activists continue to spew forth invective, preposterous claims and disinformation – primarily through the Huffington Post and several other websites. Hybrid seeds don’t regenerate, they assert; wrong – they do and can be replanted, though they will not pass all their best traits down to subsequent generations, which is one reason farmers typically buy new seeds. The seeds are poisonous, they fume; false – the seeds are treated with fungicides that are used safely all over the USA, Western Europe and Latin America, to keep seeds from being destroyed by fungus before they germinate.

(For additional information and discussions, see plant geneticist Anastasia Bodnar’s Biofortified website.)

Monsanto will not force farmers to plant hybrid seeds – or say they can’t replant what they collect from previous harvests. Indeed, hybrids were widely just 30 years ago by Haitian farmers, who know what they are looking for in a crop, how to assess what they have planted and harvested, and whether they want to invest in specific seeds. They should be allowed to make their own decisions – just as others should be permitted to plant whatever traditional, heirloom or open-pollinated seeds they wish.

“We reject Monsanto seeds,” say anti-hybrid activists. They might, and that’s fine. But thousands of other Haitian farmers want to plant Monsanto seeds. Their right to choose must also be respected – not denied by intolerant protesters, who are largely funded and guided by well-fed First World campaigners.

After years of vicious assaults by agro and eco purists, Monsanto’s corporate skin is probably thick enough to survive these lies and often highly personal attacks. Other companies, however, might lack the fortitude to provide their expertise and technology after future disasters, in the face of such attacks.

That is almost certainly an objective for many of these anti-technology, anti-corporate groups. Monsanto has no maize financial interests in Haiti and only a tiny vegetable operation, and I have no financial interest in Monsanto. But for the world’s most destitute people, it would be a tragedy of epic proportions.

Paul Driessen

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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.