While
most MPs are sending home postcards from exotic climes, one member of Prime Minister Gordon
Brown’s government has decided to send out a clear challenge to noneother than
H.R.H. The Prince of Wales.
Just days after he made another impassioned plea for awareness of what he
believes to be the dangers of genetically modified crops, Prince Charles has
been challenged to prove that such produce is indeed unsafe.
Laying
down the gauntlet, Environment Minister Phil Woolas demands in relation to the fear
factor which increasingly surrounds the production of GM foods: "If it has been a disaster
then please provide the evidence."
Further opening himself up to receive one of the famous 'black spider' letters
which are regularly sent by the prince to government ministers, Mr Woolas also accuses the future
king of ignoring the plight of the world’s poorest nations.
This allegation stems from
the fact that many share the Labour MP's suggestion that the
government has what he calls a "moral responsibility" to
investigate whether the production of GM foods could help alleviate
hunger in
the poorest communities around the world.
Revealing that the government will continue to press ahead with GM trials, the politician tells the Sunday Telegraph in what is being interpreted as a specific attack on Prince Charles: "It is easy for those with plenty of food to ignore Third World hunger."
Comment: There are documented benefits and risks to GM foods, I think that is why they need to be labeled.
Most things in our society are unfair, we probably will never end world hunger and poverty, unless by some miracle, the structure of fear is toppled by a structure based on reason.
It is just like telling someone to forget about their asthma medication and change their diet. You wouldn't believe how many people do that.
Of course who doesn't like playing doctor? It is the thought of paying malpractice insurance, insurance which gives consumers of medical advise some protection, a jolt of reality.
Charles I think is has powerful advocate potential. Look at the headlines he got. If a normal guy was saying the same thing, people would ignore every word. We should be careful. I don't think we know the long term effect of cross pollinating GM plants with "ordinary" plants. But then look at the risk we are taking when eating red meat. We never think about it. And people like the POW do give us a chance to question the process. Which is a public service.
I have worked on farms, and it is amazing how many carrots, grow "deformed" and cannot be sold and they are just thrown out. I think people are also scared to eat deformed looking vegetables. What a waste.
Nature is not perfect. If we can use science to improve on some of the sequences, maybe we should.
And hopefully there will be some form of malpractice insurance to protect us if profits are put before people by unscrupulous multi nationals which could force us to take risks with our health without concern for our right to informed consent via labels.
Name: anyacat
Comment: Proponents of genetically altered food argue that such products are essentially to ending world poverty. In fact, the world produces enough food to feed everybody, but not everybody has money to buy that food and they lack the land on which to grow it themselves. The solution to the problem of hunger depends on attacking poverty and inequality among both producers and consumers of food. A food system increasingly dependent on genetically altered seeds takes us in the wrong direction.
Name: exploora
Comment: What kills me, is that technically the POW is part of the crown, and in my neck of the woods, we have all kinds of crown coorporations, and all kinds of criminals of poverty being punished by the crown by people who sometimes are known to earn over $100 an hour.
And globally look at the Comonwealth, and an organization of some of the poorest nations on the globe, both official and fighting to be official. (For example our First Nations).
Mercy is different though,it is something very real and is often about sacrifice.
And looking at this town, I can see the snobbery, and the manufactured poverty that comes from it.
And then I think of my grandfather and what he left. A type British snobbery and the poverty that comes from it. As a 17 year old, taking a boat to a land he believed would give him a better life, staying in the poorest part of the boat until who was hungry enough to beg for the scraps of rich people's plates and cute enough to get them. He Built a life for his family, and we were able to live like middle class people. Now he lies in a grave with a tomb stone with his name spelled wrong, no one seems to care.
And without people caring, people loose the sense of collective self worth and pride, and without that how can anyone believe they can be great or are living in a great nation?
It was great people who make positive change into the future and who build a great nation. And the rest at best just follow and worse are left begging for scraps from rich people's plates.
Name: Emily Elizabeth Windsor-Cragg
Comment: Such a challenge is more posturing than informative. The dangers of GM crops are well known and broadly publicized.
Further, it is patently obvious from the behavior of global corporatists, their only interest in saving the world from hunger is the profits they make off the sale of grains.
I'm sorry. I do not believe in the Goodwill of the Globalist movement. They are all talk and no sacrifice of their own precious comforts.
EEWC
Name: exploora
Comment: Thank God for small mercies for:
"The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed-- It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes".--William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)
And because
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy".--Wendell Berry
