Multinational Industrial Agriculture: A Spoke in the Imperial Wheel

Through Wikileaks we learned that the Bush administration wanted to punish EU countries that wouldn't accept the importation and use of genetically modified (GM) crops. This wasn't the first time the administration went to bat for Monsanto and the 'Big Agra' conglomerates.

Capitalism thrives on and promotes technological innovation and an ever increasing efficiency. Not a few advocates of that economic school have praised the 'advances' in industrial agriculture.

Even some members of the Christian Right have praised these innovations as being beneficial to humanity, in dealing with the growing population and have upbraided Third World and Europeans nations that have refused to allow these crops which they refer to as 'Franken-foods' to enter their countries.

Of course I also believe some of these commentators to be completely dishonest. Aside from the scientific concerns, these nations know that letting in GM products means not only a permanent change to the ecosystem, but it is literally to enslave their countries to Monsanto and other Multinational Corporations...and to live in fear of litigation and the threat of sanctions from the governments (like the US) which are wedded to them.

The issue is much larger than the science or the environment. Those issues are present, but from the perspective of governance the scope is wider.

There's a growing number of people (including not a few Christians) who have reacted to all this. Alarmed by the ubiquitous toxins and artificial chemicals present in our techno-industrial society there's a reaction largely found in a growing organic movement. Some have even put a theological spin on this and wedded a 'return to the land' with certain historic and cultural narratives. The level of zeal varies from avoidance of preservatives to large scale de-chemicalizing of the household and lifestyle.

While admirable, I don't believe it's even possible to do this. Like it or not this stuff is everywhere. That's not to say that we wouldn't like to see some changes, but I don't believe it's possible to completely remove these 'chemicals' from our lives. They're in our cars, the air we breathe, our clothes...even our mattresses. Even the Amish cannot escape.

And unfortunately there's also a great deal of misinformation and myth in circulation as well. There are some alarming and quite valid criticisms but for every bit of good information there's an equal part of what can only be called hysteria inducing misinformation.

Not a few pro-Industry advocates and shills for the Christian Right prey on the misinformation and try to discredit the entire Organic movement.

Here's what I find interesting. These same folks who have realized Industrialized Agriculture is harmful don't seem to understand what's generating it and why the government seems to aggressively defend it.

They seem to miss the fact that just as Goldman Sachs seems to control the US Treasury department, it's Monsanto and its corporate cousins which control the FDA and the agricultural regulations in this country.

But the real culprit is the capitalist system. There are those that decry 'Crony' Capitalism, but it's simply the logical end of the system. Once you move beyond dollars and cents you graduate to the realm of the marketplace itself, the market of ideas, the laws which regulate the market and policy which will open up new markets and tap into new resources. The Ron Paul/Rockwell/Mises crowd can criticize Cronyism all they want, but it's simply their own doctrine taken to the next level and applied to a technological society.

It is not the government that's coming after dairy farmers that want to sell raw milk. It's the corporate agricultural world that's using the FDA to go after farmers. As John D. Rockefeller famously said, 'Competition is a sin.'

The FDA is simply following the wishes of its corporate masters when it refuses to mandate that GM foods be labeled on our shelves.

It's not some kind of Socialist system making everyone get in line. It's not a government conspiracy trying to threaten political dissent and social non-conformity.

There are certainly plenty of those. In this case it's a corporate conspiracy or perhaps more properly a joint conspiracy because increasingly the lines of separation have grown pretty blurry. More and more it's looking like it's the government which serves the corporate interest.

But what is disappointing to see is that so many Christians who have embraced the 'organic' movement don't understand what forces are engaged in the activities they reject.

And the system which sustains and perpetuates this concentration of power in the hands of industrial profiteers? They've been taught that it's the 'Christian' system.

If it is in fact Christian, then the mouthpieces of industry at work in Christian media are validated and the organic movement should be abandoned.

If not, then I would encourage these well meaning folks to start re-thinking the issues, what the Bible really says, and what are in the implications of Capitalism... not in the fairy dreamland utopias of Thomas Sowell and his ilk, but in the hardscrabble, dirty and corrupt real world where Capitalism means destruction and death for those who happen to end up on the wrong side of its power curve.

If you want to stop the Monsanto's of the world, then you have to restrict their activities, they have to be regulated or in some cases the state has to intervene to break up their power.

Otherwise they will rule the day and their money will buy whatever politician, legal protections or country they wish to purchase.

Am I advocating activism?

Not political activism, no. Besides the fact that I don't think we're called to engage ourselves in this fight, I truly don't believe we can change the system. I think those that seriously attempt to do so are destroyed.

If the Wikileaks and Snowden episodes teach us anything it's that a line has been crossed and those that wish to 'take on' the Corporate Plutocracy will be destroyed. Their reputation will be shattered, they will be dead or at the very least on the run.

The problem is we wouldn't be fighting one or two over-sized bogeymen. Those that want to fight a company like Monsanto are literally taking on the system itself, the very heart and pulse of the Empire.

You will lose. But we can take comfort, for the nations are like grasshoppers and a drop in the bucket before the Lord whom we serve. He will recompense. He will bring justice.

We must continue to be salt and light...telling the truth even if it puts us in peril.

And for starters we can quit baptizing evil or hiding the evil that men do behind twisted exegesis and juvenile models which only function in the idealised world of the ivory tower.