EMAIL FROM: "Food Democracy Now! Team"

We need your help today. Farmers need your help.

On Monday we sent out an urgent petition to Stand With Farmers as they seek their day in court for a groundbreaking lawsuit that will protect them from Monsanto’s abusive lawsuits for alleged patent infringement.

Already more than 24,367 people have signed it, but it’s not enough. We need to let more people know about the threat that farmers are facing in America and it’s up to you.

Help us reach 40,000 signatures in the next 3 days so that family farmers know that the American people stand behind them.

Sign our petition and we will deliver your signatures to farmers attending the OSGATA et al vs. Monsanto lawsuit on January 31st in New York City.

In what can only be described to be another example of Agribusiness and Government interference in the lives of America’s family farmers, if Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) crops contaminate an organic or conventional farmer’s fields and that farmer saves and replants their own seed, under current U.S. law, the farmer can be sued by Monsanto for patent infringement.

Does this even sound like it could happen in America?

In fact, between 1997 and 2010, 144 farmers have already been sued by Monsanto and another 700 have settled out of court for undisclosed sums. Many times these abusive lawsuits force farmers into bankruptcy and off the land. We can’t allow that to continue to happen.

This is appalling. But it only happened because of the powerful collusion between corporate agribusiness and elected officials who have turned our regulatory agencies into revolving doors between Monsanto’s executives and other corporate officials.

Unfortunately, this collusion has left U.S. farmers trapped in an Orwellian Catch 22. If their neighbor plants a field next to theirs that contains GMOs and the pollen containing Monsanto's patented genes engineered in a lab blows across the fence onto their land and contaminates their crops, then they can not only be sued by Monsanto, but also lose their farm if they can’t afford the court costs. Sadly most can’t afford the fight. And Monsanto knows this.

Help put an end to the fear and intimidation that Monsanto’s abusive lawsuits have spread in rural America.

On January 31, family farmers will finally have their day in court as a federal district court judge has agreed to hear oral arguments on a case challenging Monsanto's agressive patent infringement lawsuits against farmers. As a plaintiff in the lawsuit, Food Democracy Now! will be there and want to make sure that America's farmers know that citizens everywhere stand with them.

Thank you for participating in food democracy,

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! team

P.S. For those who are interested or able, Food Democracy Now! and our fellow plaintiffs invite you to take part in a Citizen’s Assembly of Support for Family Farmers vs. Monsanto outside the court in an effort to stand up for America’s farmers at this crucial moment in their quest for justice. Click here to RSVP and learn more about how to participate outside the courtroom.

Further information:

1."Monsanto Seed Patents", Public Patent Foundation

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/516?akid=457.74416.Cwcq8q&t=12

2. "Judge to consider oral arguments in lawsuit against Monsanto", Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA), December 29, 2011.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/517?akid=457.74416.Cwcq8q&t=14

EMAIL FROM: "Food Democracy Now! Team"

On January 31, family farmers will take part in the first phase of a court case filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto’s GMO seed, which contaminates organic and non-GMO farmer’s crops and opens them up to abusive lawsuits. In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets.

In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain organic and conventional crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy.

Farmers need your voice today. Please spread the word.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/farmersvs_monsanto/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trish-kinney/the-politics-of-child-pro_b_1171373.html

The Politics of Child Protection Led by a Motley Pirate Ship of Pissed Off People

Posted: 12/27/11 03:41 PM ET by Trish Kinney

To understand the mission set forth in the website http://protect.org/ one need only spend an hour or so with Grier Weeks, Executive Director of the National Association to Protect Children. Ask him how we got where he is and he will tell you that after 20 years of working on political campaigns, he became increasingly upset with every election cycle that no one seemed to care about fighting for kids. He reviewed a national manual on registered Political Action Committees, as thick as the New York yellow pages, and not one involved the protection of children. Weeks has no personal experience with the work to which he now devotes his life, but he once began making a list of family members and friends whose lives had been impacted by abuse. When the list got too long, he quit counting. His anger continued to simmer.

In 2001 Weeks met Andrew Vachss, a well credentialed attorney/author with a specialty in child protection. Vachss commented that if we had an NRA for kids, everything would change. And Protect was born. Organized as a 501©4, a non-profit single-issue social welfare organization, Protect works hand in hand with the National Association to Protect Children, a 501©3 charitable organization. Their mutual mainstream bi-partisan agenda is reflected in their common website, protect.org. Weeks has equal disdain for Republicans and Democrats who flat out refuse to stand up for kids waiting to be rescued from abuse, violence, and sex trafficking. He is fond of saying that when the house is burning down, you don't stop at the gate and interview the firefighters about their position on the issues, you put the fire out. He just wants politicians to take action.

Protect meets with elected officials to show them absolute proof of the horrific things taking place in their own districts. Promising to make them the conquering hero for interrupting these terrible crimes in progress, they still walk away. He continues to ask the smartest people he knows how this can be but so far has no answers he can accept. There are so many victims now that child abuse is no longer an aberration, it is the norm. Why aren't we all outraged? If law enforcement technology can tell us where these diabolical perpetrators are, why aren't we rushing out to get them? Weeks just can't make his peace with this shocking, even catastrophic social injustice.

Liberals who profess to be advocates for human rights and domestic violence are "criminally silent on this issue, almost complicit," says Weeks. "They are hopelessly conflicted as to issues that should be black and white." When confronted with child pornography on the internet and video, talk turns to first amendment rights and the sanctity of the internet. Child trafficking that takes place in Nepal or Thailand is a clear evil to them. But when a child is trafficked in Kansas or Chicago, they stay silent. It is "unforgiveable, despicable" and forces the conclusion that liberals cannot be taken seriously on anything they have to say on human rights. Weeks is "enormously frustrated."

More at link.

http://www.centredaily.com/2011/12/11/3016401/abuse-images-database-bigger-scandal.html#ixzz1gEuDvmoe

Abuse images database bigger scandal for state

By Grier Weeks
Posted: 12:01am on Dec 11, 2011

http://magazine.columbia.edu/features/fall-2011/long-night

COVER STORY: The Long Night

Tackling the scourge of sex trafficking, from the big screen to the big street

by Paul Hond
Published Fall 2011

With her debut feature, The Whistleblower, director Larysa Kondracki '01GS has sparked a worldwide discussion on human trafficking.