Hillary Clinton: The Bride of Frankenfood —The Most Vocal Proponent of GM Food in the Race for President

Although during her tenure in the White House as first lady Hillary enjoyed the benefit of 8 years of organic non-GMO food by virtue of her residency in the White House, 2016 candidate Clinton has been perhaps the most vocal proponent of GM food to yet enter the race.

By Brandon Turbeville
According to Global Research writer Stephen Lendman, nearly all the food produced for the Clinton White House was obtained from local growers and suppliers, GMO-free, pesticide-free, and with a preference for organic.[1] That, preference, however, is not to be afforded the American people and the people of the Third World for whom Hillary is pushing every toxic GM variety known to man.

Hillary’s Big-Agra ties go back quite a long ways. As far back as the 1980s, Hillary was working at high levels within the Rose Law Firm, a law firm that itself was tied to a number of scandals. Although not a scandal at the time, it is now important to note that the Rose Law Firm, at which Clinton was a partner, maintained Monsanto and Tyson Foods as clients.[2]

Yet a mere association between law firms and such food giants was by no means the depths of Clinton’s connection to these institutions and the industry of Genetically Modified Organisms and “biotechnology.”

It has been speculated by many that Hillary’s ties to Monsanto and Tyson as a result of her career with Rose was yet another link in the chain pulling biotech giants together with the Bill Clinton administration in the 1990s. Indeed, Clinton’s disastrous presidency resulted in seeing a number of former-biotech giant employees being hired and appointed to the FDA, USDA, and other relevant regulatory posts within the US government. While being careful not to ascribe the blame of Bill Clinton’s either years of treachery to Hillary, it is nevertheless worthwhile to ask whether or not Hillary served as a middleman of sorts for major government-corporate collusion of this type.

After all, when Clinton became US Secretary of State, she acted as Monsanto’s promoter both domestically and across the world, continuing a policy of GMO promotion that preceded and, apparently, continued even after she left the office.

In December, 2010, WikiLeaks released sizable number of cables, about ten percent of which revealed that the US State Department was essentially acting as the marketing wing for biotech companies and “biotech” products across the world. The thousands of cables that were released spanned over 100 embassies and were, unfortunately, released just before Christmas. As a result, the story faded into the holiday madness.[3]

Thankfully, in 2013, the watchdog organization Food and Water Watch delved into the cables and released a report entitled “Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” According to Food and Water Watch, their study “reveals a concerted strategy to promote agricultural biotechnology overseas, compel countries to import biotech crops and foods they do not want, and lobby foreign governments — especially in the developing world — to adopt policies to pave the way to cultivate biotech crops.”[4]

Food and Water Watch wrote,

Food and Water Watch closely examined five years of State Department diplomatic cables from 2005 to 2009 to provide the first comprehensive analysis of the strategy, tactics and U.S. foreign policy objectives to foist pro-agricultural biotechnology policies worldwide. Food & Water Watch’s illuminating findings include:

The U.S. State Department’s multifaceted efforts to promote the biotechnology industry overseas: The State Department targeted foreign reporters, hosted and coordinated pro-biotech conferences and public events and brought foreign opinion-makers to the United States on high-profile junkets to improve the image of agricultural biotechnology overseas and overcome widespread public opposition to GE crops and foods.

The State Department’s coordinated campaign to promote biotech business interests: The State Department promoted not only pro-biotechnology policies but also the products of biotech companies. The strategy cables explicitly “protect the interests” of biotech exporters, “facilitate trade in agri-biotech products” and encourage the cultivation of GE crops in more countries, especially in the developing world.[5]

The State Department’s determined advocacy to press the developing world to adopt biotech crops: The diplomatic cables document a coordinated effort to lobby countries in the developing world to pass legislation and implement regulations favored by the biotech seed industry. This study examines the State Department lobbying campaigns in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria to pass pro-biotech laws.

The State Department’s efforts to force other nations to accept biotech crop and food imports:The State Department works with the U.S. Trade Representative to promote the export of biotech crops and to force nations that do not want these imports to accept U.S. biotech foods and crops.[6]

FWW also provides a few Hillary quotes demonstrating the State Department’s push for GM crops worldwide such as her statements linking GMOs to solving “climate change” and world hunger.[7]

“We believe that biotechnology has a critical role to play in increasing agricultural productivity, particularly in light of climate change,” Clinton is quoted as stating.[8]

“[W]e want to shift our focus to agricultural sustainability, focusing on the small producers, helping them understand the value of GMOs — genetically modified organisms,” she also said while serving as Secretary of State.[9]

Clinton also extolled the virtues of GE technology upon her visit to Kenya when she stated that “With Kenya’s leadership in biotechnology and biosafety, we cannot only improve agriculture in Kenya, but Kenya can be leader for the rest of Africa.”[10]

While the FWW report can scarcely be dealt with in any reasonable detail within the scope of this article, it is recommended that the reader take advantage of the fact that it is freely available online at this link: http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf

It should be mentioned that, as Secretary of State, Hillary also helped promote the USAID –funded program “Feed the Future,” an initiative that promotes and introduces Round-up Ready®products all over the world.[11]

Yet, even as Hillary was acting as Monsanto and Big-Agra’s PR woman as Secretary of State, the Clinton Global Initiative was receiving sizable donations from Monsanto and Dow Chemical. As Judy Frankel of the Huffington Post writes in her article “Hillary vs. Bernie On Frankenfood,”

How is Hillary personally involved in supporting big agriculture? The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which gathers leaders to solve the world’s problems, promotes Monsanto, the maker of RoundUp® and RoundUp Ready® seeds. Hugh Grant, Monsanto’s Chairman and CEO spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in September, 2014. Ms. Clinton’s top campaign advisor, Jerry Crawford, was a lobbyist for Monsanto for years and is now the political pro for her Super PAC, “Ready for Hillary.”[12] Clinton spoke in favor of the government’s Feed the Future (FtF) program, a USAID funded, corporate-partnered program that brings RoundUp Ready® technology to the most vulnerable populations of the world.[13] Monsanto and Dow Chemical support Hillary and Bill’s ‘Clinton Foundation’ with generous donations.

Last year, at a San Diego biotech conference, Hillary coached her audience in messaging. “Genetically modified sounds Frankensteinish. Drought-resistant sounds like something you’d want. Be more careful so you don’t raise that red flag immediately.”

It’s also highly unlikely for Hillary Clinton to stand up against her benefactors, saying she favors a review of RoundUp, 2,4-D, and the even more toxic poisons used by farmers worldwide when she has friends in the industry telling her that they will “feed the world” someday with their agricultural methods.[14]

According to Stephen Lendman,

Monsanto gave the Clinton Foundation from half a million to one million dollars – Ag giant Dow Chemical from one to five million dollars, according to Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation disclosures.

Numerous other corporate giants contributed large sums. Expect them donating handsomely to Hillary’s presidential campaign.[15]

The Washington Times echoes Lendman’s claims by stating that “Monsanto gave the foundation between $501,250 and $1 million. Dow Chemical Company, which is among the top GMO players, gave between $1 million and $5 million, according to financial disclosures by the Clinton Foundation.”[16]

Candidate Clinton is no better than Secretary, Senator, or First Lady Clinton. In fact, she may even be worse considering that, even when faced with election woes stemming from her support of GM foods, she is still stalwart and vocal in her support of them, going so far as to openly raise funds from Big-Agra donors and attend Big-Agra lobbying initiatives.[17]

Candidate Clinton in 2008 was bad enough. Back then, Clinton was supported by a group called Rural Americans For Hillary, an organization closely connected to the lobbying firm of Monsanto.[18]

Clinton’s “adviser” for her campaign for Secretary of State, 2008 Presidency, and both Senate runs was Mark Penn, a close adviser to Clinton as well as PR rep for Monsanto via his PR firm Burson-Marsteller. [19] [20] [21]

Linn Cohen-Cole suggests that it was Hillary Clinton who was the brainchild (at Penn’s instruction) to appoint notorious Monsanto henchman Michael Taylor to the position of head of the FDA, a man whom Bill Clinton had once appointed to the FDA and USDA.[22]

In 2015, when Hillary began assembling her 2016 campaign team, she tapped Monsanto lobbyist Jerry Crawford to act as an “adviser” to the Ready For Hillary Super PAC. Crawford was also co-chair of her 2008 campaign.[23]

As Zaid Jilani wrote for Alternet,

Before joining Clinton’s campaign in 2008, Crawford served in a variety of high-profile political roles. In addition to a variety of local positions, he served as the Iowa chair for the presidential campaigns of Mike Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry—each one the more conservative candidates in their Democratic presidential primaries.

So it was a natural fit for Crawford to sign up for the Hillary campaign. But after Clinton’s 2008 loss, Crawford spent his days at Crawford Muaro, his law and lobbying firm.[24] While there, he represented a variety of corporate clients, including Kraft and Altria (the parent company of Philip Morris USA). He also served as a lawyer for Jack DeCoster, a factory farm tycoon who infamously supplied eggs that led to a salmonella outbreak. His most prominent client, however, was Monsanto.[25]

Stephen Lendman also points out that Crawford was involved in fighting small farmers through the court system on behalf of Big-Agra.[26]

Hillary’s long history with Big Agra should have foretold the glowing praise she would leap upon GM crops and big Biotech companies at the world’s largest trade organization of biotechnology firms in San Diego in late June 2014.[27]

“I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record,” Hillary said. She also added that pro-GMO advocates need to continue to hammer at those more skeptical of frankenfoods. “There is a big gap between what the facts are, and what the perceptions are,” she said, echoing a typical Big Agra talking point designed to be appealing to trendies and hipsters.[28]

Clinton also gave some marketing advice to the participants regarding how they present GM food to the public. “‘Genetically modified’ sounds Frankensteinish. ‘Drought resistance’ sounds really – something you want. So how do you create a different vocabulary to talk about what it is you’re trying to help people do,” she said.[29]

She also state:

We talk about drought-resistant seeds, and I’ve promoted them all over Africa. By definition, they have been engineered to be drought-resistant, I mean that’s the beauty of them. Maybe somebody can get their harvest done and not starve, and maybe there’s some left over to sell. And yet I’ve been involved in a lot of the political debates in other countries about whether or not to accept certain kinds of seeds.

. . . . .

We created a program called Feed the Future, which is trying to help the farmers be educated enough to know that drought-resistant seeds, for example, are not going to hurt them. And this is painstaking work, doesn’t get solved overnight. You have to be working at the top with the departments of agriculture, with finance ministries, with prime ministers and presidents’ offices, and you have to be working from the bottom up. I don’t see the short cut for it.

. . . . . .

I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else.[30]

Clinton’s 2016 race has, as mentioned, gotten off to a great start thanks to donations from Monsanto lobbyists in the form of bundlers – fundraisers who are able to skirt election donation laws by convincing their contacts and associates to donate to a political candidate.

Jerry Crawford, the famed Iowa-based Monsanto lobbyist, has already raised $35,000 for Clinton.[32]

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 600 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

This article (Hillary Clinton: The Bride Of Frankenfood) can be republished under this share-alike Creative Commons license with attribution to Brandon Turbeville, the article link and Natural Blaze.com.


Notes:

[1] Lendman, Stephen. “Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOS. White House Meals Are Organic.” Global Research (Centre For Research On Globalization). May 25, 2015.http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-endorses-gmos-white-house-meals-are-organic/5451481 Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[2] Gerth, Jeff; Van Natta, Jr., Don (2007). Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-01742-6. p. 60.

[3] Hatfield, Leslie. “New Analysis Of Wikileaks Shows State Department’s Promotion Of Monsanto’s GMOs Abroad.” Huffington Post. July 20, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-hatfield/new-analysis-of-wikileaks_b_3306842.html Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[4] “Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[5] U.S. Department of State (U.S. DoS). “FY 2008 biotechnology outreach strategy and department resources.” Cable No. 07STATE160639. November 27, 2007.

[6] “Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[7] Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[8] U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. Hearing on the President’s FY2009 War Supplemental Request. April 30, 2009.

[9] Lauritsen, Sharon Bomer, Executive Vice President of Food and Agriculture at BIO. Letter to Professeur De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. May 29, 2009 at 14.

[10] Clinton, Hillary. Remarks at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. August 5, 2009

[11] Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[12] Jilani, Zaid. “Hillary’s Pick For Her Political Fixer In Iowa Is A Classic Illustration Of America’s Political Corporate Insider Problem.” Alter Net. March 9, 2015. http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hillarys-pick-her-political-fixer-iowa-classic-illustration-americas-political Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[13] Ishii-Eiteman, Marcia. “U.S. Looks To Monsanto To Feed The World.” Ground Truth. February 2, 2011. http://www.panna.org/blog/us-looks-monsanto-feed-world Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[14] Frankel, Judy. “Hillary Vs. Bernie On Frankenfood.” Huffington Post. June 23, 2015.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/hillary-vs-bernie-on-fran_b_7638846.htmlAccessed on September 2, 2015.

[15] Lendman, Stephen. “Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOS. White House Meals Are Organic.” Global Research (Centre For Research On Globalization). May 25, 2015.http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-endorses-gmos-white-house-meals-are-organic/5451481 Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[16] “Hillary’s Agribusiness Ties Give Rise To Nickname In Iowa: ‘Bride Of Frankenfood.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/hillary-clinton-gmo-support-monsanto-ties-spark-ba/?page=1 Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[17] “Hillary’s Agribusiness Ties Give Rise To Nickname In Iowa: ‘Bride Of Frankenfood.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/hillary-clinton-gmo-support-monsanto-ties-spark-ba/?page=1 Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[18] Parker, Jennifer. “Yee-Haw.” ABC News. December 17, 2007.http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/10/yee-haw.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[19] Sarich, Christina. “’Bride Of Frankenfood’ Hillary Clinton’s GMO Ties Spark Backlash In Iowa.” Natural Society. May 28, 2015. http://naturalsociety.com/bride-of-frankenfood-hillary-clintons-gmo-ties-spark-backlash-in-iowa/ Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[20] Johnson, Luke. “Mark Penn All But Out For Potential Hillary Clinton 2016 Run.” Huffington Post. May 20, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/mark-penn-hillary-clinton_n_3305808.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[21] Scarehuman. “Mark Penn, Taking A Break From Monsanto To Run Hillary Clinton’s Campaign.” Daily Kos. March 17, 2008. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/03/17/458386/-Mark-Penn-taking-a-break-from-Monsanto-to-run-Hillary-Clinton-s-campaign Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[22] Cohen-Cole, Linn. “Monsanto And Hillary Clinton’s Redemptive First Act As Secretary Of State.” OpEdNews. February 9, 2009. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-Hillary-Clint-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090209-290.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[23] Terris, Ben. “Jerry Crawford Has Two Goals: Delivering Iowa For Hillary Clinton And Winning The Kentucky Derby.” Washington Post. March 2, 2015.https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hillary-clintons-iowa-horse-whisperer-jerry-crawford-aims-for-caucus-kentucky-derby/2015/03/02/9c93b638-be23-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[24] “Jerry Crawford.” Crawford Mauro Law Firm.” Crawford bio.http://www.crawfordlawfirm.com/attorneys/view.cfm?id=20 Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[25] Jilani, Zaid. “Hillary’s Pick For Her Political Fixer In Iowa Is A Classic Illustration Of America’s Political Corporate Insider Problem.” Alter Net. March 9, 2015. http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hillarys-pick-her-political-fixer-iowa-classic-illustration-americas-political Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[26] Lendman, Stephen. “Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOS. White House Meals Are Organic.” Global Research (Centre For Research On Globalization). May 25, 2015.http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-endorses-gmos-white-house-meals-are-organic/5451481 Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[27] Lim, XiaoZhi. “Video: Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOs, Solution-focused Crop Biotechnology.” Genetic Literacy Project. July 3, 2014. http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/07/03/video-hilary-clinton-endorses-gmos-solution-focused-crop-biotechnology/ Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[28] Ocean, Max. “Hillary Clinton Goes To Bat For GMOs At Biotech Conference.” Common Dreams. July 3, 2014. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/03/hillary-clinton-goes-bat-gmos-biotech-conference Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[29] Ocean, Max. “Hillary Clinton Goes To Bat For GMOs At Biotech Conference.” Common Dreams. July 3, 2014. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/03/hillary-clinton-goes-bat-gmos-biotech-conference Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[30] Lim, XiaoZhi. “Video: Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOs, Solution-focused Crop Biotechnology.” Genetic Literacy Project. July 3, 2014. http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/07/03/video-hilary-clinton-endorses-gmos-solution-focused-crop-biotechnology/ Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[31] “Hillary Clinton At BIO Convention 2014.” Youtube. Posted by Ken Stone. June 27, 2014. Hillary Rodham Clinton, answering questions as if a presidential contender, speaks to thousands at the BIO International Convention on June 25, 2014, at the San Diego Convention Center. She was interviewed by Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hypwb_SYaAc&feature=youtu.be Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[32] Brody, Ben. “Lobbyists For Monsanto, ExxonMobil Raise Money For Hillary Clinton.” Bloomberg, July 17, 2015. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/lobbyists-for-monsanto-exxon-mobile-raise-money-for-hillary-clinton Accessed on September 2, 2015.

Copyright © Brandon Turbeville, Natural Blaze, 2016

Empire and Colonialism: Rich Men in London Still Deciding Africa’s Future

Photo by A.Davey.

Some £600 million in UK aid money courtesy of the taxpayer is helping big business increase its profits in Africa via the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. In return for receiving aid money and corporate investment, African countries have to change their laws, making it easier for corporations to acquire farmland, control seed supplies and export produce.

By Colin Todhunter
Last year, Director of the Global Justice Now Nick Dearden said:

“It’s scandalous that UK aid money is being used to carve up Africa in the interests of big business. This is the exact opposite of what is needed, which is support to small-scale farmers and fairer distribution of land and resources to give African countries more control over their food systems. Africa can produce enough food to feed its people. The problem is that our food system is geared to the luxury tastes of the richest, not the needs of ordinary people. Here the British government is using aid money to make the problem even worse.”

Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Nigeria, Benin, Malawi and Senegal are all involved in the New Alliance.

RELATED STORY: Corporate Land Grabbers In Northern Mozambique Are Kicking African Farmers Off of Their Lands

In a January 2015 piece in The Guardian, Dearden continued by saying that development was once regarded as a process of breaking with colonial exploitation and transferring power over resources from the ‘first’ to the ‘third world’, involving a revolutionary struggle over the world’s resources. However, the current paradigm is based on the assumption that developing countries need to adopt neo-liberal policies and that public money in the guise of aid should facilitate this. The notion of ‘development’ has become hijacked by rich corporations and the concept of poverty depoliticised and separated from structurally embedded power relations.

To see this in action, we need look no further to a conference held on Monday 23 March in London, organised by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This secretive, invitation-only meeting with aid donors and big seed companies discussed a strategy to make it easier for these companies to sell patented seeds in Africa and thus increase corporate control of seeds.

Farmers have for generations been saving and exchanging seeds among themselves. This has allowed them a certain degree of independence and has enabled them to innovate, maintain biodiversity, adapt seeds to climatic conditions and fend off plant disease. Big seed companies with help from the Gates Foundation, the US government and other aid donors are now discussing ways to increase their market penetration of commercial seeds by displacing farmers own seed systems.

Corporate sold hybrid seeds often produce higher yields when first planted, but the second generation seeds produce low yields and unpredictable crop traits, making them unsuitable for saving and storing. As Heidi Chow from Global Justice Now rightly says, instead of saving seeds from their own crops, farmers who use hybrid seeds become completely dependent on the seed, fertiliser and pesticide companies, which can (and has) in turn result in an agrarian crisis centred on debt, environmental damage and health problems.

The London conference aimed to share findings of a report by Monitor Deloitte on developing the commercial seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa. The report recommends that in countries where farmers are using their own seed saving networks NGOs and aid donors should encourage governments to introduce intellectual property rights for seed breeders and help to persuade farmers to buy commercial, patented seeds rather than relying on their own traditional varieties. The report also suggests that governments should remove regulations so that the seed sector is opened up to the global market.

The guest list comprised corporations, development agencies and aid donors, including Syngenta, the World Bank and the Gates Foundation. It speaks volumes that not one farmer organisation was invited. Farmers have been imbued with the spirit of entrepreneurship for thousands of years. They have been “scientists, innovators, natural resource stewards, seed savers and hybridisation experts” who have increasingly been reduced to becoming recipients of technical fixes and consumers of poisonous products of a growing agricultural inputs industry. So who better than to discuss issues concerning agriculture?

But the whole point of such a conference is that the West regards African agriculture as a ‘business opportunity’, albeit wrapped up in warm-sounding notions of ‘feeding Africa’ or ‘lifting millions out of poverty’. The West’s legacy in Africa (and elsewhere) has been to plunge millions into poverty. Enforcing structural reforms to benefit big agribusiness and its unsustainable toxic GMO/petrochemical inputs represents a continuation of the neo-colonialist plundering of Africa. The US has for many decades been using agriculture as a key part of foreign policy to secure global hegemony.

Phil Bereano, food sovereignty campaigner with AGRA Watch and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington says:

“This is an extension of what the Gates Foundation has been doing for several years – working with the US government and agribusiness giants like Monsanto to corporatize Africa’s genetic riches for the benefit of outsiders. Don’t Bill and Melinda realize that such colonialism is no longer in fashion? It’s time to support African farmers’ self-determination.”

Bereano also shows how Western corporations only intend to cherry-pick the most profitable aspects of the food production chain, while leaving the public sector in Africa to pick up the tab for the non-profitable aspects that allow profitability further along the chain.

Giant agritech corporations with their patented seeds and associated chemical inputs are ensuring a shift away from diversified agriculture that guarantees balanced local food production, the protection of people’s livelihoods and agricultural sustainability. African agriculture is being placed in the hands of big agritech for private profit under the pretext of helping the poor. The Gates Foundation has substantial shares in Monsanto. With Monsanto’s active backingfrom the US State Department and the Gates Foundation’s links with USAID, African farmers face a formidable force.

Report after report suggests that support for conventional agriculture, agroecology and local economies is required, especially in the Global South. Instead, Western governments are supporting powerful corporations with taxpayers money whose thrust via the WTO, World Bank and IMF has been to encourage strings-attached loans, monocrop cultivation for export using corporate seeds, the restructuring of economies, the opening of economies to the vagaries of land and commodity speculation and a system of globalised trade rigged in favour of the West.

In this vision for Africa, those farmers who are regarded as having any role to play in all of this are viewed only as passive consumers of corporate seeds and agendas. The future of Africa is once again being decided by rich men in London.

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

'There is a Crisis with the United States' — Says Israel's Finance Minister

Comments follow the Obama administration’s refusal to allow Israeli defense minister to meet with top national security aides

The Obama Administration rejected a proposal to let Israeli officials meet with
national security adviser Susan Rice (pictured above) and vice president Joe Biden
(Photo by the US Dept of Agriculture)

By The Guardian
A top Israeli minister said on Saturday there was a “crisis” in the country’s relations with the United States that must be fixed.

Finance minister Yair Lapid’s comments came a day after US officials said the Obama administration refused Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon’s requests to meet several top national security aides.

The White House and the State Department rejected Israeli proposals for meetings with vice-president Joe Biden, national security adviser Susan Rice and secretary of state John Kerry on his five-day trip to the US. The administration is still angered by negative comments Yaalon made about Kerry’s peace efforts in the middle east and nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Lapid said “there is a crisis with the United States” and added that the relationship “must be managed respectfully and responsibly”.

From The Guardian

Why Regime Change Won’t Stop ISIS in Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Tony Cartalucci
Because it didn’t stop ISIS terrorists in Iraq or Libya. Try Washington instead. US corporate-financier funded policy think tanks have been taking turns in recent weeks floating the narrative that the next logical step to stopping so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) terrorists in Syria is removing the Syrian government from power – this despite the fact that the only cohesive, organized force in the region capable of fighting ISIS terrorists is the Syrian government and its Syrian Arab Army.

Kenneth M. Pollack a policy writer at the Brookings Institution and a signatory of the noxious 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report Brookings produced which advocated arming and funding listed terrorist organizations to fight Iran under the cover of street protests (exactly how the US went about plunging Syria into its current crisis), has recently penned his thoughts on what should be done in Syria. Titled, “An Army to Defeat Assad: How to Turn Syria’s Opposition Into a Real Fighting Force,” Pollack claims:

…there is, in fact, a way that the United States could get what it wants in Syria — and, ultimately, in Iraq as well — without sending in U.S. forces: by building a new Syrian opposition army capable of defeating both President Bashar al-Assad and the more militant Islamists. 

Pollack correctly assesses that the real US goal, as it has been since 2011 when it triggered street mobs as cover for terrorists aligned to Al Qaeda, is to remove Syrian President Bashar al Assad from power. The US State Department would openly claim as much, using ISIS as a nebulous pretext for toppling the Syrian government. The Hill in an article titled, “State: Assad must go for ISIS to be defeated,” claims:

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Friday that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) cannot be defeated as long as Syrian President Bashar Assad remains in power.

Harf would go on to say:

“The best thing that the Syrian people can have going forward is not ISIS, it’s not the Assad regime, but it’s a new transitional government that leads them to a better future and ends this horrible bloodshed we’ve seen over the last three years.”

Of course, there is no “transitional government,” and neither Pollack nor Harf ever managed to explain just why the toppling of the Syrian government would help eliminate ISIS. Comments appear to infer that by doing so, somehow Syria would see the rise of a more “inclusive government” better capable of uniting Syrian society and thus counter ISIS.

Similar disingenuous propositions were used to sell the toppling of Libya’s government in 2011 which predictably led to precisely the opposite of peace, stability, and a cohesive, inclusive government. Libya lies in ruins with the sectarian extremists NATO intentionally armed and thrust into power, ruling over a divided and broken nation.

Next door to Syria in Iraq, upon ISIS’ initial invasion into northern Iraq, the US advocated regime change which it promptly achieved. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stepped down from power to make way for what the Western called an “inclusive government” it claimed would be better able to counter ISIS and reverse sectarian rifts in Iraqi society.

With Iraqi bases still falling to ISIS terrorists and the violence escalating, the West appears to be retrenching its rhetoric, claiming that the solution now to both Syria and Iraq’s bloodshed is – not cutting off ISIS’ funding from US allies like Saudi Arabia or Qatar, or running them out of safe havens they have maintained in Jordan and Turkey – but rather to topple the Syrian government to finally achieve their fabled “inclusive government” that has eluded them thus far in Libya and now Iraq.

Regime change has not worked in Libya or Iraq, nor will it work in Syria to eliminate ISIS. The quandary ISIS appears to pose to Western policymakers is owed to an intentional misrepresentation as to what ISIS is in the first place. It is the very “moderates” the US and its European and Middle Eastern partners have been arming and funding for years. ISIS represents the sectarian extremists veteran journalist Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh warned the world about as early as 2007 in his New Yorker report titled, “The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” which stated (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

ISIS is an extremist group that espouses a militant vision of Islam that appears hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. It is a battering ram the US first used in its attempt to violently overthrow the Syrian government, and failing to achieve that, a pretext to intervene directly to achieve its goal of regime change. Though Al Qaeda has been operating under various names in Syria since US-engineered chaos unfolded in 2011, it wasn’t until recently that the Western press began vilifying sectarian extremists Washington, London, Riyadh, Doha, Ankara, and Tel Aviv have been backing and directing for years. This is simply to flip the script and allow the West’s mercenaries to now become a convenient pretext for direct military intervention.

If regime change stood any chance of stopping ISIS – it should be carried out in the capitals of the nations currently arming and funding ISIS – Washington (Wall Street), London, Riyadh, Doha, Ankara, and Tel Aviv. For good measure, nations like Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates should have their unelected, autocratic regimes toppled and their capacity to fund global terrorism uprooted. Anything less is but an insidious hegemonic act of military aggression, couched behind solving bloodshed of the West’s own making.

________________________

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/10/14/why-regime-change-won-t-stop-isis-in-syria/

Reprinted with permission from New Eastern Outlook

Did Ukraine Rebels Shoot Down Malaysia Airliner?: Just Another Super Myth From The West — CIA Analysts Don't Believe It

Wreckage of Malaysia Airliner in East Ukraine. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Dave Lindorff
With the US continuing to push its submissive European “allies” towards an ever more confrontational stance against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine (a crisis initially provoked by the US itself through CIA and State Department actions that led to the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government), the world appears headed towards a dangerous renewed Cold War between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.

A central part of that campaign by Washington has been the effort to blame the downing of Malaysian Flight 17, which killed all 298 passengers and crew, on Russia, or failing that, on pro-Russian separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. This campaign has used innuendo, falsified evidence and, weirdly, spurious and sometimes absurd “evidence” circulating in various social media — all of which which people like Secretary of State John Kerry and president Obama himself have tried to say “prove” that Russia, or at least a Russian-provided high-altitude BUK anti-aircraft missile, was responsible for the downing.

But increasingly, critics, including analysts within the CIA, have been throwing cold water on that theory. Suspiciously, the US, which had a spy satellite located directly over the Malaysian plane at the very time of the shoot-down, and which certainly has detailed photographic images of exactly what happened, has offered no a single photo to prove its contention that a missile was fired from territory under rebel control.

Meanwhile, there are multiple claims that the CIA — and perhaps the National Security Agency too — have evidence that it was Ukrainian forces, not separatists, who shot down the plane, either using one of the several dozen BUK launchers that they are known to possess themselves, or by two Ukrainian attack fighters that were known to be tailing the Malaysian commercial jet shoot it down with machine gun fire and/or air-to-air missiles.

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Israel Got US Arms During Its Gaza Killing Spree: Israel's Agents Within US Military Transferred Arms Without White House Approval

In an unprecedented move, the Obama Administration has declared that no more Hellfire missile shipments would be made to Israel, that no arms were to go to Israel without the White House's direct approval, and that all new arms requests by Israel would be addressed on an individual basis. A phone call between President Barack Obama and Israel's prime minister Netanyahu is called 'combative.'

Protest near Times Square in New York, NY - July 18, 2014. (Photo by BlPlN)

By Rebecca Shabad
An Israeli request for a transfer of Hellfire missiles from the United States was put on hold after the White House and State Department learned they were kept in the dark concerning ammunition transfers to Israel in July, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday.

RELATED STORY: Israel Flagged as Top Security Threat to US - According to New NSA Whistleblower Document

“We were blindsided,” one U.S. diplomat told the Journal after the newspaper learned Israel had acquired 120 mm mortar shells and 40 mm illuminating rounds from the U.S.

Israel had made the request on July 20 for the munitions, and on July 30 an Israeli shell struck a United Nations-run school in Gaza that killed a number of people.

The report said the U.S. military approved the transfer three days after the request, but it wasn’t made public until later. The munitions were already stored in a pre-positioned weapons stockpile in Israel.
One U.S. defense official told the Journal that the transfer followed proper protocols.

“There was no intent to blindside anyone. The process for this transfer was followed precisely along the lines that it should have," the official said.

RELATED STORY: The Israeli “Art Student” Mystery — Hundreds of Young Israelis Falsely Claiming to be Art Students Haunted Federal Facilities

The White House, however, then instructed the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency and other U.S. agencies to consult White House and State Department officials before approving future requests from Israel.

A senior Obama administration official told the Journal the munitions transfers shouldn’t have been a routine “check-the-box approval” process.

The development has contributed to recent tensions between the U.S. and Israel, officials from the U.S., Israel and Palestine said.

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Israel Spied on US Secretary of State Kerry During 'Peace Talks' — With 'Friends' Like These. . .

Illustration by Duncan Hull.

By Rory Carroll
Israel spied on the US secretary of state, John Kerry, during peace talks with Palestinians and Arab states last year, the magazine Der Spiegel has reported.

The German weekly said on Sunday that Israeli intelligence and at least one other secret service intercepted Kerry’s phone calls during a doomed, nine-month effort to broker a peace deal.

If confirmed, the report will further sour the diplomat’s relationship with Binyamin Netanyahu’s government and raise fresh questions about the vulnerability of phone communications to eavesdropping.

There was no immediate reaction from Jerusalem or Washington. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The report was published on another bloody day in Gaza, where a projectile hit a street outside a school where people were sheltering, killing at least seven and wounding dozens, many of whom were buying sweets and biscuits from stalls.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called the attack a “moral outrage and a criminal act” and said the Israel Defence Forces had been repeatedly informed of the location of civilian shelters.

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Israel Shows America Who's Boss: Force US Secretary of State Kerry To Issue Apology Over 'Israel May Become Apartheid State' Remarks

Secretary of State John Kerry: He forgot who was in charge of
US Mid East policy - Israel. (Screen capture from YouTube
video)

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Secretary of State John Kerry issued an unusual statement Monday evening expressing his support for Israel after a controversy erupted over a politically charged phrase he used in a private appearance.

Speaking to a closed-door meeting of the Trilateral Commission last week, Mr. Kerry said that if a Middle East peace agreement was not achieved, Israel risked becoming an “apartheid state,” according to an article in The Daily Beast, an online publication. The comments were noted in the Israeli news media and were severely criticized by some American Jewish organizations.

“Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said. “Israel is the lone stable democracy in the Middle East, protects the rights of minorities regardless of ethnicity or religion.”

RELATED STORY: Jewish White Supremacy Placed in Spotlight By NBA Clippers Owner - ‘There Are White Jews and Black Jews' — 'You go to Israel. The Blacks are just Treated Like Dogs'

Republican lawmakers were also critical. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and possible presidential contender, said Mr. Kerry’s comments were “outrageous and disappointing.”

During his push for a comprehensive peace agreement, Mr. Kerry has repeatedly warned that Israel could face economic pressure from European nations as well as Palestinian violence and a demographic time bomb at home — meaning Jews could become a minority in Israel and the territories they control — if Israel did not negotiate an agreement that led to an independent Palestinian state.

His recent comments came at a particularly sensitive moment with the peace talks put off, after Israel’s decision to suspend negotiations because of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s announcement of its reconciliation with Hamas, the Islamic militant group that governs Gaza.

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Russia Says It Will 'Honor' Results Crimea Secession Vote — Says It Has No 'Common Ground' With US After Meeting With US Secretary of State Kerry

Captain Sergei Gunder (left): Became the new leader of an army unit after 'pro-
Russian'militia 'kidnapped' the previous commander and 'stormed' the base in
Bakhchisaray, Crimea. (Screen capture from CNN video)

By Michael Martinez, Laura Smith-Spark and Elise Labott
Russia will respect the result of Sunday's referendum in Crimea, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters Friday after his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Lavrov declared that Russia and the West don't share common ground on how to resolve the crisis in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

"Also as to the practical measures which could be taken by foreign partners, we don't have a common vision of the situation," he said.

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Obama's Big Screw Up In Ukraine: Gets Caught 'Red-Handed' (On Tape) Letting Neo-Cons Plot Overthrow of Ukraine's Elected Government — The Result is the Crimea Disaster

Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (right) with Greece's
Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry to the United States,
Anastasios Mitsialis. (Photo by Υπουργείο Εξωτερικών)

A clandestinely taped conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland—a notorious Neo-Con—and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt: Both envoys get caught candidly “strategizing” on how to overthrow the elected president of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych.

RELATED STORY: Ukraine is a Neo-Con Testing Ground for Russia

The Assistant Secretary of State could be heard saying 'fuck the European Union'
as she schemed about changing another nation's leader as if he was a mere piece on a chessboard.
If that's what they think of Europe, what do they think of Africa?

RELATED STORY:  Ukraine And The Rebirth of Fascism In Europe

State Department Finally Releases List of ‘Special Government Employees' - Some Hold Key Government Positions While Working for Corporate Firms

Huma Abedin: She had a sweet deal that let her
work for the US State Department and corporate
America at the same time. (Photo - US Govt)

By Justin Elliott and Liz Day ProPublica
Last year, Politico reported that former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had a special arrangement under which she simultaneously worked for the State Department and a corporate consulting firm.

Watchdogs and others raised questions about Abedin's status blurring the line between private and public sector employment. She responded that the dual employment did not pose any conflict of interest, and there is no evidence Abedin used her public position to help private clients.

Soon after, we asked the State Department for a list of any other such employees. Now, after a six-month delay, the department has given us the names.

The list suggests that the status is mostly used for its intended purpose: to allow outside experts to consult or work for the government on a temporary basis.

But at least one person on the list appears to have had an arrangement similar to Abedin's.

Caitlin Klevorick received two one-year appointments as a special government employee beginning in January 2012.

During that time, online listings show she had a private consulting firm, CBK Strategies, which advises government and corporate clients on communication and policy:

Work with diverse range of clients from Government to Fortune 100 companies to high profile individuals advising them on a range of issues including: overall strategic vision, crisis management, policy and political advising, communications, corporate social responsibility and partnerships.

"There is a very high potential for actual conflicts of interest in this case, and there is certainly every appearance of conflicts of interest," said Craig Holman of the ethics watchdog Public Citizen.

CONFIRMED: US Is Hands-On In Plotting Overthrow of Ukrainian Government — US State Department Official Phone Call Recorded and Posted Online

Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (right) with Greece's
Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry to the United States,
Anastasios Mitsialis. (Photo by Υπουργείο Εξωτερικών)

The clandestinely taped conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt caught the envoys candidly “strategizing” on how to effect a political turnover.

By Carol J. Williams
Russian officials on Friday denied they were behind the eavesdropping and Internet posting of an embarrassing phone call between two top U.S. diplomats discussing a response to the political crisis in conflicted Ukraine.

The Assistant Secretary of State could be heard saying 'fuck the European Union'
as she schemed about changing another nation's leader as if he was a mere piece on a chessboard.
If that's what they think of Europe, what do they think of Africa?

But Russia’s state-controlled media gleefully played up the scandalous conversation all day in a clear effort to cast Washington as a meddler in Kiev’s domestic affairs.

RELATED STORY: Ukraine is a Neo-Con Testing Ground for Russia

The clandestinely taped conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt caught the envoys candidly “strategizing” on how to effect a political turnover in Kiev, said Russia Today television as it played and replayed the conversation.

Continue Reading...

Media Disinformation and the Framing of the Syrian War

Bombed out buildings, Azaz, Syria: Sept 2012 (Photo from Voice of America News)

Months after the events took place, Pulitzer prize winning journalists and others are finally reporting about the lies and manipulations of the US government regarding the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria. Far from shining a light on the true situation in the country, however, these reports continue to avoid the underlying causes and explanations for what is happening in Syria, and the forces that are behind it.

Media Disinformation and the Framing of the Syrian War
(GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV)

TRANSCRIPT

What's The 'Real Scandal' Behind "SCANDAL?": It's Based On the Real Life Story of Someone Who Did 'Dirty Work' for Right-Wing Republicans

Kerry Washington: Star of  "SCANDAL."  (Photo: David Shankbone)

Currently all the rage in the Black community, the Kerry Washington political intrigue program “SCANDAL” is about a Black Woman whose job is to help Washington DC politicos through damaging and embarrassing dilemmas...The result is a kind of female Obama Effect, shrewdly creating a sense of collective racial necessity for placing Brown faces in high imperial places. The most oppressed segment of American society is encouraged to fantasize about becoming the most effective agents of the same empire that is destroying them. Very shrewd indeed.

What’s most interesting about “SCANDAL” is that it’s based on the real life story of a Black woman who got her political start in the Reagan administration and played a key role in getting Clarence Thomas confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court despite Anita Hill’s charges of sexual harassment. She also helped clean things up for the Republicans during the Iran Contra Scandal. As recently as May of this year, the real life character behind “SCANDAL” represented Paula Deen, the White TV Cooking Show maven who outraged Black America for allegedly admitting she fantasized about “owning slaves”.

So dramatically speaking, this is the woman Black America is cheering for while watching “SCANDAL.”

READ MORE...

The Dynastic Hillary Bandwagon: Bad for America

The Hillary Clinton for President in 2016 bandwagon has started very early and with a purpose. The idea is to get large numbers of endorsers, so that no Democratic Primary competitors dare make a move.  These supporters include Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), financier George Soros and Ready for Hillary, a super PAC mobilizing with great specificity (already in Iowa).

By Ralph Nader 
Given this early bird launch, it is important to raise the pressing question:
Does the future of our country benefit from Hillary, another Clinton, another politician almost indistinguishable from Barack Obama’s militaristic, corporatist policies garnished by big money donors from Wall Street and other plutocratic canyons?

Caricature: DonkeyHotey

There is no doubt the Clintons are syrupy political charmers, beguiling many naïve Democrats who have long been vulnerable to a practiced set of comforting words or phrases camouflaging contrary deeds.

Everybody knows that Hillary is for women, children and education. She says so every day. But Democrats and others can’t get the Clintons even to support a $10.50 federal minimum wage that would almost equal the 1968 minimum wage, inflation-adjusted, and would raise the wages of 30 million workers mired in the gap between the present minimum wage of $7.25 and $10.50 an hour. It just so happens that almost two-thirds of these Americans are women, many of them single moms struggling to support their impoverished children. Nearly a million of these workers labor for Walmart, on whose Board of Directors Hillary Clinton once sat. Words hide the deeds.

As a Senator on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hillary had to start proving that women, just like the macho men, can be belligerent and never see a weapons system and its use that they didn’t like. Never did she demonstrate any ongoing interest in debloating the massive, wasteful, duplicative military budget so as to free up big monies for domestic public works programs or other necessities.

As Senator she also admitted that she didn’t have time to read a critical National Intelligence Estimate Report, which had caveats that might have dissuaded her from voting with George W. Bush to invade Iraq in 2003. War-mongering and wars of Empire never bothered her then or now. Just a few weeks ago, she was photographed giving the recidivist war criminal, Republican Henry Kissinger, a big, smiling hug at a public event. It’s all part of the bi-partisan image she is cultivating under the opportunistic banner of “cooperation.” (For more information, read the New York Times’ Collateral Damage and Nixon and Kissinger’s Forgotten Shame, or Seymour Hersh’s The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.)

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton accelerated the Department’s militarization, belting far more war-like, threatening assertions toward governments of developing countries than did the Secretaries of Defense. She loved to give speeches on “force projection,” the latest synonym for “the Empire,” and “the pivot” toward East Asia and against the asserted looming threat of China. Taking due note, the Chinese generals demanded larger budgets.

George Soros: a "power behind the throne?" (Photo: Niccolò Caranti)

The Secretary of State’s highest duty is diplomacy. Not for her. Despite her heavy travelling, she made little or no effort to get the government to sign onto the numerous international treaties which already had over a hundred nations as signatories. These include stronger climate change agreements and, as Human Rights Watch reports, unratified treaties “relating to children, women, persons with disabilities, torture, enforced disappearance and the use of anti-personal landmines and cluster munitions.” These tasks bore her.

Much more exciting was military action. Against the wishes of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, she pulled Barack Obama into the Libyan war. There were consequences. Libya is now in militia chaos, having spilled over into Mali, but without Gaddafi, its overthrown dictator who had disarmed and was making peace with western nations and oil companies.

As a Yale Law School graduate, she was not in the least bothered that the attack on Libya occurred without any Congressional declaration, authorization or appropriation of funds – a classic Madisonian definition of impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors.

Like Bill Clinton, she is an unabashed cheerleader for corporate globalization under NAFTA, the World Trade Organization and the proposed sovereignty-stripping, anti-worker Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement. Secretary of State Clinton, in the words of trade expert Jamie Love, "put the hammer to India when the government took steps to grant compulsory licenses on cancer drug patents."

Even regarding the easy clampdown on waste and fraud, Hillary Clinton fired Peter Van Buren, a 24-year-Foreign Service Officer, who exposed such waste and mismanagement by corporate contractors in Iraq. (For more information, see http://wemeantwell.com/).

Foreshadowing this season’s headlines, former Secretary of State Clinton ordered U.S. officials to spy on top UN diplomats including Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, and those from the United Kingdom. She ordered her emissaries around the world to obtain DNA data, iris scans and fingerprints along with credit card and frequent flier numbers. Not only was this a clear violation of the 1946 UN convention, but after admitting what happened she didn’t even make a public apology to the affected parties.

Under her watch, the advice and status of the Department’s foreign service officers and aid workers were marginalized in favor of the militarists – and not only in Iraq.

Many Wall Streeters like Hillary Clinton. Expecting their ample contributions, and socializing with their business barons, it is not surprising that Hillary Clinton avoids going after the crooked casino capitalism that collapsed the economy, drained investors, pensions, jobs and taxpayer bailouts. Hillary Clinton is a far cry from the stalwart Senator Elizabeth Warren on this towering pattern of unaccountable corporate abuse.

The surreal world of Hillary Clinton is giving $200,000 speeches, collecting prestigious awards she does not deserve, including one from the American Bar Association, and basking in the glory of her admirers while appropriately blasting the Republicans for their “War on Women” – the safe refrain of her forthcoming campaign.

It is true that the Republican madheads make it easy for any Democratic candidate to judge themselves by the cruel, rabid, ravaging Republicans. But, is that the kind of choice our country deserves?

A Clinton Coronation two years or more before the 2016 elections will stifle any broader choice of competitive primary candidates and more important a more progressive agenda supported by a majority of the American people.

Full Medicare for all, cracking down on corporate abuses, a fairer tax system, a broad public works program, a living wage, access to justice and citizen empowerment, clean election practices, and pulling back on the expensive, boomeranging Empire to come home to America’s necessities and legitimate hopes are some examples of what the people want.

Maybe the sugarcoating is starting to wear. Columnist Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times (Hillary in 2016? Not so Fast), reports her polls are starting to slump. Apparently, as Bruni suggests, she’s being seen as part of the old Washington crowd that voters are souring on.

As I wrote to Hillary Clinton in early summer 2008, when calls were made by Obama partisans for her to drop out, no one should be told not to run. That’s everyone’s First Amendment right. However, not voting for her is the prudent decision.

____
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest book is The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Other recent books include, The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win, and "Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us" (a novel).

 

Reprinted with permission from Common Dreams.