Five Takeaways From Last Night's Debacle

And I use that term "debacle" deliberately, because seriously, Americans have no idea what they are in for. I refer to two disparate groups: 1) the energized and angry Repubs who were driven by Obama hatred to take it out on any Dem, and 2) the lazy-ass Dems who sat at home or never even attempted to vote in the first place, enabling this travesty.

Anyway, let me give 5 takeaways from this debacle which has left the Repukes in control of the Senate with a 52-48 majority so far, and also in charge of many governorships (which could allow a lot more gerrymandering to ensure future repuke domination):

1) Democratic coalition voters are politically immature and too mesmerized by the cult of personality.

This explains why they never turn out in the same numbers for  mid-terms as they do for general elections. In so doing, by their absence, they invariably cede power to the angry wackjobs who are always intent to vote in mid-terms to "teach them libruls a lesson". The numbers as displayed this morning on the CBS stat board tell the sorry story:

In the 2012 general election, young (18-22 yrs.) voters represented 19 % of the electorate while yesterday they represented only 13 %. African-Americans, meanwhile dropped from 13% to 12% representation and Hispanics from 10% to 8 %.   Given many races - such as here in Colorado for the Senate seat occupied by Mark Udall - came down to 5-7 pt, wins it means that this absence in the current election could well have explained Udall's losing his seat to the nimrod Cory Gardener.

I attribute this backsliding to political immaturity, driven especially by younger voters' need to embrace a personality, as opposed to grasping the issues in play. If they would detach from personality worship, and simply study issues in each state and the candidates, this regular falloff should not happen.

2) As usual the Right was energized by fear and anger.

And in contrast, as in 2010, the Right's loonies came out angry in their numbers, driven by the nuts on FOX and Rush Limbaugh.  They came out in larger numbers than the original "Obama coalition" and this possibly explains up to 50 percent of the losses suffered by the Democrats.

It is no secret that the handlers of the Tea Party nuts and others on the Right know how to manage their minds to drive them to the polls in higher numbers than their D-counterparts. We call it "dog whistle" politics, especially presenting numerous unsavory images of Obama to try to instill racial hatred and fear. The voters will deny this plays any part, of course, but at a deep subliminal level it certainly does. One need not go out on a black person's lawn and actually wear a white robe and burn a cross to be a racist. He need only put up a 'skunk' image on Facebook and assert that it should be the "Presidential seal" for Obama so long as he's in office, since he "smells" and is "part black, part white". Funny? Not!

3) Money, as usual, trumped votes in at least three states - probably more.

As noted on Scarborough this a.m., the Koch brothers, using their tons of money and the front of "Americans for Prosperity" were significantly better this time around at the ground game -especially in North Carolina and Florida. That easily made the difference in those states, i.e. in Kay Hagen losing to Tillis in NC and Charlie Crist losing to Columbia HCA criminal Rick Scott in FL.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, big money flooded the state to try to get rid of Mark Udall (which succeeded) as well as the ability to label GMO foods (downed by a 68% 'No' vote). In the last case, opponents - mainly the pawns of multinationals like Monsanto- deluged the state with negative ads and spend nearly $12 m to the 1/2 m of pro-labelers.

The only good news? Hickenlooper held on as Colorado governor by 48.3 percent to 47.1 percent for Bob Beauprez.

4) Democratic candidates need to embrace their leader not run from him.

This was evident throughout as Dem Senate and other candidates shamefully ran from Obama and his accomplishments rather than embracing them, touting them. This was especially critical in states like Colorado where health exchanges were set up under the Affordable Care Act and have proven a boon to many. But Udall didn't say a word about the Act, or its benefits - focusing mainly on how women will suffer by losing contraceptives if Cory Gardener is elected.

News for you, Sen. Udall: Colorado women care about more dimensions of their health care than just contraception and you ought to have made that message clearer!

5) The Democrats need Think Tanks to Craft Their Narratives.

I have said this many times before but will repeat it again: the Dems are lousy at formulating convincing narratives which are as good as the Republicans. Classic case? The Reeps call removing the Bush tax cuts a "tax hike". The Dem response? To sit on their thumbs and sing 'la-la-la'. They have no convincing response. The Reepos say that estate taxes are "death taxes" - again no response. The Dems simply appear dumbstruck at how the  other side has seized the language and used it to create multiple mind fucks.  Can they create a mind fuck of their own? NO they can't.

This is why they need real Dem dedicated think tanks to think up narratives for them, analogous to the American Enterprise Institute on the Right, as well as American Heritage Foundation.

Maybe, just maybe, these takeaways will be acted upon next time around. But I remain a skeptic.

Anti-GMO Labelers Wage Massive Disinformation Campaign in Colorado

How much money does it take – most from outside interests – to take down an effort to label GMO-based foods? Better perhaps, how much disinformation does it take to alter voters’ minds to force them to subvert their own nutrition –food choices?  It turns out the answers may be much more than we believed for the first ($9.7m vs. $330,000 for proponents), and much less for the second. The latter since now the Denver Post has tossed its hat into the GMO labeling ring and given a rousing endorsement to vote down Proposition 105 in its Sunday editorial.

But then we already knew the Denver Post – while allowing a few liberal memes – did staunchly also wage a brief for unlimited fracking over a year ago – arguing it was critical for the state’s economy. Can we call ‘bollocks’ on that too? I believe so, especially after surreal gloating and smug satisfaction fairly oozed from the paper’s pages after Jared Polis removed from the Nov. ballot  the initiatives to give local control of fracking to Colorado communities.

The image attached was taken from a flyer delivered in the mail. The flyer included canards that have been repeated in assorted ads on TV and also by the Denver Post in its editorial.  Some of the more prominent include:

1) Farmers and food producers would be required to separate, repackage and re-label ingredients from throughout the country – just for our state.

2) Proposition 105 would cost Colorado taxpayers millions by requiring a new state bureaucracy to enforce its Colorado-only regulations for tens of thousands of products.

3) Proposition is so full of exemptions it would not tell consumers which foods are produced with GMOs.

Responses:

The first is overblown fear mongering. Most of Colorado’s foods are locally grown as people have become more aware of the advantages. Many places (e.g. Whole Foods) already have GMO labeling which conforms with the law. Any residual issues are not as huge a problem as portrayed as Vermont has already found out, as well as Switzerland – not exactly a backwater nation! (See my posts on it from last month). The Swiss have the sense to use a threshold for labeling GMO which is that samples tested contain less than 0.9 percent GMO products. We can do the same!

The Second complaint  is more hype and the regulatory body needed can be modeled again after Vermont – after mandating their own GMO labeling law, or after Switzerland. “Enforcement” is another bugbear as consumers will basically do the “enforcing” with their food purchase choices.  No special “police” or “code violation” body will be needed.

As for (3),  yes, there are exemptions, because over-ambitious labeling demands would not have gotten the signatures needed and likely invited even more lawsuits than the ones planned. As progressives always harp on in elections: “You cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good!” 

Given the progressives' clarion call, of course meat and dairy aren’t forced to be labeled since the animals are only raised on GMO foods, they are not themselves genetically re-configured animals (e.g. cows actually being engineered from rat, skunk or vampire bat DNA).  Restaurants also don’t need GMO labeling because many (e.g. Chipotle) are already doing it and finding a competitive edge because of it. As for Alcoholic beverages, these also need no special GMO labels. For one thing, most everyone conscious knows it is a drug and also the ill effects, including on the liver and brain. Whether in fact GMOs play any role in alcoholic beverages is therefore akin to worrying about whether the cancer sticks you’re smoking have bisphenol –A filters.

Other objections to Proposition 105 are even more ludicrous, such as Colorado commissioner of agriculture Don Ament arguing (Denver Post, Sept. 28) that genetic engineering has been going on for thousands of years – actually referring to hybridization, e.g. of cattle. In this way, many have been led to believe voting for the Proposition is ridiculous and redundant because – hey!  - those things have been with us like forever.

But there’s a huge difference. In hybridization, similar species can be cross-bred because they share similar genetic traits. (Such as two types of cow being mammals and ungulates).  Hybrids can occur naturally or they can be created by grafting and cross-pollination.

By contrast, genetic engineering involves splicing of two distinct species (e.g. cows and alligators, or tomatoes and mice) that would never occur naturally in a million years – or ten million. Since the GMOs are not natural – they don’t represent natural creatures that would have evolved, or plants, and we simply don’t know what the health consequences might be.

We do know there were some earlier studies, such as  Arpad Pusztai’s in Britain. This study processed the results over several years and found that the rats which consumed GMO potatoes showed evidence of organ (liver, stomach) damage and poor brain development. Pusztai's study went down as the very first independent study (i.e. one not sponsored by a biotech corporation) to examine the effects of bio-engineered food on mammals. Alas, after he tried to publish the results he lost his job  - see:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/24/03/bleifuss2403.html

More recently, families have been made aware of glyphosate in these foods and how it reduces their nutritive value and also raises the specter of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease  and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. This will be particularly pronounced if the new Enlist DUO Weedicide is approved for use with GMO crops, as Dr. Oz Mehmet already exposed – as well as others, see e.g.

 http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/09/more-powerful-toxins-associated-with.html

For Colorado's premium newspaper, The Denver Post gets many things wrong as well in its Anti-105 editorial. Thus, the issue of “cost” is again carped about despite the fact David Byrne – former European commissioner for health and consumer protection - declared that GMO labeling “did not result in increased costs despite the horrifying predictions of some interests.”

The Post also complained that some would ban GMOs which “ironically have resulted in a large decrease in the use of insecticides etc.”

But as Mehmet Oz  observed:

-        There are 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides used per year, used on GMO crops - because those crops are designed to survive the poisons.

 70 - 170 million pounds of additional highly toxic pesticides will be used if the FDA approves Enlist.

Oz then flatly skewered the notion that “less” toxins are being used, and in fact the very design of GMO crops encourages the use of MORE toxins because they are designed to survive them.  As Oz’ guest, journalist Mark Bittman  also noted:

“Yields are not up and pesticide use is not down. So when you talk about feeding a hungry world, GMOs have not moved us in that direction."

Do you really want the residues of 2,4 –D, the chemical used in Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, splotched all over your food if Enlist is approved by the multinational-compromised EPA?

The bottom line here is one of buyer choice: Do you deserve to know if that tomato you’re purchasing is the product of the natural tomato being spliced with mouse genes, or not?  (The aim being to increase its shelf life).  Sixty four European nations already have a ban or moratorium and strict regulation of GMO foods including labeling.

Switzerland, probably a European nation more advanced than many:

“ funded thirty projects to investigate the risks and benefits of GMOs. These projects concluded that there were no clear health or environmental dangers associated with planting GMOs. However, they also concluded that there was little economic incentive for farmers to adopt GMOs in Switzerland.” (Wikipedia)

Our Swiss friend Rolf told us that the main concern of farmers in Switzerland is the accidental dispersion of GMOs (from areas dedicated to their cultivation)  to outside farms and crops – thereby contaminating them. The worries he cites are well worth noting, but he also averred no Swiss citizen wished to be kept in the dark over what he’s eating.

As he asked me while we were staying in Appenzell,

“If it’s good enough for we Swiss, why isn’t it good enough for Americans to have your food labeled?”

Indeed!

 See also:

http://www.salon.com/chromeo/article/the_real_dangers_of_gmos_dow_chemical_doesnt_want_you_to_know_about_partner/

 

GMO Labeling to be on Colorado Ballot in November - About Time!

The news in the Denver Post two days ago couldn’t have been better for those who want to see their food products labeled. After all, the full labeling of what an American is about to consume is among the most basic rights. We ought to know, as one Vermont critic of the GMO corporations said, what we are putting into our bodies.

The argument of the GMO producers and the FDA (and some misguided scientists, including Neil deGrasse Tyson)  has been that all this flack over labels  is totally ridiculous since GMO- based foods are “basically the same” as others we eat. Fine, then we will allow them to appear on the supermarkets’ shelves – no problemo. Just make sure you label them!

Now, we know the signatures on the petitions have been verified for Colorado Proposition 105 and the formal announcement was made on Wednesday by the Colorado secretary of state – that the proposition will appear on the November ballot.  There were 86, 105 valid signatures needed, and 171, 370 were submitted with a 73 percent validity rate so 124, 800 were valid.

Thanks to Colorado Right to Know, it has been mission accomplished.

The Proposition is asking voters whether foods modified or treated with genetically modified materials should be labeled. The reference label will be:

 

“Produced with Genetic Engineering”  - Beginning om July 1, 2016.

 

Foods from animals that are not genetically modified but have been fed or injected with genetically modified food or drugs are exempt, as are unpackaged foods for immediate consumption, alcoholic beverages, food for animals and medically prescribed foods.

 

Of course, as in the case of the local fracking initiatives the response of those who stand to lose profits if the proposition passes has been hysterical.  Sara Froelich, quoted in the Denver Post, blathered:

“Proposition 105 will absolutely raise food prices to the tune of hundreds of dollars  per year for a family of four”

Which is the typical scare message that’s predictably emanated from these tools since they stopped a similar California labeling initiative several years ago.

 

The fact is that food prices will barely be affected.

As a Mother Jones piece observed, e.g.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/10/would-gmo-labeling-jack-food-prices

 

"Opponents of labeling, pointing to a 2012 study prepared during the California fight by Northbridge Environmental Management Consultants, say that the new rules would cost consumers $350 to $400 annually per household. The Northbridge paper, though, was funded by the industry-dominated campaign to stop Prop 37, as the California initiative was known. Campaign records show that Northridge received a total of $97,371 in five payments during 2012.”

 

So this is clearly where Ms. Froelich got her scarifying info from.  Meanwhile, a rival 2012 study, prepared by Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University School of Law, found that "food prices [are] likely to remain unchanged for consumers." That study was commissioned by the Alliance for Natural Health, a group that advocates for "the right of natural-health practitioners to practice and the right of consumers to choose the healthcare options they prefer."

Which is right? According to the Mother Jones article:

Over at Grist, Michael Lipsky, a distinguished senior fellow at the progressive think tank Demos, argues that labeling wouldn't likely cost consumers much at all. The cost of changing labels would be trivial, he writes—food manufacturers "do it all the time." Ever seen the words "new and improved" on some boxed delicacy? 

The takeaway is that Colorado voters, like Vermont’s earlier, can’t allow industry scare tactics to rob them of the chance for labeling and individual decisions  - as opposed to letting the FDA and the likes of Monsanto to make them for us!