The Political Beginnings

excerpted from the book

Seeds of Destruction

The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, 2007

 

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[An] emerging American elite, who proclaimed proudly at war's end [WWII} the dawn of their American Century, were masterful in their use of the rhetoric of altruism and world-benefaction to advance their goals. Their American Century paraded as a softer empire, a "kinder, gentler" one in which, under the banner of colonial liberation, freedom, democracy, and economic development, those elite circles built a network of power the likes of which the world had not seen since the time of Alexander the Great some three centuries before Christ--a global empire unified under the military control of a sole superpower, able to decide on a whim, the fate of entire nations.

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The man who served the interests of the postwar [WWII] American-based elite during the 1970's, and came to symbolize its raw realpolitik, was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger... [He] allegedly declared his blueprint for world domination: "Control the oil and you control nations. Control the food, and you control the people."

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In the several decades before and immediately following World War II, one family [the Rockefeller family] came to symbolize the hubris and arrogance of the emerging American Century more than any other. And the vast fortune of that family had been built on the blood of many wars, and on their control of a new "black gold' oil.

What was unusual about this family was that early on in the building of their fortune, the patriarchs and advisors they cultivated to safeguard their wealth decided to expand their influence over many very different fields. They sought control not merely over oil, the emerging new energy source for world economic advance. They also expanded their influence over the education of youth, medicine and psychology, foreign policy of the United States, and, significant for our story, over the very science of life itself, biology, and its applications in the world of plants and agriculture.

For the most part, their work passed unnoticed by the larger population, especially in the United States. Few Americans were aware how their lives were being subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, influenced by one or another project financed by the immense wealth of this family.

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The history of GMO [genetically modified organisms] was inseparable from the political history of the Rockefeller family, and the four brothers--David, Nelson, Laurance and John D. III--who, in the three decades following American victory in World War II, the dawn of the much-heralded American Century, shaped the evolution of power George Kennan referred to in 1948.

In actual fact, the story of GMO is that of the evolution of power in the hands of an elite, determined at all costs to bring the entire world under their sway.

Three decades ago, that power was based around the Rockefeller family. Today, three of the four brothers are long-since deceased, several under peculiar circumstances. However, as was their will, their project of global domination--"full spectrum dominance" as the Pentagon later called it--had spread, often through a rhetoric of "democracy' and was aided from time to time by the raw military power of that empire when deemed necessary. Their project evolved to the point where one small power group, nominally headquartered in Washington in the early years of the new century, stood determined to control future and present life on this planet to a degree never before dreamed of.

The story of the genetic engineering and patenting of plants and other living organisms cannot be understood without looking at the history of the global spread of American power in the decades following World War II. George Kennan, Henry Luce, Averell Harriman and, above all, the four Rockefeller brothers, created the very concept of multinational "agribusiness' They financed the "Green Revolution" in the agriculture sector of developing countries in order, among other things, to create new markets for petro-chemical fertilizers and petroleum products, as well as to expand dependency on energy products. Their actions are an inseparable part of the story of genetically modified crops today.

By the early years of the new century, it was clear that no more than four giant chemical multinational companies had emerged as global players in the game to control patents on the very basic food products that most people in the world depend on for their daily nutrition-corn, soybeans, rice, wheat, even vegetables and fruits and cotton-as well as new strains of disease-resistant poultry, genetically-modified to allegedly resist the deadly H5N1 Bird Flu virus, or even gene altered pigs and cattle. Three of the four private companies had decades-long ties to Pentagon chemical warfare research. The fourth, nominally Swiss, was in reality Anglo-dominated. As with oil, so was GMO agribusiness very much an Anglo-American global project.

In May 2003, before the dust from the relentless US bombing and destruction of Baghdad had cleared, the President of the United States chose to make GMO a strategic issue, a priority in his postwar US foreign policy. The stubborn resistance of the world's second largest agricultural producer, the European Union, stood as a formidable barrier to the global success of the GMO Project. As long as Germany, France, Austria, Greece and other countries of the European Union steadfastly refused to permit GMO planting for health and scientific reasons, the rest of the world's nations would remain skeptical and hesitant. By early 2006, the World Trade Organization (WTO) had forced open the door of the European Union to the mass proliferation of GMO. It appeared that global success was near at hand for the GMO Project.

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Powerful private families decide who controls the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and even the European Central Bank. Money is in their hands to destroy or create. Their aim is the ultimate control over future life on this planet, a supremacy earlier dictators and despots only ever dreamt of. Left unchecked, the present group behind the GMO Project is between one and two decades away from total dominance of the planet's food capacities.

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The genetic revolution had been a Rockefeller Foundation project from the very beginning. Not only ... had the Rockefeller Foundation spent more than $100 million for the advance of the GMO revolution. That project was part of a global strategy that had been in development for decades.

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Terminator seeds had been designed to prevent the germination of harvested grains as seeds... This technology would block farmers in developing countries from saving their own seed for re-sowing.

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As GM seeds were being commercially introduced into Argentine and North American farming, an event of enormous significance for the future of the GMO project occurred in faraway Scotland. There, in Aberdeen, in a state-supported laboratory, the Rowett Research Institute, an experienced scientist was making studies in a carefully controlled manner. His mandate was to conduct long-term research on the possible effects of a GMO food diet on animals.

The scientist, Dr. Arpad Pusztai was no novice in genetic research. He had worked in the specialized field of biotechnology for more than 35 years, published a wealth of recognized scientific papers, and was considered the world's leading expert on lectins and the genetic modification of plants.

In 1995, just prior to Monsanto's mass commercial sales of GM soybean seeds to American and Argentine farmers, Scotland's Office of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries contracted the Rowett Research Institute to undertake a three-year comprehensive study under the direction of Dr. Pusztai. With a budget of $1.5 million, it was no small undertaking.'

The Scottish Agriculture Office wanted Rowett to establish guidelines for a scientific testing methodology to be used by Government regulatory authorities to conduct future risk assessments of GMO crops. As the spread of GMO crops was in its earliest stages, mostly in test or field trials, it was a logical next step to prepare such sound regulatory controls.

No better person could have been imagined to establish scientific credibility, and a sound methodology than Dr. Pusztai.

... The only other study of GM food effects at the time was the one sponsored by Monsanto, wherein conclusions not surprisingly claimed that genetically-engineered food was completely healthy to consume.

... The Scottish government, Rowett and Dr. Pusztai believed they were about to verify a significant breakthrough in plant science which could be of huge benefit to food production by eliminating need for added pesticides in potato planting. By late 1997, Pusztai was beginning to have doubts.

The rats fed for more than 110 days on a diet of GM potatoes had marked changes to their development. They were significantly smaller in size and body weight than ordinary potato-fed control rats in the same experiment ... the GMO rats showed markedly smaller liver and heart sizes and demonstrated weaker immune systems. The most alarming finding was the markedly smaller brain size of GMO-fed rats compared with normal potato-fed rats. This later finding so alarmed Pusztai that he chose to leave it out when he was asked to present his findings on a UK Independent Television show in 1998. He said later he feared unleashing panic among the population.

What Dr. Arpad Pusztai did say when he was invited to talk briefly about his results on the popular ITV "World in Action" broadcast in August 1998, was alarming enough. Pusztai told the world, "We are assured that this is absolutely safe. We can eat it all the time. We must eat it all the time. There is no conceivable harm which can come to us." He then went on to issue the following caveat to his millions of viewers. He stated, "But, as a scientist looking at it, actively working in the field, I find that it is very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs. We have to find guinea pigs in the laboratory."

... Pusztai stated simply that, "the effect (of a diet of GM potatoes) was slight growth retardation and an effect on the immune system. One of the genetically modified potatoes, after 110 days, made the rats less responsive to immune effects." Pusztai added a personal note: "If I had the choice, I would certainly not eat it until I see at least comparable scientific evidence which we are producing for our genetically modified potatoes".

... Within 48 hours, the 68-year-old researcher was told his contract would not be renewed. He was effectively fired, along with his wife, who had herself been a respected Rowett researcher for more than 13 years. Moreover, under the threat of losing his pension, Pusztai was told not to ever speak to the press about his research. His papers were seized and placed under lock. He was forbidden to talk to members of his research team under threat of legal action. The team was dispersed. His phone calls and e-mails were diverted.

That was to be only the beginning of a defamation campaign worthy of Third Reich Germany or Stalinist Russia.

... The Blair Government [of Britain] had set up a secret Biotechnology Presentation Group to launch a propaganda campaign to counter the anti-GMO media, at that point a dominant voice in the UK. The Pusztai debate threatened the very future of a hugely profitable GMO agribusiness for UK companies.

...It took five years and several heart attacks, before the near-ruined Pusztai was able to piece together the details of what had taken place in those 48 hours following his first TV appearance in 1998. His findings revealed the dark truth about of the politics of GMO crops.

Several former colleagues at Rowett, who had retired and were thus protected from possibly losing their jobs, privately confirmed to Pusztai that Rowett's director, Prof. Philip James, had received two direct phone calls from Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair had made clear in no uncertain terms that Pusztai had to be silenced.

... The Clinton Administration was in the midst of spending billions to promote GMO crops as the technology of a future biotech revolution. A Clinton White House senior staff member stated at the time that their goal was to make the 1990's, "the decade of the successful commercialization of agricultural biotechnology products." By the late 1990's, the stocks of biotech GM companies were soaring on the Wall Street stock exchange. Clinton was not about to have some scientist in Scotland sabotage his project, nor clearly was Clinton's good friend Blair.

... The initial phone call behind his dismissal came from Monsanto.

Monsanto had spoken with Clinton, who in turn had directly spoken to Blair about the "Pusztai problem." Blair then spoke to Rowett's director, Philip James. Twenty four hours later, Dr. Arpad Pusztai was out on the street, banned from speaking about his research and talking to his former colleagues.

... The private corporation, through a simple phone call, had been able to mobilize the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain on behalf of its private interests. A simple phone call by Monsanto could destroy the credibility of one of the world's leading independent scientists.

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Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, senior academic scientist at the Open University and later Director of the Institute of Science in Society, warned in 2003, that genetic modification was entirely unlike normal plant or animal breeding

Contrary to what you are told by the pro-GM scientists, the process is not at all precise. It is uncontrollable and unreliable, and typically ends up damaging and scrambling the host genome, with entirely unpredictable consequences.

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Dr. Brian John article in British journal, GM Science Review "On the Corruption of GM Science", 2003

There is no balance in the GM research field or in the peer-review process or in the publication process. For this we have to thank corporate ownership of science, or at least this branch of it... Scientific integrity is one loser, and the public interest is another.

Inconvenient research simply never sees the light of day... The prevention of academic fraud is one matter; the suppression of uncomfortable research results is another.

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Henry Kissinger ... had introduced the idea of using "food as a weapon" into United States foreign policy.


Seeds Of Destruction

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