The police said that six thousand people came to the Portland Or.protest, a pretty good turn out.
I didn't see any of the TV media but print media was relatively easy on the protest, much softer than they were on Portlands robust occupy movement. I thought coverage of the occupy protest was deplorable. There were many things about Portlands occupy protest that seemed stupid and disgusting but there were just as many if not more aspects that were inspiring and noble.
Yeah the occupy coverage was pretty bad nationwide. It was just a steady refrain if "They don't even know what they want as a group." Basically, if you don't have an easily digestible, PR-honed press release, journalists are no longer able to divine sentiment nor cause nor effect, and god help you if your movement has more than one point of view.
The "they don't even know what they want" coverage wasn't an incorrect analysis. It was a large part of the story both internally and externally. OWS struggled with this and the people that wanted to support them also struggled with it. It's not that the media needs clearly defined goals, society does too. To "understand" is a pretty basic need and while we all understood that the system is broken what we didn't know is how OWS aimed to change that. OWS seems a squandered opportunity in many ways. The coverage was pretty fair from what I saw, but then I read most all of my news on it from stuff posted on Hubski.
See, I thought it was pretty clear what they wanted. They wanted to express their collective outrage at income inequality, the perception that Wall Street played by a different (and unfair) set of rules than the rest of us, unemployment and destruction of wealth and opportunity directly caused by Wall Street. It was a group of people that were upset at a range of related issues, and I think what the media did was recast and define them as "a single voice" then ran with the narrative that this single voice offered no solution (when it wasn't necessarily even claiming to). I think it's ok and natural to just be pissed at abuses and a system that isn't working fairly. The media failed to describe what they were upset about on the balance, preferring to describe how they didn't know what they wanted. They clearly wanted more equity collectively, and since they were not one monolithic entity as they were cast, different protesters had different ideas on ow to enact it.
Yeah, I understand where you are coming from. But, you just described what they didn't want but you never told me what they did want or how they aimed to achieve it. This stuff is important when you have a "movement". Of course, it's just fine as an individual to air grievances you want to eradicate, but when you have a grievance it's sure a hell of a lot more helpful to also have a solution. I remain sympathetic to their grievances, still think it was a wasted effort. Edit: Wadted effort is way too harsh. I think it was a missed opportunity. Definitely not a wasted effort.
I think that it's pretty mixed as far as cost benefit goes. Many of the IP practices in the field are odious at best, not being able to sell produce as organic or overseas in the case of genetic contamination of non gmo crops is a pain in the ass. I also think that there isn't a lot of transparency about the impacts of things like roundup resistant insects and excessive use of roundup like chemicals on the food chain. GMO offers a lot of hope for providing safe and healthy food to feed expanding populations, it's also mostly being controlled by a group of corporate stakeholders that put profits before the environment and consumer safety. In an ideal world GMO would be used in a way that is a boon for the environment, health and nutrition, food security and safety, but at this point I don't think it's mostly a profit game with societal benefit as mixed bag.
I wouldn't say hope -- GMOs have already done this. They don't offer hope, they offer a cheap, non-starvation reality. However, you're right that it's a mixed bag; you take the nutrition and efficiency with potentially detrimental effects to the socio-economic status of farmers. Jury's still out on that, perhaps literally. There are also negative genetic possibilities, but I would remind detractors who think the industry is going too fast that people die of starvation every single minute. Everything's a profit game. Eradicating disease in Africa is (sadly) a profit game. The trick is making sure the profits come with benefits, and they already have. EDIT: one more thing -- criticisms of Monsanto shouldn't be mixed up as criticisms of genetically-modified foods, but they always end up being so. This is due to public ignorance, the bane of our country, and has no factual basis. EDIT2: it certainly doesn't help that Monsanto is or has been in the past engaged in two somewhat different lines of work -- the questionable chemicals side and the food modification side. Monsanto has pioneered a lot of technologies, and I guarantee you the average protester knows about maybe a tenth of them.GMO offers a lot of hope for providing safe and healthy food to feed expanding populations, it's also mostly being controlled by a group of corporate stakeholders that put profits before the environment and consumer safety. In an ideal world GMO would be used in a way that is a boon for the environment, health and nutrition, food security and safety, but at this point I don't think it's mostly a profit game with societal benefit as mixed bag.
On a side note, I just stopped using roundup for weed control at my house and switched to a spray bottle with white vinegar instead. That stuff sort of freaked me out because I have a garden. Don't particularly want it even remotely near it.I also think that there isn't a lot of transparency about the impacts of things like roundup resistant insects and excessive use of roundup like chemicals on the food chain.
All great points cgod, but most all of them support protesting Monsanto and not necessarily GMO. I agree that in an ideal world things like this would be open sourced and used for only the betterment of humanity as opposed to the betterment of shareholders.
I think many people have a narrow view of what GMOs are. Plus, "Frankenfood" is pretty catchy. In the broadest sense, many things are genetically modified. Perhaps not in labs, but take the humble dog for example. There is no doubt that there is something other than nature at work in many breeds of dogs. Certainly, sex is genetic modification at its most primitive. That a company like Monsanto made use of GMOs before the benefits of GMOs were made apparent to consumers, is really unfortunate.
No one was clamoring for genetically modified "high yield" wheat to be labeled as not real wheat when it was saving millions in Southeastern Asia a few decades ago. Frankly, it's an illustration of how well off most of America is that we can afford to take GMO tech with a grain of salt at all. Most places are just grateful for the food. Yep, but you can't blame the company too much. The people who harp on about liberalism and freedoms are the very same ones out there protesting Monsanto's attempts to make a profit on the free market.That a company like Monsanto made use of GMOs before the benefits of GMOs were made apparent to consumers, is really unfortunate.
As far as the environment goes, we should be protesting oil companies, not food and chemicals corporations. Monsanto is just a company; they aren't perfect and they've gotten in trouble a couple times in the past for slightly shady dealings. They produced Agent Orange at the government's request. But it's all about where you allocate the blame, like you say.Well, I think there's plenty that Monsanto can legitimately be blamed for