*Shades of Operation CHAOS, 1967-74.* *MCM*
*From Dick Atlee:* I shouldn't have been gob-smacked when I received the daily Mother Jones notification of food-related articles. I KNOW Mother Jones is pretty pathetic on the issue of GMOs, as well as on the current suicidal Russia-baiting frenzy. But I honestly didn't think I'd see them combined: https://www.motherjones.com/food/2018/03/is-russia-using-the -gmo-debate-to-troll-americans/ It is the exact analog of what I had to go through in the 50s-60s, of being called a Communist because I was part of the peace movement, and the Russians kept talking about Peace. Now it's the Russian-related press talking negatively about GMOs, while the all-knowing American press's articles are overwhelmingly positive -- so it's obvious the Russians are trying to manipulate us poor Americans in yet another arena. And again, as with the 2016 Russian-meddling "intelligence estimate," RT and Sputnik are being trotted out as prime candidates. As we all know, the vast majority of Americans spend most of their time glued to their monitors and TVs, watching RT and Sputnik and being brainwashed, just as that vast majority of Americans were brainwashed to vote for Trump. I suppose it's going to be vaccines next. And maybe supplements? Please feel free to forward the article reference to any GMO-interested people who you think might need protection from those devilish Russkies. *Dick's letter to Amy Thomson, the "journalist" who wrote that article.* Hi, Ms. Thomson, I read with interest your piece on allegations of a link between Russian propaganda and growing American distrust of GMOs. MoJo's (particularly Tom Philpott's) dismissal of GMO dangers was the principal reason for my parting company with the magazine a number of years ago. I've been working on the issue for quite a few years ( http://dickatlee.com/gmo), and there's a widespread understanding in the world that GMOs and their associated pesticides are a bad deal on a broad range of issues -- environmental, health, legal, geopolitical, and others. The U.S. is one of the few places where public awareness of the problem has only recently been catching up. There is plenty of solid research on the potential and actual dangers of GMOs (alone or due to glyphosate, dicamba, etc). However, most of this research has been done outside the U.S. because of the well-documented literally vicious attacks by Monsanto and other ag-chem entities on such research and researchers. So it is no surprise that there might be much less negative coverage of GMOs within the U.S. than outside it. Oddly, you have chosen to focus the locus of negative coverage on the Russians, rather than other non-U.S. sources. For me, this is personal. I grew up in the peace movement in the 50's and early 60's. My classmates would call me a Communist because, after all, the Russians were always talking about peace. The exact same dynamic is in play now and, as it did in those days, it is narrowing our society dangerously. You can't say anything the Russians are saying without being accused of being a Russian propagandist, or at least stooge. The wording of the intelligence community anti-Russian statements never involves actual public proof. It is always "Such and such is CONSISTENT with Russian statements/behavior," just like my peace-advocating "Communist" behavior 60 years ago was. This has spread from the evidence-free (so far) accusations of Russian hacking of the DNC to advocates of peace in Syria to advocates for vaccine safety, and now, with your help, it looks like the canard is being pushed all the way to GMOs. Before mainlining the Russians-did-it (everything) narrative, it might be worth sitting back and looking at where the power to control the media lies before concluding (or even implying) that anything different from what the American media says must be Russian-related. I'm sure you're well aware of the influence of the pharmaceutical and ag-chem industries. But look back also at Watergate-famous Carl Bernstein's 1977 Rolling Stone exposé on how the "intelligence community" fits into that picture: http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php and the CIA's original weaponization of the term "conspiracy theory" http://www.jfklancer.com/CIA.html At the very least, it's wise to take with a grain of salt the "intelligence community" assertions that are keeping this Russia meme afloat. For 20 years after the fall of the USSR we lived in relative nuclear safety, with no stupid head-butting with the Russians. We got along fine. However, the resurgence of that insanity has returned us to hair-trigger nuclear alert and assertions of a U.S. right to a nuclear first strike that would in the end kill us all. Your article is just another click in that ratchet. I hope you'll think about it in this larger context. Thanks. Dick Atlee -- You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. If you'd like to donate to News From Underground, please visit http://markcrispinmiller.com/donate - we appreciate your ongoing support. Ways to unsubscribe, 1) send a blank email to newsfromunderground+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. PLEASE NOTE: you must unsubscribe using the SAME email with which you subscribed; 2) go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. 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