It was a day of revelation as 2 million people in 436 cities rallied against Monsanto and declared genetically modified crops the beast of the age. Inflated numbers, but regardless, there were a legion of protestors that gathered worldwide to protest GMO crops on May 25.
And liberated from the inconvenience of science and reason, the protestors set up kangaroo courts and consigned blame for every known medical malady on GMO crops. The demonstrations featured a parade of signs listing the great evils of history: bubonic plague, leprosy, WMDs, Josef Mengele, Hitler, Satan, syphilis — and GMO crops.
Certainly a segment of the participants at the marches were genuine; merely concerned about GMOs and tempered in their opposition. But the marches also brought out the straitjacket crowd — people who surely must have escaped from the asylum.
Reason Magazine compiled a video interview from the Los Angeles rally. The results are a theater of the bizarre, with anti-GMO claims from a string of odd characters that defy description. Charlie Manson devotees or Nurse Ratched patients, the Reason video gives them five minutes to shine.
A few choice quotes, with the video below:
On GMO poison —
“We’re an experiment. Tell me 15 years down the road what I’m gonna be telling my grandchildren when maybe they have a deformity.”
“GMOs kill and make everybody sick — completely. It’s not good for you; it’s made in a laboratory; it’s been altered; It’s not from the earth natural; it’s not from God. So it’s scary. For anybody to say GMO is good — they’re getting profit or some type of kickback or something to hide the real truth.”
“Boycott Cornflakes! That is not America’s breakfast! That is poison!”
“I’m a strong believer that we need to get rid of GMOs completely off of the whole globe — not just the United States, not just California. “
Want access to the very latest in agriculture news each day? Sign up for the Western Farm Press Daily e-mail newsletter.
On science and research —
“As far as I know there has only been one long-term study done. — which I couldn’t tell you who did it or anything, but that study showed that … I forget what that one exactly showed.”
“I couldn’t tell you if there is a scientific consensus. I certainly think there are a lot of scientists out there that are paid by these very corporations to say that it’s not happening. I don’t even think that it’s even open for debate.”
“What the scientists say? Like the ones paid by the federal government? No, I don’t trust them. I think they’re mostly just all liars … every health organization pretty much says vaccines are safe — and I don’t vaccinate my children.”
“I’ve read some studies about how they’re causing birth defects.”
From a GMO authority and local entrepreneur —
“All I do is educate people morning, noon and night, in my little tiny raw food restaurant on Ninth and Main with a Yoga studio underground.”
GMO corn is no aphrodisiac —
“Have you ever had corn that just grew out of the ground? Ten minutes after it’s snapped off the stalk from a real seed? It’s better than sex! Real corn … real corn is better than sex!”
