Genetically Modified Foods; Are Our Freedoms Eroding?

By Laura Langford Schnur

Daily, email, mail and media describe desperate conditions, events, crimes against people or nature, appealing for aid and help with petitions. There is so much need in the world! It’s almost overwhelming to know.
My soul responds in horror, my will forces engage, muscles tense and I’m mobilized to do something. But what? I can occasionally make a small token donation, but don’t know what else to do except forward the email along or say a silent prayer as I toss the letter into the basket.

Although I’ve gotten away with the above thoughts and attitudes before, there is one giant issue affecting all of us on the planet which I’ve awakened to recently and cannot live with myself if I ignore it. Sure, I knew superficial tidbits about it 10 years ago, but beginning in January, much to my great embarrassment and anger (that I didn’t know before), I awakened fully to the full reality of genetically modified organisms (GMO) as foods. It took a film: The Future of Food and other documentaries to awaken me.

We each need to wake up and be aware of what’s happening to our human rights and freedoms when it comes to what we eat. They have steadily been eroding for many years while most of the public slumbers in complete trust. Yes, we may try to avoid the chemicals and additives, buy organic and think we are on top of it but those are minor compared to the genetic manipulation of our foods which has snowballed to unbelievable proportions.

Do we have the right to know the contents of our foods? Do multinational corporations and our own government have the right to take away our rights to know and be in charge of what we eat? Do they have the right to bring foods to the market place poisoned, contaminated with mutations that will go on and on in us, in our children, and in nature which they, and we, will not be able to control? Foods which they have genetically changed, fill at least 70 percent of packaged and processed foods and drinks in grocery stores. Did any of us ask for this? Did you realize that no labeling is required of them?

At this point, the corporations behind all of this have arranged it such that they don’t have to be responsible for any or all the destruction of health, lives and land their “inventions” cause. Any testing comes from the company itself, not from impartial agencies. More than food, they’ve been manipulating our political and legal systems! Their budget is enormous for litigation against any who stand in their way.

Many scientists in different parts of the world have, in alarm, pointed to the dangers. They have been ignored, threatened or silenced in some way—research funding revoked. Biotech corporations and the FDA advertise that there is no harm at all and no difference from conventionally grown produce! They simply deny any evidence otherwise and thrust it onto an unsuspecting public here and abroad.

How can we Americans in the “land of the free” not even know we’re not free any more? The thief in the night has come and stolen our most basic human right: food. How many of my fellow citizens know the facts or want to know? Many admit they know nothing, others know something—but you will not know the full truth until you experience the documentary films. Thankfully there are awake people and groups formed who have courageously been trying to warn us and combat this “dragon” with films like Food, Inc., The Future of Food, The World According to Monsanto and GMO Trilogy with Jeffrey Smith.

I’ve realized that freedom is not a fixed concept or condition to be taken for granted. Calling it “freeness” expresses it better: a mobile, moving, continuously alive state of alertness and choice, inwardly and outwardly, individually as well as collectively. As in breathing, we can never stop. The air we breathed yesterday will not suffice for today.

The moment we become passive and rest on what is already achieved, we begin losing the essence of freeness. It is intertwined with truth, a state of balance in soul. There are always hindrances and counter forces that would take it from us.

So, what am I doing to exercise my freeness now? Movies, books and websites have been a major source of my education the past five months. Let me share some of my favorite sources of the truth:

www.natureinstitute.org Craig Holdrege and Steve Talbot, Harlemville/Ghent, New York; Objective scientific work, highly recommended articles, books and newsletter: “In Context.”

www.organicconsumers.org Effective activist organization, up-to-the-minute action alerts to “click” and send to congressmen etc., a wealth of articles archived back to 1998, newsletter: “Organic Bytes.”

www.responsibletechnology.org Another activist organization. Watch and listen to free DVDs and CDs. Buy films, books, “Non-GMO Shopping Guide” and “Unintended GMO Health Risks” brochure. Action alerts and a newsletter, “Spilling the Beans.”

www.futureoffood.com Deborah Garcia’s expose on GMOs and the consequences of the green revolution. The site includes a list of many other organizations doing this work and ways to become involved.

www.abundantlifefarm.com Download the film: “The World According to Monsanto.”

What can we DO?

Read labels carefully. Look for the USDA Organic sign, or buy food directly from farmers whom you know and trust.
Tell as many people as possible about this important issue. Share the films.
Support the organizations working against GMOs. Click and send their e-mail alerts to congressmen, The President, committees, etc.
Inform your local grocery, health food stores and restaurants that you will not eat their produce with GMOs. Cooperate with them to achieve this.
Contact your elected officials with personal letters.
Write press releases for papers, radio and TV.
Work for healthy lunches for children in schools.
Contact the organizations mentioned in this article for more suggestions.
And for soul balance and health, don’t forget to seek communion with the spiritual world which is far greater, mightier and forever enduring long after “this too has passed.”

For the Michael Age

Let us eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes to meet us out of the future. Let us acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future.

Let us look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come
and let us think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world direction full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely to live out of pure trust
without any security in existence, trusting in the ever present help of the spiritual world.

Truly nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail. Let us discipline our will and let us seek that awakening from within ourselves every morning and every evening.

—Rudolf Steiner

Contact Laura Langford Schnur at langfordschnur@frontiernet.net.