the politics of unreasonable risks

[Susan Snow <sksnow@worldnet.att.net>]

Some time back, there was a discussion about Monsanto and the influence
they've wielded in both Congress and the White House.  Initially, their
influence unreasonably risked the health of the planet with PCBs.  The
PCBs, unfortunately, are still around yet now this unreasonable risk
have spread to pesticides and genetically modified organisms that resist
yet more herbicides and other pesticides.  In fact, some crops have been
registered to the USEPA as pesticides, themselves. Monsanto has bought
out major seed companies in North America and are spreading poisons
everywhere for profit, without ethical morals.

However, thanks to the Center for Public Integrity in their latest
report, UNREASONABLE RISK..THE POLITICS OF PESTICIDES (copyright, 1998),
I am better able to understand why whatever Monsanto wants, Monsanto
gets.  After all, their former [?] employees are everywhere --as U.S.
Representatives and U.S. Senators or working staff for ''honorable''
elected Congressmen/women, Monsanto staff are or have been in various
government positions where decisions are made that assist their
corporate into lucrative government contracts; one even finds them in
White House employment.  But what has been most disappointing to me
includes friends of the environment like a former Democratic Congressman
from Connecticut  that now appears to work or has worked for Monsanto.
Is there no end in sight for the stench of toxic money?  This is not a
gamble for sex with a White House intern, but an ''unreasonable risk''
that affects the lives and health of everyone, everywhere.  It is the
''politics of pesticides''.

I urge you to read this excellent investigative report which is in PDF
format at http://www.publicintegrity.org/unreasonable_risk.html .

There is something seriously wrong with the ethics and misnamed morality
in the U.S. government, and it has nothing to do with sexual
indiscretions.

Susan Snow