The Hightower Report

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MONSANTO GOES NUTS

If insanity could be packaged, Monsanto Co. would surely own the patent.

This biotech giant is insanely manipulating the genetics of our world's food supply without long-term testing of how these Frankenfoods will affect human health or our environment. Monsanto maniacally pushes these products without ever informing customers that the very DNA of the foodstuffs they're eating has been artificially altered in its corporate laboratories -- literally using us as its guinea pigs. And, like a foam-at-the-mouth mad dog, Monsanto attacks anyone who dares get in the way of its genetic profiteering.

Oakhurst Dairy in Portland, Maine, has seen Monsanto's madness in action. It's a small milk processor that tries to do business the old-fashioned way: giving consumers what they want. Or, in this case, not giving consumers what they don't want, which is milk laced with Monsanto's artificial growth hormone, which has been linked to causing everything from premature puberty in children to health problems in cows injected with it.

Overwhelmingly, consumers say they don't want this stuff in their milk, so Oakhurst Dairy started paying dairy farmers a premium for milk that's certified to be free of it. Oakhurst proudly labels its jugs with this promise: "No Artificial Growth Hormones."

Enter the raw nuttiness of Monsanto, which has now sued Oakhurst, claiming that its label deceives consumers by making them think that the pure milk is healthier than milk with Monsanto's hormones. In fact, all Oakhurst is doing is letting customers know what's not in their product, so customers can make up their own minds which milk to buy.

As Oakhurst's president puts it: "We're in the business of marketing milk, not Monsanto's drugs." Besides, he says, "The world seems a little bit discombobulated when somebody attempts to prohibit you from doing the right thing."

To help stop Monsanto, call the Organic Consumers Association: 218/226-4164.

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THANKS FOR AMERICA'S REBELLIOUS SPIRIT

On this Thanksgiving Day, one thing that I'm thankful for is to be a progressive in America -- even in this age of Bushwa.

What makes me thankful are the great rebellious spirit and progressive ideals that I find among the great majority of our people -- a spirit and progressivism that can't be drained from us even by the collective efforts of BushCo, the Corporate Kleptocrats, and the Wobblycrats in Washington.

Luckily, I get to travel a lot, speaking and working with folks all across America. So I don't have to take my impression of people's beliefs and attitudes from the establishment press, pundits, pollsters, and politicos. And I can tell you that, contrary to the contrived conventional wisdom of these establishment elites, Americans are not a bunch of meek, trust-authority, just-go-shopping corporate conservatives clutching duct tape and religiously watching Fox television to learn what it is we're supposed to think and do.

Rather, we're the same bunch of restless-and-raucous rebels, anti-establishment mutts, and mavericks who've always been drawn to this big brawling and sprawling country -- and who've steadily extended our egalitarian ideals over the decades. Everywhere I go, I find that ordinary grassroots Americans are lighting little prairie fires of rebellion against the economic and political exclusion being practiced by the power elites.

You hear little about it from the media barons, but more than 112 cities have already passed living-wage initiatives; students on more than 50 campuses have outlawed sweatshop goods from Nike and others; nearly 200 towns have defeated Wal-Mart and other big-box bullies from bulldozing into their communities; more than 200 cities, towns, and counties have passed formal actions against the liberty-busting USA PATRIOT Act; and ... well, the list goes on of modern-day rebels fighting -- and winning -- to take our democracy back.

Thanks to all of you on this Thanksgiving Day for your great rebellious spirit!