I know we mentioned that we had a steer, but I don’t think we have taken the time to formally introduce him. He was part of the purchase of Vaughnshire and is around 11 months old now. His name, as you may have surmised, is Monsanto. You may know this is also the name a the largest “pesticide turn seed” company in the world.
You see we expect to put him, Monsanto the steer, “on ice” next summer and would like nothing better than to see Monsanto, the huge international agribusiness corporation, go the way of the butcher’s knife as well. The idea here is, if Wal-Mart is evil, then Monsanto Corp. is the devil himself!
Wal-Mart only sells the chemically laden food products, Monsanto is on the production side of the house. It would be one thing if they were producing dangerous chemicals and simply offering them for sale. But they have taken an aggressive stance against small family farmers who would be in competition with them. Specifically, they have gone after people who save seeds. When they do that, they do not only attack the individuals, they attack the diversity of our food supply.
There is a great film that walks through the recent history of food called, “The Future of Food“. I’ll include a clip below I found on YouTube. If you’re interested in gene technology, owning patents on living beings, the importance of food diversity, and many other engaging topics, I’d encourage you to check out this video. (I think it also adds to the case against corporate America and shows some additional fruit of corporations.) It’s not a perfect video and there are certainly some philosophical differences between my worldview and those of the creators of this film, but there is not another product that covers the challenges facing our food supply as thoroughly as this one.
The Future of Food
Not that I’m defending Walmart, but for the record, I do actually buy quite a few organic products at Walmart. SO not everything they offer is chemically laden. They’ve begun carrying Annie’s Organics, Earth’s Best, Toms of Maine, Jason’s, Earthbound Organics and Newman’s Own, Stonyfield Farms…I could go on like this for a while.
Hi Clair,
It’s true, Walmart is starting to get the picture on healthier products, but only because there is a dollar in it for them. 🙂 In my view walmart could be selling silver dollars that get you into heaven and they would still be the premier symbol of what is wrong with America, not what is right. I addressed this in much more detail here:
http://vaughnshire.com/2006/09/05/is-walmart-evil-part-1-corporations/
Not provoking here, just wondering…but does this mean that you also boycott all things Disney since they support guy rights as well? (when I had a season’s pass there, I remember them actually shutting down the park for “gay day” once a year – I’m sure it had a more official name, but that’s how I’ve always remembered it.) 🙂
I’m actually wondering how many corporations you know of who support gay rights and if all are boycotted?
Again, really not provoking (it’s hard to read tones in email and comments sometimes! 🙂 ), just wondering…
And that one “guy rights” is suppose to be “gay rights” – oops! lol
Hey Guys have rights too! 🙂 I wonder what the public reaction would be if we organized a “Guy Rights” campaign, sighting all the places where a father’s rights have been stripped away by our justice system… you might be on to something here, but I doubt the Disney leadership would get behind us. 🙂
On Disney, I feel the same about them as I do all corporations. They are patently non-biblical… that is to say you do not find the concept of corporations at all in the Bible. The Walmart series covers this in more detail.
But to answer your question, where we are able to, we avoid spending money with any organization that would use it to promote evil. We also choose to use our money to support local families we know, who live in the community we are a part of, as opposed to sending our money to some corporate headquarters in New Jersey or Bentonville, AR.
There is a lot more to this than I can put in a comment… You started me on a new post about the local economy. So you can take the credit or the blame for that post when it comes. 🙂
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