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44 THE RURAL VOICE
News
You hear them expounding this great
new global world we're involved in."
In the earlier round of
globalization under colonialism, the
great powers bought slaves and
brought them to the work, he said.
Now they take the work and take it to
the poor people who work like
slaves.
• On terrorism: "I have some strong
feelings about terrorism. When you
look at the world how many of your
realize that today in Africa and other
parts of thee world there are at least
10,000 people dying every day
because of starvation? I've visited
those famine camps when I was
president of the World Food Council.
You think there's nothing more
terrifying than dying of starvation
over a lengthy period of time of not
just days, but weeks?
"And we pay no attention because
we've got to balance our budget. We
can say 'you're going to die, and
you're going to die but we've got to
balance our budget and if your
friends are alive when we're finished
we're going to come and look after
you. We're that civilized group of
Christians."
"We're not. We're the worst
uncivilized group of barbarians the
world has ever seen and we have the
most education and technology in the
world."
He recalled a trip to an Ethiopian
refugee camp that he still wakes up
dreaming about. He met a teenager
whose mother a sister and brother
died of starvation up in the hills
before he, his father and brothers had
escaped to the camp.
"If that little guy ever survived
and realized what we didn't do — if
he knew what we could do, what we
should have done — how do you
think he would feel? You think he'd
be bitter? Boy he'd have to a strong
believer not to be bitter.
"Maybe this terrible thing in New
York and Washington that shook us
to our bootstraps, made us think
about those millions or billions of
other people that we could help if we
really wanted to."
• On genetic engineering: "I'm so
mad when I sit and watch TV and I
read the farm papers and they're
making comparisons of artificial
insemination and embryo transplants
with crossing a bacteria with a
shotgun approach, which is not
natural, into a plant.
"You should be concerned about
that. I have a lot of scientists who are
concerned. I have over 1,000 letters
in my file and I don't have the
resource to answer them."
He talked about a doctor of
biology with two children who wrote
to him saying she wanted to know
what was in her food.
"When you talk about
voluntarylabeling (of food with
GMOs) that's a terrible lie!" Whelan
said, condemning OFA President
Jack Wilkinson for his opposition to
mandatory labeling. The same kind
of scare tactics are being used as
when bilingual labels were mandated
by the government — that it would
cost too much, he said.
"I don't think the farm
organizations have any business
backing genetic engineering."
You can't prove the negative, he
says, and there hasn't been enough
research done on the safety of GMOs
and they haven't been available long
enough for problems to show up in
consumers.
• On privatization of agricultural
research: "We had the biggest and
the best research (resources). We had
scientists who were independent, that
made the decisions for you and I. We
developed some of the best products
in .the world. How do you think we
developed canola? How do you think
we developed lentils? How do you
think we developed the different
strains of barley? How do think we
made our dairy herds the best in the
world? We didn't cross it with no
elephant gene or mouse gene or
anything. We did it through good
scientists and good research.
"You're even scared to get a
government researcher today to make
a statement because they don't know
if tomorrow they're going to be let
go, and if they don't agree with
Monsanto or one of these big outfits,
they're not going to get a job.
"We've destroyed a big part of a
system that we built. It's not hard to
be a wrecker, but it's a lot harder to