Mexican Farmers, Missouri EEZ, Nature

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: This morning, my heart is with Via Campesina and the Mexican farmers on a hunger strike to stop Monsanto, DuPont and Dow from planting six million acres with GM (genetically modified) corn. Remember, dear reader, that Mexico is the birthplace of corn, created by indigenous peoples through crossing vigorous, productive strains. It is an outrage that the native strains will be polluted by American GMO technology. They have chosen to camp at the Monuement of Independence from Spanish colonialism, and some are on hunger strike. The police have surrounded them. One of the peasant leaders, Alberto Gómez Flores, coordinator of Via Campesina North America, said, "It's very symbolic because they are preventing people of this country from being in front of the Monument of Independence from Spanish colonialism, and thus they are really serving their current masters, the new colonialists of Monsanto, DuPont and Pioneer." He continued, "We will stay here in camp, as close as we can be to the Monument, and if they come to evict us we will sit peacefully in resistance. They will not take us away from here." When I got to school yesterday, my friend Dr. John, the political scientist, said, “Congratulations! You won!” and I pretended to know what he was talking about. Knowing that he’d rattle on until he revealed the secret, I just said thanks, and “We always win, John.” And, true to form, he kept on effusing until I figured it out. We’d won the EEZ fight! It was in the papers, but we don’t get the Fulton Sun until late on the farm. At least for now, the Fulton Area Development Corporation has dropped its effort to declare my neighborhood blighted. They promise to return in March with a new map, based on the new census, but for now we’re un-blighted and, as far as FADC is concerned, un-develop-able. See, the EEZ scheme allows them to drop taxes for new developers. I mean, um, job creators. Even though I let John think I had something to do with the win, because he’d read my letter to the editor a week back, the real heroes were the Tea Party Patriots and Fair Tax advocates that kept calling meetings. All we had to do, from our neighborhood, is show up and ask questions. To be honest, I’m not generally with the Tea Party and Fair Tax folks. But we were united on EEZ. When I said, “We always win,” I was pretty much right. Problem is, it usually takes more than 3 months for the win to be recorded. In the Mexican farmers’ fight for social, environmental and health justice, which centers around GMO seeds, mid-Missouri will lose for another 2 generations because our present-day farmers are committed to the seeds. But nature will win in the end. Nature bats last, that’s for sure, but Nature is super slow. She’s like the kid from out-of-town that’s never played baseball, but knows all the rules for cricket. Once she figures out baseball, she’s gonna win.