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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kid Rock who wrote (91635)	12/17/2004 1:06:58 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 108807

"I think, to summarize, there is nothing more important for the development and advancement of humankind than the protection of intellectual property rights. Without it, we would ALL live like the rest of the third world." I think a discussion would be lovely. I must say I totally agree that when an artist makes music, or a film maker makes a movie, it is fair that they receive payment and that their work is not counterfeited. There are many other examples of products--computers and other technology come to mind immediately--where copyright protection seems just. HOWEVER, to me Monsanto's idea of taking over worldwide agricultural technology doesn't make sense to third world farmers. Farmers should be able to develop their own preferred seeds and grow them. Your basic assumption, though, seems to include the idea that farmers cannot grow good crops without the help of technology, and that is not true. We are all alive today because agriculture is an ancient human practice, one that farmers all over the globe seem to have gotten down pretty well. They shouldn't be forced to accept the invasion of genetically engineered crops, either. Some of the things Monsanto has developed are scary and extremely dangerous--the web pages I cited discuss the problems for human health of Round-up resistant seeds, bovine growth hormones, NutraSweet and a lot of other Monsanto products. I try to stay as far from Monsanto and other large chemical companies as I can. I never buy anything with genetically modified ingredients. I drink organic soy milk, and avoid fruits and vegetables that have been treated with any pesticides. I have given up dairy products and eating meat. While Monsanto's slogans at first sound really nice, like they are trying to feed the world, in my opinion they are just trying to make huge profits from controlling international agriculture. The technology for organic commercial farming has made leaps and bounds. People all over the world should be practicing local, sustainable farming. No one should be eating food that has been poisoned by Monsanto, or eating genetically modified foods. You can see we are really, really far apart on this issue. While it is an interesting issue to discuss, I am not sure either of us is going to change our minds much.