Virgil & Monsanto, Sitting in a Tree

I'm sure there are a million reasons that Virgil Goode and the corporate sponsors that compose 94.3% of his 2008 campaign contributors are bad for the small family farmer.* Obviously, Virgil loves corporate money, even when it comes from Monsanto, a company that not only poisons a large percentage of our drinking water with their dangerous pesticides and herbicides but also recently introduced corporate feudalism to American crop production.

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Here's the story:

Monsanto is a giant multinational corporation that produces a variety of agricultural products, leading the world in pesticide and biogenetically-engineered seed production. Outside of dangerously high levels of pollution produced by their chemicals, Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops provide by far the most danger to the American farmer. The corporation places strict regimes on farmers purchasing their seed by means of technology contacts and patents. The contracts essentially allow Monsanto to control farmers' ability to plant, harvest and sell the [genetically modified] seed" through a variety of obscure national and international intellectual property laws. Farmers under these technology agreements are also subject to numerous Monsanto harassment tactics, including surprise farm inspections. There have also been several instances of electronic surveillance on farmers suspected of planting seeds saved from a previous year's crop.

Monsanto thrives on producing controversy and then slipping away from prosecution, hiding behind heavy campaign contribution coffers and an overwhelming force of corporate money, i.e. lawsuits. So far, Monsanto has sued 90 farmers, with an additional 147 farmers and 39 small businesses forced to wage expensive lawsuits in order to protect their family farms. In all, Monsanto has earned $15 million in court awards in the United States alone. One farmer paid Monsanto over $3 million in damages in 2007 while the corporation earned $998 million globally that same year.

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This is only one example of the kind of people Virgil Goode will accept money from and supports in Congress. It's only $1,000, right? Well, not really. As seen from previous Goode corporate profiteering, he also received another $1,000 from lobbyist group Troutman Sanders, who list Monsanto as a client. The same firm also represents the Farm Credit Council, a pro-corporate agribusiness group which also gave $300 to Goode. However, if I can take 10 minutes from a busy day and find one instance of corporate bundling in Virgil Goode's 2008 corporate donor list, what else is in there?

And what did Monsanto's money buy them? A vote against the Farm Bill, that's what. On August 29th, 2007, Virgil Goode explained his vote against the bill, which would have provided billions of dollars in relief to US farmers, by stating:

Further, last-minute tax increases added by Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee would, in some cases, impose the equivalent of a 30-percent gross receipts tax on certain U. S. subsidiaries of foreign companies that provide 5.1 million jobs in our country, with an annual payroll of almost $3.25 billion. The tax increases will have a negative impact on such companies as Food Lion, Nestle, Bayer and T-Mobile. - The New Dominion.

You've probably guessed my point by now: those very same "tax increases" would've negatively impacted Monsanto as well....



*Goode corporate sponsorship rates (corporate % of total contributions:)
2005-2006: 81%
2003-2004: 90.9% (Thanks MZM!)
2001-2002: 87.9%
1999-2000: 85.4% (As an independent)

Technorati Tages: Politics, Congress, Election, Corruption, Monsanto