Written by Robert Sachs

I listen to this and could get all bent out of shape. More right wing rhetoric. Typical. Whatever. But, if I pay attention to this, I miss some real news – and some real contradictions in the Obama administration and household.

The Obama Health Care Plan, as far as I am concerned, was an anemic attempt to make health care available to more people. It sort of does. It looks like it might lower the cost of medications for some. But, even while these “plusses” already seem timid at best, the concession to the health insurance companies to mandate people to buy insurance was a sure fire way to get Republicans to try to get rid of the whole plan outright. Sure, there are provisions for those who can’t afford insurance to be subsidized. But, I really wonder what insurance companies will make available to people at the rock bottom level?

This is not going to bend me out of shape either. For certain this is kowtowing to the health insurance corporations and I get a bit squeamish. But, this does not bother me half or a tenth as much as Mr. Obama’s dalliance with Monsanto.

In recent weeks, the Obama administration has approved three GMO crops for distribution; alfalfa, soy beans, and corn.

What does this mean, folks? It means more than you can possibly imagine. So, I’ll fill you in.

In the permaculture and organic movements there is the fight to keep these crops out of the market place – these Franken- and Terminator seeds. They have the potential to wipe out all organic crops and run every small farmer out of business. The movie, “King Korn,” dramatized what has already taken place with a warning for the future. Well, Obama has just brought the future that much closer. That’s pretty bad, right?

Not as bad what it means to all holistic, indigenous, and natural based medical systems that have as their primary cornerstone, nutrition. If you mix a fish gene into a carrot, how will it act on the body? What will it do? Systems like Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda have been able to document and teach people the benefits of the full range of fruits, vegetables, grains, and animals fed these products. If the basic crops we eat are no longer genetically like what has been documented in these health care systems, then we stand to lose every bit of knowledge we have gained about health and nutrition from the last six thousand years.

What will that do to Obama’s Health Care Plan, no matter how lacking it is? What will it do to a Republican alternative? What will it do to Michele’s “Let’s Move” program? With our food systems destabilized, with all knowledge of how to use foods swept off the table, my sense is that our health care system will continue to be too expensive and inevitably fail us. And the average person will become even less capable of managing their own health care.

Mr. Obama, what are you doing? And, what will Michele say when she knows that you’re ruining her organic garden?