ThirstyFish

I have to admit, I had no clue who or what Monsanto was until I photographed this. Monsanto is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. It is a significant producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seed. So, you might ask, as I did, what is Occupy Wall Street's beef with Monsanto?

If you've been reading through my Occupy posts, you probably noticed that I make a distinction between corporations that produce goods, and, financial corporations that bet and hedge on speculation. A company that abuses workers in third world countries and ships jobs overseas, as evil as they may be, still produces something. Whereas investment banks, using cartel-like tactics to manipulate markets, produce nothing. Raising capital, finance and credit are essential in today's marketplace, but manipulating markets for short term gain, as we have seen in the Internet and Housing bubbles, accomplish nothing but deprive people of their earnings.

That being said, corporations come in all shapes, sizes and flavors. Some are outright evil, while others are example institutions that innovate and benefit society. Monsanto seems to fall into the "evil" category, with a poor environmental and health record, manipulative business practices, a long history of manufacturing and illegally dumping toxic chemicals, undermining and indebting farmers, avoiding regulation by lobbying, marketing herbicides, growth hormones and genetically modified seed with questionable safety records... the list goes on and on.

There are literally millions of anti Monsanto sites on the Internet. I'm not sure there is any other company that is so hated, which tops the Least Ethical Companies In The World lists of even mainstream publications; You can read a Vanity Fair article, a wiki page exposing its tactics, or even watch a full length documentary. The evidence seems pretty strong, so: Fuck Monsanto!

More Occupy photos.

2012-07-14 Update: I just watched a very informative segment on BillMoyers.com about the Problem with Genetically Modified Seeds and Monsanto. Moyers' guest was Vandana Shiva.

Song of the Day: Don't Drink The Water - Dave Matthews Band (1998)