Saturday, August 20, 2011

A Global Corporate Youth Brigade: Using Social Networks for Evil

by Rufus Johnson


Young people today would never respond to an invitation to join a Nazi Youth brigade. But they have responded to social networks to be connected to their friends and are responding in the millions to fun projects to save the world. But have they looked closely at who is behind social networking and to what uses it is being put already?


Social networks are using knowledge of everyone's friends, what everyone is doing, and now starting to use social networks for harm.

A "vast green army" is being organized by Cornell and IBM. Cornell is tightly bound to Monsanto, so its projects to get young people to locate all plant and animal species in the world and GPS map them, and even in backyards, is worrisome, to say the least since it can be used for anti-ecological corporate purposes. It could help Monsanto to locate, patent and control nature, even more than they already do - and all for free, all under the name of "ecological fun" or saving the planet, by using naive, caring young people to do the investigative work for them. Monsanto is presently defoliating the Brazilian rainforest and has been doing that in Colombia for years, and is pushing laws to make it a felony to whistleblow on agribusiness (itself).


As for IBM, they were the experts used by the Third Reich to locate Jews and their assets and to coordinate trains to the concentration camps. The huge number of deaths during the Holocaust were only possible through IBM's collection of data. Now they are roping in kids to collect data for them and using the combined power of millions of kids' computers to crunch it. They are storing information not just on kids report but on those reporting it. Through fun social networking projects, IBM is setting up global surveillance.


The Rockefellers (connected to both Monsanto and IBM) had 1/2 interest in the Holocaust. Their connection to the Bushes is shot through with control over and alteration of nature for profit. Their history and current direction are not anything young environmentalists would want to support. But since their UN plan is billed as Eco and Green and Sustainable, many young people could be misled, and not notice that the UN's real interest in Sustainable is more than suspect. It is currently letting place after place be plundered and indigenous people be forced off their land, without a word to stop them. The UN's Global Compact is directly involved with that plunder and the situation has become so serious that Global Compact Critics was formed, "an informal network of organizations and people with concerns about ... partnerships between the United Nations and companies, and corporate accountability.


Right now, farmers, gardeners, environmentalists, indigenous people, around the world are working to save plants and animals and insects and to protect diversity, many actually hiding organic seeds or knowledge of where unique plants may be. As farmers producing organic food or milk or meat are being attacked in the US by the FDA and its food safety Czar, and even gardens are threatened, people here are even going underground to obtain fresh food, creating secret buying clubs and meeting in parking lots at night to sell farm food.


Will social networks be told how good it would be for "sustainable" local food systems to map how many gardens there are in the US, how many urban chickens, how many milking goats, how many farmers markets (not matter how small or off the grid) and where they all are? Agribusiness has been slaughtering animals in vast numbers for decades and pushing into extinction rare animal breeds. It was only through Haitians hiding their special breed of Creole pig that they managed to protect enough breeding stock to try to bring back the breed. In the UK, tens of millions of farm animals were slaughtered to "stamp out" FMD (foot and mouth disease), a non-threatening disease, causing a number of breeds to go extinct. The two outbreaks were caused by lab leaks (the USDA is moving a germ lab to the middle of cattle country over the strenuous objections of cattlemen and scientists who predict a in 10 chance of a leak). In Korea, 2 million animals were destroyed after an FMD outbreak, hogs buried alive. Most animals (90% - 99%?) were not sick at all and would have gotten over FMD in a week or more. Were Korean farmers able to hide any of their animals from the 70,000 military brought in to kill them, in an undeclared corporate war on animals? Korea had been resisting imports of US cattle over fear of Mad Cow disease, but now having lost 1/5 or their own livestock (with threats that FMD might return), they are less position to be picky.


In Brazil, where JBS is the large meat producer in the world, rainforests are being mowed down (or defoliated by Monsanto) to grow cattle and Monsanto's GE-soy as cattle feed, all for export to places like Korea (where they suddenly lost their own livestock under UN/FAO rules of slaughter - not quarantine). Yet, there are many states in Brazil with active FMD, but there is no UN call to slaughter those cattle. They are owned by the multinational cattle ranchers threatening the survival of uncontacted tribes, and are part of the UN Global Compact.


This is not about health but about corporate globalization of food and efforts to make sure none is in the hands of farmers or local people.

In the EU, the pharmaceutical industry under "food safety" have gotten all herbal remedies banned as unapproved drugs. From that position, they may ban gardeners from growing herbs, which they are calling "green pharmaceuticals." This is not far-fetched since in Australia there is a plan to ban 1000's of common garden plants.


Yet social networks are already being used as corporate tipsters. Young people, excited to help "save" the earth are being enlisted as the eyes on everything, recorded via their cell phone's photos with global coordinates included (and GPS tracking as well). If asked, social networks would jump to locate every animal, every beehive, every unique plant, every farm, every hidden garden, not realizing they would be cutting their own and the earth's throat. Because they would be turning in data on every living thing to corporations that are either genetically engineering them to patent them or outright destroying them.


Instead, they should be protecting the earth and everyone's (even animals') lives by keeping secret where plants, animals, insects, and even humans, are.


The naivete of caring young people is an outcome of their good hearts because they see good everywhere. It is not easy to see what is going on because corporations have disguised what they are doing. But true environmental efforts are being betrayed as corporation take them over. The daughter of the founder of Environmental Defense saw that betrayal and stormed the offices of ED with other real environmentalists in protest of ED supporting corporate predation through carbon trading.


When words like "sustainable" and "eco" and ''green" become PR for corporations, young people must see through to reality so they can work with those like themselves who legitimately care. If a group has a huge presence, such as ads on Hulu, or Care.org (using greeting cards as a means to collect more names), they have big money coming from somewhere.


Corporately funded organizations rouse feelings in young people to do something positive, but usually it is for weak action or in the wrong direction, at a critical political moment. How many groups like CREDO or Food and Water Watch have sent out messages for signatures for petitions against Monsanto's rBGH? It is a way to say "We are with you, we are the good guys." But did they send messages to alert people that the food safety bill would put Monsanto in charge of all food? No.


Oxfam and other NGOs have nice names but their connections are not so nice. Wanting to help other countries has even morphed into a new geopolitical military strategy to override sovereign countries and ignore international law in order to "protect" people. But this is being done with the UN demanding no votes before sovereign countries are invaded based on corporate media driven "humanitarian" necessity. It is a new colonialism. Previous financial powers used saving souls from paganism as the cover. But whatever it is called, it was and still is, about plunder.


If young people in social networks want to help the earth, it's imperative they not become a corporate youth movement, share data on nature and people with corporate interests. They must look behind university programs which are often funded by such interests and distrust any large "fun" new project that involves collecting data. If they want to help, they begin watching the corporations and NGOs and exposing violations against people and the earth. For it is evidence of corporate depredation that is needed. And it's clear the UN is not helping.


Oxfam is but one NGO receiving Rockefeller funding. Below is a list of organizations funded by rhe Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF). Not one, despite their "caring" names, tried to stop the Food Modernization and Safety Act though it was obvious all food and farms in the US would be under the control of Monsanto and that land, water, plants, animals, and people were all threatened. Perhaps the following organizations did not know what was at stake (though millions of people did) , perhaps they were only persuaded to take another course ....


the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; SeaWeb; Greenpeace; the Environmental Media Services; the National Environmental Trust; Human Rights Watch; the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Friends of the Earth; the David Suzuki Foundation; the Natural Resources Defense Council; theEnvironmental Defense Fund; the Ocean Conservancy; the H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment; Alliance for Justice; the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Council on Foundations; the American Oceans Campaign; the Sierra Club; the Rainforest Action Network; the World Resources Institute; the Earth Island Institute; the Environmental Working Group; the World Wildlife Fund; the Urban Institute; the Izaak Walton League of America; the Open Space Institute; the Conservation Law Foundation; the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund; the Wilderness Society; the Worldwatch Institute; the Union of Concerned Scientists; Ozone Action; the Pacific Rivers Council; the Rainforest Alliance; the National Wildlife Federation; Clean Water Action; Action Against Crime and Violence Education Fund; the Pesticide Action Network; the Community Action Project; the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity; the International Forum on Globalization; Redefining Progress; Environmental Advocates; Public Citizen; Conservation International; the Earth Day Network; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Forest Ethics; the Biodiversity Action Network; Consumers Union; the Center for Health, Environment and Justice; the Public Media Center; the Environmental Research Foundation; the Environmental Justice Alliance; the League of Conservation Voters; Oxfam America; the Waterkeeper Alliance; the Resource Renewal Institute; the Foundation on Economic Trends; the Environmental Grantmakers Association; the Center for Science in the Public Interest; the Center for a New American Dream; Green Seal; the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides; the New America Foundation; Friends of the Constitution; the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN); the American Conservation Association; the American Council for Renewable Energy; the Aspen Institute; the Brookings Institution; the National Black Child Development Institute; the Center for Clean Air Policy; the Center for Economic and Policy Research; the Center for Media and Public Affairs; the Center for Policy Alternatives; Earth Share; EarthRights International; the Wildlife Conservation Society; the Brennan Center for Justice; the World Social Forum; the Women's Project and Production; Ecologists Linked for Organizing Grassroots Initiatives and Action; Environmental Aboriginal Guardianship Through Law and Education; the Forest Trends Association; the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security; Global Justice, Inc.; the Institute for Policy Studies; the Institute for Sustainable Communities; the Gay Men's Health Crisis; Planned Parenthood; the Sentencing Project; the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights; Public Broadcasting Service; the International Peace Academy; the Jewish Fund for Justice; the Meridian Institute; the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy; Amnesty International; National Public Radio; the Nature Conservancy; the Organizing Support Center; the New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy; the Wild Salmon Center; the Pacific Environment and Resources Center; the Parks Council; the Pinchot Institute for Conservation; the Ploughshares Fund; Project Underground; theRockefeller Family Fund; TechRocks; the Third World Network; and the United Nations Foundation.



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