Sunday, April 28, 2013

Don't Let Monsanto Kill the Humble but Wholesome Dandelion

I was watching TV the other day.  Commercial break.  Cut to a lush green lawn.  A single yellow dandelion springs up through the emerald expanse.  The heroic protagonist appears left.  He spies the flower, runs, dives, somersaults onto the lawn and pops up sturdily on one knee. Brandishing a bottle of weed killer, he fires.  The patented nozzle rains hell on the defenseless sunbather.  The flower withers. And dies. The lawn-owner is triumphant.  Right?

The dandelion doesn’t simply nourish humans; it nourishes other plants as well.  Year after year this perennial often reappears in spite of all the mowings, weedings, and poisonings it endures.  This is because the dandelion has a “taproot”, a long twisted root that can grow three feet deep within the earth.  The taproot brings minerals and nutrients not available at the soil’s surface to neighboring plants with shorter roots.  The taproot connects us to less contaminated parts of Mother Earth.  It connects us to our foundations.

Monsanto and its subsidiaries, competitors, and peers sell us pesticides that kill the free food we could grow on our lawns.  Then they sell us processed foods that damage our bodies.  They sell us pharmaceuticals to “help” us with the ailments that come from eating those processed foods, ailments such as obesity, diabetes, kidney failure, and cancer.  We are even more susceptible to lesser ailments (common colds, influenzas, and infections) because our immune systems lack the proper nutrients to combat them.   They profit at every step.  And at every step we suffer.  We get sick. We suffer. And we die.


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