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[[link removed]]
[[link removed]] [?subject=Pandemic
Shock&body=[link removed]] ESSAY OF THE WEEKPANDEMIC SHOCK

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In the COVID-19-driven time warp of the past 90 days, politics, economics and
public opinion have changed drastically.

Important aspects of social behavior seem to have improved—less non-essential
travel, less consumption, more family focus, reduced greenhouse gas pollution
(17 percent less worldwide in early April), increase in demand for healthy,
home-cooked foods, appreciation for nature, mutual aid, social solidarity and
more attention paid to the plight of farmworkers, small farmers, healthcare
workers and food chain workers.

Unfortunately, other impacts of the pandemic are quite negative, in fact
catastrophic: widespread anxiety and fear, extreme political polarization and
economic meltdown, including a massive number of bankruptcies of small
businesses, with 40 million workers unemployed in the U.S. alone.

In addition, the federal government, led by the White House and Senate
Republicans, abetted by corporate Democrats, has relaxed pollution,
environmental and food safety standards, and handed out multi-trillion-dollar
bailouts, with little or no government oversight, to the fossil fuel industry,
corporate agribusiness and Fortune 500 corporations—instead of providing
sufficient resources for those businesses, farmers, workers, families and
individuals who most need help.

As Arundhati Roy suggested
[[link removed]] early on in this crisis, historically, pandemics have served as "a portal, a
gateway between one world and the next." How we walk through that portal,
whether we choose to imagine another world—and fight for that world—is up to us.

Read Ronnie's essay of the week: 'Pandemic Shock: Digital Dictatorship or Green
Recovery?'
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[[link removed]] [?subject='Safe' to Say . . .
&body=[link removed]] TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK'SAFE' TO SAY . . .

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Would you believe your Smithfield pork chop was the “safest possible” U.S. pork
product—if you knew that pork products produced by Smithfield are commonly
contaminated with dangerous pathogens?

And what if you knew that the U.S. Department of Agriculture frequently notifies
Smithfield that pork processed product in its slaughter plants is more likely to
be contaminated with Salmonella than similar products in slaughter plants of the
same size?

Safe to say, you wouldn’t. Yet Smithfield makes that exact (false) claim, in
hope of convincing more consumers to buy more Smithfield pork products.

Last week we sued Smithfield
[[link removed]] . You can read all of the reasons here, in the complaint
[[link removed]] .

There are a lot of reasons to dislike Smithfield, one of the four Big Meat
corporations (along with Tyson, Cargill and JBS) that dominate industrial meat
production.

There’s the animal abuse
[[link removed]] . The water pollution
[[link removed]] . The air pollution
[[link removed]] .

There’s the fact that Smithfield, a wholly owned subsidiary of WH Group of
China, destroys rural communities in the U.S. in order to satisfy its own
country’s insatiable appetite
[[link removed]] for pork.

And then there’s Smithfield’s exploitation of slaughterhouse employees.
Smithfield, like the other Big Meat producers, has never been known for treating
workers fairly or with dignity
[[link removed]] .

That situation is so bad now, during the COVID-19 crisis, that workers at one
facility recently sued
[[link removed]] the company, for:

“ . . . failing to provide workers with sufficient protective equipment; forcing
them to work shoulder to shoulder; giving them insufficient opportunities to
wash their hands; discouraging them from taking sick leave; and failing to
implement a plan for testing and contact tracing.”

But these aren't the reasons we sued Smithfield. We sued the company for lying
to consumers. Because there are laws
[[link removed]] against that. And we think consumers have the right to know when corporations
lie to them.

Read our press release
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Read the full complaint
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Read ‘Food Safety Claims Land Smithfield Foods Inc. in D.C. Court’
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[[link removed]] [?subject=Truth Be
Told&body=[link removed]] COVID-19TRUTH BE TOLD

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It’s been tough to watch the narrative about the origins of the COVID-19 virus
split almost evenly into two camps: the lone bat in the wet market camp vs. the
genetically engineered by humans in a lab camp.

It’s been even tougher to sit by as the engineered-in-a-lab theory, despite supporting evidence
[[link removed]] from credible scientists, has been quickly dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”
unworthy of due investigation.

We suspect the public will never hear the full story behind the origins of this
pandemic, unless we explore all of the complex, nuanced motivations by those who
have a stake in controlling the narrative, and marginalizing anyone who doesn’t
fall in line.

To that end, we’ve been conducting interviews with scientists and others who are
digging deep, looking under the rocks, lifting the covers, shining the
spotlights—insert your own analogy here—to get to the truth.

This week, we share—in both video and transcript format—interviews with four
people who think the public has the right to know what really happened, and are
working to find out what that truth is.

Because, truth be told, unless we fully expose the origin of the global COVID-19
pandemic, we are doomed to endure another, possibly much worse, pandemic in the
future.

Watch & read our interview with Stuart Newman
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Watch & read our interview with Jonathan Latham
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Watch & read our interview with André Leu
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Watch & read our interview with Sam Husseini
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MORE ON COVID-19

COVID-19: A Leaked Franken-Virus Jointly Engineered and Financed by the US and
China?
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Read ‘Wuhan and U.S. Scientists Used Undetectable Methods of Genetic Engineering
on Bat Coronaviruses
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SIGN THE PETITION: Stop the Genetic Engineering of Viruses! Shut Down All
Biowarfare Labs Now!
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[[link removed]] [?subject=Woe Is
Bayer?&body=[link removed]] MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTOWOE IS BAYER?

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If you want to know where Big Pharma stands on protecting consumers from being
poisoned by chemicals, start here.

The website FiercePharma.com posted an article
[[link removed]] this week about reports that Bayer is nearing a settlement agreement with the
more than 125,000 people suing
[[link removed]] the company over Roundup weedkiller
[[link removed]] . The article starts out with this:

“Investors suffering losses from Bayer’s Roundup legal woes are finally seeing a
light at the end of the tunnel, as the German conglomerate is said to be nearing
a final settlement that could put tens of thousands of lawsuits behind it.”

Wow. So the victims here are Bayer, who’s “finally seeing the light at the end
of the tunnel,” and Bayer shareholders, who have been “suffering losses?”

Funny, we would have thought that the victims in this story are the tens of
thousands of human beings and their families, devastated by cancer—not the
corporation that sold those people a weedkiller, falsely marketed as “safe,”
that caused cancer.

Meanwhile, looks as though Bayer (which paid more than $60 billion for Monsanto
in 2016, then later announced
[[link removed]] it was dropping the Monsanto
[[link removed]] name) is testing a new, “no-glyphosate” version
[[link removed]] of Roundup. It’s being marketed on Amazon as containing a “100% natural active
ingredient.”

No clue as to what that “100% natural” mystery ingredient actually is—but we’ll
be looking into it, and reporting back later.

Read ‘No More Legal Headache for Bayer as It Nears $10B Roundup Settlement:
Report
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More on the Monsanto Roundup trials
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TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to ban Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller!
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[[link removed]] [?subject=Let Big Meat
Fail&body=[link removed]] ACTION ALERTLET BIG MEAT FAIL

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As COVID-19 swept through
[[link removed]] U.S. slaughterhouses, plants closed, leaving farmers with millions of animals
they couldn’t get to market. This prompted Tyson to take out an ad in the New
York Times, warning
[[link removed]] that the “food supply chain is breaking.”

But COVID-19 didn’t break the food system. The four Big Meat titans—Tyson,
Smithfield, JBS and Cargill—broke the supply chain. They did it by forcing consolidation
[[link removed]] in the meatpacking industry, which ultimately created another “ too big to fail
[[link removed]] ” industry.

Congress has a plan to save Big Meat, by taking an old law intended to help
family farmers, and turning it into a taxpayer-funded rescue plan for big
corporations.

Companies like Tyson and Cargill don’t need our help. They can use bankruptcy
protection laws to “reorganize” their debt and restructure their operations.

Who does need our help? The independent family farmers and ranchers who raise
grass-fed and pasture-raised meat, while also being good neighbors and good
stewards of the land.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress: No Bailouts for Big Meat!
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[[link removed]] [?subject=No Justice, No
Peace&body=[link removed]] #JusticeForFloydNO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

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OCA is based in Minnesota. Some of our staff live in Minneapolis.

But even if that weren't the case, we would still ask you to sign this petition.
Because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Injustice—in this case, the obvious cold-blooded murder of a non-violent
"suspect"—poisons our society every bit as much as toxic chemicals poison our
bodies.

We are incensed, disturbed, outraged and above all, deeply sorry for this man
who's life was senselessly stolen, and for the family and friends who mourn his
loss.

But as this young man
[[link removed]] , speaking from the thick of the chaos in Minneapolis says, "If we want change,
we all have to change."

In the meantime, delayed justice equals delayed healing. So we stand with all
those who demand that the people who killed George Floyd be held accountable,
now. And we ask you to stand with them also.

SIGN THE PETITION: Demand the officers who killed George Floyd are charge with
murder.
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[[link removed]] [?subject=Essential
Reading&body=[link removed]] LITTLE BYTESESSENTIAL READING

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Vandana Shiva: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest
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The Food We Produce Is Killing Us and Decimating Biodiversity – A Change Has to
Be Made
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Dear USDA: What Will It Take?
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COVID-19 Sparks a Rebirth of the Local Farm Movement
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Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos
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15 Indigenous Crops to Boost Your Immune System and Celebrate Biodiversity
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Dr. Michelle Perro: How to Power Up Your Immune System
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[[link removed]] Organic Consumers Association
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218-353-7652

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