Here are a couple of ways to take action right now on issues of concern to members of the Moishe Kavod Community**…if you would like us to post one, please email moishehouseboston@gmail.com with Action Alert in the Subject line.
**Campaigns not endorsed by Moishe Kavod House as an entity but, we have members supporting a variety of actions and campaigns.
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1. Stop Big Ag (from Food Democracy Now)
2. Protect Homelessness Assistance in MA (from Mass Housing and Shelter Alliance)
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1. Speak up to stop Big Ag.
President Obama has found himself with some strange bedfellows lately.
While on the campaign trail in Iowa, Barack Obama boasted, “We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.”1 Despite that promise, it seems that ConAgra’s friends at Monsanto and CropLife are still finding their way into the USDA.
Last month, President Obama nominated two “Big Ag” power brokers–Roger Beachy and Islam Siddiqui–to key agency positions, putting agribusiness executives in charge of our country’s agricultural research and trade policy. Please join us in telling the President that this isn’t the change we voted for. We don’t want Big Ag running the show any more.
Siddiqui’s confirmation hearing is set for next week. Please help us reach our goal of 50,000 signatures to make a real impact.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/65?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
Obama’s first agribusiness selection is Roger Beachy, to be head of the USDA’s newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Beachy is the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO. It may sound innocuous, but the Danforth Center is essentially the non-profit arm of GMO seed giant Monsanto; Monsanto’s CEO sits on its board, and the company provides considerable funding for the Center’s operations.2
As the head of the USDA’s new research arm, formerly known as the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CREES), Beachy is responsible for deciding how U.S. research dollars will be spent in agriculture.3 Translation: more research on biotech, less research on how to scale sustainable and organic agriculture.
Unfortunately, Beachy has already started work at the USDA, but the next nominee—Islam Siddiqui—still must be confirmed by the U.S.Senate. Siddiqui, the Vice President of Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America, was recently nominated to be the Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the Office of the US Trade Representative.4 Amazingly, when Michele Obama planted her “organic” garden on the White House lawn, Siddiqui’s CropLife MidAmerica sent the First Lady a letter saying that it made them “shudder”.5
During his career, Siddiqui spent over 3 years as a pesticide lobbyist, an Undersecretary at the USDA and a VP at CropLife. In defending Siddiqui, the White House has stated that he played a key role in helping establish the country’s first organic standards.6 What they neglect to mention, though, is that those original organic standards would have allowed irradiation, sewage sludge and GMOs to undermine organic integrity! The standards were so watered down that 230,000 people signed a petition for them to be changed, which they eventually were.7
Fortunately, the organic community stopped Siddiqui and his cronies then, and we need your help now to do it again. If Siddiqui’s nomination is allowed to go through, then agribusiness will continue to control the seeds, the science, and the distribution of global food and agriculture.
Please join Food Democracy Now! and a broad coalition of other groups, in calling on President Obama to keep his campaign promise of closing the revolving door between agribusiness and his administration.
Please click here to add your voice.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/65?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
Thanks for standing with us and our coalition partners from across the country, including: The Pesticide Action Network (PAN), National Family Farm Coalition, Food & Water Watch, Farmworker’s Association of Florida, Institute of Agriculture & Trade Policy, Greenpeace and the Center for Food Safety in calling for President Obama to live up to his promises to put people’s interests ahead of special interests
Sustainably Yours,
Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team.
Sources:
1. Obama slams corporate agriculture, two Illinois firms, The Chicago Tribune, November 10, 2007
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/58?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
2. Another Monsanto man in a key USDA post?, Grist, September 24, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/59?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
3. A New Direction on Research at the USDA? The Experts Weigh In, The Huffington Post, October 15, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/60?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
4. Obama’s attempt to tap an agrichemical-industry flack runs into trouble, Grist, October 10, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/61?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
5. Michelle’s green garden upsets pesticide makers, The First Post, April 23, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/62?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
6. Agriculture nomination steams greens, Politico, October 10, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/63?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
7. USDA Enters Debate on Organic Label Law, The New York Times, February 23, 2003 http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/72?akid=35.70278.-HStA4&t=1
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Protect Homelessness Assistance in MA
Dear friends,
I am writing to ask for your help.
Our faith traditions or the faith traditions that we study are filled with wisdom calling us to take action to support our poorest neighbors. In this critical time, I call to mind Proverbs 31:8-9, which states: “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” Now is the time to speak out.
As you may have heard, Governor Patrick recently proposed a drastic cut of $2,700,000 to the Homeless Individuals Assistance line item (7004-0102). We cannot afford to cut the very programs that have proven to use state resources in an efficient and cost-effective manner and, even more importantly, have recognized that even the poorest of our neighbors deserve a place to call home.
As people with a dedication to our poorest and most vulnerable neighbors, we have the responsibility to insist that it is both bad policy and unconscionable to balance the budget on the backs of our homeless brothers and sisters. We need your help.
Will you join us in taking action?
Take action by calling:
· Governor Patrick at (617) 725-4005 to express your outrage at these disproportionate and ill-advised cuts that affect the poorest of our neighbors.
· Speaker of the House Robert A. DeLeo at (617) 722-2500, Senate President Therese Murray at (617) 722-1500 and State Representative Charles A. Murphy, Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, at (617) 722-2990 to ask that they and their colleagues at the State House refuse to approve these proposed cuts.
Attached please find a fact sheet from the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance regarding the proposed cuts. Please contact me at (617) 367-6447 ext. 28 or cgolden@mhsa.net if you have questions or need assistance. I know you have many demands on your time, and so I thank you for your support of our neighbors who are without a home. If you can, please share this message with your community, colleagues, family and friends.