LEFT BRAIN DOMINANCE
We live in a culture that is most extremely left-brain dominant, the most in humanity’s history. It is something spectacular that has evolved since ancient Greek times. In my opinion, it is a greatest of all cultural diseases, one that is ultimately fatal. I see it as occurring deep within, why we keep failing to heal our modern conditions using superficial and quick-fix solutions. We may blame material conditions or certain key persons (like George Bush, Stalin, Hitler, Mao), various politicians or corporate heads, when  actually, I believe, our whole planetary culture is suffering from an inner consciousness disease.

CONSCIOUSNESS DEMENTIA
When an individual person damages the right hemisphere of their brain (losing what tunes into depth connective/holistic/healing consciousness) - they  can see the world through the eyes of that left-brain awareness only (which tunes into an oppositely surface/illusionary/breaking apart awareness). Then and as a result,they suffer from dementia and schizophrenia. In short such an individual can’t put their world back together. They are lost and “a gonner,” like an Alzheimer’s patient who cannot connect to memories or connect vision to recognize a whole face – just its separate details. This is because again their connective consciousness is burnt out, harmed or superceded by the separative. The process becomes life destructive. This is because life is the concentrated presence of consciousness and consciousness forms the principle of connection itself in nature, which the right brain wisely tunes into in the raw. See our philosophy of raw-wisdom. Below are the most powerful drivers of that left-brain dominance.

MATH-BASED VISION OF NATURE TOPS THE LIST
Mathsymbols abstract how best and most powerfully to separate all elements of consciousness. We make each distinct, with beginning and end points. We favor physical separation and disintegrative energies – why fuel creates energy but love does not in physics. The core contradiction of that with this metaphysics one cannot  integrally connect a vision of nature using the highest abstractions of separation. We cannot connect by tearing consciousness apart. It is a reversal illusion of the highest of high orders. Math symbols rather the highest paradigm symbols or what universally and best organize a left-brain dominant view of reality. We cannot glue two things together using  the most powerful dynamite available within. The opposite proceeds naturally and predictably. It bears black sterile fruit over time. Thus the math-base vision, when increasingly globalized (especially since the middle of the 20th century) thus leads inevitably to what deeply threatens the sustainability of life on earth. It eventually manifests atomic energy/atomic weapons and a widespread pollution of our bodies and planet. The adaptation of that vision as the most dominant view of nature is really the culmination of nearly 2,000 years of left-brain dominant trends since ancient Greek times and heightened in the Golden Age of Greece. Even the atomic view and the mathematical that it reflects was present then in metaphysical forms.

A COMMERCIAL, CORPORATION-DOMINATED  SOCIETY
A commercial society links people together via monetary relationships as employer/employee, buyer/seller, landlord/tenant, lendor/lendee, and so on.  It gauges growth and “progress” thereby. It applies but the math-based, left-brain dominant ideologies to all social relationships – to mirror the root nature of our cosmos.  The first economist William Petty was a friend of Isaac Newton who first published Principia Naturalis Mathematica – the laws of nature as mathematical. This left-brain dominant model puts people into positions of separative conflicts called competition in lieu of cooperation. It creates ultimately progressive instability. The day a 100 year-old company can’t make its payroll or pay its debtors, the doors close and the individuals disband. The entity disintegrates because it was built on quicksand foundations. Separative relationships are by their nature superficial, non-deep and disintegrative. I have always predicted that what happened in 1929 did but suppressed the symptoms of a poor way of relating, furthering rebuilding the same with an eye on a future greater crash.  Also money corrupts consciousness the foundations of our collective progress are as illusionary as our vision of nature. Illusion is the breakdown (the separation of elements) in the integrity of consciousness. This makes the math-bound view the most surface-viewing, the most illusionary, and a commercial society as well.

ALLOPATHIC MEDICINE
Allopathic or contemporary modern medicine makes a marriage with mechanical, math-based understanding of nature (chemistry/drugs, physics/radiation, and genetics) and a commercial society to attempt to heal. This is an impossibility. As a result major chronic diseases are pandemic (dozens of physical and psychiatric diseases) and the percentage of sufferers are ever rising, especially among children. Chronic illness in children has at least quadrupled. Consciousness-illnesses like Alzheimer’s are especially on the rise. Healing is the process of connection to wholeness. Yet surgery cuts the body apart, as if it was a machine made of replaceable parts and thus it cannot truly heal. Chemistry is based entirely on math-bound principles that are not in harmony with life. Thus when you put a large random number of chemicals into a compost heap – to test not one or another chemical separatively in a controlled experiments using billions of dollars (something completely left-brain dominant) but the entire or whole understanding – what happens? Remember that a  compost heap is where all plants disintegrate or breakdown to form the building up ingredients for all new plants in a circle of universal unity of life . Everything then in the compost heap dies in the presence of a large random mix of chemicals. We form a miniature super-toxic waste site. We do the same in our oceans on a more grand scale and in our atmosphere as well – and to the point of threatening now, via climate change, the future the survival of our entire planet. We pollute our bodies in parallel, and to form cancer and birth defects and so on. We also treat ourselves with the same or more chemicals that cause cancer, and with more radiation that causes cancer, and with surgery that cuts the body’s wholeness apart.  The negative effects are supposedly minimal or “side-effects” and our failures to cure are supposedly the fault of the diseases being incurable. Our medical care system, centered around the most sterile hospital environments (that also serve junk and bioengineered food) is in such a shambles that it is  financially ruining our society and many individuals under medical care end up filing for bankruptcy. At the same time, governments, lobbied by corporations, try to impinge the promotion of any natural remedies to self-heal or what  might not create financial dependence upon doctors and drugs (ig. Codex, et. al.).

SIDE-NOTES
A right-brain damaged person literally suffers from the inability to connect reality but can expertly describe countless minute details and in a tick-tock, separate stepped, and even logical way. Because life is the concentrated presence of consciousness, and consciousness forms the principle of connection itself in nature, a consciousness-centered worldview is the opposite of a math-bound. It can manifest most strongly in the healing/life-connective arts and life supportive realms – such as organic agriculture. It elicits the opposite of a machine-designing, industrial and commercial society. The math-based view, by separating elements of consciousness has subordinate, rescuing value. It can be applied well in emergency medicine. It has some double negative roles, as in cutting out/killing (a negative) directed toward a toxic tumor (a second negative) which creates a double-negative-positive that is only superficially positive or symptom relieving. This creates the illusion of real healing – mistaking surface appearance for something depth or integrally true. Or it does not really nurture healing forces. However and on the flip side, when that vision is systematically applied and too deeply/globally, it vastly displaces the life and living, healing principles with the mechanical/death-ridden ones. Then  it promotes the wholesale destruction of human life, of surrounding ecologies, of the planet as a whole  or what is most whole and interconnected in nature, again organic life itself  via innate consciousness. It undermines that innate consciousness. It lures people from open organic fields working under the sun in mechanical factories and city living. Marx and Engels only critiqued the economic exploitation, while supporting the same underling vision. Liberal and conservative, socialist and capitalist thus sometimes produce the same end results if something deeper is not changed. For all the while, species around the planet are dying en mass. We too are so impacted  if we do not counteract all these trends at a more taproot or deepest level

NON-ORGANIC, NON-SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
This extends left-brain consciousness view to further disconnect us immensely from organic nature and whatever nurtures and heals our bodies. Pesticide-laden fields are life stripped. To a lesser extent, so are mono-cropped fields. They are left-brain dominant and linear. Bioengineering especially creates “terminator” seeds, plants and trees that are sterile and exhude death-laden chemicals throughout. Withthe destruction by bioengineering firms of heirloom seeds in massive quantities, and the crowding out of organic farming, it  has resulted in the what Time magazine once called The Death of Birth.

OUR EDUCATION
We learn first the three Rs – reading, writing, and arithmetic- causing the left brain to dominate at a most earliest of age. We prepare individuals for our commercial society. Our language, with ancient Greek roots, contains vowels. This causes each word to have a specific rather than whole-context meaning. The latter triggers left-brain dominance. When the Greeks introduced vowels into their language, it caused a brain polarity shift. Reading changed from right to left (right-brain dominant) to left to right (which is left-brain dominant).  An alternative to this kind of education is provided in the Rudolf Steiner Schools – first developing right brain skills to be dominant and latter the left.

OUR MEDIA
Our media and primary means of getting information are commercial enterprises. As a result, a “health” magazine that is significantly funded by pharmaceutical ads, will not give you the whole or true picture of what is happening on the health scene. Our major media are corrupted and it is often difficult to sift through distorted news. Our minds are programmed  to remain on the same cultural grid. The main impact of monetary exchanges, because they apply a math-bound view in social contexts, tends to be to focus, direct and thus control the direction of consciousness – to control life –  in a dominantly disintegrative way.

OUR SOCIAL STRUCTURE
In a commercial society like ours, the single person living separately alone is the single largest growing social statistic. Large, living together extended families,  found in the 19th century on sustainable organic farms, have all but become extinct. Other signs of social disintegration are rampant, as brought out in detail by Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone.

TRANSPORTATION
Corporate interests lobbied hard to destroy the early rise in public transportation using railroads. This was replaced by the use of each person separately using metallic cars to ride on concrete highways. These are either asphalted and cement laden, traveling on paths that still more disconnect us from the living earth, and in order to accommodate the movement of mechanical wonders, cars and trucks, in accordance with Newton’s mechanical, dead forms of motion.

ENERGY
Governments and corporations have tried for nearly a century to kill alternative energy production that make sense and that do not pollute the planet. But it is precisely such energy sources that keep us financially bound. So the addictive game goes on. Nothing is more economically wasteful and dangerous to life than nuclear plants, but they are still promoted to as safe. Coal production, which  profoundly pollutes our planet,  is promoted as clean. This is the same as promoting synthetic drugs as healing.

CONCLUSION
Lock-stock-and-barrel we are but a deranged left-brain dominant society and culture, why much of what goes on really borders on a form of deep  insanity and is so obviously taking us down a road that is harmful to life and ultimately non-sustainable.

The herbicide used in Roundup has been definitively linked to brain, intestinal and heart defects in fetuses according to a new scientific study, the results of which were released this week in Argentina.

ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES PHYLOGENY
One of the most memorable things I learned in the fascinating study of biology was that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” This is a phrase I have never, ever forgotten. It means that the stages of a fetus repeat the stages in which all of life has developed on the planet. Thus the human fetuses goes through fish, amphibian and monkey-like stages, for example. This connects to my philosophy of raw-wisdom. There seems to be a conscious, not a mechanical evolution within each of us and this indicates the very deep interconnectedness of all of life on Earth!

USE OF AMPHIBIANS
I bring this up because the study “used amphibian embryos” and the results “are completely comparable to what would happen in the development of a human embryo,” according to embryology professor Andreas Carrasco, one of the study’s authors. What he doesn’t mention is that amphibians are among the most threatened species on the planet, subject to extinctions as they are chemically sensitive.

FIRST STUDY OF ITS KIND
This was the first study ever of embryos where glyphosate exposure was tracked.

THE SCARY PART
The frightening part of this study is that the levels of herbicide used “were much lower than the levels used in the fumigations...so the situation is much more serious…[as] glyphosate does not degrade,” added Carrasco. The vast global spraying of Roundup adds to the problem. Birth defects in the US and around the world have skyrocketed. For example, autism used to be rare a generation ago. I only affected 1 out of 5,000 newborns in the US. Now it is epidemic, affecting closer to 1 out of 90!

AN EXAMPLE
Carrasco also gave the example of what occurred in Ituzaingo, Argentina, a district where 5,000 people over the past 8 years were exposed to fumigations, and 300 cases of cancer developed as a result. “In communities like Ituzaingo its already too late, but we have to have a preventive system.”  He added that there has to be a serious study of the effects of glyphosate, which political forces have hindered due to lobbying by Monsanto.

TIME TO DO SOMETHING
It is time to take the bull by the horn and stop the unconscionable  selling, marketing and distributing this single most lethal of all contaminants on our entire planet – what can only  boomerangs to deeply harm ourselves, our children and future generations

Today is the deadline for contacting the Department of Justice and the USDA. They are collecting public comments on monopoly practices in the Agri-Food industries. There have been many mergers allowing just a handful of companies to control the production of staples like corn and soy in the US. The worst of these is Monsanto. They have used their vast power to cheat farmers of fair prices, to raise production costs at will and to manipulate prices on the consumer end.

MONSANTO
Monsanto now controls 93 % of soybeans and 80% of corn grown in the US.

MONOPOLY CONTROL
-Tyson, Cargill, Swift and National Beef Packing Company control 83% of the beef packing industry.
-Smithfield, Tyson, Swift and Cargill control 66% of the pork packing industry.

FOOD SAFETY
The DOJ also wants to hear comments on the health and environmental impacts. This involves issues such the growing presence of pesticides and herbicide residues in our foods, confined animal feeding in disease-ridden conditions. It is as if someone in the US government has seen the film Food Inc. and so they want to know what the public thinks. Let them know today. You can sign a petition today at www.fooddemocracynow.org.

Its high time to send a message to Congress that this is not the best interest of farmers or consumers.

For more information on the harmful effects of our food monopolies and a little history of how this developed, see my article at http://www.raw-wisdom.com/50harmful..

Gladys Williford
Resolution Expeditor – Store Support Center
Customers FIRST!
The Home Depot  |  2455 Paces Ferry Road  |  Atlanta, GA 30339
Phone: (800) 654-0688 EXT 76501 | Fax: (678) 556-7614
Schedule Monday thru Friday 08:30am to 05:30pm
Please contact Ryan Bray ext.76306 in my absence

Gladys:

I appreciate your having forwarded all my correspondence. However, at least a month has now passed and I have not gotten a followup response. So please again  forward this email.

TWO REASONS I AM PERSISTENT

1) I’m a loyal contractor and customer of Home Depot’s. It is my favorite store for contracting materials. Just two weeks ago I spent a sizable amount to money for the materials to build an addition.

2) Home Depot  has otherwise quite high environmental standards and selling Roundup on the shelves contradicts this and makes no sense to me.
 
ROUNDUP
This herbicide is indubitably one of the most lethal ever made. It directly kills everything plant-like but Roundup-resistant genetically-engineered plants. It annihilates the surrounding ecology of anything alive with chlorophyll.

INCREASED HERBICIDE USE
Combined with genetic modification of plants to be resistant, the bottom line is that there has been a meteoric increase in toxic herbicide use the US and where Monsanto’s products are sold. between 1996 and 2007, and as the largest selling herbicide in the US, glyphosate sales increased more than 5x! Financially that sounds good but not for the environment. This rise in use is directly related to the introduction of GMO technology engineered to create dependency on using far more glyphosate with GMO-resistant plants.. Within 11 years the use by farmers went from 25 million pounds to more than 135 million annually (not counting lawns and other consumer uses).

I cannot think of a single chemical compound anywhere that has so undermined the vision of Rachel Carson.
 
OUR RESPONSIBLITY
I do not believe this should be on Home Depot’s shelves. It does not easily biodegrade, by Monsanto’s own tests despite denials, it leaves a huge trail of death behind it. It’s been documented to harm farm workers and those who eat foods laced increasingly with Roundup-herbicides. The Bush administration turned a blind eye. This puts the responsibility with Corporate America  and the consumer to stop this full-charge affront to our environment – and to our health as well. Already 1 of 2 men in the US can expect to have cancer in their lifetime and 1 of 3 women. Cancer rates used to be closer to just 1 percent of the population a century ago….that is when farms were still all organic.

This linkage is crystal clear.

TAKING CARE OF A FRAGILE PLANET
As world leaders grapple with the dire issue of global warming, I believe we have a profound moral responsibility of conscience, especially as we approach Christmas, for remembering we are the final caretakers of this fragile planet – for ourselves and for future generations. Home Depot is a caretaker and supplier for thousands of family homes situated on this precious planet Earth
Its financial partnership with Scotts cannot ever take precedence over its environmental and deeper customer responsibilities. I have offered to provide experts to substantiate my claims – as the above statements are all based on fact.

Please forward this sincere note to the best person to address this with me – and as I am a long-time and devoted customer of Home Depot’s.

With thanks and best wishes for the holidays
Nathan Batalion

HOW DANGEROUS ARE PESTICIDES?
How dangerous are pesticides? Research is indicating they are more dangerous than previously thought. This includes links to the development of Parkinson’s disease and a doubling of the rate of brain cancer for children who live in homes where pesticides are sprayed. Now a new study shows another link – all the more reasons to go organic as to our food and home environment plus engage in as many potent detox therapies as possible – like far infrared saunas, fasts, colonics, and juice feasting.

PRECURSOR OF MULTIPE MYELOMA
A new National Cancer Institute study published in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology indicates conclusively that applying pesticides doubles the rate of a blood abnormality called MGUS disease or monoconal gammopathy of undetermined significance.  The disorder is evidenced by an abnormal level of blood proteins. It requires life-long monitoring because it can lead to a most painful cancer of the bone marrow cells called multiple myeloma.  The research involved a five year study of 678 individuals culled from over 50,000 farmers who had worked on fields that were pesticide sprayed.

This fellow with a Bush-like smile is pretty scary to me!

MAKING ORGANIC GARDENING A MENACE?
Remember when First Lady Michelle Obama was recently attacked for championing a wonderful little organic garden at the White House?  The organizer of that protest is now unbelievably being nominated as America’s chief agricultural negotiator for our international trade agreements.

SIDDIQUI’S CAREER
Isi Siddiqui career has been fighting bans on various environmentally hazardous pesticides. He worked to minimize or eliminate restrictions on pesticides in NAFTA, advocated for pesticides as a treatment for bee colony collapse disorder though pesticides appear to be a leading cause. As a lobbyist he succeeded in exempting US farmers from a worldwide ban on anti-fungal methyl bromide, a rather powerful contributor to ozone depletion in our atmosphere.

Siddiqui’s defenders point to his having implemented the original organic label at  USDA. However, under Siddiqui,  the USDA actually attempted to weaken — some say kill — the original organic standards by using overriding guidelines that Siddiqui had proposed. The USDA organic label as given to us by Siddiqui’s office would have allowed sewage sludge, irradiation, GMOs, and some synthetic pesticides! It would have mad the label meaningless.

DROP THE NOMINATION
We need to stop Siddiqui again. Ask President Obama to drop the Siddiqui nomination.

NOVEMBER 11, 2009
“I have always respected Home Depot for its environmental policies and therefore appreciate your taking the time and attention to view my correspondence seriously. I am a local contractor who believes in shopping responsibly. I also appreciate the letter from Ed Billmaier, director of Scotts Consumer Service.

I am aware that Scotts Company LLC, with billion in lawncare product sales, has been the exclusive distributor of Roundup, apparently since 1998, and has been also working with Monsanto on a Roundup Ready turf grass since a little before then. I have heard that Roundup is presumably a biodegradable herbicide that binds to the soil and that the EPA has labeled it with but a “caution” classification. However, this brings up the following issues of much greater concern to me.

BIASED VIEW
First since Scotts obviously has a sizeable financial stake in this issue, I think Home Depot would be wiser to get a broader spectrum of opinions. This could  engender further and solid objectivity on this very important issue. May I recommend reviewing the material I will be faxing you and I will also see if I can get you in touch with Caroline Cox, editor of the Journal for Pesticide Reform who is one of the leading experts on this subject. I can inquire about other experts to give more opinions for your making a sound business decision on Round Up.

TOXICITY
Secondly, my concern is not primarily with biodegradability but rather with toxic levels and the overall heath and reverberating environmental impacts. Roundup’s main ingredient has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in a study published by the American Cancer Society. Some have suggested it is the number one herbicide now implicated in farm-worker illnesses.

MONSANTO SUED
In my home state of New York, Monsanto was sued by the Attorney General for recklessly claiming their product was “safe and environmentally friendly.” In France it was sued for similarly claiming the product is biodegradable and leaves the soil “clean”, which scientific studies do not bear out. They lost both the French and New York State cases and appeals. Since much the same has happened in NY, this is not something concerning far away overseas affairs where different laws may apply.

EPA LABELING NO COMFORT
Thirdly, as to seeking comfort and refuge via the EPA labeling, I think that was reasonable to say a couple of decades ago. I have friends in Washington DC and things have changed there dramatically, These friends have kept me abreast on how the Bush Administration has unprecedentedly downsized the EPA’s  and ham-stringed regulatory effectiveness, as it did with the financial industry (resulting in near-catastrophic results for our American economy).

SECRET DEALS
The Bush Administration originally had private meetings with Monsanto executives to forcefully push their sales agenda without adequate safety testing these products to protect the public, as the literature I am faxing reiterates. The Bush Administration also pushed the closely related notion that genetically modified foods (Roundup Ready) are essentially equivalent to regular foods, requiring no safety testing or labeling at all – even though the EPA’s own scientists substantially disagreed. In short such labeling decisions were political, not science-based and offer little comfort.

POLLUTION
My fourth concern is the most paramount. By creating Roundup-Ready genetically modified crops, they can tolerate a vastly increased (several times more) herbicide load that is one of the most growingly polluting factors in our groundwaters and rivers. Alarm signals were put out by the World Health Organization in regard to this specific impact of increasing Roundup use.

MONOPOLIZATION
Related to this is also thrust of the major players in the biotech seed industry have been monopolizing staple food seeds (including via buying out competitive companies and destroying their heirloom seed stocks) – the foundation of life in earth – and creating only Roudup-ready genetically modified seeds and the like. Farmers cannot (by contract) have these seeds independently tested for safety, nor can they be saved or replanted except as directed by Monsanto. This ownership of the foundation pillars of life by such means represents a gravest ever political, human health and environmental threat faced by our planet and civilization.

SINGLE MOST POSITIVE MOVE
I cannot think of a single greater positive environmental step, dwarfing any energy-saving sales of HD, than taking Roundup fully off of Home Depot’s shelves. It would attract an avalanching explosion of positive consumer response that would dwarf the comparative size of any profit lost from Roundup toxic product sales. It would also, in my opinion, be the truly responsible approach sending a positive message of the high-minded, moral, consumer-oriented stance of the executive leaders of Home Depot, a firm I have always deeply respected. It would tell the herbicide industry that business cannot be conducted as usual at the huge expense of  our health, our children’s health, the health of the consumer, and of farm workers and our environment.

Thank you again for taking this issue not only to heart but with the utmost of seriousness.”

Nathan Batalion, ND

Activism
Being mostly a “global mind changer” – changing our world from within –  I am not so much a consumer activist except when things highly offensive are  right in my face. Such is indeed the case with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide facing me on the shelves of Home Depot.

Contacting Home Depot
This prompted me to call and email them information on the Roundup court decision from France that pointed out this herbicide is acutely dangerous to the environment. They wrote back that they are offering an alternative for next year, but they are not pulling this product off the shelf because it is one of their biggest sellers. Thereafter I persisted and they sent me a letter from The Scotts Company, LLC Consumer Director trying to convince me its ok. I am following up with about 50 pages for a fax that outline the dangers of Roundup, and derivatively genetic modified foods. I hope OCA (Organic Consumers Association and others will join me in this effort.

More on this as this progresses.

A CAMPAIGN
As part of my overall “GRO Campaign”  (GRO stands for gently relating to organisms – opposed to the violence involved with GMOs) I have been lobbying Home Depot to remove Roundup from its shelves. This toxic herbicide produced by Monsanto and distributed by Scotts remains on their shelves as if it was just another consumer product. It is something “special.”

WHAT IS ROUNDUP?
It  is the most widely used herbicide or plant killing chemical agent in the world. The explosion in sales for this one herbicide was spearheaded by Monsanto’s creation of Roundup-Ready (resistant) genetically modified seeds. These seeds  can withstand much larger quantities of this, otherwise killing herbicide – thus worsening the poisonous state of modern agriculture.  These seeds are also the basis for the majority of corn and soy products grown in the US. Without going into all the details, there is no company on the planet that is more directly engaged in undermining the vision of Rachel Carson to save our planet from such poisons and make modern agriculture chemically-dependent rather than sustainable. No product is more centrally involved in this than Roundup.

INITIAL CORRESPONDENCE
After my first request was an email asking to remove that product. It was addressed to Gladyss Williford,  “Resolution Expeditor” at Store Support Center (and with the motto Customers FIRST). She was pleasantly and quickly responsive. Gladys wrote back by forwarding the following correspondence from Jayme Lyles with cc’s to Michael Mahler and Sarrah S Steiner.

NOV 2, 2009 HOME DEPOT RESPONSE
We will be carrying a product next year that is Ecosmart that is safe
for pets and the environment.  Please let the customer know that there
will be safer product alternatives to choose from on next years product
line in the stores. SKU  961 – 047   ECOSMART WEED GRASS KILLER 64OZ
Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Thank you-
Jayme Lyles Assistant to Mike Mahler Merchant-D.28O Atlanta SSC-B7.

NOV 4, 2009 REPLY
Does that mean you are going to continue to sell Roundup while offering an alternative or are you discontinuing the sale of roundup which would make me feel much better on this subject.

NOV 4th HOME DEPOT RESPONSE
We are not pulling Roundup as this is one of our number one sellers. We will however be giving customers (such as himself) other options. Also, not sure if the same product that is carried overseas is the as same as ours (different regulations as such). Jayme Lyles Assistant to Mike Mahler

On the on-going campaign to remove RoundUp from Home Depot’s shelves:

NOVEMBER 6 RESPONSE TO HOME DEPOT

“The product is the same internationally. I personally think offering an alternative on the shelves is not enough. It is simply not right to make a profit on a  highly, highly dangerous substance any more than selling heroin and cocaine. The fact that Roundup is not banned and illegal in the US is only because the documented backroom deals between Monsanto lobbyists and Bush administration insiders. I think whoever made the decision within Home Depot to continue to carry Roundup is looking at more the short-term profits picture (on a latest quarterly income statements perhaps with product breakdowns) but which is short-sided overall.

Harms Environment
This Roundup product very definitively harms our environment. There is no ifs, ands or buts about it. It also leaves some huge traces in our foods (especially the staples of soy and corn), and thus harms each of us, and our children and for generations to  come. It also harms the surrounding life forms that tread upon the earth’s soil. There really is no logical or moral justification for carrying this product anywhere.  I feel absolutely certain that Home Depot, when it comes to the same conclusion, would gain immeasurably more financially and would make far more profits and significantly more sales by wisely posturing itself as a superior caring and concerned service provider on this critical issue. Taking this off the shelves would send a positive, strong, and powerful leadership message to the entire herbicide industry. The public and media would take note. It would be a breakthrough event for the benefit of our whole planet.

Positive PR For Home Depot With Removal of Roundup
Home Depot does this kind of positive posturing with its energy saving products – and for which it should be greatly applauded. Environmental toxins are an equally serious and pressing issue for all as compared to the issue of global warming. I thus would ask that management more carefully reconsider its position. That would mean getting more data first on this issue.If more information on the dangers of this product is requested, please let me know and I would be more than happy to take the initiative to confer with experts in the field and collect that kind of documented information. Thanks again for your followup on this matter.”

Scotts Letter

On Roundup

Here is a copy of the Scotts Company LLC letter. Scotts has had the exclusive right to sell Monsanto’s Roundup in the US and much of Europe since 1998. The company also has over a billion in total dollar sales annually. Previously they worked with Monsanto on developing a Roundup-ready genetically-modified turf grass.

Scotts Company LLC Letter

November 11, 2009 Addressed to Mike Mahler, D28 Merchant

Thank you for making us aware of the recent information you received regarding Roundup branded herbicides. I sincerely appreciate your letting me know about your concern. This level of communication is a strong testament to the partnership that exists between our two companies.

Does Roundup Biodegrade?

I am very sorry for the confusion this issue has caused. We take great pride in trying to make certain using our products are as simple as possible and it is clear that this ruling confused what is a very straight forward  issue, “Does glyphosate biodegrade in the soil?”

The simple answer to this question is resoundingly yes. It is a scientific fact that has been independently verified that glyphosate binds with the soil shortly after it comes in contact with it and that soil microorganisms over time break glyphosate down into carbon dioxide and other naturally occurring products.

EPA Roundup Comfort Label 

To give you some perspective, the US EPA has determined that this product only needs to carry the “caution” classification on its label. This is the most favorable “signal word” that a product can have. Based on the decades of research that has been conducted, we have complete confidence that when used as directed Roundup branded products poses no undue risk to the environment.

French Roundup Court Case

The case in France was about the use and possible interpretation of language in a specific advertisement and in no way questions the safety of Roundup brand herbicides or the benefits to our customers. The issue was on how the government defined “biodegradable” and the amount of time it took to biodegrade. In this case, France used a different criteria than what is used by other governments. As a result, the French courts have required our company to remove this reference from any materials used in their country. The good news is that this was done many years ago and there is no impact on any recent inventory.

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. I hope I addressed your concerns sufficiently . If you have any questions please call me personally at 937-644-7059. We take the issue of the environment very seriously and are very open to addressing any lingering concerns you may have.

Sincerely
Ed Billmaier
Director Scotts Consumer Service

Home Depot and Roundup

Home Depot &

Roundup

I responded to Home Depot again as follows:

Gladys

The product is the same internationally. I personally think offering an alternative on the shelves is not enough. It is simply not right to make a profit on a  highly, highly dangerous substance any more than selling heroin and cocaine. The fact that Roundup is not banned and illegal in the US is only because the documented backroom deals between Monsanto lobbyists and Bush administration insiders. I think whoever made the decision within Home Depot to continue to carry Roundup is looking at more the short-term profits picture (on a latest fest quarterly income statements perhaps with product breakdowns) but which is short-sided overall.

This Roundup product very definitively harms our environment. There is no ifs, ands or buts about it. It also leaves some huge traces in our foods (especially the staples of soy and corn), and thus harms each of us, and our children and for generations to  come. It also hams the surrounding life forms that tread upon the earth’s soil. There really is no logical or moral justification for carrying this product anywhere.  I feel absolutely certain that Home Depot, when it comes to the same conclusion, would gain immeasurably more financially and would make far more profits and significantly more sales by wisely posturing itself as a superior caring and concerned service provider on this critical issue. Taking this off the shelves would send a positive, strong, and powerful leadership message to the entire herbicide industry. The public and media would take note. It would be a breakthrough event for the benefit of our whole planet.

Home Depot does this kind of positive posturing with its energy saving products – and for which it should be greatly applauded. Environmental toxins are an equally serious and pressing issue for all as compared to the issue of global warming.

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) As part of my overall “GRO Campaign” of Americans for Safe Food (GRO stands for gently relating to organisms as opposed to the violence involved with GMOs)  I have been lobbying Home Depot to remove RoundUp. This toxic herbicide produced by Monsanta and distributed by Scotts remains on their shelves as if it was just another consumer product. It is something “special.”

WHAT IS ROUNDUP?
It  is the most widely used herbicide in the world. The explosion  in sales for this one herbicide was spearheaded by Monsanto’s creation of RoundUp-Ready (resistant) genetically engineered seeds. These seeds  can withstand much larger quantities of this, otherwise killing herbicide – thus worsening the poisonous state of modern agriculture.  The seeds are also the basis for the majority of corn and soy products grown in the US. Without going into all the details, there is no company on the planet that is more directly engaged in undermining the vision of Rachel Carson to save our planet from such poisons and make modern agriculture truly sustainable. No product is more centrally involved in this than Roundup.

After my initial request to remove that product, Gladyss Williford,  “Resolution Expeditor” at Store Support Center (and with the motto Customers FIRST) was pleasantly responsive. She wrote back by forwarding the following correspondence from Jayme Lyles with cc’s to Michael Mahler and Sarrah S Steiner.

INITIAL EMAILS FROM/TO HOME DEPOT

Gladys-

We will be carrying a product next year that is Ecosmart. It is safe for pets and the environment.  Please let the customer know that there will be safer product alternatives to choose from on next years product line in the stores. SKU  961 – 047   ECOSMART WEED GRASS KILLER 64OZ Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Thank you-
Jayme Lyles Assistant to Mike Mahler Merchant-D.28O Atlanta SSC-B7.

I wrote back:

“Does that mean you are going to continue to sell Roundup while offering an alternative or are you discontinuing the sale of roundup which would make me feel much better on this subject” Gladys wrote back:

I will ask that. I have not received a response back yet on another inquiry to legal and consumer relations yet either which may answer this question. I will see if there is a response to this yet also. Thanks,

Keywords:

Roundup herbicide, monsanto round up, scotts round up,home depot round up, round up concentrate, round up spray, weeds and grass, weed killer, kill weeds, ready round up, garden home depot, roundup weedkiller, lawn killer, round up grass killer, roundup ultra, plant killer, roundup pro, kills weeds, roundup ultramax, kill weeds and grass, weed killer, weeds killer

Being  a “global mind change activist,” I am not as much a consumer activist except when things are so highly offensive and they are  right in my face. Such is the case with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide facing me on the shelves of Home Depot.

This prompted me to call and email them information on a court decision from France that pointed out this herbicide is acutely dangerous to the environment. They wrote back that they are offering an alternative for next year, but they are not pulling this product off the shelf because it is one of their biggest sellers. Thereafter I persisted and they sent me a letter from The Scotts Company, LLC Consumer Director trying to convince me its ok.

I am following up with about 50 pages for a fax that outline the dangers of Roundup, and derivatively genetic modified foods. I hope OCA (Organic Consumers Association and others will join me in this effort. More on this as this progresses.