Supreme Court Diversity, Justice Sotomayor and GMOs.

Supreme Court Diversity, Justice Sotomayor and GMOs.

When I hear someone call for diversity these days, I am never sure which way the intent is directed.  But this I read a while back and gave pause.  Justice Sotomayor said in an interview at Brooklyn Law School, “I, for one, do think there is a disadvantage from having (five) Catholics, three Jews, everyone from an Ivy League school (on the Supreme Court).”  

Here we have a justice calling for a different kind of diversity on the Supreme Court.  And it makes sense.  She seems to suggest that Justices from other law schools may bring different perspectives.  This is sorely needed.  

In 2014 the Supreme Court ruled that “Monsanto may sue a farmer whose field  was accidentally contaminated with Monsanto materials.”  On the surface this seems to make some sense.  There is a patent by Monsanto which protects the GMO seeds which they have developed.  GM surely has thousands of patents to protect devices they have developed for their cars.  

There is a problem here.  Cars are a material object created by humans.  But seeds and the way these function have been developed over millions of years by Nature to assure their survival and success.  To give the right to a company to sue for what Nature has been doing since, well, since the earth cooled, displays a level of ignorance or complicity which is nothing short of scary.  How can it be ignorance?  

We live now in Georgia and where we live can have some strange wind patterns.  Often in the morning the wind comes from the west, later on from the south and occasionally from the east and once in a while from the north.  The seeds I plant can conceivably be contaminated from a large area.  I could plant trees around the border and this would reduce the chances of cross pollination but certainly would not end it.  So the ignorance rests on the utter cluelessness of how weather can work with Nature.  How a farmer’s heritage seeds can be contaminated by “an act of God”.  The Supreme Court Justices might alter their views, if they understood farming.  There is also the danger in allowing a company to have a patent for a seed and give them the right to check another farmer’s field without permission or knowledge.

This ruling clearly is for the benefit of giant companies to be able to control who manages the food supply, not just for the USA but for the entire world.  This is where complicity comes in.  It is illogical to assume that when someone becomes a Supreme Court Justice that they delete their past, their past of employment, their past education, their past views.  After all, who and what each of us is depends on what we read, studied, heard and where we worked.

So when this ruling was made, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion.  From 1976- 1979 Thomas worked as a corporate lawyer for Monsanto.  This, to me, is a serious conflict of interest.  He did not recuse himself.  It appears that members of the Supreme court are exempt from having to recuse themselves, when a case comes up in which a former associate or employer is involved.  They are permitted to evaluate their own obligation to recuse themselves.  A rather convenient arrangement.  

Justice Thomas has received gifts from groups which support programs such as those developed by Monsanto.  $15,000 bucks from American Enterprise Institute which opposes regulations on GMOs,  speaking engagements at organizations which also oppose GMO regulations.

So it seems that integrity is not only lacking in Congress and the Executive branch but also the Judiciary.  This is scary because one thing, it seems to me, preserves what freedoms we have and that is the fact that one branch of government is supposed to watch the other.  This conflict between the three branches has kept them off of our backs, for the most part, for more than two centuries.  

There is not much doubt that corporations play a huge part in elections, in both parties.  This is clear when we see how Senators respond and how Congress people respond and how Presidents respond. President Obama appointed Michael Taylor to run the FDA.  Where did he work previous to his appointment?  He was a lobbyist for Monsanto!

Who appoints Justices?  The President.  Where do they come from?  Many from corporations, major power interests.  President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to replace Justice Scalia.  Where did he work?  For a company which defends corporations.

Just exactly where in all this are the interests of the country as a whole defended?