MAMMON VERSUS CIVIL SOCIETY
By Dr. Michael W. Fox*
The two world views that reflect the conflict of values between the rights and
interests of civil society and of the corporate imperialists are as irreconcilable as they are ancient. It is the conflict
between domination, expropriation and exploitation, versus cooperation, participation, and conservation. This is no better
illustrated today than by the imposition of genetically engineered (g.e.) seeds and crops on states and countries where civil
society opposition is overruled by government collaboration with the rising global biotechnocracy.
This technocracy, following the dictum of Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary
of State who said “If you want to control the people, control the food,” now seeks control through the patent
monopoly of seed, conveniently ignoring the genetic contamination of conventional and organic crops by its g.e. plants. The
health, safety, and nutritional value of g.e. crops and foods was presumed, but never proven. The control motivation is for
world-market penetration and domination in the service of mammon+---profits and power. Social and other external costs and risks are of no consequence, the entire
transnational business enterprise being amoral, ‘science-based’, and devoid of any bioethical evaluation. It is
insulated by aligned governments and organizations and agencies like the World Trade Organization, and FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius, from public accountability and responsibility for harms done including its
significant contribution to climate change with its primary production of feed for livestock and poultry, and now for biofuels.
Their seeds are primarily for commodity crops not grown to feed people directly and locally,
making a few very rich, while more go hungry as more still, along with their pets, become sick consuming manufactured, highly
processed convenience, junk, and fast-foods that are served widely in public schools. What the mother eats during pregnancy
creates an imprint on the developing child, so called nutritional epigenetics, that can mean chronic health problems are passed
on from generation to generation. Now there are food riots around the world as prices rise because of climate change- related
crop failures, and basic food crops and arable land being used to produce ecologically damaging biofuels.
Other less visible seeds are sown by the hands of the antidisestablishmentarians
that blossom in the educational system especially, leading to public ignorance, indifference, consumerism, false trust and
hope, as well as obedience and conformity. But learned helplessness, frustration, and the emptiness of modern existence devoid
of values other than material, are taking their toll on mental health, leading to depression, violence and a host of socio-emotional
disorders aggravated by spiritual poverty as much as by economic poverty. Diet plays a significant role in the genesis of
these disorders. The old opiates of alcohol and religion, and the new opiates of illegal drugs and widely prescribed psychotropic
drugs given even to kindergarten children, do little to ameliorate such cultural dis-ease.
The looming specters of world hunger in developing
countries, and the emerging health care crisis in industrialized, developed nations, are being exacerbated rather than
alleviated by this agribusiness sector of the food and drug military-industrial complex. The declining health and increasing
public health costs in developed countries correlate with low incomes and socio-economic stress, the more educated and affluent
sectors having fewer stress and diet-related health problems that are becoming epidemic in lower social strata. This social gradient of disease means elevated blood cortisol levels, impaired immune systems with lowered
resistance to infections, diabetes, obesity, arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attacks, chronic diseases
such as osteoarthritis and cancer, and premature ageing for the underprivileged. These
and other diseases of modern civilization are anthropogenic; man made in the service of mammon. The rich ride the unstoppable
juggernaut they call ‘progress’ that will only be derailed when civil society gains control, first in the realm
of food and nutrition, the cornerstones of health for generations to come.
* See www.doctormwfox.org for more documentation
*material riches regarded as an object of worship
and greedy pursuit.
