American can no longer label tuna products as “dolphin safe”
By louisehartmann
If you thought our government was in charge of making laws – think again. It turns out the World Trade Organization is telling us what to do. Yesterday – the WTO took a bite out of US sovereignty – ruling that American can no longer label tuna products as “dolphin safe.” Why? Because such labeling could restrict the purchase of certain foreign tuna products – thus limiting “free trade” in America.
So now with no incentive to catch dolphin-safe tuna – expect transnational corporate seafood companies around the world to go gangbusters scooping up tuna out of the ocean with no regard to what else might get trapped in their nets. The US has lost 9 out of every 10 cases in front of the WTO since joining the organization in 1995 - so where are the Tea Party protests on this important issue of sovereignty?
Oh right – their corporate founders love free trade – even though it screws America.
Comments
#2
(I posted some of this in the regular blog section by mistake.)
American beef producers are also not allowed to test for Mad Cow disease to ensure a safe product because the largest producers & their lobbyists didn't want the expense of testing. It might cut into their profits. Remember how much public outrage it took to get them to stop slaughtering very diseased cows and using their meat for consumers. So the conservatives are for free trade, but not if it hurts them (i.e., no trading for low-cost drugs in Canada). They are against regulation, unless it helps them out.
#3
Or maybe religion is all a bunch of hooey.
#4
When there is talk of America being a Christian nation, I experience a torrential puke. It is very similar to the lava flowing after a volcanic eruption.
Jesus is the Son of God. He rose from the dead after His crucifixion.
#5
( back to the topic) I think it's become "PUFFICKLY cleah" that the US is NOT a soveriegn nation since Bush "took" office
#6
I demand video!
#7
Is that the World Teat Organization? And we are the cow they are squeezing on. Let's get back to the great America of the past.
Americans for America!
We are being disassembled by outsiders that don't care about America.
Our Government is tethered by Corporations.
#8
We have been ordering dophin-safe tuna from an American company that fishes only with lines and poles - The American Tuna Company at <http://www.americantuna.com/> and it tastes wonderful, as well.
#9
The WTO membership of the US is a complex affair, but unquestionably not a positive for the ordinary man in the US. It favors a lot of US trade....by corporate interests, not in the interest of our citizens on the whole, and certainly not in the labor intensive trades that corporate America has so long and so successfully sought to offshore from this country. It is turning us into yet another country and populace to be strip mined, dominated by corporate stupidity and un-feeling. I am no Marxist. But for the Love of God, get us out of the WTO and NAFTA!!
#10
what about TAFTA CAFTA......................?
#11
Off-topic... hello?
#12
America should no longer be in the WTO.
Enough said!
#13
We should have fair trade rather than free trade.
#14
Thom asked where the Tea Party is regarding the WTO, well the Tea Party's beginning came out of Ron Paul's Presidential bid and he warned us a long time ago to get out.
#15
I love dolphins and other animals too...they're very tasty. I love tuna too...I wonder what percent of tuna is really dolphin mixed in. Actually, I only eat fish (no dolphin...was just kidding), chicken and turkey. I used to love beef and pork but gave up on them many, many years ago mainly after the first reports of Mad Cow disease and since I already did not trust in the FDA to protect us....and after reading about other stories where the FDA was purposely kept understaffed and bought off by big business...I said that's it...no more beef or pork (not that pork necessarily had Mad Cow disease but they really are not a very "clean" animal. Mad Cow disease is actually cause by prions which are a kind of protein and cannot be destroyed by cooking...even if you burned it to ash....the prion will still be there. It eats holes in your brain and nervous system and you eventually die of the shakes like Parkinson's disease. I wonder how many people with Parkinson's disease really had the CJD (Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease) which is the human form of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy...Mad Cow disease). I imagine the medical establishment is also probably covering it up. Big business is ruthless, heartless, and psychotic and would have no qualms about selling us bad food in order to profit and put a great deal of pressure on the government to let them do so. And since the many in politics sell out their country for a cushy revolving door to lucrative positions in the very companies they helped when in office, we are all at the mercy of the capitalist wolves....or should I say pigs...actually, I shouldn't cheapen the names of those two animals and should just call the bought off crooked politicians cesspool slime.
#16
Wikileaks on PBS Frontline tonight, Tuesday 5/24/2011
#17
Vegetarian here ! This means No fish either...This is how plants become human. No!
#18
Let's see, back in 1816 the govt. greatly increased import tariffs with the idea of protecting the American worker. Now in the age of so called globalization and free trade the American worker no longer matters, in addition, we do not have the money to buy protectionist trade policies for ourselves. That's the way democracy works now, no pay, no play! The WTO is just another tool in the rich mans bag of tricks used to promote their self......ish interests. Most of the population on the planet does not benefit from free trade, I vote yes on termination of membership!
By the way does anybody else get the impression we are paying for the BP oil spill with the recent jacking of gas prices?
#19
Oh, yeah!!! We certainly are and will continue to pay for BP's oil spills..and not just the one in the Gulf...it has happened before and will most likely happen again. And the CEOs and other top execs and shareholders will continue to get huge salaries and bonuses because they just pass the costs on to the consumer. The one way we can get back at them, perhaps, is if everyone stopped using petroleum. Everyone just stay home for a couple of months and not drive anywhere. Easier said than done, I know, one has to shop for groceries sometime and those who still work have to get to work. I can imagine that there is not much savings that can be had on a worker's paycheck now-a-days...with the cost of commuting skyrocketing. But petroleum is used in manufacturing a lot of products and not just gasoline so the cost of BP's spills are impacting the cost of almost everything. But again, the BP execs don't care...they are having a windfall while everyone else suffers.
#20
I don't even think Jesus was a man as there is no credible historical records of him. And I would hardly accept the bible as being credible. I believe Jesus was a myth created by the Romans. If you look at all of the attributes that the bible uses to describe Jesus...born of a virgin...died on a cross...resurrected in 3 days...healing the sick...and there are many more.....it all happened starting thousands of years before the alleged Jesus as many myth gods all plagiarized from previous ones...and the Jesus myth was no different.
#21
I would sure like to hear Thom talk more about protests. :-)
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/24
Since President Obama was inaugurated, there have been over two thousand six hundred arrests of activists protesting in the US. Research shows over 670 people have been arrested in protests inside the US already in 2011, over 1290 were arrested in 2010, and 665 arrested in 2009. Arrests at protests have been increasing each year since 2009.
This article is a long list of all the people who have been arrested and what they were protesting against.
In the list there is the date of the protest arrest and a brief summary of the reason for the protest. Check them out. Remember, they can jail the resisters but they cannot jail the resistance!
Viva La Resistance!
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/24?print
#22
Meat, it's what is rotting in your gut! Eh, Berry? If I were a more perfect person...I'd be a vegetarian...nay...a vegan. I have seen all of the horror stories of how animals are treated and processed. Pretty terrifying...something I don't want to have linger in my mind for very long. A person can go crazy thinking about some things.
Can a person feel really charitable if he doesn't give away his/her last sheckel and in the process starve to death. Or can he preserve a little bit of his sanity...and his last bread crumb for self-servival...by being just a little selfish.
One can ponder many such dilemmas and can, perhaps, make himself/herself (maybe even others) feel closer to the sublime...if that's what turns one on. Or, perhaps, one can push all of that guilt-trip type of thinking out of his/her head and go for the jugular of anyone who stands in his/her way of achieving complete domination and exploitation over all...animals and man/woman. Enjoy getting off on hunting and killing and inflicting pain and ....eating lots of meat!
While I tend to side with the former, lying somewhere in between that and the later (but much, much further away from the later)....while I am not one to go for the jugular in a mad quest for riches, power, and/or fame...I do see the merit in self-preservation. Yes, I could do it by being a vegan...or just a vegetarian...but I have opted to vastly cut down on my intake of meat even though it is just fish, chicken, and turkey.
I try not to let those horror videos of little chicks having their beaks chopped off, and all the rest, bother me too much. Sometimes one just has to put such things out of one's mind.
And to those vegans or vegetarians who think I am unreasonable at my compromise...I ask, then, well why are you not practicing Jainism where to kill even a bug is so taboo that they always drink water with a rag held over the cup so as not to accidentally swallow a bug thus killing it.
Of course...there are degrees in anything...and like I said...where one person who adopts his/her belief system thinking he/she is leading the path to righteousness, nirvana, or whatever smug, self-satisfying feeling one has about oneself...there are others who think you are crazy and reject your particular "truth". Then we can kill each other each thinking the other to be evil and vile.
We love our animal world...isn't it lovely...that is if we manage to avoid thinking about how, in order to survive, they will rip the flesh off the body of some victim..inflicting a great deal of pain, no doubt....and we, especially vegans or vegetarians, don't spend much time thinking about that...shrugging it off saying that "well, that's the way THEY have to survive...but WE are better than animals...we don't have to do such things (even though the history of mankind, till recently, has survived...like the animals...by eating meat). Our dogs are cute and loving and man's/woman's best friend...until we stop feeding them (meat products) then they would have to revert to the hunter/gathered mode and hunt us down and rip our flesh off the body. Lovely thought, eh?
I had a friend who was a vegetarian...or maybe even a vegan...who was all into supporting PETA ideology, had watched the scary videos, but went to the store to buy chickens that he used to feed the wild-life. Seemed rather hypocritical to me.
Other vegans or vegetarians are so, perhaps, because they believe that it is healthier not to eat meat. And they may very well be right. I believe they are. Especially if they are avoiding eating the meat, or what is still called meat, that has been adulterated with chemicals, hormones, and with diseases like BSE(Bovine Spongiform Encephalitus...ie: Mad Cow Disease). Now if chickens, turkeys, or fish ever get Mad Chicken Disease, Mad Turkey Disease, or Mad Fish Disease (based on the prion protean that eat holes in your brain) then I would stop eating them as well. Eating lots of meat will kill you (even without BSE), moderate amounts of meat will eventually kill you...clogging up your arteries..and maybe even activating the cancer cells we all have in our bodies...and eating tiny amounts of non-red meat with little or no fat will probably retard the killing process. But eating no meat at all has been shown to be the best healthy choice.
Fish (otherwise known as "Sea Kittens" by PETA) may not be very palatable if they keep polluting our oceans with BP oil. We'll all be eating Soylent Green before long and lying on a sofa watching fields of flowers while classical music blares into our ears and a drip, drip of a lethal dose of something slowly puts us under....and then turned into Soylent Green ourselves. I'm getting hungry talking about all this food.....later!
#23
Power Corrupts: Thanks for the links...yes...all those speeches that our leaders (Obama, Hillary, etc) made in support of the demonstrators in the Arab countries just oozed hypocrisy. While I agreed in supporting the demonstrators I thought, right as the words came out of their mouths, that if people in the US demonstrated like that...calling for actions against the corrupt power base...that Obama would be calling out the repressive forces to quash the dissent.
#24
I still have a little learning issue with tweet, but here's my "non- tweet tweet"
Will feeding "dolphin-brain laced" tuna to tea-baggers turn them into progressives?
Yes I feel bad for the dolphins also!
#25
@Power Corrupts, I will second Palindromedary's comments. The stench from our nation's hypocrisy is totally overwhelming.
#26
The Anti-Christ, aka the United States of Mortal Sin, is not a democracy. We are a nation of Satan's disciples who seek the ruin of our eternal souls to be with Satan in an environment of perpetual hatred. We are also a nation of sociopaths. Too many Americans are insensitive to the needs of other people. AMERICA AND AMERICANS ARE GETTING WHAT THEY TRULY DESERVE!!!!! ONE OF THE GUESTS ON THE MAX KEISER'S SHOW, "ON THE EDGE" HAS SAID THAT CHINA HAS MORE DEMOCRACY THAN THE UNITED STATES. We say that we commence ongoing wars to our spread democracy and we are a nation that lacks democracy. HYPOCRISY!!!!!
#27
Where is our Christianity? The ongoing hatred for Islam will not let up!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-stanton/islamophobia-increasingly_b_865964.html
Here are the last sentences of the above article.
It would seem that singling out the Muslim community is becoming increasingly ordinary. It is therefore most terrible. We must not become desensitized to it.
#28
The "Good Time" is forever gone in our Anti-Christ nation.
http://www.cmt.com/videos/alan-jackson/234989/good-time.jhtml
I can remember my days of line dancing.
#29
The days of "Remember When" are forever gone in our Anti-Christ nation.Sad, but very true!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTA2buWlNyM
I was recently asked by a friend, "To date what has been my biggest accomplishment?" That was a softball question. To date my biggest accomplishment has been to love and to be married to one woman.
#30
I can see me loving my wife forever but I cannot see me loving our hypocrite nation forever!!!
http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_6682/alan-jackson/tpx_2045329
#31
In life there will never be anyone or anything more important than a woman's love!!!
http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_6682/alan-jackson/tpx_2045363
#32
Can God make a boulder that He cannot lift?
#33
Heartbreaking news..
This is unbelievably heartbreaking -- we must go to the mat to prevent the return of the hideous sight of dolphins trapped and drowning. If anyone is aware of a focused campaign to fix this problem, please post.
#34
Thom -- Please air a show segment on this subject!
#35
Hello folks, can anyone help me find a pdf from the WTO website or anywhere else to see this ruling on making labeling of dolphin free tuna illegal? I went to the WTO website and searched for the new labeling of tuna that Thom mentioned and did not find any info. Please leave a message in the contact at my website www.truthgum.com. Thanks to all that look into this matter. These two links was the best I found: www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dda_e/symp03_larson_e.pdf dated 2003 or this link from 2005 www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_enlightened_exsum_e.pdf .
#36
Hey > I live simple so others can simply live! I've been a vegetarian since 67 .. Its vigorous, And a much nicer game.
#37
Palindromedary, If I did not have to drive to work I would definitely get rid of my car and bike everywhere. I guess this will have to wait until retirement. Out of spite for big oil and for environmental reasons I do cut and burn my own wood. We all must boycott big oil whenever possible.
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