Home Blog Campaign to Stop the Monsanto Doctrine

Campaign to Stop the Monsanto Doctrine

Author

Date

Category

Stop the Monsanto Doctrine from Poisoning Democracy June 5 2016 FInal

In the spring of 2016, Progressive Source was hired to build a public awareness campaign to support a grassroots coalition of Native Hawaiians, environmentalists, parents and farmers in their historic struggle to challenge three Hawaii federal district court rulings on appeal. These troubling rulings invalidated common sense public safety laws in Maui, Hawaii and Kauai counties that were passed to regulate experimental test farms that spray massive amount of pesticides on GMO crops.

To bring world attention to the importance of these cases, Progressive Source worked closely with our client to create strategy, branding, messaging, and a full “Be the Media” campaign that we named “Stop Poisoning Democracy.”

In a simple animated two-minute video scripted and produced by Progressive Source, we named the unprecedented legal power that the federal court had granted to the world’s largest agrochemical companies “The Monsanto Doctrine.”  We collaborated with our client to describe, in under 240 words, the complex legal messaging and the historic importance of thwarting Monsanto’s legal position that would have effectively invalidated any and all local and state laws created to regulate genetically modified crops or pesticides.  The video, viewable here:

along with subsequent campaign-related media including this public interest advocacy column in the Huffington Post, characterized these cases, which are still being considered by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, as having the potential to become the environmental equivalent of the notorious Citizens United ruling.

We described the ominous Monsanto Doctrine as the right of polluting corporations to do as they choose, in violation of any and all local or state public safety laws created to protect humans and the environment.

As an integral part of this campaign, Progressive Source created and marketed this ‘Stop Poisoning Democracy” petition for change.org. More than 43,000 people from around the world have signed this petition, hundreds of them leaving eloquent, supportive comments.

The petition signers have been updated about the legal cases, and related issues, such as the follow up column in the Huffington Post entitled, “Obama Expands Monsanto Doctrine by Signing DARK Act and Invalidating Vermont GMO Labeling Law.”  This column was shared by nearly 3,000 people, and seen by hundreds of thousands of others.

Progressive Source’s “Be the Media” strategy for the Campaign to stop the Monsanto Doctrine also included the creation of curated video, like this one, which took three hours of complex oral arguments and boiled Monsanto’s startling legal claims down to a few comprehensible minutes.

Other videos, including coverage of Native Hawaiians marching to support our ecology that went unreported elsewhere, can be viewed on Progressive Source’s Vimeo page here.

The public awareness building created by the Campaign to Stop the Monsanto Doctrine contributed to an important decision by the Ninth Circuit of Appeals which, on November 18, 2016 ruled that, “Nothing in the PPA suggests that Congress intended to prevent state and local governments from exercising their traditional authority over agricultural land use with respect to certain crops simply because APHIS deregulated them. To hold otherwise would have the backwards effect of preventing states and local governments from regulating crops formerly considered to be plant pests, even though states and local governments may regulate conventional crops that were never considered plant pests and raise fewer concerns. Such a holding would have far-reaching practical effects. Because a large percentage of commercial crops grown in the United States are GE crops, states and counties across the nation would be prevented from regulating an enormous swath of agriculture. We do not believe that Congress so intended.”

 

 

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent posts

Full House MUST VOTE for Impeachment Inquiry So Congressional Subpoenas Can Overcome Trump’s Lies

The Democrats should not assume that Nancy Pelosi’s decision to begin impeachment this week will be sufficient to bring critical documents and witnesses to...

How Donald Trump silenced the people who could expose his business failures

(This article first appeared in the Washington Post here on June 14, 2019.) How did Donald Trump, a self-serving promoter who lost billions of dollars for his...

3 Reasons Congress Must Start Impeachment Now or Lose to Trump in 2020

I hope that Nancy Pelosi realizes very soon that to stop the most dangerous autocrat in our nation’s history from stealing the next election,...

What Trump’s John Baron Deception Says About our Truth-less President

My article last year in the Washington Post about Donald Trump lying his way onto the first Forbes 400, accompanied by a 1984 audio...

Wash Post Expose: 6 Essential Cons that Define Trump’s Success

(This article first appeared in the Washington Post here on February 22, 2019. It was the most read feature on the Post in the days that...

Trump’s John Barron Con Exposed in Washington Post

(first published here in the Washington Post April 20, 2018) In May 1984, an official from the Trump Organization called to tell me how rich...

From Standing Rock To Maui: Tulsi Gabbard Joins Resistance to A&B’s Massive Water Theft

For generations, the myth that what was good for the Alexander & Baldwin corporation was good for the residents of Maui allowed Hawaii’s largest...

In Bypassing Warren As VP, Clinton Raises Risk Of Losing To Trump

(This July, 2016 column won First Place in the Greater Bay Journalism Awards for political columnists). Hillary Clinton’s decision to pass over populist Democrat Elizabeth Warren to...

Campaign to Stop the Monsanto Doctrine

In the spring of 2016, Progressive Source was hired to build a public awareness campaign to support a grassroots coalition of Native Hawaiians, environmentalists,...

Vote Bernie Now More Than Ever

Bernie Sanders has run the most successful grassroots campaign in American history, and his second American revolution provides the first real opportunity that We,...

Despite media deception, Bernie scored four big wins on Super Tuesday

SHOCKER: Bernie scored four major wins by large margins in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Vermont during the March 1 Super Tuesday contest, doing far...

Investigative Series on Palm Drive Hospital Wins Top SF Area Journalism Awards

Last weekend, the SF Peninsula Press Club announced the annual winners of its 2015 Greater Bay Journalism Award contest for work published last year....

State Parks Agency Uses Drought As Excuse to Cut Beach Showers That Benefited Millions

Last week, in the middle of a record hot summer, and for the first time in California history, all the public showers at 44...

Despite Record Budget Surplus, Supervisors Refuse to Restore Library Hours

It has been a phenomenal year for Sonoma County’s economy. Joblessness is below 5%, home values are soaring, and the treasury enjoys a record surplus...

“Stop Incarcerating Parents for Victimless Marijuana Crimes”

On April 3, 2015, Sonoma County’s secret war on marijuana confronted an unprecedented roadblock.  A freedom flash mob had gathered, overfilling a courtroom and packing...

Tougher Tactics Desperately Needed to Win War on GMO Food

(This article first appeared in the Huffington Post). As I listened to the ads from the ill-fated campaign to label genetically modified food in Washington, I...

Epic Local Government Failure Results in Closed Libraries

(This article first appeared in the Bohemian). Dr. Carmen Finley, a retired research scientist and genealogist, still remembers the "Juvenile Hall" of the Santa Rosa...

Shame of Sonoma County: Supervisors Fund Escalation of War on Marijuana Instead of Libraries

(This column first appeared as a Guest Commentary in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on June 12, 2013). Since August 2011, my two young children,...

Ten Grassroots Lessons From Monsanto’s Swift-Boating of Prop 37 to Label GMO’s In California

(This post first appeared in the Huffington Post on November 11, 2012). The populist campaign to label genetically modified food has been successfully swift-boated by...

Struggling to Re-Open Sonoma County Libraries

(This column first appeared as a guest commentary in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on October 13, 2013). On Tuesday, Sebastopol's City Council will hear...

Help Wanted: Responsive Government

(This article first appeared in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat). You don't need to be a revolutionary to be disappointed with our federal government. Even...

Will the New Pope Help the Christian Left Fulfill MLK’s Vision?

(This article first appeared in the Huffington Post). For 80 years, Catholic Workers have helped lead the nation's peace movement. With a growing number of...

A Tea Party Christmas: An Oxymoron Causing Millions to Suffer

(This article first appeared in the Huffington Post).   Corporations are not people, and regulating corporations -- and our economy, so that we can all be part...

Reflections On Creative Writing Class: The Taught

(This article first appeared in the New York Times Education Life on April 14, 2002). The year was 1974 and I had just turned 16....