Posted on 02/08/2007 4:41:47 PM PST by Rodney Kings Brain
Bove, who wants to run in France's presidential elections this year, was sentenced in 2005 for destroying a field of corn planted by U.S. seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc.
A Paris appeals court on Wednesday upheld a verdict and four-month jail sentence for French farmer and anti-globalization activist Jose Bove for destroying a field of genetically modified corn.
Bove, who wants to run in France's presidential elections this year, was sentenced in 2005 for destroying a field of corn planted by U.S. seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc.
The appeals court upheld that verdict, as well as sentences given to seven other activists who participated in the destruction of the cornfield, near the southern French city of Menville.
Green Party lawmaker Noel Mamere and European Parliament member Gerard Onesta, also of the Greens, were among those convicted in the case. Both received three-month suspended sentences.
Bove, speaking to reporters after the verdict, said he expected serving the sentence would be hard.
"If I go to prison, it will be with my head held high because I fought for democracy," he said, claiming that 80 percent of French people are against genetically modified foods.
Bove, who gained fame in 1999 for ransacking a McDonald's restaurant in southern France, announced last week he intends to run in presidential elections in April and May.
It is true: Europeans really do not like "Frankenstein food". There is plenty of good food around. Why genetically modify it?
Bove is also right that the large majority of people do not want genetically modified food in France, and consider it a big deal. Right or wrong, French people are convinced that the reason Americans are so fat is because of all of the growth hormones used in American beef and other animals, that make the milk and the meat sources for the hormones to pass straight into humans, and make the humands puffy and fat just like the animals were made puffy and fat.
So, Bove has truly hit a wellspring of belief.
His methods, of course, leave much to be desired, and he will not be President.
Nevertheless, if a people do not want Frankenstein food, then it is indeed a matter of sovereign democratic right that such food cannot be imported into or created in France.
To the extent the at the Paris or Brussels bureaucrats connive at bringing these most unwelcome (and perhaps unwholesome) foods into the country in spite of the popular sentiment against them, one cannot be surprised that the French smash it all to pieces. This is not a people who can be led by the nose simply by some government passing some law. Government is elected, yes, but if it refuses to do what the people want, the people - at least in France - are not Anglo-Saxons and will not allow the concept of the "rule of law" to override the public will.
Frankenstein food is unwanted.
People should stop trying to sneak it into France.
It is just systemic to socialists. Thiers, ours, makes no difference.
And what makes Monsieur Bove (and you) experts on the genetics of foods? Listing of degrees, experience in food technology, that sort of thing, please.
What is?
What Bove is doing is not very socialist. Essentially, it's "la jacquerie", but he has a lot of support (for his views, not his methods) because French people do NOT WANT genetically modified foods. They think those foods are not necessary, and potentially dangerous.
If they don't want a thing, then why should it be in France?
Because some ministry in Paris with a financial interest or worse, Brussels, says they "must"?
"Must" they, really now?
Bove demonstrates that they do not have to simply accept what is ordained from on high. They can stop it. He did, and he was applauded by many for doing it.
It would be better if people stopped trying to sneak GMO's into France. The French don't like it. So why do it there?
They would probably react the same way toward soap.
One doesn't have to be an expert on anything.
Democracy is not government by experts. It is government by the will of the people. American people (and French people) do not want people smoking marijuana, at least not legally. It doesn't matter that there may be medicinal or other benefits. That doesn't matter. What matters is what the majority of the people want.
French people do not want genetically modified organisms in France. They don't like the idea. They are afraid of it. They do not trust that science and scientists understands these things well enough to be able to guarantee safety, and besides, France grows plenty of food of very high quality using natural organisms. France exports food. There is no crying need for greater productivity of French farms which already produce surpluses anyway.
Degrees are not relevant to the issue, anymore than degrees in social science are relevant to whether or not the European Constitution is adopted. French people do not want either of these things, and there is no reason on God's green Earth why they should have to accept them because experts say they are safe and good for them. They don't want them. It's a democracy. That's the end of it, or should be.
Unfortunately, the French government has connived at getting the GMOs in. That makes a lot of French people angry. Bove is just the expression of that in overt form.
Let 'em eat cake.
Isn't Bove the one who was jailed for burning down a McDonald's a few years back?.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.