Drop the money bomb on Monsanto

May 2, 2012 Dear Friend, Today is the day Monsanto and corporate agribusiness have been dreading, and the day that millions of us have been waiting for. Today a grassroots corps of volunteer petition gatherers arrived at County Clerks' offices in all 58 counties in California. They delivered almost a million petitions signed by registered voters along with this message: Millions against Monsanto are taking back our democracy and restoring our fundamental right to know what's in our food. This is the first step in putting the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the ballot in November. Now it's time for the next step: ramping up the campaign so that millions of fired-up voters in California will turn out in record numbers on November 6 to pass this initiative. To make this happen, a broad coalition of food, farm, health, public interest, and environmental groups all over the country, joined by leading organic food companies, are delivering this same message today: Let's drop the money bomb on Monsanto. Please help these groups raise $1 million dollars by May 26th for the California Right to Know GMO Labeling Campaign. You can donate online, by phone, or by mail. After decades of allowing corporations like Monsanto to buy off our politicians and regulatory agencies, to intimidate everyone from small farmers and state legislators to the Governor of Vermont - to poison our food and our planet - it's time to say "No more." It's time to tell Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Bullies that we demand the right to know whether our food has been genetically engineered. It's time for the 99% of us to tell our elected officials that if they won't protect us from CEOs and corporations - the 1% that are destroying our health, our food, and our planet - we will bypass them. We will organize ballot initiatives and write our own laws. And then vote them into law. It's time to drop the money bomb on Monsanto. Monsanto, Big biotech and Food Inc., are desperate to defeat the California Right to Know Ballot Initiative. They will spend millions on a campaign based on lies and intimidation. They'll try to convince voters that GMOs aren't dangerous, and that labeling them will make food more expensive. They're counting on us to cower in the face of their massive spending and TV ads, and their threat to sue any state that dares to stand up to them. What they aren't counting on is you - and millions like you across the country - who know what's at stake in California. Millions who know that if this law passes in the state with the eighth largest economy in the world, it's only a matter of time before we win the battle everywhere. Monsanto isn't counting on millions of people like you who know that GMOs in our food have been linked to a host of health issues, including kidney and liver damage, infertility, auto-immune disorders, allergies, accelerated aging and birth defects. It doesn't matter what political party you belong to, or which candidates you support. The right to know issue belongs to all of us. It's about our food, our health, and our environment. We are all in this together. That's why together, we are going to raise $1 million in the next few weeks to help pass this law, and shift the balance of power back to the grassroots, the 99%. Please donate today - online, by phone, or drop a check in the mail. Every dollar that you contribute will go directly into the California Right to Know ballot initiative and other state GMO labeling campaigns, including a legal defense fund to defend states that pass GMO labeling laws from Monsanto lawsuits. We can do this. It's time. Let's drop the money bomb on Monsanto and take back our food supply. Thank you! For an Organic Future, Ronnie Cummins Director, Organic Consumers Association and Organic Consumers Fund P.S. All money raised for this campaign will go through the Organic Consumers Fund, a 501(c)4 allied organization of the Organic ConsumersAssociation, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action. Donations are not tax-deductible.