The following video is from the March 16, 2012, action that shut down a Monsanto research facility in Davis, CA. In the video, a young boy, Ci Yin Oliveira, tells Monsanto's story as if (as the Supreme Court has ruled) Monsanto were actually a person. Click here for a transcript of Oliveira's speech. Please watch the video, then read on to learn more about the problem of giving corporations the legal rights of people and what we can do to control corporations like Monsanto.


Thanks to the Supreme Court and Citizens United, big corporations like Monsanto are allowed to spend obscene amounts to drown out our voices in elections and take over our government. They use their clout to block popular, common-sense regulations needed to protect human health and the environment. With corporate money flooding our electoral and legislative system, even minor reforms, like labels on genetically engineered food - a cause supported by more than 90% of the voting public - are blocked.

When it comes to elections for public office, the choice between Democrats and Republicans can be very narrow. Neither political party is going to take a stand against genetic engineering or dangerous pesticides, as long as companies like Monsanto ply candidates from both parties with campaign contributions and incessant lobbying.

But there is still one venue in this shredded democracy where the one-person-one-vote ideal still holds sway: direct democracy. Initiatives, Referendums, and Recalls can launch a Ballot Box Insurgency that begins at the local, municipal and county level, and then moves to the state and even federal level.

A Ballot Box Insurgency, reinforced by direct action, along with grassroots organizing, will enable our forces to gradually replace most of the nation's indentured politicians with new leaders and public servants who truly represent the people, not the economic royalty. Such an electoral insurgency cannot be sparked by humdrum partisan politics. It requires electoral campaigns that offer real solutions to our real-life problems, that educate and mobilize grassroots forces, that change the balance of power away from the corporate elite, and return real power to the people.

This year in California, we have a chance to win back, from Monsanto, our right to know what's in our food by taking Label GMOs' ballot initiative to label genetically engineered food to the voters in the November 2012 election.