Monsanto has earned the dubious reputation of being one of the most hated companies in the world. Its grand proclamations of working to feed the world and help the environment have been exposed for a sham.

Their genetically modified (GM) crops have not increased yields, despite claims to the contrary. What they have done is: 1) encouraged monoculture, industrialized farming, 2) smothered out the sustainable, non-GM farmer, 3) waylaid beneficial insect populations and aquatic habitats with Bt toxins, 4) caused the emergence of several superweeds, 5) increased the use of chemical herbicides, notably Roundup, and 6) undertaken a giant human heath experiment with GM foods.

Amassing wealth is Monsanto's single goal, and it does this through government force, primarily by securing patents on life. Monsanto has also managed to infiltrate government agencies with its own former employees so the power of centralized government can be used to further dominate the market. The recently signed Trans-Pacific Partnership is exhibit A of this global cronyism.

With statements like "I beat China all the time!" and "I could shoot someone and not lose voters!" potential future US Prsident Donald Trump epitomises all that is great about America, if by the word 'great' you mean 'mindnumbingly idiotic'. The good news, however, is that most of the other potential POTUS' are an equally horrible lot, so at least there's some consistency. If it is true that the people of a country get the leaders they deserve, then what does the line-up for the next "commander in chief" say about American society?

But Americans shouldn't feel too bad, Europe (and much of the rest of the world) is in equally dire straits, both at the political and social level. Someone appears to have decided that it's a good idea to try and tear the fabric of European society apart by flooding the union with desperate and angry refugees, along with a smattering of jihadi terrorists, thereby inflaming racial, religious and ethnic tensions.

Meanwhile, there are growing signs that that strangely self-aware animal known as the 'global economy' is in very poor health, and may even be planning to throw itself off a fiscal cliff in the near future, dragging us all down with it.

A perfect storm of mindless inanity and fecklessness at the global leadership level, hysterial and xenophobia at the social level, and unfettered greed at the economic level, seems set to blow up in all of our faces. Time to sit back and watch the show?

Join your regular hosts Niall Bradley and Joe Quinn, and our special guests Elan Martin and Bahar Azizi, for a discussion of the madness that passes for normal life on planet earth at the end of Empire. This Sunday 7th February: 12-2pm EST 6-8pm CET.

Running Time: 02:06:00

Download: MP3


Here's the transcript of the show:

In its 2015 report the World Economic Forum, aka the globe-grabbing business elite, pronounced from its opulent mountain fastness in Davos that, "Inequality is one of the key challenges of our time." Paying $25,000 to attend this billionaires' bash, and that's after shelling out the compulsory $52,000 WEF membership fee, the said elite isn't pronouncing on inequality out of any empathy for the poor and oppressed. This becomes perfectly clear on page 38 of the Global Risks Report 2016 where the reader is informed that inequality has consequences:

"The result is a stripped-down global system in which the liberal ideals of freedom, democracy, justice and equality are no longer put forward as a paradigm to which all should aspire. A new entente emerges on respect for differences of political and economic approach, though this means accepting a degree of entrenched global inequality and disintegration, and a parcelling up of the global commons. Where they can, people and companies move to places that suit their objectives best."

The WEF's response to inequality is called the "imperative resilience", a sneaky way of saying caulk our own lifeboat and let the rest sink. Needless to say, the uncaulked lifeboats of refugees won't let them "move to places that suit their objectives best". Referring to agriculture, the report says (p. 59), "System resilience requires new rules to militate against export controls", meaning that the Davos deciders can snatch whatever food they want from the mouths of infants in poor, rural parts of the world. They're also keen to "increase the resilience of balance sheets to climate shocks" (p. 61). It's all about their own resilience to the climate shocks they themselves produce. Apart from being something we should no longer aspire to, the word justice, which decent people tend to associate with the injustice of the inequalities that grievously harm the majority of people, appears only once more in the report (p. 46), carefully tucked into inverted commas and referring to a "climate justice" movement. Undismayed by this, the mainstream press fawningly presents this nod to inequality as a good thing. Didn't those journalists read the report? It's the exact opposite. They're talking about getting the rest of us to accept "a degree of entrenched global inequality and disintegration" while they are busy "parcelling up of [gobbling up] the global commons", increasing their fortunes, and stopping the angry dispossessed from getting out of hand. And they're pretty blatant about it.

Oil prices have whipsawed back and forth over the past two weeks, largely due to the rise and fall of expectations that OPEC might call an emergency meeting.

Comments from several Russian oil executives and government officials sent oil prices surging at the end of January. Then prices retraced their gains when officials from OPEC dismissed the stories as just rumors. Nothing had changed, OPEC officials argued, even though some people in Russia were hinting at a meeting.

In an "unacceptable" groundwater leak at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, three monitoring wells were discovered to contain "alarming levels of radioactivity," the Governor of New York said, ordering an immediate environmental probe into the issue.

Health and environment commissioners were ordered by Governor Andrew Cuomo to begin an investigation into the leak of "radioactive tritium-contaminated water" at the Indian Point nuclear power plant after the operator, Entergy Nuclear Operations, raised the alarm.

The Republican debates have wrapped up in New Hampshire, with some formidable bickering, topped by poll leader Donald Trump's comment that he would "bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

Trump is also the person who recently in November said he does not care if torture doesn't work, because "they deserve it anyway."

On Saturday, he continued in the same vein. "I'll tell you what, in the Middle East, we have people chopping the heads off Christians. We have people chopping the heads off many other people. We have things that we have never seen before, as a group... I would bring back waterboarding and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

Seoul has let Moscow and Beijing know in advance of the decision to start official negotiations with Washington on the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the South Korean territory, the government said in a statement on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, Yoo Jeh-seung, South Korean deputy minister for policy, said that South Korea and the United States had agreed to start talks on the deployment of the advanced US missile defense system.

"(We) have informed the Chinese and the Russian side [of the decision to start the negotiations] before the official Defense Ministry statement was issued," the statement reads, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.

Following in the footsteps of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates (UAE) stated on Sunday that it was ready to send ground troops to Syria to fight Islamic State. Damascus earlier said it would send unwelcomed invaders back 'in coffins.'

The UAE's preparedness to participate in a ground military operation in Syria was confirmed by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash, who said that "US leadership on this" would be a prerequisite.

"We are not talking about thousands of troops, but we are talking about troops on the ground that will lead the way ... that will support ... and I think our position remains the same and we will have to see how this progresses," he added, as cited by Reuters.

The resignation of Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius has shaken the fragile balance in Ukrainian politics and could herald a collapse in the government of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Kyiv's politicians have already been negotiating changes to the government for several weeks. The general logic of a reshuffle is rather simple: Yatsenyuk must stay as prime minister, but there must be "fresh blood" in the government. This formula was agreed upon after the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden, who opposed dismissing the PM in order to maintain the balance of power between the president and the government.

The negotiations have already triggered several moves. A few days ago, the Samopomich (Self Reliance) party withdrew its minister (Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko) from the government. Earlier, Infrastructure Minister Andrii Pivovarsky announced his resignation, citing a lack of changes in the way the government was functioning, and the way many of his decisions were being blocked. Yet Ambromavicius's resignation and how he announced it could be a real game-changer for many politicians and a final nail in the coffin of the Yatsenyuk government.

Less than a week after the US defense secretary announced a major boost in spending on the Pentagon's activities in Europe, rumors have surfaced that NATO plans to expand its military presence in Poland and the Baltic states in a move that, as Russia has repeatedly warned, will further undermine regional peace and security.

The initiative was outlined on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources in the US and NATO. The official announcement is expected to come next week following a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

"Officials said the size of the force and precise national contributions won't be determined until later this year. But they said defense ministers are likely to approve a mission to oversee and enlarge what are currently bilateral deployments to Poland and the Baltic States," Julian E. Barnes noted.