Year of the hungry: 1,000,000,000 afflicted

By Geoffrey Lean, The Independent, 28 December 2008

One billion people will go hungry around the globe next year for the first time in human history, as the international financial crisis deepens, the United Nations has told The Independent on Sunday.

The shocking landmark will be passed--despite a second record worldwide harvest in a row--because people are becoming too destitute to buy the food that is produced.

Decades of progress in reducing hunger are being abruptly reversed, dealing a devastating blow to a pledge by world leaders eight years ago to cut it in half by 2015.

Rich countries have failed to provide promised money to boost agriculture in the Third World; the financial crisis is starving developing countries of credit and driving their people into greater poverty, and food aid to the starving is expected to begin drying up next month.

Development charities recently called on US president-elect Barack Obama to put the escalating food crisis "front and centre" of his priorities.

Some 963 million people are now undernourished worldwide, according to the most recent survey of the crisis by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and the UN body expects the situation to worsen with the recession. "The number will rise steadily next year," an FAO spokesman told the IoS last week. "We are looking at a billion people. That is clear." The FAO fears the tally will go on increasing for years to come.

This directly contradicts an undertaking by the world's leaders at a special summit in September 2000 to "reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger" from 1990 levels by 2015, as part of an ambitious set of Millennium Development Goals.

The growth in hunger is not occurring, as in the past, because of shortage of food--but because people cannot afford to buy it even when it is plentiful. The main reason has been that high food prices have priced the poor out of the market.

Over the 12 months until last summer, wheat and maize prices more than doubled and rice prices more than tripled. This was due partly to the growth in biofuels which, the FAO reports, has taken over 100 million tons of cereals out of food supplies over the past year to fuel cars instead. One fill of a 4x4's tank uses enough grain to feed one poor person for a year.

The organisation also blames speculation, population growth, the shrinking of food stocks to record lows and the increasing consumption of meat in developing countries such as China and India, which mops up grain supplies because they are used to feed livestock.

International prices have fallen sharply since the summer, as this year's good harvest has further swelled supplies and the growing financial crisis has cut demand. But the FAO reports that the lower prices have failed to ease the crisis, while the increasing financial turmoil has made it worse.

Developing countries have not benefited from the falling worldwide cost of food, it says, because their currencies have depreciated against the dollar in which international prices are set and their domestic supplies remain scarce, keeping prices in local markets at record levels.

Virtually none of the increased production of the past two years has taken place in the Third World, partly because its farmers have been unable to afford expensive fertilisers and seeds while the profits of giant agrochemical and biotech companies have soared. Now as rich countries' economies slump, they are importing fewer commodities and goods from developing ones, driving national incomes down and increasing unemployment and poverty. As employment falls in the West, Third World immigrants are losing their jobs and are no longer able to send back the money they save from their wages in remittances to their families, a financial boost that is often crucial in keeping them out of dire poverty.

Just as serious, the FAO adds, the credit that Third World farmers need to buy seeds, energy and agricultural chemicals--and to improve production--is drying up.

Aid, too, is falling precipitously. Earlier this month, the World Food Programme--the UN agency that provides food to the hungry--announced that it was running out of supplies. Unless it receives more soon it expects to have to start rationing aid next month, and to run out of food altogether for needy countries such as Haiti, Sudan and Bangladesh by March.

At a special summit in June last year, rich governments pledged $12.3bn (£8.4bn) to tackle the food crisis, but have so far handed over only $1bn of it, as they have scrambled to provide trillions to bail out failing banks.

"Overcoming the financial crisis is critical," concludes the FAO in a recent report, "but continuing the fight against hunger by realising those pledged billions is no less important." Jacques Diouf, the FAO's director general, warns: "Unless the political will and donor pledges are turned into urgent and real actions, millions more will fall into deep poverty."

Josette Sheeran, the executive director of the World Food Programme, added: "While we worry about Wall Street and the high street, we are also paying attention to the needs of those who live in places with no street." She has called on governments to devote just 1 per cent of their bailout and stimulus packages to fighting hunger.

The worst is yet to come, taking the number of hungry beyond the one billion mark. As food prices fall, the FAO is reporting signs that farmers in Europe and North America are reducing their plantings for next year's harvest--and the same thing is likely to happen in the Third World as the lack of credit stops its farmers from being able to buy the food and agricultural chemicals they need. So next year's harvest, it is feared, will be smaller, even if the weather remains good.

And in the medium to long term, climate change is expected to make harvests dramatically worse. Mr Diouf predicts that, if the world fails to take urgent action to keep global warming beneath 2C, the emerging international target, "the global food production potential can be expected to contract severely"--with harvests dropping by up to 40 per cent in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

How Jewish is Hollywood?

Joel Stein, Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2008

I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe "the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews," down from nearly 50% in 1964. The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.

How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah.

The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG President Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents) on the Huffington Post, which is owned by Arianna Huffington (not Jewish and has never worked in Hollywood.)

The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.

As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood. Without us, you'd be flipping between "The 700 Club" and "Davey and Goliath" on TV all day.

So I've taken it upon myself to re-convince America that Jews run Hollywood by launching a public relations campaign, because that's what we do best. I'm weighing several slogans, including: "Hollywood: More Jewish than ever!"; "Hollywood: From the people who brought you the Bible"; and "Hollywood: If you enjoy TV and movies, then you probably like Jews after all."

I called ADL Chairman Abe Foxman, who was in Santiago, Chile, where, he told me to my dismay, he was not hunting Nazis. He dismissed my whole proposition, saying that the number of people who think Jews run Hollywood is still too high. The ADL poll, he pointed out, showed that 59% of Americans think Hollywood execs "do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans," and 43% think the entertainment industry is waging an organized campaign to "weaken the influence of religious values in this country."

That's a sinister canard, Foxman said. "It means they think Jews meet at Canter's Deli on Friday mornings to decide what's best for the Jews."

Foxman's argument made me rethink: I have to eat at Canter's more often.

"That's a very dangerous phrase, 'Jews control Hollywood.' What is true is that there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood," he said. Instead of "control," Foxman would prefer people say that many executives in the industry "happen to be Jewish," as in "all eight major film studios are run by men who happen to be Jewish."

But Foxman said he is proud of the accomplishments of American Jews. "I think Jews are disproportionately represented in the creative industry. They're disproportionate as lawyers and probably medicine here as well," he said. He argues that this does not mean that Jews make pro-Jewish movies any more than they do pro-Jewish surgery. Though other countries, I've noticed, aren't so big on circumcision.

I appreciate Foxman's concerns. And maybe my life spent in a New Jersey-New York/Bay Area-L.A. pro-Semitic cocoon has left me naive. But I don't care if Americans think we're running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.

Welcome to Israel!

My Expulsion from Israel

By Richard Falk, The Guardian, December 20, 2008

On December 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel to carry out my UN role as special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.

I was leading a mission that had intended to visit the West Bank and Gaza to prepare a report on Israel's compliance with human rights standards and international humanitarian law. Meetings had been scheduled on an hourly basis during the six days, starting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the following day.

I knew that there might be problems at the airport. Israel had strongly opposed my appointment a few months earlier and its foreign ministry had issued a statement that it would bar my entry if I came to Israel in my capacity as a UN representative.

At the same time, I would not have made the long journey from California, where I live, had I not been reasonably optimistic about my chances of getting in. Israel was informed that I would lead the mission and given a copy of my itinerary, and issued visas to the two people assisting me: a staff security person and an assistant, both of whom work at the office of the high commissioner of human rights in Geneva.

To avoid an incident at the airport, Israel could have either refused to grant visas or communicated to the UN that I would not be allowed to enter, but neither step was taken. It seemed that Israel wanted to teach me, and more significantly, the UN a lesson: there will be no cooperation with those who make strong criticisms of Israel's occupation policy.

After being denied entry, I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems. At this point, I was treated not as a UN representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed.

I was separated from my two UN companions who were allowed to enter Israel and taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away. I was required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room and taken to a locked tiny room that smelled of urine and filth. It contained five other detainees and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food and lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.

Of course, my disappointment and harsh confinement were trivial matters, not by themselves worthy of notice, given the sorts of serious hardships that millions around the world daily endure. Their importance is largely symbolic. I am an individual who had done nothing wrong beyond express strong disapproval of policies of a sovereign state. More importantly, the obvious intention was to humble me as a UN representative and thereby send a message of defiance to the United Nations.

Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp criticism of Israel's approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practising effectively a politics of distraction.

The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that have been fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot. The wrongfulness of firing such rockets is unquestionable, yet this in no way justifies indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the entire civilian population of Gaza.

The purpose of my reports is to document on behalf of the UN the urgency of the situation in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Palestine. Such work is particularly important now as there are signs of a renewed escalation of violence and even of a threatened Israeli reoccupation.

Before such a catastrophe happens, it is important to make the situation as transparent as possible, and that is what I had hoped to do in carrying out my mission. Although denied entry, my effort will continue to use all available means to document the realities of the Israeli occupation as truthfully as possible.

• Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN's special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.

And now for a world government

By Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, December 8 2008

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana.

But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A "world government" would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws.

The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a "global war on terror".

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: "For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible."

But--the third point--a change in the political atmosphere suggests that "global governance" could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Barack Obama, America's president-in-waiting, does not share the Bush administration's disdain for international agreements and treaties. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he argued that: "When the world's sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following."

The importance that Mr Obama attaches to the UN is shown by the fact that he has appointed Susan Rice, one of his closest aides, as America's ambassador to the UN, and given her a seat in the cabinet.

A taste of the ideas doing the rounds in Obama circles is offered by a recent report from the Managing Global Insecurity project, whose small US advisory group includes John Podesta, the man heading Mr Obama's transition team and Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution, from which Ms Rice has just emerged.

The MGI report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them.

These are the kind of ideas that get people reaching for their rifles in America's talk-radio heartland. Aware of the political sensitivity of its ideas, the MGI report opts for soothing language. It emphasises the need for American leadership and uses the term, "responsible sovereignty"--when calling for international co-operation--rather than the more radical-sounding phrase favoured in Europe, "shared sovereignty". It also talks about "global governance" rather than world government.

But some European thinkers think that they recognise what is going on. Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, argues that: "Global governance is just a euphemism for global government." As far as he is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that the "core of the international financial crisis is that we have global financial markets and no global rule of law".

So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.

But let us not get carried away. The world's most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature, but the average citizen's political identity remains stubbornly local.

Until somebody cracks this problem, that plan for world government may have to stay locked away in a safe at the UN.

The Cost of Hegemony Is Beyond Reach

By Paul Craig Roberts, Creators Syndicate, December 3, 2008

Undeterred by massive budget deficits from wars, a falling economy, and financial bailouts, the US government has managed to start a new cold war with Russia. Last Friday, the Russian military announced that it was developing a new generation of ballistic missiles in response to the US government's decision to deploy ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The "peace dividend" that the Reagan-Gorbachev accord provided has been squandered by an arrogant American government seeking world hegemony.

In 2002 the Bush regime unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that the US government signed with the Soviet Union in 1972. This treaty stabilized the "assured mutual destruction" that prevented the two military superpowers from initiating war, thus averting a nuclear holocaust for 30 years.

When the Soviet government released its Eastern European "captive nations," the US government promised not to recruit the Baltic and Eastern European countries for NATO membership. The US government pledged that NATO would not be brought to Russia's borders. There would be a neutral zone between the Western military alliance and Russia. The American government broke this promise as quickly as it could, bringing former constituent parts of the Russian empire into the American empire.

Last October Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, went to Lithuania to give a guarantee to the Baltics of US military intervention in the event of a Russian attack. Like the British guarantee that Chamberlain gave Poland in 1939, a guarantee that precipitated World War II, Mullen's guarantee is worthless unless the US government initiates nuclear war with Russia in defense of the tiny Baltic republics, which would be wiped out by the radiation fallout.

The US has tried to incorporate the Ukraine and Georgia, constituent parts of Russia for centuries, into NATO. To clear the way for NATO membership, the Bush regime encouraged the American puppet ruler of Georgia to cleanse provinces, attached to Georgia by Stalin, of Russians in order to end secessionist movements. When Russian troops drove the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army out of the Russian parts of Georgia, the US government lied that Russia had invaded Georgia.

This was too much for the Russians. It was plain to all that the US, an aggressor state striving to encircle Russia with bases even to the edge of central Asia, had initiated a war that it then blamed on Russia.

After Afghanistan, Iraq, Bush's defense of Israel's 2006 war criminal attack on Lebanon, and Bush's false claims of an Iranian nuclear weapon, few, if any, countries any longer believe pronouncements of the US government. The US is regarded worldwide as a state that lies through its teeth.

This means that unless China decides to play the US and Russia off in order to emerge as the sole world power, there is no one to finance America's side of the new cold war that the US government has created. The only other way Washington can finance a new arms race with Russia is to cancel Social Security and Medicare, and to repudiate its massive foreign debts.

For decades Washington has prevailed because the US dollar is the reserve currency. It is the world's money. This advantage allows Washington to purchase almost every other government. There are governments all over the world, from Europe to Egypt, from Ukraine to South Korea to Japan, that are owned by Washington. When Washington speaks of spreading freedom and democracy, Washington means it has purchased more governments to do its will.

These purchased governments do not represent their people. They represent American hegemony.

Now that the Great Hegemon is bankrupt and its economy is collapsing, thanks to unbridled greed, American influence is waning.

The US dollar cannot survive the massive red ink that the US generates. When the dollar collapses, the image of a strutting Washington as "the world's only superpower" will evaporate.

The Gospel Truth

Gary D. Chapman, Marriage Partnership, 12/02/2008

Someone once told me that marriage is like flies on a window pane. The flies on the inside are trying to get out and those on the outside are trying to get in.

I can identify with that picture. For months leading up to my wedding, I could hardly wait to be married. I was in graduate school, and I dreamed about how wonderful marriage was going to be. I had visions of coming home in the evening and studying in our apartment. I could picture her sitting on the couch; when I'd finish studying, I'd look up and our eyes would meet. Won't that be wonderful? I thought. A wife right there in the apartment!

After we got married I discovered my wife didn't want to sit on the couch and watch me study. While I worked she'd go downstairs and socialize with people in the apartment complex. And I'd think, This is just like it was before we got married. The only difference is my dorm room was a lot cheaper than this place.

Before we got married I had this vision that at 10:30 every night we'd go to bed together. Going to bed every night with a woman. Wow!

After we got married, however, I discovered it had never crossed her mind to go to bed at 10:30. At that time of night she was just getting back from visiting the neighbors and wanted to read a book until midnight.

I thought, Why didn't you read while I was reading? Then we could go to bed together!

Before we got married I had the idea that everybody gets up when the sun gets up.

After we got married I found out my wife doesn't do mornings.

It didn't take me long not to like my wife, and it didn't take her long not to like me. And we succeeded in being utterly miserable.

Everyone told me that if you're a Christian and in love, then in marriage you'll be happy. Well, I was a Christian and I was in love--at least before I got married I was in love. But I was a long way from happiness. My Christian view of marriage wouldn't allow me to entertain the thought of divorce, though I fully understood why others would pursue that option.

Being a problem-solver by nature, I set out to convince my wife that we could have a good marriage if she'd just listen to me. But she wasn't open to my ideas. Although we often argued over issues, most of the time we lived in silent suffering. I know what it is to be married and have the recurring thought, I married the wrong person. How could I have made such a huge mistake? Surely if she were God's choice for me, things wouldn't be this miserable. The thought never crossed my mind that God might want to use my pain to turn my heart toward him.

I remember the day that in desperation I cried out to God: "I've done everything I know to do, and my marriage isn't getting any better. Instead, it's getting worse. I don't know what else to do." I've never heard anything clearer than what came to mind: Why don't you read the life of Jesus?

I responded, "Read the life of Jesus? I'm in seminary. I've read the life of Jesus over and over."

I heard it again: Why don't you read the life of Jesus?

So I worked my way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I don't know how I missed it all those years.

I discovered the greatest leader the world has ever known.

I didn't find Jesus barking orders and telling his followers what they needed to do to make him happy. Rather, I found him on his knees, washing his followers' feet. When he finished, he stood and said, "I am your leader. And in my kingdom, this is the way you lead. In the Gentile world, the leader lords it over the others. But in my kingdom, the leader will serve the others. The greatest leader will be the greatest servant" (see John 13:1-17).

I'd gone about my marriage in exactly the opposite manner. I had expected my wife to serve me. I'd told her what she needed to do to be a good wife and expected her to comply.

After my discovery I cried out to God, "Give me Christ's attitude toward my wife. Teach me how to serve her in the same manner that Christ served his followers." In retrospect, it was the most significant prayer I've ever prayed. That prayer was the turning point in our marriage.

Then I began to ask three simple questions, which caused our marriage to improve:

What can I do to help you?

How can I make your life easier?

How can I be a better husband?

When I was willing to ask those questions, my wife was willing to give me answers. She had no interest in my washing her feet, but she had a lot of other good ideas.

When I let my wife teach me how I could serve her, not overnight but over time, she began to reciprocate. When she did, I found myself with positive feelings toward her again. I distinctly remember the night I looked at her and thought,

I wouldn't mind touching her again if I thought she'd let me. I wasn't about to ask, but I had the thought, I wouldn't mind if she wouldn't mind.

I have an incredible wife. We've been walking the road of sacrificial service for a long time--I've reached out to serve her and she's reached out to serve me.

I said to her the other day, "If every woman in the world were like you, there would never be divorce." Why would a man leave a woman who's doing everything she can to encourage him and help him accomplish what he believes God has called him to do?

For more than 40 years, my goal has been to serve my wife so well that when I'm gone, she won't find another man who'll treat her the way I've treated her. The woman is going to miss me!

Some time ago I did a little research and discovered that not a single wife in U.S. history has murdered her husband while he was washing the dishes!

God's desire for all of us is spiritual maturity, which means living like Christ. Nothing measures a Christian husband's true spirituality better than the way he treats his wife. When a wife sees the transformation of a man's heart, she is drawn to be intimate with that man. Being Christ-like means serving your spouse's needs, not demanding she meet yours. Christ alone is the model, and his method was service, even to the point of death. May God give all of us the attitude of Christ toward our spouses.

Adapted from The Transformation of a Man's Heart, edited by Stephen W. Smith.

Farmer links seed patents to the Antichrist

By Kay Campbell, Religion News Service, November 21, 2008

DUTTON--Michael White, who farms near Scottsboro, keeps a Mason jar full of wheat grains next to his well-worn Bible.

Capped with an antique zinc lid, the jar was filled by his grandfather decades before anyone dreamed of genetically altering plants or animals.

The jar reminds him of what he considers God's first earthly gift to humanity: seeds.

It's a gift that is in danger of being eradicated, White says, through increased genetic manipulation of plant genes, hybridization and the patenting of living genes by large corporations. God's gift of seeds, given the day after he separated dry land from water and the day before he hung the sun, moon and stars, according to Genesis, is not something that should be taken away from a farmer. To forbid a farmer or gardener from gathering his own seed to replant the next year is something White sees as one of the signs of the end of time.

"The Antichrist will use seed to control nations and people," White writes in the book he published in May, "The 666's Are in the Seed," a title that refers to the traditional number of the Antichrist of Revelation. "He will also use seed to create food shortages. Patented seed will become the most prized possession of the Antichrist."

White, like many Christians, believes the years before Jesus returns to Earth will be a "time of trouble," filled with the chaos predicted in Matthew and Revelation: war, famine, pestilence, plagues and a world-wide totalitarian government. Many Christians believe a globally idolized figure, the Antichrist, will rule the world.

White has been through his own "time of trouble" over seeds. A few years ago he and his father were sued by Monsanto for patent violation--it is illegal to save seed from patented plants for re-planting. White denies he ever saved the altered seed, or that he cleaned such seed for other farmers in his seed-cleaning business. At the time of the lawsuit, he said, his retired father hadn't farmed in years.

The lawsuit against his 85-year-old father was dropped in the spring of 2006, shortly before White agreed to settle out of court with Monsanto.

White cannot comment on the details of that settlement. But who won or lost in the legal tussles he had, White says, is immaterial. What matters is that people understand that seed patents, non-reproducing hybrids and plants engineered to produce seeds that terminate a germinating seedling are part of what he considers an immoral corporate and legal control of one of God's first gifts to humankind.