Monsanto and environmental racism

Moderator’s Note: I am presenting a “Letter to
Monsanto” prepared by Jeff Nguyen, a
Vietnamese American. Mr. Nguyen was a young child when the defoliant chemical
known as Agent Orange was sprayed all over Viet Nam during the American War
(1961-71). The Air Force code name for this assault on the people, wildlife,
plants, and ecosystems of Viet Nam was known as Operation
Ranch Hand, an ironic and somewhat foreboding reference given the
subsequent history of Monsanto’s billion-dollar domination of the agricultural
herbicide market.

The targets on the ground were not the only ones that
suffered from the effects of the use of Agent Orange and the pilots and airmen
[sic] involved in the spraying missions – which were called trail dust
missions – were misinformed about the hazards of the chemical they were
spraying. One of these former airmen recalls:

I remember
the sight and the smell of the spray.  
In the early morning low angle sunlight, it appeared to have an orange
hue – at the time I thought that is how it got its name.   It smelled like a combination of motor oil
and heavy bug spray (DDT).   I have since
learned that they did add diesel fuel to the spray mixture…And yes, we did fly
through the mist.   We were told it was
not harmful.   On one of my first Trail
Dust missions, I had dinner the night before with some of the Ranch Hand crews
at the DOOM (Danang Officers Open Mess).  
I asked them if the stuff they sprayed was harmful, and I clearly
remember the answer: “That stuff is harmless.  
We have had guys drink the stuff with no problems.”…I wonder how those
guys are doing now.

Trail dust missions. Source: Operation Ranch Hand

There is,
of course, a subtext in the last sentence since we now know that armed services
personnel of this era suffered numerous debilitating diseases as a result of
exposure. Less well known are the effects on the “silenced” sufferers – tens
of thousands of Vietnamese who were poisoned on the ground by the defoliant
agent.

There are
multiple ironies in the story because Monsanto now markets itself as the
champion of environmentally sound agriculture and an ardent advocate in the “war on
hunger and malnutrition”. Yet, make no mistake, the roots of Monsanto are in
chemical warfare against people, plants, and
insects. Indeed, the rise of
Monsanto as an agricultural biotechnology corporation can be seen as the “Vietnamization of
America”. (Wilcox 2011)

This
Vietnamization of the United States represents for many activists and scholars the epitome of problems understood to be part of the bigger picture of environmental
racism, which has been defined by Robert D. Bullard as   

environmental policy, practice, or directive
that differentially affects or disadvantages (whether intended or unintended)
individuals, groups, or communities based on race or color. Environmental
racism is reinforced by government, legal, economic, political, and military
institutions. Environmental racism combines with public policies and industry
practices to provide benefits for the countries in the North while shifting
costs to countries in the South.

Trail dust missions. Source: USAF

Bullard
describes environmental racism as “…a form of institutionalized discrimination”
and he defines institutional discrimination as “actions or practices carried
out by members of dominant (racial or ethnic) groups that have differential and
negative impact on members of subordinate (racial and ethnic) groups.” An extension of the interpretation of environmental racism is the applied study of the effects of “meso-aggressions” – the multiple events at the urban or regional scale involving the suspension of the rule of environmental and public health laws as applied to the protection of the most vulnerable and precarious groups, i.e., working-class, low-income people of color, unsheltered persons, etc. 



For example, environmental justice activists very early on had to struggle to ban lead-based paints because of the serious level of bio-accumulation in the brains of vulnerable children living in substandard housing. Such a state of economic exception privileges property rights in “cost allocation” to allow capital discounting of so-called negative externalities. The juridical and administrative orders continuously favor property rights over labor rights in many other ways. They get a lot of cooperation from the police as well. Discounting allows corporate capital to directly increase the social and ecological costs of reproduction for all persons through the neoliberal process of deregulation, in effect removing the very requirements in the law that could be used to protect the body from exposure to toxic waste substances and other environmental hazards.

This is
precisely what Monsanto, working with the Pentagon and other corporate allies like DuPont, engaged in when they
developed and marketed the use of Agent Orange in Viet Nam. This is also what continues to happen to farm workers who have been ravaged over decades by the use of pesticides and herbicides in corporate agribusiness production. The perpetrators of this environmental justice crime includes the growers who have adopted transgenic crops and
precision farming contracts proffered by Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, and their brethren.

That said, I believe the biopolitics of GMOs brings to the foreground the problem of the role of corporate agribusiness in the history of violence against people, plants, and animals. Our challenge is to demonstrate to potential allies the higher costs involved in this discounting of the environmental, social, cultural, and public health impacts inherent in the global agri-food system that corporations like Monsanto helped to create.



I am
using the letter from Jeff Nguyen as it appeared on the website, Deconstructing Myths. I have also taken the liberty of using some of the images that
accompanied that version of the letter, unless otherwise noted. I have not yet checked the authenticity of this letter but imagine there are many people who share the sentiment it expresses. It reminds me
that corporations like Monsanto, which purport to be dedicated to the “life
sciences,” are actually merchants of death who benefit from the imposition of a state of exception called environmental
racism.

A Letter to Monsanto

Dear
Monsanto:

I am
writing this letter to say thank you to Chairman and CEO, Hugh Grant, and
the distinguished Board of
Directors of the Monsanto Company. I was fortunate at a young age to
experience your largesse when you shared over 50,000 tons of Agent
Orange with my fellow country men, country women and country children
in the lush terrains of Vietnam in Southeast Asia. As master cultivators of the
earth, it must have pained you to see how the Vietnamese people were just
sitting around on their swanky rice paddies instead of pulling up their gosh
damn weeds. How dare they let their land turn into a gnarly jungle so American
GI’s and Viet Cong could not charge one another across an open field with cannons
blazing and bayonets at the ready like in the good old days of the Civil War.
Gollum, himself, was probably hiding his
preciousss in all that damn foliage, it simply had to go. Of
course, your company’s leadership decision along with the Dow Chemical Corporation
to keep the presence of
dioxins and other “toxic impurities” from the public was a true act of
patriotic, self-sacrifice in a time when our nation was at war. The American
people in the 1970′s obviously had more important things to worry about at the
time than whether American soldiers or Vietnamese civilians and their future
generation’s health was being permanently
compromised. Like, figuring out exactly how did Mr. Gravy get so wavy or
who the hell was it that started the disco inferno?

Now, if this had been your final
random act of kindness your legacy would have been forever assured, but, no,
you have chosen not to rest on your laurels. Because of your high standards for
corporate stewardship we are now able to purchase GMO
corn at our local mom-and-pop store, Wal-Mart. Like caviar wishes and
champagne dreams, you have made the dream a reality for so many wealth-impaired
people around the world. And, thanks to you, people from all walks of life can
shock and awe their weeds into submission using Roundup
and have sugar that tastes like ass, I mean aspartame,
with their coffee or tea. In conclusion, I must admit to being envious of
the city of St.
Louis where Monsanto’s corporate headquarters are located. It must be like
having Mr. Rogers in your
very own neighborhood. So, Mr. and Mrs. Monsanto,
wherever you are, please know that your efforts to control the food supply are
not in vain and have not gone unnoticed. You have made a difference.
Even though my fellow Vietnamese may come off as ungrateful, please know there
is at least one rational minded person of the Asian persuasion who still
remembers to say thank you to his captors. And if I could be so kind as to
remind you that the half-life of Agent Orange can be up to 20 years, perhaps
you might spare a few more tons of your finest Agent Orange for my churlish
people. Think of it as a fresh coat of paint on a ’67 Chevy. Until then, I’m
off to Wal-Mart to round up some produce for tonight’s dinner. I love the smell
of genetic modification in the morning.

Yours truly,

Jeff Nguyen

P.S.- I recently came across this
blog “Agent Orange…” for Vietnam veterans
who have suffered and are still suffering from the effects of Agent Orange
during their service. (http://waltsao.wordpress.com).

Sources cited

Wilcox, Fred
A. 2011 [1989] Waiting for the Army to
Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange. New York: Seven Stories Press.