Category Archives: Journalism

Nations should initiate independent risk analysis of COVID19

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It is my belief that each nation might like to independently verify the risk posed by this Coronavirus, a variant of seasonal flu virus, and balance it with economic and psychological damage resulted by an economic lockdown of a country as a means to avoid infection, and not depend on opinion of the World Health Organization which is causing people to freeze in fear of a invisible enemy, one that has been with us for a long time without bringing the world to an end.

I hope rational thinking and proportional actions promoted by good sense would prevail. I may be that citizens need to come up with their views to counter any overreaction by Government agencies. It is the constitutional duty of the people to be vigilant on actions of the Government that can adversely affect people’s lives and livelihoods.

Attached is my letter to my MP in Canada, placed for record. I hope others that share the concern would likewise take this up with their representatives. I should be writing more letters in an effort to find one that will throw down the gauntlet and push for more investigation and verification of the threat posed by a virus against threat posed by committing economic suicide along with destruction of civil rights of people and infringement on their rights to normal life and pursuit of happiness.

A letter to my MP in Canada re Covid19-19
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To: Carla Qualtrough,
Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion
Member of Parliament from federal electoral district of Delta BC
Dated:Saturday, April 5, 2020

Subject: Canada needs to independently verify level of danger posed by the Coronavirus

Honourable Minister Carla Qualtrough,

I have written to you before and also met you at your office in the past – mostly relating to Canada’s continued usage of herbicide glyphosate in agriculture and continued nondisclosure of safety data it received from Monsanto on the product.

This time I write to you on another current subject of great importance – yes, the so called pandemic on Covid-19. I have been gravely concerned about the economic consequence of Canada in essence battening itself down in fear of a flu virus named 2019-nCOV which occassionally causes a pulmonary disease called COVID19 which is similar in symptoms to average flu.

In this context urge you to consider the following:

* Coronavirus is a generic name for a virus family that has been around for a long time. Most of us have been exposed to it in the past. Our immune system usually deals with it without any fuss. Only some elderly and immunocompromised people mostly have trouble with it, and should be the ones protected.

* Todays Covid19 deaths, combined with the rest of the flu infected deaths are not outside of the range of seasonal variations in flu deaths of the past years. There is very good statistical data available from official sources that seem to indicate the declaration of a global pandemic by WHO may be a gross overreaction.

* Viruses mutate rapidly and their RNA can alter day by day or even hour by hour. There is no proof that the tests being conducted now for a tiny fragment of RNA to identify Coronavirus infection are in fact relevant, are actually from any specific strain of Coronavirus or from any other virus. These could well be junk RNA picked up from the mouth swabs that include cell excretion and other genetic debris.

* Despite whatever todays modern science says – no virus, let along a coronavirus, has successfully been isolated (from other genetic debris), purified, and its entire genome properly sequenced. Modern science has instead been shifting the goalposts to get around time tested postulates and gold standard practices in order to promote marketable products of questionable worth by the industry that controls science funding today. Science may be losing its original neutrality, objectivity and purity.

Above points are my educated opinion. I believe they are valid enough to warrant Canada to conduct independent, unbiased investigation on true risk posed by this flu virus, and not take WHO recommendations as if it is gospel from the heavens. Canada is an independent country and not a province of WHO.

I now request you to get this grave issue debated on the floor of the Canadian Parliament and to caution the Prime Minister not to play with the lives and livelihood of the entire nation by having Canada effectively engage in an economic warfare against its own self based solely on blind trust in international organisations such as WHO and the Corporate controlled foreign scientific establishments, both of which may have conflict of interest. Canada is not a banana republic and should be able to conduct independent unbiased verification of threat posed by a seasonal flu without external or internal influence and without conflict of interest.

You are my MP. Hence you are the first person I write to, but you will not be the last.

Mind it, I have never asked you for a personal favour and I never will. I only approach you on matters that concern the welfare of my country and my countrymen. In this, I am performing my duty as a citizen. I am hopeful you will perform yours as our representative in the Government.

Thanking you
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E3L7, Canada, Tony.mitra@gmail.com

Glyphosate references

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There is a very powerful global effort to censure and restrict all efforts to expose problems with glyphosate. The effort comes from the industry and influences governments, media, and academia. The level fo witch hunt would put the days of Copernicus and Joan of Arc to shame.

Science has thus been degraded so much that it has lost its neutrality, its objectivity, its honesty and its relevance in determining safety of agrochemicals – pushing us back to worse times than the Russian block faced during the dark Soviet era of state controlled propaganda and suppression of dissent. Consequently, many citizens like me have developed extreme suspicion about anything that comes out of the government or the industry, and consider most of them are packs of lies.

When it comes to glyphosate, it is therefore the view of public that are aware, is that honest debate on glyphosate is an oxymoron. First, industry’s stronghold on science has to be removed, then independent research without influence of industry or politicians or government officials have to be encouraged. Documents and research papers have to be allowed to accumulate and add to the body of science without censure for twenty years. Let the chips fall where they may. After that, honest debate on the science of glyphosate may be possible. Right now, I am more interested to encourage the citizens to stand up against a government that is showing signs of extreme corruption and blindness an through out politicians that act as lap dogs of the industry rather than protector fo the people.

And yet, I do get called time to time from institutions including agricultural colleges, in India, to speak my mind. India has not yet gone completely over to the dark side like the western institutions. But India is on the way. Anyhow, they still have enough people including educated young, to not only understand and believe that the industry has spoiled science, has spoiled agriculture, food, healthcare and environment, and resistance is necessary.

Thus, I have this blog to list some references for people interested, to see what was said by the slim number of scientists that tried to alert us about glyphosate and about the GM technology.

Some universities requested that my presentation should provided reference material too, with regard to science behind glyphosate’s toxicity. The request might look justified, but it poses problems because what we have today in the name of science is a very far cry from what the western society promotes. Remember the days of the Soviet Union. We were told that they use propaganda for science and severely suppress dissent. Most of that is true. However, the wheel has not turned. There is no Soviet Union. But the west has taken up the tactic, and its corporate industry uses all its combined might to control governments, media and science. Nothing can be researched by scientific institutions without their permission. Nothing can be approved or disapproved by any Government without their say so. Nothing can be published anywhere without their consent.

Therefore, finding honest research that discovered toxicity of glyphosate in normal academic literature might be similar to the famed Bengali saying – সোনার পাথরবাটি – which means stone utensils made of gold – an oxymoron. If it is made of stone, it cannot be made of gold and vice versa. If science on glyphosate has been captured by the industry then there is not going to be research on adverse effects of glyphosate. Duh !

Nonetheless, it is not a homogenous world, and even the industry with all its financial clout, slips up. So there are increasing amounts of documents here and there, and the witch hunt that goes on to attack scientists that dare speak against glyphosate.

1) Anthony Samsel – Stephanie Seneff’s research work
I have already created a blog with all peer reviewed papers of Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. These can be found here.

in my view, no other group of scientists have done as much research and unearthed as much detail on how many ways glyphosate hurts all living biology including humans. It is therefore not surprising that Samsel and Seneff faced attack as well as censure. Even publications such as GM watch would cover Seralini but not Samsel-Seneff. Monsanto and some governments tried to get the publisher of the Journal ENTROPY to pull their first paper on glyphosate interfering with cyp-450.  The publisher sent them a letter that it was going to be pulled, but the US editor of the Journal ENTROPY came to their defense and argued with the publisher. The publisher resolved the controversy and then posted a journal position that they would not be adversely  influenced by the opinions and demands of both GOVERNMENTS or corporations.  Thus the paper still stands.  The set of 6 glyphosate papers by Samsel and Seneff have had more than 60,000 reads and hundreds of Journal citations at Research Gate by academics in over 100 countries. When their first paper was published WIKIPEDIA added the Samsel and Seneff knowledge to the Glyphosate page.  Within a few days an argument ensued by reviewers and WIKIPEDIA took all of the information down.  I watched the arguments online at WKI.  We have never been referenced by WIKIPEDIA since.  It is suspected that Monsanto was responsible for removing Samsel and Seneff from the Wikipedia page on Glyphosate. One can assume with some justification that the industry is comfortable defending some of the others, but are alarmed at Samsel and Seneff, enough to get them be de-listed from Wikipedia.

2) Glyphosate disturbing honey bee microbiome

Glyphosate perturbs the gut microbiota of honey bees. The abstract says:

Glyphosate, the primary herbicide used globally for weed control, targets the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) enzyme in the shikimate pathway found in plants and some microorganisms. Thus, glyphosate may affect bacterial symbionts of animals living near agricultural sites, including pollinators such as bees. The honey bee gut microbiota is dominated by eight bacterial species that promote weight gain and reduce pathogen susceptibility. The gene encoding EPSPS is present in almost all sequenced genomes of bee gut bacteria, indicating that they are potentially susceptible to glyphosate. We demonstrated that the relative and absolute abundances of dominant gut microbiota species are decreased in bees exposed to glyphosate at concen- trations documented in the environment. Glyphosate exposure of young workers increased mortality of bees subsequently exposed to the opportunistic pathogen Serratia marcescens. Members of the bee gut microbiota varied in susceptibility to glyphosate, largely corresponding to whether they possessed an EPSPS of class I (sensitive to glyphosate) or class II (insensitive to glyphosate). This basis for differences in sensitivity was confirmed using in vitro experiments in which the EPSPS gene from bee gut bacte- ria was cloned into Escherichia coli. All strains of the core bee gut species, Snodgrassella alvi, encode a sensitive class I EPSPS, and reduction in S. alvi levels was a consistent experimental result. However, some S. alvi strains appear to possess an alternative mechanism of glyphosate resistance. Thus, exposure of bees to glyphosate can perturb their beneficial gut microbiota, potentially affecting bee health and their effectiveness as pollinators.

My point is – if it can hurt bee microbiome, it can hurt human microbiome too. But instead of arguing about it, I’d like folks to start testing on lab mammals.

3) Three papers from Channa Jayasumana (Sri Lanka)

a) Glyphosate, Hard Water and Nephrotoxic Metals: Are They the Culprits Behind the Epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology in Sri Lanka?
b) Simultaneous exposure to multiple heavy metals and glyphosate may contribute to Sri Lankan agricultural nephropathy.
c) Drinking well water and occupational exposure to Herbicides is associated with chronic kidney disease, in Padavi-Sripura, Sri Lanka.

4) Andres Carrasco
The story of the Pampas. This vast stretch of plains in Argentina used to be teaming with wildlife.
Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling.

5) Gilles-Eric Séralini
Republished study: long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerantgenetically modified maize.

6) Árpád Pusztai
Pusztai’s case is a classic example of censuring of scientific research that questions products that harm the people but enhances corporate profit. He was commissioned by the British Government to check safety of genetically engineered potato. He found them to be potentially harmful. He got sacked. His findings published in journals on this topic, got retracted. Later, the medical journal “The Lancet” published it not as an article but as a letter. Pusztai, 36 years working in the UK, saw his career in UK ended because of objecting to GM crop of Monsanto. The most famous toxicologist in Europe got sacked for disagreeing that GM crops where safe.
Effect of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressingGalanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine.

7) Emails between wildlife scientist Judy Hoy & Justin Gude of MDFWP.
Link file.

8) Dr. Mercola on Obama signing the “Monsanto Protection Act.

Continued …

A note on Julian

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It has been six long years that Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

I try to keep up with relevant world news and have for long been frustrated with the decay of free press in the English Language media across the world. This is not to say that non-non-English media is any better, judging from the Hindi and Bengali media from India. But, back to the topic, the destruction of free press in the west has been nothing short of breathtaking.

Free and independent press was touted as one of the principal pillars of democracy. It was supposed to help the citizenry informed and provide a restraint from Governments taking law into their own hands. Freedom meant a right to information, and a right to freedom of speech and expression. It was also seen as one of the fundamental inventions of western sociocultural transformation beyond the monarchy and feudalism of the medieval times.

Early post second world war decade was perhaps the best period for this utopian dream. It has since been just that – a distant dream.

The destruction of the main pillars of freedom and democracy started almost immediately after the war, although I personally was not born neither grown up enough to contemplate these issues till much later. After I had a chance to see and visit many parts of the world, and learn to look at things beyond the superficial, I began to suspect of a fundamental difference between my idea of freedom and democracy in the west, and the ground reality. This included the impending collapse of the global ecology – something that I was conscious of even back in my twenties, though I could not put my finger on it properly at the time.

It took me a while to understand that every single aspect of humanity, from its development to economic and social maturity and mankind’s march to modernism, were each responsible for driving a nail into the coffin of the planets living existence. Man, by merely being around – was killing this planet. It took me a while to understand that I along with my species represent the most toxic of all evolutionary misadventures that has occurred in the four billion year history of life on planet earth. It also made me convinced that there was no God. Had there been one, he would have made sure humans never happened.

But back to Julian Assange.

I am 99% certain that Julian was being hounded because the western world does need whistleblowers any more. It stopped nurturing freedom of speech, and stopped promoting a functioning democracy, though it continues to wear a mask to fool the unwary.

The Medusa responsible for the death of freedom was USA itself which dragged all its lackeys such as the UK, Canada, Australia, India and all other countries where English was one of the primary working languages. Along with them came the non-english progressive western nations such as Germany, France etc. These nations lead by the US strangled democracy and freedom.

What we now have is a belligerent fascism masquerading as a just and free conglomeration of societies.

I became aware that watching TV was a waste of time if one wanted to get real news. I stopped watching TV almost 15 years ago. I slowly stopped reading mainstream media such as the New York Times, Washington Post, or CBC, and started looking for fringe news sources on the internet. I temporarily dallied with Amy Goodman and other sources. I read up people like Noam Chomsky or Chris Hedges. I started checking on Aljazeera and RT.

I first started suspecting that google search engine was being tampered to skew the results in favour of state supported political propaganda and against free speech. I started testing google and eventually not only confirmed it, but got outraged by its one sided depiction of reality.

I found my friends, particularly the westernized, anglicized, upwardly mobile people from India that had either already migrated to the west and held good jobs, or were dreaming about doing so, were far more subverted to a false facade of western propaganda and the assumption that the west represented real freedom and that the US was among the best nations because of blah blah blah, than many thoughtful Americans themselves. The new immigrant pals of mine had become more American than Americans. Many of them cannot read nor write their mother tongue any more, and have an extremely shallow and narrow outlook to existence, despite being highly educated in the conventional sense. This also makes me question the definition, value, and purpose of education.

Mentally, I started drifting away from them. Today most of them appear like specs on the horizon, without shape, colour, or form. This increasing loneliness is part of the background of my somewhat singular journey into activism against agro-toxins in general and glyphosate in particular – which lead to me attempting to write a book titled – Lonely Road.

I acquired many new friends that have no blood link with India. Many are also like flotsam and jetsam – passing by in the current. But there are, I am happy not note, real deep thinkers too, who refuse to be indoctrinated by propaganda – western or otherwise, and have the depth of perception and the courage, to call a spade a spade.

Julian Assange just happens to be an icon for many such individuals, a floating log in floodwaters that is washing away our notion of a just world.

I decided to write a chapter on Julian Assange because he represented, in a modern day version of the epic of paradise lost – where we lose our conviction about man’s greatness. I am aware that the term man is used both to represent a male human and also the species homo-sapiens-sapiens – something that the feminist movement has reason not to be happy about. In my own mother tongue, Bengali, the name for a human is used to describe human civilization, while the term for ‘man’ is exclusively used only to represent a male and not the species.

Anyhow, this chapter about Julian Assange, was, for me, about more than just Julian. It was about my realization and coming to terms with the loss of our psychological paradise brought about by ourselves being ourselves, and how our own genes might be the worst enemy of the planet. Man, by his genetically programmed drive to use technology to better his life, is the ultimate doomsday weapon unleashed on earth.

And amidst all that, we learned, unlearned and then again re-discovered, the art of killing our messengers, feathering and tarnishing our torch bearers, and crucifying our prophets.

I have no idea how Julian Assange will be remembered by history. I do not much care about public perception at this stage. But Julian has been a good pointer, a symptom, by which to contemplate the deep cancer within our society that has been brought about by the very institutions that were to be the pillars of our modern civilization. He is the messenger that the world today wishes to be silenced. His messages, usually second hand and originating from someplace else, which makes him a messenger to start with, represents truth that is no longer cherished by the ex-pillars of modern democracy.

This new age fascism pretending to be an incarnation of capitalism controls all media. Its propaganda machine puts the Stalinist era Soviet propaganda machine to shame. Doctored news turns night into day. People are put away in prison by the tens of thousands without trial, and keys being thrown away. USA tries to prove it is the leader of the free world, by placing an unbelievable number of its own citizens behind bars without trial. People across the planet, killed by faceless drones operated by secret US establishments without any pretence for justification or judicial oversight is commonplace and near daily occurrence across the globe.

Honest scientists are being fired, and prevented from speaking out the truth without political clearance. Honest whistleblowers that expose the Governments illegal spying on its own people and extrajudicial killings of foreigners are either arrested and put away for years in jail, or have to run in fear of life and take refuge in countries like Russia, to save themselves from persecution for speaking the truth about their own Government’s wrongdoings. And the citizens of such “freedom loving” nations remain silent while the few brave torchbearers of the same freedom are silence or have to run away. The worst things we feared about communism has come true under this new age capitalism.

In Hindu mythology, there is mention of four eras that repeat themselves cyclically. The first era was Satya Yuga or the era when four out of four spoke the truth. Stay stands fro truth and Yuga stands for era. There were no liars. This is as close to heaven as one can get while on earth.

Then starts the downward slide. In the second phase, three out of four are truthful and one is a liar. This is the Treta Yuga. “Treta” means three. Hell lurks in the corner and threatens to disrupt normalcy and tranquility in this phase.

Then comes the next phase where two truth speakers are pitted against two liars.  This is the “Dwapar Yuga”. “Dwapar” means two. World begins to lose its balance. It gets near impossible to figure out what is right and what is wrong. Confusion reigns supreme. Only the most contemplative and wary can navigate through this world on a just path.

The last phase is the beginning of hell – “Kali Yuga”. This is the current age, with one quarter virtue and three quarter sin. In Sanskrit Kali may represent a number of unpleasant items – conflict, discord, turmoil. It also represents the Goddess of “time” which in turn invites the end of time, and hence the beginning of a new cycle and a new calendar. In this current era, crooks rule the world. Doomsday is here. Living hell is ongoing right now. An all consuming catastrophe, stylized by the arrival of an angry Lord Shiva to burn everything, thus cleansing the planet with fire, and set the stage for the new cycle, starting with another golden age of peace, happiness and tranquility. 

Thus continues the never ending cycle of time and events.

Intriguing as this tale is, we already know that a repeat cycle on planet earth is unlikely. Should life disappear from the planet, or should all higher animals go extinct, which is very possible since we are already in the midst of a man-made sixth mass extinction phase, a side effect of the “Kali Yuga” lead turmoil, then there may not be enough time left on the life span of planet earth, which in turn is dependent on the lifespan of our sun, for new life forms to start from near scratch and then evolve enough to come to higher intelligence animals like ourselves. The planet is likely going to be uninhabitable in the next phase, as our sun consumes most of its hydrogen, and begins to expand and die. The sun is not large enough to generate the kind of gravitational pressure and temperature at its core, to fuse heavier elements than hydrogen. As a result, the sun itself is not going to have any “phase two” existence like other larger stars. Solar system dies when the sun dies. Bet even before than happens, the expanding and exploding sun would consume all near planets, including planet earth.

So, Hindu mythology or not, man had only one chance on earth. And man blew it. That, far as I can tell, is the long and short of it.

Meanwhile Julian reportedly resigned from his post as the editor of Wikileaks.

If this is true, it hardly appeared in any news outlet. There are speculations that the Russians might have hatched an aborted plan to ferret Julian out of the Ecuadorian embassy and into freedom in Russia. There are other news clippings that indicate possibility that New Zealand might offer asylum to Assange. There are more news clippings suggesting Ecuador might have given Julian citizenship and turn him into an Ecuadorian diplomat (with diplomatic immunity ?), and assign him on a political post in Ecuadorian Embassy in Moscow. There are more news, almost all fo them from no-name outlets. One claims there are efforts to have him extradited into USA only to offer information on Hillary Clinton’s wrongdoings, before letting him go and that president Trump of his son-in-law might be behind it. Another one claims that the US might offer assurance that they don’t want Assange extradited, in which case the UK government might just let him go after he pays a fine and spends a symbolic few days in jail for jumping bail.

All of these might be speculation.

But most of my close friends and relatives – especially those ultra-modern americanized converts – that have successfully been reprogrammed to think Putin to be the biggest rogue these days and that the US is basically pure as driven snow – are at a psychological plain of falsehood that I find increasingly painful to visit. The specks in the horizon keeps getting smaller, merge into each other and begin to disappear in the mist.

Was a time when I thought the US to be one place where rule of law worked, and one was presumed innocent unless proven guilty. However, the US government has long been engaged in assassination of people without trial, including assassination of heads of state, many democratically elected, without ever acknowledging their role nor apologizing or explaining to their own people, why they conduct such extra-judicial killings or dethronement of other nations heads and topple their Governments. What kind of law allows that?

I do not bother asking these questions to my “Americanized” ethnic brothers and sisters. I realize these questions by now are outside of their field of perception. They are incapable of comprehending them. In any case, it is pointless for me to try to have a meaningful conversation with any of them.

Essentially, I was destined to be on my lonely road. Freedom of thought and freedom of thinking comes with a price tag – it ensures you are likely to be lonely. It is not a bad thing. Much better than living in a din where you cannot even hear yourself, are hemmed in by state sponsored propaganda and reprogrammed humanoids  that should have been free thinking humans. Before you realize, you have surrendered the one thing that is supposed to set a human apart – ability conduct independent analysis of what is happening around.

And thus, I decided I would add a chapter on Julian Assange. This overlaps with my notion on activism and the fact that the road essentially has to be lonely. There is no other way.

This is the primer of the chapter. The rest should be in the book.

Glyphosate & India – Part I

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A lot of updates are due, that perhaps deserve to be recorded, all to do with glyphosate.

Debal Deb at his Odisha farm

Most of it started thanks to Debal Deb inviting me to spend a week with him in iin his rice conservation farm in Odisha. I accepted the invitation and saw quite a few things, and not just his efforts in conserving some thousand five hundred kinds of folk rice. I saw the variety of crops that were grown to sustain soil health. I saw the wonderful home garden with papaya and other trees bearing unbelievable numbers of ripe fruits and the flock of wild birds that frequented the area. I saw how the nearby villagers were influenced. I also saw the near zero carbon footprint housing erected with sun baked bricks. And, I got to yap with Debal.

This followed up with me yapping and arguing with Debal and Martin Brown in the evenings, where I perhaps ended up describing some of the dangers involved in glyphosate getting itself mis-incorporated into humans and other proteins by mimicking glycine, one of the canonical amino acids and part of the 20 basic building blocks of life.

It was Debal that first convinced me to speak about glyphosate, covering what I had learned from Scientists like Anthony Samsel on one end, and what I ended up doing in Canada on the other. And that first talk has turned into a keystone event in India. It started a chain reaction that is even now triggering more events here and there, in urban as well as rural enclaves.

The group at my first talk arranged by Debal Deb at Kalipur on the 24th of February, 2018.

Although Bengal media is refusing to cover the glyphosate story till now, it has one way or another broken into mainstream media in India. First salvo was fired by reputed Delhi journalist Bharat Dogra on two papers covering Hindi and English. The first came out in Deshbandhu, followed by an English article on The Statesman.

My talk at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, arranged by Angshuman & Bhoomi Ka

But before that happened, Angshuman Das of Bhoomi Ka, Kolkata heard me talk at Debal’s study circle and invited me to speak again at their venue in Kolkata. And then he followed up with a trip to Delhi for me to make a presentation at the Gandhi Peace Foundation in the month of may, organised by Bhumi Ka Delhi. That opened a lot more doors, including a number of articles in mainstream media.

Hindi article by Bharat Dogra on Deshbandhu

The Statesman article, titled “Health hazards of imported pulses” is here.

Then came the cover page news on the bimonthly eco-magazine “Down to Earth” by Vibha Varshney, who had attended my presentation at Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi in the month of May. But she followed it up with further research on her part, especially do with the issue that imported lentils from Canada might be very toxic. She tried to get comments from relevant Government departments, where the people refused to comment. I guess the Government got to know, one way or another, that the cat has been belled.

Then there were more talks in Kolkata, influenced by Samar Bagchi, such as one at the Ashutosh Mukherji science foundation. The partial group picture below shows some of the attendants.

Then came my twin talk at Bhoomi College and Ragi Cana at Bangaluru as invited by Vishala Padmanabhan and assisted by Bhoomi College & Ananya Mehta.

The Bangaluru visit was, in more ways than one, a watershed event for me.

This was also the first time when I had a class of youngsters in the front rows of the audience.

I learned, directly and indirectly, of many of the issues involving conserving biodiversity, interactions with the government on legislations that involve or affect organic farmers, on petty ego and undercurrents of human emotions getting in the way of finding a common ground and reaching resolutions.

I found in Vishala a fresh face of emerging Indian eco-consciousness, that I found both impressive and very endearing. I found in her friend Ananya an equally committed worker bee. Then there was Seetha, the founder of Bhoomi College that invited me to stay in her compound for two days and arranged for eating unique organic vegetarian diets at their excellent facility.

This followed up by two wonderful articles on two issues of Deccan Chronicle by journalist S.N.V. Sudhir.

One was for the Telengana issue while the other was for Andhra Pradesh.

I was asked by Sabuj Mancha (সবুজ মঞ্চ) and Disha (দিশা) to deliver a talk on glyphosate on the 25th of July at 5 PM at 186A Kalikapur Road, Kolkata.

July 25 – Kalikapur Kolkata

This is the same place where I had earlier delivered my first talk in India on glyphosate, as requested by Debal Deb back in February 2018.

I put up the pdf file of that presentation on the web. It is not password protected. Some of the slides had action items where multiple images get on top of each other. Single pdf image of those slides can get confusing. However, the news articles are listed in this blog post, for all to see.

Around this time, I was also getting a lot of additional information relating to glyphosate, from my scientist friends back in the US and Canada. One such helpful person was wildlife scientist  Judy Hoy of Montana. She actually sent me the photograph that showed visibly noticeable birth defect in the jaws of an endangered species in India – the wild cattle called “gaur”. The picture was of a calf sitting on the ground next to a metal pan, and is presumed to be under care of humans, possibly an orphan, that had likely suffered a birth defect while still a foetus in its mothers womb, through glyphosate exposure.

This blog might appear to the reader as indication that the level of awareness on the dangers of glyphosate has been raised just a little bit since Debal first identified the need for speaking on this issue and its relevance.

Interestingly, the big honcho’s of India’s anti-GMO groups and their alliances are, not unlike in the west, mostly pre-occupied with themselves and their bubble of anti-GMO echo chamber, and give all the impression of themselves being genetically engineered to ignore all dangers of glyphosate, which is saturating the landscape, while keeping their vision fixed and fixated on GMO only, like deer caught in the headlights, or a rabbit caught in the gaze of a hypnotic snake. I am told that some of the megalomaniacs that form the core group of these associations have asked “what is the relevance (of glyphosate) for India?”.

Its like someone spending twenty years studying seven volumes of Ramayana and then asking if Sita might be Lord Rama’s father-in-law.

This however, is not typical an Indian evolution. It took me some years back in North America, to fully. understand this phenomenon. The first group of people that were self-occupied and fixated with GMO and refused to acknowledge the need to resist glyphosate, were the very anti-GMO and clean food activists I used to hang out with. They were the fist line of defence of the biotech industry. They were the flip side of the same coin. The whole shebang, from agro-chemical corporations, their shareholders, politicians as well as all these anti-GMO groups and talking heads, were all on the same side of the issue, all ensuring conservation and propagation of toxic food industry, but each carefully creating their own image and avatar and pretending to represent this or that group.

I have since been told that this is the very definition of “controlled opposition”.

However, my extended trip to India has also opened my eyes on encouraging issues and signs that I was not aware of before and would never have known if Debal did not ask me to speak up on glyphosate at Kalikapur, and if that did not somehow spread the news under the radar and out of sight, far into the rural heartland where the real India resides.

It has opened new doors and I have been fortunate to glimpse at remarkable groups of people that are, individually and in small groups, already come to the concluding that chemical free farming of heirloom crops, and staying as far away from glyphosate as possible, is not only the way to go, but was the main alternative to an ecocide that was already busy writing the epitaph for the living planet.

Having Udupi & dosa with Vishala and Ananya at Bangaluru on a Sunday morning.

In many ways, Vishala and Ananya of Bangaluru represent part of this grassroots movement that bypasses the mainstream everything, and represent a new face of India that I find hopeful.

Anupam Paul at his Agriculture Training Centre in Fulia, Dist of Nadia

There is also the story of Anshuman Das, Anupam Paul, Tathagata Das, Rabin Bannerjee, Devpriya Mukherjee, Sujit Mitra, Shamik Bannerjee, Abhra Chakraborti and many others that are all coming to parallel and similar conclusions about the future of food, environment and humanity, and are taking steps, within their individual means, to address this issue from multiple angles. I have been enriched by contact with them, and wish to highlight their own trials and efforts to push back at this massive global endeavour to destroy what needs to be preserved, by human development, or what Debal might like to call – Developmentality.

Then there are entrepreneurs like Pravin Singhania and Abhishek Singhania (not related). they represent another angle – both having reached similar conclusion independently, to be directly involved in organic farming, one in order to feed clean food for his family, while continuing in his main profession which is not related to agriculture, while the other made a lifestyle change to make organic agriculture his profession. There are many others like them, that are buying or leasing farmlands and beginning to get involved in producing food. Its the beginning of a new level of realisation – that moving away from the soil, and expecting good food to automatically appear in stores, and leaving the issue in the hands of the Government, agro-corporations, or even the NGO talking heads, may have been an unmitigated disaster, for the world, and for India.

Then there are topics under discussion involving North American scientists Anthony Samsel, Stephanie Seneff, Don Huber, Judy Hoy, André Comeau, Theirry Vrain and myself (myself being the only non-scientist in the group), through mostly email. They cover a plethora of issues that are worth mentioning, all to do with glyphosate.
Here is a piece of information I have not harped upon too much while in India, but I should. The problem is too much to talk about and too little time. Anyhow, the thing is, India and most of Asia have heavy tea drinkers. India is also a major tea producer and exporter, much like Sri Lanka next door.

In Sri Lanka, there is also some indication that tea garden workers that use glyphosate to clear weeds around tea plants have apparently been suffering from throat cancer at a rate substantially higher than the national average, and glyphosate is suspected to be the root cause. The nation had implemented an island wide ban on import or use of glyphosate. But lately they have been pressurised to relax the ban and allow selective use, including in tea gardens. One of the pressure points, I heard, came from Japan, a major importer of Sri Lanka tea. Apparently Japan did not like the fact that Sri Lanka was trying to find alternatives to glyphosate for tea gardens. According to the Japanese, these alternatives are not proven safe, but, according to the Japanese, Glyphosate is deemed safe. As a result Japan threatened to cut off all import of Lankan tea , which would result in heavy loss to earning and jobs for Sri Lanka.

It is perhaps equally interesting that one fo the major producers of glyphosate in India has been recently bought over reportedly by a Japanese firm. And India is one supply source of glyphosate for Sri Lanka. I wonder if conflict of interest and share holder earnings for Japanese investors is clouding the whole issue of public safety in tea.

Meanwhile, an American firm has tested a lot of tea brands and found much glyphosate in most brands. Another group found prevalence of glyphosate in urine of tea drinkers.

What is happening in India – does anybody know ? I am aware that glyphosate has been used in tea gardens in the North East of India from the 1980s. These are issues that need to be highlighted, and I should do it, somehow within the time frame. I would like Indians to start checking the following:

  • How much glyphosate is in various brands of tea in India.
  • If there is noticeable health hazards among tea garden workers that use glyphosate
  • If there is noticeable health hazards among tea drinkers in India from glyphosate contamination
  • Testing effect of glyphosate in beverage on laboratory test animals

And last but not least, I have had my share of interaction with elected politicians in provincial ministry here in West Bengal, and perhaps more are in line.I have been trying to convince them to not allow glyphosate to be used indiscriminately, and blindly, without any proof of its safety. I have been asking them to demand that the safety documents on glyphosate be released by Delhi, failing which to ban the molecule. I have been asking them to consider initiating independent safety test on glyphosate and same time engage in broad based testing of local foods for presence of glyphosate. All these are critical issues. They too deserve a mention.

Those will go into part II of this write up.

Stephanie Seneff on glyphosate-autism link

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Part 1 of the interview

Had a half hour long talk with US based scientist Stephanie Seneff on Aug 28, regarding possible link between glyphosate getting into our body and the apparent epidemic of autism that newborns and children are apparently experiencing these days, especially in North America.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff

According to Dr. Seneff, if glyphosate comes to us through food, it all usually starts at the gut. Directly and indirectly, glyphosate ends up disrupting the gut barrier, causing the leaky gut syndrome, where molecules that should not be able to get out of the gut intestine, does get out.

Next step is for them to cause various degree of harm depending on where these rogue molecules end up. In the brain, it can trigger the brain immune system to also disrupting the brain barrier, triggering damage to the insulation of the nerve system in the brain and impairing the communication system of the brain, and slowing it down. Many of the symptoms suffered by autistic children are common to gut related problems. What I write here is not exactly what Dr. Seneff said, but more in line with what I understood from her talks.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff is a Senior Research Scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. She has a BS degree from MIT in biology and MS, EE and PhD degrees from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings.

Her recent interests have focused on the role of toxic chemicals and micronutrient deficiencies in health and disease, with a special emphasis on the pervasive herbicide, Roundup, and the mineral, sulfur.

She has authored over thirty peer-reviewed journal papers over the past few years on these topics, and has delivered numerous slide presentations around the world.

Of note are a series of six peer reviewed papers that Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff wrote about glyphosate being the pathway to various modern diseases, covered by me earlier on this blog.

The long talk was broken down into smaller segments. This particular blog covers the first part, showing link between glyphosate in the gut leading to to autism in the brain.

Other parts of the talk will cover glyphosate that can also come to us through vaccines, and in particular, the MMR vaccine.

Here is part 2 of the interview.

Glyphosate destroys our digestive enzymes

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Anthony Samsel speaks with Tony Mitra about his latest work on glyphosate – that, apart from causing all other troubles, it also is responsible for damaging our digestive enzymes, so that we cannot even digest the food we eat, and the resultant undigested matter causes all kinds of problems including triggering auto-immune response and can lead to illnesses including serious and life threatening ones. He continues to write scientific papers on his findings, and part of this is pending publication in a science paper soon, co-authored with Dr. Stephanie Seneff.

Monsanto or Dupont apparently did not know this when they did their tests a few decades ago, since this was not known knowledge at the time, on exactly how our enzymes might be affected in presence of synthetic chemicals and how all this ties up with our health and immune systems.

Now that this is being revealed, largely through Anthony Samsel’s investigation and testing of digestive enzymes in presence of glyphosate, using multiple test methods like ELIA as well as liquid and gas chromatography, he is able to conclude that glyphosate can prevent some digestive enzymes from functioning properly and this is another pathway to a cascade of diseases.

Not just that, Monsanto and the regulatory authorities such as EPA should not depend on just standard toxicological tests to determine safety of herbicides like glyphosate. Such investigations should include at least enzymology as well. And any chemical that is able to impair our digestive system, should not be in our food in any level of concentration. Therefore, there is no safe levels in glyphosate and it should not be in our food or in our environment.

This is a 17 minute recording made today while I interviewed Anthony Samsel.

Note from Anthony Samsel

Tony,
 
This is companion material to my statement in the new video about ingesting Glyphosate at every meal being like unnecessarily taking the PHOSPHONATE BONIVA  …….  These symptoms of BONIVA begin with digestion and follow the result of the chemicals effects upon entrance to and within the extracellular matrix
 
GLYPHOSATE is no different it acts like a pharmaceutical enzyme blocker (inhibitor) >>>>>
 

Side effects triggered by Boniva include: bronchitis and arthralgia and myalgia.  Below is a comprehensive list of adverse effects.

More common:

  • Bladder pain
  • bloody or cloudy urine
  • chest pain
  • cough producing mucus
  • difficult, burning, or painful urination
  • difficulty with breathing
  • fever or chills
  • frequent urge to urinate
  • lower back or side pain
  • nervousness
  • pounding in the ears
  • shortness of breath
  • slow or fast heartbeat
  • sneezing
  • sore throat
  • tightness in the chest

Less common:

  • Bloody or cloudy urine
  • body aches or pain
  • congestion
  • difficulty with swallowing
  • dizziness
  • dryness of the throat
  • fast heartbeat
  • frequent urge to urinate
  • hives
  • hoarseness
  • itching
  • numbness
  • puffiness or swelling of the eyelids or around the eyes, face, lips, or tongue
  • runny nose
  • skin rash
  • tender, swollen glands in the neck
  • tingling
  • unusual tiredness or weakness
  • voice changes

Incidence not known:

  • Abdominal or stomach cramps
  • blurred vision or other change in vision
  • bone, joint, or muscle pain, severe and occasionally incapacitating
  • confusion
  • convulsions
  • eye redness
  • eye tenderness
  • heavy jaw feeling
  • irregular heartbeats
  • large, hive-like swelling on the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, throat, hands, legs, feet, or sex organs
  • loosening of a tooth
  • muscle cramps in the hands, arms, feet, legs, or face
  • noisy breathing
  • numbness and tingling around the mouth, fingertips, or feet
  • pain, swelling, or numbness in the mouth or jaw
  • sensitivity to light
  • severe eye pain
  • tearing
  • tremor
  • unusual pain in the thighs, groin, or hips

If any of the following symptoms of overdose occur while taking ibandronate, get emergency help immediately:

Symptoms of overdose:

  • Acid or sour stomach
  • belching
  • bone pain
  • burning feeling in the chest or stomach
  • heartburn
  • indigestion
  • loss of appetite
  • pain or burning in the throat
  • sores or ulcers
  • stomach discomfort, upset, or pain
  • tenderness in the stomach area
  • vomiting
  • white spots on the lips or tongue or inside the mouth

Minor Side Effects

Some of the side effects that can occur with ibandronate may not need medical attention. As your body adjusts to the medicine during treatment these side effects may go away. Your health care professional may also be able to tell you about ways to reduce or prevent some of these side effects. If any of the following side effects continue, are bothersome or if you have any questions about them, check with your health care professional:

More common:

  • Diarrhea
  • ear congestion
  • headache
  • loss of voice
  • pain in the extremity (arms and legs)

Less common:

  • Cough
  • difficulty having a bowel movement (stool)
  • difficulty with moving
  • discouragement
  • feeling of constant movement of self or surroundings
  • feeling sad or empty
  • general feeling of discomfort or illness
  • irritability
  • joint pain
  • lack or loss of strength
  • lightheadedness
  • loss of interest or pleasure
  • muscle aches and pain
  • muscle stiffness
  • pain, swelling, or redness in the joints
  • sensation of spinning
  • shivering
  • stuffy nose
  • sweating
  • tooth disorder
  • trouble concentrating
  • trouble sleeping
Anthony
 
Anthony Samsel
Research Scientist / Consultant
SEAPHS, Samsel Environmental and Public Health Services
P.O. Box 131
Deerfield, NH 03037

Gluten Free Food maybe suspect

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Over 1600 records so far have been transcribed, but error correction going on, and only around 800 of them so far placed on line in this blog.

The details are shedding light on many issues, but raising as many questions. So far, there seem to be no standard wheat, nor flour made from the wheat, nor standard bread, or Asian flat bread, or Pasta, made out of that wheat, has apparently beed tested. If I was a political analyst, a Psephologist and involved in tracking of trends, I might have concluded that CFIA has not tested any wheat or wheat product on purpose, to keep the people and the government in the dark about the one food item that is suspected to have the most glyphosate.

However, I am just an engineer and do not fully understand nor sure about political analysis or psephology. So I shall wait till I have transcribed all the near 8,000 records before I conclude if wheat and wheat products have at all been tested or not. I shall likely be having further communication with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency about it, once the preliminary analysis of all data received is concluded.

One kind of presumably healthy food category that has really surprised me with astonishingly high glyphosate content – is gluten free food. So much so that I had to try and separate them from the rest and see how the figures play out.

Out of the first two thousand odd records, I find very very few gluten free items from any country except USA and Canada, so I ignored them and focussed on just these two. USA has 130 samples and Canada 99, that have “gluten free” in their description. Average glyphosate + AMPA readings for the US produced gluten free product is 248 ppb and that for Canada is 286.

Gluten free foods may be suspect – due to much higher glyphosate content. You may also click on this image for the PDF file uploaded with the transcribed data comprising of the first 803 records. The remaining records going to around 2,000 are still being proof read. There are yet another five thousand odd records to be transcribed, before this lot will be over.

These readings are between two and three times the national average for USA and Canada, which are already hight to start with. Somehow, anything that has “gluten free” mentioned has become suspect- in my mind.

This is but a preliminary report. I shall later check if Organic-Gluten free is any better, and if it is any better than standard, non-organic, non-glutens free, off the shelf conventional food.

Here is a two and a half minute video about eggplants. I made it because so far it looks as if this is one vegetable that somehow has avoided being contaminated with glyphosate.

And then below is a 16 minute video of the first 803 records analysed.

 

A few of the issues and tems I have so far found puzzling, are:

Wheat – so far, I have not yet found a single record of normal wheat grain, or popular items made from wheat flour such as bread.n The only wheats so far mentioned are esoteric varieties and special grains that carry “wheat” in its name, such as buckwehat flour,  Buckwehat kernels, gluten free buckwheat, and more buckwheat this or buckwheat that. Most of the stuff, even organic varieties, appear to have glyphosate. But regular no-fancy basement variety wheat grain, and the vast type and name brand of bread that is made from such bargain basement varieties of wheat grain – are so far completely absent from the records. Thus, a major part of human food in these regions, are without a test result. Meanwhile, all sorts of foods that are wheat-like, are tested, and their results do not look good. I am getting increasingly careful and worried about where I get my bread from and how much of it I should consider consuming regularly. My bread intake has been cut from two slices a day to three slices a weak, and I only buy organic bread, but at this point, I am not sure what they contain.

Chickpea and Garbanzo : These are turning out to be, nasty stuff. There are hardly any sample containing these foods have good readings. There are 20 samples tested with Garbanzo – not one of them are organic and all of them have glyphosate – a 100% record. Many have astronomically high glyphosate content and categorized as in “Violation” of whatever standard that CFIA is following. All these samples are picked up in only two regions of Canada so far – The Atlantic and Ontario. No samples from Quebec or West. Some of the very worst samples have been collected from Ontario and originate from the US. I have already gotten rid of unmarked chickpea and Garbanzo we had, and decided to either get organic versions, or do without them.

Brand Name and labels are missing from processed and packaged food. This makes it hard for people to distinguish one sample from the next, when their descriptions are very similar but their glyphosate content may not be.

Above is a good reason municipalities to test foods sold in local stores and make the data, including brand names, available to the people along with the test result. Ref: https://www.change.org/p/let-our-government-test-food-for-glyphosate?\

Regions within Canada have food growing provinces areas missing. The sample data, containing over 800 records so far transcribed – gives the areas within Canada where the samples were picked up. There are only four such areas mentioned so far – Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario and West. I presume Atlantic to mean the east coast maritime provinces of Lewfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edwards Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I presume West to mean the land west of the Rockies, but basically British Columbia. This leaves aside Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba as the three major food growing regions of Canada. While many of the samples picked up elsewhere must have originated there, I wonder why no local collection has so far shown up in the records. Is there a story here or I just have to wait till those turn up too. Its very odd that these three provinces are missing, as are the northern territories. Not much food may be growing there, but one aught to pick up what food is being sold there, transported from elsewhere. I have been to White Horse, Yellowknife and Tuktuyaktuk. Most foods are packaged and processed, and there are not much food labelled organic there anyway. What are the average glyphosate intake in those foods? I would have wished those to be showing up in the tests too.

Atlantic and Ontario stand out negatively with some of the high glyphosate food items. This has been another major ensuing puzzle for me. Food items that appear to contain measurable and high amount of glyphosate, seem to only appear in samples collected i Ontario and Atlantic. The other two regions so far identified as sollection points – Quebec and West, seem to contain a few items with “trace” glyphosate content and zero measurable amount. How come? Also, where do the missing provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta fit in? The data so far transcribes answers some questions, but raises many more, and presents quite a few major puzzles.

USA & Canada: There are always more samples showing up from the US than Canada. This is extremely odd when all samples are collected in Canada,s since Canada is a major food producing nation, just as the US. Also, the foods identified as of “unknown” origin number higher than both USA and Canada. This is also very odd. I therefore suspect, but cannot prove at this point, that most all of the “known” (meaning unidentified) foods were picked up in food stores where origin was not mentioned, especially for unpackaged bulk food, such as some grains, seeds, flour made from ground seeds etc that were being sold in stores in bulk and without packaging.

I suspect most of these are of Canadian origin. Therefore I have also combined both the Canadian Origin and those that were entered as of “unknown” origin. This way, the total samples in Canada overtakes US samples, which makes sense for foods collected in Canada. This also brings the average glyphosate content below that of USA. The average glyphosate content should be of great interest for Canadians, but the US value is, I suspect, not a true representation of foods in USA. They at best represent American Grown foods that are available in Canadian stores. To get a better idea of what kind of food Americans are buying and eating, one would need to collect similar high number of food samples, local and imported, that are available in American food stores, and then analyze them for glyphosate and AMPA.

I am told EPA had started testing local foods in USA for glyphosate, but stopped its efforts soon after. The reason for stopping it, I am told, is that it ran out of funds and would need more money from congress. I find it strange that USA would not have funds to test its own food. Something very strange going on.

Meanwhile, I am extremely thankful that I managed to get this Canadian food test result treasure trove, and aim to do as good a job as possible, to bring it out to the people.

Tony

An older 10 minute quick update after 500 readings out of 7,000 transcribed.

Thanks and best wishes to all. Comments welcome.

Poisoning of the Acadian Peninsula

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Introducing Amedee Boucher – resisting wholesale poisoning of the beautiful Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick, east coast of Canada.

A lone warrior from Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick, Canada, trying to resist the effort of industries to clear cut all the forests out, and spraying the heck out of the land with all kinds of pesticides and herbicides, destroying the land, and the living flora and fauna, presumably to turn the place into huge blueberry or similar farm, to grow toxic fruits to export of China or someplace.

French speaking native born or the Acadian peninsula, he has started a one-man effort to fight this destruction of north eastern New Brunswick by clear cutting and a pesticide avalanche. He has gone door to door, collecting signatures and has gotten a huge support, given the low population density of the area.

He is scheduled to speak to the media tomorrow, and hand over all those signatures to a local MLA from the Green Party. The ruling Liberal party members declined to attend his talk to the media today.

In his mid-sixties and retired, this effort to resist wholesale poisoning and deforestation of the land has been his full time 24-7 job for quite a while – a true lone warrior with a lion’s heart.

Amedee had earlier once spoken with me over the phone alone with another friend, and today he contacted me again, an updated me on the sorry tale of the Acadian peninsula. The region is already most affected with pesticides and has a higher rate of cancer and other diseases.

Amedee will contact me again in a few days after his talk with the media and handing over the material to the Green Party MLA, with a proper short statement in audio and in writing, in French and in English, for the Canadian people to learn first hand how that beautiful corner of Canada is being poisoned, and how folks might contact him and join hands in protesting this unfortunate anti-nature agenda.

Amedee does not have an on-line petition nor a web presence as of now. He may still be contacted by email.

You can listen to our 14 minute talk of today by clicking the play button below.
This is a wake up call, for Canada.

 Tony.Mitra

Good bye, New York Times

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Sorry New York Times, I do not buy this latest bout of crocodile tears.

The biggest political story of the US election did reach a dramatic climax but it was unexpected only because media such as yours tried your damnedest to fool the people with corporate and state pushed propaganda to tilt the playing field in favor of Hillary Clinton.

You stopped being neutral, and objective a long time ago. It was not Donald Trumps unconventionality that was the root cause – your corruption and lack of journalistic integrity was.

The election was divisive but the reason was far from what was projected by your media. It was divisive because one side was pushed by the entire corrupt establishment, of which you are a part and and the other side was those that stopped believing in you. Therefore everything you said was suspect. More you trashed Trump, more folks suspected there was something important about Trump that may be good for the people that the establishment does not like. More you ridiculed him, more he appeared a good candidate to those that stopped believing in you.

You should reflect on it all – but you are not going to continue to con past subscribers like me. I would not read you even if someone paid me to do so, forget about buying a subscription ever again.

You say you cannot deliver independent and original journalism without our support. The trouble is, you did not deliver those items even with our support.

Now, you claim you cannot do without us.
I for one, can and will do without you.

Good bye.

Tony Mitra