March on Monsanto protests GMO's, white phosphorus

On the 20th of May, the annual March on Monsanto marched from the White House to Monsanto's DC corporate lobbying office on I st by the south side of Franklin Square. This time around, protesters were demanding not only an end to Monsanto's genetically modified crops and seed patents but also to their production of white phosphorus, sold to the US military and used in places like Gaza.

Other issues raised were the use of seed patents to bully farmers out or reusing seeds, the incredible amount of glyphosate (Roundup) contaminating water, food, etc, and the effect of Monsanto's pesticide-producing crops on bees. Someone said Monsanto's "scientists" have gone so far as to propose tiny mechanical "bees" as substitute pollinators. The patents and software copyrights that project would generate would of course give Monsanto a monopoly on pollination and an incentive to let real bees die off.

News hit some of the anti-GMO websites in 2016 (after last year's march) that Monsanto is the supplier of white phosphorus incendiary munitions used by the US and exported to Israel. Not only that, US supplies of white phosphorus have been reported to pass through ICL Performance Products , which is a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals, Ltd. Israel fired white phosphorus during both their 2006 war with Lebanon and their 2008-2009 "winter war" in Gaza.

Offically, the US uses white phosphorus in the 155MM M110A2 Smoke Projectile made at Pine Bluff Arsenal. In the field this "smoke round" can also be fired "off-label" as a devastating incendiary that continues to burn under water-or inside the human body. A hit from white phosphorus is worse even than a napalm hit. Speaking of the weapons of the Vietnam War, Monsanto also made Agent Orange. Due to the severe impacts of white phosphorus burns, the Geneva Convention forbids its use even to generate obscuring smoke in "civilian areas" but this did not prevent Israel from using it in densely populated Gaza.