We know some of the root causes behind the avalanche of toxic chemicals that has gotten into the food system and environment in the west in general and in North America in particular, is rooted in possible extreme penetration within and corruption of our political institutions, and through it into our media, healthcare system, judiciary, economic systems and scientific institutions, by the poison peddling agro-industries. The corruption is not unique to Canada, and originates from the US but has now permeated the global scenario, enveloping much of the known world.

In my view, the fault for this sorry state of affairs where every decision is one-sided and tilted to favour anti-people policies, lies at the feet of the citizenry. In a functioning democracy, if we still have it, the responsibility of ensuring that the political process remains balanced and policies are driven primarily by the will of the people and not by a handful of foreign corporations, lies at the feet of the citizenry, and citizenry alone.

But, in a fast paced world where the controlled media constantly bombards you with manufactured or tinted news, where you are being programmed to think it might be the right thing to do to use your tax dollars to bomb some third world country that has never attacked you, just because the leader of that country is unilaterally and without court trial projected as a bad guy, therefore justifying the military industrial complex to obliterate their towns and villages and turn their cities into rubble, all in the name of international peacekeeping.

In this scenario, a whole group of people get employed in scientific institutions whose pay check may be coming from sources that mandate them to speak in favour of pesticide dependent agriculture. They are trained to look at select science, deny existence of alternative views that cast doubt on chemical dependent agriculture, to the extent that they often are either in denial or totally ignorant of a world outside of controlled junk science of glyphosate or other biocides in food and nature.

People of this kind have infiltrated into major scientific institutions in most countries, but particularly in the west. They are programmed to believe that the west is the best, and are taught to challenge any opposing view by a few standard tactics. One of them is to stay away from the topic, and attack the messenger, trying to imply that the person having the opposing view is mentally challenged, is scientifically illiterate, or is a fear mongered, or is trying to make a buck or has some personal motive. Therefore, he or she is not worth  paying attention to, and whatever they say, does not need to be answered.

If such anti-pesticide person remains in the sidelines, he or she may be ignored. But should he-she gain prominence somehow, then these pesticide peddling trolls begin to emerge out of the wood work.

My point here is – it may be worthwhile for the citizens to identify such junk scientists and demand that the institutions fire them. Perhaps these myopic poison pushers need to be encouraged to find an alternative profession – leave science and take up selling newspapers.

There is this person by the name of Chandre Dharma-wardana. He apparently objects to my petition to the Agriculture Minister Lana Popham of British Columbia, asking her to consider banning of glyphosate from BC agriculture. And so, he wrote me a long email, which is separately put up on the web (click here for the pdf sample), so as not to clutter this blog.

The long letter has lots of selective junk science I shall not go into right now. The main issues that prompted me to single this person out, considering him to qualify being included in a blog are:

• His writing to me without identifying himself, as if he is as important as Lord Buddha and I should revere him immediately.
• His extreme prejudice and racial/cultural hubris, implying that people from the Indian subcontinent might be mentally unfit to decide on glyphosate due to extreme proximity of human excreta.

If this person was just an ordinary man on the street, I’d have ignored him. But he apparently is part of the national academia and in the body of research scientists – the same group that we believe may have been penetrated and corrupted by the poison peddling corporations through political corruption in Canada.

And, he displays an extreme case of racial and cultural arrogance, prejudice and hubris, about people of the south-Asian subcontinent.

So I decided to record both the email received as well as this blog.

To me, this person is still too small a fish, and I have more important tasks at hand, such as trying to convince local governments to push back at the practice of using glyphosate in agriculture and environment.

But perhaps someone else might like to take this up with the authorities such as the University of Montreal, or the Research Council of Canada, and ask them if their policy allows employing people with people that display extreme racial and cultural bigotry.

I am likely to include a video later on, on this issue, that can be included here as well as in an update on the petition itself.