So I was wandering through the blogsophere and popper over to Pam’s House Blend where an addition to an article on the ever asinine Glenn Beck led me to the Media Matters site where I checked out advertisement for something called “survival seeds”.
Now I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to a few things, but something said in the advertisement sorta triggered me. So much so that I went to the actual site and had to read for myself their amazing use of people’s own ignorance against them.
THe trigger comes in two lines, a bit apart from one another.
First, they say:
These seeds are authentic strains which are NOT genetically modified in any way.
Now, that’s a dog whistle kind of statement — meaning that it’s something htat is said in order to make you think about something else. It’s something only certain people will get, as well. In this case, it’s a dog whistle about hybrid seeds, which are the stuff used to make “genetically modified tomatoes” and so forth — stuff like corn for ethanol and plastics, etc etc.
Then they say this a bit further down the page:
These are NOT ordinary seeds… they have been chosen for their truly extraordinary germination rates!
Grown in remote plots, far from the prying eyes of the big hybrid seed companies, each of the Survival Seed Bank varieties have been hand-picked for germination rate, nutritional density and of course, storage life. These seeds are true heirlooms and produce extremely nutritious plants.
Well, on reading that I burst out laughing and immediately started writing this post.
Some of you may wonder why that’s so funny.
Well, plants are, comparatively, fairly simple things. They are also relatively easy to modify genetically. Indeed, the proof of genetic manipulation and inheritability was most famously demonstrated by a monk that no one had ever heard of raising flowers.
One of the most heavily modified plants of all time is Corn. Indeed, corn, as most people know it, would die out within a few hundred years were people to suddenly cease to exist. Because most corn is not capable of reproducing itself with some form of human involvement. It’s been bred that way — different varietes were selected for particular traits that were wanted.
And it’s been going on for literally thousands of years.
But what’s funny is that traits like germination rate, nutritional density, and storage life (which is the biggest reason for genetic modification) are all genetic traits.
So they are selling genetically modified seeds that are not genetically modified.
I call that a lack of truth in advertising, but there is, of course, a catch.
You see, what they are talking about is a little quirk of goverment labeling that requires something that is done in the lab to be called “genetic modification”, while a gardener doing the same think in his field can potentially call it organic. Even if they both are breeding for the same traits.
The difference — two kinds of labs are used in the govt regulated version: one your basic biochem lab with petri dishes and microscopes and teeny tiny needles and all that stuff. The other kind is a great big field where they grow stuff just like that gardener.
And I seriously question the use of heirloom in their advertising, but that’s a matter of preference from, well, the organic gardeners history of mine. The kind that understands that the description of “organic” on various foods in the stores is not the same as actual organic. Indeed, the store kind has to follow rules that ultimately *reduce* the efficiency of growing food.
It is more than just not having used pesticides and the like.
And in the seed collecting and swapping community, an heirloom seed comes from before most of the modern varietals of different things that we have now. Another way of looking at it is Heirlooms really are heirlooms — seeds from lineages prior to the 1940’s, for the most part.
Very different kinds of plants from the sort that are usually seen today.
But I did find it somewhat amusing that to sell a pack of seeds, they are lying to their customers and for the most part their customers don’t know it and are too damned scared anyway.
Survivalists are a peculiar lot as a whole — and I will admit that I’m the sort of person that is often mistaken for a survivalist.
But I absolutely love the way the whole spiel they have closes out, because it’s perfectly in tune withthe rest of their general message about how the society is collapsing and you’ve got a year at most before we are all in the middle of hell (millenialist stuff and the whole 2012 thing notwithstanding) so you better buy now because I may not have enough of these once the government comes to me and demands them (which, of course I’ll sell at a higher price, but we all know what will happen then).
“Indestructible Survival Seed Bank Can Be Buried To Avoid Confiscation.”
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