by Jim Mann
What would the public think about a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that filed a bogus lawsuit against a frail and elderly 80 year-old WWII vet solely to intimidate him and his family? This photo of Wayne & Virginia White was taken not long after Monsanto did just that.
Monsanto filed suit knowing Wayne was his wife’s sole caregiver. It also knew his wife of 60 years was bedridden and dying of cancer (oh, the irony, given all the people who are now dying because of glyphosate exposure). And it also knew it had absolutely no case against him.
Why did Monsanto do this despicable thing??? . . . because Wayne’s son, Michael, was an outspoken critic of GMOs and the overuse of glyphosate way back in the 1990s. Monsanto sued Wayne to make Michael cry uncle and shut him up.
This little known suit in rural Alabama would make a fantastic news story right about now.
Unpublished story about Monsanto’s campaign to silence a critic of GMOs & Glyphosate
Bayer made a catastrophic blunder when it bought Monsanto. The question is: How could a major corporation get hoodwinked into buying such a wretched company? The answer to the $63 billon dollar question is tied to an obscure case in U.S. Federal Court that was allowed to slip under the radar: Civil Action No. CV-03-HGD-2804-NE. Link below. [Bayer of course knew full well Monsanto’s history and was not “hoodwinked” by the corporation in the slightest, despite the suggestion made in this otherwise very important article. Our poor “friendly aspirin company” is no more a victim than when it consolidated with I.G. Farben, manufacturer of Zyklon B gas, used to murder Jews, communists and homosexuals in the Nazi gas chambers in the 1930s and 40s, and made poisons it knew were being used in Nazi “medical” experiments/torture. You can’t claim naivete while spending $64 billion to purchase Monsanto. (“We didn’t know”? I don’t think so! Bayer is attempting to corner the market on the world’s seeds, merging with Monsanto in order to genetically engineer them along with Dow, Dupont, Syngenta and Chem China – Mitchel Cohen]
Monsanto pulled out all the stops in an attempt to “sell” the public on GMOs between 2005-2018. Its PR staff and the Genetic Literacy Project routinely touted the “fact” that Monsanto only sued farmers who willfully violated their seed patents. This served as “ironclad proof” they were a friend to all “law abiding farmers”. Monsanto’s PR staff and the GLP repeated this so often it became a factoid. Problem is: It was a blatant lie, and Monsanto knew it. Fortunately for Monsanto, instead of investigating it, the press repeated it over and over.
In 2003, Monsanto sued Wayne White for GM seed patent infringement. On December 16, 2005, Judge Lynwood Smith ruled in favor of Wayne and against Monsanto. Succinctly, Wayne never violated their seeds patents, willfully or otherwise (court document enclosed).
Why is this case crucial? Simple. Monsanto systematically lied about it for 13 years. Worse, Monsanto sued Wayne on the eve of his 80th birthday, and did so knowing he hadn’t farmed in three decades. He stopped farming before GM seeds were invented; it was impossible for him to have been guilty. Even worse, when Monsanto filed this bogus suit it knew he was the sole caregiver for Virginia, his beloved wife of 60 years who was bedridden and dying of cancer.
Why did Monsanto file a bogus lawsuit against a frail and elderly WWII vet who hadn’t farmed in decades? It was retaliation against his son, Michael. A farmer and seed merchant in rural Alabama, Michael was a vocal critic of GMOs and railed against the overuse of glyphosate way back as the 1990s, long before the public was concerned about either of them (refer to SEEDS OF REPRISAL: MONSANTO VS. MICHAEL WHITE)
Why does this matter now? If Bayer had done their due diligence and looked into this simple case they would’ve found the true character of Monsanto. It’s a textbook example of the despicable lengths to which Monsanto willfully went in order to destroy the lives of innocent people. And it did this simply because they had a family member who dared to question the conglomerate about GMOs and the overuse of glyphosate. Monsanto sued Wayne to make Michael cry uncle and shut him up.
In 2015, Rock-n-Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young released a short documentary about Michael, SEEDING FEAR. Unfortunately, Neil made three mistakes: 1. He failed to include a photo of Wayne and Virginia. (The attached photo was taken soon after Monsanto sued Wayne for every cent he had. Actually, it was seeking treble damages.) 2. He failed to make the most of the fact that Wayne beat Monsanto. 3. He included one inaccurate statement about Michael, and Monsanto and the GLP used it to discredit and undermine the entire documentary.
It was well-known in the farming community that Monsanto showed no mercy for “seed pirates,” the ubiquitous label its PR hacks stuck on any and all farmers the company “accused” of patent infringement. With a multibillion dollar corporation breathing down Wayne’s neck, no money to hire a lawyer, and barely able to care for his beloved wife of 60 years, “Can you imagine the heart pounding fear that went through this elderly retiree every single day?”
Luckily for Monsanto, Wayne’s victory didn’t make the news, not even his small hometown paper. A frail retiree living on Social Security beat a multibillion dollar conglomerate in federal court and it went unreported. Monsanto’s PR hacks couldn’t have dreamed up a better gift.
Once it got a free pass on the case of Monsanto vs. Wayne White, Monsanto’s true identity slithered out. It doubled-down on the blatant lie that it never sued a farmer who didn’t willfully violate its GM seed patents. This became their battle cry whenever someone accused them of harassing farmers. And the press aided and abetted them by failing to do their due diligence.
It would’ve taken Bayer’s skilled investigators less than an hour of searching federal court records to find the ruling where Wayne beat Monsanto. Nevertheless, Monsanto “bet the farm” that Bayer (just like the press) wouldn’t even look for it . . . and Monsanto won.
https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Reprisal-Monsanto-Michael-White/dp/061585625X
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