Kevin O’Leary is a venture capitalist whose net worth is $300 million.

He’s one of the wealthy hosts on Shark Tank, where he told one inventor he wouldn’t invest in his idea because the inventor planned to manufacture in the U.S. instead of seeking cheap labor in China.

I'd like to say I find him revolting, but his attitude simply reflects his class --- top one percent.

As to the claim that there are no non GMO corn available in North America: Not true!

Non GMO corn is produced by De Dell Seed Company, Canada.

That article contains some interesting comparisons on the relative nutritional value GMO vs. non GMO statistics that seem to be the reverse of the arguments by Kevin O'Leary as he bravely took on a fourteen year old girl.

But its a rather interesting point. Monsanto has been so successful in forcing its model that hosts like these can say, why label when you no longer have a choice?

Following Ernie at #2--

Yes, and my understanding is that the reason for poor diet/starving people(which O'Leary kept on citing as a primary reason to pursue GMO's)is usually more due to the politics of food supply than anything else. Much more readily remedied by more sensible/humane food distribution systems than some pie in the sky bio-tech fix.

Kevin O'Leary's attitude IS revolting. He represents more than just the top 1% attitudes. If I could stand to watch him again, I bet I could list numerous rhetorical fallacies he uses in his pitiful attempts to bully the intelligent and self-possessed Rachel Parent.

Let's see... I don't recall the name of this one but it's classic: He tries to set Rachel up: if you're not for GMO agriculture, then you are against feeding starving children in danger of going blind and dying.

Another (again I don't recall the name): Tell me again why you're against science. (Obviously she is not against science and said so several times in a beautifully non-defensive assertive way.)

Now, his obnoxious condescension toward Rachel could be reflective of his 1% privileged attitude, I suppose, but his rhetorical attacks were deliberate.

Whoa, whoa, whoaaaaaa, Mr. O'Leary. I think when a teenager can flat out beat you clearly in a public debate like that, you may lick wounds and GET A FUCKING GRIP dude. It is a good day when kidlets stand up for what you've taught them!

We request you take request a few minutes of your time and act as the organisation European (against) Lobbyists Union begins the campaign:

MONSANTO GO HOME
Please, will sign this worldwide petition and help us this to spread the world globally. Only together we reach something. Do we want this in Europe and around the world?

http://www.avaaz.org/en/...on/Monsanto_go_home?copy

Thank you

Kudos to Rachel Parent for courageously and articulately standing up to the bullying, ridiculous questions of Kevin O'Leary.

Rachel truly showed the copious amount of research she has done on GMO's and their potential harm, while O'Leary sounded like the exact thing he was accusing Rachel of - being a shill, but for the other side.

Rachel nailed it perfectly when she kept referring to the fact that any "scientific" study about the benefits of GMO's are done by Monsanto and other companies that stand to profit by them.

And, of course there are non-GMO options to corn and soy in North America. The other intelligent choice, if you really want to stay away from GMO-based corn and soy? Don't eat them at all. They are not required staples of a healthy diet. You won't miss them that much. And, there are non-GMO options available. Whenever I go to Sbucks or Peets or the like and order a latte with soy, I always ask if they use non-GMO soymilk. Sbucks typically says that they do.

And, when O'Leary implied that by being against GMO's that Rachel was therefore against helping starving children in Africa, that was so ridiculous and embarrassing that O'Leary should be taken off the air. Like another commenter mentioned, that is more of a political question about food distribution. And, there are plenty of other ways to help starving children.

Monsanto and other companies of their ilk are playing carelessly with the health of people and the environment. They just don't care. They are so powerful and control so many seeds that it is going to take people like Rachel to stand up to them and help convince others that just because Monsanto says something is good for you doesn't mean it actually is.

We all have a right to know what's in our foods and to make choices based on that. It is definitely possible to do that now, without labeling, just by seeing the labels of those who advertise as non-GMO, but it will increase the competition to be non-GMO, if labeling laws do take effect.

Mr. Corporate Shill repeatedly asks the same question (are you in favor of GMO foods) and repeatedly ignored her repeated answer.

He then goes on to imply that being against GMO foods condemns the poor to starvation. My mother used to say that I had to eat my vegetable because there were starving children in Africa. So Mr. Corporate Shill argues so well that a grade school child could see through it.

Rachel Parent is in favor labeling, and Mr. Corporate Shill is terrified of what could happen in the free market unless the deck can be stacked. When you try to prevent people from having info about your product, you are hiding something. And, not surprisingly, GMO labeling will not impact starving children in Africa AT ALL!

Kevin O'Leary is the shill. He conflates food science with GMO when in fact GMO is a small part of food science and further more it has become a corrupted science for the very reasons that that very very smart young lady pointed out repeatedly. The very companies that stand to gain do most of the approval testing. What could be more potentially corrupting than that?

The GMO supporters keep trying to brand the opposition as a bunch of Luddites who simply oppose scientific efforts to improve foods. I don't think that people who object to GMO are suspicious of science and scientists, but they ARE suspicious of the companies who are using the science, and with good reason. These companies have demonstrated, over and over and over, that they have no ethics, no conscience, and no concern regarding the effects of their products, OTHER THAN THEIR ABILITY TO GENERATE INCOME. No one who has monitored the behaviour of these companies would ever trust them on anything that has to do with their profitability.

Tom @10, you nailed it - Monsanto and the industry's track record of lies and profiteering at the expense of sustainable agriculture is all we need to know about this uneven, manipulated debate.

I've never seen airtime like this given to the topic of GMO on any network, channel or show. Rachel's age made her something of a novelty but she ended up a serious, persuasive pundit in a hostile 2-against-1 ambush.

O'Leary is the one who is close-minded - HE was the shill for Monsanto. Bless Rachel for her message discipline and clarity as O'Leary was condescending and dismissive. I've seen research debunking both the "yield" and "nutrition" claims, but on a common sense level, the idea that desperate third world people should rely on a monolithic foreign multinational for sustenance is what's extreme here.

Those poor people should be eating food produced sustainably by local or regional farmers just like they did before the expansion of factory farming drove them under. Not only would they have nourishment, but the jobs in the economy too. The main reason they are not as "lucky" as us is because their lands and resources have been gerrymandered by multinationals to extract the value and leave starvation and poverty behind.

Congratulations Rachel for caring about the present and future health of all humans! Someone's gotta do it! Why not the ones who will have to live with the consequences?
This issue has too many similarities to the battle that's raging about "Natural Gas" being the transition fuel. The gas industry still continues to claim that it's safe, blatantly ignoring the horrific facts about contamination around the world. Just trust us, they say. Sound familiar Rachel? These are multi-billion dollar industries that are suffering financially, when anyone transitions to green energy or to local organic agriculture. Their pathetic commercials about how Fracking is now saving farms has really gone too far.
Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) has very little in common with your grandmother’s gas well. Contaminating water sources and nondisclosure agreements should be serious crimes, but they are not!. Invest ethically. Watch Gasland 1 and Gasland 2 for info that the gas industry is not disclosing.
Find your solution; My husband and I recently installed a high efficiency Okefen pellet boiler in Milanville Pa. The oil burner is out! Pellet heat is an alternative to fossil fuels and a source of carbon-neutral local heat. Each local and heat local.

See GASLAND 2 on HBO- Watch Daily Show interview here.
http://www.thedailyshow....-extended-interview-pt—1
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/screenings

http://www.DamascusCitizens.org

Good job sweetheart!!
One has to admit - he's working hard for his money.

what an ass! I was literally tearing my hair out listening to that guy- wait for it- SHILL for the GMOs, who apparently are trying to feed the world more nutritious, more bountiful, less-infested foods, and also cure blindness in the process! And this courageous young girl, by default, is subjecting the poor, downtrodden, un-blessed of the earth to death by starvation and, should they be lucky enough to live, lack of sight, and she just can't grasp this fact because she's young and pretty and is being used for nefarious purposes by anti-GMO, anti-science activists (because we ALL know how superior man-made science is to nature once we become old and dispassionate right?) which is of course way beyond the pale, while apparently he has no concept of his own shilling, nor the power of actual corporate lobbyists, or how many Monsanto execs occupy govt positions, or how Monsanto hacks activist websites, or contaminates fields, creates super-pests, needs more of these same company's own pesticides, doesn't lead to increased yields, and is likely causing myriad health defects, and now will likely destroy the entire US wheat export industry having already destroyeds the lives of numerous farmers in the first place. Heres to science! Good god what a dick. He should be ashamed of himself, but I have a feeling this guy lost the capacity for shame long ago, along with any sense of investigative journalism, for surely even a cursory search of the issue of GMOs would lead to a sense that all may not be as rosy as Monsanto PR releases make it out to be. Air-slap-to-the-head for that dude. Kudos to Rachel for keeping her composure, and to the female newscaster for jumping to her defense, to a point. I'd love to hear what she was thinking!

As a former farmer, I have to say that some of the anti-GM arguments are pitiably ignorant of how farming works, at the same sort of level as some of Monsanto's magic-bullet arguments for GM crops. There are other threats to the crop besides weeds.

What Monsanto are also doing is getting control of the supply of seed. In the past, with multiple companies breeding new varieties, that have diverse resistance to plant diseases, it's been hard for some new disease strain to overwhelm everyone. I am not sure that Monsanto have the resources to sustain that vital genetic diversity.

They talk about "Round-Up Ready", and sell under contracts which lock the farmer into using their trademarked product. The active ingredient is glyphosate, long out of patent protection.

What's the motive? GM organisms have a lot of potential benefits, and I would be dead without the pharmaceuticals produced by GM bacteria. But I think Monsanto care far more about fattening their bank balance at the expense of farmers than about feeding the world.

I've been having some major computer problems, but am really glad I caught this story.

This wonderful young girl - clearly - dominated the conversation in this two-against-one presentation. At least the woman admitted she was a lab rat, but didn't offer a whole lot of support, otherwise.

Young Rachel, obviously, didn't need it.

I've been saying for years, that civics teachers should prove that a class full of twelve year olds could hand count thousands of election ballots and come up with the correct results.

Adults who are out for the money, just can't seem to muster the truth.

Where the hell are the trolls on this thread?

This blog is troll central!

Most around here will remember that Fox "news" won a lawsuit, which came to a judgement that a television news organization could lie with impunity; which must have been a HUGE relief to Sean Hannity and those greater then he at the network.

This segment of a documentary called, "The Corporation" is a fascinating/angering account of how that ridiculous ruling came to be, with the idealistic reporters who thought they would be allowed to report about Monsanto, but found out that Monsanto cowed Fox "news", and forced it to threaten the reporters.

All the young girl was saying is that Americans have the right to know who is modifying their food. All I'm saying is that Monsanto has NO right to modify our news.

A sophisticated CON job by Monsanto and THEY WON

Their real goal was to focus on labeling because they know that they've already WON that one: labeling laws in the US have been a complete farce for a very long time. They would LOVE to see the debate focused THERE.

Rachel is exceptionally intelligent and articulate FOR HER AGE but she's young and unsophisticated and isn't familiar with bag of tricks used by very adept manipulators like Monsanto. They used her precisely because of her age: they knew they could twist it to appear like a nice sincere kid who meant well but ... and that's pretty much what they did. She missed the CRITICAL IMPORTANT points that would have really HURT Monstanto that a sophisticated person with deep background would have seized on:

WE are NOT even a study for safety because WITHOUT LABELING there is no way whatsoever to analyze the data when you can;t tell WHO has been eating the stuff nor HOW MUCH each person has eaten. SO THERE IS (VERY CONVENIENTLY FOR MONSANTO) NO WAY OF EVER HOLDING THEM RESPONSIBLE until possibly many decades later after (as with hydrogenated oils) millions of early deaths and tens of millions of severe lifestyle impairments have already occurred.
She also missed the critical point that THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE MALNUTRITION IS NOT THE LACK OF VITAMIN A BUT THE GROSS INADEQUACY OF THE FOOD SUPPLY AND THE ROOT CAUSE OF THAT IS AN INEQUALITY OF DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH SO SEVERE THAT THE POOR LITERALLY DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TO SURVIVE.

She did an awesome job for her age and I can't wait to see what she'll be able to do when she's in her twenties or even late teens. But WHAT PEOPLE ARE COMPLETELY OVERLOOKING is that this interview was HEAVILY SKEWED IN MONSANTO'S WAY by a very sophisticated method: 1) get a "straw dog" to represent the opposition (they distracted attention from the fact that there were far more effective representatives for the opposition by using her age as an excuse (she's doing great FOR A 14 YEAR OLD (but she lacks the DEPTH and SOPHISTICATION needed to make her able to go in for the kill ON THE KEY POINTS so they managed to very effectively divert her from the points they wanted to avoid at all costs AND IT WORKED!

What is most disturbing about the whole episode is that MONSANTO REALLY WON IT due to sophisticate maniulation but the GMO oppononents don't really realize that! So Monsanto gets credit for the ILLUSION of giving the opposition fair exposure with an opponent too unsophisticated to home in on the critical issues and win it where it could have been won.

And I suspect that the media knew all of this very well and went right along with it because that's what the mainstream media does in the USA today: (not just Fox but CCN, NPR and all the rest: they fully cooperate with this sophisticated illusion using straw dog opposition and all too many of the American public swallow it, hook,line and sinker.

We did NOT win this one. Monsanto did. It has allowed us the ILLUSION of winning because it knows IT WON ON WHAT REALLY MATTERED and allowing us the illusion of winning takes some sense of urgency out of the movement right when it's sorely needed.

Rachel: You did a great job for someone with your background but you were severely overmatched. Don't worry about it, LEARN FROM IT. Figure out what really happened and how to avoid it next time. 1) identify the WEAKEST POINTS in advance (in this case that no labeling means no way to know if problems DO occur and that the root cause of the malnutrition is inequitable distribution of wealth, not inadequacy of the food supply: WHY is only rice available to so many people? 2) don't allow THEM to define the main issues . go back over the video and analyze where they diverted you and learn methods to deal with such tactics in the future. What they did to you was like putting a 14 year old jr. high school boxing champion in the right with the world heavyweight champion. You did very well for such a situation but THE **MEDIA** SET YOU UP! Some people who pretend to be your allies are in reality anything BUT. We all have to learn that at some stage. At a particularly young age in your case but LEARN from it. Learn how to identify it (check out their past records!) and deal with it. (When you KNOW someone is a faux "ally" you can prepare.)

Jim, (whoever).

I didn't read you're whole screed, because I lost interest early on.

Nice try though.

How many dimes did the Koch's give you for twisting the truth.

Just curious.

Dammit!

I spelled "your" wrong at 20. When you comment on BradBlog, you have to proof read. I keep forgetting that!