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Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is
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Estodias Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin American history.
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Sometimes it's horrible and deals with heavy topics like racism, corruption,
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and genocide. But more than that, it's also about resistance,
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power and community. And today it's not about any of that.
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It's all about corruption and terrible things. Oh wow, wow,
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wow wow. Yeah, let's just let's get straight into it.
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I recently saw that. Well, okay, let me backtrack a
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little bit. I was looking for topics because I was
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in a little topic slump. Happens what happens to most
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of us as in me? Yeah, while I was looking
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for topics, I came across this headline, Meet the Bayan
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beekeeper who beat me Santo. Wow. I was like, what
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this sounds like an amazing topic. Yeah, but before we
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can even get to her, her name is Lady Peck.
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And before we can even get to her the Maya
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bee keepers, we need to know what is monsanto? Yeah?
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What is their history in Latin America? Not good? None
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of it. And that is how my journey into all
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of this began. And I'm thinking this is going to
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be a three parter oh wow. Wow, that means one
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more week than I thought to finish my research. Oh
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my god. No, do not rely on this. I won't.
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I will move forward as if and I am. Yeah,
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I'm digging. Today we're just gonna talk about the history
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of Monsanto. What is Monsanto? Very basic like Monsanto one?
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Oh one? Okay, ok, very surface level Monsanto. Part two
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we're just going to get into Monsanto and tear things
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they've done in Latin America, and we'll cover different Latin
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American countries. And then part three will be about Lady Peck.
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Oh yeah, Lady Peck and the Maya beekeepers and what
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they have to do with Monsanto. How's that happened? Wow?
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I'm looking forward to all of this. I love a
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three partner from you, not for me, but from you.
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I knew you were going to say that. No, I'm
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like super interested in this because I know a little
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bit about Monsanto. Yeah, and like I said in that
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Patreon episode we recorded, I was like, what is Monzanto
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a wine? But that was like ten years ago. I
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Sasan knew they were like a little bit shady and
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they have to do something with something with seeds. That's
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all they knew about them, Yeah, the GM the genetically
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modified seeds or whatever. I knew some of the horrible
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stuff they've done, like here. And then I think I
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learned a little bit about the beekeepers, the Miami beekeepers,
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because of the podcast has told you about the busted business.
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I was gonna say, how do you how did you
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know about that? How did you find that podcast? I
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don't remember, Oh you know what, I don't know if
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you remember a long time ago. Actually, okay, I don't know.
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I don't remember where I found it, but somebody I
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saw I recommend it somewhere because someone was saying, oh, yeah,
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if you like like a very ADHD type of like
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random like not random, but I kind of explained like
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a top energetic like yeah for frenetic energy, frantic energy.
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I don't know, I don't know what to say. I
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don't know call it like uh, and I can't remember
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where I saw it. But they're like, if you like this,
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you also like this, And they explained a little bit
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how it was, and they're like, she's very ADHD and
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that's how I found it. I want to say it
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was probably read it, but I don't pro that sounds
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like a Reddit comment. Yeah would leave so interesting anyway. Yeah,
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if we'll get into it, let's start at the beginning, Okay, Okay,
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Monsanto started as a chemical company founded in a one
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by John Queeny. Sid No, but I was like accidentally
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trying so hard not to say Johnny Queeny. So some articles,
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when you look them up, it says it started as
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an agricultural company. It started as a chemical company, not
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agricultural though. If you look at their website today, it
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says they're a new company, agricultural company, and they have
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ties to a company from one hundred to something years ago. Okay,
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so like rewriting history, very Coca Cola. Yes, yeah, So
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John Queeney started Monsanto at age forty two after working
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in the pharmaceutical industry for thirty years. And you might think, wait,
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if he's forty two, how has it been working for
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these years. Well, that's because he's a nepochild labor. Okay,
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this was a child labor was still very much a
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there was this acad nineteen oh one is okay, yeah,
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h So he started working at twelve years old and
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has just been hustling since then. I'm sorry, I just
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think of oh my God, what's his name from Parkston
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a req yes uh Ron, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget
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the quote me too, but that's like it's vaguely in
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my head because I do about child labor. I remember
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the concept of it, concepts of a quote. So yeah,
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he started working at age twelve and then yeah, he
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just made his way to the top until he had
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enough money to start his own company, which he named
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after his wife, Orga Mendez Monsanto. No, oh Mentees Monsanto.
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I didn't know that's where it came from. Wow. Yeah,
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just a little bit about her family. This is a
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super super rich Jewish family from Spain. I knew I
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was gonna gues Spain right away. Wowow yeah. And I'm
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not going to get into the history of Jewish people
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Spain and all that. That's a whole other topic. So
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her family had a huge role in the founding of
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colonial Louisiana in the eighteenth century. They arrived to lease
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Louisiana in the seventeen sixties, and yeah, they basically founded,
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like helped found find whatever colonized Louisiana colonize, Yeah, in
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other words, colonized. They also had a huge role in
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the Atlantic Sleeve trainor they did. Yeah, and they enslaved
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Africans in their plantations in Mississippi. They enslaved at least
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fifty one Africans for personal use, but they traded and
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sold way more. Wow. So yeah, that's the namesake of Monzonta.
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Even the name is evil. Yes, precisely. Why I want
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to include this just because from its roots, their first
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product was saccharine in artificial suitet. Then they added other
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products slowly, like vanolin, which is the vanilla sweetener, and aspirin. Eventually,
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during John Quiney's reign as the person in charge of Monsanto,
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it was still just a chemical company that did food additives. Really,
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that's what all they did. Did they also give us
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Red forty, the thing that's poisoning everyone. I don't think so. Actually,
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I am again making things up right now. Or speculating
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is the wordulating? Yeah. Coca Cola was their biggest customer.
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They produced caffeine for Coca Cola and the vanolin and
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then they got super rich from that. But World War
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One happened and that kind of just blew Monsanto up.
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They filled the hole that Europe was filling in this
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like market because before like aspirin was a German imported
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from Germany, and of course World War One were like,
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we don't want anything from Germany, right, right, the whole
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the whole thing, the whole thing. Yeah. So now Monsanto
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was providing all this aspirin and they got even more rich.
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And then in nineteen twenty six, Monsanto pretty much created
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their own little town in Illinois, Illinois. Oh, I was like, okay,
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you correct myself, that's correct. You wrong, It's called Sage
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SAJA yeah today. Oh well, like, why doesn't sound so
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familiar because of the podcast before? Yeah it is. Yeah,
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so you need to like block all that. Okay, I
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know that was comments deleteed deleted. Oh my god. So
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it's called SAJ now, but back then it was called Monsanto.
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And since SAJ was founded or created, the mayor has
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always been part of the Sage family. Oh my god.
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M hm. And this whole town was created for one reason,
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just to be a company town, a Monsanto town. So
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they produced the chemical PCB. And if you didn't know,
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and sorry side note, but I tried to profre my notes,
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but I may have switched it, and so you might
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hear PBC at some points. But the PCCB. Okay, yeah,
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so yeah, if you hear me switches because I was ADHD.
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I just didn't. I thought I read it correctly. You know,
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it happens. Yeah, I will flip letters a numbers anyway.
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This chemical does it all coolants, oils, hydraulic fluid, adhesives, ceilings, caulking,
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a lot of things, a lot. It's very versatile, also
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super important for war things. And it also happened to
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be very toxic and it is now banned from international use.
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I was about to say that can't be good, right,
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like for it to have that many uses, and lo
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and behold was not. Yeah. It takes like decades or
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longer to breakdown, which is why back then they found
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it so useful. But now it's like, oh my god,
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this is so toxic. One of love Forever chemicals. Yeah. Yeah,
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and you know, since it was discovered before it was banned,
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there's like more than one million tons out in the
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world of this chemical. Wow. And of course, like they
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didn't know what they didn't know when they founded this town,
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so but then when they did know, they ignored So
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this town. You know, back when I was actively making this,
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it produced ninety nine percent of PCB like in the US.
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So all of it, wow, until it was banned in
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nineteen seventy nine. And just to show you how this
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town functioned, there were almost no tax levies. And back
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when I was first made it was a population of
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three hundred people. There was only four streets. They were
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all named after Monsanto executives. And then there was a
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twenty four hour strip club, which is still there. Still
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twenty four hour strip club. Yeah, I remember hearing about that,
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not like I was there inside. Oh you were there,
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saw Jay, I've been there. Wow, where is it again?
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You imagine? Yeah? Can you imagine as being in Mississippi?
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I know, I'm sorry, Okay, I couldn't even imagine me
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in Oklahoma. My ass only went there because of you.
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The worst place I've ever been. Yeah, yeah, it was
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not fun. So today has a population of one hundred
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and forty one people, and sixteen of those one hundred
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forty one people are police officers. Oh my god. Yeah.
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And it doesn't have a school or fire department or
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a grocery store, but it does have a strip club
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and a baseball stadium, so there's not the hill. And
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this whole town was created to provide minimal regulation and
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no taxes for Monsanto. Wow, that's it still a tax haven.
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Yeah yeah, and so yeah, that's how the town became
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the main manufacturer or the town and Monsanto became the
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main manufacturer of PCB during World War Two, and from
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there it just kept growing. Manzanto acquires Swan Chemical Company
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in Alabama, then Thomas and Hawk Walt Laboratories in Dayton, Ohio.
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This was when Charles Allen Thomas became the president of
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Monsanto and then the board chair until nineteen seventy. During
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his time in charge, Monzanto got involved with the Manhattan Project.
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Oh crossover. M hmm yeah, crossover. Oh, we should have
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put that on our bingo. That needs to be on
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our being. Okay, we'll take one of them out and
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put crossover before we post our big on card. We
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will fix and see how do we phrase it though, Like,
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isn't crossover like the best option because like it happens
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all the time. We just write crossover, Yeah, because how
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else would you put that? Oh that wasn't another episode?
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Oh yeah, I guess so we could just put the
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whole sentence in there. Yeah yeah, oh call back Yeah
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that works. So yeah, Manhattan Project, although Charles Allen Thomas
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he didn't want to move to where the Mahaan Project
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was happening, of course. Yeah, so then they created the
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Dayton Project so he could just work from home in Dayton, Ohio.
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Oh my god. On the Dayton Project part of the
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Manhattan Project. And so they assisted in the development of
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the first nuclear weapon. And what their part was was
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being the ones to create the thing that was needed
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for the separation of the atom. So without them, the
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atomic bomb wouldn't have been possible. Thank you, Monsanto for
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ruining all of our lives. Yeah, one of the mini atrocities.
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We're going to see the list here again, just one
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of many, one of many. During World War two, PBC,
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I did it. I think it's PCB PCB, Yeah, PCB
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and rubber chemical production really ramped up, and Monsanto added
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another product to their lineup in nineteen forty four, d DT.
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Oh god, this gets worse. Oh, this does get worse. Yeah.
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But also DDT mentioned in our sterilization episode because DDT
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was used to that's right, that's right. So we have
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like three bingos already. So DDT this is in insects deicide,
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which we have talked about before. The bassettos were sprayed
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with d DT to be disinfected, and it was terrible
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for their skin. Yeah, like didn't it burn? Yeah. It
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was also sprayed in the fields where the braceletos worse, right,
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so also terrible for the environment and just breathing all
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of that in, Like terrible all around. But also this
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wasn't just in the US. It was then used worldwide
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outside of farming and brasseros. It was used on US
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troops to protect them from diseases in tropical areas, so
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things like malaria, typhus. The sentry DDT was used for that.
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It was also used all over the world, and then
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it was also available commercially until it was banned because
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then we learned how dangerous and toxic it actually was.
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Man it caused the death of fish and birds and
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areas where it was sprayed yep, and that caused the
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endangerment of the bald eagle. It went nearly extinct due
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to DDT. That's America's bird. Well just goes to show
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how much respect there is for the bald eagle. I'm sorry,
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I can't look at my lore right now. He just thought, cute,
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I don't know. I was telling his spot like that.
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I know it. This joible thing I've ever seen. I can't,
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I can't do not do that. He's shocked everything he's hearing.
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He cannot believe what Monzanto has done. Oh my god. Okay,