Wampum

Jose Bové's campaign last year wasn't for the presidency, it was for something a little harder to explain. It was for a continuation of the nonist position, but not especially non to the proposed European Constitution, with all its Anglo-American "free market" (pro-capital/anti-union) baggage, but to a manifestation of it -- the 1998 determination by Bruxelles, that is, the Parliment of the European Union, that genetically modified cultigens, in particular Monsanto's MON810, could be grown within the European Union.

France has just invoked its reserved right to ban MON810.

Sarko is president of the Republic, but Bové has caused France to formally declare MON810 unsafe for cultivation, so he, and his wing of the French rural, agricultural, and intellectual left, also won.

We missed the opportunity this cycle to talk about GM cultigens, and closed-cycle patented cultigens, and whether ethanol makes sense, prior to the Iowa caucus. Maybe next cycle we'll have a candidate who can sit when the ethanol anthem is played, and talk about the economics of farming in a market dominated by profit taking on GM cultigens. Or we can go another cycle with ethanol as the solution to "the dangers of foreign oil imports".