Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons is endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race, because Bernie Sanders doesn’t acknowledge that “the number one threat to America and the world is the factory farming lobby.
“Because it is poisoning the planet quickly,” he told CNN in a video posted to YouTube, “and it is poisoning its inhabitants.”
Simmons, founder of several record labels and clothing lines, is a vegan and a “Christian yogi.” His particular brand of yoga – Jivamukti Yoga – is a quasi cult and exercise religion that requires adherents to become vegans and devoted animal rights activists.
Simmons told CNN he decided to back his “longtime friend” Hillary Clinton because Sanders is “overpromising” and insensitive to the plight of black people. More importantly, he said, all of the water in the earth’s oceans will be gone in 50 years, and if everyone doesn’t become a vegan like Simmons the human race will go extinct.
“The shift has to be made away from the animal products, away from the beef industry specifically, but all the animal products into a plant based diet or there will be no planet,” Simmons said, “and in the next 50 years we won’t even have an ocean and when the oceans die, we die.
“So we must change the rate at which we consume animals and we cannot have a lobbyist take advantage of all our natural resources in order to poison the planet and its people,” he continued.
Simmons said it’s like Sanders isn’t even concerned that the oceans will be gone in no time.
“I asked him about it and he brushed it off, even though he knows your earth quake and certainly all these storms are a result of factory farming,” Simmons told CNN. “We now have all the proof in the world that climate change is man made and we have to do something to derail it.”
“That, and his insensitivity to black voters, caused me to support Hillary Clinton, who I think can win,” he said.
Ironically, it’s Clinton’s campaign that’s been dogged with criticism for its links to corporate lobbyists. Clinton’s former Iowa campaign manager Jerry Crawford is a lobbyist for tobacco companies and factory farmers, including the infamous Monsanto.
“Monsonto, the agricultural and biotechnology company founded in Missouri, is known worldwide for its abuses against the environment and practices designed to crush farm competition,” Alternet noted. “Iowa is a farming state, with agriculture making up a large share of its total economy.”
Between managing Clinton’s 2008 campaign and joining the club again this year, Jerry Crawford worked for Iowa Republicans and at his law and lobbying firm Crawford Muargo, which represents Monsonto, Kraft, and Philip Morris USA parent company Altria, according to the site.
Truth-out.org reports Crawford is now senior adviser to Clinton’s 2016 campaign, despite the fact that his firm has taken in a reported $60,000 from Monsanto in the most recent quarter.
Crawford raised $151,727 for the Clinton campaign in the last quarter of 2015, while another Monsanto lobbyist, Steve Elmendorf, raised $20,295 for the Hillary for America organization during the same time frame, according to FEC documents cited by Truth-out.
“Elmendorf also does work for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which has been battling against mandatory labeling laws for foods made with GMOs,” the site reports.
“Clinton is widely seen as a friend to genetically engineered crop technology and agrichemical interests, while her chief competitor for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, has been a supporter of mandatory GMO labeling.”