The 73 year old father of Fanjul/ Flo Sun executive Gaston Cantens is headed to jail for five years. EOM wrote about Cantens in 2010. "People need to know, all people, no matter who they are or their circumstances, that there are consequences to what they do, and there's punishment," US District Judge Kathleen Williams said at the sentence hearing, according to The Miami Herald.
But that is not true. There has been no enforcement or punishment of those judged to have violated federal clean water law or those violating the settlement agreement between the federal government and state for polluting the Everglades. There has been no consequence for Florida legislators who continue to refuse to enact the constitutional amendment requiring polluters, like the Fanjuls' sugar farms, to clean up 100 percent of the pollution their activities cause in the Everglades.
The son cannot be held for the sins of the father, but laws require restoration of America's Everglades. Making these laws and legal battles to enforce them have consumed generations of activists, scientists, and policy experts. Violations of these laws should have consequences as severe as those imposed on Ponzi schemers like the senior Cantens. But they don't.
Florida taxpayers are being made fools by sugar interests who are foisting 75 percent of the cleanup costs in the Everglades on the public. American taxpayers are being made fools by federal farm policy that substantially boosts the public health emergency caused by excess fructose.
On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, a representative of Big Sugar sweated out a response: "there needs to be balance (sic) in people's food choices." But these so-called "choices" are no more choices than the law is law.
What happened and is happening to the Everglades is a crying shame. Are these lessons taught at Belen Jesuit School, the beacon of education for the Cuban American community in Miami-- where senior Cantens recruited his "investors"? Faced with the ethical quagmire of the Everglades, what would Jesus do?
But that is not true. There has been no enforcement or punishment of those judged to have violated federal clean water law or those violating the settlement agreement between the federal government and state for polluting the Everglades. There has been no consequence for Florida legislators who continue to refuse to enact the constitutional amendment requiring polluters, like the Fanjuls' sugar farms, to clean up 100 percent of the pollution their activities cause in the Everglades.
The son cannot be held for the sins of the father, but laws require restoration of America's Everglades. Making these laws and legal battles to enforce them have consumed generations of activists, scientists, and policy experts. Violations of these laws should have consequences as severe as those imposed on Ponzi schemers like the senior Cantens. But they don't.
Florida taxpayers are being made fools by sugar interests who are foisting 75 percent of the cleanup costs in the Everglades on the public. American taxpayers are being made fools by federal farm policy that substantially boosts the public health emergency caused by excess fructose.
On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, a representative of Big Sugar sweated out a response: "there needs to be balance (sic) in people's food choices." But these so-called "choices" are no more choices than the law is law.
What happened and is happening to the Everglades is a crying shame. Are these lessons taught at Belen Jesuit School, the beacon of education for the Cuban American community in Miami-- where senior Cantens recruited his "investors"? Faced with the ethical quagmire of the Everglades, what would Jesus do?
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