Vandals Ruin Crops at UC-Berkeley Genetic Research Center
In an anonymous communique, the group Reclaim the Seeds called the research center a ``monstrous labyrinth'' and took credit for this week's break-in. ``We believe that with enough preparation, luck and a few tools of the trade, the powers of darkness cannot keep us out of their greenhouses and labs,'' the communique states. ``Ultimately, our fear of a dead planet is greater than our fear of state [and] corporate repression.''
This is an incredibly annoying quote, not just for the hideous grammatical error but for the `correction' made by the UC newspaper. What is that [and] doing there? Clearly the intent in the communique is to equate the `private' economy with the state. The `correction' assumes that capitalism is organized around a free market, while the state merely keeps things within certain bounds of decency. Of course the state is the brain of the whole operation, just as it was during the formative years of the British Empire. Capitalism is `state corporate repression.' (Ted)
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I suppose I should have something to say about this since I used to work in the labs that are attached to the Albany and Oxford tracks as well as a lesser known track down in San Jose. At one time most of these tracks were used by graduate students and post-docs in plant genetics, molecular and microbial biology. Food species are the most common whether or not the work bares directly on agricultural production.
The first break-ins I was aware of started around '96 or '97, just after I left. I used to have an e-mail account in one of the depts, until they installed a security system and dropped remote login and telnet accounts (boo, hiss). They used the threat of vandalism and hackers as an excuse. But I think it was probably at the urging of the people involved with the Novartis deal.
Whoever has decided that UCB's plant research is a threat to the planet isn't too bright. Their vandalism simply destroys the creditability of real issues and makes it appear to be based on el wacko ideas akin to the animal rights groups. These sorts of actions give all credence to the corporate state and undermine more meaningful and direct protests. The place to go and trash are the corporate labs run by the bio-tech industry which are devoted to exploiting the research science for profit and power. But these are heavily secured fortresses due to intercorporate competition were paranoia over leaks, defections, and security rein supreme.
On the other hand, I know UCB administration will never move one angstrom closer to an open and public debate or recognition of these issues, since campus research is understood to be primarily a money milking machine where state held science is sold to the highest bidder. (I was not persuaded in the slightest by chancellor birdog's letter of concern two years ago--since he could stop the corporatization of UCB with a single stroke of the pen--so fuck his concern). It really is a Faustian bargain of enormous proportion.
So given all that, what the hell, why not? Rational discourse, well reasoned and in depth ethical judgments as to the distribution of the benefits of state sponsored research for any broad concept of Humanity or Society was lost long ago. It's all about money and power. So, why not just vandalize it and skip all the blah, blah?
I know the actual work is wonderful, careful, and done with the highest intentions. But the context within which it is carried out, the means available to conduct the work, the directions that are funded and encouraged are completely corrupted by commercial interest, right down to the lab kits and protocols. I also know that this corruption isn't entirely obvious to many of the researchers involved. It never occurs to them that their work put into the hands of corporate product development schemes has the potential to destroy entire national economies and rake in billions.
This situation has to be much like that faced by nuclear physics, chemistry, and engineering during the fifties. The WWII propaganda organs had completely conditioned scientists to accept a human world whose priorities were determined by the state policy apparatus and therefore all physics was devoted to further the goals of the military industrial complex. It must have seemed completely natural to build weapons of mass destruction without much serious questioning either the ethics of doing so, or the government's policy motives. It was just a natural outcome of physical science that virtually all its applications turned into one vast death machine after another. That was just what physics was always meant to do. So, what's to question, right? That is still what most people think of when anyone mentions physics.
The same conditioned mind set exists today throughout the biological and medical sciences where it appears that the natural outcome of the state funded research is to produce privately owned, patented, overpriced, profit-determined products for multi-national corporations, who, as we all know, are absolutely devoted to maximizing the benefits of bio-science for the sake of Humanity and Society at large. Sure something should be done to keep costs down a little, but these miracles are just naturally expensive. That millions might die and whole cultures disappear into oblivion, well that's regrettable and something should be done to ease the price of scientific progress.
What's to be done?
Well, let's forget petty vandalism on college tomato patches and get started on some bigger scaled actions instead. The best thing would be to publish the materials and methods, the protocols and production regimes tout a fait. I mean this is supposed to be the information age, right? So how about some information?
Next, I would advocate that any national state that wants the potential benefits of bio-science, hunker down to the lab and make it up for themselves and then use it, sell it, or give it away and absolutely disregard all patents, copyrights and international legal restrictions. Take as an example, Brazil and the farmers who just replanted US corporate seed stocks. Oh, horror, oh shock of shocks, without permission! They were probably not wearing their badges either. Imagine that. The same goes for medicines and drugs. If Canada, Russia, or South Africa needs AIDs drug regimes, then steal the formulas and make them--or hire the people who know how. What's the problem? That's how we in the US got to be the biggest corporate bullies on the planet. We stole the labor from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and stole the managers, plans and ideas from Europe (remember the threads on who invented the computer a week or so ago?)
What's the US government going to do about it, use bad language? Oh, I know, threaten to cut off trade. Gee, now there's a threat.
Chuck Grimes