Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Manual. To support this publication, preorder your copy or donate today.

After several years in development, the Earth First! Direct Action Manual is ready to go to press. A group of frontline activists has assembled over 300 pages of diagrams, descriptions of techniques and a comprehensive overview of the role direct action plays in our campaigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundraising campaign to ensure that this critical book gets out to people who can use it. You can preorder your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your early endorsement by donating today. More importantly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowledge. Every donation over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the manual to a campaign of your choice. The more you give, the more manuals we can put in the mail.

The manual will be printed in the coming month with longtime Earth First! partner, The Gloo Factory. This community-minded, union print shop has supplied Earth First! and its affiliates with stickers and merchandise for decades and remains committed to using a high standard for recycled and reclaimed material, as well as supportive worker conditions.

The manual was first printed nearly two decades ago and has been out of print since its initial dissemination. Though many of the considerations for civil disobedience and intervention have remained tried and true, new elements have altered the ways we put these tactics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Manual will continue the role of safe and effective actions in stopping the destruction of the planet.

Support this effort today!

Eleven Arrested Protesting Monsanto Shareholder Meeting

Dozens of protestors from around the globe rallied against Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, on Tuesday urging its shareholders to consider the risks of growing and consuming genetically modified crops.

Protestors, with signs in hand, converged at the Monsanto headquarters in suburban St. Louis, MO during the company’s annual investors meeting in support of two shareholder resolutions that questioned the level of contamination passed onto non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) crops and requested the seed giant end its fight against mandatory labels on foods containing GMO ingredients, reports Reuters.

The resolutions failed by considerable margins and 11 protestors were arrested after attempting to disrupt traffic near the Monsanto gates.

“Right now there’s a growing movement to label genetically modified food,” said Dave Murphy, executive director of Food Democracy Now!, who presented the labeling proposal at Tuesday’s shareholder meeting “Monsanto has chosen unfortunately to resist the rights of American people.”

Over the last two years, Monsanto has spent more than $13.4 million to defeat GMO labeling efforts in California and Washington state, said Murphy.

Shareholder Adam Eidinger introduced the labeling resolution, hoping to get at least 7 percent of investors to support it, but wound up with just 4 percent, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The second resolution, introduced by shareholder John Harrington, focused on Monsanto’s potential liability to organic farmers. It received just 6.5 percent support from investors.

Live audio of the shareholder meeting, which was broadcast for the first time on the internet, also attracted Monsanto supporters, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Justin Danhof, general counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, told WSJ.com the protest was a “campaign of junk science” against biotech foods. Danhof insisted Monsanto combat the environmentalist outcry by enlisting its scientists as spokespeople on talk radio and other media to create an open conversation with the public.

According to Reuters, the protest resolutions were backed by environmental, food safety and consumer activist groups. Protestors said that 2.6 million members of those groups support the anti-GMO initiative.

“It’s time that Monsanto join the 21st century and allow Americans the basic right to know what’s in their food, something that’s already done in 64 other countries around the world. Why not America?” said Murphy.

Eleven Arrested Protesting Monsanto Shareholder Meeting

photo credit: Eco Watch

30/1/14

photo credit: Eco Watch

30/1/14

Dozens of protestors from around the globe rallied against Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, on Tuesday urging its shareholders to consider the risks of growing and consuming genetically modified crops.

Protestors, with signs in hand, converged at the Monsanto headquarters in suburban St. Louis, MO during the company’s annual investors meeting in support of two shareholder resolutions that questioned the level of contamination passed onto non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) crops and requested the seed giant end its fight against mandatory labels on foods containing GMO ingredients, reports Reuters.

The resolutions failed by considerable margins and 11 protestors were arrested after attempting to disrupt traffic near the Monsanto gates.

“Right now there’s a growing movement to label genetically modified food,” said Dave Murphy, executive director of Food Democracy Now!, who presented the labeling proposal at Tuesday’s shareholder meeting “Monsanto has chosen unfortunately to resist the rights of American people.”

Over the last two years, Monsanto has spent more than $13.4 million to defeat GMO labeling efforts in California and Washington state, said Murphy.

Shareholder Adam Eidinger introduced the labeling resolution, hoping to get at least 7 percent of investors to support it, but wound up with just 4 percent, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The second resolution, introduced by shareholder John Harrington, focused on Monsanto’s potential liability to organic farmers. It received just 6.5 percent support from investors.

Live audio of the shareholder meeting, which was broadcast for the first time on the internet, also attracted Monsanto supporters, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Justin Danhof, general counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, told WSJ.com the protest was a “campaign of junk science” against biotech foods. Danhof insisted Monsanto combat the environmentalist outcry by enlisting its scientists as spokespeople on talk radio and other media to create an open conversation with the public.

According to Reuters, the protest resolutions were backed by environmental, food safety and consumer activist groups. Protestors said that 2.6 million members of those groups support the anti-GMO initiative.

“It’s time that Monsanto join the 21st century and allow Americans the basic right to know what’s in their food, something that’s already done in 64 other countries around the world. Why not America?” said Murphy.

Earth First! Winter Moot 7-9 March 2014: programme up

A weekend gathering for people involved or want to know more about ecological direct action around the UK including fighting opencast coal, fracking, GM, nuclear power, new road building and quarries with discussions and campaign planning – emphasis on the tactics and strategies, community solidarity and sustainable activism.

A weekend gathering for people involved or want to know more about ecological direct action around the UK including fighting opencast coal, fracking, GM, nuclear power, new road building and quarries with discussions and campaign planning – emphasis on the tactics and strategies, community solidarity and sustainable activism.

Evening Friday 7th – afternoon Sunday 9th March 2014, Nottingham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full vegan meals and accommodation.

It will be an indoor floor sleeping space so bring a warm sleeping bag and mat. Train to Nottingham then tram to Beaconsfield street– walk to the end turn right on to Gladstone St — 245 Gladstone St, Nottingham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or questions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30-17.30 Security Workshop
17.30-18.30 Film

18.30 Dinner

20.00 Benefit Gig

Saturday

8.30-9.30 Breakfast
9.30-10.45 Intro go round of campaigns

10.45-11.00 Break

11.00-12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00-13.00 Security Workshop

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-14.30 Lush/fundraising workshop
14.30-18.15 Campaign Workshops (timings to be finalised to include Fracking, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15-18.30 Summer Gathering handover

18.30 Dinner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00-10.00 Breakfast fry up
10.00-10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30-11.30 Feedback go round
11.30-12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30-14.00 Summer Gathering Planning (and time of other workshops to run in parallel)

14.00-15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Bombing against Bristol office of Vinci, Life Sciences Centre constructors

We think that anyone serious about confronting domination as it stands today will sooner or later come to the questions of science and technology. It's clear how both have an increasingly vital role to the ruling order by creating, managing and spreading control within society and over the rest of an earth we're falsely separated from.

We think that anyone serious about confronting domination as it stands today will sooner or later come to the questions of science and technology. It's clear how both have an increasingly vital role to the ruling order by creating, managing and spreading control within society and over the rest of an earth we're falsely separated from. By investigating the development of these powers in the region and who makes it possible, we came to Vinci.

In the U.K, the French multinational energy and construction giant Vinci carry out specialist construction services for the police, Ministry of Defence and prisons, earthworks for motorways, railways and quarrying, power stations, offshore rigs and nuclear new-builds, as well as shopping centres and the like. Worldwide this corporation and its subsidiaries are active in many fields: dam building, private security, airports, uranium mines; these scum have no problem with inflicting carnage on the earth and us as part of it, raising an industrial cage around us both figuratively and literally, and feeding off the labours of their workforce while the bosses line their pockets and move on to the next contract.

In these respects we attack Vinci anyway, but one of our main motives for targeting them is because they're responsible for building the new Biological Life Sciences Centre soon to open at the University of Bristol.

We set off an explosive at Vinci's offices at Vantage business park, north of Bristol, at approximately 3:45 yesterday morning (6th January). It was placed with the aim of cutting off power lines, scorching the exterior and starting a fire inside. We considered the resident company in the next-door part of the unit a worthy secondary target in any damages (Whitehead, another construction and building servicing group who do commissioned work for Vinci).

A £54 million facility, the Biological Life Sciences Centre will offer courses for "the next generation of biologists" as well as current specialists, aiming to improve collaboration with the university's nanotechnology centre and just across from the Medical School's genetic engineering, vivisection and animal breeding labs. The world capitalist system sees advances in fields like this as key to the next round of discovery, enclosure and wealth creation. As the area around Bristol and Bath houses the biggest hi-tech design cluster in the world after America's Silicon Valley, this "revolution" is happening on our doorsteps, "with Bristol being an exciting and ideal place to carry out research over the coming years." (This is in the words of Professor Gary Foster, whose work at the University of Bristol in genetic-modification and other biotechnologies feeds the noxious pharmaceutical industry such as GlaxoSmithKline. The university breeds genetically-altered mice, for example, then morbidly subjects these living creatures to extensive nerve damage and hand the results to drug companies.)

One of the main thrusts of this drive is synthetic biology, a disturbing practice using the latest technology for "rewriting and rebuilding natural systems to provide engineered surrogates." In 2012 a conference at the University of Bristol stated that synthetic biology "could become a driving force of the national economy," and the government have declared it a top research priority. The European Union has now awarded £3.3 million to the University of Bristol just to create "public awareness" promoting the practice.

The logic of these kind of sciences has, as its primary goal, attempted control over everything. They reduce knowledge, that might be more deeply gained in wild relationships of interaction and interdependence, to a detached universe of obsessive measurement and objectification, arrogantly separating parts from the whole that gives them meaning as if everything were merely a machine to dismantle. This scientific tradition is closely tied up with the worldview that emerged during the early formation of commercial capitalism, which sought and still seeks to adapt lifeforms to the drive for profits, justify the domination and destruction of the living world, and implement a macho uber-rationalism scornful of everything fragile and organic on which all species depend. Right now, plant and animal genes are broken down and optimised in labs so they suit productive standards and to create new private property through patents. Where we might see the unique leaves, seeds, bodies and minds of ourselves and our fellow creatures, this science (if not necessarily each scientist, the results are the same) just sees lifeless objects to pick apart, study and sacrifice on the altar of economic usefulness to their paymasters who reap the benefits from this sick and sickening society.

For instance we can see the current push for genetically-modified (G.M) food in the U.K by the media, industry and government, for which these research institutions play an important part: such as advances in biotechnology for crops thanks to the Long Ashton Research Station run by the University of Bristol in the past. Scientists like Gary Foster are well aware of the dangers from G.M genes "leaking into the natural world" (again, his own words) but apparently the money and prestige from their mastery are worth more than our insignificant lives. A decade ago the first wave of G.M trials was slowed here by sustained pressure and crop-trashing; today sabotage continues from Holland to the Philippines, and others like us also won't be accomplices to these developments or their agents through inaction. It's necessary to attack the new wave of so-called 'life' science facilities at the root (those who design them, those who construct them) not just criticize the more well-known products of their research: because to these institutions all knowledge becomes another opportunity for control and exploitation, so extending the scope of a system that's in reality annihilating and artificialising life in all it's beauty.

Abroad, plant and animal die-offs as well as increased allergies and intolerances are already being attributed to G.M. With the bio-tech industry nonchalantly unleashing its monsters, especially across lands in the global south where patented G.M seeds that must be re-bought yearly exert a stranglehold, it many take generations to show some of their effects on infinitely complex webs of life that evolved over millions of years. That is, before civilised cultures began intensively manipulating them, today even down to the nano-scale. With the like of synthetic biology we're moving fast into a future where even lifeforms "in nature" are the products of laboratory experiments, and nothing remains that isn't engineered somewhere along the line by a human-centred system of scientific totalitarianism.

For obvious reasons as people turning against laws and domination in more than words we also stand against new policing and identification controls enabled by more forensics, biometrics etc. and the introduction of their common use in the information-age social prison (mobile fingerprinting, facial recognition systems, D.N.A swabs etc. – they didn't stop us yet though…).

This isn't Vinci's only U.K venture into this lucrative field either. They've also undertaken future expansions in science, technology and engineering departments at Swansea University. They've commissioned Whitehead for the job too, their neighbours at Vantage business park, who are now also marked by our attack. This will be the result for as long as society steps in line to realise the fantasies of a despotic science, reaching for their dreams which are our nightmares.

So what about the 'benefits' that these hi-tech institutions want to sell us, founded as they are on massive energy consumption and resource extraction, on the authority of a specialist caste's somehow-unreproachable meddling with our environments, and on the domestication of wild spaces and the torture of other animals? They promise us advances in (human) health, food and technology, fostering the illusion that science can fix all the damage incurred by the dominant ways of living. They expect us to forget how many of the diseases, disorders and cancers are directly caused by the same industrial output, globalised mass society, psychologically and physically unhealthy habitats and toxic workplaces of a culture which goes toward these labs and more in the first place. They expect us to forget that agri-monoculture production led to an anti-nutritious diet of manipulated short-term energising/comfort food at an escalating cost to the land, while diverse wild plant and animals species we used to coexist with get wiped out by the system's endless expansion and pollution. (Vinci's works being a prime example.) They expect us to forget how it's precisely the advances in complex technological systems that generate our dependance on their designers and manufacturers, alienation from ourselves as well as the earth as a whole and each other at the personal level, and increased efficiency in achieving the goals of society's rulers: profit and power, through misery and exploitation, pushing the planetary ecology toward collapse.

In short the sickness is civilisation itself, including its false solutions to its chronic problems steadily impoverishing survival for human and non-human populations alike, an unacceptable transgression on our intent to live freely.

Choosing direct action over despair we declare our part in a low-intensity urban war in its early stages across Bristol against the many faces of the system, with stones, paint or fire and with the plans, debates and daily refusals; sometimes almost imperceivable, sometimes devastating. In Britain's ugly cities and intensively-managed countryside a determined minority of rebels and wilderness-lovers sporadically take the offensive: some striking anonymously, some forming one-off action groups, and some having tested the open proposal of the Informal Anarchist Federation; not only in the south-west but Nottingham, Cambridge, London and now Glasgow.

Everything is at stake to us and we ourselves have no time to waste. Toward recovering our own volition and finding affinities for rebellion, our methods shall include intractable conflict without pause or negotiation: and much more besides, breaking with this miserable civil order with a wide variety of experiments and the full scope of our imaginations. Destruction is just another indispensable side of creation (and vice versa) not an opposite, we're now sure of that. Our insurgency would be justified as an end in itself in the face of this life we're raised into, but it's beyond only being reactive. It acts to solidify that we're already taking back in our face-to-face encounters and in our minds. It allows potential space for new and stronger relationships chosen by aware individuals mindful of all lifeforms, through actively weakening the current modes. Until some point of breakdown where whatever comes next is out of any society-wide control and reasoning, and so beyond society. Liberation can mean nothing less; tending toward the wild.

The international and internal battleground between anarchy and domination holds both losses and gains, of which some are known and some unknown to us. With this is mind we start the new year by celebrating the release of Braulio Duran (an unrepentant eco-anarchist who was held by the Mexican State) last October, albeit into the wider prison-society. When we discover solidarity with a locked-up comrade through their attitude and words, it doesn't diminish when they get 'out'; it just creates more grounds to keep fighting toward our mutual goals. Still 'inside', we remember the total-liberationist Adrian Gonzales and anarchist bandits of the Kozani case as well as Babis Tsilianidis; and Marco Camenisch, denied parole once again. Respect to the Mi'kmaq Warriors engaging the Canadian State/petro-industry aggressors in incendiary clashes, a renewed phase of indigenous militancy, and to the ones consistently defending both Khimki forest and the land of Notre-Dames-Des-Landes from Vinci's developments. A raised fist above the prison walls for Nicola Gai and Alfredo Cospito aka F.A.I/F.R.I Olga Nucleus, until cellblocks are rubble and jailers are ash.

On a sadder note, 2012 ended with the anarchist Sebastian Oversluij being fatally shot in Santiago while trying to collectively seize back some of what the banks extract every day from the exploited. Neither a victim or a martyr, we simply see someone who didn't bow their head and accept the system's rules, and we are glad to have such people as comrades. Even within this nonsensical, resigned and cynical modern culture, every action demands a reaction. When they kill one of the resisters, our enemies must pay in any way. This is how our struggle leaves behind empty gestures and keeps the dead from falling into oblivion. Blackened offices won't replace split blood, but they signal that same social war isn't finished, and our grief births rage.

Informal Anarchist Federation (F.A.I) Insurgents: Bristol North

Blockade Against Monsanto in Argentina Enters Second Month

1malvinas

1malvinas

18th October from Revolution News

Today is day 28th of the blockade against Monsanto in Malvinas, Argentina and around 50 protestors camping there have no intentions of going home any time soon. Citizens are making themselves at home near the main entrance of the new Monsanto plant currently under construction.

They are camping out indefinitely to protest the new GMO seed processing plant which is scheduled to open for business in 2014. Revolution News spoke with activist Celina Molina from Asamblea Malvinas Lucha por Vida who said simply, “We do not want Monsanto to install the 2nd largest GMO seed processing plant of Latin America in our city.”

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The plans for Monsanto’s new plant show future construction of 240 silos for storage of chemically treated GMO corn. The silos have fans that are required to ventilate the shafts. GMO corn in an enclosed area tends to rub together and produce chemical dust which explodes without proper ventilation. People there fear that when Monsanto switches on the fans the local town of Malvinas will be engulfed in a cloud of chemical dust.

Monsanto has already done enough health damage to citizens of Argentina. They have witnessed the long term effects of exposure to Roundup for the past decade. Epidemiological surveys were conducted 2001-2002 in areas heavily fumigated with Monsanto Roundup herbicide. Results of the surveys showed alarmingly high rates of birth defects and malformations in children, cancer clusters and miscarriage rates 100 times higher than the national average. The onset of skyrocketing health issues in Argentina coincides directly with the rise of soya cultivation and spraying of herbicides near populated areas. Professor Andres Carrasco, Director of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires conducted laboratory studies linking local health issues to Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.

Monsanto has a terrible track record in Argentina and the citizens of Malvinas are not going to allow further expansion for the agrochemical giant without a fight. Videos of police repression of peaceful protestors on September 30, 2013 circulated online. Sofia Gatica, spokeswoman for Madres de Ituzaingo Anexo was injured during the clashes with police. Videos of the repression have since circulated online and more people are arriving at the construction site everyday to join the blockade.

Birth defects found in child born in barrio Ituzaingo Anexo.

Birth defects found in child born in barrio Ituzaingo Anexo.

Monsanto – Argentina

Timeline

1996 – Soya crops first introduced to Argentina along with Monsanto Roundup herbicides

2001 – Residents of Ituzaingo Anexo started noticing health irregularities in their neighborhoods and began their own epidemiological surveys

2002 – Results of surveys were alarming: cancer clusters, high rate of malformations and birth defects, miscarriages 100 times higher than the national average. Professor Andres Carrasco (Director of Molecular Embryology U. of Buenos Aires) performs lab studies linking health problems with exposure to Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto Roundup). Local mothers formed activist group “Madres de Ituzaingo” and protests began.

Also in 2002, Argentina defaulted on it’s foreign debt, country was in a state of economic upheaval & riots ensued

2004 – First formal criminal complaint against local farmer & aerofumigation pilot, Parra, was filed for illegal pollution

2008 – Complaint filed against Pancello (another local farmer & aerofumigation pilot) for illegal pollution

2011 – Complaints from 2004 & 2008 are combined and a trial date is scheduled.

June 11, 2012 – Criminal trial against Parra & Pancello began

June 15, 2012 – President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced arrival of a new Monsanto plant to be built in Malvinas, Argentina. It will be the largest Monsanto plant in Latin America

July 2012 – Activist group “Asamblea Malvinas Lucha por Vida is formed”. Protests against new Monsanto plant construction began.

August 22, 2012 – Landmark verdict in criminal case against Parra and Pancello – both farmers are found guilty of illegal pollution and given 3 year suspended sentences. Both are given community service and banned from working with agrochemicals for 10 years but neither will serve jail time.

2012 – 2013 – Citizens begin to take legal action against Monsanto thanks to Parra & Pancello case. No compensation is offered to families of victims affected by contamination. Protests against Monsanto continue.

September 18, 2013 – Blockade in front of new Monsanto plant entrance in Malvinas begins.

September 30, 2013 – Videos of police repression at Malvinas circulate online, local well-known activist, Sofia Gatica is injured on camera by police.

Current – Blockade ongoing

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GMO Papaya Trees Cut Down on Big Island

Hawaiian-Papaya29 September, About 100 papaya trees were cut down with machetes overnight on Thursday in the Big Island’s Puna District, according to the Hawaii Police Department.

Hawaiian-Papaya29 September, About 100 papaya trees were cut down with machetes overnight on Thursday in the Big Island’s Puna District, according to the Hawaii Police Department.

The papaya trees, which were three to four feet tall and valued at $3,000, were on the J and L Papaya Farm off of Highway 132, according to Capt. Samuel Jelsma.

The incident comes as the Big Island community is considering the future of biotech on the island. Two bills are currently up for debate by the county council that would impose restrictions on biotech. One bill, introduced by Councilwoman Brenda Ford, would require that the island’s GMO papaya fields be cut down. Farmers or landowners growing GMO papaya would face jail and fines.

Almost all of the papaya grown on the Big Island is from seeds that were genetically altered in the 1990s to protect the crop from a devastating ringspot virus.

Jelsma has heard theories that anti-GMO protestors cut down the papaya trees, but said he wasn’t going to speculate. “At this point, we have nothing to show the motives,” he said.

This isn’t the first time that the Puna district’s lush papaya fields have been attacked with machetes.

In 2011, about 10 acres of trees were cut down on three adjoining papaya farms. The year before, some 8,500 papaya trees were cut down.

Some believed the incidents were the work of GMO protestors.

The police department never solved the cases, said Jelsma.

 

Filipino Farmers Destroy Genetically Modified ‘Golden Rice’ Crops

GMO protester via Shutterstock

10th August 2013

GMO protester via Shutterstock

10th August 2013

A group of activist farmers in the Philippines stormed a government research facility and destroyed an area of genetically modified rice crops the size of 10 football fields. According to New Scientist, the farmers say that genetically modified organism (GMO) foods have not been established to be safe for consumption and that the real solution to world hunger isn’t biologically engineered plants, but a reduction in worldwide rates of poverty.

“The Golden Rice is a poison,” said Willy Marbella to New Scientist. Marbella is a farmer and deputy secretary general of a group of activists known as KMP — Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas or Peasant Movement of the Philippines.

The farmers attacked the fields at the research facility in Pili, Camarines Sur out of concern that their own crops could be pollinated and thereby contaminated by the GMO plants, possibly resulting in a boycott of their products like U.S. farmers of soft white wheat saw when a strain of Monsanto herbicide-resistant wheat abruptly appeared in an Oregon field. South Korea and Japan both halted imports of U.S. wheat in the wake of the discovery.

Golden Rice is a strain of rice that has been modified by scientists to contain beta carotene, a source of vitamin A. An estimated 2 million people die from vitamin A deficiency worldwide every year. Annually, about 500,000 children — mainly in the developing world — go blind from lack of the nutrient.

Golden Rice advocates claim that replacing half of a child’s rice intake with Golden Rice provides them with 60 percent of their daily requirement of vitamin A.

Representatives of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a fervently pro-Golden Rice organization, say that even though the GMO has yet to be approved for human consumption, research trials suggest that it’s safe, and that scientists can’t find out anything more if people destroy the test plants.

Framing attacks on GMO crops as attacks on the effort to end world hunger, the IRRI issued a series of press releases since the action at Pili on Thursday decrying the farmers as ill-informed “vandals.”

Anti-GMO activists say that too many studies on the effects of GMOs are being undertaken by organizations that have a stake in their success. They also say that Golden Rice is being used as a seeming innocuous “poster boy” crop to sell GMOs to an overly credulous public.

Beau Baconguis of Greenpeace Southeast Asia told New Scientist, “There is not enough safety testing done on any GM crops.”

“I think that the farmers know what they want,” she said. “What they want is a safe environment that they can grow their crops in” without fear of contamination and a subsequent boycott…This is playing with the lives of people when you are using Golden Rice to promote more GMOs in our food.”

Watch a video statement about the incident from the International Rice Research Institute, www.youtube.com/embed/uxa76CHDH5Y

http://earthfirstnews.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/bladerunner.jpg

FBI Calls Destruction of GMO Sugar Beets in Oregon ‘Economic Sabotage’

12 July 2013 In a breaking development, the FBI confirms that 1,500 GM Sugar Beet plants were destroyed this month in Oregon, in what they are calling an act of “Economic Sabotage.”

12 July 2013 In a breaking development, the FBI confirms that 1,500 GM Sugar Beet plants were destroyed this month in Oregon, in what they are calling an act of “Economic Sabotage.”

When GM pollen blows into a non-GM farmer’s fields and irreversibly contaminates his crop with ‘biopollution,’ who does the law side with? Historically, Monsanto. Also, it’s not called ‘economic sabotage’ but rather ‘copyright infringement,’ and the victim not the aggressor is threatened with economic ruin.

When Monsanto’s unapproved and therefore illegal GM wheat is found years after open field trials growing freely in an Oregon wheat field, the entire state crop’s export fate is held in limbo, jeopardizing the present and future living of thousands of farmers and their dependents, with Monsanto receiving little more than a reprimand, followed by rapid USDA assurance that despite a lack of approval their GM wheat is “safe.”

Given the unfair rules of the game, no wonder some folks in Oregon, having been treated much like feudal peasants lately, are taking things quite literally into their own hands.

So, when the FBI investigates the destruction of genetically modified sugar beets from two fields in Southern Oregon’s Jackson County this month, the act is immediately labeled “economic sabotage,” presumably against the multinational corporation who owned the plants.

How fitting an FBI description, considering that Monsanto already planted these ‘evil seeds’ of doubt by suggesting their unapproved GM wheat in Oregon was a result of sabotage, and not negligence (orintentional contamination) on their part.

According to the Spokesman Review, “The agency [FBI] said in a statement Thursday that about 1,000 sugar beet plants were destroyed on June 8, and more than 5,000 plants were destroyed on a different plot three nights later.”  

The article went on to explain that the plants were owned by the Swiss-based biotech company Sygenta, and that the FBI spokewoman, Beth Anne Steele, would not comment on the manner in which the crops were destroyed “…because we don’t want to encourage copycats.”  However, an article published on OregonLive.com demystified the FBI’s account, quoting Paul Minehart, head of corporate communications in North America for Syngenta: “It doesn’t look like a vehicle was used. It looks like people entered the field and destroyed the plants by hand.”

When multinational corporations like Monsanto have already succeeded in genetically modifying the political system, splicing in their ex-executives and ex-lawyers into positions of great power within the government [see image above], how can folks rely on these Monsanto, Dow and Sygenta-influenced regulatory agencies, and the enforcement arms within their control, to make decisions in the interest of their health or basic civil rights?

Some resort to pulling up, burning and otherwise destroying the plants themselves. Are they terrorists or freedom fighters? And if you answer affirmatively to the latter definition, will you yourself be defined as sympathizers to these “economic saboteurs,” or terrorists?

GMO Crops Torched in America

27 June 2013 Though the controlled corporate media apparatus is suppressing the story, 40 tons of GMO crops were torched, prompting an FBI investigation. There has been a COMPLETE MEDIA BLACKOUT, outside of local circles has dared to mention it, perhaps because government fears that if the public learns that other people are getting fighting mad (liter

27 June 2013 Though the controlled corporate media apparatus is suppressing the story, 40 tons of GMO crops were torched, prompting an FBI investigation. There has been a COMPLETE MEDIA BLACKOUT, outside of local circles has dared to mention it, perhaps because government fears that if the public learns that other people are getting fighting mad (literally), they might join in, and become an actual revolution. It was only reported locally live on KXL Radio and echoed by the Oregonian, where the ONLY web mention exists, hard to find because the headline wording is carefully avoids the most likely keywords for a search.

Here’s what happened — 40 Tons of GMO Sugar Beets were set ablaze in Eastern Oregon, yesterday. FORTY TONS — the entire acreage of two full fields of crops IN THE GROUND were set ablaze over a THREE NIGHT PERIOD OF TIME. That means ARSON.

Evidence is that 6,500 plants were destroyed BY HAND, ONE PLANT AT A TIME. That, in turn, implies A LOT OF PEOPLE were involved: would you want to stick around once a fire was going and wait to be discovered? No, someone (many someones) probably wanted to move as quickly as possible. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A MOVEMENT, a kind of ORGANIZED REVOLT — and this is exactly the kind of retribution that many have warned was coming; when lawmakers and corporations refuse to honor the Constitution and instead engage in ‘legalized’ criminal acts such as enabled by the ‘Monsanto Protection Act.’

More than decade ago, environmental saboteurs vandalized experimental crops across the country in a revolt against high-tech agriculture. Foes of genetic engineering also struck in 2000, when members of the Earth Liberation Front, with roots in Oregon, set fire to agriculture offices at Michigan State University. ELF’s position was that genetic engineering was “one of the many threats to the natural world as we know it.”

But ELF cells normally come forward immediately to claim responsibility, because to them, its all about publicity to educate the public. Since there has been no statement about the recent arson this may have simply been Oregon Farmers who have said, ‘Enough!’ Another clue that may be the case is that this comes on the heels (two weeks) of Japan’s rejection of the entire Oregon Wheat crop for the year (a tremendous financial blow because over 80% of Oregon Wheat is exported) because ONE report said ONE field was contaminated with at least ONE GMO plant.

The rightful fear is, because of pollination processes, once you introduce a GMO crop of a given variety ANYWHERE, the wind and insects will spread its genetic contamination to non GMO fields, and thereby ruin the ENTIRE INDUSTRY for a region. In fact, Oregon farmers have tendered a multi-billion dollar class action law suite against Monsanto, joining a long list of states doing so. Monsanto has experimented with GMO crops before they were approved in 16 states. They were supposedly all destroyed, but state after state is finding out the hard way, that Pandora’s box has been deliberately left open.

But while other governments in Europe and elsewhere are passing laws to ban GMO crops, and burning entire crops themselves, in America, our government is passing laws protecting Monsanto from legal repercussions, and therefore, it seems, farmers are forced to burn the crops, themselves. This means that where in other countries, citizens are being protected from corporate crimes, in America, citizens are forced to become ‘terrorists’ to survive. That’s how blatantly corrupt our corporate police state has become, I’m afraid.

Can GMO spark an armed revolution? Recall this report on the Putin’s comments about how the protection of Monsanto (through things like the “Monsanto Protection Act”) could lead to armed revolt and war. This story was reported on by Political Blind Spot after verifying the claims we had seen circulating, and omitting those which we had heard but could not verify. Still, Monsanto public relations employees were literally paid to track down articles such as ours and try to argue that they should be taken down (we may publish these exchanges with them from official Monsanto email addresses).

In this case, both fields belonged to the same Corporate Agricultural giant known for embracing GMO, though trying to do so quietly, another reason perhaps big media has kept the story from reaching the Internet. We are talking about Syngenta. Nowhere on their US web site will you find mention of GMO, but that is exactly what the company is about. They have even lied publicly in writing on this issue with a public declaration. Yet their very corporate name shouts GMO.

But the FBI, and local media knows better (and now, you)… because apparently someone from the Syngenta operated farms mentioned the fact as a possible motive for the arson. This is a serious matter in many respects. It throws down the gauntlet and says, WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND ARE NOT GOING TO LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS BULLSHIT ANYMORE! But it also raises the stakes and put lives and property at risk, and if it goes wrong, could indeed end up sparking an armed revolution, just as Putin indicated to President Obama.