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FROM 2012: As the world begins to digest the implications of intellectual property for online censorship, another IP issue threatens an even more fundamental part of our daily lives: our food supply. Backed by legal precedent and armed with seemingly inexhaustible lobbying funds, a handful of multinationals are attempting to use patents on life itself to monopolize the biosphere.
FLASHBACK SHOW NOTES:
How to Become A Very Independent Producer… – #SolutionsWatch
Very Independent Producer Summit 4 – Say No to NWO
Attack on Food and Farmers and How To Fight Back Day 1 / Day 2
Open Seeds: Biopiracy and the Patenting of Life
Corbett Report 2012 Data Archive (USB Flash Drive)
TRANSCRIPT
The oft-neglected legal minefield of intellectual property rights has seen a surge in public interest in recent months due to the storm of protest over proposed legislation and treaties related to online censorship. One of the effects of such legislation as SOPA and PIPA and such international treaties as ACTA is to have drawn attention to the grave implications that intellectual property arguments can have on the everyday lives of the average citizen.
As important as the protection of online freedoms is, however, an even more fundamental part of our lives has come under the purview of the multinational corporations that are seeking to patent the world around us for their own gain. Unknown to a large section of the public, a single US Supreme Court ruling in 1980 made it possible for the first time to patent life itself for the profit of the patent holder.
The decision, known as Diamond v. Chakrabarty, centered on a genetic engineer working for General Electric who created a bacterium that could break down crude oil, which could be used in the clean-up of oil spills. In his decision, Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger ruled that:
A live, human-made micro-organism is patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101
With this ruling, the ability to patent living organisms, so long as they had been genetically altered in some novel way, was established in legal precedent.
The implications of such a monumental ruling are understandably wide-reaching, touching on all sorts of issues that have the potential to change the world around us. But it did not take long at all for this decision’s effects to make itself felt in one of the most basic parts of the biosphere: our food supply.
In the years following the Diamond v. Chakrabarty decision, an entire industry rose up around the idea that these new patent protections could foster the economic incentive for major corporations to develop a new class of genetically engineered foods to help increase crop yields and reduce world hunger.
The first commercially available genetically modified food, Calgene’s “Flavr Savr” tomato, was approved for human consumption by the Food and Drug Administration in the US in 1992 and was on the market in 1994. Since then, adoption of GM foods has proceeded swiftly, especially in the US, where the vast majority of soybeans, corn and cotton have been genetically altered.
By 1997, the problems inherent in the patenting of these GM crops had already begun to surface in Saskatchewan, Canada. It was in the sleepy town of Bruno that a canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, found that a variety of GM canola known as “Roundup Ready” had infected his fields, mixing with his non-GM crop. Amazingly, Monsanto, the agrichemical company that owned the Roundup Ready patent, sued Schmeiser for infringing their patent. After a years-long legal battle against the multinational that threatened to bankrupt his small farming operation, Schmeiser finally won an out-of-court settlement with Monsanto that saw the company agree to pay for the clean-up costs associated with the contamination of his field.
In India, tens of thousands of farmers per year commited suicide in an epidemic labeled the GM genocide. Sold a story of “magic seeds” that would produce immense yields, farmers around the country were driven into ruinous debt by a combination of high-priced seeds, high-priced pesticides, and crop failure. Worst of all, the GM seeds had been engineered with so-called “terminator technology,” meaning that seeds from one harvest could not be re-planted the following year. Instead, farmers were forced to buy seeds at the same exorbitant prices from the biotech giants every year, insuring a debt spiral that was impossible to escape. As a result, hundreds of thousands of farmers have committed suicide in the Indian countryside since the introduction of GM crops in 1997.
As philosopher, quantum physicist and activist Vandana Shiva has detailed at great length, the effect of the invocation of intellectual property in enabling the monopolization of the world’s most fundamental resources was not accidental or contingent. On the contrary, this is something that has been self-consciously designed by the heads of the very corporations who now seek to reap the benefit of this monopolization, and the monumental nature of their achievement has been obscured behind bureaucratic institutions like the WTO and innocuous-sounding agreements like the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
VANDANA SHIVA: There used to be in the FAO at that time—the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—a term used called “seed wars.” The chemical industry that had moved into the seed sector had started to say it’s not fair that farmers save seed. It’s not equitable that they save seed. Equity is monopoly. Only the corporations should have the right to seed.
And they spent a lot of time, [but they] couldn’t get their way, because in the United Nations you have one vote for one country. And the majority of the countries happen to be Third World countries. They happen to be countries which have given seed and biodiversity to the world. And they did not like the idea of seed being reduced to private property.
So the corporations then moved to a new institution that was being created through what was then a half-institution called the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
And it’s fascinating that for 30 years, industry had drafted laws for all kinds of monopoly. Monopoly in entertainment. If a Mickey Mouse turns up anywhere, even in a child’s notebook, they should pay royalty. Or a T-shirt.
And by then, a company that had only been related to warfare, to Agent Orange, very rapidly moved into the biotechnology sector, very rapidly started to buy up both venture capital firms as well as seed companies. And Monsanto emerged, as the biggest seed monopoly in the world, in the drafting of what is today called the trade-related intellectual property rights agreement [sic]. What a mouthful! Precisely because this is not trade-related and seed is not intellectual property. It doesn’t pop out of anyone’s head.
Intellectual property is defined as property in products of the mind. Here is a very material, biological system that is suddenly redefined as intellectual property. And a whole agreement was shaped around it.
And “TR” [trade-related] was put because India, my country, refused to accept patent law as a trade issue. We said, “No, this is about nations deciding how far monopolies will go, nations deciding the balance between the public and the private.” And we had worked out a patent law over 20 years of democratic debate in society to get rid of the British laws that had been exactly like what we are coming back to: total monopoly in a few companies’ hands.
So the lawyers, of course, were very clever, put “TR” before “IP” and said, now it’s trade-related by definition, so now you will accept it. After the WTO came into force, a representative of Monsanto actually said this. He said, “What we’ve achieved in this agreement is something unprecedented. We defined a problem. And in this case, the problem was farmers saving seeds. That was a problem. And we defined the solution: make it illegal for farmers to save seeds. And we created the instrument, which is the TRIPS agreement, which forces every country now to have laws of monopoly. And we created the institution that would ensure that these are implemented.”
The institution, WTO, is an interesting institution because it’s an international court, it’s an international non-parliament, non-democratic, and it is the international executive. As Monsanto’s representative said, “In shaping this treaty, we were the patient, the diagnostician, and the physician all in one.”
For me, that’s a description of dictatorship.
Although the deck appears to be stacked in favour of the giant multinationals and their practically inexhaustible access to lobbying and legal funds, the people are by no means incapable of fighting back against this patenting of the biosphere.
In India itself, where so much devastation has been wrought by the introduction of genetically modified crops, the people are fighting back against the world’s most well-known purveyor of GMO foods, Monsanto. The country’s National Biodiversity Authority has enabled the government to proceed with legal action against the company for so-called “biopiracy,” or attempting to develop a GM crop derived from local varieties of eggplant without the appropriate licences.
LEO SALDANHA: . . . which is essentially owned by Monsanto.
REPORTER: . . .ground for this environmental activist. Leo Saldanha filed the complaint that has led to India charging American agricultural giant Monsanto with biopiracy. And the eggplant, or brinjal, is what the company is accused of stealing. Leo says Monsanto illegally used indigenous brinjal varieties to create a genetically modified version of the vegetable.
SALDANHA: So, there are six varieties taken from Karnatakam which Monsanto has taken without any conformance with the Biological Diversity Act, and therefore it is biopiracy. And once they put the Bt gene into brinjal, then it becomes a commodity which is essentially owned by Monsanto.
REPORTER: The brinjal is one of the most popular vegetables in India, with close to 2,500 varieties. In 2010, Monsanto’s partner companies nearly got approval to commercialize a GM variety called BT brinjal. But massive public protests forced the government to ban it indefinitely.
Undeterred, Monsanto has continued testing other GM crops. Two months ago, a hastily destroyed experimental field of GM maize was filmed by a local TV crew. Monsanto has been accused by Greenpeace of not informing the field’s owner about the nature of the crop.
AMRIT GOWDA: We didn’t really have an agreement. Monsanto just made me sign a form.
REPORTER: What was written on the form?
GOWDA: Nothing. There was just a date and the name of the company.
Although resistance to the patenting of the world’s food supply should be applauded in all its forms, what is needed is a fundamental transformation in our understanding of life itself from a patentable organism to the common property of all of the people who have developed the seeds from which these novel GM crops are derived.
This concept, known as open seeds, is being promoted by organizations around the globe, including Dr. Vandana Shiva’s Navdanya organization.
SHIVA: Traditional knowledge has grown as a tradition that is shared. It has grown cumulatively and collectively. That is what makes it deeply distinctive.
Intellectual property rights are based on the idea of an individual having rights, which is then based on the idea of an individual making innovation, which is not the way knowledge actually works. Knowledge is a collective tradition. It’s a common resource of society.
To me, the idea of treating seed as an invention, a system in which farmers would be treated as thieves and criminals for saving their seeds and performing their duty to the earth, is abhorrent. That’s what made me get involved in this idea to keep seeds open.
Open source is like open seeds. Open pollinated variety seeds are made through pollination of bees and butterflies acting in freedom. They are free in the sense they can be saved generation after generation. They are seeds of prosperity, they are seeds of life.
Open source software is the same. It is a way of spreading prosperity and knowledge in society rather than creating scarcity, poverty and deprivation.
To be sure, it will be a long and arduous uphill battle to bring this issue to the attention of a public that seems to be but dimly aware of what genetically modified foods even are, let alone the legal ramifications of the ability to patent life. But as the work of such organizations as Navdanya continues to educate people about the issues involved, the numbers of those opposed to the patenting of the biosphere likewise increases.
From seed-saving and preservation projects to an increased awareness of and interest in organic foods, people around the globe are beginning to take the issue of the food supply as seriously as the companies that are quite literally attempting to ram their products down the consumers’ throats.
As always, the power lies with the consumers, who can win the battle simply by asserting their right to choose where and how they purchase their food, a lesson that was once again demonstrated earlier this month in Germany.
REPORTER: Dieter Renner is an organic farmer in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz. He’s the fourth generation in his family to grow grain and vegetables, all organically. He’s glad that BASF decided to transfer its research unit for genetically modified crops out of Germany. He says local farmers will benefit.
DIETER RENNER: I’m pleased. It’s proof that the people who oppose genetically modified crops are right. 70% of Germans oppose genetic technology, so BASF made the right decision about leaving Germany. It’s too bad they’ll still be able to carry out their research in the US. This kind of research should be stopped.
SOURCE: Genetically Modified Foods Not Welcome | People & Politics [VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE]
“University of Reason”? I don’t know any graduates. Is the school accredited by the state? Do they have a football team? Do they have cheerleaders? Do they look like Einstein?
I have not yet watched this presentation but wanted to use the “comments” opportunity to share the following video of Dr. Bryan Ardis with Corbett followers in timely fashion.
He is participating in the:
A.G.E.S. Annual Fall Conference 2024
A Celebration of All Natural Solutions!
Sept 13th-14th | 8am – 10pm Central Promo code: OTTO
His introductory video is truly worth watching: https://cancerseries.org/healing4theages-dr-ardis/
Emelm
Great video. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the flash back and reminder that we cannot assume non-GMO/GE seeds will be available for purchase in our local garden supply store. Perhaps seeds of any kind will be outlawed unless you have a license to grow from the authorities. Now is the time to learn and practice seed-saving skills.
Since the early 70’s many of us old school activists have attempted to warn others about the danger of a take over of humanity by nefarious agendas from agents of various types. Quite possibly off planet in origin with the destruction of our air, water, land, and social behavior, etc. a clear indication of intent.
But of course, to re-quote the late queer leader of the FBI:
“The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.”
– J. Edgar Hoover
Indeed, so many of us were pummeled by the controllers (what/whom-ever they are,) through intimidation, ridicule, and more with weapons of mass distraction and fear porn (TV, Movies, etc.) and the sheep insults of “tin foil hat” “kooks” with portrayals of anyone with true alternative understandings as fools.
And today, with the successful Cartoonification of our lives, and phone addiction breaking down any true public social intercourse leaving behind people desperate to be “liked” and trapped in group mind-think and issue-tribes, the division of a cohesive resistance is watered down. As I said in my latest song regarding the false bravado and ego of well conditioned “web gurus”:
“Everyone’s an Einstein till they’re not”
IMO a big answer to the madness has been and will always be, family and local activism with authentic behavior not based on social acceptance, especially with the SMART phone generation who aren’t really that smart, well read, or independent in their thinking process.
Who Wants Us To Die
https://old.bitchute.com/video/8CKubpwla5Lr/
Haven’t read through the comments is anyone talking about the genetically modified humans walking around and which pharma company owns the patent on them? I posted a warning on Facebook and the side of my van that accepting those Gene editing shots maybe choosing to be a patented product of mederma Pfizer Eli Lilly etc by Patent right.
I even told people when the app for steering their robot asses around is released I’m going to get me a vaxxed up 30 something hottie to walk my dog and do the dishes. GMO humans might want to start thinking about Android rights if they don’t want to be a coffee table in a billionaires collection. Offering some Dark humor sugar to help the medicine go down and take the sting out of the reality shot that extremely powerful people really really deep down in their black hearts believe they can own the rights to you.
The reason that these psychopaths that are steering the NWO are involved in secret societies and practice ancient occult rituals is because they are serving Satan. The deceiver has been planning this final, worldwide dominion since the Ziggurat of etemenanki (Tower of Babel) building project came to a sudden halt.
Daniel 7,11, 12, Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, Revelation 12 & 13- end (there are hundreds of prophecies, those are just the more general ones.
The words of God are historically accurate, scientifically accurate, prophetically accurate and literally true. We only have one exact, word for word translation from the ancient tongues into the English language. That was done under the commission of King James of England.
The prophecies are sure and will come to pass exactly as they are written. There will not be any successful resistance by men.
The only hope that anyone can truly have is in Jesus Christ, the Lord. To know him, not just “believe” as most people define belief. It is a true repentance toward him with contrition and confession of sin. He came to offer his blood so that you might be forgiven. He suffered once, the just for the unjust. He was raised from the dead and he shall return, as he declared; “Immediately after the tribulation of those days” which are to come.
It takes about 70 hours to read every word of God, for the average reader. It would behoove you all to do just that. The time is nigh and eternity is a very long (absence of) time.
It’s sad that most people will reject this message. Jesus did say “many” and ‘few”
“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Is your name written in the book of life?
If not, it can be. Not by repeating some prayer or going through any religious ceremony, but by earnestly turning your heart unto God with sorrow and contrition, seeking mercy, confessing your sins unto him and cry out in the name of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ and wait for him there in that broken state.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Excellent work James.
Thank you for your vigilant and persistent efforts to educate people on this topic of paramount importance.
——————————————-
For anyone reading this that is interested in learning more on the history and health implications of the transnational transgenic racketeering operation commonly referred to as “GMO” agriculture:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/the-story-of-ge-agriculture-traversing
For anyone reading this that is new to this community, information offering decentralized and scalable solutions can be found here:
https://corbettreport.com/regenerative-agriculture/
For more on solutions that can be applied from the residential to community scale:
https://odysee.com/@Gavinm:8/saving-seed-to-save-the-future:e
Excellent on seeds, Monsanto abuse of farmers.
However Vandana Shiva comes from a deeper level of evil than Monsanto. She’s an ultra elite Rockefeller/Club of Rome Malthusian who hates CO2.
Vandana Shiva is personally responsible for the devastating 2021 famine in Sri Lanka which lead to the resignation of the president.
“It was on the advice of Vandana Shiva, an Indian Environmentalist, that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took the decision to ban chemical fertilisers in 2021
https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/the-indian-connection-behind-sri-lankas-disastrous-environmental-wokeness-4962938.html
Creating a famine in 2021 is some kind of Satanic anti miracle. She and her elitist pal Russell Brand supported the reduction in fertiliser in Holland. Russell had a relationship with globe trotting socialite Jemima Goldsmith, a member of the extreme ecofascist billionaire Goldsmith family.
The Vandana Shiva video clips bring concepts to the table which reach beyond agriculture.
I think that they contain a perspective, a viewpoint of how “Authoritarian Systems” ensnare society, and also a directional compass towards what should be in the natural anarchist order of things.
—Directional compass excerpts:
“Traditional knowledge has grown as a tradition that is shared.
It has grown cumulatively and collectively.
That is what makes it deeply distinctive…”
“…Knowledge is a collective tradition. It’s a common resource of society…”
“…Open source is like open seeds.
Open pollinated variety seeds are made through pollination of bees and butterflies acting in freedom…”
“…Open source software is the same. It is a way of spreading prosperity and knowledge in society rather than creating scarcity, poverty and deprivation.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My caveat:
It is about the MESSAGE, not the MESSENGER.
It is about the ideas or concepts relayed in a communication, where hopefully, each of us will have enough sense to evaluate effectively for ourselves.
Knowing ‘who the communicator is’ may have some value.
But placing ANY communicator on a pedestal of “Authority” comes with the liability of diminishing one’s own intellectual sovereignty.
I want to call attention to this Kit Knightly quote:
“Part of me thinks they just like to see ordinary people humiliate themselves….”
Friday Sept 6 – Off Guardian – Kit Knightly
Bugs and Goo: Welcome to “alternative protein”
[IMAGES in article…tasty grasshoppers and montage of news stories]
https://off-guardian.org/2024/09/06/bugs-and-goo-welcome-to-alternative-protein/
EXCERPTS
Sometimes it feels like writing for OffG has fallen into a recognizable pattern the last two years, one that could be best summed up “as ignoring the (mostly) fake stuff on the front pages and collating the real stuff on the back”.
Regular reminders that no matter who you vote for, or which side wins what war, the overarching agenda is still out there, eating and growing. Like the Blob or the Thing.
Censorship? We all know that’s on the elite’s shopping list.
Digital currencies? They’re still going.
Digital ID? Absolutely on the cards.
And we’ll be returning to talk about all of them no doubt until they eats any more or we’re finally shut down (whichever happens first)
But today we’re talking about eating the bugs.
Not just the bugs though – goo too….
The Monsanto Connection (parody)
I wrote this parody years ago. It’s a little dated, but I still like it.
Please listen to Kermit’s original tune while reading my lyrics below.
Imagine the lead singer as a HONEY BEE, singing and plucking a banjo. A chorus of snarky monarch butterflies is crooning and bickering in the background.
===============
Why are there so many rants on Monsanto?
And what facts are on their side?
They claimed their hormone milk was safe for your children,
~ ~ (Butterflies: rBGH, cancer, puss…)
As though they had nothing to hide.
(they) Said they were using no antibiotics.
They knew they lied, as we’ve seen.
Someday we’ll break that Monsanto connection,
For eight billion people and me.
They said their “Roundup” would help the environment.
Safe like PCB and Agent Or-ange.
Monsanto actually said that, and farmers believed it,
And look what it’s done so far.
~ ~ Butterflies: ‘orange’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘far.’
~ ~ Yes it does. ~ Shush. ~ No you shush.
~ ~(Honey Bee glares & sings Louder, to drown out the bickering)
WHAT’S A G-M-O THAT IT CAN’T BE ON LABELS?
And what might we do when we know?
Someday we’ll break that Monsanto connection,
Until then we’ll reap what we sow.
~ ~ butterfly chorus:
~ ~ All of us under its thumb, we know it’s the ultimate evil.
Have you been half asleep? Or have you heard Congress?
They passed the “Protection Act” in your name.
So now they can control the food chain completely.
We have no voice in this game.
Our Reps all know and they choose to ignore it,
Their true masters give what they need.
~ ~ (butterflies: kah-ching!)
Someday we’ll break that Monsanto connection,
The corruption, the gag rules and greed.
~ ~ butterfly chorus:
~ ~ What a huge load of manure, for A handful OF magic beans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM