[Nettime-bold] DNA bombs against DNA

[Steven Kurtz <kurtz+@andrew.cmu.edu>]

>As long as you think that biotech has some usefulness then I can accept
>such tactics, as it was presented in the Village Voice to me, it
smacked >of a organisation of pacificists blowing up people to further
the cause >of non-violence.

I~m sure that there are those who want a totalizing ban on transgenic
research, but the people in the Voice article are not of that
persuasion. 

>So my next question specific to this topic, is to ask; if all GM is not
>bad, why the opposition over transgenic crops? 

It~s not the creation of GM crops that is necessarily a problem. The
primary problem is that the usual suspect corporations are interested in
monopolizing the food chain from the molecular level forward. Designer
crops can be used strategically to accomplish this end.

>Biodiversity is already threatened by widespread agriculture regardless
>of whether the crops are genetically modified or not. 

This is another problem. GM crops are not likely to have a heavy impact
on biodiversity in general, but can have a tremendous impact on
biodiversity within a given crop. Control of a specific foodline seems
to require monoculturing. Not only does this have the potential to wipe
out given food resources due to lack of diversity (a doubly bad
possibility since corporations tend to go after nutritional fundamentals
like soy, rice, corn, and wheat), but it will disrupt personal pleasure
as well. For example, there used to be 1000s of types of apples, now you
can get red, green, or yellow. Industrial food--yuck. In other cases it
has do with environmental risk. For example, if some of the farm raised
GM salmon escape or are liberated, the destruction of river ecologies
populated by ~wild~ salmon is a very high probability. 

>Is it just the means of production that you protest? Is it just
>particular crops?

What is of political and cultural significance depends on the situation.
There is no general formula.

>Has it to do with the gene patenting issue? 

Another significant problem. The privatization of genomes is another
form of colonization (in this case on the bio-molecular frontier).

>Or is it on other grounds, like the encouragement of chemical use or
>unknown factors in human consumption of that genetic matter?

Yes, as an economic strategy it~s a problem. The use of one GM product
often links to another, making micro producers all the more dependent on
their corporate big brothers.


>Also , there are plenty of non-GM agricultural issues I see as far more
>important to the environment than GM. Land clearing. Factory farming.

I have to agree with you there. GM whatever in particular is not the
major problem, it~s how genetic modification is being used as a means to
consolidate power. Molecular strategies are new, and tactical mediaists
like CAE, Heath, and Natalie are trying to figure out how to respond
from within the molecular arena (as opposed to traditional or electronic
resistant means). GM food gets a lot of attention because its the first
way that bio-invasion explicitly enters the everyday life of the public.

>A question about the 'capitalist policies' if you will humour me for a >just
>short time more. Is the problem with the policies, the policies >themselves,
>or the fact that they are capitalist in and of themselves. Can any
>'capitalist policy' ever be an acceptable policy? Is any policy made in
>today's (Western) society not capitalist?

Yes, given that policies will always be capitalist in nature, there will
always be an alienating, exploitive component to them. However, some
policies are more desirable than others. No utopia is waiting;
capitalism has won the day. But we do not have to let the total
capitalist dystopia emerge either (which is what we will get if the
profit machine can run without friction).

>As to your comments about ethics, I believe you are wrong. No protest
>movement is outside of ethics. Ethics as it is practiced by what you >oppose
>may be constrained by the limitations of capitalism but that does not >mean
>if you disagree with capitalism you are free of all ethics. You might be
>free to say you are free of capitalist ethics but then I would say the onus
>is on you to articulate what ethics you then represent. You might wish to
>employ a different sort of ethics, or revise the ethics which exist; but
>frankly a protest movement requires some type of ethics as its base or I
>would say it's no better than the worst sort of authoritarianism.

You misunderstand me. Ethics as a spectacular _discipline_ is founded on
capitalist ideology. I am sure you have heard bioethicists speak at one
point or another. From CAE~s experience, the assumptions of these
specialists are that market economy is good, god bless western society,
so what is of value for the western  bourgeois subject? The ethicists
subject position is not even spoken because it is such a given. Instead,
there is generally a pretense of ambivilence and multiplicity, but it is
only the ambivilence arising from limited diversity that can be found
_within_ bourgeois culture. It~s to this discourse that Natalie was
saying ~ethics, schmethics.~ She was not saying that its fine to
surrender critical thinking, social responsibility, or personal
accountability.

--CAE


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