From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Thu Jul 20 2000 - 15:35:09 MDT
ELF Targets GE Research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island - On Thursday July 13, the Earth
Liberation Front (E.L.F) claimed responsibility for anti-biotech
direct actions at the Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratories in Long Island, New York, the first known incidents of
such action in that state. Under the cover of night and by pale
moonlight the activists evaded security and destroyed two acres of
gmo corn and several greenhouses worth of seedlings. They also
monkeywrenched several trucks, and spray painted anti-genetic
messages everywhere. In so doing it is estimated that two years of
genetic experiments were destroyed.
CSHL is notorious as a hundred-year old institution that has
pioneered the science of genetic engineering. Its labs are
responsible for research related to the "discovery of hybrid vigor
(which) led to increased corn production and to a revolution in crop
breeding"-- now more commonly known as "the green revolution" and
identified by thousands of activists and scholars from the Global
South, as a root cause of the starvation and depletion of soil and
biodiversity occurring at breakneck pace around the planet.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the Watson School of Biological
Sciences are key components in "the life-sciences industry", where
the natural evolution of organisms are dissected, manipulated to fit
the demands of the market, and profited from by huge
agro-chemical-pharmaceutical-genetic conglomerates such as Monsanto,
DowChemical, and Celera. Regardless of the non-profit nature of
CSHL, the research conducted there in the name of modern progress
only serves to deepen the crisis in human health, agriculture, and
biodiversity. The quest for funding and thirst for more knowledge
that drives the science industry toward a redesigning of life, rather
than researching solutions based on ecological sustainability and
respect for the limits of our earth's life support systems, are
arrogant and dangerous.
Searching for super-technological solutions to problems caused by
capitalist exploitation and industrialism, does a great disservice to
the future of humanity, by ignoring the reciprocal, and highly
probable effects of tampering with basic life processes. Direct
Actionists have demonstrated that they believe in going beyond the
legally sanctioned forms of protest, to draw attention to the grave
dangers facing society that are rarely challenged.
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