How to be an organism.

• Author: Ho, Mae-Wan
• Position: Biodevastation 7 - Column

I find myself caught by surprise because I'm still under the influence of the drumming and music presented at this gathering and that's what I wish we could be doing instead. And that's very important because making music really is being an organism. You know, we are forced to become machines because of this whole framework, this whole model that we are living under. It forces us to regard each other as machines, as instruments, as means of exploitation, as means of making money, as rivals in competition. It has very, very deep roots.

What we're talking about now is not only environmental racism, but also a corporate genocide against anybody that doesn't fit into the model, or that is surplus to the requirements of this global model. This includes everybody who's poor or unfit in some sense. This bad science model that we have works so closely with the corporations because they share the same mindset. A mindset that worships competition--that's how the world is organized, we're told. Do we have to accept this mindset? I think that instead we have to really sit back and say, "What is the good life? What is the good life that we want to recover?"

For myself, I'd like to spend the rest of the evening dancing, learning how to dance again, with the drums and everything. That's how I feel tonight and that's what I should be able to do. I once went to an ethics conference in Emory University (Coca Cola University). It was about bioethics and that was really an oxymoron. We had a little workshop with these bright young people preparing themselves for a very competitive world. I said to them, "Well, why don't you just sit back, use your imagination, and say, 'What is the good life you?'" Without exception, they all said they want to get out of this rat race of making money, they want to have a simple life, they want to live among friends, among people that they respect and that respect them and that they want to have a community.

Here we are, miserable as hell, because we have to fit ourselves into this neo-liberal nightmare that Monsanto, Syngenta and the rest have created for us.

Let me return to some practical issues about GM crops. UK government scientists already pointed out that there are dangers from pollen, and from plant debris that could be allergenic and also contain transgenic DNA that could be transferred horizontally to bacteria living in the mouth and respiratory tract of people. So the farm workers and the food processors are the...