Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Contamination: The totalitarian strategy of the GMO crop industry

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, May 23, 2011

Contamination: The totalitarian strategy of the GMO crop industry

Click here to access article by Kurt Cobb from Energy Bulletin.

[Revised 5 PM Seattle time]
What is missing from this excellent article is a deeper class analysis which would provide a meaningful context within which to understand the "totalitarian" tactics of a major capitalist industry.

Thus, the author seems rather shocked that legal institutions are cooperating with the interests of this corporation (Monsanto) by giving legal sanction to their Frankenstein crops. He appears not to understand that all institutions in a class structured society serve the ruling class; and in our capitalist societies each capitalist class has created the legal sector to serve their interests, not ours.

Any ruling class is by definition essentially a totalitarian class and employs various methods to maintain its dominance. The fact that this system in the US and other countries hides behind a well-designed and well managed facade of "democracy" has enabled them to fool most people into tolerating the present class arrangements. They are perfectly willing when they need to, to use police state methods to enforce their policies. If people understood that the capitalist version of "democracy" was only a fig leaf hiding the obscenity of class rule, they would launch a vigorous fight to change things.That is precisely the reason they prefer this "democratic" style of domination.