For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.

Industry consultant and outspoken GMO advocate Paul Christensen has spent a lot of his time and energy studying “our movement” for his clients. Just going over his blog postings I found this item from last September, which suggests this guy has really gone off the deep end: http://www.intlcorn.com/seedsiteblog/?p=1723

The Origins of Al-Qaeda and the Evolution of Opposition to GMOs and the Seed Industry

And now for some delicious excerpts:

I began this article on the assumption that there were similarities worth mentioning between al-Qaeda and the anti-globalization and food movements.  Both think that another postmodern world is possible.  In the case of al-Queda it is an Islamic fundamentalist world that is to come after the modern period and reconstitute the pre-modern Islamic world.  In the case of anti-globalization and food movements the new world would be regional, directly democratic, organic and environmentally conscious, nonviolent and have a kind of social justice in which markets would be socially managed.

In some sense the two organizations are competing over some of the same intellectual ground.

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Although both al-Qaeda and the anti-globalization and food movements reject modernity, they do so in ways that are quite different.

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The anti-globalization and food movements sometimes have charismatic leaders and frequently have beliefs which are not objective and so strongly held that they seem as though they are religious.

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Both al-Qaeda and the anti-globalization and food movements are inclined to symbolic action.

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The village level government ideal of low technology and grass roots democracy supported by the anti-globalization and food movements leaves societies vulnerable to authoritarians like bin Laden, if they can muster enough charisma to propose an ideal which will capture imaginations for a while.

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Mohandas Gandhi, Osama bin Laden, Jose Bove, Mohammad Morsi, Subcomdant Marcos, Adolf Hitler and Michael Pollan make strange bedfellows, but they all share a fundamental and unshakable rejection of the usual kind of liberalism.

Is Christensen a great guy to have a beer with or what? But on a serious note, how can there be a reasoned dialogue and debate with those who lump us together with Osama Bin Laden and liken us to the zombies in World War Z?

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Proyecto de Bioseguridad de Puerto Rico / Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/