National Protest Against the Biotech Industry in Philadelphia June 18-21, 2005

Posted 2/14/05

BIODEMOCRACY 2005: Reclaim the Commons!

Call to Action: Come to Philadelphia, June 18th to 21st, 2005

CALLING ON ALL PEOPLE who resent the demise of democracy and hold to the
promise of authentic popular empowerment! All who dare to paint poems of
resistance on Walls of oppression, dance in city streets in defiance of
police States, and plant seeds of sedition in the shadows of Empire:
come to Philadelphia! As the world's leading agents of eco-devastation
and medical malpractice meet here in June, we cannot stand quiet. Join
us to challenge the corporate crime, poisons for profit, and flagrant
lies of the biotechnology industry, at the time of their annual
international convention, with a creative uprising for truth, life and
justice!

RECLAIM THE COMMONS! We recall a custom much older than two-party
Republics, in which croplands, grazing land and forests were a public
domain that benefited the whole community and belonged exclusively to no
one. In today's global society, our commons encompass the biological
strata that sustain life on earth -- air, water, food, medicine, energy,
biodiversity -- plus the means of communication, education and transit
that connect us culturally. Today, to a degree unprecedented in human
history, corporations have seized this public wealth and privatized it
to reap growing profits for a small and ever-shrinking elite. As public
access to and control over the commons has eroded, so has true
democracy. For democracy to thrive, for racial, economic, social and
environmental justice to take deep root, and for sustainability to
flourish ... we must reclaim our commons!

RESIST BIOTECHNOLOGY! With their industrial exploitation of biotech
research, agricultural, pharmaceutical and weapons-manufacturing
corporations are now busily locking their greed into the most primal
area of the commons, the genetic structures of life itself. At the
expense of public health and ecological harmony, their profit-driven
success hinges upon the global proliferation of dangerous genetically
modified organisms (GMOs), mass-marketed drugs with killer side effects,
and governmental funding for deadly biological weapons deceptively
classified as "biodefense."

The corporations gathering in Philadelphia this June are contaminating
the world with GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS, at the expense of our
health, popular food sovereignty and biodiversity. They are profiting
from unsafe "blockbuster" DESIGNER DRUGS, the side effects of which are
often worse than the conditions they're aimed to treat, while raising
the false hope that biotechnology carries the solution to all human
ills. In the name of "biodefense," they are profiting from the
costliest expansion of research into high-tech weaponry since the
Manhattan Project, developing new BIO-WEAPONS and resurrecting old ones,
and exposing our communities to the hazard of uncontrollable biological
agents. To reclaim our nutrition, health and security ... we must
resist their biotech!

PLANT REAL DEMOCRACY! Sustainable, community-based alternatives to
corporate biotech are possible and viable, and we are making them real!
At our counter-convention in June, we will not only shine an educational
spotlight on the dangers of GE food, medicine and weapons, but will also
exhibit the grassroots eco-solutions taking shape in our own
communities. The Philadelphia area is home to a fabulous array of
community gardens and organic farms, food co-ops and urban nutrition
initiatives, radical health collectives and advocates for universal
public health care, groups of student environmentalists and war
resisters, interfaith leaders for human rights and renewable fuels, and
diverse neighborhood coalitions against police brutality, the gutting of
public services, and environmental injustice ...

We welcome this opportunity for local residents to come together and
learn from each other, and for visiting activists to share energy and
ideas from your home communities! With a shared commitment to putting
our values and vision into action, we can and will counter their
corporate bio-devastation with our peaceful uprising for BIODEMOCRACY!

To be involved with the BIODEMOCRACY 2005 mobilization, please contact:

Philadelphia RAGE (Resistance Against Genetic Engineering) at
phillyrage@riseup.net OR Nathaniel from the Student Environmental Action
Coalition at (215) 222 4711.

For updates about the mobilization:
Send a blank email to: biodev-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

And check these websites in the coming months:
www.reclaimthecommons.net www.biodev.org
www.phillyimc.org biotech.indymedia.org

"Because disease and starvation will not be solved by corporations!"