Bad Patents, Evil Corporations and the Rise of
Intellectual Imperialism
by Mike Adams, Natural News, March 01, 2008
Conquerors
atural News: It is a defining
characteristic of Western civilization that
power-hungry men seek to declare ownership over
all things they discover. For most of human
history, such ownership efforts were focused on
usable land. Owning land that could grow food,
after all, was a valuable strategy for staying
alive. As mechanized farming methods spread,
power-hungry white men sought to own and control
a labor force -- and so human slavery was
pursued.
I don't just mean slavery in the U.S., by the
way, and it wasn't pursued exclusively by rich
white men. World history is rife with nations
engaged in routine slavery, from the Roman
Empire and ancient Egypt to the not-so-ancient
Brazil, where nearly genetically-identical
people enslaved each other to work the rich
Brazilian soils and produce agricultural
profits.
From agriculture came the recognition of the
value of
seeds, and it wasn't long before
power-hungry men began patenting the seeds they
discovered in
nature. Corporations like
Monsanto even began performing dark
experiments on those seeds, inserting
"Terminator" genes that caused second-generation
seeds to self-destruct, thereby ensuring their
continued ownership and control over those
seeds.
Now, as the U.S. patent office has allowed
corporations to patent life forms and human
gene sequences, we are entering a new age where
human beings no longer control their own
genes. Corporations currently own 20 percent of
the human genome, and in the near future,
couples who wish to reproduce may be forced to
pay
intellectual property royalties to wealthy
corporations in exchange for the "rights" to
copy their own genes through sexual
reproduction.
This is not some distant dystopian future I'm
describing, by the way: This is present-day
reality. Corporations are attempting to exert
control over every thing of value that can
possibly be patented, from natural botanical
medicines invented by Mother Nature to the very
seeds of life found in human DNA. The goal in
all this? Complete ownership over the human
race and every thing of value on the planet.
You see, there is no longer any need to enslave
the human race with whips and chains. Now,
corporations have figured out how to accomplish
the same thing by creating a web of virtual
rules (patent laws) that don't really exist in
the real world, but can still enslave the
population if the People are foolish enough to
agree to honor those virtual rules. If the
People of the world agree to play the patent
game, they are playing right into the hands of
the corporations that only seek to exploit and
enslave them.
In the future being created by these
corporations, you will not only have to pay
money to reproduce, you'll also have to pay to
grow
crops, to fertilize those crops, and to
harvest those crops. And once that season is
gone, you'll have to pay all over again to buy
seeds and pesticides for the next season. Forget
about saving seeds or self reliance. The wealthy
corporations of the world want the entire
population to be dependent on them for food,
medicine and even human reproduction. There is
no human action that cannot be exploited by
corporations for intellectual property claims.
The Road to Totalitarian
Enslavement is Paved With
Patents...
If we continue to allow corporations to claim
ownership over our money, our medicines, our
seeds, plants and genes, then make no mistake
about the outcome: We will all end up as
worker slaves in an elitist plutocracy run by
corporations. Some say we're close to that
already. Just look at how effectively corporate
interests now control the U.S. Congress, for
example. There's hardly a law passed today that
doesn't have the backing of a profit-minded
corporation.
What's infuriating about the patents currently
being awarded to corporations is that most of
the things being patented were invented by
Mother Nature! Arrogant Man, of course,
comes along and claims that he "invented" these
things by merely discovering them. It's like
walking through a forest, finding a beautiful
waterfall, and proclaiming, "I invented this
waterfall!" That's what the U.S. patent office
allows corporations to do right now with
animals, genes, seeds and medicines. The human
genome, for example, wasn't "invented" by
scientists; it was merely mapped by scientists.
It was invented by Mother Nature or God,
depending on your particular spiritual or
religious beliefs. By what arrogance should Man
grant other men patents on the human genome?
Stealing From the Poor to Pay the Rich
Distorted in this way, the patent process
followed in the United States is a system
whereby the wealthy steal resources from the
poor. Instead of a seed belonging to
everyone (i.e. "community property"), ownership
of that seed is now granted to one entity (a
corporation) which can then charge the People
for using it. This sort of patenting is nothing
more than a fabricated system of ownership
that funnels wealth from the hands of the many
to the pockets of the few.
No wonder U.S. corporations so strongly favor
the U.S. patent system. It is the legal machine
by which corporations can strong-arm the masses,
stealing not only their present resources but
also their future wealth, effectively
criminalizing farmers and peasants for daring to
plant the same seeds they've planted for
generations.
It is not surprising, then, that this system of
patent protection was invented by power-hungry
white men. It is the greedy white men who have
invaded the world, committed genocide against
the American Indians, wiped out ancient
civilizations in South
America, enslaved Southeast Asia, drugged
the Chinese with Opium, colonized
India, annexed Hawaii and subjugated
defenseless populations all over the world. Can
you guess where it all points back to? The
British Empire, of course. No single empire has
done more to decimate the cultures, religions
and populations of this world than the British
Empire. And today, the American Empire borrows
its own brand of tyranny and
imperialism from the historical actions of
the British Empire. (America has created the
very same
tyranny and cruelty it sought to escape
hundreds of years ago...)
Today, these two English-speaking nations (the
U.K. and America) continue to invade the world
with their
junk foods, pharmaceuticals, soda pop,
medical systems and exploitive intellectual
property laws. The pushing of patents and
intellectual property law onto third world
nations amounts to a kind of intellectual
imperialism And every nation that embraces
Western culture finds itself, usually within one
generation, diseased, bankrupt and destitute.
Its monies have been stolen and exchanged for
endless debt to the International Monetary Fund.
Its crops have been replaced with seeds patented
by Monsanto. Its cultural foods have been
replaced with Western processed junk foods, and
its People have been feed lies and propaganda
about the "superiority" of Western banking,
Western medicine, Western
capitalism and Western culture.
This is how we wind up with doctors in China
denouncing their own Chinese Medicine, or
working people in South America giving up eating
quinoa and starting to eat fast food hamburgers.
The ultimate outcome for these people is not in
doubt: Within a few years, they will find
themselves diseased and bankrupt, with their
natural resources exploited, their crops
genetically contaminated and their futures
mortgaged to corporations that rule the world.
I'm not sure exactly how corporations and
patents will play a role in the destruction of
Western civilizations. It could be that genetic
pollution of our primary food crops causes
runaway genetic contamination of corn, wheat and
soy, followed by a blight that collapses the
food supply (wheat supplies are already down to
a 10-week supply for the entire world). Or it
could be that financial disaster strikes first,
collapsing the fractional-reserve financial
institutions and worthless paper currencies that
somehow still manage to move the economic
machinery of modern society. There are a hundred
different reasons why our current systems of
consumption, pollution and economics are simply
not sustainable -- and it's anyone's guess which
one is going to reach the point of implosion
first.
How We Protect Our Futures and Stop the Tyranny
of Intellectual Property Claims Over Seeds,
Genes and Medicines
After Western society collapses (which will
happen in our lifetimes, most likely, given the
food bubble, oil bubble, financial bubble,
massive chemical contamination, etc.), we will
all have an opportunity to rebuild a new society
based on new rules. When this opportunity
arises, it is crucial that we radically
reform intellectual property laws that deny
the corporations the ability to steal our
futures by claiming ownership over genes, seeds
and medicines. These things in particular must
be protected as being non-patentable so that the
People of the world are never driven into povery
by corporate claims over basic life necessities
like food and medicine.
Much of the Western capitalism model must be
thrown out, actually. It is a model that only
subsists on the non-stop exploitation of natural
resources and human beings. It is a model where
everything is disposable, where the next fiscal
quarter is more important than the next
generation, and where ethics and integrity have
absolutely no role. Any nation that trains its
future on this model of mass exploitation
ultimately has no future.
That's why I support the immediate cancellation
of all patents on life forms, genes, seeds and
medicines. Those who ask, "But what is the
incentive for people to create new medicines?"
That's an example of limited Western thinking.
Greed is not the sole motivator for
innovation. Individuals, universities and
governments can create new medicines for the
benefit of all people. Besides, Nature has
already invented nearly all the medicines we
really need. All we need to do is propagate
those medicines through the mindful planting and
harvesting of medicinal plants.
And if you really think only
drug companies can come up with new
medicines, then ask yourself this question: Why
are 80% of all the "new" medicines invented by
Big Pharma just "me-too" drugs that work no
better than the older drugs with patents that
are about to expire? Clearly, the motivation in
Big Pharma today is not to create medicines for
the benefit of mankind, but to create medicines
for the benefit of corporate shareholders. Drug
companies as operated today have no useful role
in the future of society. We'd all be better off
without them.
It's time to end the "ownership" of genes, seeds
and medicines. These belong to the People. I
urge everyone reading this to take part in the
movement to end greed-based intellectual
property rights and help return our future to
our children. And someone please yank the
corporate charter out from under Monsanto so we
can shut down that evil monstrosity that has
already plundered our world's resources and
stolen so much from future generations.
About
the author: Mike Adams is a holistic
nutritionist with a passion for sharing
empowering information to help improve personal
and planetary health He has authored and
published thousands of articles, interviews,
consumers guides, and books on topics like
health and the environment, impacting the lives
of millions of readers around the world who are
experiencing phenomenal health benefits from
reading his articles. Adams is an independent
journalist with strong ethics who does not get
paid to write articles about any product or
company. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a
maker of super
bright LED light bulbs that are 1000% more
energy efficient than incandescent lights. He
also launched an
online
retailer of environmentally-friendly products
(BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its
profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's
also the CEO of a highly successful
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newsletter software company that develops
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director of the
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as the 'Health Ranger,' Adams' personal health
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