RECLAIM THE STREETS! Stop BIOTECH!

"Looking around this room filled with an incredible reserve of brainpower, scientific power and excellent intentions, I've got to ask how can we get this right? Because I can't help but thinking about the cost of failing to get it right."

-Michael J. Fox in his keynote address "Driving the Development and Availability of Novel Therapies" at the 2007 BIO International Convention in Boston.

And yet throughout all the devastation to our natural environment, the crops that we eat, and our own bodies, the rest of the world outside the biotechnology industry must think about the detrimental costs of failing to resist and allowing them to continue trying to "get it right". Because in reality, forfeiting our health, food, and lives to war profiteering and the development of pacifying drugs seems to pose greater costs beyond those of scientific capitalism. Let this be our opportunity to disrupt and counter their convention to let it be known that biotechnology is not welcome in San Diego. The BIO Convention is not welcome anywhere!

What is BIO? What is the BIO Convention?

BIO (Biotechnology Industry Organization) is the world's largest biotechnology organization providing a forum for over 1,150 scientists and federal agencies to create and introduce different ways of commodifying our lives. Their goal is to forward their research and development of healthcare inequity, chemical induced agriculture, the depletion of natural resources. BIO and it's affiliates consist of many Fortune 100 multinationals and other corporations throughout the world.

From June 17th - 20th, BIO will converge in San Diego, CA for their annual meetings and banquets open to more than 20,000 members. These meetings act as a stage for discussions and demonstrations among the industry but closed to the public that consumes their products and feels the backlash of their bureaucracy. BIO is continuing to emerge while the rest of the world is forced to sink or swim for dear life.

Reasons to Resist

Just like other capitalist bureaucratic gatherings such as the ones of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Democratic and Republican Conventions (DNC/RNC), BIO is unable to go anywhere without the confrontation of mass protests and demonstrations. On June 17th - 20th, San Diego will become a foreground for community and resistance building outside the confines of business as usual.

Genetically Modified Organisms and Family Farms: Since their first significant commercial plantings in 1996, double digit growth in each subsequent year has led to more than 252 million acres of crops infested with dangerous chemicals and other contaminates causing defects and lowered nutrition in human and animal bodies. The Biotech Industry claims to help developing countries but are actually just patenting their seeds and taking advantage of indigenous knowledge and centuries of native tradition. The safety of genetic engineering is sloppy, imprecise, and extremely unpredictable. The claim to safety and justification is a marketing slogan and has no scientific basis.

War Profiteering: Institutes of biotechnology and nanotechnology, the science of manipulating chemistry and biology at the molecular and atomic levels, are developing new weapons and war machines to continue the costly and unending wars waged by the United States throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. Companies such as Monsato and DuPont will be present at this years BIO Convention, showcasing biochemical weapons to federal agencies and other paramilitary forces. Just like the food that BIO engineers, the threat of our health and genetic makeup is at stake.

Corporate Globalization: Delegates of the WTO, FTAA, NAFTA, and other advocates of globalization are constantly manipulating and devising strategies to protect capital and profit rearing from biotechnology companies. Countries with certain resources and practices are being exploited by governments and multinationals with the ability to exploit them through militarized intimidation. The greedy interests of government and corporations will be well represented at the BIO Convention with hopes to further their capitalist agenda.

How to Resist!

Join community members and activists alike for a week of resistance to the growing biotechnology industry and the BIO Convention. Throughout the week we will seek to reclaim the commons and demonstrate the alternatives to biotechnology and capitalist greed. Our goal is to disrupt the convention through a variety of means and drive the exhibitors and attendees out of our city. Outside of the this detrimental industry we can create and highlight our own brainpower and intentions. If we can act when opportunity is given, then we can take back our lives and write our own histories. The cost of failing is unfathomable.