It's All About the War On Terrorism

New at Reason: Ron Bailey breaks bread with his commander in chief, brushes up on his biowarfare agents, minds his introns and exons, and more, in his next report from the BIO 2003 conference.

Comments

[Anonymous]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993865
http://www.thp.org/reports/sen/sen890.htm

[Kevin Carson]

This is vintage Bailey. He focuses on European import bans on GM foods, and on proposed price ceilings on drugs. And while your attention is distracted by his pretty assistant, Presto! Changeo! you ignore facts much more relevant to these issues.

For instance, the fact that Europe doesn't NEED an import ban to hurt this industry. It just needs to ALLOW a free market in labelling, so that people can knowingly choose whether they want to eat the shit. And the U.S. government needs to stop funding the R&D on the public tit, and enforcing the industry's ability to charge monopoly prices with its anti-free market patents (and stop providing guaranteed outlets through the skool lunch program).

A free market would have the same effect on the biofoods industry that sunlight has on a vampire.

As that renowned agribusiness CEO Dwayne Andreas (formerly of ADM, now of prison) said, "There's not a free market in anything, anywhere, except in politicians' speeches. And "The competitor is our friend. The customer is our enemy."

This is exactly why the general public considers libertarians to be corporate Republicans who are soft on drugs. We need a principled defense of freedom REGARDLESS of whose interests (including big business) it helps or harms. All too many libertarians first determine what the interests of big business are, then define the "free market" accordingly.

[Sean]

Kevin,

By, "a free market in labelling," can we assume you mean that companies could put whatever they wanted on their labels as long as they didn't lie? I doubt this would spell the end of GMOs on the market.

But if by "free market" you mean that the government would force companies selling GMO to label it with something akin to a biohazard sticker, so the Ludds could whip the general public into a frenzy; then this would probably spell a temporary (10-20y) decline of the marketability of GMOs.

[erf]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=418070

Some evidence of why it might be smart to take our time with GM foods.
Not an anti-GM post, just a plea for prudence with technology that is still in the testing phase.

[Kevin Carson]

Sean:

The former. European public opinion is so stacked against GM foods that simply labelling them would eliminate most of the market for them. And I'm not for MANDATORY labelling of anything. When a hundred million people are looking for non-GM foods, the guy that sells food with a non-GM label will have more customers than he can handle knocking on his door. In the U.S., agribusiness is fanatical about banning all labels that specify whether food has GM content. What are they afraid of?

Anon:

You're right. I unthinkingly pandered to the popular misconception that the Republicans were any more pro-big business than the corporate liberals in the Democratic Party (or the social democrats who act as useful idiots for corporate interests).

[Anonymous]

" What are they afraid of?"

as any libertarian would tell you - people calling on the government to ban gm foods

agribusiness are not saints, yet it is clear who the bad guy is (as usual!) their fear isn't the free market as much as it is getting even more regulated

[Kalish Seth]

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