<nettime> BBB/CIA Pies Biotechnology Spin Doctor

[agitation-propaganda <agit-prop@energy-net.org>]

    [orig to BBB Correspondents <bbb_apple@hotmail.com>]

For Immediate Release: April 8, 1999

Grinnell, Iowa--The Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) delivered yet another pie
to a deserving recipient today, this time to free market biotechnology
advocate Dennis Avery at the "Biotechnology and Agriculture" conference on
the campus of Grinnell College.

The Central Iowa Anarchist (CIA) cell of the BBB conducted "Operation:
Avery's Savory" to target the man who serves as Director of the Center for
Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, as a response to his shameless
and flagrant support of biotechnology and industrial factory farming.

The pastry incident occurred around noon at the Herrick Chapel during the
conference's convocation. As Avery delivered a keynote speech, BBB/CIA
Agent Carob suddenly appeared and replaced the bald spot on Avery's head
with a delightful vegan and mostly organic (it is Iowa, after all--no Mecca
for health food, indeed) carob/almond/apple sauce pie. Agent Carob then
escaped on foot and disappeared, as they say, without a trace.

"Dennis Avery is especially known for his industry-biased neoliberal
analyses of trends in food demand, productivity, and global farm
competition; in other words, he's a shill for industrial factory farming
and the so-called 'Green Revolution.' Likewise, the Center for Global Food
Issues is a front group for 'Big Agriculture,' which increasingly is
focused on using biotechnology to create a 'Next Green Revolution.' If we
don't stop these mad Frankensteins from polluting our food chain now, we
will have a nightmarish agricultural monster to deal with later. And as the
BBB always says, a pie in time saves nine," declared Agent Carob.

Avery served nearly a decade as a senior agriculture analyst for the U.S.
Department of State, and has conducted policy analysis for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. He authored "Saving the Planet with  Pesticides
and Plastics," and also wrote "How Poverty Won't Save the Planet"-- a
response paper to John Robbins' "Diet for a New America." Avery wrote in
American Outlook magazine (a quarterly publication of the Hudson Institute)
that "consumers of organic and 'natural' foods are eight times as likely to
be attacked by a new strain of E. coli bacteria," a claim which has been
completely debunked. He also claimed that, "We've never found a single
consumer death from pesticide residues, and only a few dozen cases of
consumer illness."

The Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues serves a key role for
agriculture that 'Wise Use' movement groups do for mining and logging: the
propagation of misinformation and lies under the banner of science. Avery
argues that "there is no evidence of a growing ozone hole, over the Arctic
or anywhere else," that there is no global warming, and logging is good
because, "if a tree isn't cut, it will die and rot" (quotes taken from "How
Poverty Won't Save the World"). The title of an Avery article posted on the
Center's website says it all: "Big Hog Farms are Good for the Environment."
Appropriately enough, noted agricultural scholar, activist, and former Vice
President Dan Quayle serves on the Board of Directors at the Hudson
Institute. Check out http://www.cgfi.com/

This latest incident follows three previous successful pie operations in
California, in which the CEOs of the two largest global biotech
corporations (Robert Shapiro of Monsanto and Douglas Watson of Novartis)
and two university chancellors (Robert Berdahl and Larry Vanderhoef of the
University of California at Berkeley and Davis, respectively), were also
given their just desserts for recklessly pushing the genetic engineering
agenda. On February 5th, the group Welsh Action Against Genetics (WAAG)
attempted to pie the United Kingdom's Science Minister, Lord David
Sainsbury, while he was on a tour of SwanseaUniversity. Regrettably, a WAAG
operative failed in her/his organic cream pie delivery, though Lord
Sainsbury was forced to scuttle around the university and hide sheepishly
in doorways as other activists attempted follow up actions. The minister
was last seen been bundled into a car and being sped away from his group of
"admirers."

"Operation: Avery's Savory" is dedicated to our fellow BBB agent-comrades
who bravely face down the criminal 'justice' system, and who will change
the world or pie trying. This pie-by splooshing goes out to the Cherry Pie
3, sentenced to 6 months for the Mayor Brown pie incident, as well as to
Agents Pecan (Bob Greenberg) of the BBB--Midwest Faction in Minnesota and
Creamy Genes (Dave Pike) of the BBB-Nor'eastah Irregulars in New Hampshire.
Both agents are facing serious charges as a result of delivering just
desserts to a pie-falutin' state senator and a genetics/animal cloner,
respectively.

San Francisco Judge Ernest Goldsmith thought his draconian sentence for the
Cherry Pie 3 would deter any further pielitical pressure, and Lt. Col.
Steve Mengelkoch of the Minnesota State Patrol recently asserted that "we
will deal aggressively" with Agent Pecan. But in point of fact, the
opposite reaction to what the forces of law and order want has occurred,
and political re-pie-sals have increased dramatically throughout the
industrial world. As Max Stirner wrote many decades ago, "The great appear
great only because we are on our knees. Let us now pie."
----------------------------------------------------------

A first-hand account of "Operation: Avery's Savory," received at the
BBB--Ecotopia's General Command somewhere in the mountains of the
Headwaters Forest, via an encrypted and anonymously remailed communique
from Agent Almond of the BBB/CIA.

			*********************
Agent Apple,
Here's an account of today's operation. Grinnell College has a symposium
all week this week about "Biotechnology and Agriculture."  Grinnell is an
incredibly liberal school, and does not usually support the dominant
paradigm, but the professors from the environmental studies department, the
poly-sci department, and the biology department brought a series of
speakers here almost all adamantly PRO genetic engineering and biotech.
Only one speaker (from the consumer's right-to-know group) was against it,
but she had to call herself to ask to be added to the schedule, and then
wasn't even added until the last minute, so she wasn't in the brochure and
she spoke over lunch and only five people  were there.  To the Grinnell
community, a slanted symposium like this is surprising.  We don't see shit
like this at our "liberal" school very often.

Anyway...
At the most important speech, the "convocation" (big deal around here, LOTS
of people there) Dennis Avery began the faithful biotech party line. As he
held forth on why vegetarianism was a waste of time and how there are
"primitive" people starving who need to be fed by increased industrial and
biotechnological food production, Agent Carob suddenly appeared behind
Avery and replaced the bald spot on his head with a carob almond apple
sauce pie.  Agent Carob then escaped out the side door by the stage.
Immediately, several of the previous speakers and a couple professors who
were in the first row tried to stop him/her, and one who made it outside
the building almost caught Agent Carob, who escaped on foot.

A woman who was standing by the door also allegedly went out and jumped on
a bicycle, but was intercepted by one of the earlier speakers from the
symposium--Monty Miller. This man, who currently heads a corporation called
Performance Solutions, "from 1981-1990 held numerous management positions
with the Monsanto Company" (quoted from Grinnell's brochure about the
speakers and the symposium). He ran at her and her bike, physically grabbed
her and knocked her down, resulting in her falling with her ankle twisted
and all the weight of not only her and the bike, but also Mr. Monty Miller.
He then proceeded to hold her down despite her screams that her ankle was
hurting, though he did however lift most of his own weight off of her. She
spent four hours in the hospital. Her ankle was x-rayed: not broken, but
severely sprained. She spoke to her lawyer and is consider filing assault
and battery charges as well as false imprisonment charges against him. The
last charge because he never said, "I'm making a citizens arrest," and
since no charges were filed against her, Miller had no right to detain her.

The school threatened the woman with expulsion in an attempt to find out
the identity of Agent Carob. The police were notified and briefly
questioned her, but left rather quickly after receiving no information.

Avery's response to the pie-ing was to remark that he felt "flattered" by
the action, and then he continued to take questions from the audience. The
response among the students was very mixed.

About serving 'dessert' to corporate crooks: my English teacher used to say
there are two 's'es in that word because you always want more! Give them MORE.

Yours till the cookie crumbles,
Agent Almond for the BBB/CIA
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