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Today's Stories
June 26 / 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
June 25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush
Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| Weekend
Edition
June 26 / 27, 2004
Contamination
at Berkeley
The Profit
Motive, Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
By
ALI TONAK
"I
am living proof of what happens when biotech buys a university. The
first thing that goes is independent research. The university is a
delicate organism. When its mission and orientation are compromised,
it dies. Corporate biotechnology is killing this university.”
Ignacio
Chapela, interview by John Ross Feb. 2004
Tenure,
a reward of permanent employment given to exceptional university professors,
is an essential aspect of academia. The American Association of University
Professors defines tenure as "a means to certain ends; specifically:
(1) freedom of teaching and research and of extramural activities, and
(2) a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession
attractive to men and women of ability. Freedom and economic security,
hence, tenure, are indispensable to the success of an institution in
fulfilling its obligations to its students and to society."
This
status allows researchers to ask controversial questions without fear
of losing their livelihood or academic opportunities. Tenure is meant
to encourage free thought and critical thinking, but the case of Ignacio
Chapela, an assistant professor in the Environmental Science Department
at the University of California-Berkeley, it was used as a weapon. According
to those who question the increasingly cozy relationships between supposedly
public universities and corporations, this was not an isolated case,
but a warning to other professors not to oppose private funders and
an indication of a growing trend.
In
1998, pharmaceutical giant Novartis signed a $25,000,000 deal with Berkeley’s
College of Natural Sciences, without the consultation of the faculty.
In exchange for the funding, Novartis gained exclusive patent rights
to one-third of all of CNS’s research. Among other perks, the
contract explicitly grants Novartis direct influence over the specific
areas of the college’s research. Ignacio Chapela, along with several
other colleagues, criticized the deal, warning that the influence of
the world’s second largest pharmaceutical corporation would dictate
priorities. The legitimacy of this concern was quickly justified.
Illicit
Exposure
Chapela’s
long-standing relationship with the agricultural community of Oaxaca,
Mexico began when he helped set up a laboratory that facilitated the
export of profitable Shitake mushrooms to Japan. While examining the
native maize population in Oaxaca in October of 2000, one of Chapela’s
graduate students, David Quist, made a shocking discovery. Despite a
ban imposed by the Mexican government upon genetically-engineered(GE)
corn in the birth place of modern maize domestication, there was clear
evidence of genetic contamination.
DNA,
the fundamental genetic unit found in every living organism, is a biological
fingerprint. The DNA of every organism holds a unique genetic code,
making it useful in criminology and other legal matters, such as determining
parenthood. In Mexico alone there are 59 distinct races of corn, each
with large numbers of sub-varieties. The presence of DNA from genetically
modified corn revealed by Quist’s discovery presented a serious
threat to the biodiversity of the native species, because genetically-modified
crops have the potential to cross-breed with native crops, altering
the evolution of the entire population.
While
indigenous farmers rushed to preserve their heritage by saving seeds
and plants, Chapela and Quist began to investigate the source of the
contamination. Since the Monsanto Corporation was the first company
to incorporate biotechnology into agri-business, the researchers examined
the Oaxacan maize for the presence of a particular, Monsanto-patented
genetic sequence. In five out of seven samples, this turned out to be
the case. Further tests indicated a match with synthetically-created
DNA constructs manufactured by several corporations, including Berkeley’s
funder, Novartis.
Genetically
modified pollen can travel great distances via wind and water currents.
It’s not uncommon for genes to cross between species through vectors
such as viruses and bacteria. The factors contributing to gene flow
are numerous and, at this point, non-computable. While the origins of
Oaxaca’s maize contamination remain unclear, it is obvious that
the ban on GE corn cultivation by the Mexican Department of Agriculture
in 1998 had not been enough.
Retribution
Fearing
that this discovery would not be taken lightly by the millions who eat
corn tortillas 3 times a day, Ignacio Chapela was contacted by the director
of Mexico's bio-security commission, Dr. Fernando Ortiz Monasterio.
Monasterio met Chapela in an abandoned building. In a scene reminiscent
of a mafia movie, a furious Monasterio berated Chapela for exposing
the biotech industry to a potentially disastrous backlash. "'You
have gotten yourself into some serious shit this time,” Monasterio
reportedly shouted. “But you will not stop us — no one will
stop us!”
In an
attempt to save face, Monsanto hired the Bivings Group, a Washington
PR firm. To discredit Chapela and Quist’s research, an e-mail
criticizing their methods and findings was sent to the mailing list
of AgBioWorld?, a major portal for the biotech industry. The supposed
author of this e-mail, “Mary Murphy”, was soon revealed
to be a fictional character created by someone "working for Bivings"
or "clients using our services,” as Todd Zeigler, head of
the PR firm’s online department, admitted in a BBC interview.
This confession came as a result of an investigation by a British anti-GMO
campaigner, Jonathan Matthews of the Norfolk Genetic Information Network,
who traced the origin of the e-mail to a computer operated by Bivings.
Despite
this revelation, serious damage had already been inflicted upon the
legitimacy of Chapela and Quist’s research by “Murphy”'s
critique. In response to the controversy created by this e-mail, Nature,
a leading scientific journal, published the following notice in April
2002: “In light of these discussions and the diverse advice received,
Nature has concluded that the evidence available is not sufficient to
justify the publication of the (Chapela and Quist’s) paper. As
the authors nevertheless wish to stand by the available evidence for
their conclusions, we feel it best simply to make these circumstances
clear, to publish the criticisms, the authors' response and new data,
and to allow our readers to judge the science for themselves.”
Nature may have been reluctant to support the Berkeley scientists’
conclusions, but subsequent studies conducted by the Mexican Government
(National Institute of Ecology, INE, and National Commission of Biodiversity)
confirmed the presence of genes from transgenic maize within native
crop populations.
The
Tenure Battle
The process
to grant Chapela tenure began promisingly with a favorable 32 to 1 vote
within his department. Despite the merit of his work and the affirmation
of his colleagues, his tenure approval stalled once it reached top-level
administrators. With no feedback from the closed-door tenure committee,
Chapela was convinced that “there is another set of criteria that
counterweigh the strength of the case,” clearly implying the influence
of biotech, the industry that had showered Berkeley with $25,000,000.
Last summer,
Chapela protested the kowtowing of University administrators to private
entities by moving his office, piece by piece, onto the lawn. In an
online article published in CounterPunch he explained his motivation
for this action: “Beginning at 6 o'clock this morning, as I enter
the final days of my contract as a faculty member at the University
of California at Berkeley, I intend to mark and celebrate them, by doing
what I believe a professor in a public university must do: to further
reason and understanding. For the brief time that remains of my terminal
contract at Berkeley, I shall sit holding office hours, day and night,
outside the doors of California Hall. This is the building housing the
Budget Committee of the Academic Senate, and the office of the Chancellor,
the two arms of our university governance in charge of my file.”
Chapela’s
tenure decision remained in limbo for another 6 months, but eventually,
last fall, a rejection was delivered by Chancellor Robert Berdahl. An
uproar ensued as hundreds of letters supporting Chapela poured in to
the Chancellor’s office. Many academics wrote to Berdahl, questioning
his decision and demanding greater transparency in the tenure process.
Recently, the Graduate Assembly of the University voted unanimously
to further pressure Berdahl into exposing the factors contributing to
his rejection. “We’re just being supportive of the transparency
of the process,” Jessica Quindel, president of the Graduate Assembly,
told The Daily Cal. “There’s been a lot of secrecy about
this—we just want to know why he was denied tenure.”
This fall
Berdahl's term as Chancellor comes to an end. This change of administration
has encouraged Chapela to fight for his tenure at Berkeley. The new
Chancellor will have the power to reverse Berdahl’s decision,
so there is still hope, but if Novartis has it’s way, Igancio
Chapela’s days of unveiling biotech fallacies at Berkeley will
soon be history.
Genetic
engineering has taken place for hundreds of years by the farmers of
the world. A fruit that tasted better then another was selected to be
planted year after year increasing its abundance.
Others
were artificially mated with each other to produce tastes and odors
pleasant to our senses. The problem arises when profit coupled with
irresponsible science dictates these choices rather than the producers
and their particular needs. The giants of Biotech have no concern in
the preservation of the biodiversity for future generations of animals
and plants; they are looking to maximize their shareholder values next
month or next year. The tenure system has also historically preserved
the integrity of research conducted in the university, selecting the
ripe minds and nurturing them over the years. Today both UC Berkeley
and the global population have reached a critical turning point where
the decisions concerning tenure and nourishment are dictated by capital.
If you
are disturbed by corporate influence on a public university, especially
concerning the safety GMOs, visit www.tenurejustice.org
and take action now.
Ali
Tonak is a volunteer with the San
Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center and it's monthly publication
Fault Lines.
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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