Genetic Engineering, Eugenics and the Ideology of the Rich
Global Research
By Colin Todhunter
Whatever the publicly stated aims of the genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) sector, and however terrible its impact is on health,
the environment and cotton farmers in India, there is a much more
sinister side to this industry.
In order to govern and control a population, apart from the use of violence, people’s consent must be achieved via what
Louis Althusser once
called ideological state apparatuses: the education system,
entertainment, religion, the political system and so on. Noam Chomsky’s
book
‘The Manufacture of Consent’ discusses the important role of the media in this, and Antonio Gramsci wrote much about
hegemony –
the methods used by the dominant class to legitimize their position in
the eyes of the ruled over – a kind of ‘consented coercion’ that
disguises the true fist of power.
However, possibly the most basic and arguably effective form of
social control is eugenics, a philosophy that includes reduced
reproductive capacity of ‘less desired’ people.
There is a growing fear that eugenics is being used for the purpose
of population control – to get rid of sections of the world population
that are ‘surplus to requirements’. In the West, due to automation and
the outsourcing of jobs, there is likely to be a large section of the
population that will be permanently unemployed or underemployed. In
places like China, Africa and India, promoting birth control has been
high on the agenda for some decades.
Millionaire US media baron Ted Turner believes a global population of
two billion
would be ideal and billionaire Bill Gates has pledged hundreds of
millions of dollars to improve access to contraception in the developing
world. Based on the misguided premise that the world is getting
overpopulated, fewer people means elites and the better off can reduce
the competition for the resources they covert so much and maintain their
current high levels of material consumption. Gates has also purchased
shares in Monsanto valued at more than $23 million. His agenda is to
help Monsanto get their genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
into Africa on a grand scale.
Here’s where things get interesting. In 2001, Monsanto and Du Pont
bought a small biotech company called Epicyte that had created a gene
that basically makes the male sperm sterile and the female egg
unreceptive. In the US, GM foods are already on the market and
unlabeled. The GM sector has spent millions to ensure this remains the
case. US citizens thus have no idea of what could be in their food.
These foods where not independently tested for their impact on health.
Would you like to know whether you are eating stuff that (according to
Professor Seralini of the University of Caen in France) damages health?
Would you like to know if what you are eating contains something that could make you sterile?
Bill Gates’ father has long been involved with Planned Parenthood:
“When I was growing up, my parents were
always involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned
Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.”
The above quotation comes from a
2003 interview with Bill Gates.
Planned Parenthood was founded on the concept that most human beings
are reckless breeders. Gates senior is co-chair of the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation and a guiding light behind the vision and
direction of the Gates Foundation, which is heavily focused on promoting
GMOs in Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution
in Africa (AGRA).
The Gates Foundation has given at least $264.5 million to AGRA. According to a report published by
La Via Campesina (The
Peasants’ Way) in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA’s grantees in Kenya work
directly with Monsanto and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation
funding is devoted to biotechnology. The report also explains that the
Gates Foundation has pledged $880 million to create the Global
Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter
of GMOs.
Rather than embrace a move towards genuine food sovereignty and
address the underlying political and economic issues that cause poverty,
the Gates Foundation has chosen the promotion of corporate-controlled
agriculture which has led to the disempowerment of farmers.
As the GM sector continues to hammer at India’s door, we have every
right to be concerned, not only because of the much reported impact of
seed monopolies and GMOs’ well-documented detrimental effects on health
and the environment, but also because of concerns over just which genes
may be in the foodstuffs that we eat and are unknown to us.
Researcher
F William Engdahl states
that genetic engineering cannot be understood without looking at the
global spread of US power. Leading figures in the US financed ‘Green
Revolution’ in the agriculture sector of developing countries in order
to create new markets for petro-chemical fertilizers and petroleum
products, as well as to expand dependency on energy products. Food has
now become weaponised to secure global dominance.
The world’s problems are not being caused by overpopulation, but by greed and a system of ownership that ensures
wealth flows from bottom to top.
It’s not about stopping population growth in its tracks, but about
changing a widespread global system and mindset that is based an over
reliance on oil and unsustainable depletion of natural resources, with
the US being the biggest culprit.
Millionaires like Ted Turner believe it should be a case of carry on
consuming regardless, as long as the population is cut. This is the
ideology of the rich who regard the rest of humanity as a problem to be
‘dealt with.’ He says there are
“too many people using too much stuff.”
He couldn’t be more wrong. For instance, developing nations account for
more than 80 percent of world population, but consume only about
one third of the world’s energy. US
citizens constitute 5 percent of the world’s population but consume 24
percent of the world’s energy. On average, one American consumes as much
energy as two Japanese, six Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 31 Indians, 128
Bangladeshis, 307 Tanzanians and 370 Ethiopians (
mindfully.org)
So, should we be weary of a hugely politically connected sector that
has ownership of technology that allows for the genetic engineering of
food and a gene that could be used (or already is) for forced
sterilization? Of course we should. This is a sector whose stated
objective is to control the world’s food chain and, by implication, the
global population.
In today’s technologically-driven world, state-corporate concerns are
using the full panoply of hi-tech means to control us. Some decades
ago, theorist and social philosopher Herbert Marcuse summed up the
problem facing modern society by saying that the capabilities— both
intellectual and technological— of contemporary society are immeasurably
greater than before, which means that the scope of society’s domination
over the individual is also immeasurably greater than ever before. It
appears none more so than where the GM sector is concerned.
Via
Global Research
