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Come to Boston for Biojustice 2007! BioJustice 2007 is a week long celebration of sustainable food and alternatives to corporate healthcare. It is being developed by a wide coalition of public interest groups, activists, farmers, scientists, and concerned citizens, working together in response to the biotechnology industry's international convention scheduled for the new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center during May 6-9, 2007.
View our schedule of events here. Additional resources are at biojustice2007.org. Click here to view an image of the new Biojustice poster created by the Beehive Design Collective (1.2 mb jpeg).
The biotech industry is bringing thousands of executives, lawyers, public relations people and corporate scientists to Boston to promote their agenda of genetically engineered food, unaffordable high-tech medicines and dangerous 'biodefense' research that increases the threat of new biological weapons. Through parades, rallies, educational events and publications, music, a free health care clinic and free daily non-GMO meals, Biojustice 2007 will dramatize popular resistance to this agenda and highlight a wealth of community-based alternatives. BioJustice 2007 supports a decentralized local food economy that is free of genetically modified organisms, and is committed to working towards an accessible health care system not dominated by pharmaceutical companies and their costly and unreliable synthetic drugs. We oppose the commodification of life and support community resistance to the plans for a biological weapons lab in the heart of the Roxbury neighborhood. Join us! For more info., email spokes(at)riseup.net or squash(at)riseup.net.
1. Local folks to help organize: find spaces for events, secure donations, put up flyers, etc. 2. Herbalists, doctors, nurses, EMTs and street medics to volunteer in the free clinic and in the streets during the week of BioJustice. Donate to the clinic herbs, tinctures or medical supplies by emailing mblue(at)riseup.net or towhombeautyistruth(at)riseup.net. 3. Food and monetary donations. 4. Sign makers, marchers and puppeteers for the demonstrations. 5. People to help in the kitchen cooking and serving food. 6. Help spread the word! Forward this information.
[Photos of Biodemocracy2005 in Philadelphia courtesy of PhillyIMC] Audio from Reclaim the Commons in Chicago Audio from Reclaim the Commons 2006 in Chicago is now available at http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/9413.php. The featured panel discussion took place on April 8, 2006 at DePaul University, in response to the BIO industry convention held the following week in Chicago. On the panel: Anuradha Mittal (Oakland Institute), Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero (Puerto Rican Project on Biosafety), John Kinsman (National Family Farm Coalition), and Sarah Alexander (White Earth Land Recovery Project). The panel was moderated by Jeffrey Smith (Institute for Resonsible Technology). BIO Convention events, April 2006
The Biotech Industry Organization (BIO) is coming to Chicago this April for their annual international convention and PR extravaganza – BIO 2006. There will be two series of events to challenge and question BIO's agenda, Reclaim the Commons 2006, and BioETHICS 2006. See their respective websites for more information. These events will be joining activities around the world on April 8th to commemorate the Joint International Day of GM Opposition (JIGMOD), which will include an international videoconference featuring global opposition to GMOs. More information here. 2005:
Join us to resist their closed-door corporate agenda of GE agriculture, health care for profit, and bioweapons proliferation. Give voice to a different vision of local food sovereignty, fair trade, health care for all, community power, biodiversity and honest science. RECLAIM THE COMMONS FESTIVAL Saturday June 18th. Live music, puppets, food, farmer speak-out, plant give-away BIODEMOCRACY TEACH-IN Saturday June 18th – Monday June 20th. With Ignacio Chapela, Medea Benjamin, Anuradha Mittal, Percy Schmeiser, & many more. Full schedule here. Audio from the teach-in (and Tuesday morning's healthcare rally) here. DAY OF ACTION Tuesday June 21st. Expose biotech and pharma. hotspots in central Philadelphia FOOD NOT BOMBS 25th ANNIVERSARY GATHERING GREEN AND BLACK URBAN GATHERING Get Involved! Contact Philadelphia RAGE (Resistance Against Genetic Engineering): phillyrage(at)riseup.net For further details, see www.reclaimthecommons.net. More info. and ongoing coverage will be available from the Philadelphia Independent Media Center and Biotech Independent Media Center. Read our op-ed from the Philadelphia Inquirer, published on June 17th. BIODEMOCRACY 2005: Reclaim the Commons! Call to Action: Converge in Philadelphia, June 18th to 21st, 2005
RECLAIM THE COMMONS! We recall a custom much older than two-party Republics, in which croplands, grazing land and forests were a public domain that benefited the whole community and belonged exclusively to no one. In today’s global society, our commons encompass the biological strata that sustain life on earth – air, water, food, medicine, energy, biodiversity – plus the means of communication, education and transit that connect us culturally. Today, to a degree unprecedented in human history, corporations have seized this public wealth and privatized it to reap growing profits for a small and ever-shrinking elite. As public access to and control over the commons has eroded, so has true democracy. For democracy to thrive, for racial, economic, social and environmental justice to take deep root, and for sustainability to flourish ... we must reclaim our commons!
The corporations gathering in Philadelphia this June are contaminating the world with genetically engineered crops at the expense of our health, popular food sovereignty and biodiversity. They are profiting from unsafe and costly designer drugs, whose side effects can be worse than the conditions they’re aimed to treat, while raising the false hope that biotechnology carries the solution to all human ills. In the name of “biodefense,” they are profiting from the costliest expansion of research into high-tech weaponry since the Manhattan Project, developing new bioweapons and resurrecting old ones, and exposing our communities to the hazard of uncontrollable biological agents. To reclaim our nutrition, health and security ... we must resist their biotech!
We welcome this opportunity for local residents to come together and learn from each other, and for visiting activists to share energy and ideas from your home communities! With a shared commitment to putting our values and vision into action, we can and will counter their corporate bio-devastation with our peaceful uprising for BIODEMOCRACY! To be involved with the BIODEMOCRACY 2005 mobilization, please contact: Philadelphia RAGE (Resistance Against Genetic Engineering) at phillyrage@riseup.net For updates about the mobilization: Read our Biodemocracy 2005 Statement of Unity And check these websites for more information and reports: "Because disease and starvation will not be solved by corporations!" [photos from Reclaim the Commons 2004 in San Francisco] |
The world’s largest convention of biotech and pharmaceutical executives is coming to Philadelphia this June. 
RESIST BIOTECHNOLOGY! With their industrial exploitation of biotech research, agricultural, pharmaceutical and weapons-manufacturing corporations are now busily locking their greed into the most primal area of the commons, the genetic structures of life itself. At the expense of public health and ecological harmony, their profit-driven success hinges upon the global proliferation of dangerous genetically modified organisms (GMOs), disregarding the health needs of the poor while sinking money into science-fiction treatments of questionable safety, and governmental funding for deadly biological weapons deceptively classified as “biodefense.”