The destruction of GE crops is on the rise in North America. In the past six months there have been numerous assaults on GE crops in Maine, Vermont, Minnesota, California and British Columbia. This is a perfect example of a case where the enemy is weaker than one might think. Test crops are easy to destroy, anyone can cut down a crop, yet the destruction of test crops costs seed companies considerable time. The work of these high tech companies can be disrupted by the most simple means. This is one of the reasons why the sabotage of crops has spread so widely. Because of the outrage over genetically modified foods many have taken direct action against capital. But there are many other simple ways to attack capital, so why stop there now that so many people have practice as elves of the night?
The sabotage of genetically modified crops is aimed at a new technological development, in this case a biotechnological development. Its aim is to cripple the advance of technology, which was also the aim of the Luddites The most recent advances are often the only forms of technology to be critiqued or attacked because they are the most shocking. But these recent advances are not separate from other forms of technology, they function systematically with other technologies for the utility of capital: the exploitation of nature and human beings. It is far more common to be critical of the most advanced forms of technology while the machines that the Luddites had sabotaged now seem benign. This is because we have grown up with them and often fail to see their negative effects. It is much easier to be critical of the technologies that we are unfamiliar with because we can still perceive their destructive and alien qualities. For example, it is easier to see that the internet is alienating and replaces contact with real human beings or that it increases control, than the telephone. We are blind to the effects of the telephone because for us these effects have always been there. This naturalization of technologies also blinds us from seeing technology as a system. We see instead proliferation of "tools". But, for what end are these tools made? Are they merely made for a variety of individual human uses to fulfill a variety of individual needs or are they produced by systems for the use of those systems? Technology is produced by capitalist companies and governments for their use. These technologies are a product of the logic of capital. Our critique and our attacks must reach beyond the most recent advances of the technological system to other technological means of exploitation and alienation. Elves of the night, there is so much to do!
