Primitivists argue that prior to the advent of agriculture humans lived in small, nomadicbands which were socially, politically, and economically egalitarian. Being without hierarchy, these bands are sometimes viewed as embodying a precursor to anarchism.John Moore writes that anarcho-primitivism seeks:"to expose, challenge and abolish all the multiple forms of power that structure the individual, social relations, and interrelations with the natural world." [1]Primitivists hold that as a result of agriculture, societies became increasingly beholden to technological processes and abstract power structures arising from the division of labour and hierarchism. Primitivists disagree over what degree of horticulture might be present in an anarchist society, with some arguing that permaculture could have a role but others advocating a strictly hunter-gatherer subsistence.Despite its rejection of scientism, primitivism has drawn heavily on cultural anthropology and archaeology. Within the last half-century, societies once viewed as barbaric have been largely reevaluated by academics, many of whom now hold that early humans lived in relative peace and prosperity. For instance Frank Hole, an early-agriculture specialist, and Kent Flannery, a specialist in Mesoamerican civilization, have noted that, "No group on earth has more leisure time than hunters and gatherers, who spend it primarily on games, conversation and relaxing."(Kirkpatrick Sale, "Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision")Scholars such as Karl Polanyi and Marshall Sahlins characterized primitive societies as gift economies with "goods valued for their utility or beauty rather than cost; commodities exchanged more on the basis of need than of exchange value; distribution to the society at large without regard to labor that members have invested; labor performed without the idea of a wage in return or individual benefit, indeed largely without the notion of 'work' at all." [2].Other scholars and thinkers such as Paul Shepard, influenced by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, have written of the "evolutionary principle" which roughly states that a species removed from its natural habitat and behaviors will become pathological. Shepard has written at length on ways in which the disruption of man's natural "ontogeny" which developed through thousands of years of evolution in a foraging mode of existence has been disrupted due to a sedentary lifestyle caused by agriculture, [3].---

Primitivists view civilization as the logic, institutions, and physical apparatus of domestication, control and domination. They focus primarily on the question of origins. Civilization is seen as the underlying problem or root of oppression, and it is believed that it needs to be dismantled or destroyed.Primitivists describe the rise of civilization as the shift over the past 10,000 years from an existence within and deeply connected to the web of life, to one separated from and in control of the rest of life. They argue that prior to civilization there generally existed ample leisure time, considerable gender autonomy and equality, a non-destructive approach to the natural world, the absence of organized violence, no mediating or formal institutions, and strong health and robusticity. Primitivists state that civilization inaugurated warfare, the subjugation of women, population growth, drudge work, concepts of property, entrenched hierarchies, and virtually every known disease. They claim that civilization begins with and relies on an enforced renunciation of instinctual freedom and that it is impossible to reform away such a renunciation.[edit]

A Critique of Symbolic Culture

Primitivists view the shift towards an almost exclusively symbolicculture as highly problematic, in the sense that it separates us from a direct interaction. Often the response to this questioning is, “So, you just want to grunt?" This might be the desire of a few, but typically the critique is a look at the problems inherent with a form of communication and comprehension that relies primarily on symbolic thought at the expense (and even exclusion) of other sensual and unmediated means. The emphasis on the symbolic is a movement from direct experience into mediated experience in the form of language, art, number, time, etc.Primitivists argue that symbolic culture filters our entire perception through formal and informal symbols. It’s beyond just giving things names, but having an entire relationship to the world that comes through the lens of representation. It is debatable as to whether humans are “hard-wired” for symbolic thought or if it developed as a cultural change or adaptation, but, say primitivists, the symbolic mode of expression and understanding is limited and its over-dependence leads to objectification, alienation, and a tunnel vision of perception. Many primitivists promote and practice getting in touch with and rekindling dormant or underutilized methods of interaction and cognition, such as touch and smell, as well as experimenting with and developing unique and personal modes of comprehension and expression.[edit]

The Domestication of Life

Domestication, according to primitivists, is the process that civilization uses to indoctrinate and control life according to its logic. The mechanisms of domestication are said to include: taming, breeding, genetically modifying, schooling, caging, intimidating, coercing, extorting, promising, governing, enslaving, terrorizing, murdering, etc. Primitivists say their movement and effects are examined and felt throughout society, enforced through various institutions, rituals, and customs.Primitivists also describe it as the process by which previously nomadic human populations shift towards sedentary or settled existence through agriculture and animal husbandry. They claim that this kind of domestication demands a totalitarian relationship with both the land and the plants and animals being domesticated. They say that whereas in a state of wildness, all life shares and competes for resources, domestication destroys this balance. The domesticated landscape (e.g. pastoral lands/agricultural fields, and to a lesser degree - horticulture and gardening) is seen to necessitate the end of open sharing of the resources that formerly existed; where once “this was everyones’s,” it is now “mine.” Primitivists argue that this notion of ownership laid the foundation for social hierarchy as property and power emerged.To primitivists domestication not only changes the ecology from a free to a totalitarian order, it enslaves the species that are domesticated.[edit]

The Origins and Dynamics of Patriarchy

Primitivists hold that toward the beginning in the shift to civilization, an early product of domestication is patriarchy: the formalization of male domination and the development of institutions which reinforce it. Primitivists say that by creating false gender distinctions and divisions between men and women, civilization, again, creates an “other” that can be objectified, controlled, dominated, utilized, and commodified. They see this as running parallel to the domestication of plants for agriculture and animals for herding, in general dynamics, and also in the specifics like the control of reproduction. Primitivists say that as in other realms of social stratification, roles are assigned to women in order to establish a very rigid and predictable order, beneficial to hierarchy. They claim that woman came to be seen as property, no different than the crops in the field or the sheep in the pasture. Primitivists argue that ownership and absolute control, whether of land, plants, animals, slaves, children, or women, is part of the established dynamic of civilization.Patriarchy, to a primitivist, demands the subjugation of the feminine and the usurpation of nature, propelling us toward total annihilation. They argue further that it defines power, control and dominion over wildness, freedom and life. They say that patriarchal conditioning dictates all of our interactions: with ourselves, our sexuality, our relationships to each other, and our relationship to nature. They claim it severely limits the spectrum of possible experience.[edit]

Division of Labor and Specialization

Primitivists tend to see division of labor and specialization as fundamental and irreconcilable problems, decisive to social relationship within civilization. They see this disconnecting of the ability to care for ourselves and provide for our own needs as a technique of separation and dis-empowerment perpetuated by civilization. Specialization is seen as leading to inevitable inequalities of influence and undermining egalitarian relationships.[edit]

Rejection of Science

Primitivists reject modern, mechanistic science as a method of understanding the world. Science, in the manner it is most often conducted today, is not considered neutral. It is seen as loaded with the motives and assumptions that come out of, and reinforce, civilization.Modern science is understood as attempting to see the world as a collection of separate objects to be observed and understood. In order to accomplish this task the scientist must distance themselves emotionally and physically, to have a one-way channel of information moving from the observed thing to the self, which is defined as not a part of that thing.Primitivists argue that this is a mechanistic view tantamount to being the dominant religion of our time. As science seeks to deal only with the quantitative, primitivists suggest that it does not admit values or emotions. While science claims that only things that are reproducible, predictable and the same for all observers are real and important, primitivists say that reality itself is not reproducible, predictable or the same for all observers.Science is seen by primitivists as only partially considering reality, a criticism made against modern science by many, that of its putative reductionism. Observability, objectifiability, quantifiability, predictability, controllability and uniformity are said to be the methods and goals of science. This, say primitivists, leads to the world view that everything should be objectified, quantified, controlled and in uniform with everything and everyone else. Primitivists also see science as promoting the idea that anomalous experience, anomalous ideas and anomalous people should be cast off or destroyed like imperfectly shaped machine components.[edit]

The Problem of Technology

Primitivists reject modern technology completely. They see it as a complex system involving division of labor, resource extraction, and exploitation for the benefit of those who implement its process. They argue that the interface with and result of technology is always an alienated, mediated, and distorted reality. Technology too, just like science, is seen as not neutral. The values and goals of those who produce and control technology are believed to always be embedded within it.Technology is held to be distinct from simple tools in many regards. A simple tool is considered a temporary usage of an element within our immediate surroundings used for a specific task. Tools are not viewed to involve complex systems which alienate the user from the act. Primitivists claim that implicit in technology is this separation, creating an unhealthy and mediated experience which leads to various forms of authority. Domination is said to increase every time a new “time-saving” technology is created, as primitivists claim it necessitates the construction of more technology to support, fuel, maintain and repair the original technology. It is argued by primitivists that this leads very rapidly to the establishment of a complex technological system that seems to have an existence independent of the humans who created it. Primitivists believe that this system methodically destroys, eliminates, or subordinates the natural world, constructing a world fit only for machines.[edit]

Production and Industrialism

According to primitivists a key component of the modern techno-capitalist structure is industrialism, the mechanized system of production built on centralized power and the exploitation of people and nature. Industrialism cannot exist, they say, without genocide, ecocide, and colonialism. They further say that to maintain it, coercion, land evictions, forced labor, cultural destruction, assimilation, ecological devastation and global trade are accepted as necessary, even benign. Primitivists claim industrialism’s standardization of life objectifies and commodifies it, viewing all life as a potential resource. They see their critique of industrialism as a natural extension of the anarchist critique of the state because they see industrialism as inherently authoritarian.The primitivist argument against industrialism is such: In order to maintain an industrial society, one must set out to conquer and colonize lands in order to acquire (generally) non-renewable resources to fuel and grease the machines. This colonialism is rationalized by racism, sexism, and cultural chauvinism. In the process of acquiring these resources, people must be forced off their land. And in order to make people work in the factories that produce the machines, they must be enslaved, made dependent, and otherwise subjected to the destructive, toxic, degrading industrial system.Primitivists hold that Industrialism cannot exist without massive centralization and specialization. Furthermore, they hold that industrialism demands that resources be shipped from all over the globe in order to perpetuate its existence, and this globalism, they say, undermines local autonomy and self-sufficiency.Finally primitivists contend that it is a mechanistic worldview that is behind industrialism and that this same world-view has justified slavery, exterminations and the subjugation of women.[edit]

Beyond Leftism

Primitivists do not see themselves as part of the Left (see also post-left anarchy). Rather they view the socialist and liberal orientations as bankrupt. Primitivists argue that the Left has proven itself to be a monumental failure in its objectives. The Left, according to primitivists, is a general term and can roughly describe all socialist leanings (from social democrats and liberals to Maoists and Stalinists) which wish to re-socialize “the masses” into a more “progessive” agenda, often using coercive and manipulative approaches in order to create a false “unity” or the creation of political parties. While primitivists understand that the methods or extremes in implementation may differ, the overall push is seen as the same: the institution of a collectivized and monolithic world-view based on morality.[edit]

Against Mass Society

Most anarchists and “revolutionaries" spend a significant portion of their time developing schemes and mechanisms for production, distribution, adjudication, and communication between large numbers of people; in other words, the functioning of a complex society. Primitivists do not accept the premise of global (or even regional) social, political, and economic coordination and interdependence, or the organization needed for their administration. They reject mass society for practical and philosophical reasons. First, they reject the inherent representation necessary for the functioning of situations outside the realm of direct experience (completely decentralized modes of existence). They do not wish to run society or organize a different society.They want a completely different frame of reference. They want a world where each group is autonomous and decides on its own terms how to live, with all interactions based on affinity, free and open, and non-coercive. They want a life which they live, not one which is run.According to primitivists mass society brutally collides not only with autonomy and the individual, but also with the earth. They see it as simply not sustainable (in terms of the resource extraction, transportation, and communication systems necessary for any global economic system) to continue on with, or to provide alternative plans for a mass society.[edit]

Liberation and Organization

Primitivists argue that organizational models only provide us with more of the same. While it is recognized by some primitivists that there might be an occasional good intention, the organizational model is seen as coming from an inherently paternalistic and distrusting mindset which they hold is contradictory to anarchy. Primitivists believe that true relationships of affinity come from a deep understanding of one another through intimate need-based relationships of day-to-day life, not relationships based on organizations, ideologies, or abstract ideas. They say that the organizational model suppresses individual needs and desires for “the good of the collective” as it attempts to standardize both resistance and vision. From parties, to platforms, to federations, primitivists argue that as the scale of projects increase, the meaning and relevance they have for one’s own life decrease.Rather than the familiar organizational model primitivists advocate for the use of informal, affinity-based associations that they claim tend to minimize alienation from decisions and processes, and reduce mediation between our desires and our actions.[edit]

Revolution vs. Reform

As anarchists, primitivists are fundamentally opposed to government, and likewise, any sort of collaboration or mediation with the state (or any institution of hierarchy and control.) This position determines a certain continuity or direction of strategy, historically referred to as revolution. By revolution, primitivists mean the ongoing struggle to alter the social and political landscape in a fundamental way: for anarchists, this means its complete dismantling. The word “revolution” is seen as dependent on the position from which it is directed, as well as what would be termed “revolutionary” activity. Again, for anarchists, this is activity which is aimed at the complete dissolving of power.Reform, on the other hand, is seen as entailing any activity or strategy aimed at adjusting, altering, or selectively maintaining elements of the current system, typically utilizing the methods or apparatus of that system. The goals and methods of revolution, it is argued, cannot be dictated by, nor performed within, the context of the system. For anarchists, revolution and reform invoke incompatible methods and aims, and despite certain approaches, do not exist on a continuum.For primitivists, revolutionary activity questions, challenges, and works to dismantle the entire set-up or paradigm of civilization. Revolution is not seen as a far-off or distant singular event which we build towards or prepare people for, but instead, a life-way or practice of approaching situations.[edit]

Influences

Anarchists contribute to an anti-authoritarian push, which challenges all power on a fundamental level, striving for truly egalitarian relationships and promoting mutual aid communities. Primitivists, however, extend ideas of non-domination to all of life, not just human life, going beyond the traditional anarchist's analysis. From anthropologists, primitivists are informed with a look at the origins of civilization, so as to understand what they are up against and how they got here, to help inform a change in direction. Inspired by the Luddites, primitivists rekindle an anti-technological/industrial direct action orientation. Insurrectionalists infuse a perspective which waits not for the fine-tuning of critique, but identify and spontaneously attack current institutions of civilization.Primitivists claim they owe much to the Situationists, and their critique of the alienating commodity society. Deep ecology informs the primitivist perspective with an understanding that the well-being and flourishing of all life is linked to the awareness of the inherent worth and intrinsic value of the non-human world independent of use value. Primitivists see deep ecology’s appreciation for the richness and diversity of life contribute to the realization that the present human interference with the non-human world is coercive and excessive.Bioregionalists bring the perspective of living within one’s bioregion, and being intimately connected to the land, water, climate, plants, animals, and general patterns of their bioregion. Ecofeminists have contributed to the comprehension of the roots, dynamics, manifestations, and reality of patriarchy, and its effect on the earth, women in particular, and humanity in general. Recently, the separation of humans from the earth (civilization) has probably been articulated most clearly and intensely by eco-feminists.Primitivists have been profoundly influenced by the various indigenous cultures and earth-based peoples throughout history and those who still currently exist. While primitivists attempt to learn and incorporate sustainable techniques for survival and healthier ways of interacting with life, they see it as important not to flatten or generalize native peoples and their cultures, and to respect and attempt to understand their diversity without co-opting cultural identities and characteristics. Primitivists also feel that it is important to understand that all humans have come from earth-based peoples forcibly removed from our connections with the earth, and therefore have a place within anti-colonial struggles.They are also inspired by the feral, those who have escaped domestication and have re-integrated with the wild. And, of course, the wild beings which make up the Earth. It is important to remember that, while many anarcho-primitivists draw influence from similar sources, anarcho-primitivism is something very personal to each who identify or connect with these ideas and actions.[edit]

Rewilding and Reconnection

For most primitivist anarchists rewilding and reconnecting with the earth is a life project. They state that it should not be limited to intellectual comprehension or the practice of primitive skills, but instead, that it is a deep understanding of the pervasive ways in which we are domesticated, fractured, and dislocated from our selves, each other and the world. Rewilding is understood as having a physical component which involves reclaiming skills and developing methods for a sustainable co-existence, including how to feed, shelter and heal ourselves with the plants, animals and materials occurring naturally in our bioregions. It is also said to include the dismantling of the physical manifestations, apparatus, and infrastructure of civilization.Rewilding is described as having an emotional component, which involves healing ourselves and each other from what are perceived as the 10,000 year-old wounds, learning how to live together in non-hierarchical and non-oppressive communities, and de-constructing the domesticating mindset in our social patterns. To the primitivist “rewilding includes prioritizing direct experience and passion over mediation and alienation, re-thinking every dynamic and aspect of reality, connecting with our feral fury to defend our lives and to fight for a liberated existence, developing more trust in our intuition and being more connected to our instincts, and regaining the balance that has been virtually destroyed after thousands of years of patriarchal control and domestication. Rewilding is the process of becoming uncivilized.” (from the "What Is Green Anarchy" primer) [4].[edit]

The earth has a population of more than 6.5 billion people. However, if everyone lived as a hunter-gather, according to critics, the earth would be able to support many fewer people. Critics are curious as to the fate of the other billions that will be left without food if such a way of life was adopted.Critics note that recent research indicates that certain hunter-gatherer societies actually had higher incidences of violence than societies with a state.[5]. Other research also indicates that primitive societies like the !Kung were not as affluent as previously thought. The !Kung instead had a life expectancy of thirty years, high infant mortality, a workweek at least equal to that of today, and periodic starvation with marked decrease in body weight.Other critics believe that solving social problems, e.g. oppression, torture, war, or disease would be more difficult without books, medical instruments (a form of technology), and the social structures of civilization.Another major line of criticism stems from the fact that very few (if any) primitivist philosophers choose to live in primitive societies themselves, and often make use of many of the same forms of technology that they believe should be abandoned. Indeed, many primitivists live in quasi-collectivist communities within developed nations, which, in turn, greatly benefit from the healthcare and technological infrastructure of the surrounding "civilization."Some posit that it would be implausible or even impossible for a world population of over 6 billion to adapt to social organizations limited to bands of 30-40 people. Even after a massive Nuclear holocaust it is hard for many to imagine that civilization would not quickly reorganize. This criticism against primitivism suggests that primitivism could only be attained temporarily, and under scenarios which most people would consider to be nightmarish dystopias.Because some primitivists have extended their critique of symbolic culture to language itself, Georgetown University professor Mark Lance describes primitivism as "literally insane, for proper communication is necessary to create within the box a means to destroy the box." [6]Some notable critics of primitivism include Michael Albert, Brian Sheppard, Andrew Flood, Stewrat Home and, especially, Murray Bookchin, as seen in his polemical work entitled "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism," as well as the conflict between his more traditionally socialist "Social Ecology" and the more radical "Deep Ecology" of many primitivists. Sheppard asserts that anarcho-primitivism is not a form of anarchism at all. In Anarchism Vs. Primitivism he says: "In recent decades, groups of quasi-religious mystics have begun equating the primitivism they advocate (rejection of science, rationality, and technology often lumped together under a blanket term "technology") with anarchism. In reality, the two have nothing to do with each other." Flood agrees with this assertion and points out that primitivism appears to clash with the fundamental goal of anarchism, the creation of a free mass society.[7][edit]

Last March, the food-safety organization GMO Free Mendocino did something no group had ever done: It ushered through a law banning genetically engineered crops and livestock.

It was a David-thrashes-Goliath victory. Opponents of the legislation, led by the agricultural trade group CropLife America, outspent the anti-GMO activists by a nearly 10-1 ratio. But GMO Free Mendocino had a secret weapon: a film, then a work in progress, called The Future of Food.

The new documentary, created by Deborah Koons Garcia, uses archival footage and interviews with farmers and agriculture experts to argue that GMO foods are jeopardizing our food safety. During the past 10 years, the film tells us, genetically engineered crops have infected our food supply and undermined cultivation methods that have been refined over thousands of years.

The Future of Food lays out a detailed case against genetically engineered crops. Exploring a gamut of issues from so-called suicide seeds to lax food-safety enforcement laws, and from the controversy over patented genes to infected cornfields, the film is a comprehensive and chilling example of anti-GMO rhetoric.

GMO Free Mendocino spokesman Doug Mosel described The Future of Food as a major factor in the passage of Measure H, which banned the use of GMO farming within Mendocino County, California.

"The Future of Food could be the Fahrenheit 9/11 of the genetically engineered food battle," Mosel said. The film is currently touring festivals and other events, including an upcoming screening in San Francisco.

Garcia, Jerry Garcia's third and final wife, has been interested in the ways plants can be mutated since childhood. At 15, she won a science fair award for an experiment involving irradiated plants, and she has followed the evolution of genetic engineering for years.

"My goal was to make a film that gave the average person a clear understanding of how genetic engineering works, from the cellular level to the global level," Garcia said. "I'm hoping this film can be a combination of Silent Spring and The Battle of Algiers. Once you see it you'll feel compelled to act, even if that means just changing the kind of food you eat."

Though The Future of Food is not intended as a two-sides-to-the-story analysis, Garcia said she requested interviews from representatives at Monsanto, the multinational seed and pesticide giant that is driving the genetically engineered food movement. She did not receive a response.

Perhaps Monsanto is trying to keep a low profile. The company has suffered a string of well-publicized setbacks to its genetically engineered crop initiatives in recent years, including closure of its GMO wheat project in May.

According to agriculture expert Chuck Benbrook, Monsanto and other biotech agriculture companies are "retrenching -- reducing their research, reducing projections for profits, watching the range of viable applications shrinking."

Benbrook served in the Carter and Reagan administrations before becoming executive director of the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences. In his various positions, he watched as biotech companies rushed products to market. The first GMO foods reached shelves in 1997.

Though scientists were initially supportive to the point of being myopic -- Benbrook described early reports from the National Academy as "unadulterated boosterism" -- biotech foods today look less promising than they did even a few years ago. According to Benbrook, genetic engineering has failed to solve the problems advocates hoped it would. And, he added, food-safety concerns remain unresolved.

"The biotech industry is beginning to recognize that there are lots of reasons why it's hard to move genes across boundaries," Benbrook said. "Scientists have found ways around the natural protections, but there are really good reasons for them being there, and we violate them at some cost."

For five-sixths of the problems that genetic engineering promises to address, Benbrook added, genetic solutions are not necessary.

GMO companies are also finding increased resistance on the legal front. In April, Vermont became the first state to require registration and labeling of genetically modified products. According to one anti-GMO site, nearly 100 towns in New England have approved some sort of anti-GMO legislation.

Since the Mendocino law was signed, Garcia said as many as a dozen other California municipalities have drawn up similar legislation.

"The Future of Food has already helped change policy," Garcia said. "I think it is possible to make California GE-free, and it's exciting to think that the film could have some role in that."

Terminator technology refers to plants that have been genetically modified to render sterile seeds at harvest – it is also called Genetic Use Restriction Technology or GURTS. Terminator technology was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the United States government to prevent farmers from saving and re-planting harvested seed. Terminator has not yet been commercialized or field-tested but tests are currently being conducted in greenhouses in the United States.

“Terminator is a direct assault on farmers and indigenous cultures and on food sovereignty. It threatens the well-being of all rural people, primarily the very poorest.” - Rafael Alegría of Via Campesina, an organization representing over 10 million peasant farmers worldwide.

Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURTs) is the “official” name for Terminator technology that is used at the United Nations and by scientists. It refers to a general category of technologies that, in their design, provide a mechanism to switch previously introduced genes on or off, using external inducers like chemicals or physical stimuli (e.g. heat shock). This mechanism allows for restricted use or performance of transgenes. There are two main categories of GURTs, namely trait-related or T-GURTs and variety-related or V-GURTs. Whilst T-GURTs aims to control the use of traits such as insect resistance, stress tolerance or production of nutrients, V-GURTs aims to control reproductive processes that will result in seed sterility, thus affecting the viability of the whole variety. (V-GURTs is a concept, with many different potential designs.) The ability to switch the GURTs mechanism on or off externally enables the producer to exercise control either over traits or the viability of seeds (Source: EcoNexus www.econexus.info)

Purpose: The Ban Terminator Campaign seeks to promote government bans on Terminator technology at the national and international levels, and supports the efforts of civil society, farmers, Indigenous peoples and social movements to campaign against it.

Strategy: The international de facto moratorium on Terminator technology at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is under attack. Two upcoming meetings of the CBD where Terminator is on the agenda – the Working Group on Article 8 (j) in Granada, Spain January 23-27 and the 8th Conference of the Parties to the CBD in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil March 20-31 2006 – offer important opportunities to strengthen the moratorium. The build-up to these meetings is also an important opportunity to encourage governments to establish national prohibitions on Terminator technology – just as Brazil and India have done. Corporations will not stop efforts to commercialize Terminator until governments prohibit the technology.

Origins: The Ban Terminator Campaign was initiated in response to recent efforts by governments and corporations to push for Terminator field trials and commercialization. Despite widespread opposition, in February 2005, the Canadian government attempted to overturn the CBD’s international de facto moratorium on Terminator technology The Ban Terminator Campaign was formed in response, following discussions initiated by Canadian-based civil society organizations (ETC group, Inter Pares, National Farmers Union, and USC Canada).

History: In 1998, ETC group (then RAFI) discovered Terminator patents. In 1999, in response to the avalanche of public opposition, two of the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations, Monsanto and AstraZeneca (now Syngenta), publicly vowed not to commercialize Terminator seeds. In 2000, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a de facto moratorium on Terminator seeds. As a result, many people believed that the crisis had passed, and the issue faded from public view. Unfortunately, Terminator is still being developed and is now being heavily promoted. Click here to read Statements Against Terminator or see documents at www.etcgroup.org

Webcast of Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, December 10, 2003 at the Vancouver Public Library.

Percy Schmeiser has been fighting lawsuits by Monsanto, a Bio Tech giant and major producer of Genetically Modified seeds, for several years. Still looking for justice, he takes his David versus Goliath appeal to the Supreme Court in January. Monsanto successfully sued him for patent infringement after “Roundup Ready” canola was found on his land — not because he planted it, but through seed cross-contamination.He spoke to a standing-room only crowd in Vancouver . . .

PETA's investigator was hired by Covance as a technician and worked inside the company's primate testing lab in Vienna, Virginia, from April 26, 2004, to March 11, 2005. The investigator's video documentation inside the lab started on July 30, 2004, and what she documented-the terror, sadness, sickness, injuries, suffering, and deaths of monkeys from the wild and Covance's own breeding facilities—will leave even the staunchest supporter of animal testing ashamed and all good people clamoring for justice. It will also make it perfectly clear that government oversight of labs such as Covance is a farce.

At Covance, animal technicians called the head veterinarian "Mr. Let's Wait and See." The primate staff—even those who were, themselves, often cruel to the monkeys—complained repeatedly about a young monkey with a broken arm being left untreated in his cage for four days. Apparently, "Mr. Let's Wait and See," the head vet at Covance, didn't know what to do about the bone break, and so he waited for a junior veterinarian to return from her time off. The junior vet immediately ordered the animal euthanized as the break was too severe to repair. She discovered and disclosed that the head veterinarian had given the baby monkey a drug that had little more effect than that of an aspirin for his unimaginable pain.

Other Documented Horrors for Animals at Covance

Striking and choking "uncooperative" monkeys

Screaming curses at frightened, sick monkeys

Slamming monkeys into their cages after they've had dosing tubes rammed down their throats

Hosing down cages with monkeys still inside, soaking the animals

A loose monkey terrorized by a technician who slams cages into walls to scare the animal out of hiding

Monkeys with chronic rectal prolapses-painful protrusions of the intestines through the rectum-resulting from constant stress and diarrhea

Monkeys who died horribly in tests for a drug company-the veterinarian was forbidden to examine them or provide any treatment, including euthanasia

Small monkeys dosed with large tubes forced up their nostrils and down into their stomachs, causing choking, gagging, and daily bloody noses

On her first day at the laboratory where she would work for the next 11 months, PETA’s investigator watched workers practicing gavaging monkeys—a procedure that can cause throat lacerations, gagging, and vomiting. She wrote: “All of the monkeys resisted and tried to hold onto their cages while screaming. ‘A’ took the plastic tubing and fed it down the monkey’s nose as she squirmed and squealed. Her eyes shifted from ‘A’ to the tubing being shoved up her nose. One monkey was so terrified that he vomited while ‘A’ was putting the tube in his nose. ‘R’ told ‘A’ to ‘keep going’ and ‘A’ continued to shove the tube up the monkey’s nose and down his throat while vomit was dripping off his face. Once the monkeys had seen the procedure done, they all became fearful. Several spun in their cages, one did continuous somersaults, and some hid in the back of their cages. One of the last monkeys squirmed while ‘A’ put the tube in his nose. Again, ‘R’ told ‘A’ to ‘keep going,’ so ‘A’ pushed the tubing further until there was blood dripping out of the monkey’s nose. ‘A’ had hit the monkey’s sinus cavity.” The last stop that day was the "post life" lab where the new employees were shown the "cups" room. "I was told that cups labeled with yellow tags were animals who were killed, while the numerous cups labeled with red tags were 'unexpected deaths.' We observed a technician take an animal's spinal cord and remove pieces to be analyzed under a microscope. He simply discarded the unneeded body parts into a plastic bag."

Within days of being hired, PETA's investigator and other trainees were shown a recent TV exposé of the company's German facility. An undercover investigator there had caught Covance workers screaming obscenities at terrified monkeys, roughly throwing them back into cages after conducting stress-filled and painful procedures, mocking them, and forcing them to dance to loud music. The trainees were told that Covance was trying to bring legal charges against those who took the video, and the trainer assured the new staff that what appeared on the tape might look cruel to a "regular person" but that the scenes were "typical" and only shocking to people who don't work with monkeys. The PETA investigator wrote in her log notes: "[Two] current employees said that you have to be dominant when trying to catch the monkeys because they do not want to be caught. [And the trainer] said that everyone probably dances to the music with the monkeys while holding them and that the monkeys enjoy it."

Instead of telling the new hires that they must never treat monkeys in that way, Covance excused the behavior. As our investigator would learn, neither supervisors nor those above them ever stopped the cruel treatment of the monkeys now caught on tape in its Northern Virginia facility by PETA.

Transported to Purgatory and Back Again to Hell

On October 8, 2004, PETA's investigator climbed into a van with other Covance employees and headed toward the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) with 20 monkeys in small cages. Covance staff had been "acclimating" these monkeys to restraint boxes for the past several weeks for this very day.

From the investigator's July 22, 2004, log notes:

"[J] and several other technicians were doing 'box acclimation' with the rhesus macaques tonight. The boxes will be used in the study that will irradiate the monkeys for [drug company name]. It is hard to explain the sight of these magnificent monkeys being restrained in these boxes. The monkeys wear collars that slip into a notch at the top of the box (the box is made of clear Plexiglas). Knobs are then used to tighten the collar in place and the monkey is forced back into the box. The monkeys' arms and legs are then tied and bound to the sides of the box and a Plexiglas plate is tightened around their torsos. It looks like a medieval torture device. Some of the monkeys thrashed and screamed-trying to free themselves from the box, while others went limp and their eyes seemed to glaze over as they stared into space in an attempt to block out the terrifying reality of what they were experiencing."

The day for irradiation arrives. The drug company is testing an anti-radiation drug, hoping to cash in on fears of nuclear terrorism just as many other companies are cashing in by conducting experiments, funded by the government, into bioterrorism and its possible treatments.

From the investigator's October 8, 2004, log notes:

"Today was the day that we took the [drug company name] rhesus monkeys to AFRRI to be radiated. In the morning, several of us came in and got the monkeys 'prepared.' I shaved the back of their legs ? as well as their femoral area. Some of the monkeys looked so horrified as I shaved all of their gorgeous hair off-not knowing what was going on or what was coming next. Each monkey was then weighed and put in their crate. The crates were extremely small—approximately 3 feet wide, 2 feet tall, and 2 feet deep, and this area was split in two so that two monkeys were actually transported in each box. The inside of the boxes was very dark with only a small metal area with holes poked in it on each side of the crate.

"After all the monkeys were loaded into their crates, they were taken downstairs and loaded onto a truck. The noise was deafening, and I'm sure the monkeys were scared to death. The monkeys were transported in the truck while we followed behind in a van.

"When we arrived at AFRRI, we all went through security clearance and they even checked our truck. The truck with the monkeys in it was pulled up to a loading dock. We took two monkeys at a time out of their crates and put them inside of the restraint boxes. They were then put on a dolly and carted around some hallways until we got to a room with large steel doors on one side. As I looked through the doors, there was an enormous open space which dropped approximately four stories below. At the bottom was a small, skinny rectangular-type pool with one small table across the middle. Two men came and took the monkeys from me and carted them to a small open elevator that was lowered down into the abyss. The men took the monkeys and placed them on the table above the pool, facing away from each other in their restraint boxes so that they had nothing to look at but this enormous deep hole.

"The men came back up into the office and shut the steel doors. There was a man sitting at a desk with a computer and several monitors. He showed me that you could see the monkeys down in the pit. Depending on the weight and body mass of the monkeys, they were radiated for different amounts of time, and a large rod rose out of the water and there was a loud machine sound. Each group of two was left alone for approximately five minutes inside this room, restrained, unable even to see their friend, with piercing noises and the large rod rising out of the water. From the fuzzy camera picture, I could see the looks of fear on the monkeys' faces and will never forget how scared and helpless they looked.

"The rhesus were brought back up and carted back to the truck and put in their boxes. At different intervals, they were pulled out of the boxes for either dosing or blood collection. When we were finally finished and made it back home, the monkeys had to have even more blood collected until they were finally left alone.

"I will never forget the experience of going to AFRRI and seeing these poor animals be irradiated. The fear on their faces through each of the phases of the day will never leave my mind—especially watching their little fearful faces on the TV screen as they were irradiated against their will, unable to do anything—not even move."

Cruel Tests for Profit

The "Grease Pit"

For one year, 32 monkeys were gavaged orally at Covance. The study was conducted for a major pharmaceutical company and was nicknamed "grease pit" by the staff because the test substance was thick and greasy. Every day for 365 days, the monkeys in the grease pit test had thick tubes shoved down their throats so the tarry substance could be delivered into their stomachs. Naturally the poor animals had to be torn out of their cages for this daily abuse and many tried as best they could to keep their mouths shut tight. But there was always the "bite bar" ...From the investigator's log:

"I dosed grease pit today while J and T caught and R did the bite bar. A girl from the rodent department came in to watch some of the dosing. When one of the male monkeys, Ninja, would not open his mouth for dosing, R hit him in the face with the bite bar several times so hard it was audible, and she also used the bite bar to try and pry his mouth open. T told her, 'You're gonna kill him!' to which R responded, 'I'll ram it down his fucking throat.' As T caught the monkeys, he yelled at them, saying things like 'Dumb fuck,' 'Hold your fucking head up, dick,' and 'You little asshole.'"On October 26, 2004, PETA's investigator was told by her coworker that over the weekend, J had aspirated a "grease-pit monkey" (put the dosing tube into the monkey's lung instead of his stomach) and that the technicians "held him upside-down and shook him" to see if they could get any of the slimy substance out of his lungs but "only bloody froth came out." It took the animal at least 45 minutes to die.By January 20, 2005, the end of what was surely a long year of suffering for these poor animals was at hand. All of the grease pit monkeys were sedated and driven to another building in an unheated golf cart in freezing temperatures where they were bled to death in stainless steel sinks, their thighs cut open by the necropsy technicians and their body parts sorted.

Death or Nothing

On December 13, 2004, 10 cynomolgus monkeys were given the first dose of an unknown substance. The Covance technicians were told by the study director that the client expected deaths but our investigator was in disbelief over what happened during the following two hellish weeks. The monkeys were stuck inside large plastic restraint tubes and were dosed every day for 14 days by a 10-minute infusion into a leg vein. After having been infused with the substance, the monkeys were bled at five minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and one, two, four, six, eight, and 12 hours post-dose. Each time they were bled, the frightened and desperately sick animals were yanked from the cages and stuffed into the clear plastic body tubes. Within several hours of the first dose, monkey #23, in the high dose group, was ataxic—laboratory jargon for no motor coordination. The following day, both of the mid- and high-dose groups were ataxic, with monkey #22 hunched and inactive. By day 3, the technicians handling the dosing were told that the client does not want any veterinary requests entered. The technicians were allowed to enter the animals' suffering as "observations" into the computer system but they were not allowed to ask for veterinary care. Monkey #23 stopped using the leg into which the substance was infused and soon necrotic (dead) tissue surrounded the injection site. His leg was swollen all the way down to his foot. So they dosed him in his other leg which led to the same hideous suffering. The technicians were ordered to dose #23 and any other monkey whose legs became unusable, in his tail. This poor monkey's tail became necrotic. On December 17, monkey #22 went into convulsions while he was being dosed, and our investigator, against orders, informed the veterinarian—to no avail. They had to enter the convulsions into the computer system as an "observation." On December 21, 2004, according to our investigator's log notes, one of the female monkeys went into convulsions inside her restraint tube and another female began vomiting inside the tube where she was left for the entire 10-minute dosing and the five-minute blood draw. She was returned to her cage covered in vomit. Our investigator's coworker told her that K, the study director, did not come in at all over the weekend as he had promised to do, so our investigator went to speak with J, the toxicologist, to tell her the horrible condition of the monkeys. Nothing was done. The monkeys were killed two days after Christmas, except for #23, who was killed slightly earlier than the others because his legs were so necrotic.

In a conversation on January 3, 2005, the junior veterinarian at Covance told our investigator that the study director had asked her to look at the animals right before they were killed so that there would be a record of their having been looked at by a vet, but as for allowing technicians or veterinarians to ask for treatment during the 14 days, she said, "We weren't allowed to! All of those sheets that J [the toxicologist] sent—I was not allowed to look at those animals. It was either death or nothing."