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The Giant Activist Elephant in the Room

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
Is it not time to target, laser-like, the major problems that throw a shadow across the threshold of all scientific, medical, and agricultural research and development?

How do we stop the patenting of organisms? How do we put caps on the absurdly high fees the FDA requires for clinical trials, effectively ousting anyone but the giants? How do we put caps on the profit margins of drugs and medical services? How do we disallow the insurance industry to effectively practice medicine without a license? How do we turn a posse of industries that should by their nature be not-for-profit away from the scandalously usurious scheme they've invented themselves around?

I believe an important step towards effective science and medical research is to rescind the permission to patent organisms. I'd like to see them all retroactively rescinded.
What we are seeing now, and have seen increasingly since 1980, is a direct result of this scrambling for ownership of things that should not be owned by anybody.

I haven't a clue how to even begin such a thing. Maybe someone here does.
 

pamb

Senior Member
Messages
168
Location
Edmonton, AB, Canada
Such a big question Leela. I only hope that some of the slow awakening happening now re: the results of unchecked capitalism will impact the whole healthcare field. I'm in my 50's now and if we see some change in my lifetime I'll be grateful. So many political things needing to be done, so little energy... thankfully many are asking the questions you ask, and eventually some impact will be made. I wonder what kind of rock bottom we need to reach though, before real change happens?
 

jen1177

Senior Member
Messages
103
Location
Arizona
I totally agree. No one should be able to own knowledge. All knowledge should be shared publicly. This would mean no patents at all for anything.
I think the only way this could be done would be to do away with money. Which doesn't really exist at all. It's just a concept in our minds. There's no reason that we can't do everything we do everyday exactly as we do it now only without money. Money ruins everything.

Since doing away with money will never happen...the only improvement I can see happening to the patent process is that they could put more restrictions on who can get a patent. Something like...if you were already paid a salary for your months/years of work on developing some kind of new invention...then you've already been paid and have no need for a patent. Whereas someone who comes up with a great idea simply because they have a gift for imagination, they didn't get paid to come up with it, so they should be able to get a patent for their idea.

Hmmmm...maybe the solution is pre-emptive patents? We can brainstorm all the possible new organisms that corporations would likely want to have scientists create and pre-emptively take out patents on all of them. We would own the ideas of them. I don't know all the laws about these things but I think the corporations would have to pay US to use the organisms. That would cut into their profit margins.
That's the only idea I got. It would be quite a project. A ton of work.

Oh, and almost forgot to mention...the only thing more offensive than patenting an organism is the fact that people think it's OK to mess with genes and species and create new organisms. They're living things and humans have no right to mess with them.
 

maddietod

Senior Member
Messages
2,859
Great thread. I posted the youtube to my facebook page - he's hit the nail on the head.
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
Even just reading the latest summaries and minutes on
http://occupywallst.org/
and
http://nycga.cc/

inspires me and restores my faith that a hugely diverse group of people can spontaneously organise themselves in a loving, fully democratic,
fully empowering process. I see something going on here of a nature and on a scale I have not witnessed in my lifetime.
 

Ember

Senior Member
Messages
2,115
I see something going on here of a nature and on a scale I have not witnessed in my lifetime.

I'm so grateful that a friend is taking me to the rally. I may not be able to march, but I can add another warm body. I wouldn't miss it for the world!
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
Hi Leela, Hi All,

I'm in middle of watching an interview Charlie Rose did with Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. They discuss his recently released book, which touches on some of the topics raised in this thread. So thought I would post a link here, since he has some very interesting things to say:

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity

Best, Wayne

Beautiful, Wayne, thank you. Clearly and eloquently articulated.
 

currer

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Hi Leela,

I wanted to go to the London demo but unfortunately was too ill.

However 2,000 people turned up to demonstrate in support of the Wall Street demonstrators so it was a great success.

There has been an absolute news blackout about this on the BBC. You would not know, if you listened to the mainstream media in Britain, that these demonstrations are going on.

I find this the most frightening thing of all.
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
Hi Leela,

I wanted to go to the London demo but unfortunately was too ill.

However 2,000 people turned up to demonstrate in support of the Wall Street demonstrators so it was a great success.

There has been an absolute news blackout about this on the BBC. You would not know, if you listened to the mainstream media in Britain, that these demonstrations are going on.

I find this the most frightening thing of all.

Same here currer. WHat little news is put on is spun towards the small amount of police violence, and to the "unorganised hippe" angle.
That's what so cool about the livestreaming, which I linked to above, and whihc has expanded now to a global network of streaming channels
at

http://occupystream.com/

This is the best way to really grok the beauty and truth of this living movement of collective energy--right from the ground.
 

Ember

Senior Member
Messages
2,115
We were between 4,000 and 5,000 in Vancouver. I found a quiet spot. As Doug Ward reports:

Amid the din of speeches and drumming, about 20 people, mostly Buddhists, sat in one corner of the lawn and meditated in silence. "This is called 'Occupy the Present Moment,'" said Brian Williams, a meditation instructor and therapist in Vancouver. "Its a meditation group bringing mindfulness and kindness to what people are doing here today. And I think this protest is timely and it's something that is happening globally."

The rest of the gathering was considerably noisier! Thanks Wayne and leela, for the links.
 

Wonko

Senior Member
Messages
1,467
Location
The other side.
Newsnight (BBC) has just done a 15 minute item on it - unfortunately they decided to use Michael Moore as a "spokesperson" for the movement and TBH he made them look rediculous.