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Recently an article appeared with the headline: “Ecoterrorism? GMO Papaya Trees Cut Down on Big Island.” As could be expected, diverse comments appeared below the story, the first from a paid spokesperson for conventional monocultural agriculture and the GMO lobby, who accused “these people” (GMO opponents) of being responsible for the vandalism.

Big Island GMO opponents are largely senior citizens, for whom getting out to testify at a County Council meeting is a pretty exciting day – hardly the types likely to creep under cover of darkness, wielding machetes. In fact, the very idea that the GMO opponents are the ones behind the vandalism is absurd to the point of being amusing.

I pondered this exciting new word “ecoterrorism,” and who first used it.

The term “ecoterrorism” is of relatively recent coinage. Attributed to various far-right-wing anti-environmental sources, notably appearing in 2001 with the Orwellian “Patriot Act.” Concurrently, “domestic terrorism” was now deemed to be a grave and growing threat.

What we see today is that any grassroot organization of citizens that challenges the military/intelligence/corporate status quo, in any way, becomes a suspect. They are looked upon as potential domestic terrorists and thus worthy of surveillance, infiltration, and COINTELPRO:

“COINTELPRO (an acronym for COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.” ( Wikipedia definition)

For example, in recent years the FBI has exposed alleged terrorist bomb plots by so-called “homegrown terrorists.” On closer examination, we find that the FBI agents who infiltrated the groups were the ones who designed the plots, provided the materials and everything necessary for the young, gullible, poorly educated patsies to go ahead and attempt to execute the dastardly deeds.

This is what came to my mind when I first saw the ecoterrorism headline. To me, this sounded like something the globalist chemical weapon companies would hire their mercenary pals to perpetrate in order to give local activists a black eye as the County Council deliberates on whether to ban GMOs or not.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary online, examples of ecoterrorism include the U.S. military’s use of the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Monsanto gave us Agent Orange, and it’s legacy of millions of damaged victims. Just like they are now telling us that GMOs are safe for people to eat, they said then that Agent Orange was safe for people.

Environmentally destructive tactics are typical of those whose pursuit of profit and power is ruthless in the extreme. The word “terrorist” is generally applied to whoever is one’s enemy. In this case, it appears that the enemy has become the American public – who, by and large, are not interested in consuming GMO products of any kind, and wish to see them labeled, so they can be avoided at all costs. And cost more it will, to avoid the ubiquitous GMO corn-based ingredients found in the vast majority of processed foods.

It was a mistake for the government to allow the public to be experimented on without their consent, but
this wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. The public is always the last to know, however. As globalist corporations usurp our democracy and assume the power of nation states, crafting their own trade treaties (think: Trans Pacific Partnership) without Congressional involvement, without any representatives of the people at the table, we will see how they circumvent local laws and ordinances designed to protect the people and the land.

We must wonder – who are the real ecoterrorists? The globalist corporations destroying the environment in their pursuit of profit, or the American citizens who are standing up to them? One might argue that GMOs violate the Geneva Protocol, created as they were by the same chemical weapons makers who gave us Agent Orange, especially since the long-term effects of these man-made organisms are unknown at this point.

About the author: Vicki Vierra is an artist, soap-maker, and gardener in Keaau, Hawaii. Her work is in collections around the world, including the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Art in Public Places collection.

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