Subject: USA: Anti GE Protest Sept 23 in SF Big Success
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 22:45:39 -0400
Please post this anywhere:
1st Major U.S. Protest Against Genetic Engineering A Big Success !!
Thanks so so much to all who attended the GE Protest in San Francisco at the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange (and to those who could not but kept the faith!) !!! We got a lot of attention from 11 AM- 1 PM Thurday Sept. 23. By all standards it was very successful, educational and fun! We gave away more than 1500 informative anti-GE and "Get your investments out of GE" flyers, had hundreds of people stop, listen and watch, stayed friends with the security guards and SFPD, got into a number of media, pulled off the play "Who's Been Getting In My Genes?" with grace and style (yeah to The Genetic Manipulators!) , had great speakers, listened to inspiring music, and gave away tasty organic food to many appreciative investment folks enjoying lunch.
More than 100 people came out to specifically be in the rally and lots more stayed around when they learned what we were doing. We made many new friends and impressed quite a few people including the S.F. head of the EPA, who was there undercover to learn more about GE issues.. Turns out she has something to do with regulating GMO's in the U.S. Hopefully she heard our message clearly. Many stockbrokers and investors picked up our info and stopped to listen. The dumping of the GE corn and the clean up by our Bio Hazard Team was a great photo op. The S.F. Corn Party! The media liked our colorful costumes and the message about GE was heard loud and clear! Congratulations to US!
Thanks to all who attended and/or helped including:
The Genetic Manipulator (GM) Players !!! (14 folks)
All of the Great Speakers: Monica Moore, Rabbi Natan Siegel, Tom Van
Dyke, Zea Sonnabend, Zen Center, Amigo Cantisano
Bear Dyken (musician)
David ? and Greg Anton (musicians)
Brian Auger (logistics and police relations)
Bob Barsotti (negotiated with the SFPD and donated use of the PA system)
C.A. Reyner (logistics, signs and GM Player)
Peter Rudnick (truck driver extrordinaire!)
Kathleen and ? from Veritable Vegetable (coordinated, trucked and
distributed the food)
David Kupfer (food donations, speaker appearances, GM player)
Joanne Baumgartner (media contacts and GM Player)
Zea Sonnabend (coordinator and GM player)
Janet Zeller (media contacts and speaker contacts)
Julie Ostoich (signs)
Brian Baker (Play author)
Ken McCormick (Play author)
Tierra Cantisano (signs)
Guy Meyer (photographer; posting photos @ www.lifesignsphoto.com)
and anybody else I forgot!!!
Thanks to the organic food donors:
Good Humus Farm
Full Belly Farm
Pavich Family Farms
Wildwood Natural Foods
River Dog Farm
Live Earth
Veritable Vegetable
Rainbow Valley
Girard Farm
Media Coverage: We had a good turnout of media including KPIX television, Bay TV, KPFA, KGO AM, National Public Radio, National Radio Project, German Public Radio, SF Chronicle, Bay Guardian and others
We got interviewed by all of the above. Additional interviews were given to KVMR (Nevada City), KMUD (Garberville), KZYX (Boonville), KSFO (San Francisco).
I heard coverage on KGO (S.F. AM), the number one radio station in the Bay Area, twice in the drive time news, where we were positioned against the California Farm Bureau, who said: "There"s no problem..all this stuff has been throughly tested by Universities and Government." Then he implied we were connected with the sabotage at UC Davis! I got one of the pieces on tape.
We got excellent coverage on KPFA (Berkeley FM) with good details from the rally and a classic rebuttal from Monsanto, about how they were saving the Earth! I have this on tape.
We got a very short piece on KPIX (CBS Channel 5 in S.F.) which had good images of the Layla the Ladybug, the weird corn and somebody in the yellow "Biohazard" suit. The closing shot was the "Biohazard sign"! I got this on video tape too. The reporter from KPIX (who shops at Whole Foods and is a supporter; did anybody get her name?) is going to do a bigger piece on GE foods and promised to include more of the footage along with contacting us for more info. Could people in the Bay Area watch for this?
The Bay TV cameraman said that they too are getting footage for an upcoming feature. Bay Area people please keep your eyes out for this too!
Tom Abate, the Biotechnology writer from S.F. Chronicle, is running a story on the protest in the Monday, Sept. 27 issue. Please watch for this in the biz section.
We can't exactly claim responsibility for this but, the stock market had it's two worst days of the year on Thursday and Friday! GMO stocks went down substantially! Monsanto and Novartis are way down from a year ago!
Please report if you saw or heard any media coverage of the protest. Please pass this e mail on to anyone who you think might want to know about it.
OFFER: If people in other areas want to organize any protest events on GE I will gladly help them in any way that we can, including details of what worked and what did not. We could even loan you the costumes and script of the play, if you'll take care of the stuff, return it promptly and pay the shipping charges (about 4 good size boxes). E mail me or call (530) 268-6563; Fax: 530-268-6705
Next Event: The GM Players are performing "Who's Been Getting In My Genes? at the Hoes Down Harvest Festival in Guinda, CA on Saturday October 2. Contact me for more info on this great event, held on Full Belly Farm. (GM Players: A seprate e mail is coming soon about the Hoes Down event; look for it)
We are also considering more protest actions at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Calgene, California State Capitol and others. We are going to wait on these until we can get some famous people involved to increase media coverage and impact. If you have any connections with anyone famous who you think might help us please get a hold of me soon. We want to build momemtum on this. Please help us out!
The trouble with the gene pool is there's no life guard!
Best to all!
Amigo Cantisano orgamigo@jps.net