Modern Spy Stories - The Corn War Replaces the Cold War

[What Would Jesus Do?]

This is so mundane it really makes me yearn for the Cold War. And yet it's interesting in its own way.

This is a long article about catching Chinese industrial spies trying to smuggle genetically engineered corn seeds out of the country - and the lengths to which and the reasons for going so far into our anti-spy and anti-terrorism bag of tricks just over some corn seeds.

I know, I know, it's too long. But read some of it.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/...ter - 8/17/2015&utm_term=TNR Daily Newsletter

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

 

[TJ8869]

We've come a long way since the days when Squanto showed the Pilgrims how to use dead fish to fertilize their corn seeds.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

There are elements of this story that remind me of the fight over life-saving drugs. On the one hand intellectual property and huge profits; on the other, people maimed, stunted or dying because they can't get or afford the drugs (or food, in the corn case).

Will we undercut the profit motive if we fail to aggressively protect intellectual property? Will we get the R&D to develop drugs (or corn variants) without the profit motive? Are there alternatives that would produce the good products without the deaths, misery and exploitation?

 

[DanL53]

Very interesting article. Good read top to bottom, imo.

 

[torbee]

1. Eat corn
2. Poop corn
3. Pick corn out of poo

4. Profit!

 

[DutchyFunStar]

Tama county! Gonna have to ask back home to see who the farmer was that saw through their BS story.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

You have to love the story about Henry Wallace. This is the way capitalism is supposed to work and the way our dreamers on the right and in the libertarian ranks think it does work these days. Clever thinking, hard work, profits plowed back into the enterprise, cooperation and innovative profit sharing approaches to help convince potential customers.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Interesting that the although the article mentions that Henry Wallace became Secretary of Agriculture it never mentions that he was also Vice President of the US from 1941-1945. Maybe not relevant to the story, but seems odd to leave it out.

 

[DanL53]

The more I learn of Henry A. Wallace the more I like him. And that takes a lot to like considering he Graduated from Iowa State.

 

[cigaretteman]

The more I learn of Henry A. Wallace the more I like him. And that takes a lot to like considering he Graduated from Iowa State.

Yep, and if his advice would have been followed, our relations with the Soviet Union might have been much less antagonistic, and the Cold War might have been avoided.

 

[HawkAttackDial911]

Amazing article. Thanks for the link. So this is what Journalism looks like.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Amazing article. Thanks for the link. So this is what Journalism looks like.

Yep. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get a lot more of that.

In some ways the best thing about Doris Kearns Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit were the parts about that era's muckrakers. We have a few of those today - people like Scahill and Greenwald - but only a few. This article isn't quite in muckraking territory (or is it?) but in its depth and desire to tell the broader story it feels like the sort of thing DKG described.

 

[torbee]

Amazing article. Thanks for the link. So this is what Journalism looks like.

There's a lot of good journalism out there if you know where to look. Unfortunately, daily newspapers have largely lost their way.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

There's a lot of good journalism out there if you know where to look. Unfortunately, daily newspapers have largely lost their way.

I used to get free delivery of a county paper with decent local reporting. It was recently replaced by an all-adds Washington Post supplement.

According to Chomsky there used to be lots of thriving worker/labor newspapers competing with the business newspapers. Now there are only business newspapers. And even many of those are morphing into infotainment rags that outsource for what little news they actually carry.

That wouldn't necessarily be awful if TV and internet took up the slack. But no such luck.