GENETICALLY ALTERED BUSINESS EXECUTIVES

So here we are drinking milk from genetically altered cows and eating genetically altered crops. Who's doing the gene alterations? It's sure not the farmers, who have plenty enough to do with all those chickens to feed, cows to milk, fences to mend and crops to harvest. The sunup to sunrise workday is still in effect for the farmers of this world. The genetic alterers are giant corporations who sell their products to farmers as labor-saving and higher-yielding products. The only thing is, that like corporations everywhere, they seek to dominate markets and give farmers no choice about the seed they buy and the milk they produce.

Farmers must sign agreements with gene-altered seed companies not to re-use the seed each crop produces along with its produce, something farmers have been doing since farming started just after the Stone Age. Even though you buy the seed outright, grow and harvest the crops, you're not allowed to use the resulting new seeds that you grew on your own land. It's right there in the fine print of the sales contract. And if you don't heed the fine print, these giant corporations employ small armies of investigators and lawyers to sue your farming butt into bankruptcy.

As far as the milk goes, the Monsanto corporation even sued a dairy who advertised that their milk is produced by cows who are not injected with their magic Bovine Growth Concoction that allows that makes the cows increase their milk output. Nowhere on their product is any negative statement made about Monsanto's elixir, only that this particular dairy doesn't use it. Apparently that raised hackles in the boardroom and they ordered their legal team to attack the offending dairy, saying such a statement implies negative attributes to their product.

They doth protest too much, and the ensuing publicity brought to light all sorts of possible negative consequences involved in the use of bovine milk production enhancers. Most of the negative effects are on the cows themselves, with things like shorter life spans and susceptibility to various diseases and conditions. So far not much has been raised on the negative effect on humans except for the time-consuming and expensive lawsuits many small farmers and food businesses are forced to endure to fight a global corporate giant with limitless resources. That's a pretty negative side effect right there.

So, if these vigilant defenders of their gene-altering patents are so convinced that genetic manipulation is the wave of the future, why don't they volunteer to have their own genetic make-up improved? It's a proven theory that corporate executives are among the most reviled human beings on the planet, even eclipsing lawyers and politicians on the low-esteem totem pole. It would seem that only serial killers and drunken blonde starlets are more hated than corporate bosses. So why not alter their genetic code to render them more acceptable to the public?

Maybe someone could isolate the Civic Responsibility Gene and fix theirs. That way thee would be fewer polluted wastelands where they operate their plants, less evading of taxes on their huge profits, and maybe even not as many instances of them suing their own customers. The Greed Gene would be a good target too, isolating and altering the gene that makes corporate executives more selfish than a room full of 3-year olds. And then there's the old Mean-Spirited Gene, that bit of DNA that makes these people nasty just for the sake of being nasty, no matter how much money and power they accumulate.

Think of the benefits to mankind that these genetic experiments would yield. The phrase "Corporate Responsibility" might become something other than a funny joke and a contradiction in terms. People just might be able to swim in our lakes and rivers once again without risking neurological disaster. And maybe the Justice Department would have fewer cases of corporate malfeasance to studiously ignore. Perhaps even the bribery divisions of large corporations, or lobbyists, could be curtailed and the government freed from corporate control. Okay, maybe that's asking a little too much, but it's at least worth a try. If it works on soybeans and cows, well, there's hope for business executives. Let the altering begin!