Horrified by Congressional Bill S 510

They're calling it The Food Safety Modernization Act. What a complete and total misnomer. Or, to quote Al Pacino, "what a crock of shit."

When congress made it possible years ago to patent seeds, I wasn't made aware of it until after-the-fact. Most of you know what this has done to the independent farmer. For those who don't, in a nutshell, it basically allows evil conglomerates like Monsanto to sue independent and family farmers for trying to maintain their farm and their livelihoods for using Monsanto's "patented" seeds for their crop. No other "modern" or industrialized nation allows for seed patents, but the U.S. does and I'm certain it was due to lobbying and money in the pocket handed out by pharmaceutical-turned-agricultural-greed-machines like Monsant and Cargill.

The Food Safety Modernization Act, S 510, which I hope will soon be on the denied, proverbial cutting room floor, is a bill that will make it illegal to grow, share, and sell home grown anything. 

It seems to be somewhat under the radar right now and is being touted as a food safety act is not only a crock of shit, it is in the same vain as the aforementioned seed patent bill that passed years ago and has devastated and bankrupt independent and family farmers.

Think about it. That basil plant you have or the tomatoes your neighbor grows would be made illegal under this bill. But that's not who they're after, in my opinion. I think they want to centralize agricultural power even more, so that the organic, independent, family farms will become illegal and eventually extinct.

Not only that, it would give all the power of seeds and farming to pharmaceutical conglomerates like Monsanto and Cargill.

Below is what I received about this. If you can share this with anyone you know who can reach a lot of people, please do so. 

To me, this is totally unconstitutional. Prior to the European settlement, the Native-Americans reportedly lived in complete harmony with the land. Ownership of land, seeds or plants was not only dismissed it was unheard of. The European settlers who many of us are decedents of were absolutely dependent upon their right and ability to grow and live off of their own land and food. The right to plant our own food, and have the freedom to choose the food we eat is at the very core of this country's foundation.

It's just craziness!

Don't be fooled by this bill being called a Food Safety Modernization Act. Congress has denied proposed bills that would require GMO-labels on GMO food products. If they refuse to put labels just informing citizens we'll be eating GMO food, I can't believe they have our best interest in mind with this so-called "food safety" measure. 

We still have choice and a voice. Share this blog with everyone you know who cares about our freedom to choose what food we eat. Also, let the senators on the list below know how you feel. Here's a sample letter I received from Aajonus Vonderplanitz, the PhD in nutrition that I follow. By the way, during his studies in nutrition, he researched how mammals respond to food, and especially raw food, whereas a lot of conventional nutrition is based upon analyzing the food only, not how mammals process and respond to certain foods, so....his nutrition findings are extremely sound.

Love to all of you and to our freedom!

Here are a few links and here's the information I received about this bill.

Performance without Pain

DProgram.net

Govtrack.us

We cannot assume that someone else will protect our rights. Each person needs to write a letter. SB S510 is perhaps one of the most scandalous bills to ever have been written that could jeopardize your right to choose the foods you want to eat.

Please send the following senators listed below a sample letter below, or write one and send yours.

Dear Congress(wo)man,
I am deeply concerned with your sponsorship of Senate Bill 510.  That bill represents another hideous attempt to place more power into the hands of centralized government and robs individual citizens and states.  The greatest danger to mankind is that this bill allows complete manipulation of America's food supply and threatens to strip us of our freedoms to grow, sell, and buy food and make doing any of those natural things crimes punishable by imprisonment. It would be a crime to grow food and share it with my friends and neighbors. The act of generating and supporting this bill is in itself criminal to our Constitution to which you are not immune.  Not only remove your sponsorship from Bill S510 but defeat it. Thank you.

Sincerely,
(your name)

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) is the sponsor of this bill.

Co-sponsors are:
Lamar Alexander [R-TN]
Jeff Bingaman [D-NM]
Richard Burr [R-NC]
Roland Burris [D-IL]
Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]
Christopher Dodd [D-CT]
Michael Enzi [R-WY]
Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
Judd Gregg [R-NH]
Thomas Harkin [D-IA]
Orrin Hatch [R-UT]
John Isakson [R-GA]
Edward Kennedy [D-MA]
Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Ben Nelson [D-NE]
Tom Udall [D-NM]
David Vitter [R-LA]

Write these senators today and tell them to revoke their support of Senate Bill 510!
Senate Bill S510 Will Make It Illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food
by Steve Green

S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010,  may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US.
    “If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.  It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.”  It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food."  ~ Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower.
Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create — without judicial review — if it passes.

 S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food AND FARMING.

History
In the 1990s, Bill Clinton introduced HACCP (Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Points) purportedly to deal with contamination in the meat industry.  Clinton’s HACCP delighted the offending corporate (World Trade Organization “WTO”) meat packers since it allowed them to inspect themselves, eliminated thousands of local food processors (with no history of contamination), and centralized meat into their control.  Monsanto promoted HACCP.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton, urged a powerful centralized food safety agency as part of her campaign for president.  Her advisor was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller*, a giant PR firm representing Monsanto.  Clinton lost, but Clinton friends such as Rosa DeLauro, whose husband’s firm lists Monsanto as a progressive client and globalization as an area of expertise, introduced early versions of S 510.
S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds.

1.  It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency.  It resembles the Kissinger Plan.

2.  It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security.  It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection.  Instead, S 510 says:

COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.
Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.
3.  It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.”  Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced. 

4.  It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food.  It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements.  Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.
5.  It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.

6.  It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals.  The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease.  Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents.  Animal diseases can be falsely declared.  S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.
7.  It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety. 

8.  It deconstructs what is left of the American economy.  It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer.  The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.
9.  It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs.  This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe.  The five items listed — the Five Pillars of Food Safety — are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger. 

10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control.  The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied.  It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review.

For further information, watch these videos:
Food Laws – Forcing people to globalize?
Corporate Rule?
Reclaiming Economies?

The Despicable Reason Behind Raw Milk Bans - from Dr. Mercola

Hey everyone,

Hopefully you're not too tired of me passing along posts from Dr. Mercola... But in case you haven't noticed, he is one very intelligent, M.D. out in the world who is actually being honest about medicine, nutrition, doctors, and how foods are regulated and the horrifying reasons why they're banned... and it's not for our health, but for big business and control. It saddens me, however I find great hope in the fact that people are beginning to wise-up and doctors like Mercola are speaking out about it... Enjoy! Hopefully you'll be instilled with great hope too knowing that we are actively educating ourselves.

Here's from Dr. Mercola's website:

The Despicable Reason Behind Raw Milk Bans

Government, public health and dairy industry officials want to restrict the sale and distribution of raw milk, citing safety concerns. But small dairy farmers, organic consumers' advocates and raw milk drinkers say that safety isn't the real issue -- it's control of the dairy market.

In January, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) proposed new regulations that would ban off-the-farm sale and distribution of raw milk. Prior to making the regulations public, MDAR issued cease-and-desist orders to four milk-buying clubs.

While no one has died in Massachusetts because of raw milk, three people died in 2007 from Listeriosis from pasteurized milk.

According to In These Times:

"Considering the relative safety of raw milk and its possible health benefits, campaigns against its legalization are surprisingly intense, and not just in Massachusetts."

David Gumpert, author of The Raw Milk Revolution, argues that regulation is "not about safety -- it's about protecting markets."

Sources:

  In These Times June 23, 2010 

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

The FDA and CDC have been particularly aggressive recently in their efforts to crack down on raw milk under the pretense of public health safety. But the truth remains that not only is raw milk a health-promoting food, it is oftentimes safer than the pasteurized varieties both state and federal governments are rallying behind.

David Gumpert, author of The Raw Milk Revolution, pointed out, for instance, that while no one has died in Massachusetts because of raw milk, three people died in 2007 from pasteurized milktainted with Listeriosis.

And as In These Times reported, according to CDC data from 1993 to 2006 there were about 116 illnesses a year linked to raw milk -- that amounts to less than .000002 percent of the 76 million people who contract a food-borne illness in the United States each year!

It is very apparent that the regulatory agencies have put blinders on to these statistics as they carry on with their ruthless crusade to ban raw milk and make it illegal for you to drink it.

Why?

Because they are looking out for the interests of Big Dairy produced in factory farms.

Industrial Dairy Farmers Cannot Safely Produce Raw Milk

Raw milk has been gaining popularity for years now. In Massachusetts, the number of dairies licensed to sell raw milk grew from 12 to 23 in just two years, while the Northeast Organic Farming Association stated that dairies are selling more raw milk than they were just five years ago, and consumers call in every week looking for advice on where to find it.

The conventional dairy industry, realizing this, has redoubled their efforts to make sure that raw milk sales are not able to grow, and certainly not able to become mainstream, where they could begin to threaten their very own livelihoods.

If raw dairy really caught on, you would think that the dairy industry would simply follow suit and begin producing raw products to meet the demand. But this would be virtually impossible.

Their business depends on pasteurization, and that is why their powerful lobbyists will stop at nothing to persuade government agencies to keep raw milk bans in full force.

Only Healthy Milk, from Healthy Cows, Can be Consumed Raw

There's a vast difference between the quality and safety of milk from organically raised, grass-fed cows, and conventionally raised, grain-fed livestock. Conventional dairy farms are not typically set up to produce healthy milk, and really the very idea of producing mass quantities of milk from huge numbers of cows confined to one area is contrary to the very nature of healthy milk.

Cows that are fed grain and raised under substandard conditions will likely produce milk that is unhealthy to drink raw because grains, antibiotics, growth hormones, and filthy living conditions change the pH balance and the natural bacteria present in a cow's gut, which in turn affects the natural bacteria and pathogens present in their milk.

In order for conventional dairy farms to safely produce raw milk, they'd be forced to clean up their production practices, raise healthier cows (and likely fewer cows), and give them access to pasture. This would cost them money … lots of money, if it were even possible at all – and that is a very big "if."

This is why, when buying raw milk, it's very important to make sure you're buying milk that has been produced with the intention of being consumed raw, and not just raw milk from conventionally-raised cows that hasn't gone through the pasteurization process yet.

It also begs the question, if the milk produced by most dairy farms has to be pasteurized to remove the filth and bacteria it ordinarily contains … is it really something you want to drink?

Who Should be Able to Limit Your Right to Unpasteurized, Unprocessed Food?

If you're thinking "no one," you're going to have to duke it out with the FDA.

Earlier this year, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) filed a lawsuit against the FDA over their raw milk ban, claiming it is unconstitutional. The FDA's rebuttal contained the following extremely concerning and outrageous statements, which make it very clear they believe you have no right to unprocessed food:

• "There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food."
• "There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds."
• "Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish."
• The FDA's brief goes on to state that "even if such a right did exist, it would not render the FDA's regulations unconstitutional because prohibiting the interstate sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk promotes bodily and physical health."
• "There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract."

Since when did the FDA have authority to tell you what you can and cannot eat and feed your children? Apparently they believe they've had it all along.

If you go by these assertions, it means the FDA has the authority to prohibit any food of their choosing and make it a crime for you to seek it out. If, one day, the FDA deems tomatoes, broccoli or cashews capable of causing you harm (which is just as ludicrous as their assertions that raw milk is harmful), they could therefore enact such a ban and legally enforce it.

What this means is that freedom of food choice is a myth if you live in the United States, and this simply is not acceptable.

Unfortunately, state governments have been dutifully following suit, no doubt after intense pressure from the dairy industry.

In May, for instance, after weeks of lobbying by the Wisconsin dairy industry, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle vetoed a bill that would have made sale of on-the-farm raw milk legal, stating he "must side with public health and safety of the dairy industry."

In Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources issued cease-and-desist orders to four milk-buying clubs and proposed new regulations to ban off-the-farm sale and distribution of raw milk.

In their lawsuit, FTCLDF also pointed out that the FDA is taking an unfairly harsh approach with raw milk compared to other raw foods. For instance, unpasteurized juices are sold with just a warning label letting consumers know the juice has not been pasteurized, while raw milk has been outright banned in many states.

Is it a coincidence that some of the states where raw milk sales are illegal are also among the largest dairy producers in the United States (namely Wisconsin and Iowa)?

Hardly.

Do You Want Easy Access to Raw Milk?

By joining the fight to make access to healthy raw milk a right for all Americans, you are not only standing up for raw milk; you're taking a stand to protect your freedom of food choice.

No one, and certainly not any government agency or dairy lobby, should be able to restrict your access to pure, unadulterated food. Organizations like the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund are working toward true freedom of choice for American consumers, and I urge you to get involved in their causes.

For more information, I urge you to listen to my interview with Mark McAfee, the founder of Organic Pastures, one of the largest producers of raw milk in the United States, along with this video with health and business journalist David E. Gumpert.

You can also find lots of valuable information in Gumpert's book, The Raw Milk Revolution, and on McAfee's Web sitewww.OrganicPastures.com.