Don't let Henry Waxman kill you

This arrived by email in Waxman's district today from CREDO.  Who are they? 

"Don't let your food kill you."

"Your member of Congress, Rep. Henry Waxman, sits on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. That committee will consider crucial food safety legislation on Wednesday. You need to let Rep. Henry Waxman know today that you expect him to stand with his constituents — not big industrial food companies — when it comes to food safety. ...

"Thankfully, Congress is now paying attention." 

Thankfully?  The same Congress run by lobbyists?  Paying attention to what?  Surely not us.  

The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 represents a good basis for reform ...

Who designed this email?    

and would be first major update of food safety legislation in decades. But big food industry players are fighting tooth and nail to weaken the bill — 

Stop, please.  This is unbearable.  The "big food industry players" are the very ones who wrote the bill.  For sure no consumers wrote the bill or sent out the message.  Where are they fighting "tooth and nail to weaken it"?  Give one instance.  Just one. 

The only people opposing these bills are regular people because the bills "scare the hell out of [them]."  

"All in all, I haven't seen a more devastating attempt at infringement on an individual's personal way of life than the USA PATRIOT act. This must be stopped... at all costs."

The "big food industry players" are creating this smoke and mirrors game where they want people to push for exactly what industry wants.  How?   By telling us  that "big bad industry" is "fighting tooth and nail" to weaken it.  What industry wants is as much power behind this bill as possible.

it's up to us to tell Congress to strengthen and pass a bill that really protects our food supply.

Protecting our food system would mean decentralizing it and getting it entirely out of the hands of the industries who wrote these bills and into our farmers' hands and our own.  These bills would do the opposite, getting rid of farmers and even requiring licensing and monitoring and surveillance and warrantless entry of our gardens.

Go see Food, Inc.  Realize that all the companies being indicted by the movie are the very ones whom Waxman is supporting.  They wrote Waxman's bill.  They are the corporations sending out this lying email, trying to get people to push for Waxman's truly traitorous bill as though they would be pushing against corporations.  

Waxman's bill takes the worst parts of the other dangerous "anti-food safety" bills out there now and makes a kind of frankenstein version.  Waxman's monster

1.  ends US sovereignty over its own food supply, gutting our Constitutional control over our food supply and transferring it to the hands of multinationals like Monsanto, Tysons, Cargills, etc.  

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/food-safety-bills-more-dangerous-than_08.html

2.  sets up a giant agency to control the entire US food supply with Monsanto in charge of it.  Yes, Monsanto.  http://www.postcarbon.org/monsanto_planting_seeds_white_house  Google "most evil corporation on the planet" and it will come up.  Watch "The World According to Monsanto" for an inkling of the insanity of having them control our food supply to say nothing of the astounding corruption and betrayal of our very existence that Obama is okaying this.

3. takes control of all seed, making us as dependent as Iraq now is on corporations' whim and all GM-food for our survival.

a.  Monsanto is doing this worldwide.
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=202

b.  It's the Kissinger plan, "control food, control people."
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message540769/pg1

c.  Here is how easily it can be done, using "food safety" as the means.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seeds--How-to-criminalize-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090319-579.html

 

4. sets up NAIS, the national animal identification system which will wipe out what is left of our real farmers and take all US farmland.

a.  All the bills contain a reference to "tracing" which triggers NAIS, the National Animal Identification System.  Inside NAIS (bad enough that it will wipe out farmers financially which is the intent) is something called "Premises" ID.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/savePolishCountryside.php

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/03/europe/poland.php?page=2

b.  Anyone raising even a single animal or any plants would be forced onto NAIS and thus onto "premises" (supposedly about registering where your property is in case of an animal disease outbreak - notice how swine flu is out there now?).

c.  "Premises," however, is not "property" which is protected under the US Constitution, but an international term, quite different from property and one that says the person is a mere stake holder in their land.  The USDA would not change the term to "property" or answer whether this was theft of land.  Nor would they answer, if everyone becomes mere stake holders in the land, for whom are they holding the stake (all US farmland)?  [Speculation.  For what possible purpose?  Collateral on the bailout?  http://www.newswithviews.com/brownfield/brownfield59.htm

 

Did Hillary Clinton really make promises to the Chinese that they can come with troops to claim what is theirs if we default? 

http://thegreendragon.ning.com/forum/topics/govt-gives-china-eminent ]

 

5.  includes a hidden Codex, a plan devised by Nazi-related German pharmaceutical companies http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUTICAL_BUSINESS/history_of_the_pharmaceutical_industry.htm  which is considered world fascism and is expected to kill millions. http://www.iahf.com/world/980622i.html

 http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/codex-inside-food-safety-bills-will.html

YouTube - Codex Alimentarius: Food Lies "They" Don't Want You ...
	8 min - Apr 2, 2008 -  From http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/Listen to Brian Clement's raw food speech ... Join YouTube for a free account, or sign in if you are already ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhApQ3QkG0Q -

6.  creates a police state.

a.  the bills give "the Administrator" power over every person in the country who "holds" food (everyone).

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/jam-and-water-watch.html

b.   set up a division for this that is independently funded so no congressional oversight.

c.  includes massive punishments (million dollar a day fines and up to ten years in prison) but these punishments are not exclusive of anything more that may be available (leaving the door open to ... anything.  Torture?).  http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/food-safety-as-totalitarian-weapon.html

d.  is expected to be run by Monsanto lawyer Michael Taylor - http://www.postcarbon.org/monsanto_planting_seeds_white_house) so Monsanto, considered the evilest corporation in the world and the greatest threat to food and nature, will have power over the entire US food supply, including over decisions on punishments.

e.  with no judicial review over even the appropriateness and validity of punishments for as yet unstated "crimes."  So, they could apply this to anyone, to anything at all, and it doesn't have to have any relation whatever to food ... and it is not subject to review.  A police state. 

f.  and this is all on top of surveillance, monitoring, warrantless entry, no due process, taking of all records, etc. included in the bills
http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/central-food-patriot-act-hr-875.html

 

g.  Monsanto's Taylor was involved in designing the bills. 

http://farmwars.info/?p=594

 

The twisted email urges us to 

Tell Rep. Waxman — a member of the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee — to pass food safety legislation with teeth. 

Teeth?  The very last thing we need for Waxman to give these massive and grossly corrupt corporations he is pandering to is teeth.  Teeth?  The better to kill us with CAFOs and pesticides and antibiotics and GMOs and loss of our farmers and seed and our own gardens?

The bills to be stopped entirely.

The question is why is Waxman doing this?  What is wrong with him?  Why is he killing us?

Chemical companies bring "food safety" bills

While we are all staring highly controversial "food safety" bills in the face brought to us by huge chemical companies like Monsanto and  the Nazi-connected German pharmaceutical/chemical corporations that designed CODEX Alimentarius, it might be useful to pause and look at a basic part of everyone's diet - water - and think.  

Think about chemicals and about promises of health and about government agencies and about power and about industrialization of normal things and about profits and  and about media and about fear and about influence and about bias about the corporate use of the words "safe" and "science." 

With gratitude to  http://www.ahealedplanet.net/mdaq.htm

 

(In)"1916...that grand old pioneer of advancement in dentistry, G.V. Black...presented his epoch making studies on the role of fluorine in producing mottled enamel....The studies...by...the US Public Health Service (USPHS) led to a nationwide effort to eliminate...excessive fluorine in the drinking water (by) the USPHS..."

"...our knowledge of the subject certainly does not warrant the introduction of fluorine in community water supplies generally."

"Sodium Fluoride is a highly toxic substance..., it may be definitely harmful."

"...the potentialities for harm far outweigh those for good. - Editorial Dept., Journal of American Dental Association. L.P. Anthony, DDS, Editor, Oct. 1, 1944.

"Don't drink fluoridated water...Fluoride is a corrosive poison which will produce harm on a long term basis." - AMA President, Dr. Charles Heyd.

 

"I am a former state health director...It is disturbing to me when the men in the Public Health Service (PHS), who, as late as 1950, were not ready to endorse the universal use of fluorine, have now (1952), almost to a man, come out for the endorsement."

"It is difficult for me to understand how high officials in the PHS could change their mind, over a three-month period, and completely reverse the field.  Where once they advocated the go-slow sign on the use of fluorides, they now apparently have gone overboard, and put out large amounts of propaganda favoring the fluoridation of water.  I am certain that the dental profession merely echoes and endorses the opinions of the PHS."

"...I cannot find any public evidence...that the AMA, the ADA (Dental), or several other health agencies, now recommending the fluoridation of water, had done any original ("experimental") work of their own.  These groups were simply endorsing each other's opinions."

"You will note that all of the experts grounded in the science of bio-chemistry have advocated the go-slow sign on the use of fluorides in drinking water.  I believe that the dental profession and other public-minded individuals. like myself, have been misled by the PHS, because all of the facts have not been made available upon this subject."...

"I sometimes wonder if (a major aluminum company) might not have a deep interest in getting rid of the waste products from the manufacture of aluminum, because these products contain a large amount of fluoride.  In this connection it is interesting to know that (a bureaucrat), who now heads up the Federal Security Administration (precursor to the US Public Health Service), and the firm of attorneys he was with...represents (that aluminum company)." - US Congressman, Dr. A.L. Miller, Chairman, Special Committee on Chemicals in Foods, "Fluoridation of Water, Extension of Remarks., Congressional Record, 1952.

 

(As of 1983)"Belgium, West Germany, and Sweden have abandoned their pilot fluoridation experiments on human populations, and are not fluoridating any public water supplies.  Sweden, Denmark, and Holland have banned it completely.  Many other countries, such as France, Italy, and Norway have never fluoridated their drinking water.  Only about 2% of the population of Europe is living in a fluoridated area;" - John Yiamouyiannis, PhD, bio-chemistry, BS, U of Chicago; President, Safe Water Foundation, Fluoride: The Aging Factor.

 

"Within weeks after Dr. Yiamouyiannis next spoke out against fluoridation, he was put on probation, was told he would never receive a raise again, and was advised to find another job.  Dr. Yiamouyiannis was ultimately forced to resign." - John Yiamouyiannis, PhD, editor, Chemical Abstracts Service, American Chemical Society, Fluoride: The Aging Factor.

 

"The fluoride ion exerts its toxic effect by inhibiting the action of many enzyme systems." - Dr. L.P. Sumner, Cornell U. and Dr. H. Theorell; Uppsala U., Sweden, both Nobel Laureates, enzyme chemistry. (Sumner 1946, Chemistry, Theorell 1955, Medicine).

 

"Thus some some of the serious charges that are being laid at fluoride's door - genetic damage, cancer, birth defects, and allergy response - may arise from fluoride interference after all." - Journal of American Chemical Society, and New Scientist, both January 1981.

 

"It took almost six months to persuade the public library in ...to include the book, The American Fluoridation Experiment, by F.B. Exner, MD, and G.L. Walbott, MD.  Then, one year later it was found in the waste disposal container stamped 'Discarded...'" - Eden Ranch,Organic Consumer Report, 1978.

 

"Thus, under careful examination of original data, cross-examination under oath of scientific proponents, and critical follow up assessments of effects, neither the efficacy nor the safety of fluoridation has been demonstrated.  Nevertheless, it seems impossible to engage the scientific community or the public health authorities in any effort to examine the subject."

"The reexamination of subjects on which strong recommendations have been made challenge one's commitment to integrity.  If, as scientists and public health advisors, we can't muster the courage to meet those challenges, perhaps we should all take up a more honest profession such as used car sales or TV repair where at least the results of our services are unequivocal." - Frederick I. Scott, Editor(ial), American Laboratory, September 1980.

 

"The legislation...of...fluoridation..is unreasonable and a violation of the due process clause of the Illinois Constitution..."

"This record is barren of any credible and reputable, scientific epidemiological studies and/or analysis of statistical data, which would support the Illinois Legislature's determination that fluoridation of the public water supplies is both a safe and effective means of promoting public health.

"..(Fluoridation) is unconstitutional....(and)..an unreasonable exercise of police power..." - Judge Ronald Niemann, Circuit Court, Ill. Decree, Illinois Pure Water and Ruby Hale vs. Director of Public Health and Director of EPA, State of Illinois., Health Action, Feb, 1982.

 

"...The evidence that fluoridation of the public water supply at the rate of one part per million is carcinogenic is irrefutable."

"...Say somebody shot somebody....We...are so concerned about whether this evidence was admitted properly...(and) not recognize the intrusion into our sacred individuality that is being caused every time people turn on the faucet? ...I am astounded by how much untruth has been officially promulgated (pro fluoridation)." - Justice John Flaherty, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, address, June 7, 1981.

 

"Dr. Miller: 'The USDA made some examination...(and) recommended to the farmers that fluorine not be added to the water...of (pregnant) sows because it did something to the pigs that were unborn...Do you think it might be wise for the (US)PHS...to inquire what might happen to pregnant women and the unborn child...?'"

"Dr. Porterfield: 'No, sir; I think there is a difference....There is more money available for matters that have economic value than there is for health.'" - Chemicals in Foods and Cosmetics, Hearings, Select Committee, US House, 1952.

The stunning naivete of the sustainable ag community

The sustainable ag community seems to have not noticed that everything they cares about is at stake with six "food safety" bills in congress, another one from Waxman on the way.

They seem not to have noticed the timing - just after the inauguration, when hope was high and attention diverted by that and the bailout. 

They seem not to have noticed that the bills had to have been prepared well in advance of any peanut issues, suddenly showing up as they did.

They seem not to have noticed that were it not for work by ordinary people to say the bills are dangerous, they may have already slipped through congress, unnoticed, as "food safety."

They seem not to have noticed that they are Hillary Clinton's presidential platform to create a massive and centralized "food safety" department, a platform developed with her advisor Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller, representing Monsanto.

They seem not to have noticed Hillary Clinton's ties going back to Arkansas and the Rose Law Firm - to Walmart, Tysons and Monsanto - world leaders in industrial food, industrial farming, biotech.  

http://www.counterpunch.org/cole02082008.html

They seem not to have noticed DeLauro's ties to agribusiness or her harshness in dealing with farmers.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/12/719195/-The-blogosphere-gets-it-right-on-food-safety-bills

They seem not to have noticed DeLauro's husband's work with the Clintons and Monsanto, http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID=403

 including his interest in globalization and helping corporations frame issues to their advantage.  http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID=408

They seem not to have noticed the Clinton's have a history with food safety and that Bill Clinton gave us the first "food safety" plan - HACCP.  http://www.organicconsumers.org/irrad/ctf.cfm

They seem not to have noticed that HACCP was an agribusiness/WTO bonanza which got rid of inspections, lowered food safety standards, wiped out safe local processors who were competition,   

http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/158-USDA-vs-John-Munsell.html

and centralized the food supply into WTO members' hands, including his friends at Tysons.

They seem not to have noticed that Bill Clinton's "food safety" plan - HACCP - increased illnesses and led to deaths and blocked trace back to corporate slaughterhouses.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/conagra_tainted_meat.cfm

They seem not to have noticed that Bill Clinton got us into the WTO with big promises US sovereignty would never be affected and Hillary bills - coming in through Rosa DeLauro and other Clinton friends - would eliminate US sovereignty over its own food supply, giving all power to the WTO.

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/food-safety-bills-more-dangerous-than_08.html

They seem not to have noticed that Monsanto is taking over seed world wide, including in the EU.   http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=202

They seem not to have noticed that the bills here are harmonized with the laws in the EU so seeing what is happening to them is seeing what the bills here will do.

They seem not to have noticed the immense and rapid decline in small farming in the EU.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/business/global/06smithfield.html

They seem not to have noticed it's intentional.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/savePolishCountryside.php

They seem not to have noticed the huge loss of diversity in seeds in the EU as only those placed on a government registry may be sold and since it costs a fortune to get seeds there, farmers can't and biotech can.

They seem not to have noticed the FDA redefined seed as food and seed storage as one source of contamination or the implications.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/FOOD-SAFETY-REGULATIONS--by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090108-947.html

They seem not to have noticed the implications playing out already as the FDA has made normal seed cleaning equipment - central to sustainable agriculture - illegal and set the 'food safety" standard for the equipment so high it would cost a million or more to meet it, and separate equipment (and another million plus) is now required for each line of seed.

They seem not to have noticed the "food safety" bills never mention the word "seed" and yet can eliminate ownership of them by simply doing to "storing" what they have already done to "sorting" - raise the standard above anyone's capacity to meet it.  

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seeds--How-to-criminalize-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090319-579.html

They seem not to have noticed they need seed to exist and the country needs human control over them to remain a functioning democracy.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/iraq111704.cfm

They seem not to have noticed that NAIS is in the bills and includes a version for plants as well, meaning all US farmland would be under it.

They seem not to have noticed that NAIS includes Premises ID which is not "property" covered under the Constitution but an international term, that appears to make owners mere "stake holders" in their property.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/NAIS--a-coerced-AND-hidde-by-Marti-Oakley-090115-879.html

They seem not to have noticed the peculiarity of even a single chicken putting someone under NAIS and that their even getting rid of the chicken would not remove the land from "premises" registration, nor would selling the land to someone without animals.

They seem not to have noticed this makes the argument that Premises ID is needed for tracing animal diseases, false.

They seem not to have noticed the USDA for 5 years will not change the word to "property" or answer if it is so that landowners become mere "stake holders" or answer the accompanying question - "If those holding all US farmland are mere stake holders, who are they holding the stake for?"

They seem not to have noticed that some believe that all US farmland, collected through this shift in a single word, may be collateral on the bailout and if we default, others - perhaps China - will claim it.

http://www.newswithviews.com/brownfield/brownfield59.htm

They seem not to have noticed the bills are essentially Codex Alimentarius, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634

the primary political battlefield where the war is being waged about who will regulate and control the global food supply, from field and stable to table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2D4-noTiCg

They seem not to have noticed Codex is working with other groups supporting the following agendas: 

1. The chemical industry's aim that all animals be treated with antibiotics and hormones. 

2. The largest seed company in the world (Monsanto) is working toward 100% genetically-modified crops. 

3. The nuclear industry's goal of irradiating all foods including plants and livestock. 

4. All industries' goal: phasing out truly organic foods, or at least, making them extremely difficult to obtain. 

They seem not to have noticed that under Codex, all nutrients (vitamins and minerals) are to be considered toxins/poisons and are to be removed from all food because Codex prohibits the use of nutrients to "prevent, treat or cure any condition or disease"

They seem not to have noticed that all food (including organic) is to be irradiated, removing all toxic nutrients from food (unless eaten locally and raw).

They seem not to have noticed that nutrients allowed will be limited to a Positive List developed by Codex which will include such beneficial nutrients like Fluoride (3.8 mg daily) developed from environmental waste. All other nutrients will be prohibited nationally and internationally to all Codex-compliant countries [2].

They seem not to have noticed that all nutrients (e.g., CoQ10, Vitamins A, B, C, D, Zinc and Magnesium) that have any positive health impact on the body will be deemed illegal under Codex and are to be reduced to amounts negligible to humans' health [3].

They seem not to have noticed that people will not even be able to obtain these anywhere in the world even with a prescription.

They seem not to have noticed that all advice on nutrition (including written online or journal articles or oral advice to a friend, family member or anyone) will be illegal, including reports on vitamins and minerals and all nutritionist's consultations.

They seem not to have noticed the bills contain a civil and criminal penalty section that sets up an independent funding source so there will be no congressional oversight, has unlimited punishments even beyond the massive ones listed, will be applied by "the Administrator" (see below) without judicial review over even validity and appropriateness.

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/food-safety-as-totalitarian-weapon.html

They seem not to have noticed those penalties apply to everyone in the country who "holds" food.   http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/jam-and-water-watch.html

They seem not to have noticed those penalties come on top of no due process, warrantless entry, surveillance, monitoring, taking of all records, ....

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/central-food-patriot-act-hr-875.html

They seem not to have noticed that those promoting the bills use canny verbiage to deny they will regulate or shut down organic farming, gardening, farmers markets, etc.  by saying "there is no language in the bill" that says those things, while those opposing the bills flag the worrisome fact of broad and vague language and then point instead to what the bills will actually do.

They seem not to have noticed that, though so much is at stake, the organizations they count on are quoting reassurances from the very people who introduced the bills, despite their close ties to agribusiness and Monsanto.

They seem not to have noticed that the organizations they count on plan to compromise with the bills, trusting industry's friends' reassurances while dismissing the long list of threats which farming/health/food/leftist friends have easily seen in them.

They seem not to have noticed the oddness of that or flinched at Monsanto bragging in comments on websites that Grist and Slow Food agree with them there is no problem.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-2009-Food-Safety-Bil-by-Nicole-Johnson-090418-680.html

They seem not to have noticed in reassuring them nothing is wrong, their own organizations are aligned with Monsanto interests.

They seem not to have noticed that Monsanto has repeatedly shown up on websites, trashing those criticizing them, while saying they are not involved with the bills at all.

They seem not to have noticed that Bill Clinton gave us Michael Taylor and Taylor gave us rBGH and unlabeled, unregulated GMOs.

They seem not to have noticed Taylor is back, dressed as a "food safety" professor now, and was on Obama's transition team.  

They seem not to have noticed that Food Democracy Now says Monsanto, through Michael Taylor, is expecting to run the giant agency the bills will set up and to control the entire US food supply, including all farms and homes and gardens.

They seem not to have noticed that Codex was developed by Nazis.

They seem not to have noticed the bills are Kissinger Plan of "control food, control people."

They seem not to have noticed these bills are a more extreme threat to our country, our democracy, and each of us individually than the bailout.

They seem not to have noticed they should be mobilizing for all they are worth.

Corporations attempt to redefine reality: Safety, Nutrients, Seed, Herbs, Sell, Property

Biodiversity is being displaced in order to leave synthetic GMOs in its stead.  A great shrinking of nature and then clamping down on its use is going on around the world, to force nature into private hands.  

The same phenomenon is occurring in language.  Normal words are being supplanted by synthetic definitions that have no relation to normal or even to reality, but those redefinitions are being pushed as aggressively as GMOs and are central to establishing control over biology.

Redefinition One:  Safety

Six alleged "food safety" bills in Congress (Hr 875, HR 814, HR 1332, HR 759, S 425 and S 510) apply impossible to meet regulations, bureaucracy, and costs that will wipe out small local farmers and food producers, the backbone of food security for any region, and industrialize those remaining through mandating pesticides,GMO feed, and drugs; they contain CODEX Alimentarius http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=161

which, in declaring all nutrients toxins and limiting access to them, is a profound danger to human health; and they are unconstitutional, allowing for no due process, but establishing warrantless entry, surveillance, monitoring, and massive, open-ended penalties with no congressional oversight and no judicial review.

Those corporate interests pushing these measures "redefine" severe dangers to our country as "food safety," wrapping them in the positive connotation of protecting the public from harm.  The hundreds of pages of bills, in reality, would (at a minimum) remove the safety of having local farmers, eliminate choice of food, expose people to harm from pesticides, and animals fed GMOs and drugs, criminalize alternative health and natural substances to maintain health and life, and subvert the Constitution and our democracy. 

The absence of small farmers, of choice in food, of access to nutrients and choice of healers, of democratic rights and of freedom itself, are redefined as "safety."

Bad is redefined as  good.

Redefinition Two:  Nutrients 

Under CODEX, all nutrients are redefined as toxins or contaminants, to be removed from free human usage to protect the public from "risk."

What is the standard definition of "nutrient"?  Many sources of given:

Definition of nutrient :  any substance that is assimilated (taken in) by an organisms that is needed for the organism to live, grow, breathe, move, excrete waste, or reproduce. Examples: carbon dioxide, nitrate, and phosphate, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. 

http://www.everythingbio.com/glos/definition.php?word=nutrient

n.  A source of nourishment, especially a nourishing ingredient in a food.  adj.  Providing nourishment.  [Latin nūtriēns, nūtrient-, present participle of nūtrīre, to suckle.]  http://www.answers.com/topic/nutrient

nutrient nu·tri·ent (noo´tre-int)

1. nourishing; providing nutrition.

2. a food or other substance that provides energy or building material for the survival and growth of a living organism.

Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers. © 2007 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.

nu·tri·ent (ntr-nt)  n.  A source of nourishment, especially an ingredient in a food.  The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Nutrient  A food substance that provides energy or is necessary for growth and repair. Examples of nutrients are vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.  Mentioned in: Antidiarrheal Drugs, Carbohydrate Intolerance  Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

nutrient  [no̅o̅′trē·ənt]  Etymology: L, nutriens, food that nourishes  a chemical substance that provides nourishment and affects the nutritive and metabolic processes of the body. Nutrients are essential for growth, reproduction, and maintenance of health.  Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.

CODEX Alimentarius redefines nutrients, deeming them not only "not nourishing" (the opposite of what they are) but hazardous.  This redefinition prepares the ground for their removal, though they are essential elements of survival and growth.  By "labeling" them toxins and contaminants, CODEX promoters claim it is about protecting people from the risk of harm, though in reality it is designed to deprive people of critical free access to the literal building blocks of life so they will be left with only corporately owned synthetic pharmaceuticals.

How is such a radical overturning of the known value of nutrients accomplished?

"Previously, dietary supplements, such as vitamins and minerals, couldn't be regulated by the FDA.  Under this bill, a food-borne illness outbreak is defined as:

"the occurrence of 2 or more cases of a similar illness resulting from the ingestion of a common food."

Now, those things that cause an "outbreak" are considered "contaminants."  

both vitamin c and magnesium can cause diarrhea in some people at currently acceptable dosage levels. Magnesium will do it to almost anyone if they take the entire current RDA (500 mg.) at the same time. If two people get diarrhea from either of these substances, their status as "contaminants" will be cemented, putting them under the regulation of these agencies under DHHS. ...

The bill [Hr 875, one of the six "food safety" bills comprising CODEX] states that the Administrator of Food Safety only has to come up with a list of "contaminants" they will regulate SIX MOTHS AFTER enactment of the bill.

"This means that congress will have a bill in front of them that every fan of peanut butter will want passed  from its name alone, yet not have any idea what this person, (be they an employee of Monsanto, or a pharmaceutical company, or a tobacco executive, or a health-food guru,) intends to regulate or outlaw.

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/codex-inside-hr-875-herbs-vitamins-and.html

Consuming nutrients is not only normal but vital.  It is not only an aspect of food safety but the only true basis for any food safety.  

But these CODEX bills would set a "risk" standard that would be used to indict normal, essential-to-life-itself nutrients as harmful and then redefine them as contaminants.  By a misuse of science and of logic and of language, the bills would attempt to counter reality itself.  

The essential meaning imbedded in human understanding, and the knowledge of the relationship of nutrients to "nourishing" and "nutritious" would be turned on its head.  Out of the most primary goodness for life itself - nutrients - the bills would create something extreme in the negative.  This is biologically nonsensical but the redefinitions would still exist and have legal force.

"Codex specialists insist that codex will eventually implement a Napoleonic code of what we'll be allowed to consume. This sure sounds like a beginning of that to me."

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/codex-inside-hr-875-herbs-vitamins-and.html

Good is redefined as bad.

Redefinition Three:  Seeds  

In Iraq, where ancient seed banks were plundered (the actual theft of biodiversity), laws were put in place afterwards which mimic the biologic theft.  They displaced "natural" or common meanings of words and the historical laws that had always existed there before, laws which took for granted the existence of normal seeds and that those seeds were owned by farmers and that those farmers were free to collect and reuse or sell them.  

While the focus in Iraq has been on Bremer's Order Number 81 which installed intellectual property laws that suit Monsanto and other multinationals and give them absolute control over agriculture by stopping farmers from using their own seeds,  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m47991&hd=&size=1&l=e  the focus here is on redefinitions of "normal" things that made that possible, definitions which are occurring now around the world.

Normal seeds become "infringing" and GMO seeds become "the protected variety."

Under this mandate, Iraq's commercial farmers must now buy "registered seeds." These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds are "terminator" seeds, meaning "sterile."  ...

"What makes this Order 81 even more outrageous is that Iraqi farmers have been saving wheat and barley seeds since at least 4000 BC, when irrigated agriculture first emerged, and probably even to about 8000 BC, when wheat was first domesticated. Mesopotamia's farmers have now been trumped by white-smocked, corporate bio-engineers from Florida who strive to replace hundreds of natural varieties with a handful of genetically scrambled hybrids. ...

"Order 81 ... is quite diabolical upon closer inspection. First, it forces Iraq's commercial farmers to use registered terminator seeds (the "protected variety"). Then it defines natural seeds as illegal (the "infringing variety"), in a classic Orwellian turn of language.

"This is so incredible that it must be re-stated: the exotic genetically scrambled seeds are the "protected variety" and the indigenous seeds are the "infringing variety."

"As Jeffrey Smith explains, author of Order 81: Re-Engineering Iraqi Agriculture:  "To qualify for PVP [Plant Variety Protection], seeds have to meet the following criteria: they must be 'new, distinct, uniform and stable'... it is impossible for the seeds developed by the people of Iraq to meet these criteria. Their seeds are not 'new' as they are the product of millennia of development. Nor are they 'distinct'. The free exchange of seeds practiced for centuries ensures that characteristics are spread and shared across local varieties. And they are the opposite of 'uniform' and 'stable' by the very nature of their biodiversity." (3)

"Order 81 comes with the Orwellian title of "Plant Variety Protection." Any self-respecting scientist knows, however, that imposing biological standardization accomplishes the exact opposite: It reduces biodiversity and threatens species. So Order 81 comes with an Orwellian title and consists of Orwellian provisions."

Power is then put behind that redefinition of normal:

Just in case Iraqi farmer can't read, Order 81 enforces the new monopoly on seeds with the jackboot. Order 81 makes this clear in its own text, buried at the bottom of the document, as is most screw-you fine print:

"The court may order the confiscation of the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools substantially used in the infringement of the protected variety. The court may also decide to destroy the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools or to dispose of them in any noncommercial purpose." (5)

In the US, the FDA has redefined seeds as food.  

Then, it redefined the most basic agricultural elements necessary to all farming -agricultural water, manure, harvesting, transporting and seed cleaning equipment, and seed storage - as "sources of contamination."  

That made it possible, all in the name of "food safety," to simple raise the standards so high that use of one of those elements (seed cleaning equipment) is already prohibitively expensive and the others are threatened.  Meanwhile, pesticides and herbicides and chemical fertilizers, all known to be deadly contaminants, are not listed. 

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seeds--How-to-criminalize-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090319-579.html

Historic normal is redefined as illegal, encroaching abnormal is redefined as the legal standard, and historic normal is eliminated.

Redefinition Four:  Herbs  

If one can't get nutrients commercially, one might grow them as food and herbs.

Monsanto and the Thai government have come under sharp criticism from NGOs for their encouraging the use of agrochemical and technologies there.  http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/1887...   At the same time, "[t]he Industry Ministry - aiming to control pesticide production and commercialisation - announced its new regulation on February 3, listing the 13 plants as "hazardous substances type 1" under the 1992 Hazardous Substances Act."  

So, being an organic farmer just got much harder.  Organic farmers who grow their own herbs, whether as a substitute for pesticides or to sell, are being told those herbs are now to be listed as hazards.  

"The plants are: neem, citronella grass, tumeric, ginger, Chinese ginger, African marigold, Siam weed or bitter bush, tea seed cake, chilli, Chinese celery, ringworn bush, glory lily and stemona.

"They are widely used among farmers as alternatives for expensive and toxic farm chemicals, pesticides and herbicides.

"Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, a member of the hazardous substances committee, has proposed the new draft requiring growers, manufacturers, importers and exporters of pesticides made from the 13 herbal plants to conform to the Department of Agriculture and follow safety and quality control regulations issued by the committee."

For safety, they say, those who are working with the agrochemical companies.  

The redefinition is not inconsequential.  Besides imposing a regulatory burden and cost, the redefinition comes with force.  People who mix chili powder or ginger with water and spray it on their plants would be considered criminals for not following government regulations over ... normal harmless herbs.

"Law violators will face six months in jail and a fine of 50,000 baht."

The government, as its excuse for this action, said "it was receiving a lot of complaints from organic farmers and the department had no regulations to control the misuse of herbal pesticides."   Misuse of herbal pesticides?  Is it not peculiar for organic farmers (or any other group) to complain to the government about their own actions?

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Govt-C...

Safe and nontoxic efforts to avoid hazards are redefined as hazardous.  That hazardous standard can then be used to drive out safe and nontoxic.

Redefinition Five:  Sell

The old definition of "sell":  

"includes the offer for sale, expose for sale, have in possession for sale and distribute, whether or not the distribution is made for consideration."  

[In Canada, under Bill C-51] The NEW definition of "sell," however, opens the door for a very broad interpretation:  

"includes offer for sale, expose for sale or have in possession for sale, or distribute to one or more persons, whether or not the distribution is made for consideration and in relation to a device, includes lease, offer for lease, expose for lease or have in possession for lease."

"Now, what's the reason for redefining the meaning of the word "sell" to include the simple act of "distributing to one or more persons"? Who does this new meaning benefit? Who does this now include that was not included before? Why the need for such a broad definition?  

"In plain English, it appears the law now applies if I were to simply give something to another person for free, whether it's a stranger or a family member."

Thus, giving your child chamomile tea could be defined as "selling" a controlled substance (nutrient) to a minor and be a felony.  This redefinition of "sell," added to the redefinition of "nutrients," then, puts immense force to stopping free human access to something as normal and essential as nutrients.  

The redefinition of sell expands the real meaning to allow those in power to criminalize its opposite - donating, sharing, giving - at will, so any contact whatever with substance those in power wish to control, can be "made to seem" illegal.

Redefinition Six:  Property  

The National Animal Identification System which is part of all the "food danger" bills, contains the word "premises."  It is not a redefinition but a sly substitution for another word - "property" - leaving it to people to believe they mean the same thing since, in common usage, they often do.  But as with the items above in which great care was taken over controlling meaning, using "premises" instead of "property" appears not to be accidental.  

"With any governmental agency, the words used in any law, regulation, rule or other declaration by the government or its agencies must be carefully scrutinized. What may seem to be nothing more than a simple word-swap may actually be a new legal definition and one that may come back to haunt you. Under NAIS the term [property] is swapped for Premises.

"Property is the term used to indicate private ownership of a thing such as land or animals and is protected by rights in the Constitution. It does signify legal ownership, and who is the legal owner and allows you access to a Civil Court and protection under the Constitution.

"Premises is a term derived from the International Law of Contracts which are the international rules, for conducting business, usually corporate, whereby [non- human entities] are declared to be [persons]. Agreeing to the redefining of  [property] and to the conversion to premises, eliminates civil protections and redefines you as an [legal entity] who may or may not own the thing in question.  This also subjects you to Administrative Courts using statute and codes which are derived from the International Law of Contracts (ILC) and prohibits any use of rights enumerated or otherwise within the constitution.

"Neither the government nor its agencies or agents have listed any limits with regard to any authority any or all of them may now assume or implement as a result of rule making or changes to policies, mandates and regulations. This means you do NOT know all the terms of the contract.

"Neither is NAIS an [adhesion contract] wherein the terms and conditions of the contract never, ever change because USDA or even Congress can change the rules and regulations at any time.

"Since the USDA is a self regulating and rule making agency, in effect making its own laws and enforcing them at will, rules could be changed at a later date drastically affecting everyone who has entered into this contract.  ...

"In the end, we need to understand that property has a far different meaning under the laws than the word [premises]. Had there not been an intention to render a change in the status of property ownership and control there would have been no need to use the word Premises." 

http://www.gnhealth.com/articles/pdf/NAIS.pdf

Rights under the constitution become no rights whatever through a word substitution.  Protection becomes loss of ownership and rights.  Good becomes bad.  

 Corporate redefinitions in the "food safety" bills are set to end American farming and choice of foods, put health practitioners and access to adequate nutrients essential for survival out of reach, and curtail fundamental democratic rights.  Corporate redefinition of normal seeds in Iraq has put them out of legal reach, and threatens survival there.  A redefinition in Thailand threatens farmers and the safe and valuable herbs they use as alternatives to chemicals.  A redefinition of "sell" in Canada threatens prison sentences for sharing.  A slip between two similar sounding words threatens theft of rights and land.

"Normal" and good is being redefined as dangerous.  Through redefinition, essential things needed for existence are being shut down, limited or made difficult to attain.  Meanwhile, "abnormal" and bad - limiting human beings' access to what they depend on to live and be healthy, GMO seeds, violations of basic rights ... - is redefined as "protecting people from risk" and as "safety."

In reality, these few simple redefinitions cloak lies, monopoly, corruption, theft, civil rights and human rights abuses, and unfathomable threat to human life itself.

The Corporate redefinition of Normal

Biodiversity is being displaced in order to leave synthetic GMOs in its stead.  A great shrinking of nature and then clamping down on its use is forcing it into private hands.  

The same phenomenon is occurring in language where normal words are being supplanted by synthetic definitions that have no relation to normal or even to facts, but those redefinitions are central to establishing control over biology.

Redefinition One:  Seeds

In Iraq, where ancient seed banks were plundered (the actual theft of biodiversity), laws were put in place afterwards which mimic the biologic theft.  They displaced "natural" or common meanings of words and the historical laws that had always existed there before, laws which took for granted the existence of normal seeds and that those seeds were owned by farmers and that those farmers were free to collect and reuse or sell them.  

While the focus in Iraq has been on Bremer's Order Number 81 which installed intellectual property laws that suit Monsanto and other multinationals and give them absolute control over agriculture by stopping farmers from using their own seeds, http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m47991&hd=&size=1&l=e

the focus here is on redefinitions of "normal" things that made that possible, definitions which are occurring now around the world.

Normal seeds become "infringing" and GMO seeds become "the protected variety."

"Under this mandate, Iraq's commercial farmers must now buy "registered seeds." These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds are "terminator" seeds, meaning "sterile."  ...

"What makes this Order 81 even more outrageous is that Iraqi farmers have been saving wheat and barley seeds since at least 4000 BC, when irrigated agriculture first emerged, and probably even to about 8000 BC, when wheat was first domesticated. Mesopotamia's farmers have now been trumped by white-smocked, corporate bio-engineers from Florida who strive to replace hundreds of natural varieties with a handful of genetically scrambled hybrids. ...

"Order 81 ... is quite diabolical upon closer inspection. First, it forces Iraq's commercial farmers to use registered terminator seeds (the "protected variety"). Then it defines natural seeds as illegal (the "infringing variety"), in a classic Orwellian turn of language.

"This is so incredible that it must be re-stated: the exotic genetically scrambled seeds are the "protected variety" and the indigenous seeds are the "infringing variety."

"As Jeffrey Smith explains, author of Order 81: Re-Engineering Iraqi Agriculture:

"To qualify for PVP [Plant Variety Protection], seeds have to meet the following criteria: they must be 'new, distinct, uniform and stable'... it is impossible for the seeds developed by the people of Iraq to meet these criteria. Their seeds are not 'new' as they are the product of millennia of development. Nor are they 'distinct'. The free exchange of seeds practiced for centuries ensures that characteristics are spread and shared across local varieties. And they are the opposite of 'uniform' and 'stable' by the very nature of their biodiversity." (3)

"Order 81 comes with the Orwellian title of "Plant Variety Protection." Any self-respecting scientist knows, however, that imposing biological standardization accomplishes the exact opposite: It reduces biodiversity and threatens species. So Order 81 comes with an Orwellian title and consists of Orwellian provisions."

Power is then put behind that redefinition of normal:

Just in case Iraqi farmer can't read, Order 81 enforces the new monopoly on seeds with the jackboot. Order 81 makes this clear in its own text, buried at the bottom of the document, as is most screw-you fine print:

"The court may order the confiscation of the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools substantially used in the infringement of the protected variety. The court may also decide to destroy the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools or to dispose of them in any noncommercial purpose." (5)

In the US, the FDA has redefined seeds as food.  

It has also redefined the most basic agricultural elements necessary to all farming  (agricultural water, manure, harvesting, transporting and seed cleaning equipment, and seed storage) as "sources of contamination."  

Then, in the name of "food safety" it raised the standards for cleanliness so high that use of one of those elements is already prohibitively expensive and the others are threatened.  Meanwhile, pesticides and herbicides and chemical fertilizers, known to be deadly contaminants, are not listed.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seeds--How-to-criminalize-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090319-579.html

Redefinition Two:  Nutrients

Under CODEX nutrients are redefined as toxins or contaminants, to be removed from free human usage.

What is the standard definition of "nutrient"?  Many sources of given:

Definition of nutrient :

any substance that is assimilated (taken in) by an organisms that is needed for the organism to live, grow, breathe, move, excrete waste, or reproduce. Examples: carbon dioxide, nitrate, and phosphate, proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
http://www.everythingbio.com/glos/definition.php?word=nutrient

n.

A source of nourishment, especially a nourishing ingredient in a food.

adj.

Providing nourishment.

[Latin nūtriēns, nūtrient-, present participle of nūtrīre, to suckle.]

http://www.answers.com/topic/nutrient

nutrient /nu·tri·ent/ (noo´tre-int)

1. nourishing; providing nutrition.

2. a food or other substance that provides energy or building material for the survival and growth of a living organism.

Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers. © 2007 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.

nu·tri·ent (ntr-nt) n. A source of nourishment, especially an ingredient in a food.

The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Nutrient

A food substance that provides energy or is necessary for growth and repair. Examples of nutrients are vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

Mentioned in: Antidiarrheal Drugs, Carbohydrate Intolerance

Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

nutrient

[no̅o̅′trē·ənt]

Etymology: L, nutriens, food that nourishes

a chemical substance that provides nourishment and affects the nutritive and metabolic processes of the body. Nutrients are essential for growth, reproduction, and maintenance of health.

Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.

CODEX Alimentarius redefines nutrients, changing them from nourishing to hazardous.  This prepares the ground for saying the removal of essential elements of survival and growth protects people from the risk of harm, though in reality it undermines fundamentals of people's health by limiting critical free access to the very building blocks of life.

"Previously, dietary supplements, such as vitamins and minerals, couldn't be regulated by the FDA.  Under this bill, a food-borne illness outbreak is defined as:

"the occurrence of 2 or more cases of a similar illness resulting from the ingestion of a common food."

Now, those things that cause an "outbreak" are considered "contaminants."  

both vitamin c and magnesium can cause diarrhea in some people at currently acceptable dosage levels. Magnesium will do it to almost anyone if they take the entire current RDA (500 mg.) at the same time. If two people get diarrhea from either of these substances, their status as "contaminants" will be cemented, putting them under the regulation of these agencies under DHHS. ...

The bill [Hr 875, one of the six "food safety" bills comprising CODEX] states that the Administrator of Food Safety only has to come up with a list of "contaminants" they will regulate SIX MOTHS AFTER enactment of the bill.

"This means that congress will have a bill in front of them that every fan of peanut butter will want passed  from its name alone, yet not have any idea what this person, (be they an employee of Monsanto, or a pharmaceutical company, or a tobacco executive, or a health-food guru,) intends to regulate or outlaw. http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/codex-inside-hr-875-herbs-vitamins-and.html

Thus, "food safety" bills which are actually a danger to food, are redefined as protective, and using the positive meaning of "the name alone," are falsely promoted.  

And the bills themselves redefine normal, essential-to-life-itself nutrients as contaminants, reversing the normal and very positive definition to an extreme of negative.

"Codex specialists insist that codex will eventually implement a Napoleonic code of what we'll be allowed to consume. This sure sounds like a beginning of that to me."
http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/codex-inside-hr-875-herbs-vitamins-and.html

 

Consuming nutrients is not only normal but vital.  But just as corporate redefinition of normal seeds in Iraq put them out of legal reach, corporate redefinition in the "food safety" bills is set to criminalize nutrients essential for survival.  

Normal is being made abnormal and being shut down.  Abnormal - limiting human beings' access to what they depend on to live and be healthy - is redefined as "safety."

Redefinition Three:  Herbs

Monsanto and the Thai government have come under sharp criticism from NGOs for their encouraging the use of agrochemical and technologies there.  http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/1887-cn.htm   At the same time, "[t]he Industry Ministry - aiming to control pesticide production and commercialisation - announced its new regulation on February 3, listing the 13 plants as "hazardous substances type 1" under the 1992 Hazardous Substances Act."  

So suddenly, being an organic farmer just got much harder.  Organic farmers who grow their own herbs as a substitute for pesticides are being told those herbs are now to be listed as hazards.  

"The plants are: neem, citronella grass, tumeric, ginger, Chinese ginger, African marigold, Siam weed or bitter bush, tea seed cake, chilli, Chinese celery, ringworn bush, glory lily and stemona.

"They are widely used among farmers as alternatives for expensive and toxic farm chemicals, pesticides and herbicides.

"Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, a member of the hazardous substances committee, has proposed the new draft requiring growers, manufacturers, importers and exporters of pesticides made from the 13 herbal plants to conform to the Department of Agriculture and follow safety and quality control regulations issued by the committee."

For safety, they say, those who are working with the agrochemical companies.   

The redefinition is not inconsequential.  Besides imposing a regulatory burden and cost, the redefinition comes with force.  People who mix chili powder or ginger with water and spray it on their plants would be considered criminals for not following government regulations over ... normal harmless herbs.

 

"Law violators will face six months in jail and a fine of 50,000 baht."

The government, as its excuse for this action, said "it was receiving a lot of complaints from organic farmers and the department had no regulations to control the misuse of herbal pesticides."   Misuse of herbal pesticides?  Is it not peculiar for organic farmers (or any other group) to complain to the government about their own actions?

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Govt-Called-Cancel-Rules-Listing-H-t242231.html

Redefinition Four:  Sell

The old definition of "sell":  

"includes the offer for sale, expose for sale, have in possession for sale and distribute, whether or not the distribution is made for consideration."  

[In Canada, under Bill C-51] The NEW definition of "sell," however, opens the door for a very broad interpretation:  

"includes offer for sale, expose for sale or have in possession for sale, or distribute to one or more persons, whether or not the distribution is made for consideration and in relation to a device, includes lease, offer for lease, expose for lease or have in possession for lease." 

"Now, what's the reason for redefining the meaning of the word "sell" to include the simple act of "distributing to one or more persons"? Who does this new meaning benefit? Who does this now include that was not included before? Why the need for such a broad definition?  

"In plain English, it appears the law now applies if I were to simply give something to another person for free, whether it's a stranger or a family member."

Thus, giving your child chamomile tea could be defined as "selling" a controlled substance (nutrient) to a minor and be a felony.  This redefinition of "sell," added to the redefinition of "nutrients," then, puts immense force to stopping free human access to something as normal and essential as nutrients.  

Hidden Redefinition through Sly Substitution:  Premises for property

The National Animal Identification System which is part of all the "food danger" bills, contains the word "premises."  It is not a redefinition but a substitution for another word - "property" - leaving it to people to believe they mean the same thing since in common usage, they often do.  But as with the items above in which great care was taken over controlling meaning, using "premises" instead of "property" appears not to be accidental.  

"With any governmental agency, the words used in any law, regulation, rule or other declaration by the government or its agencies must be carefully scrutinized. What may seem to be nothing more than a simple word-swap may actually be a new legal definition and one that may come back to haunt you. Under NAIS the term [property] is swapped for Premises. 

 

"Property is the term used to indicate private ownership of a thing such as land or animals and is protected by rights in the Constitution. It does signify legal ownership, and who is the legal owner and allows you access to a Civil Court and protection under the Constitution. 

 

"Premises is a term derived from the International Law of Contracts which are the international rules, for conducting business, usually corporate, whereby [non- human entities] are declared to be [persons]. Agreeing to the redefining of  [property] and to the conversion to premises, eliminates civil protections and redefines you as an [legal entity] who may or may not own the thing in question.  This also subjects you to Administrative Courts using statute and codes which are derived from the International Law of Contracts (ILC) and prohibits any use of rights enumerated or otherwise within the constitution. 

"Neither the government nor its agencies or agents have listed any limits with regard to any authority any or all of them may now assume or implement as a result of rule making or changes to policies, mandates and regulations. This means you do NOT know all the terms of the contract. 

 

"Neither is NAIS an [adhesion contract] wherein the terms and conditions of the contract never, ever change because USDA or even Congress can change the rules and regulations at any time. 

 

"Since the USDA is a self regulating and rule making agency, in effect making its own laws and enforcing them at will, rules could be changed at a later date drastically affecting everyone who has entered into this contract.  ...

"In the end, we need to understand that property has a far different meaning under the laws than the word [premises]. Had there not been an intention to render a change in the status of property ownership and control there would have been no need to use the word Premises."
http://www.gnhealth.com/articles/pdf/NAIS.pdf

 

 

These few simple redefinitions cloak theft, monopoly, government corruption, civil rights and human rights abuses, and unfathomable threat to human life itself. 

Laws to Redefine Normal as Hazardous

The article below is from Thailand, where herbs such as ginger and chili are being suddenly being called "hazardous."  

The "food safety" bills here do the same thing, redefining normal as hazardous and putting it under government control or requiring licensing which, by its costs, would put it out of reach. Normal seeds are being treated in this way in the EU.  The "food safety" bills here would put seeds out of reach by suddenly redefining  such normal things as agricultural water, manure, harvesting, transporting and seed cleaning equipment, and seed storage facilities as "sources of contamination" and from there, raising the standards for their use to a level farmers couldn't meet.

  http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seeds--How-to-criminalize-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090319-579.html

This was the same sinister means used to prevent black people from voting.  Poll taxes or literacy tests were both obstacles to entry while "seeming" to still allow constitutional rights.  

The literacy test parallels these bills in another way.  Those "so concerned" about others' competence to vote were themselves anti-democratic, using rigged tests while relying on references to "democracy" as false packaging for their unconstitutionality, to stop people who had a basic right to vote.   Similarly, those "so concerned" about  "food safety" are the very corporations most responsible for dangerous food, using tortured laws and rigged measures of cleanliness to eliminate those producing healthy food - a human right.

 http://www.opednews.com/articles/Farming--Why-Obama-s-gove-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090125-421.html

The "food safety" bills bury profound human rights abuses and constitutional violations under "health."  

The following article can allow the reader to see how mind-bending redefinitions of normal are used by governments on behalf of industry (the pesticide industry in this case), to limit access to safe natural plant material that is, in fact, every human being's biologic inheritance.  

How easily those with power turn things upside down, redefining things however they want - white becoming black, safe becoming danger, danger becoming nutritious.  Inch by inch they displace normal, making it harder, making it too costly, making it illegal here and there, making it unavailable, until it is pushed to the far fringes or ceases to exist altogether.

CODEX Alimentarius is imbedded in the "food safety" bills in congress and would allow corporations to take absolute control over all farming, gardens, food in any location, animals, and even all nutrients.  Nutrients would be redefined as toxins or contaminants, in just this astoundingly false and totalitarian way, the better to wrest them from people and put them under government/corporate control.   

Codex is the core of what are actually anti-"food safety' bills which, upside down again, progressives are pushing to have become law in the US.   

Codex was developed by Nazis.

Govt called to cancel rules listing herbs as hazardous

BANGKOK: -- A group of organic farmers and alternative agricultural activists have called on the government to cancel regulations listing 13 herbal plants as hazardous substances, saying they would destroy local initiative in using the plants as alternative pesticides in place of chemicals.

The group also asked the government to withdraw this legislation - an Industry Ministerial regulation and a Draft of Agricultural Ministerial regulation - within 30 days.

If there was no response from the government they would gather at Government House to submit their petition and pressure Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said the group's leader, Thai Health Foundation's director, Veerapong Kriangsinyot.

The Industry Ministry - aiming to control pesticide production and commercialisation - announced its new regulation on February 3, listing the 13 plants as "hazardous substances type 1" under the 1992 Hazardous Substances Act.

The plants are: neem, citronella grass, tumeric, ginger, Chinese ginger, African marigold, Siam weed or bitter bush, tea seed cake, chilli, Chinese celery, ringworn bush, glory lily and stemona.

They are widely used among farmers as alternatives for expensive and toxic farm chemicals, pesticides and herbicides.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, a member of the hazardous substances committee, has proposed the new draft requiring growers, manufacturers, importers and exporters of pesticides made from the 13 herbal plants to conform to the Department of Agriculture and follow safety and quality control regulations issued by the committee. Law violators will face six months in jail and a fine of 50,000 baht.

A 44 year-old organic farmer from Suphan Buri province, Sumalee Tanyachareon said the regulation has made her life more difficult. She must inform the agricultural office that she cultivates some of the 13 herbal plants and produces them as a pesticide.

"The regulation would be an obstacle and a burden for farmers instead of promoting organic farming," she said.

Sumalee previously used chemical pesticides to kill insects in her rice farms. Now she uses herbal pesticide, after learning it is cheaper and safer than chemical pesticide.

She said regardless of whether the regulation is withdrawn or not, she will continue to use home-made herbal pesticide as it cuts costs on her rice farms.

Department of Agriculture's director general, Somchai Chanarong insisted the new regulation and the draft would not affect the use of herbal plants in the country. Growers or manufacturers were required only to inform agricultural agencies when they produced herbal pesticide for commercialisation.

" We want to protect the consumer from someone who would cheat them and sell faked products," he said.

Department of Industrial Works' director general, Rachada Singkalwanich said the announcement of the industry ministerial regulation followed a proposal from the Department of Agriculture.

" The Department of Agriculture proposed this regulation because it was receiving a lot of complaints from organic farmers and the department had no regulations to control the misuse of herbal pesticides. "

The Department of Agriculture would draw up a guideline for relevant agencies on the nature of the herbal plants. If the Department of Agriculture had such a regulation, the Department of Industrial Works would withdraw the 13 herbal plants from the hazardous substances list.

Meanwhile, the Public Health Deputy Minister, Manit Nopamorbodhi said he would discuss with the Industry Minister how to help people understand more about the role of the 13 herbal plants in daily lives.

In the near future, he said he would ask the Department for Development of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine to produce a logo as a safety warning display for herbal products sold in the market.

The Department for Development of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine's director general, Dr Nara Nakwattananukul said there was misunderstanding about the implementation of the industry ministerial regulation to list the 13 herbal plant as hazardous substances.

Under the regulation, farmers are allowed to use herbal plants as medicine. They do not have to register with the Department of Agriculture if they have small herbal plantations.

The department will organise a meeting which invite related agencies to discuss over this issue on this Friday.

-- The Nation 2009-02-12

USDA employing Delphi Technique: Prepare to be Delphi’d!

by Marti Oakley at the Proud Political Junkie's Gazette.

For those unaware of NAIS, it is a WTO program meant to override US laws and facilitate movement of (even diseased) animals across international borders for the benefit of its corporate members.  Here is a video:  http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_16869.cfm

The program has the corporate advantage of wiping out its competition.  Even the USDA's own numbers indicate it will eliminate small farmers and independent ranchers.  The result:  http://www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/nightmare_documentary.asp

Laws harmonized with bills containing NAIS here have done just that in Europe:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/business/global/06smithfield.html

USDA employing Delphi Technique: Prepare to be Delphi'd!

 I have concluded the USDA and its henchmen really do believe we are all stupid.  I have come to this conclusion after months of reading the misinformation, the disinformation and the outright lies the USDA has put forward in an attempt to force the implementation of the National Animal Identification system and the companion land grabbing piece, Premises ID. 

Maybe Tom Vilsack and those conducting these bogus listening sessions believed no one would take the time to actually read, research or comprehend the intent of these bills.  Its possible Vilsack & Team USDA figured if congress didn't read the bills, we probably wouldn't either.  Wrong!

As every state in the Union mounts a campaign to halt the implementation of any of these international agreements and Codex Alimentarius mandates, rules and regulations, USDA was forced to conduct a "listening" tour.  Of course…..there was never any real intent to listen to anything.  These are staged meetings where control of the crowd, content of the dialogue, is all determined before hand.  At least that's what USDA team leaders thought would happen.

 

I believe it must come something of a surprise to find out not only did we read the bills, we printed them off…went over them line by line and realized NAIS, Premises ID and the fake food safety bills were nothing less than a coup meant to destroy and overtake the agricultural system in the US, replacing it with corporate industrialized farming and concentrated animal operations.  We aren't about to let that happen.

As with any unelected bureaucracy, USDA decided all on its own that NAIS, Premises ID was a done deal.  Oh! The arrogance of these little agency dictators in waiting

To make sure (they thought) they could limit the commenting, limit the statements and prevent most of the audience from participating at all the USDA employs the Delphi Technique.  This is the technique of dividing and conquering.  Simply put, every one who attended the [sic] Harrisburg meeting was handed a folder with a colored dot on it.  When the break-out sessions started……anyone attending was more than likely separated from those they came with and sent to a room with a corresponding color coding. 

The break-out sessions are nothing more than the Delphi Technique revisited and a means to divide the attendees and diffuse the conversation.  Who ever might be in opposition to the conclusions, policies, or programs the facilitator is advancing is quickly singled out and actively shunned. 

The biggest goal of the facilitator is for him/her to be perceived as part of the group.  Once this is done, the facilitator asks for ideas and opinions, leading the group carefully to the pre-determined conclusions and leaving them believing it was all their idea.  Only it didn't work this time.  The farmers and ranchers, the cattlemen and horse people stood their ground.  The only people shunned and shut out of the meetings were the facilitators. 

It would seem we are not all quite as stupid as the USDA wants to believe we are.  We don't need or want NAIS or Premises ID.  And we will not stop until this horrible program is done away with altogether.  Then on to the fake food safety bills!

Grab your butt Mr. Vilsack…its on!

© 2009 Marti Oakley

Never anticipating the monumental backlash, Rep. Collin Peterson (D) from Minnesota declared after the March 11, 2009 Agriculture hearing that he intended to see that NAIS was fully implemented by the end of the year.  As I am from Peterson's district in Minnesota I would like to declare that I intend to see him fully recalled from office at the same time, if it is passed.

May 20, 2009

This excerpt, taken from an article by an attendee of the Harrisburg meeting, supports Marti Oakley:

"The Delphi Technique was utilized at this purported listening session.  A google search turns up the information that it is a technique used successfully in other venues and other countries as well as in the US to deal with groups of uneducated people who may have strong emotions and opposing opinions.  A facilitator is utilized to try to lead the discussion in smaller "breakout" groups which will later be examined by 'experts' who will pull the comments collected into a cohesive 'consensus'. 

"Well, there was the consensus of those who had taken money from the USDA to promote NAIS. 

"And then there was the consensus from the Amishmen, the other religions, the local farmers' markets, and all the other consumers and producers in attendance, ...that the USDA should scrap the program and allow the free market to dictate traceability.  Those that wish to enter into international contracts may be free to do so, those that do not sell to those markets would not have to bear the crushing costs of that participation. 

"The only question that remains is ...was the USDA listening to the consensus among the expert testimonies provided by the farmers, producers, and consumers present at this, the first of 14 scheduled purported listening sessions, or will USDA 'experts', esconsed in their ivory towers far above those of us who live the real life, provide their own version of 'the consensus'?"

Here is the full article:

Purported Listening Session---First of 14

The first USDA National Animal Identification System purported listening session took place on May 14th, 2009 at the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex.  It was scheduled during the busiest time of the year, in the middle of a rainy spring planting and birthing season, yet many took time out of their farming schedules, or took off from work to attend. 

Attendees came from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, Ohio,  New York, and one woman even flew in from Oregon to make sure their opposition was recorded.  There are very few of these purported listening sessions scheduled around the country, as of the beginning of the session only 7 had been scheduled and posted to the USDA site.  The torrential rains which hit us slowed down many of us, and prevented many others from being able to get through at all. 

The USDA personnel did not wear badges or name tags, yet attendees signing in were given a folder which included a name tag which said, "Hello, my name is...."  One person there felt that if the USDA  personnel were not 'tagged', then attendees didn't need 'tagging' either.  It would very soon become apparent just who was who.  One little girl wrote "NONAIS" instead of her name, her older brother wrote "NOUSDA" on his name tag.  He handed it to one of the USDA employees sitting at the press table on his way out at the lunch break, and refused to return for the afternoon 'breakout' session.

Those in attendance were selected by lottery for an opportunity to speak during the morning session, many more numbers were called than there were people present, and yet there was a bit of a verbal scuffle that broke out over one attendee's 1st Amendment Rights.  Darol Dickinson of Ohio made a 7 hour drive to attend this listening session, he had preregistered and had received his ticket and had waited patiently for his number to be called up.   At one point one gentleman crossed the aisle and handed him his ticket, number 87, which had just been called, and asked Mr. Dickinson to speak for his three minute time segment, as he did not wish to speak. 

When Mr. Dickinson stood up before the mikes in the lineup of those whose numbers had been called up, he was accosted by a blonde, suited woman who insisted his number had not been called and he was not going to be allowed to speak.  He felt that he had been singled out to be prevented from speaking, as his number, 63, was never called.  He showed her that the number in his hand had in fact been called, and stated politely that he had made a 7 hour drive to speak to them.  When his turn at the mike came, he began reading his prepared presentation.  At 2.5 minutes, per the modus operandi of the day, the USDA moderator informed him that his three minutes were nearly up.  He asked that she restart the clock to allow him to finish, as he had his tickets, and thus had three minutes plus another gentleman's three minutes for a total of 6 minutes which he needed in order to finish his presentation. 

Things looked bad for him as the USDA officials tried to argue him down, but the crowd spoke out insisting that he be allowed to finish his presentation.  

The room was lined on both sides with security guards who had been instructed to be on alert if the blonde woman stood up and approached anyone, and if that person refused her instructions they were to surround them and remove them from the room.  All these guards were not sufficient to intimidate those proud farmers and ranchers,  the backbone of the nation was in clear evidence on that day.  The crowd was a peaceful group of people who clearly had deep religious principles, however they were almost unanimously adamantly opposed to NAIS and determined to make sure that everyone there had their chance to speak.  They wanted to hear, and they wanted the nation to hear what Darol Dickinson had to say.

Darol Dickinson received an apology from the moderator, saying she had made a mistake, and he finished his comments.  After he sat down, a USDA official spoke up sternly to say that there would be no more ceding of time to anyone else for the rest of the session.  Apparently they did not like what he had to say and wanted to make sure that they didn't have to 'listen' to anymore of that sort of thing.

There was a contingent of Amishmen in attendance, and during the breaks one of them was heard to say that they had been told that 90% of the farmers of Pennsylvania had already enrolled in NAIS, and was delighted to hear that in fact that was a lie, as in fact 97-99% of all livestock producers and animal owners are opposed to the system. 

The previously voluntary disease control programs have been rolled over into NAIS without notifying the participants that they are now under a 'new international contract', instead of the US Constitution, and what the terms of that contract actually entail.  One of the attendees actually entered the comment that her husband had enrolled their property based on erroneous information and without her knowledge or consent.  He now regrets that action, and they like many others in their situation, would like to be removed from the program.

Other attendees ranged from mothers with babes in arms, children and young adults who see in this NAIS the death of their future dreams of living close to the land, retired farmers speaking out on behalf of their heirs, producers from across the agricultural industry and a wide spectrum of species interests.  Market masters and professionals from many industries with interest in small farms, as well as consumers were in attendance to have their complaints (and the complaints of members of their  organizations) against the NAIS entered into the federal record.  Some were there to ask where their previous letters opposing the NAIS were recorded, which the USDA personnel had no knowledge and could not answer. 

It is a matter of grave concern when isolated populations are deceived into enrolling in a program with such grave conflicts with certain 'inalienable' rights, recognized and guaranteed under our United States Constitution as well as state sovereignty, and many states' own Constitutions.

There were about four or five people there to beg almost piteously for the USDA to immediately implement the mandatory NAIS, however when they stood up at the mike they introduced themselves and named the organization which they were there to represent,...each of those organizations have received huge sums of bribe money in the form of "Cooperative Agreements" to promote the mandatory NAIS.  Ms. Joyce Bupps from  IDAIRY, (over $1 million) The Holstein Association, (also a "Cooperative Agreements" beneficiary), Dave McIhenny representing Pennsylvania Farm Bureau,  and others were there to help try to 'reach a consensus'. 

Toward the end of the afternoon breakout session, an 11 year old little girl (from an independent diversified farmstead in south central PA) determinedly held her hand high for a tiring three minutes,  before being recognized by one of the facilitators.  She stood up to say, after a minute or so of looking for and finding her shy little voice, "I will not participate in NAIS.  I have my rights.  I have the United States Constitution at my back."  The room was silent for a moment, then applause.

During this session, future USDA listening meetings on NAIS were announced, the woman did not have her list before her, stated that 6 more had been scheduled and was able to name off St. Louis, MO, NM, Rapid City, South Dakota, and Florida.

Monday, May 18:  Pasco, Wash.
Wednesday, May 20:  Austin, Texas
Thursday, May 21:  Birmingham, Ala.
Friday, May 22:  Louisville, Ky.
Wednesday, May 27:  Storrs, Conn.
Monday, June 1:  Loveland, Colo.

Showing up at these sessions is of the utmost importance in order to make sure that they are conducted with integrity.  Farmers, ranchers and consumers have been writing, calling and emailing the USDA, state vets, and legislators since the original planning documents were leaked from a secret meeting in Chicago years ago.  At one point the USDA called for letters, thousands wrote, yet the USDA officials who were asking for those letters and were present at this first 'listening session', were unable to even remember that they had asked for those letters, let alone what happened to them. 

The citizens of this nation have for far too long left the business of politics to the politicians under the mistaken assumption that they were tending to their own business.  It has become clear even to children that tending to business includes supervision and redirection of those hired (via our votes) to be our delegates to represent us in the legislative process,...less the local producers as well as our nation, be legislated out of existence.  Call up and schedule a face to face meeting with your legislators at both the state and federal levels, (face to face meetings are the most effective method of communicating with your legislators, according to this reporter's own legislators at both state and federal levels.) ....and show up at one or more of these sessions.

The Delphi Technique was utilized at this purported listening session.  A google search turns up the information that it is a technique used successfully in other venues and other countries as well as in the US to deal with groups of uneducated people who may have strong emotions and opposing opinions.  A facilitator is utilized to try to lead the discussion in smaller "breakout" groups which will later be examined by 'experts' who will pull the comments collected into a cohesive 'consensus'. 

Well, there was the consensus of those who had taken money from the USDA to promote NAIS. 

And then there was the consensus from the Amishmen, the other religions, the local farmers' markets, and all the other consumers and producers in attendance, ...that the USDA should scrap the program and allow the free market to dictate traceability.  Those that wish to enter into international contracts may be free to do so, those that do not sell to those markets would not have to bear the crushing costs of that participation. 

The only question that remains is ...was the USDA listening to the consensus among the expert testimonies provided by the farmers, producers, and consumers present at this, the first of 14 scheduled purported listening sessions, or will USDA 'experts', esconsed in their ivory towers far above those of us who live the real life, provide their own version of 'the consensus'?

Minnesota judge's medical ruling and the "food safety" bills

Judge orders parents to give child chemotherapy or give up child

(NaturalNews) Against the wishes of both the parents and the 13-year-old patient in question, a Minnesota judge has ruled that Daniel Hauser must undergo conventional chemotherapy treatments, which are characterized by the mass-poisoning of the patient with toxic chemicals.

For opting to explore alternative and natural remedies rather than chemotherapy for their son, the parents were accused of medical neglect and now face having their son taken away from them by Child Protective Services (CPS). They may also face prison time if they refuse to follow the judge's orders.

Daniel was diagnosed with  Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a health condition that is widely known by alternative cancer practitioners to be reversible (curable), especially in younger patients. Conventional medical doctors have told the courts that unless Daniel is subjected to toxicchemotherapy treatments, he has a 95% chance of dying.

To read more .... 

Industrial medicine:  Illegal to treat one's family in non-corporate, non-industrial ways.  

FDA oversteps its regulatory authority to block information on natural, more effective and harmless means of controlling pain, http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/mar2006_cover_cherries_01.htm 
in corrupt preference for the continuing 16,500 deaths a year from NSAIDs.

"It has been estimated conservatively that 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur among patients with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis every year in the United States. This figure is similar to the number of deaths from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and considerably greater than the number of deaths from multiple myeloma, asthma, cervical cancer, or Hodgkin's disease.

If deaths from gastrointestinal toxic effects of NSAIDs were tabulated separately in the National Vital Statistics reports, these effects would constitute the 15th most common cause of death in the United States. Yet these toxic effects remain largely a "silent epidemic," with many physicians and most patients unaware of the magnitude of the problem. Furthermore, the mortality statistics do not include deaths ascribed to the use of over-the-counter NSAIDs."
http://www.cpmission.com/main/NSAIDs2.html

Industrial food:  Increasingly illegal to choose non-corporate, non-industrial food such as raw milk, raw almonds, raw apple juice, ...  

USDA attacks raw milk which is not associated with cancer risks or yearly deaths, in corrupt preference for corporate rBGH milk associated with 7 times increased risk of breast cancer and increased risk of prostate and colon cancer, and blocks labeling of the hormone.  http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen04262008.html

"[For years, m]illions [in California] consumed commercial raw milk, ... not a single incidence was reported. During the same period, there were many instances of contamination in pasteurized milk, some of which resulted in death.  [I]f we withdrew ... every food type responsible for a case of food poisoning, there would be virtually nothing left to eat. But only raw milk has been singled out for general removal from the food supply. 

"... the bacteria in raw milk is the healthy bacteria of lactic-acid fermentation while the bacteria in pasteurized milk is the bacteria of spoilage. ... Both raw and pasteurized milk contain E. coli, normally a benign microorganism. The most likely source of the new strains of virulent E. coli is genetically engineered soy, fed to cows in large commercial dairies. If there is any type of milk likely to harbor these virulent breeds, it is commercial pasteurized milk. ... Children fed raw milk have more resistance to TB, scurvy, flu, diphtheria, pneumonia, asthma, allergic skin problems and tooth decay. In addition, their growth and calcium absorption was superior."   (In California, there is currently an effort to ban raw milk.

"Four distinct groups of bacteria survive pasteurization....the strep of pasteurized milk are the most frequent cause of rheumatic fever --the most deadly disease of childhood.'" - USDA
http://westonaprice.org/children/rawmilk.html
 
Yale research on raw milk

In a dramatic illustration of the potential for microbes to prevent disease, researchers at Yale University and the University of Chicago showed that mice exposed to common stomach bacteria were protected against the development of Type I diabetes.

The findings, reported in the journal Nature, support the so-called "hygiene hypothesis" – the theory that a lack of exposure to parasites, bacteria and viruses in the developed world may lead to increased risk of diseases like allergies, asthma, and other disorders of the immune system. The results also suggest that exposure to some forms of bacteria might actually help prevent onset of Type I diabetes, an autoimmune disease in which the patient's immune system launches an attack on cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/yu-bp091908.php ]

The "food safety" bills in congress bring together the FDA  

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_25_17/ai_76402712/

and the USDA, 

http://www.animallaw.info/cases/causfd2007wl1020786.htm

two corrupt agencies serving industry and not public health,

and would cement multinational industrial control over food and health access, even going so far as to redefine nutrients as contaminants to put them out of reach (but not doing so with GMOs or pesticides).  Under Codex Alimentarius, hidden inside these bills, and in place now in the EU, herb gardens are illegal.  

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/codex-inside-hr-875-herbs-vitamins-and.html

YouTube - Codex Alimentarius Lecture by Ian R. Crane - 1 of 9
	10 min - Jun 20, 2008 -  1 of 9Taken from ConCen:  Never heard of Codex Alimentarius? That's exactly what they want! The UN plan to eradicate organic farming & to ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2D4-noTiCg -

The penalties in the "food safety" bills for non-compliance would cover everyone in the country who "holds" food, and are massive, open-ended, life destroying, and come with no judicial review even over appropriateness and validity.

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/food-safety-as-totalitarian-weapon.html

 

Rosa DeLauro tarred by HR 875

How many frightening things are buried in that bill.  

No one is even denying the bill would allow for the take 

over of all normal seed or that Monsanto is waiting to 

have control over the entire US food supply.  

Rosa DeLauro has denied her bill would criminalize 

organic gardening or affect home gardens but the reality 

of HR 875 is turning out to be additionally dire.

DeLauro and others pushing these bills have said those 

who wrote them were "well intentioned" and were just 

"naive" about their impact on small producers. But over 

the hundreds of pages of these bills, somehow everything 

is consistently terrible for farmers and consumers and 

animals and plants and the land,  and somehow nothing 

at all is "naively" good for them or bad for industry.

Now people have discovered that in addition to its 

destructiveness to farmers, food, seed, farmers markets, 

our home gardens, and homemade food, DeLauro's bill 

contains CODEX Alimentarius.  

For those who do not know what that means, CODEX is 

a complete take over of all nutrients.  All nutrients.  

Nutrients are what human beings need to survive.  

CODEX is the full triumph of the pharmaceutical industry 

which, in declaring all nutrients toxins and putting them 

out of reach, can assure business from human illness 

and then remain the only source in the world of products 

for treating the diseases it has caused through 

devastating vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

In the EU, where it already exists,CODEX has 

eliminated all access to supplements (vitamins, 

minerals, herbs) in sufficient quantities to cure anything.  

This control over people's need to secure adequate 

nutrients for their health, even extends to making herb 

gardens a crime.

Rosa DeLauro has a complex task ahead of her. She will 

have to defend calling herself a feminist despite 

introducing a bill which removes all chance for people 

to find healthy, pure food or to grow it themselves. The 

consequences of her bill will be illnesses and then 

leaving families entirely dependent on the profit-driven 

"mercy" of Big PHARM and Big PHARMA for only 

processed, genetically engineered food and synthetic, 

genetically engineered drugs.

Not easy to fold increasing nationwide sickness and 

premature death, and aiding corporations in 

accomplishing a total monopoly over the health needs 

of everyone in the country, into the term "feminist."

Codex inside "food safety" bills will mandate pesticides

Michael Taylor, executive and lawyer at a multinational pesticide company - Monsanto - is waiting to control the US food supply.  http://www.postcarbon.org/monsanto_planting_seeds_white_house

Monsanto's Robert Fraley:  " What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it s really a consolidation of the entire food chain."

Codex is wedged into the "food safety" bills and as one can see below, it will mandate pesticides, even banned ones.  

Will Michelle Obama's organic garden be included?   

World War One and Michelle Obama 
  

... Most of the chemical "tools" taken for granted by modern agribusiness are products of warfare. Is this merely an indirect consequence of the tragic history of the 20th century, or does it suggest that the currently dismal state of our soils, fresh water supplies and rural economies is an outgrowth of agribusiness' emergence from wartime in some important ways? ...

To read more ...

Some Codex standards will take effect on December 31, 2009 and once initiated are completely irrevocable.  They include (a truncated list):  

* All nutrients (vitamins and minerals) are to be considered toxins/poisons and are to be removed from all food because Codex prohibits the use of nutrients to “prevent, treat or cure any condition or disease”

* All food (including organic) is to be irradiated, removing all toxic nutrients from food (unless eaten locally and raw).

* Nutrients allowed will be limited to a Positive List developed by Codex which will include such beneficial nutrients like Fluoride (3.8 mg daily) developed from environmental waste. All other nutrients will be prohibited nationally and internationally to all Codex-compliant countries [2].

* All nutrients (e.g., CoQ10, Vitamins A, B, C, D, Zinc and Magnesium) that have any positive health impact on the body will be deemed illegal under Codex and are to be reduced to amounts negligible to humans’ health [3].

* You will not even be able to obtain these anywhere in the world even with a prescription.

* All advice on nutrition (including written online or journal articles or oral advice to a friend, family member or anyone) will be illegal. This includes naturalnews.com reports on vitamins and minerals and all nutritionists' consultations.

* All dairy cows are to be treated with Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone.

* All animals used for food are to be treated with potent antibiotics and exogenous growth hormones.

* The reintroduction of deadly and carcinogenic organic pesticides that in 1991, 176 countries (including the U.S.) have banned worldwide including 7 of the 12 worst at the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pesticides (e.g., Hexachlorobenzene, Toxaphene, and Aldrin) will be allowed back into food at elevated levels [4].

(Thanks to Abu Ahmed for this compilation.)


NPR - India's "cancer train"

by Daniel Zwerdling/NPR

Each night, "the cancer train," as locals have dubbed it, departs from this platform at the station in Bathinda, in India's Punjab state. It travels overnight to the town of Bikaner, where the government's regional cancer center is located.

"... People say they never used to see so many cancer patients in this farm region. Cancer was considered an urban disease, suffered by people who lived in cities choked with industry and pollution.

But research by one of the most respected medical institutes in India recently found that farming villages using large amounts of pesticides have significantly higher rates of cancer than villages that use less of the chemicals..."

To read more ...

The peculiarly missing "food safety" bills

What has been missing from the stories of swine flu and CAFOs as their source is that small farms are not the source.  

The following Washington Post story about Smithfield farms giant pig CAFOs in Mexico being the source of the swine flu fits in neatly with a similar New York Times story this week, also about Smithfield but this article about one of its giant pig CAFOs in Eastern Europe and the 90% elimination of pig farmers in Rumania and 50% so far in Poland.   (These losses were easily predicted because it was clear they were actually planned.) 

After reading the articles, one comes away aware that pig CAFOs seem not to be good things, for pigs or people.  Sick-making for communities, disease-making for all of us, and small farmer-destroying.  

What is missing in these stories is that small farms don't do those things.  What is missing is vast difference in quality of food and of animal care and of environment between small farms and CAFOs, and how inestimably much has been lost in the EU in losing their farmers.  

But what is most distinctly missing is any mention of the "food safety" bills in Congress right now.  They are harmonized with the EU laws that led to CAFOs and to the destruction of so many farmers there, and being harmonized they will create the same regulations for CAFOs to take over and same the devastation for farmers and independent cattlemen the Europeans are suffering.

What is also missing is the fear of swine flu provides a convenient context for the USDA in pushing "tracing" of animals, i.e.  NAIS, the National Animal Identification System, on behalf of its close connections among the multinational agribusiness corporations.  NAIS is a WTO plan that will help its members like Smithfield, Cargill, and Tysons do two things - move cattle, pigs, poultry or other animals across international borders without having to worry about national health standards, and remove small farmers and independent cattlemen who are competition, just like has happened in the EU.  

Thanks to the mysterious appearance swine flu, the public is now primed to believe that tracing  diseased animals is somehow related to stopping the diseases.  But the media is not looking into the difference between CAFOs and farms or ranches.

CAFOs.  No one lives on these massively centralized industrial "facilities," least of all the owners.  There, animals are tortured, drugged, and forceed genetically engineered feed loaded with antibiotics and hormones to squeeze every ounce of life and size and dollar out of them while lagoons filled with their contaminated feces leach into and poison the neighboring ground water and fill the air with sulfur so strong it can kill.  

Small farms and ranches:  People live there proudly.  They are run by families who consider farming and ranching a calling and the land a blessing from their forefathers to protect, just as the animals are their pride and joy.  They produce safe food and raise healthy animals.  

So, it is rather large to omit any recognition that there are six alleged "food safety" bills in Congress concerning farms and CAFOs and animal diseases and they are not mentioned.  Is this because the bills are designed for CAFOs to be the only source of food standing?   Or is it because one might see who would control the "tracing" (the material for those already forced onto NAIS is being fed into a corporate data bank) and who would be destroyed by it?

The public, without media attention to the dangers of the bills, but exposed only to peanut fear and flu fear, must decide whether to listen to the multinational corporations which run the CAFOs and have caused diseases or to their congressional friends, DeLauro, Peterson, Scott, ... (who receive large Agribusiness PAC donations) who say that "tracing" (NAIS) is needed to protect us from animal diseases.  

Or does the public listen to independent cattlemen who have had to actually fight the USDA to keep out animal diseases or to small farmers who join with cattlemen in saying that  NAIS will wipe them all out and thus leave the public with only CAFOs and more diseases?   They both vehemently oppose NAIS ( in numbers over 90%)  and just want to continue to raising healthy animals in ways that haven't made their neighbors sick or hurt the land or water. And right now the US has the lowest rate of animal diseases in the world, having relied on what has proved to be a thoroughly effective means of keeping track of animals:  affordable, good old plastics eartags, common sense paper work filed with the vet, keeping diseased animals out of the country.    

Extraordinarily, the USDA is pushing to bring cattle in from countries where diseases like Mad Cow, tuberculosis (for cattle), and other diseases exist, while seemingly contradictorily urging the necessity of NAIS to track diseases.  But it is not contradictory.  The "food safety" bills give corporations like Smithfield just what they want - easy movement of any animals - sick or not - across international borders, NAIS to eliminate farmers (and do potentially more), and CAFOs.  

The full field to themselves.

The WTO and its corporate members are hoping the public is so unsettled by fear from the swine flu that it will choose "tracing" animal diseases (which conveniently wipes out small farmers in the process) over noticing who and what is actually causing the diseases.  The WTO hopes the public doesn't remember that:

During the debate on approving the WTO Agreement, Congress was justifiably worried that the multinational pact was in conflict with U.S. Sovereignty.  Arguments for ratification were vehemently endorsed by Clinton Administration officials who were eager to get the agreement past Congress. Congressional fears were lulled by the Administration pointing out Congress is ultimately responsible for changing the laws of the United States; and second, the U.S. is entitled to withdraw from the WTO.  Also a feature of the Uruguay Round agreements are described as follows:

The URAA puts U.S. sovereignty and U.S. law under perfect protection. According to the Act, if there is a conflict between U.S. and any of the Uruguay Round agreements, U.S. law will take precedence regardless when U.S. law is enacted. § 3512 (a) states: "No provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance, that is inconsistent with any law of the United States shall have effect." Specifically, implementing the WTO agreements shall not be construed to "amend or modify any law of the United States, including any law relating to (i) the protection of human, animal, or plant life or health, (ii) the protection of the environment, or (iii) worker safety", or to "limit any authority conferred under any law of the United States, including section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974." http://www.eastlaw.net/research/wto/wto2b.htm

http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/food-safety-bills-more-dangerous-than_08.html

American farmers and independent cattlemen, on the other hand, are hoping they are important enough to this country and associated deeply enough with safe food and healthy animals, that no one will fall for false promises of safety from corporations associated with animal and human diseases, environmental degradation, animal cruelty, and more, but will see clearly that small farmers and independent cattlemen are offering us safe animals, safe food, safe land, and health.  They are hoping the public can see through corporate "food safety" bills to the dangers and losses those bills hold in store for everyone.

Mexicans Blame Industrial Hog Farms
But Health Officials Have Found No Link to Recent Flu Outbreak

By Steve Fainaru

Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 10, 2009 

LA GLORIA, Mexico -- For years, farmers in the communities that dot this arid valley complained about the effects of the industrial pig farms that had multiplied near their fields.

The overpowering stench gave them headaches and drove them from their homes. Packs of wild dogs feasted on discarded pig carcasses and occasionally turned on their children and pets. There were fears that vast lagoons of excrement from more than 1 million hogs might seep into their groundwater.

Health officials have found no connection between the pig farms, owned and operated by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, and the flu virus that paralyzed Mexico for much of the past two weeks. But the crisis, which appears to be abating, has inflamed tensions between the world's largest hog producer and the poor neighboring communities here that have long warned that the farms are a danger to their health.

"To the people of this community, what brought about this problem was the pig farms," said Guillermo Franco Vázquez, the mayor of Perote, a county seat that has 22 farming communities, including La Gloria, in its jurisdiction. 

For more ...

A U.S. Hog Giant Transforms Eastern Europe

By DOREEN CARVAJAL and STEPHEN CASTLE

Published: May 5, 2009

CENEI, ROMANIA — For centuries — from the Hapsburg Empire through Communist dictatorship — peasant farmers here have eked a living from hogs, driving horses along ancient pocked roads and whispering ritual prayers on butchering day.

Old customs and jobs are dying and the air itself is changing, however, transformed by an American newcomer, Smithfield Foods. Almost unnoticed by the rest of the Continent, the agribusiness giant has moved into Eastern Europe with the force of a factory engine, assembling networks of farms, breeding pigs on the fast track, and slaughtering them for every bit of meat and muscle that can be squeezed into a sausage.

The upheaval in the hog farm belts of Poland and Romania, the two largest E.U. members in Eastern Europe, ranks among the Continent's biggest agricultural transformations.

It also offers a window on how a Fortune 500 company based in Virginia operates in far-flung outposts. Smithfield has a joint venture in a Mexican hog farm located near where United Nations scientists are investigating a potential link between pigs and the new strain of influenza in humans. With the exact origins of the virus still in doubt, Smithfield emphasizes that the disease has struck none of its hogs or employees.

For more ... 

 

CODEX inside HR 875 - Growing Herbs Becomes A Crime

B. Mosher commented on "Monsanto's Dream Bill - HR 875," only one of many fake "food safety" bills in Congress.  Mr. Mosher saw even more dangers than the

person who wrote the article had already seen and his comment deserves attention:

But for those who have never heard of it, an introduction to CODEX may help.  CODEX is a plan by the pharmaceutical industry and the WTO to take control over all nutrients worldwide by declaring them toxins and putting them under governments' control, thus not allowing anyone adequate access to natural substances, supplements, vitamins, or minerals to treat their own health, leaving only expensive pharmaceuticals available for treating diseases.  

In place already in the EU, CODEX has meant that small bottles of supplements can run $150 or more and each capsule contains as little as 5 mg or 10 mg, making it impossible for anyone to get enough of any nutrient for any benefit.  Here, we can buy 1000 mg tablets of many kinds of nutrients for $12.  In Canada,  Bill C-51, representing the same pharmaceutical plan to take over nutrients, goes so far as to redefine "sell" to mean to "distributing to one, two or more people even without consideration," making sharing or giving or donating a "sale."  

Thus, giving one's own family herbal tea could be defined as selling a controlled substance.  Giving chamomile to your child could be considered selling drugs to a minor.  A person producing herbs could be charged as a drug dealer.  The penalties in Bill C-51 would be 5 million dollars and 2 years in prison for producing, taking or "selling" vitamin C, for instance.  

[It appears that Big Pharm and Big Pharma both contributed to writing these bills.]

With that background on CODEX, here is Mr. Mosher's comment.

Implementation of Codex Alimentarius? 

Well, I've gone through the whole bill now, and wrote notes totaling 12 pages... I'm not going to post them - don't worry.

This bill scares the hell out of me. 

"The bill is monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking,the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition bythe filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international "industrial" standards to independent farms - the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means."

Considering the author of the bill [Monsanto], this author's fear is entirely valid, but the wording in this paragraph could easily be brushed aside as sensationalistic conspiracy theory - a great thing for the bill's supporters. Through pointing at people likethe author, they can say "see, it couldn't be as bad as he says it is, so it must be fine. If you question it, you must be as crazy as he is!"

Everything that he's saying is entirely possible, and probable, but in order to get serious attention, his tone should change. It needs to change, because the truth of the first line in the paragraph above goes waaaaaay beyond the surface he's scratched. 

Yes - this bill would be devastating to small farms, and an enormous boon to both Monsanto and Stanley Greenburg. Even if he's not appointed as the "Administrator of Food Safety," and someone who didn't introduce rBGH was installed for political reasons, the bill provides for the hiring of "Experts and Consultants" who receive both a salary and ALL expenses covered while in the Agency's employ, and the creation of "advisory committees that consist of representatives of scientific expert bodies, academics, industry specialists, and consumers."

Either of these positions could create a figurehead situation like the Bush/Cheney relationship, leading to Monsanto's continued growth and influence, and the continued push toward a world where all food is patented. These things are all probable, but unsubstantiated in the language of the bill.

The really scary stuff is in the text of the bill itself, and goes beyond peddling influence to Monsanto. 

The really scary stuff is the direct paraphrasing of Codex Alimentarius initiatives opportunistically wedged between seemingly rational improved safeguards for the general public in food production and distribution that will be readily accepted by a populace scared to death by their peanut butter and baby formula. These provisions are dissected into a form that most people won't have the time or patience to digest, due to incomprehensibility that one gifted in legalese can create when they want certain negative specifics overlooked in deference to the overall facade they wish to be seen. 

The most drastic change this bill tries to impose is the re-definition and restructuring of the "Food and Drug Administration,"the FDA.

in the bill's own words:

"Renaming and Reservation of Agency Identity- The Food and Drug Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services is hereby renamed the Federal Drug and Device Administration and may be referred to as 'FDA'."

I find it pretty sinister, completely revamping the direction of a well known agency, yet keeping the acronym exactly thesame, leaving unwitting people to assume that nothing's changed...

there's also a provision that automatically transfers previously registered food related businesses under a recognized, long-standing code of law to the restrictions and responsibilities of this bill:

"(C )Transitional Provision- During the 6-month period following the date of the enactment of this Act, a food establishment is deemed to be registered in accordance with this section if the establishment is registered under section 415 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 350d)."

So this bill, if passed, automatically registers unwitting farmers and processors to its provisions, without notice - there's got to be something illegal in that - basically shifting restrictions and responsibilties from one contract to another without consent.

...This change brings all kinds of new areas under their jurisdiction, from surveillance of businesses and livestock, to the main crux of the fear of Codex standards being implemented - a complete and total revamping of what can be labeled as a "contaminant."

Previously, dietary supplements, such as vitamins and minerals, couldn't be regulated by the FDA.  Under this bill, a food-borne illness outbreak is defined as:

"the occurrence of 2 or more cases of a similar illness resulting from the ingestion of a common food."

Now, those things that cause an "outbreak" are considered "contaminants." 

[This article explains who is behind the bills and about CODEX.]

both vitamin c and magnesium can cause diarrhea in some people at currently acceptable dosage levels. Magnesium will do it to almost anyone if they take the entire current RDA (500 mg.) at the same time. If two people get diarrhea from either of these substances, their status as "contaminants" will be cemented, putting them under the regulation of these agencies under DHHS. 

More on the contaminant thing...

The bill states that the Administrator of Food Safety only has to come up with a list of "contaminants" they will regulate SIX MOTHS AFTER enactment of the bill. This means that congress will have a bill in front of them that every fan of peanut butter will want passed from its name alone, yet not have any idea what this person, (be they an employee of Monsanto, or a pharmaceutical company, or a tobacco executive, or a health-food guru,) intends to regulate or outlaw. Codex specialists insist that codex will eventually implement a Napoleonic code of what we'll be allowed to consume. This sure sounds like a beginning of that to me.

back to the "outbreak" issue...

the bill constantly focuses on what it calls "specific categories of consumers" like in this section:

"(B ) Comprehensive Analysis- The program shall be based on a comprehensive analysis of the hazards associated with different food and with the processing of different food, including the identification and evaluation of--

(1) the severity of the potential health risks;

(2) the sources of potentially hazardous contamination or practices extending from the farm or ranch to the consumer that may increase the risk of food-borne illness;

(3) the potential for persistence, multiplication, or concentration of naturally occurring or added contaminants in food;

(4) the potential for hazardous contamination to have cumulative toxic effects, multigenerational effects, or effects on specific categories of consumers;

(5) opportunities across the food production, processing, distribution, and retail system to reduce potential health risks; and

(6) opportunities for intentional contamination of food or food ingredients"

now earlier in the bill they refer to a few "specific categories of consumer" as babies, the old, or the infirmed, (I'm assuming here that "infirmed" encompasses the immuno-compromised.) 

so if any two people in these groups are negatively affected by any "ingestion of a common food" that product, and anything in it becomes a potential "contaminant" subject to regulation or dis-allowance. 

so if two AIDS patients drink raw milk from the local Amish farm, and get sick, everyone at the farm is now liable both civilly (crushing their livelihood) and criminally - punishable with up to five years in a non-mortal case, and ten in a case where someone were to die. Not only that, but then raw milk would be federally regulated (kind of like a controlled substance,) or outright outlawed.

This bill, as the author of the article above states, can mandate treatments for crops and livestock that it deems necessary to prevent contamination, such as mandating which products are acceptable to do so - I'm sure DOW lobbyists are squeeling with delight for the prospects of the new toxic pesticides they're developing...

You may think that all this regulation and oversight may pertain solely to those who distribute food as a business, but no - this pertains to your home garden. There's a provision that demands:

"a comparison of the safety of commercial processing with the health hazards associated with food that is harvested for recreational or subsistence purposes and prepared noncommercially..."

[A woman in the EU has been charged for growing herbs.  Watch the video explaining about CODEX.]

so at some point in the near future, if you grow your own food, you may be required by law to spray it with round-up.

All in all, I haven't seen a more devastating attempt at infringement on an individual's personal way of life than the USA PATRIOT act. This must be stopped... at all costs.

Food Safety Bills: More Dangerous than the Patriot Act

or How to Bypass the US Constitution by using Food Safety 

by Gail Combs

The food borne illnesses making headlines in recent years, did not happen by chance.The food safety bills are not about protecting consumer health. The full horror of these bogus Food Safety bills can not be appreciated until it is understood that greedy corporations and corrupt government officials have colluded so that a select few can profit from the pain, and suffering caused by illness and by the starvation of children around the world.  Worse our main safeguard against unethical corporate behavior and government corruption, the mass media, sold us out for the price of their advertising dollars. 

Despite clear evidence that Con-Agra was shipping E. coli-tainted burger, the USDA ignored John Munsell's pleas for an investigation until several months later when a woman died and they had to investigate.  Munsell said a top newspaper's reporter interviewed him for several days, the article was written and ready to print when the owners of the "press" stepped in and suppressed the article in fear of corporate retaliation. Monsanto had two reporters in Florida fired and has broadcaster Derry Brownfield kicked off the air. So what is this information the trans-national Ag Corporations are going to such great lengths to suppress?

The story starts decades ago in the 1990's. Between the 1950's and 1990's a few corporations had consolidated their power by buying or forcing out their competition and then vertically integrating from "Farm to Fork."  In the quest to eliminate competition and increase their ability to dictate prices, corporations bought up railroads, shipping lines, packing facilities, even supermarkets and banks at staggering rates. For example by 1986 Cargill, Continental, Louis Dreyfus, André and Bunge, all privately owned by seven families, controlled 85-90 percent of global grain trade.

The wealth and size of these transnational agribusiness make them politically powerful. They are big money contributors to the political system in the United States and elsewhere. Their staff moves in and out of government administrations and bureaucracies allowing them to sidestep the regulations THEY create to kill the competition. 

To further consolidate their death grip on the food supply, agribusiness insisted that agriculture be put on the international trading table for the first time at the GATT talks in Uruguay.  Key players in this little drama are VP of Cargill, Dan Amstutz who wrote the draft Agreement on Agriculture for the World Trade Organization(WTO AoA), Monsanto (Calgene) employee Ann Veneman who led the GATT trade delegation for much of the time, and Mickey Kantor, another US trade representative for much of the Uruguay Round, who subsequently became a Monsanto board member.  Back at home Clinton's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations was led by Robert Shapiro, chairman of Monsanto at the time WTO was ratified in 1995.  Marcia Hale, a former assistant to President Clinton and director for intergovernmental affairs, was director of international government affairs for Monsanto.

What were the key issues place on the table?  

     First, open borders and no tariffs so cheap tax subsidized grain from the EU and USA would bankrupt third world farmers. 

    Second, worldwide patents on plants and animals allowing corporations to control all food production. 

    Third, unlike other trade agreements, WTO was given teeth by way of trade sanctions for enforcement and a complete blackout on any information leading to the sanctions placed by the three WTO judges. 

    Fourth, and the worst for the US consumer, was the replacement of the "precautionary principle" (do no harm) with "scientific risk based assessment" or the "if it doesn't look like it will kill anyone, go for it" principle. 

    And fifth, the last issue, was "harmonization" of food safety regulations. That means the US, Europe and third world countries must bring their food safety regulations in line so they are essentially the same. In other words, the EU and USA are expected to lower their food standards so they can be met by third world members of WTO!

During the debate on approving the WTO Agreement, Congress was justifiably worried that the multinational pact was in conflict with U.S. Sovereignty.  Arguments for ratification were vehemently endorsed by Clinton Administration officials who were eager to get the agreement past Congress. Congressional fears were lulled by the Administration pointing out Congress is ultimately responsible for changing the laws of the United States; and second, the U.S. is entitled to withdraw from the WTO.  Also a feature of the Uruguay Round agreements are described as follows:

The URAA puts U.S. sovereignty and U.S. law under perfect protection. According to the Act, if there is a conflict between U.S. and any of the Uruguay Round agreements, U.S. law will take precedence regardless when U.S. law is enacted. § 3512 (a) states: "No provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance, that is inconsistent with any law of the United States shall have effect." Specifically, implementing the WTO agreements shall not be construed to "amend or modify any law of the United States, including any law relating to (i) the protection of human, animal, or plant life or health, (ii) the protection of the environment, or (iii) worker safety", or to "limit any authority conferred under any law of the United States, including section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974." http://www.eastlaw.net/research/wto/wto2b.htm

But once the Transnational corporations and their friends in government got WTO ratified they leaped into action to consolidate their positions. By 1996 the first two pieces were in place.

The first was Dan Amstutz with the "Freedom to Farm Act of 1996." Aside from bankrupting so many farmers that Congress had to step in, the act dismantled the United States food reserve system.  Despite scientific studies from Cornell showing bio-fuels use from 29 to 57% more fossil fuel than they replace, laws were passed mandating escalating use of bio-fuels and an ongoing artificial grain shortage was created. In 2008, worldwide food riots broke out and the USDA announced "the cupboard is bare."  Unfortunately there is now no longer any method for renewing US food reserves.  The grain traders even responded to the food crisis by writing a letter to President Bush discouraging the replacement of reserves because it would "distort" grain prices, suggesting a monetary fund, from which they could profit, instead.

"In summary, we have record low grain inventories globally as we move into a new crop year. We have demand growing strongly. Which means that going forward even small crop failures are going to drive grain prices to record levels. As an investor, we continue to find these long term trends ... very attractive." Food shortfalls predicted: 2008http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/dancy/2008/0104.html 

As South African farmers who planted Monsanto's GM-maize this year found out, relying on this year's harvest especially when a corporation controls the seed, is risky at best.  They suffered extensive crop failure when 82,000 hectares produced hardly any seeds due to an alleged 'underfertilisation process in the laboratory."  With no grain reserves and wide spread use of GM seed this could put a frightening weapon in the hands of a corporation not known for its compassion.

The second action taken in 1996 was the adoption of the international HACCP rules. HACCP replaces the old US government's "hands on, in your face" type inspection.  Now the corporations are doing the testing and the government inspects corporate paperwork instead of product.  Since corporations are now the inspectors, is it any wonder that in July 2003, after the Con-agri E. coli recall, GAP released a major report titled "Shielding the Giant: USDA's 'Don't Look, Don't Know' Policy for Beef Inspection"?  Or that Mr. Stan Painter, Chairman, National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals testified during the Congressional investigation into the Hallmark/Westland downer cow scandal:

It (the recall of Hallmark/Westland Meat) highlights one of the problems that we have attempted to raise with the agency ever since 1996 when the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) inspection system was put in place. There seems to be too much reliance on an honor system for the industry to police itself. While the USDA investigation is still on going at Hallmark/Westland, a couple of facts have emerged that point to a system that can be gamed by those who want to break the law. It (HACCP) shifted the responsibility for food safety over to the companies . http://domesticpolicy.oversight.house.gov/documents/20080418113258.pdf

Yet despite government investigations, and "[o]ver 1000 non-compliance reports – weighing some 16 pounds" no one—least of all Sec of Ag Ed Schafer—is sitting in jail.  Instead, we are getting "new food safety laws" that, once again, conform with the World Trade Organization wishes.  The USDA insists the USA conform with WTO "traceability" by making small US farmers (but not the corporations) individually tag and track their livestock and by allowing plants and animals to cross the border from countries known to have disease.

The FDA says we must "harmonize" our laws with the international laws or face terrible consequences, ALL conveniently forgetting:

URAA § 3512 (a) states: "No provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance, that is inconsistent with any law of the United States shall have effect."

Did Cargill and Monsanto profit?   

 

"Cargill's net worth over the last five years has gone from U.S. $5,942 million in 1996 to U.S. $7,888 in 2000, at a time when commodity prices have reached their lowest level in well over 100 years (source: http://www.cargill.com/finance/highlights.htm)." and "Monsanto announced record profits today, citing $2 billion for the 2008 fiscal year compared to $993 million in 2007." while food riots breakout all over the world. http://www.competitivemarkets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=296

So far in the USA we have been lucky to get off with an increase in food born illness and a few deaths.  In other parts of the world the transnational Agri-corporations' aggressive monopolization of the food supply has caused a child to starve to death every 30 seconds, caused 150,000 farm suicides in India, many by drinking Monsanto pesticides, and in Mexico, caused the number of farmers to drop an astounding 75% from 2.3 million in 1992 to 575,000 in 2002.  Meanwhile Monsanto, Cargill and ADM sign agreements to establish regional seed banks in Mexico and the EU passes laws making the sale of un-patented seed impossible.

The Joint Communication from the African Group said the WTO patent agreements (TRIPS) "could damage the livelihoods of 1.4 billion farmers worldwide and undermine food sovereignty and food security."

With the passage of the bogus "food safety" bills here, the transnational Agri-corporations will be handed the final weapon needed to drive out independent farmers and even home gardeners. The bills allows "the Administrator" to confiscate farmland, conduct surveillance and warrant-less entry on anyone "holding food" (that's everyone) with no judicial review over even the appropriateness and validity of punishments for as yet unstated "crimes." http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/jam-and-water-watch.html

What do they care if US farmers join the ranks of those committing suicide, what do they care if more children starve because food prices are too high? What do they care if the term "Premises," strips away our constitutional rights, forcing all US farmland onto an international contract which reduces US property owners to mere stake holders?  Despite repeated requests by farmers, the USDA refuses to change the term from "premises" to "property" or even answer for whom they will be holding the "stake."  References: http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/158-USDA-vs-John-Munsell.htmlwww.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?RefID=25497 http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/gmo-crops-fail-massively-in-south-africa/ www.warmwell.com/aboutfmd08.html http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/us-agricultural-programs-who-pays/ http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002881.html http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2008/2008-04-28-03.asp http://www.counterpunch.org/sharon04112008.html http://alternatives-international.net/article1394.html http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5714e/y5714e07.htm www.ambafrance-uk.org/European-Council-President-Sarkozy.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7974995.stm

 

 

40 "progressives" support Industrial Destruction of a sustainable America

There are 40 co-signers on the severely misnamed "food safety" bills.  Chelle Pingree withdrew support, citing dangers to small farmers.  The others remain.

The bills are "harmonized" with laws in the EU so we can simply look there to see what they cause.  In the EU, those laws are rapidly and effectively wiping out local farming, erasing centuries of traditional culture, eliminating food security and destroying the environment.  In their place, the laws are substituting giant corporate CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations), sources of agony and illness for animals, and many illnesses for humans , including the swine flu and avian flu .  

HR 814 sets that up.  HR 875 locks that into place.  HR 759 arranges the globalization of it.  The others bills add their own wicked features.

Here is what Democratic "progressives" support doing to dreams of a sustainable America.   

Old customs and jobs are dying and the air itself is changing, however, transformed by an American newcomer, Smithfield Foods. Almost unnoticed by the rest of the Continent, the agribusiness giant has moved into Eastern Europe with the force of a factory engine, assembling networks of farms, breeding pigs on the fast track, and slaughtering them for every bit of meat and muscle that can be squeezed into a sausage.

The upheaval in the hog farm belts of Poland and Romania, the two largest E.U. members in Eastern Europe, ranks among the Continent's biggest agricultural transformations.

It also offers a window on how a Fortune 500 company based in Virginia operates in far-flung outposts. Smithfield has a joint venture in a Mexican hog farm located near where United Nations scientists are investigating a potential link between pigs and the new strain of influenza in humans. With the exact origins of the virus still in doubt, Smithfield emphasizes that the disease has struck none of its hogs or employees.

Author Barb Peterson writes:

 

Section 210 of HR 875 requires that a national traceability system for each "article of food through all stages of its production, processing, and distribution" be implemented, and HR 814 lays the system out in no uncertain terms. This traceability system applies to livestock, chickens, and eggs, and is supposed to safeguard our food supply. The problem is, no one other than concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) can reasonably comply with its requirements.

The America we know, full of fields with sheep or cattle grazing on them, made lovely by hillsides dotted with small farms, still blessed with small towns connected to traditions going back generations, is facing literal disaster.  The "green" desire to a return to food from local farmers is rooted in the wisdom and necessity of having local food supplies, in awareness of the safety of personally knowing the farmer responsible for that food and thus certainty of its cleanliness, in sureness of its lack of cruelty, and in scientific evidence of the importance of decentralized, small holdings of animals for human health.

Author Miichael Pollan said in an interview with Bill Moyers :

Our highly centralized food system is very vulnerable to contamination-both deliberate and accidental. ...

Instead of seizing on these threats as a reason to decentralize our food supply, the government is bringing in more regulation and technology. 

Progressive senators are proposing that we begin to regulate farms the way we regulate meat plants. That will put small farms out of business. So you see what happens as industrial agriculture fails and sickens us. The solutions promote more industrialization of agriculture. And that's what we need to resist. 

It is patent and obvious that there is only one sane way to go in terms of our food and farming.  Those industrial bills institute not only a massive but a forced move in the opposite direction.

So, who are the "progressives" lined up to co-sponsor anti-"food safety" bills written by and for industry, "progressives" not responding to thousands upon thousands of calls and emails and letters from the grassroots - their own constituents - begging them to withdraw?  

Who are the "progressives" supporting animal torture, human illness and the destruction of your country's land and traditions? 

Rep. Gwen Moore [D-WI]

Rep. Bob Filner [D-CA]

Rep. Timothy Bishop [D-NY]

Rep. Jerrold Nadler [D-NY]

Rep. Mark Schauer [D-MI]

Rep. James McGovern [D-MA]

Rep. John Tierney [D-MA]

Rep. Raul Grijalva [D-AZ]

Rep. Eliot Engel [D-NY]

Rep. Nita Lowey [D-NY]

Del. Eleanor Norton [D-DC]

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz [D-FL]

Rep. Robert Wexler [D-FL]

Rep. Sam Farr [D-CA]

Rep. Kathy Castor [D-FL]

Rep. Anna Eshoo [D-CA]

Rep. Diana DeGette [D-CO]

Rep. Linda Sánchez [D-CA]

Rep. James McDermott [D-WA]

Rep. Sanford Bishop [D-GA]

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords [D-AZ]

Rep. Timothy Ryan [D-OH]

Rep. Fortney Stark [D-CA]

Rep. André Carson [D-IN]

Rep. Joe Courtney [D-CT]

Rep. Betty McCollum [D-MN]

Rep. Barbara Lee [D-CA]

Rep. Barney Frank [D-MA]

Rep. John Hall [D-NY]

Rep. Maurice Hinchey [D-NY]

Rep. Louise Slaughter [D-NY]

Rep. Janice Schakowsky [D-IL]

Rep. Marcy Kaptur [D-OH]

Rep. Mazie Hirono [D-HI]

Rep. Betty Sutton [D-OH]

Rep. Eddie Johnson [D-TX]

Rep. Shelley Berkley [D-NV]

Rep. Christopher Murphy [D-CT]

Rep. Peter DeFazio [D-OR]

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger [D-MD]

From Flu to Money

by caring American writers from across the political spectrum

Questions asked by European newspapers about a near pandemic set off by a pharmaceutical company.

Were Tainted Vaccines a Conspiracy to Provoke a Pandemic? 

by Dr. J. Mercola

"Czech newspapers are questioning whether the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus -- distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter -- were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.

"Because of laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.

"... A spokesman for Baxter said the virus material was supposed to contain a seasonal flu virus and was contaminated after "human error." 

"Yet, other sources say Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3). This strict set of laboratory safety protocols is in place to prevent the cross-contamination of materials, and according to some may have made it virtually impossible for the live bird flu virus to contaminate a flu vaccine by accident.

"Czech newspapers are among those questioning whether this was a deliberate act to start a pandemic, ..."

To read the full article ...

Because of the first near man-made pandemic, the same questions are now being asked about the swine flu - could it have been man-made?  And why has the company that almost set off the avian flu pandemic been chosen to make the vaccines for this outbreak?

Mexican swine flu outbreak a man-made pandemic? 

A company that delivered contaminated vaccines with live avian flu and human flu viruses earlier this year is now to lead the charge for designing vaccines for the Mexican Swine Flu outbreak.

According the Chicago Breaking News Center Baxter International, Inc. will take a leading role in creating a vaccine for the latest outbreak:

"Deerfield-based medical product giant Baxter International Inc. is working with the World Health Organization on a potential vaccine to curb the spread of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico, the company confirmed today. Baxter, which has a growing vaccine business, has worked with foreign countries in the past to develop vaccines for the H5N1 virus commonly known as bird flu. Baxter has a cell-based technology that allows the company to more rapidly produce vaccines in the event of a pandemic than a decades-old method that uses eggs to process vaccines and can take weeks or even months longer." See "Baxter to work to contain Mexico flu outbreak"

This is a significant development due to the fact that the Baxter International, Inc., is still being investigated by the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Control as to why, and how, they mixed live avian flu (H5H1) viruses with a human flu (H3N2) viruses, which, had they been administered, could have set of a global pandemic earlier this year. According to authorities, this contamination could not have been a mistake due to industry and government enforced lab safety protocols designed to prevent such contamination.

To read the entire article ...

Is there any relationship between the swine flu and the now intensely controversial "food safety" bills in Congress?  Would an animal disease at this moment affect things here politically?

Brian Snyder at PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture):

" … the things we know for sure right now are these: 1) Nearly everyone in government, partly at our own urging over the years, seems to want to do something about food safety right now; 2) Whatever happens will not come as quickly as many people fear, and will be very controversial at every step of the process.  The only caveat I'll add is that if another issue as big as the peanut thing comes along anytime soon, then all bets are off – we may be entering a time when executive orders, rather than painstakingly slow legislative processes, will prevail in a perceived emergency." 

One needs to understand that the "food safety" bills all mention "tracing" which triggers  NAIS, an animal ID system  ... allegedly intended to track animal diseases.  Public fear of animal diseases could potentially make pushing the controversial bills easier,  just as anthrax deaths were instrumental in pushing the Patriot Act through.  What is NAIS, who is pushing NAIS, and why?