Goodbye food

by Constance O'Neill

In the DVD, The Cheese Nun, the nun was in France working on her Ph.D in microbiology to help her learn more about cheese, and pointed out all the farms that had closed down, farms which had produced some of the best cheeses in France going back many generations.

The food safety laws put in by the multinational corporations have done this. Those laws harmonize with the bills here, so we know with clarity what they will do to farming and food here. The laws in Europe have also gotten rid of generations of cheese makers in Tuscany, while Kraft Food is doing well in Europe.

Vandana Shiva explains what the food safety laws are really about. Vandana Shiva -Food Laws

And one can see just in looking at New York - remember New York, famous for its stunning diversity in food, the place where immigrants of all kinds got their starts by opening little food shops, by vending on the street? - how much is happening to shut down the most normal exchange of food and any possible small businesses around it, leaving only corporate food.

The insanity and injustice of it is palpable.

No Brownies at Bake Sales, but Doritos May Be O.K.

Market crash! City scrutiny scuttles Greenpoint food vendors

The following didn't pass but it gives an idea of where they are heading as they tighten the noose on access to normal, safe local food in state after state,

SB 419: Wisconsin's Honey and Vandana Shiva's Law for Food Fascism

Meanwhile, the big meat packers are still free to sicken and kill people and the big food processors free to put GMOs that are associated with organ failure and sterility and hair growing in the mouth, into our children's food unlabeled, and to load their food with MSG and aspartame, both shown to cause a long list of serious diseases. (While touted as a necessity for achieving food safety, no one believes that bills in Congress written by Monsanto and giving the FDA police state power, will be used in any way to go after industry, but they clearly pose a terrible threat to farmers and local food.)

The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund sued the FDA over their ban of raw milk in interstate commerce. Last month, the FDA responded to FTCLDF's suit that such a ban is unconstitutional, with assertions that would impress Hitler.

"There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food."
"There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds."
• "Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish." (With the removal of the food words and one ends up with this actually frightening position by a government agency ostensibly tasked to protect people's health by preventing corporate harm: "Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health ... is similarly unavailing ...")
• FDA's brief goes on to state that "even if such a right did exist, it would not render FDA's regulations unconstitutional because prohibiting the interstate sale and distribution of [insert the name of any food you consider invaluable] promotes bodily and physical health."
"There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract."

This strangling of food access is happening everywhere.

The large farmers market in Urbana, Illinois, is a source of great pride to the city and a delight to its regular customers, but those who attend have no idea how close the farmers and other food vendors there are to going under. Some can't bring fresh eggs to market anymore without purchasing refrigerator trucks (yes, there is no need); others can't bring baked goods without going through expensive classes and renting government facilities that they can only get into at midnight on the day before the market (yes, there is no need); those selling meat are threatened with financial collapse of their whole operations if USDA/corporate demands for electronic tagging of their animals is forced on them, though it is "lunatic." (and may even be much worse; and honey farmers talk under their breath of regulations in which they might not even be allowed to share honey, let alone sell it.

Choking rules are increasing on each type of food sold at the Urbana farmers market. But the market manager is so out of touch with what her own vendors are going through, that the market just increased the fee to vendors by 39%, saying the market had become so popular, they added more vendors and now need fire insurance for how close tents are to eat other (yes, it is absurd). The market gains from the vendors, but it is the vendors who are forced to bear the burden of the success they brought to others.

Meanwhile those in charge in Urbana, bragging on the market as a special feature of the city, dependent on it themselves for wholesome food for their families, have not seen the corporate threat to the vendors so not only have done nothing to protect them from unjust regulations but become the very ones to enforce those regulations, and then top them off with their own additional fees.

A young Mediterranean man in a city in Massachusetts who wanted to open a small restaurant (which would provide jobs to others) can't do so because a new regulation requires an especially large grease trap which is prohibitively expensive. The impossibly expensive grease trap is supposed to protect the water.

The EPA also uses "oil" as a means to shut small businesses down. It has demanded that dairy farmers put in (again, prohibitively expensive) equipment to prevent spilt milk, defining the fat in milk now as oil.

Meanwhile BP spews "grease" into the world's oceans and adds poisons to that at will, yet does not face being shut down or even stopped, and gets tax breaks and even subsidies for what it did.

At a time when people have lost jobs and jobs themselves are disappearing, the corporations have devised a crushing orchestration of "health" regulations and laws which boggle the mind in terms of their anti-competitive impact. Forced onto communities, they are aimed at people's natural connection to food, and are breaking down distinct cultures and communities and local economies piece by piece.

The patent absurdity of the food safety regulations does not escape ordinary people. At a church in Massachusetts where, like all religious groups, they put on bazaars to support their efforts to do good in the community, no one is legally allowed to bring home baked goods to sell anymore. Asked about this, the church secretary frowned and then whispered, "We do it anyway."

Food itself is going underground.

In Pennsylvania, farmers meet customers in parking lots in out of the way places at night to sell them food.

S 510, the Food Modernization Act sees "modern" food as solely corporate food, and would use disease threats they define themselves, to even bring in DHS and the military to wipe out their animals.

Perhaps churches, farmers markets, restauranteurs, shop owners, and families are beginning to see the full picture - that "food safety" is a hoax and that the health laws are meant to be destructive - the local piece of a massive international scheme by multinational corporations to take control of all food in the world. Perhaps as they begin to see how each of them and all of them are being harmed, they will join together and storm their local city council meetings to demand the removal of "food safety" laws that are actually corporate choke-holds on everyone's access to local food, to their own local economy, and to the abundant, distinct, and happy life that comes with it.

The odds are good it is illegal for your child to sell lemonade and cookies to neighbors now. This isn't only "crazy" or upsetting. It is deeply inconsistent with existence.

Oh, the big hearted, duped Left

The left's ferocity to get a long awaited health care bill in place that would provide universal coverage was aimed at the right, though they saw themselves betrayed repeatedly by Obama and the Democrats. Single payer advocates couldn't even get into hearings and Obama abandoned his pledged support for the public option.

The left seemed driven on by corporate media that enflamed right and left divides, and played up racial issues, and appeared more focused on beating the right than in watching the moves of the corporations behind the bill or an administration lying to them. So, though the bill was empty of the fundamentals they cared about, still the left hated the right for fighting against it and was committed to triumphing over them.

Finally, they defined a victory for themselves in the bill passing, in defeating the right, in the bill at least covering everyone. In that last - the bill covering everyone - the left had been particularly deaf to the right's saying the bill would cost people a fortune but even if they couldn't afford it, they would have to buy the insurance or face penalties, and possibly jail. The left seemed not to realize the tea partiers were working class or middle class and saying the bill would hurt them. The left seemed only to see in black and white, poor blacks' needs over white fears. They said the bill was "imperfect" but, despite what the right said, everyone would save money, and finally the poor would be covered. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/06/22/mass_may_find_us_health_care_changes_costly/

The Boston Globe, on the insider cover of the paper, months after the bill passed, and under a picture of cute black kids at the beach, just ran a headline, "Mass. may find US health care changes costly: As rules stand now, poorer to pay more".

"Under the Massachusetts program, people who earn about $15,000 annually incur health care expenses that average $295 a year, the report said. Under the federal program, these same individuals would have to spend about $626 a year, more than double the cost."

The article did not mention that under the bill the liberals helped push through on behalf of the poor, poor people will not only not be able to afford insurance but will now face fines for not purchasing what they can't afford.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/06/22/mass_may_find_us_health_care_changes_costly/

It turns out the condescended-to-as-stupid, hated-as-racist, mocked-as-religious-fanatics tea partiers read the bill better than the left did.

And as stories now emerge, the reality of the bill only gets worse. And slicker.

In the following section below from the New York Times, there is an explanation of why children with pre-existing conditions will not be covered. Authors of the bill and insurance companies are referred but who is who? Aren't the authors of the bill the insurance companies themselves (and Big Pharma)? And if so, who exactly meant to put something in the bill which the companies now say isn't really in the bill?

www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/health/policy/29health.html

The authors of the law [isn't that the insurance companies and pharmaceutical industry or their lobbyists or the legislators they control?] say they meant [my emphasis] to ban all forms of discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes, birth defects, orthopedic problems, leukemia, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. The goal, they say, was to provide those youngsters with access to insurance and to a full range of benefits once they are in a health plan.

To insurance companies [again, aren't they the true authors of the bill?], the language of the law is not so clear

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the "availability of coverage" for all until 2014.

William G. Schiffbauer, a lawyer whose clients include employers and insurance companies, said: "The fine print differs from the larger political message. [My emphasis.] If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/health/policy/29health.html

The companies appear to have written the bill, then put it into the hands of those they influence to promote it as theirs, while opposing it themselves so that the left would push hard for it - against the false resistance of the very companies which set up this complex charade. And with the drama of corporate media setting up the tea party to look like ignorant racists and enemies of the poor.

Why weren't liberal lawyers or journalists at the New York Times able to analyze a bill beforehand and see that it included that central and immense loophole?

Why only now is the New York Times reporting on the cover denying fine print which had to be there, since the insurance companies, of course, have always been maestros of precisely that species of fine print.

But it's not only the insurance companies who have jumped in to trumpet the fine print. The corporations are doing so as well. Were they in on the writing of the bill, too?

Top US Corporations Considering Ending Health Care Benefits Thanks To Impending Cost Hikes

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/top-us-corporations-considering-ending-health-care-benefits-thanks-to-impending-cost-hikes/

"... a report issued today in Fortune Magazine and reported by CNN indicates that the dire warnings of ObamaCare critics concerning the consequences of approving the costly legislation are in fact well-founded.

The report points to internal documents from AT&T, Verizon, John Deere, and several other large corporations which show that executives are, in fact, looking at the option of droppinghealthcare coverage for employees due to what they are sure will be unsustainable increases in costs. These costs will be so prohibitive that it would benefit the corporations to pay the government fines instead. ...."

The healthcare bill is becoming just the nightmare the right warned against, but in feeling free to hate them without reservation and without knowing them personally (one might even say, being comfortable being prejudiced against them), that was a warning the left could not hear.

The left is left with having hated so much, it couldn't appreciate that the tea partiers were bringing important insight into the bill, while the pressing voices saying "it will cover the sick and poor, take it, take it," were coming from those who wrote the bill and ensured in the thousands of pages and fine print, that it would do no such thing.

It is not too late for the left to make allies with ordinary people on the right who are not racist idiots but a white lower middle class going off Obama's cliff, who were legitimately frightened of a giant bill giving immense power to the federal government (on behalf of the insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations).

it is not too late for the left to wake up and make friends and join with all those rejecting Obama's deceit around the healthcare bill.

Here is but one.

ANH–USA Joins Healthcare Repeal Lawsuit
ANH–USA strongly opposed the recently enacted healthcare bill for a variety of reasons. We stand for the freedom of consumers to choose the type of healthcare they want, and the freedom of practitioners to practice without harassment. The healthcare reform act seriously impinges on both. So after a thorough review of our legal options, which took some time, we have decided to join a lawsuit that has been initiated by a distinguished group of physicians to have the act repealed.

Left and right want our country back. Perhaps, through the hindsight of the corrupt healthcare bill, people will hear each other better and can begin to work together on all the other issues Obama makes "sound" progressive but which end up frighteningly corporate. (Watch out for Immigration reform!)

Obama's Mouth

by Aldyn Carmelo

Obama's mouth is full of words with no connection to truth.

Not when it comes to Americans' essential rights.

Jon Stewart Skewers Obama's Hypocrisy http://act.commondreams.org/go/1050?akid=82.76761.Demsxa&t=18

Not when it comes to ending the war. War on the World: Obama's Surge in State Terror

Not when it comes to having vowed to get rid of Bush's Presidential Directive 51, a coup d'etat by emergency. Obama has created the emergencies.

Not when it comes to fixing the economy.

Obama Gets Tough w/ Bankers...By Giving More Loopholes

Not when it comes to a pandemic and his National Emergency.

There is no emergency but an Infection Deception, an international scandal with kickbacks from H1N1 vaccine manufacturers.

Not when it comes to his asserting no mandatory vaccination. Obama just extended the false pandemic until 2012, under which vaccines are mandatory and US Northcom is kept on the ground to deliver them. Questions abound.

Not when it comes to protecting home ownership and the middle class. Underwater homeowners get negative equity and lenders can still come calling as Realtor-backed mortgage measure passes Senate

Not when it comes to blacks. DECODING OBAMA: BLACKISH EVASIONS ON BLACK BETRAYALS

Not when it comes to caring about social security or the poor. Greens protest Obama Administration proposals that would dismantle Social Security and public housing as The Obama Administration is about to give conservatives a victory they could not have anticipated, even under Bush: the privatization of public housing.

Not when it comes to saving farming. Obama food policy may mean end of farmers markets, family farms

Not when it comes to healthier food. Obama, our children and the big lie

Not when it comes to the very sustainability of agriculture. Obama gives away US sovereignty over all its food to the corporations, and though they are crucial for sustainable agriculture, is preparing emergencies as a means to exterminate US farm animals.

Not when it comes to healthcare. Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma and NYT confirms betrayal: Obama made deal to kill Public Option

Not when it comes to health and prevention. Obama's uses Executive Order To Establish Government Power over Americans' access to preventive health comes just after Obama asserts in court that Americans have no right to their bodily or physical health

Now Obama vows to hold Gulf culprits accountable for all 'death and destruction.' ....

Obama's mouth makes sounds inversely related to truth. His mouth emits a now discernible language foretelling his opposite actions.

BACKGROUND on Obama's Executive Order Establishing Government Power Over Health

by M. Newton

Obama's Executive Order lays the foundation for Codex Alimentarius in the US, an immense corporate system for control over all food and nutrition in the world created by the Nazi CEO's of IG Farben after their release from prison for their medical war crimes. These same companies, now vastly larger, have been major financial support to Bush (who undid normal public health laws around the country, militarizing them) and now to Obama.

Before looking over Obama's order itself with his repeated references to "science based," please investigate the context of Codex Alimentarius (assumed corporate power over world food and the setting of nutrient levels) and what has happened to science in the US.

a. Read this article in The Nation by Bobby Kennedy Jr. on what Bush did to US science agencies (not reversed under Obama).

b. See that the CDC put out false numbers on swine flu, and blocked FOIA when asked for ("science based") evidence, yet, two days after CBS's report revealing that H1N1 was not an emergency (but actually a scientific and financial scandal, now confirmed in Europe), Obama declared a national emergency, removing rights and all requirements for the pharmaceutical industry to test vaccines. After its false numbers resulted in billions to the vaccine manufacturers, the CDC head accepted a lucrative job with Merck as head of their vaccine division.

c. Examine the logical necessity for the pharmaceutical industry to eliminate nutritional information and access, and note that the Obama's FDA has been aggressively aiding them by limiting freedom of speech around nutrition, and even imprisoning those providing natural cures, and threatening others. It has done this while leaving on the market drugs that have killed tens of thousands, and are now being recommended for children. Obama's order says the government will address the five leading disease killers in the the US, but does not mention that the combination of prescription drugs and medical error is the leading cause of death in the US.

d. Put into context that Obama's Executive Order taking government control of nutrition comes on the heel of bill after bill after bill recently introduced into the Senate to remove access to nutritional supplements meeting massive resistance, as the public insists on its right to continue to treat themselves, not with pharmaceutical industry drugs but through non-lethal food supplements and safe food, based on access to nutritional science.

d. Look through quotes, from agency personnel, judges, and renowned scientists, exposing a long history of the government and US "science" agencies blocking access to treatments (including potential cures), practitioners, and scientific studies other than those from the pharmaceutical/medical industry.

e. And finally, listen to an interview with a MD. PHD at UC San Diego describing the extensive and multi-layered corruption of "science based" studies, resulting evidence, journals, articles, doctors, and medical education by the pharmaceutical industry.

[The words "science based" are used repeatedly in Obama's order, and are commonly used by Monsanto in promoting GMOs. Monsanto which runs "food safety" at FDA through its VP, Michael Taylor, is, along with Obama, promoting a ban on labeling of all GMOs worldwide. That is, Obama and Monsanto seek the removal of the most fundamental of all "science based" information - what something actually is.]

Obama's Presidential Order, ostensibly proposed out of concern for the public's nutritional health, appears to be the only means left by those who have been pushing redundantly to severe access to nutritional supplements, to override immense, vehement and successful public rejection of government control over their nutrition. With this order, Obama abandons democratic processes, shifting to non-representative power in order to establish massive government control (even through DHS) over Americans' most intimate private choices about their own and their family's health.

This intrusive Presidential Order coincides against a background in which Obama's FDA has recently said in court that Americans have no rights to choose the nutrition (food) they believe is necessary for their family's health.

Even more significantly, Obama's Presidential Order which takes unheard of government control over Americans' health comes just after Obama has asserted the astounding legal position in court through his FDA, that Americans have no "fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health."

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

June 10, 2010

Executive Order– Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council

EXECUTIVE ORDER

ESTABLISHING THE NATIONAL PREVENTION, HEALTH PROMOTION, AND PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 4001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment. There is established within the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Council).

Sec. 2. Membership.

(a) The Surgeon General shall serve as the Chair of the Council, which shall be composed of:

(1) the Secretary of Agriculture;

(2) the Secretary of Labor;

(3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services;

(4) the Secretary of Transportation;

(5) the Secretary of Education;

(6) the Secretary of Homeland Security;

(7) the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency;

(8) the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission;

(9) the Director of National Drug Control Policy;

(10) the Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council;

(11) the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs;

(12) the Chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service; and

(13) the head of any other executive department or agency that the Chair may, from time to time, determine is appropriate.

(b) The Council shall meet at the call of the Chair.

Sec. 3. Purposes and Duties. The Council shall:

(a) provide coordination and leadership at the Federal level, and among all executive departments and agencies, with respect to prevention, wellness, and health promotion practices, the public health system, and integrative health care in the United States;

(b) develop, after obtaining input from relevant stakeholders, a national prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable means of improving the health status of Americans and reducing the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States, as further described in section 5 of this order;

(c) provide recommendations to the President and the Congress concerning the most pressing health issues confronting the United States and changes in Federal policy to achieve national wellness, health promotion, and public health goals, including the reduction of tobacco use, sedentary behavior, and poor nutrition;

(d) consider and propose evidence-based models, policies, and innovative approaches for the promotion of transformative models of prevention, integrative health, and public health on individual and community levels across the United States;

(e) establish processes for continual public input, including input from State, regional, and local leadership communities and other relevant stakeholders, including Indian tribes and tribal organizations;

(f) submit the reports required by section 6 of this order; and

(g) carry out such other activities as are determined appropriate by the President.

Sec. 4. Advisory Group.

(a) There is established within the Department of Health and Human Services an Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health (Advisory Group), which shall report to the Chair of the Council.

(b) The Advisory Group shall be composed of not more than 25 members or representatives from outside the Federal Government appointed by the President and shall include a diverse group of licensed health professionals, including integrative health practitioners who are representative of or have expertise in:

(1) worksite health promotion;

(2) community services, including community health centers;

(3) preventive medicine;

(4) health coaching;

(5) public health education;

(6) geriatrics; and

(7) rehabilitation medicine.

(c) The Advisory Group shall develop policy and program recommendations and advise the Council on lifestyle-based chronic disease prevention and management, integrative health care practices, and health promotion.

Sec. 5. National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy. Not later than March 23, 2011, the Chair, in consultation with the Council, shall develop and make public a national prevention, health promotion, and public health strategy (national strategy), and shall review and revise it periodically. The national strategy shall:

(a) set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States through federally supported prevention, health promotion, and public health programs, consistent with ongoing goal setting efforts conducted by specific agencies;

(b) establish specific and measurable actions and timelines to carry out the strategy, and determine accountability for meeting those timelines, within and across Federal departments and agencies; and

(c) make recommendations to improve Federal efforts relating to prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care practices to ensure that Federal efforts are consistent with available standards and evidence.

Sec. 6. Reports. Not later than July 1, 2010, and annually thereafter until January 1, 2015, the Council shall submit to the President and the relevant committees of the Congress, a report that:

(a) describes the activities and efforts on prevention, health promotion, and public health and activities to develop the national strategy conducted by the Council during the period for which the report is prepared;

(b) describes the national progress in meeting specific prevention, health promotion, and public health goals defined in the national strategy and further describes corrective actions recommended by the Council and actions taken by relevant agencies and organizations to meet these goals;

(c) contains a list of national priorities on health promotion and disease prevention to address lifestyle behavior modification (including smoking cessation, proper nutrition, appropriate exercise, mental health, behavioral health, substance-use disorder, and domestic violence screenings) and the prevention measures for the five leading disease killers in the United States;

(d) contains specific science-based initiatives to achieve the measurable goals of the Healthy People 2020 program of the Department of Health and Human Services regarding nutrition, exercise, and smoking cessation, and targeting the five leading disease killers in the United States;

(e) contains specific plans for consolidating Federal health programs and centers that exist to promote healthy behavior and reduce disease risk (including eliminating programs and offices determined to be ineffective in meeting the priority goals of the Healthy People 2020 program of the Department of Health and Human Services);

(f) contains specific plans to ensure that all Federal health-care programs are fully coordinated with science-based prevention recommendations by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and

(g) contains specific plans to ensure that all prevention programs outside the Department of Health and Human Services are based on the science-based guidelines developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under subsection (d) of this section.

Sec. 7. Administration.

(a) The Department of Health and Human Services shall provide funding and administrative support for the Council and the Advisory Group to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations.

(b) All executive departments and agencies shall provide information and assistance to the Council as the Chair may request for purposes of carrying out the Council’s functions, to the extent permitted by law.

(c) Members of the Advisory Group shall serve without compensation, but shall be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law for persons serving intermittently in Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707), consistent with the availability of funds.

Sec. 8. General Provisions.

(a) Insofar as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C App.) may apply to the Advisory Group, any functions of the President under that Act, except that of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in accordance with the guidelines that have been issued by the Administrator of General Services.

(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(1) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or

(2) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,

June 10, 2010

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-establishing-national-prevention-health-promotion-and-public-health