Farm animals R US

by Noah Ararat

Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is non-threatening disease and yet the government is setting up conditions for an outbreak here which, if it occurred, would entail the slaughter of vast numbers of animals, even healthy.

Farm animals are so important that in destroying them, the government would be destroying local independent farmers, local food economies, safe food, food security, and the very underpinning of a sustainable future for everyone.

To understand the threat, one might begin by looking at what happened when US Agribusiness triggered avian flu in Asia through spreading contaminated waste from their giant unregulated poultry factories onto fields and infecting birds. Projecting avian flu as a terrifying pandemic, they got Asian governments and their military to slaughter small farmers' private poultry stocks across Asia. Once the farmers' biodiversity in poultry was exterminated, Agribusiness/biotech substituted their own patented GE-poultry.

Bird Flu and Chicken Factory Farms: Profit Bonanza for US Agribusiness

S 510, the Food Modernization Act arranges the same format. If the CDC declares a disease outbreak, DHS and the military would be called into to go onto farms to slaughter US farmers' animals in the millions. S 510 even includes plans for disposing of the carcasses.

The problem is that this is the same CDC which put out false numbers to the public about a mild swine flu. They generated terror in people and billions in sales (for vaccine manufacturers), and blocked a CBS investigation into their suspect claim of a huge numbers of swine flu cases.

So the same agency which got it (or made it) terribly wrong about one animal disease (swine flu), will be the agency to declare an animal disease outbreak here. And the CDC is not alone among "science" agencies with powerful corporate connections having trouble reporting accurately when it comes to disease and "emergencies."

WHO: The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency

CBS exposes the extremely exaggerated CDC numbers on cases of swine flu.

After H1N1 hype, Gerberding at CDC got a big job at Merck heading their vaccine division

"WHO scandal exposed: Advisors received kickbacks from H1N1 vaccine manufacturers"

Osterhaus - the main person at the WHO promoting SARS, Ebola, avian flu and swine flu as terrifying pandemics that would kill millions, is now under investigation for corruption

Yet Shiv Chopra, microbiologist, veterinarian and Canadian food and drug safety expert says:

The bird and mammalian species took hold on the earth approximately 65 million years ago, i.e. the same time as the dinosaurs went extinct. So did the flu and other viruses of all the surviving species. Since then, all those viruses have been mating and mutating among themselves without the sky caving in due to any infection. Therefore, any talk of a bird or swine flu pandemic with the probability to kill millions of people is either a purposeful or hallucinogenic nonsense to make profit on the backs of the innocent following.

Even so, on the basis of a corporate word from the CDC, millions of animals would be exterminated.

The public needs to know that:

1. Right now, ranchers are worried about what the government is doing, and are trying to stop the USDA from bringing animals into the country from FMD-active countries, as well as to stop them from moving a dangerous lab into the middle of ranching country (it was a lab leak which caused FMD in the UK).

2. FMD is not a threatening disease.

3. Yet, under S 510, DHS and DOD would be authorized to go onto farms and ranches across the country and mass slaughter even healthy cattle, sheep, alpaca, llama, goats, and in the millions.

"The US Department of Agriculture says FMD mortality is usually less than 1% although higher death rates have been reported. The virology chief of the Israel CVO department told me last week that they routinely treat animals with the disease and they usually recover. "Only rarely" do they have to destroy afflicted animals. This is all rather academic actually as the current outbreak in the UK does of course come with 100% mortality for sheep that are even suspected of exposure, whether they have the disease or not. This also applies to Llamas, Alpacas, Bison and pet goats."--Jonathan Miller

4. This would be a bonanza to agribusiness/ biotech which have developed genetically engineered animals they allege are FMD resistant and which they would sell to farmers but "own" through patents (just what they did in Asia with poultry which they can do it to all poultry here as well ... and just as they did to seeds, with devastating effects).

"There are three aspects to the reaction of the FMD epidemic that make me terribly uneasy.

First, while it is clear that globalisation of trade and increased movement of animals has spread the disease, the UK government continues to support increased liberalisation of agricultural trade in the World Trade Organisation. The half million livestock being killed are a ritual sacrifice to the gods of global markets. Shutting the countryside down while keeping borders open to trade will not prevent spread of disease - either coming in through imports or going out through exports.

Second, the export obsession that is an intrinsic part of globalisation also leads to a blindness to the welfare of animals and farmers. Thousands of livestock can be annihilated, hundreds of farmers ruined to maintain the "vaccine free" status of exports. Neither the farmers nor farm animals count in the calculus of free trade. That is why farmers are committing suicide in thousands in India, and animals are being killed in thousands in the UK.

Third, the same agencies that refuse to act in the public interest on issues of food safety related to GMOs are willing to cull farm animals infected by a non-fatal disease. These are double standards. On the basis of the precautionary principle, the UK government should ban GMOs instead of killing harmless animals if it is concerned about safety of food and agriculture."---Dr Vandana Shiva

5. Corporate "food safety" bills include "traceability" requirements using electronic surveillance which infuriate farmers because they makes no ostensible economic sense.

"USDA Listening Sessions on their attempts at a National Animal ID and Tracking System have been packed with vocal opponents to this Orwellian plan. In city after city, the NAIS has been roundly condemned by those farmers and ranchers and even consumers who will ultimately pay the price for an ill-conceived boondoggle. With America struggling for economic recovery, why does our government try to implement an expensive plan that will hurt our domestic economy and drive meat prices up?"

But such a traceability system does makes economic sense for Agribusiness. It makes it possible for the US government to locate every single US farm animal and use military force in order to slaughter them on behalf of Agribusiness, farmers's corporate competitors. Such an absolute agricultural "monopoly" is hard to fathom. Hidden under a disease justification, this radically new farming "monopoly" is accomplished through animal assassination.

6. The USDA is supportive of research into genetically engineered allegedly "FMD-resistant" animals. Such GE-"FMD-resistant" animals are worthless to those investing in them without

a). an FMD outbreak in the US and

b). if normal animals are still available (alive).

6. The USDA would be causing the destruction of a central part of the US food supply (with BP having destroyed seafood) while the government says it is concerned about shortages.

7. The USDA would end sustainable agriculture for which animals are crucial.

The public reacts strongly against animal abuse.

How would the public feel about the mass slaughter of millions of innocent animals, set off on purpose by the government, entailing the end of sustainable agriculture and the absolute corporate control of the US food supply, with corporate "ownership" of all farm animals, for then limitless corporate profit, and for the life and death corporate power this would mean over this nation?

This is something beyond animal abuse. Is it animal genocide?

The impact is something far beyond competition, far beyond monopoly, far beyond corruption.

What would one call it?

From the Organic Consumers Association: MAD SHEEP (A book review.)

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_2158.cfm

Warning: reading this riveting tale of good and evil will make you angry. After a few chapters, you will likely suffer from a deep sense of disillusionment and an uncontrollable urge to speak out or strike back. As this twisted and wicked pastoral unfolds, outrage after outrage, it will become increasingly clear that this is not just a tragic case of administrative bungling or faulty science on the part of the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).

What we are confronted with in Mad Sheep is a government conspiracy. A politically inspired ritual of fabricated charges, manipulated science, and doctored evidence. A modern witch-hunt to sacrifice the innocent in order to protect the massive profits and scandalous practices of the guilty. A diabolically orchestrated, media-scripted search and destroy operation in the Vermont countryside, designed not just to murder some innocent sheep and thereby exorcize mounting consumer fears about food safety and mad cow disease, but also to turn us all into sheep, to fan the flames of fear and ignorance, and to foster our continued dependence on an abusive Big Brother government that has promised to protect us from the contemporary terrors that lurk, well, nearly everywhere. ....

The mad sheep battle described in these pages is not an isolated case. Armed with $90 billion in taxpayer money each year, the USDA is waging war against all of us‹consumers, family farmers, farm animals, and the environment. The direct and collateral damage of this war includes rampant water, air, and food pollution; an epidemic of cancer, birth defects, obesity, and hormone disruption; pollution by genetically engineered crops; an unsustainable, massive venting of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases; pesticide and antibiotic contamination; proliferation of junk food; systematic exploitation of small farmers, farm workers, and slaughterhouse workers; and the dumping of millions of tons of subsidized crops and meat at below the cost of production on developing nations, thereby destroying the livelihoods of millions of small farmers and rural communities. It's time to follow the example of the Faillace family. It's time to stand up and fight, not only for ourselves, but also for future generations.

Venceremos! We Shall Overcome! Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association July 2006

Everyone cares about farm animals. And farm animals are inseparable from farming and ranching.

Through our shared and deep love of animals, this country can come together to save farm animals from the corporations, thus saving US farming, and our country.

It seems, then, that our gentle farm animals are not just central to farming, but are central to our very democracy.

What is needed:

1. A No Slaughter policy for animal outbreaks with decisions made on a case by case basis by farmers and their veterinarians.

2. Exposing the reality that FMD as not dangerous at all to people and a minor disease in animals.

3. The removal of DHS and the military from any power over the US food supply.

4. Rejection of corporate-driven electronic "traceability" which make it possible to locate every singe farm animal for slaughter.

4. Exposure of how avian flu outbreak (caused by the big poultry companies) was used by agribusiness to wipe out small farmers' diverse stocks of poultry across Asia and how genetically engineered chickens were substituted.

5. Exposure of the USDA collusion with biotech corporations on genetically engineered patented animals, animals which have no value if normal animals are still alive.

6. Alerting the environmental, anti-global warming, anti-GMO movement to take note, since extermination of millions of farm animals means agribusiness, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, oil-based fertilizers, and genetic engineering take over.

7. Stopping S 510 and any other food safety bill, which are corporate bills arranging the take over of the US food supply and thus, our nation.

The US government's corporate plan for "food safety":

"If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public's right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one's choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God." ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower

To stop Agribusiness and save our country, protecting our farm animals is key.

Please, stop that bill.