I received a call early today from an Amish dairy farmer I’ve gotten to know. He telephones periodically to check in about regulatory developments in the East, so he can possibly anticipate which raw dairy producers ag regulators might target next.
The phone in the barn is the only communication technology most Amish farmers use directly (though some have “English” helpers who send out emails and maintain private web sites on their behalf). So instead of monitoring computers and cell phones like most of us, Amish farmers tend to spend some time each day telephoning other Amish farmers and non-Amish friends to keep up on the outside world.
The Amish farmer who called me wondered if I had been in touch with another non-Amish activist who is active in working on behalf of food rights.
“I haven’t spoken directly with him, but we did have a debate over the weekend on Facebook,” I told the farmer.
“Huh?”
I remembered that this farmer doesn’t use Facebook, but I thought he knew what it was conceptually. “Facebook, the social media outlet,” I said as a shorthand explanation.
“Right,” he said.
“I had a pretty involved discussion with (the activist) on Facebook about the big march against gun violence on Saturday,” I went on.
“Huh?”
I wondered if the farmer actually hadn’t heard anything about the March for Our Lives organized by survivors of the Parkland, FL, massacre that killed 17 students in February. “There were about a million people who gathered in Washington on Saturday to protest gun massacres in our schools,” I said by way of summary.
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Clearly he didn’t know anything about the march, or the dozens of other smaller marches in cities around the country.
My mind was going through a quick consideration about how I might explain the origins of the Washington march, and the unexpected controversy that resulted from it. How I had assumed there would be universal admiration for the Parkland teens, who had survived the slaughter of 17 of their classmates via an assault-rifle-toting crazy only a month earlier, and then gone out and lobbied politicians and organized a million-person peaceful protest in Washington. How I was bursting with pride that these public-school-educated kids could be so organized and articulate and poised, especially coming out of the trauma of the massacre so recently. I mean, I couldn’t begin to imagine myself, at age 15 or 16 giving a speech in front of a million people, not to mention a fiery and articulate speech, as a number of these kids did.
Also, how I had quickly come to realize over the weekend via Facebook that there were many among food rights supporters I knew who viewed the Florida students and the millions who supported them with utter contempt. A few of the Florida students were described by one friend as “punks” who had “handlers” coaching them on what to say. Others I knew cited conspiracy sites that claimed, without any documentation, that some of the students were really “actors” who had appeared in gun protests in other parts of the country. And still others had argued that the teenage organizers were set up by the government to help confiscate everyone’s guns (ignoring the reality that “the government” consists of the 535 Congressional representatives (Reps and Senators) and the President, who have consistently rejected any and all restrictions on firearms, such as on military-style assault weapons).
My mind continued on, wondering that there wasn’t a single expression of admiration for the guts and resiliency these kids had shown, from adults who were so outspoken in protecting people’s rights to food and guns. They are, after all, only kids, and our teenagers tend to be maligned as interested only in music, sex, and video games. Here they go and pull off a fantastic peaceful demonstration, and their reward from people who supposedly care about rights is that they are smeared all over the place.
The farmer caller interrupted the phone-line silence that had gone on for maybe 30 seconds. “You still there?” he asked me.
“Yes, I’m still here,” I said, having concluded that there was no way I could fill the Amish dairy farmer in on all that had happened over the weekend “No other news that I’m aware of.“
After I got off the phone, I realized there probably was no way I could explain not only the events, but the subtleties of the various arguments over guns, assault weapons, background checks, and the Second Amendment. You see, the Amish are pacifists, and won’t serve in the military or law enforcement, or keep guns for self defense. They only use guns for hunting wild game or shooting animal pests.
It’s not that the Amish have no knowledge of school massacres. In 2006, a crazed individual murdered five young girls and injured 11 others at an Amish school in Lancaster, PA. Most remarkably, the Amish community not only had no interest in retribution, but forgave the perpetrator within hours of the shooting.
David,
Taking this into the true reality of the church in local communities in Pennsylvania. Got an email today that is tearfully sobbing.
The Amish and Mennonites are losing Deans Foods Organic dairy contracts right now. Not just one or two. But handfuls at a time.
The impacts are shocking. Being disengaged from the reality of the market place is not nirvana. There are massive market forces in play. Massive CAFO operations in CO and Texas have hijacked the entire organic dairy market place. They are shipping organic milk from their 16,000 cow CAFOs to all four corners of America displacing local organic and pastured milk sources. In spite of usda denials, these operations are not pasturing their cows. I know ex employees and ex consultants that laugh at that notion. They literally tell me: “pasturing is for the small guys. We never saw pasturing of milk cows except when the certifiers visited”.
Passivism is not the order of the day.
All of you Trump lovers can find a mirror and look into it for the answers to this debacle. It was your stupid vote that brought all of this on
America. Purdue and his boss love Chaos, love cheap food and love to watch canabalism. They have no regard for the Pasture Rule and have called it “overly prescriptive and hard for the larger operations to follow”.
We are watching the death of organic dairies.
(Additional material deleted from this comment at request of commenter.)
Mark,
You state, “There may be a (resurrection) of organic dairies but it will come after Trump is (impeached) or replaced. The current admin has no desire to keep organic rules in place.”
I know that you know that the organic food movement was preempted long before Trump came onto the seen … Obama after he was elected president certainly didn’t appear to have any desire to keep organic rules in place, since most of if not all of the organic rules that currently apply to CAFO operations came into being under his watch. And no more is this evident then in his signing of the Dark Act… a flagrant contradiction of his campaign promise to get elected!
I agree, Ken, and Mark and a few others here better hope like hell no one here decides to compile a list of things “wrong” with Obozo or Hagzilla Clanton and her gang. It would take up more bandwidth than what is available.
This whole debacle with “organic” milk didn’t start just yesterday. It’s been ongoing for years and that Dark Act? That was, as you say, a flagrant contradiction of obozo’s campaign promise(s), just one of many. But Mark thinks he was wonderful and, oh my, Michelle was the cat’s meow. Explain to me how THAT works, alongside “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor” or “if you like your health plan you can keep your health plan”? Yeah, talk about flagrant, glaring, out-and-out lies. I hated his guts.
Dear God, I never meant to get involved here again after
the exhausting fermented (rotten) cod liver oil debate, not
because it was not a valuable experience and I am glad
I stood up for the people who were trying to warn others
of the danger of taking this product, but it was better for
me to concentrate else where in my life.
Yet I must say I agree completely with Mark. Some of us in
NYC know what he is really like. And I have true life stories
about him continually throwing rocks at his family dog who
suffered a great deal, to the contractors he stiffed, and
florist he ran out of business and Blacks he would not rent to
and his getting bailed out first by his dad and then the Russians
because after going bankrupt 6 times, strangely banks here
would have no more to do with him, his hit men and lawyers
threatened people, truly the guy is a not very bright thug.
As for the attacking those wonderful and brave kids, come on right
wing! I kinda used to believe that shit too, till I started watching
The Young Turks on line and became a member.
All this deep state stuff is propaganda,
pure and simple. It is easier to take the tragedies I know, but
it is the fake news. I expect the right to get real upset, but
I do not care. Anyone who is for Trump must also be by default,
a racist, against women, against health, against clean air and
water, against help for poor, and vanishing middle class, against a decent minimum wage, against real free enterprise, and for police murder and brutality of the black and Spanish people, and for
us regular people giving more of our money to the top one percent and big business. They are also for the GOP and the Corporate democrats obeying their dark money, big donors and not serving the voters. They are for an Oligarchy, not a democracy. They are for
having less and less as the years go by. They have been sold
a bill of goods that will blow up in their faces. I will only vote
for candidates who will not take corporate money. The right is cutting their own throats. Justice Democrats and Wolfpac.com are some of the organizations who vet the candidates
they support for not taking legalized bribes. Bernie ran
a populist campaign as did Trump, only Bernie meant it and would
have delivered. The corporate Dems did not want that and smeared him, because the gravy train would have stopped for those awful
people, why do you think the Dems rarely stand up to the GOP?
They were paid not to do so by donors. These kids demonstrating, they are such a gift to us, I have tears in my eyes when I think of them, tears of hope and gladness. Smear them if you must but know or at least entertain the thought that you have been screwed over so long by the swamp, you no longer can see the sky.
Charmcat, thank you for your beautiful comment. You said lots of things better than I have been able to. I’m glad to learn I haven’t been the only person around here to get teary seeing all these kids get out and express themselves. Even if you don’t agree with them politically, you’ve got to admire their commitment and idealism if you have the slightest of pulses.
i have asked this before …..cant we just go back to NOT having a president.
Would this work in the united states in the present time?
Kathy, I’m certain that Canada and the other nations (now known as the Commonwealth) which have Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state would happily welcome your nation back into the fold. 🙂 You would still need something like an elected Prime Minister though, as Good Queen Liz is a strictly hands-off sovereign.
Oh, Charmcat, you mean these kids?
http://thegatewaypundit.com/2018/03/little-hoggs-marchforourlives-student-protesters-leave-their-trash-for-someone-else-to-clean-up/
Ever checked into the background of some other politicians? I suggest it because none of them are perfect.
Your opinions don’t mean any more than anyone else’s, on whether or not there’s a deep state or this conspiracy or that conspiracy, or whatever. We are all entitled to think whatever we want to think.
You obviously haven’t been to very many demonstrations, or other public events (like concerts, parades, etc.). I’ve been to a lot, as both a participant and a journalist covering them, and they all look pretty much this way afterwards, which is why big cities routinely plan trash pickup afterwards.
I’ll add that I find it disgusting how you and many others who dislike what these kids stand for look for every possible excuse to discredit them. I’ve seen photos on FB of profanity on some signage, or interviews with a few in which they use some profane language. As if such small transgressions discredit everything they did. There were nearly one million participants in the Washington march, and it was nearly entirely a peaceful event, perfectly appropriate for families, including young children. It’s fine to disagree with their political goals, not fine to smear them.
Ahhhh, David, I did not smear their messages at all. They are free to picket anything they want. I simply made mention of the fact that they left a mess, a mess they felt it was OK to leave. I didn’t try to discredit their message because if I had, believe me, you’d have known it. I do not want to get into that here on a raw milk message board, not the right place for an anti-gun or pro-gun fight, IMPHHO.
I have never been to a demonstration, other than locally in my city, and we never would have dreamed of leaving the streets looking like that, but if all of them in bigger areas are like that afterward with trash all over the place, why do our cities allow that? Part of the rules of etiquette should be they clean up after. Next thing you know these cities will have rats the size of dogs and then THAT will somehow be my fault because you think I didn’t like/agree with their message. (?) Good grief, David. I could care less about their message. I know how I feel, personally, and that’s all I worry about for right now.
But hey, if you think these groups that meet to send a message of some sort should be allowed to leave a huge mess like that, go for supporting them to continue to do so. Up to you.
Mark, the situation you describe with the corruption of organic standards for milk fits in with the bigger picture I described in January, about the fascist agriculture agenda.
http://www.davidgumpert.com/agriculture-new-fascist-agenda-takes-shape
Actually, it’s part of a larger business-economic-health agenda that has two main components:
1. Favor the largest producers within certain favored industries, such as carbon-based energy (coal, gas, oil), farming, and defense.
2. Make the government actions negative for the health of millions of people. Corrupting organic standard, encouraging more polluting fuels, and reducing or eliminating regulations that limit toxic waste are all sops to big business, and detrimental to overall health. Why try to poison people? Presumably that helps Big Pharma and other parts of the health industry.
“Amish farmers tend to spend some time each day telephoning other Amish farmers and non-Amish friends to keep up on the outside world.” Tell me about it David… lol
“They only use guns for hunting wild game or shooting animal pests”… and putting down a domestic animal for consumption or for merciful reasons.
There are two auctions of unrestricted and restricted firearms every year in our neck of the woods with Amish folk (men and women) representing a good percentage of the people purchasing guns. If you watch them handling the guns and talking about them you soon come to realize that they (especially the younger ones) have a real fascination with guns… That being said, they are human beings subject to the same vices as the rest of us, and despite their faith in the Christian God, if exposed to the right influences and circumstances, such as if they were to be prescribed a drug with side effects capable of altering their view on life, they too could resort to using guns in a more belligerent and self destructive way.
There is one thing I can say with almost absolute certainty, Amish teenagers are inclined to be very modest and subdued in their behavior and as such would not participate in a hyped up event such as the March for Our Lives… Indeed, an event where gun-carrying security guards were ever present! Amish teenagers tend to be more concerned with the practical and God honoring aspect of their lives.
Ken, I wouldn’t be so sure about Amish teenagers shunning March for Our Lives. I’ve seen groups of Amish at a number of food rights rallies, where there was lots of hyperbole and shouting and jeering. The Amish definitely hang back, try to position themselves in the background. But as you said, they are human beings, and have feelings and concerns, and we know they don’t care for the talk of violence that regularly comes from some in the gun crowd.
Yes, your uncertainty is justified when one takes into consideration the many different Amish sects in existence today. In my area the community is Old Order Amish and I seriously doubt that the children would participate in an event such as March for Our Lives. From what I understand they do not condone the practice of Rumspringa…
When you state that the Amish “don’t care for the talk of violence that regularly comes from some in the gun crowd”. I agree… In fact the Amish set themselves apart from many Christians who attempt to justify violence in the name of their so-called version of justice. “From some in the gun crowd” I assume you are also referring to, for example, the militant left such as ANTIFA…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-15/redneck-revolt-and-the-hard-lefts-call-to-arms/9303758
My reference to “some in the gun crowd” was mainly directed at the U.S. president, who during his campaign threatened to have Hillary Clinton assassinated: ““If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” Many cheered him on. He never withdrew that comment, never apologized for it, never tempered it in any way. No American presidential candidate (or any candidate for federal office that I am aware of) has come anywhere near such a blatant threat of gun violence against an opponent.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/09/trump-gun-owners-clinton-judges-second-amendment
I know, there have been so many outrages that we have become numb to new ones, but the threat to have his opponent assassinated will always stand out to me as a pretty serious outrage.
If “assassinate” is indeed an accurate interpretation of Trumps statement then I am with you on that David… His rebuttal however is not in line with that interpretation and I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt with respect to such a serious accusation… namely, that he was merely urging Second Amendment supporters to vote as a bloc against Hillary Clinton and her anti Second Amendment stance.
Ken, our prez is fortunate to have supporters as forgiving as you. Indeed, they forgive him pretty much anything. I saw one supporter on Facebook state: “If I find he’s had sex with Hillary, that’s it for me. Until then….” I assure you, he isn’t nearly as forgiving a man as his supporters are. Just look at how he continues to pummel and humiliate his own attorney general, jeff Sessions, his original big-name supporter. Because Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, as was his legal obligation, Trump humiliates him every chance he get, says he’s guilty of “the original sin.” You supporters have a great give-and-take relationship with the prez…..you give, he takes.
Teach this: RAW ORGANIC IS THE REAL ORGANIC MILK!
This is THE message, you are right, Dr. Heckman. Thank you. We all need to keep our eye on the ball.
not ONE mention of the psychotropic drugs any of the perpetrators was on in any of the mass shootings…sandy hook,batman movie,vegas shooting,parkland shooting… etc…they were all on psychotropic meds..
the sandy hook one was the weirdest ….when the parents were interviewed on television they were not even choked up , or crying,saying”I’ve gotta stop interview because it was so overwhelming….” anyone that has kids knows how choked up and upset you can get even if something minor happens.These so called “parents” did none of this
With respect to the followinge article entitled, “Interstitium: New organ discovered in human body after it was previously missed by scientists” Dr Suzanne Humphries states, “I find it amusing when conventional science and medicine discovers something that chiropractors and orthomolecular doctors have long respected as an “organ” with pathology and health. Once convention calls it an organ (like the lymphatic brain drainage “discovered” in 2015), it is official! LOL.
I suspect we will soon see drugs to fix problems in the new organ that was just “discovered”. Even funnier is that as a nephrologist, the interstitium was always part of the discussion regarding edema and the kidney itself where the interstitial cells have known roles.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/new-organ-human-body-interstitium-cancer-skin-scientists-discovery-new-york-a8275851.html
Today the USDA announced that the CA Federal Milk Pool order was officially being announced and the vote of the dairymen would take place starting April 2nd.
Huge news.
Easter….
What would Jesus drink ?
Raw Milk
What would Jesus think? …supply management milk system much like Canada. He would support a stable cooperative system that is good for farmers and consumers alike. He would not be happy with continuous canabalism between farmers.
This Easter think about food and cooperation verses” race to the bottom canabalism “ between neighbors, brothers and farmers. All the while, the processors enjoy the sour fruits of competitive destruction while…farmers lose their farms.
Jesus was a forgiving, sharing cooperative socialist! For all of our right wing friends.
Give this some thought. How good is it for our country to lose 4% of its dairies last year and 5% more this year….family farms lose and massive CAFOs win! Our environment loses, the cows lose, consumers lose! We end up with stinky lakes filled with piles of manure and highly processed allergenic, hard to digest consumer rejected pseudo dairy products.
Easter: What would Jesus think , eat and drink?
Say a prayer for all the dairies losing contracts in the next 60 days. After your prayer….go out and buy some raw milk, hug a farmer, pet the cow and toaste to a future that’s a little more sustainable and a whole lot more healthy.
Happy Easter.