I find myself experiencing wide mood swings about California’s legislative assault on raw milk.
At times, I feel total outrage. It’s as if an accused sex offender of children has more rights than a California raw milk drinker. An accused sex offender gets a hearing on the charges, a trial by jury, in an open court, with the media providing coverage. And there’s a lengthy appeals process.
In California, AB 1735 didn’t have a hearing, there were no arguments by opposing sides, the legislature voted secretly, and the media didn’t provide coverage—even though the legislation directly affects the rights of about 100,000 consumers, including children. (Actually, it affects the rights of all California consumers, should they ever want to exercise their right to consume raw milk.)
At other times, though, I feel kind of weird, almost voyeuristic, about the whole thing. It’s as if I’m watching a private bit of play acting that I’m not supposed to be privy to. And indeed, I’m not, nor are any of us.
This whole thing was supposed to play out entirely in private, out of our view. A few regulators, legislative aides, and probably at least a handful of legislators got together. They decided to insert some technical language into some routine legislation. They figured no one would take notice, but just to be sure, they intentionally didn’t tell anyone about it. They informed the mass of legislators everything was so routine that no discussion was necessary, and after the legislation passed unanimously, they told the governor the same thing.
This is the way they do things all the time, so why do things differently in this situation?
Now that this matter has shifted to the public stage, with the regulators and legislative aides behaving like deer caught in a car’s high beams, I find myself occasionally feeling nearly embarrassed for them. They are stuttering and stammering and contradicting themselves. It’s all so pathetic, it’s occasionally difficult to become outraged.
But of course, I know that feeling badly for them is stupid. They are so cynical, they figure they can be careless about explaining the new rules, since complaints will likely lead nowhere. They know that Americans are so anesthetized to corruption of the legislative process they barely react to most cases of big money influence and cronyism. And when they do react, it’s all just temporary, and rarely leads anywhere.
Ronald Garthwaite of Claravale Farm expressed it well when he said, “They are trying to create a raw milk hysteria that will get people to support their bill. In other words, they think you’re not very smart.”
No, don’t feel badly for them. Stay outraged. Follow Dave Hopon’s advice (in his comment following my previous post.) Pursue them without mercy. And donate to the legal defense fund that is seeking to derail AB 1735.
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Another interesting example of bureaucratic subterfuge affecting our food rights has been taking place in Pennsylvania and Ohio. A New York Times article yesterday reported how regulators are trying to prevent milk producers from including on labels information that cows weren’t being given artificial bovine growth hormone, or rGBH.
The regulators say there’s no way to prove hormones haven’t been added. There may be some validity to that argument, but then you’ve got to examine all kinds of other cases where such labeling does take place. The larger message in such disputes, it seems, is that we’re best off buying directly from farmers we know, and trust.
Have you seen this
http://www.naturalfamilyawareness.com/blog/
maria.
This appears to be what it may just come down to.
Those situations where the government gets involved with forcing treatment on children are always terribly messy. An estranged spouse only complicates things further. This seems especially problematic if it’s true that the child has recovered. Unfortunately, the court authorities nearly always take the word of the medical "authorities"–the MDs and public health officials.
i imagine that refers to the fact that this ricotta may have been made with rGBH milk.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-071003recall-web,1,3793250.story
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/chi-meat_bdnov11,0,3592273.story?coll=chi-navrailnews-nav
That other one was old.
That answers my question about what they do with what otherwise would be considered thousands (or even millions) of pounds of toxic waste.
Worst fears realized.
In the short time that I’ve been reading David’s journal, I’ve learned a lot. It never dawned on me that a pound of ground beef may be from 100s of different beeves, nor did I realize milk was processed as it is (more to it than just pasteurization). I had assumed that milk processing plants were fairly local and that they were scattered around the country and that the milk was local (within 500 miles). I’ve learned that the "feed" the animals are fed is more unhealthy than I had thought. I did know that the factory farms were horrible, I just didn’t realize to what extent.
I don’t want pesticides/herbicides, hormones, medicines or any other added chemical in my food. I know someone had posted that "everything is a chemical" well, duh, It is the added, unnatural chemicals that do harm. Adding 25% saline solution to chickens is not natural, feeding chickens scraps and plastics, etc is not natural, feeding bovines other than grasses in not natural, rudments (sp) are grass eaters not grain eaters, nor do they eat animal parts, etc. The GM of produce and animals is a scary thought. The amount of hormones pumped into the animals is amazing, the GM produce; Do people really want to consume something that has an ingrain ability to kill plants and/or the potential to kill bugs? Just imagine what that would do to your body system. The list is a long one.
Jean, I would think that if the carton doesn’t specifically state that the milk was from cows NOT treated with rGBH, then it most likely was.
I would guess that if you took a poll, and asked people where thier food is from,or how it is processed they would have no clue.They may have a vague idea of where it is from.