The legal situation confronting Michael Schmidt could hardly look more ominous.
He faces four counts of conspiracy, in connection with the disappearance last April of 31 rare Shropshire sheep suspected by Canadian health authorities of harboring scrapies disease. Conviction could mean a lengthy jail term of up to 14 years, he has been told. Three other farmers charged in the alleged plot to move the sheep and save them from mandated slaughter by the Canadian Food Information Agency (CFIA) are Montana Jones, Suzanne Atkinson, and Robert Pinnell.
Schmidt has been forced to surrender his passport in connection with the charges–a not insignificant penalty for a man who has over the last few years become the spiritual leader of North America’s budding food rights movement, and been in ever-greater demand as a speaker around the U.S. and Canada.
He was arraigned last week, to have mug shots taken and be fingerprinted, and it’s unclear when his trial will be held.
While Schmidt has faced much legal travail since his Glencolton Farm in Ontario was first raided in 1993 for selling raw milk–his conviction in 2011 of violating provincial dairy laws has been accepted for appeal by Ontario’s highest court–this current legal challenge is potentially the most serious the native of Germany has encountered.
Yet in the face of it all, he is not only at peace, but optimistic about the outcome. “It’s going in the right direction,” he told me earlier this week.
He has excellent legal representation, he feels. And when the case goes to trial, he is convinced, “it will open people’s eyes” to the real issues at stake–the state’s determination to control his nation’s food supply and, in the process, destroy crop and animal diversity and the small farms committed to providing good food. Last April, after the sheep disappeared from Montana Jones’ Ontario farm in advance of their intended slaughter under CFIA orders, Schmidt stated last spring, “The actions of the CFIA remind me of the history of my native Germany, where genetic cleansing became a tragic and horrible national policy.”
The connections to Germany’s history continue to reverberate for Schmidt in the Canadian government’s new legal offensive against him and the other farmers. He says he has taken much solace from a documentary film, “The Top Secret Trial of the Third Reich”, which contains film of the 1944 trial of German officers who failed in a planned assassination attempt of Adolph Hitler. (See the trailer; the film can be purchased for viewing online or via DVD.)
One of the defendants in that case was Adam von Trott, who was a close friend of the Schmidt family in Germany during World War II. “I knew of him from my grandmother,” says Schmidt. The outcome of the case against von Trott was pre-ordained, and together with other conspirators, he was hanged in August 1944.
The Nazis circulated film of the trial, intending to scare the populace and stimulate loyalty to Hitler, but when the Nazis learned it instead encouraged sympathy for the would-be assassins, the government ordered all copies destroyed. One copy survived, though, and it became the basis of the documentary Schmidt has been studying.
He finds it ironic that both the plotters against Hitler and the farmers in the Canadian sheep case were charged with conspiracy. In his case, he takes heart from conspiracy charges. “When they cannot convict you of anything, they throw up conspiracy charges.” He says that in his case, the authorities won’t find a conspiracy, “because there wasn’t any.”
Schmidt identifies with von Trott, who was “a humble man” willing to die to rid the world of Hitler and his “genetic cleansing” madness.
To some, it may seem a wild leap to compare the Nazis’ genocide with what is happening in Canada and the U.S. But to Schmidt, the similarities are uncanny. Today’s rulers in Canada and the U.S. seek the same kind of control via intimidation as the Nazis, to satisfy corporate benefactors. Because mass murder can’t be tolerated today, our rulers must be more sophisticated, more gradual, in their consolidation of control. As it moves along its inevitable path, he predicts, the consolidation will become ever more ruthless, and the political targets, like Schmidt, more numerous.
Schmidt also sees the case against him over the sheep as a statement by his government that dialog about such matters as control of the food supply is out. “Why is there no dialog? Why do you have to have blood on your hands before you meet?” The ultimate irony, he says, is that “those who order the killings go after the people who try to prevent the killings” of the sheep.
Schmidt expects to mount a serious defense, and also expects to be raising funds to pay for his legal defense. More to come on that matter.
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The latest legal offensive against Michael Schmidt must be seen in a larger context of expanding government control intrusion into our lives, with the goal of rooting out those considered to be politically dangerous. (The U.S. and Canada, in this context, are one and the same.) The latest salvo is detailed on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal. The Obama administration, reports the WSJ via government documents it obtained, has just implemented rules that “now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation.
“Now, NCTC can copy entire government databasesflight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited.”
It’s a good deed that Schmidt and farmers like him are performing, running such personal risks for the good of all real farmers and the people. It’s reminiscent of how in the 19th century Populist movement those farmers who owned land put up their land as collateral to procure capital to get the Farmers’ Alliance co-ops up and running. It was for their own benefit, and also for the benefit of all real farmers. The people’s responsibility is to organize to support them – not just in ad hoc reactive cases the way it’s mostly been so far, but systematically and pre-emptively.
I repeat what I said in the earlier thread, there’s no evidence the Canadian “authorities” really suspected scrapies, or if they did cared about it as anything but a pretext. They only CLAIMED they suspected that. To say anything more about the mental state of system cadres isn’t journalism but NYT-style stenography. It’s amazing how much everyone has internalized this corporate media standard. Most readers of the corporate media probably never notice it, which is what makes it so insidious.
There is a war on for our food, our rights, and our property in Wisconsin. The DNR has recently been given expansive powers, through executive order, (E.O. 69 By Gov. Walker) under the guise of ‘Green Tier’, which is Agenda 21.
It is the Natural Right of the people to be well nourished and consume nutrient dense, GMO free, whole, raw, fresh, unprocessed, locally raised foods and beverages, including water; the right to save seeds, to grow food, to keep livestock, to access to grazing for cattle, to store water, to use natural medical alternatives, to raise hemp, to make butter, to make cheese, render lard, and the right to consume the foods of our choices according to the traditions of our ancestors.
This following is a clip from the forthcoming documentary, “Let them Eat Grass”, which features Vernon Hershberger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EDAaxE-cqSY
It is a preview of a documentary to be released in a few weeks. Hopefully people will pack that Wisconsin courtroom in a show of support for our buying club. Do help these kind, God-fearing men, both Michael and Vernon, in any way you can. It’s about our right to choose the foods that God gave us and not those pseudo foods of the Agricultural Industrial Complex. For story and video on Vernon please visit http://www.foodfreedomusa.org/let-them-eat-grass.html or http://www.activistpost.com/2012/12/let-them-eat-grass-new-salvo-in-food.html
My mother was with SHAEF, Eagle Rear with Gen Bradley, during WWII. She spoke French, German and a little Russian. She was with a select group of WACs who would call themselves “clerks”. These “clerks” had secret and top secret clearances. Some admit to ferrying messages to certain areas during battles. I think there is maybe 4-6 of the group still alive. Mom had mentioned the German underground and I believe she was involved with the French Resistance, one of her side-kicks was Marcelle, she was a French “soldier”… Trying to find out exactly what these women did has been harder than pulling back teeth. Like so many veterans, they took a lot with them to their graves.
It is no wonder that Americans defend the right to not just bear arms under the second amendment…but to bear effective military arms under the second amendment. Guns are not for hunting ( not now anyway )….they are for protection of your rights and to keep our government honest and fearful of “we the people”. That is precisely why after the horrendous shootings by psychos at Aurora Colorado and a similiar shooting this last week in Oregon….all with the same AR-15 type weapons, there has been no national outcry to ban assault weapons. Why no national outcry??? because there would be no effective way to fight back against serious government tyranny with out these very effective weapons. Tyranny that is so damn close it smells and feels like it is upon us right now.
It is horrible to think that Mike will be challenged with this political crap for several years to come. What a huge sacrifice he has taken for all the people of north America.
Peace and joy for christmas.
Mark
This speaks directly to the video game culture we have that makes killing a game. Just a few years ago, when boys hunted and they did not play video games….when boys hunted and they saw what happened the game they shot and felt remorse for the death and did not relish the death and saw the blood at their own hands, that was when guns were respected and life was held precious.
Combine….the lost of gut culture ( an immune system with good gut health ) and the associated loss of brain function and then add millions of guns to the mix, plus a video culture with easy bloodless death, this is a combination that is destined to be an unfixable mess.
I am sick to my stomach…
As I continued with my trip preparations this morning, what a shock to learn of the devastating shooting rampage in CT. It is just unfathomable that someone could callously take so many innocent lives. My heart & prayers goes out to the victims & their families. We really don’t know how fragile life is & how it can be taken so swiftly without any warning. At this Christmas time, I would like to encourage everyone here to think of these folks in CT & remember them in your prayers. Just take some time out of your daily schedule & devote loving thoughts to them. I can’t begin to imagine what they are going through, nor how long it will take for them to heal emotionally, mentally & spiritually.
Merry Christmas everyone!
It is so disturbing to hear of further incursions into our civil liberties. Thank goodness for journalists like you, David, and the Wall Street Journal reporters, who keep us informed.
My heart is also with the community in Connecticut who lost so many sweet children and adults yesterday. This tragedy is unfathomable.
part of the show-trial in which Michael Schmidt is now caught-up, is a bogus charge of ‘conspiracy to commit an offence’ … Prosecutors – as the handmaidens of their political masters – have no problem understanding the concept of malefactors agreeing to do something they know is wrong. Not so far-fetched, then, that such criminals are at the levers of power in high places. Ordinary people refuse to accept that such things really do go on, , because the conscience of the nation was anaesthetized by pulpit parrots in state-licenced Baal-barns, who have no explanation for the origin of evil
yes, it was “victor’s Justice”… never-the-less : the formal charge at the trial of the Major War Criminals, in Nuremberg, was of “conspiring to make an illegal war” … theme of Robt. Jackson ( then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the US ) being = a gang of criminal masterminds had seized control of the German State. History repeating itself in Ham-merica, this very hour
The biggest misrepresentation of all has been the teary-eyed speech given by Obozo. He kills more innocents every single day on foreign soil with his “war” directives, but he doesn’t seem concerned about that. The children in foreign lands are innocent, too, or at least they were – but they’re learning fast.
More reason to trust my neighbor butchering the beef than the govt
I read where they also use a marinating method sometimes. Makes my skin crawl to even think about eating meat/poultry from these producers. Ewww. No wonder the producers are demanding radiation of the meat. They don’t feel safe selling it any other way, apparently. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it?