For consumers of nutrient-dense foods who have assumed that it’s only farmers and managers of food clubs who are at risk in the growing good-food clampdown, the story of Rae Lynn Sandvig may help set things straight.
Sandvig is a suburban mother of four who lives outside Minneapolis, in Bloomington. She began drinking raw milk seven years ago, to counter some health problems, and soon she was buying five gallons every two weeks for her family. Gradually, like other raw milk drinkers, she graduated to grass-fed beef, organic veggies, wild Alaskan salmon, and other such foods.
As part of her enthusiasm for raw milk, she helped friends and neighbors gain access to milk by allowing Minnesota dairyman Michael Hartmann to park in her home’s driveway every couple weeks to make deliveries. That all worked out fine, till last June, when Hartmann was accused by Minnesota public health and agriculture officials of being the source of milk that made five raw milk drinkers ill (the numbers gradually increased to about fifteen).
Then the Minnesota Department of Agriculture went on what I have described as a “rampage” of collective punishment, that included shutting down a Minneapolis buying club and another dairy farmer unrelated to Hartmann.
It also included going after Rae Lynn Sandvig. I should say that Sandvig has remained silent about her identity over the last six months in an effort to maintain her privacy, even though pieces of her experience have been made public. But now she’s decided other people need to know what can happen even to ordinary people who become serious about obtaining nutrient-dense foods, and last Friday she spoke to me in her first public interview.
The whole nightmare began one morning in early June, when seven police and MDA investigators showed up at her house as she was finishing her shower, and presented her husband with a criminal search warrant.
They spent two hours going through the family’s refrigerator and questioning her about whether she was reselling milk, meat, and other food. She says she was “terrified, horrified, traumatized” by the home search, breaking down in tears in front of the seven investigators and police rummaging through her kitchen.
The event seemed even more threatening when she learned an MDA investigator had visited the homes of three of her neighbors who had shared in the milk and beef Hartmann delivered, seeking specifics about her food distribution practices. She says the investigator threatened these consumers with subpoenas that would require them to testify unless they allowed him into their homes to answer questions and look into their refrigerators, and then sign an affidavit listing foods they had acquired via Sandvig. The neighbors have since clammed up to her, she says, but one told her the investigator was particularly interested in packages of meat labeled “Not for Re-sale” on which the farmer Meat that is slaughtered or processed in a non-USDA-inspected facility is labeled this way to prevent its retail sale.
Then, just a few days ago, Sandvig received a registered letter from the MDA accusing her of “assisting in the sale of raw milk from your home in Bloomington” and offering her an “opportunity to be heard” in an “administrative meeting…before the department decides what if any enforcement action it will take against you for operating a food business without a license,” most notably “selling raw milk and selling food from unapproved sources.” Possible outcomes? “Criminal prosecution or administrative penalties,” the letter stated.
The meeting was originally scheduled for last week but is now being re-scheduled for January, Sandvig says. The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has agreed to represent her in the meeting and any proceedings.
There are lots of upsetting elements to this story, but what I find most disturbing is the questioning of neighbors. To threaten them with subpoenas unless they ratted on another neighbor, Sandvig, about how she acquires and distributes food is not unlike what goes on in totalitarian societies. There, secret police keep the populace in check by encouraging neighbors to report lawbreaking of any kind to the police. Lawbreaking, in such societies, generally include trivialities like what Sandig did, of dividing up meat or other foods she acquired in bulk, with neighbors.
Sandvig told me the experience has cast a pall on her relationships with those neighbors. One agreed initially to supply her with a copy of the affidavit the investigator pushed her to sign, and then renegged, ostensibly after consulting with an attorney who advised not sharing documents. As I said, this is basic secret police type stuff.
And now, the the so-called food safety legislation on the brink of passage in Congress, it seems likely we’ll see more such behavior. The legislation passed the U.S. Senate last evening, and is due to come up in the House likely tomorrow, after which the President has committed to signing it. The legislation will allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to hire some thousand of additional investigators, as well as strengthen cooperation with state agriculture authorities.
There’s more in an article I just wrote for Grist.
nj aka Ellen
for those genuinely interested, the book "And Not a Shot is Fired", by Jan Kozak,explains how we got here to this situation in Ham-merica, where power over everyday life has been usurped by UNelected, UNaccountable agencies / authorities with alphabet-soup monikers.
in the early 50s, In that treatise, the communists spelled-out what they intended to do.
but all is not lost : the anti-dote for communism is assertion of the right to private property
Act passive and rest on your rights and you will soon have none. When ignorred they just erode away….
Protest and public revolt should come quickly if there was a leader. Where is the leader????
The Jews are being marched off to the Nutritional Concentration Camps and no one acts to stop the Fascist Nazi CAFO PMO pigs.
Oh… how different things are in California. Stand and fight behind the mom….
What is wrong with you people? Do you need a California Raw Milk drinker to come show you how to take down Beret Boy and his bootjacked thug FOOD INC mob crowd?
Get some creative guts!!! overies and balls….keep America free by excercising your rights and freedoms.
Excuse me…..but it all just vomited out!! What ever happened to standing together and fighting together. Now is the time to act together!!! Stop being observers as people are marched off one by one!! They are picking you apart….ever heard of a "cell phone ring down crisis response". One call from a victum and 50 people should come to the an individuals aid in 30 minutes. Where is the organization???? the strategy??? the planning???
Forget being passive….it is time to show your teeth, your voices and your video cameras and get the media involved. This is not easy or free…..it is called being a US citizen.
Mark
I would have said, "bring it on". I can understand the strain this placed on her and her neighbors. Especially saying they will show her a form then changing their minds. I'd keep looking over my shoulder for that knife.
"and then sign an affidavit listing foods they had acquired via Sandvig. "
Was she re-selling foods? Or did people just pick it up at her place? If this is against the law, does that mean I cannot ask my "neighbor" to pick up some food at the store for me and pay her for the food and gas? This sounds like BS.
http://www.grist.org/error/404/ this is what I got for your link David.
We need leadership, and we need to all step up and defend the rights of others to eat food that they want to eat. But Mark, getting permission by creating another bureaucracy in the form of a 'raw milk board' isn't going to save our rights.
Otherwise, welcome to Amerika. With the passage of 510, I am pretty much thinking that we need to go overboard or underground. It's not going to be much fun, but starving slowly on your daily ration of GMO soybeans isn't much to look forward to either.
Food freedom or fight.
Good Q about whether Sandvig was re-selling food. On the milk, she was allowing her driveway to be used as a dropoff point, as I understand it. Then dividing up meat, and being reimbursed for her cost. The state in its documentation seeking a search warrant of her home last June suggested she was re-selling other products, like frozen vegetables and salmon. I didn't get into those subjects in any depth with Sandvig, since they are subjects that will likely come up in her upcoming meeting with authorities.
The link to the Grist article has been fixed. Sorry about that.
David
I do not suggest the same solutions for all states. Every reality is different. Some places are Occupied by Fascists and beg a different response.
We do need national standards if we ever expect to be respected
Mark
overtly "honest" businessmen who are covertly interconnected like
an organized crime syndicate.
For example, the Jews of the Media Monopoly report that Congress
is about to repeal a food labeling law that was a part of the
2002 Farm Bill. This law would require that country-of-origin
labels be placed on all food. The Jews report that the ink and
paper of these labels would cost the consumers a billion dollars
the first year. "It too expensive!" is the first line of
reasoning behind most Jewish political swindles. Whether the
expense is legitimate or imaginary, is of no consequence to their
goals. That it will cost you and me a billion dollars is what the
Jews of the Media report but their report is designed not to
report the truth but to support their fellow Jews.
America's ranchers and farmers demanded this law as a means of
giving our people the power to choose what kind of food that we
want to eat and as a way for Americans to patriotically decide
whether to support American farmers or to buy products grown in
foreign countries. Although this law was supposed to go into
effect this fall, the Jews of the food processing and meat
packing industries have opposed it from the very first day and
have been able to get our spineless Congressmen to delay
implementation of this bill. With such a law, the Jews would have
trouble manipulating world food prices and controlling the food
sources and markets. And so, they are opposed to what the
American farmers demand.
The Jews are opposed to indicating the country-of-origin labels
on foods because they are afraid that they will lose money as
well as power. And they are right. If Americans knew that they
were buying foreign products while letting our own farmers go
bankrupt, we would not buy foreign products. This is a form of
democracy that the Jews oppose because it thwarts their goals of
the One World Plantation and the New World Order by allowing the
People to control our own destiny without being told what to do
by the international conspirators. When the Jews control food
sources, they can control food prices as well as entire
populations. Like Joseph and the Pharaoh, the Jews dream of
bringing the people of the world begging at their feet for bread.
And they can do that through genetically engineered crops which
are programmed to fail all at once during a specified season and
through the bankrupting of the small farmer and rancher.
The Jews control the import-export food industry as well as the
food processing industries so they want people to buy imported
and processed and devitalized foods that are cheaply produced and
which have a high profit margin. And because the Jews control
the banking industry, they want farmers to go bankrupt so that
they can foreclose on farm loans, steal the farms and sell them
to corporate farmers. Large, corporate farms produce lower
quality food at a lower price, using seeds and fertilizers sold
by the Jews and so they produce higher profits for the Jews than
do small farmer-owned farms, especially small organic farms. So,
forcing the small farmers and ranchers out of business with cheap
imports, is of benefit to the Jewish bankers as well as to the
Jewish middlemen of the fertilizer, seed and food processing and
slaughtering industries.
And so, like organized crime gangsters, the Jews in the lobbying
industry are presently bribing and blackmailing your Congressman
into repealing the country-of-origin measure for the benefit of
the Jews in food processing, importing and banking. All of these
Jews benefit in the billions of dollars simply by NOT having a
country-of-origin label on American foods. And when you eat some
ground up cockroaches in a can of something from an unknown
country, even the Jewish physicians benefit.
All good points except for laying it all at the feet of a ethnicity is a bit too pat. Jews just happen to be people, and people just happen to have some predisposition to wanting more power and control. Some people particularly are power hungry control freaks, and it has nothing to do with ethnicity or genetics. We could easily supplant any group of ethnic extraction in the "it's all their fault" file and end up in a war that would make Ha Shatan very happy….Oh,right.. that's already happened. History repeating again.
We're dealing with people that are promoting and supporting out of control control mechanisms through 'legal' methods and it's the systemic destruction of inherent HUMAN rights that we have to fight, not racial or ethnic heritage.
All this before coffee, too. Have a nice day.
You're giving the Jews too much credit. I think that it's more a case of "when they're good, they're really good, and when they're bad, they're really bad."
Even if you are 100% correct and on-the-mark, though, it does our cause harm to allow ourselves to get caught up in hatred. That's what seeds the vicious cycle of the oppressed becoming the oppressors. We can't simply get rid of all the Jews, or all the lawyers, or all the bureaucrats; much as that might seem like a perfect sollution. We have to find another way.
I wholeheartedly agree with you! I am working with some folks where I live so that we are prepared! Gotta stand up to this crap!
nj aka Ellen M
The Sally Jackson cheese has been confirmed as the raw cheese that poisioned people.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/12/sally-jackson-cheese-confirmed-as-outbreak-source/
cp
Did you read the "evidence" in this investigation?I've never seen a bigger pile of B.S. before.I don't see any credible evidence that would stand in court.Of course they are relying on us being gullible enough to fall for that old trick of "indistinguishable" PFGE patterns to claim matching strains of bacteria.This is not evidence that has any credibility if challenged.All of the other "evidence" is clearly a joke.
in our case, Alice Jongerden was a classic example of a Christian hauled before a magistrate, waiting for the Holy Spirit to give her the appropriate things to say. She reeled off the history of how we went from 1 cow to 22, then asked the judge " when did private become public?" Of course the Fool on the Bench avoided adressing, let alone, answering, that = the crux of the whole case
The Schmidt decision about cowsharing had just come down in Ontario, the previous week. I handed it up to the Judge as our trump card = the last word on the subject in Canadian law. So-called "Madame Justice" Gropper literally rolled her eyes : dismissing it as irrelevant
regardless of who actually authored the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, we are caught up in one the precepts set out therein … dissidents now entangled in Court. The most important thing we do to fend off the hatred of the race traitors who rule Ham-merica, is keep to keep on producing our heritage … milk and honey
The REAL MILK is flowing in British Columbia, this morning, Praise God!
The line between commercial(public) and private does not exist in commercial courtrooms, that is why the judge rolled her eyes.Once you give the judge jurisdiction over you,everything becomes a matter of commerce.If you identify yourself by the legal name you are property,legally obligated to perform the duties they give you.We have to draw the line outside the jurisdiction of those courtrooms.We are only obligated under common law and so is "Madame Justice" by the oath she has taken.Did she take an oath?Will she obey her oath?WE need to abandon all fear and stand up for the law,come what may.
"The Jews" have nothing to do with it. David Gumpert is Jewish, after all. This is just a racist scapegoating strategy, much like blaming Mexican immigrants for wage stagnation, when the real culprit is Wall Street and NAFTA.
The culprits to blame, in the case of raw milk, are the Monsanto Dean Foods GMO CAFO PMO FDA corporate agri-business interests.
Mark McAfee is right. We need to be organized. SOLIDARITY must be the word of the day. Either we must hang together, or we will hang seperately.
"The Jews are being marched off to the Nutritional Concentration Camps and no one acts to stop the Fascist Nazi CAFO PMO pigs."
Whereas I appreciate the rather effective image he was trying to create, it appears that others have taken the ball and run with it in a much more ugly spirited way.
Damn straight, Bill Anderson! We must stand together!
cp, I read that blurb carefully, and despite being from Marler Clark, I did not see anywhere that people were "poisoned" by Sally Jackson cheese.
Such inflammatory language only makes you look malicious and, in my book, libelous. As Smy Opin said previously, sickened is nowhere the same as poisoned, which implies intent to harm.
Also, I would have more respect for your postings if you provided sources other than Marler's writings all the time. Otherwise, we can only assume that as his shill, your main task is to direct traffic to his sites.
I'm so sorry your home was invaded by police and MDA investigators and that your neighbors failed to stand by you. I can only imagine the trauma you went through. As a fellow raw milk-drinking suburban mom I could easily be in your shoes.
David Gumpert is right that a new line has been crossed, in terms of the FDA and state agencies going after consumers in addition to producers (despite their lip service to the contrary). Although I'm sorry Rae Lynn is the first, this probably has to happen in order for access to raw milk to move forward. We consumers have to stand in solidarity with our producers *and* fellow consumers in order to show regulators the true breadth of this movement. It's certainly not fair for the producers to be the only vulnerable ones.
I, like all of us, take issue with the proclamation
"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." (excerpted from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense testimony)
Oh really? I wonder how a judge would like being told that she or he can't obtain raw oysters, or raw lamb, or raw egg protein drinks, or whatever her/his favorite food is? Or that she/he doesn't have a fundamental right to bodily and physical health?
I did not intend to use the Jews as a race example for any purpose….they have nothing to do with this political example at all. I was using them as an example of gross injustice by Nazi Fascists in recent history ( Beret Boy activity ). An example that we have forgotten. The Ann Frank story….
Where is the outrage when unjustice is beset upon an individual???? Our neighbor??? Passively wait long enough and that individual becomes you!!!!
In the future I will not be so specific and name a race or a group of people. My error…. That was not my intent. Raw Milk feeds all faiths and people… Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Maoists, Athesists, Socialists, Capitalists, Democrats, Repubolicans,…..FDA employees, Americans and Humans all.
We are about to be given the biggest damn box of lemons ever. It is a test of us as to whether we make lemonade or choke on the bitterness of them all.
I for one have concocked some of the best tasting organic lemonade and will convert SB 510 into a triumph for safe food….remember that on this sword there are two sides to the blade and it cuts both ways. The FDA does not dare swing this sword with out the realization that it could cut them worse.
Smart, cunning and strategic….never forget it.
Mark
I think the biggest surprise conversation that I had today is that MOFGA is in support of this very bad bill (spoke with the Executive Director – Russell Libby.).
In the name of SAFETY, We are being slowly boxed in . . .
Kind regards,
Violet
http://www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
The idea that Jews control the world economy for their own profit is as old as time immemorial. That idea has been used to foment pogroms in Russia and Poland, and eventually the Holocaust in Germany and the rest of Europe. You've given it a new twist by applying it to our worsening food problems. The idea tends to re-surface during hard times. It's called scapegoating.
David
I just saw this post by Mike Adams of Natural News about S510:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030799_food_freedom_Wickard_vs_Filburn.html
We have to plea with our new legislators in office come 1/1/11 to throw this out!
I keep praying asking God to intervene in this!
That post was racist, biased and deserves an apology. Apologies must be honest and not just be used to deflect a screw-up or embarrassment.
As humans on this ever shrinking planet we must learn to love and reachout and respect one another. If we dislike some culture then we must tolerate them and then educate them as best we can, if we can….if they are asses then we need to not be asses ourselves as we tolerate them, mentor them and educate them. If they persist in being asses…then ignore them….they are asses.
Not everyone on earth must not be just like us….cultural diversity is as important as biologic diversity. But… we all have personal ethical lines we can draw in our sands of life. I draw the line at "stoning women" or cutting their noses off for trying to learn to read, or not wearing a bee keepers suit and other outrageous things.
The "actions" of Beret Boy have drawn a line for me personally. He does not think for himself or research the safety of what he is enforcing. He is a paycheck robot and he must be ignorred because he is a "non thinking beast of FOOD INC burden ass". An ex-marine is the perfect guy for the job…he is just following orders. The Nazis did the same thing. Just following orders.
Mark
http://www.heritageradionetwork.com/episodes/1229-Cutting-the-Curd-Episode-49-Tia-Keenan-Daphne-Zepos-Matteo-Kehler
The time has come for all of us concerned citizens to stop playing defense on these issues and instead, take the offensive. By taking the offensive, we will be acting in the spirit of our founding fathers and what they did for us over 200 years ago. It is not only our right to do so, but our duty as American citizens to repel tyranny when it emerges.
Take the offensive: refuse to comply with the Food Safety Act – and that means you, me and everyone else who truly cares about changing the course of history in our favor. Do not comply – farm as you always have and always will – that is unless they put you behind bars or fine you into bankruptcy. Those who are willing to lose it all are the ones they fear the most, and the ones who have stopped this type of tyranny in the course of world history.
Take the offensive: I ask all of you – Where are the Henry David Thoreaus of today? He would never have stood for this level of tyranny from our government. Take a page from his playbook and do not comply. Farm the way you want to – civil disobedience en masse.
Take the offensive: if and when confronted by the government for not complying with this law, the answer we all can give is simple, truthful but perhaps very hard for many to admit: "All laws signed by Mr. Obama are void" – this is due to the fact that he has not met the requirements under the US Constitution to be our President – period.
Take the offensive: Ask the FDA, USDA and any other meddler on your farm why Mr. Obama has spent millions of dollars and an army of lawyers to ensure his actual birth certificate and all school records remain under lock and key? No other "President" can boast such a claim. What is he hiding? Well, until we see his birth certificate, he is not qualified under the US Constitution to be our leader and therefore, all laws signed by him are void and I will not comply. See you court.
Take the offensive: You do not have to comply with an illegal law – and therefore take the offensive, in the spirit of Thoreau, Ghandi, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King – simply do not comply.
Take the offensive: What will you tell your grandchildren someday about all of this? Will you tell them you simply expressed your feeling on a blog, or didn't comply with this lawlessness?
Time to decide and choose a side – what will you choose to do?
Kind Regards,
Mark and Violet Willis ~ Shepherds
http://www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
Kind regards,
Mark and Violet Willis ~ Shepherds
http://www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll661.xml
74 cowards did not vote . . . .
We must also work on the newbies in congress as of 1/1/11!
Praying this can get repealed!
Hmmmm – still have not heard anything on the census that only got the # of people in the house from me! I refused to answer any other questions!
at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"
– The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Food safety" bill passes.
They got what they wanted.
The small farm exemptions may be a safety net for some, for a short time. Rober'ts quote of Solzhenitsyn reminds us that the way the authorities win in these cases is to turn up the heat on the frog very slowly.
From my reading, I do not see that small farm records are exempt from the FDA's right to conduct warrantless searches. I will not subject my family and property to that. Beginning the day Obama signs this into law, we are no longer a small farm. We are a homestead. No more food items for sale.
The masses voted for Big Ag. They can have it. What I grow now is for me and mine. Is that greedy or selfish? I don't know. I do know that the majority of "we the people" did not want my product enough to fight for it.
Will BigAg/ FDA be clapping with delight because I'm the first shining example of what they were hoping for? Yep, probably.
But you can't be a warrior fighting for a cause no one else cares about.
"Let them eat twinkies" -Smy Opinion
The FCC just passed regulations yesterday under the guise of "Net Neutrality". The legislative and judicial branch had denied their previous attempts so, they have made an end run around the constitutional system of checks and balances. Why do we have "Czars" operating outside of the built in checks and balances of our Constitutional Republic? Do you think that the government will make the internet more efficient? The internet has proven itself to be dangerous to government. Consequently "fairness" is called for. I wonder if this blog will make the cut?
Did the founders ever intend for regulatory agencies or the legitimate branches of government to deny you your constitutional rights to free speech or your right to choose what you and your family eat or any other of your God given/Natural rights? When did raw milk become as dangerous as heroin? Why is DHS attempting to turn every American into an informant? Why are police officers showing up on farms touting sub-machine guns and drawn weapons? Why are DHS/TSA checkpoints moving out of airports into bus, train and subway stations? Are they making you safe or are they making you a serf?
The Senate unanimously passed "The Food Safety Bill". Do you think that things are going to get better? Even Sen. DeMint voted for it. I thought that at least one Senator would honor his oath to The Constitution.
Take a look around your city at all the surveillance cameras. Why are they watching you? Every keystroke you make is logged by the NSA. All of our electronic communications are intercepted and stored. Why is the Fourth Amendment no longer important to our government?
The answer to all those questions is that we are living in a "soft tyranny". Now, tell me how we get out of it.
Right on. The defense of our rights has to be done belligerently as they are being violated.
Refer to my previous post on this blog http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2010/12/15/finally-an-in-depth-look-at-raw-milk-cheese-ahem-about-that.html – comments (scroll halfway down).
We have to understand how we got here in order to know what to demand to make it right.
Greg Niewendorp
I was wrong about my prediction of a "dead dying SB 510". I did not account for the all the corruption and lobbying that has gone on….I did not fully account for how wrong and politically incorrect it is to "vote against safe food". I did not account for a "voice vote late in the night" when no one was watching.
That all being said….
SB 510 is a huge truck load of lemons and this is exactly how OPDC will respond to make organic sweet raw lemonade.
We will continue to make the safest raw milk in the world using very advanced RAMP safety programs and green pastures. We will also adapt to the needs of our cows in even more creative ways. Being cooler in the summer and warmer and drier in the winter. We will change to assure that our pastures are even greener and better. We will adapt to the needs of the FDA so that when they visit they take a deep breath and realize that OPDC is absolutely the safest and greenest place they have ever seen. There will be no room for negative or critical comment. We will invite the FDA to visit….and if they visit we will educate them about what we do and why we do it. We will educate the FDA about State of CA laws and why the consumers in CA want and need OPDC raw milk.
If the FDA refuses to come visit then we will have "the invitation" to stand behind if there is ever a conflict. We will have the ones to extend our reach.
We will use SB 510 and the fact that the law does not authorize the FDA to mandate any particular technology like pasteurization. We know that the FDA will operate via exception and will pick on those that have a record of issues and or has a current issue. OPDC will make damn well sure that we have no issues….we will not be a target.
We will continue to grow our markets and gather email addresses of our consumers so that if and when the FDA wants to challenge CA raw milk…the FDA is challenging tens of thousands of highly enlightened passionate CA OPDC Raw Milk consumers. Some of which are even CDFA, DHS and FDA employees. Yes….FDA employees drink our raw milk and love it.
SB 510 does nothing negative to us…SB 510 sharpens our wits and our pencil and makes RAMP even more critical.
I strongly advise all others in the raw milk production market to work hard to be clean and look clean and be green…..do not be a target. Build your markets and educate your consumers.
They will be your soldiers if something happens. It is a whole new world to survive and thrive in….change….embrace it or it will eat you alive.
Mark
Francis Thicke
Nancy, as you probablyl know, the bill passed today.
I have been following the work of the National Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture (NSAC) on this bill. They are a coalition of nonprofit groups working on behalf of sustainable and org…anic farmers. They worked hard to get the Tester Amendment in that will exempt small farmers and processors. NSAC is pleased with the results of the bill. I have confidence in their analysis:
http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/house-passes-food-safety-act/
Francis Thicke: There has been a lot of hysteria about this bill on the internet. I don't think the hysteria is well founded. If you saw the movie Food Inc., you are no doubt aware of the need for better regulation of today's industrial food processing systems. The position of NSAC is that better food safety regulation is needed, but it can't be one-size-fits-all. The challenges and safety concerns of a national or multinational food processor are different from those of a small farmer/processor who markets directly to consumers.
Chrys Ostrander:
Ya know, Nancy, I'll tell you this: The point is this bill was going to pass. Anyone who understands anything about politics knows when the fears are running high (all the food scares from the industrial food system), the politicians will m…ake sure they're seen to be "doing something". So, faced with this reality, it was more important to work desperately on the numerous amendments so as not have the original one-size-fits-all bill put the small farms, the "that really care about what they are doing" out of business. I don't understand what's not to like about the victory that those six amendments stayed in the bill because I can also tell you it would have been a sad day for many, many of our mutual friends had the amendments been thrown out. I mean so sad we might have seen some suicides. So, now we still have small farmers who can wield our growing political clout and survive to fight the next battle. What we really need to do is work on political unification in the small farm, local food, anti-industrial ag spheres so that we gain power. This way we can change the food system for the better, but we also need to be pragmatic or else we surrender our power and allow big ag the upper hand if we go off chasing windmills.
Francis Thicke: Nancy, I don't disagree with how you say food should be produced. My own farm is an organic, grass-based dairy, and I also have free range chickens. But I think Chrys is right — this bill was going to pass so it was best to get in it some protections for small farmers and processors.
Frankly, I would never buy eggs from caged chickens in CAFOs, but I would guess that over 95% of the eggs in the grocery store are from caged chickens. We need to be sure those eggs — and other industrially produced food — are safe too. …That is no doubt why Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser advocated for passage of the food safety bill:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/opinion/29schlosser.html
Anyone have any thoughts on his comments?
My thought:
We are all very very niave if we think that we as the organic raw crowd are going to have any significant political sway…we are a very very small minority. Minorities get nothing…
What we must do is rise above and skillfully adapt to what ever challenges we are given and be an example for other farmers as we nourish our consumers. We must continue to produce films and documentaries that tell our story and our story must be loved and eaten by more and more people.
That is how strife goes. Embrace it!! "FOOD INC" has a "truth fuse" connected to its tail and its fake promotion and commercial lies will blow-it-up in self destruction soon enough….
Mark
http://www.marlerblog.com/case-news/raw-milk-poster-boy-hartmann-ordered-to-destroy-unsanitary-products/
cp
Hmmm, guess not.
What a surprise!
I'm a public health worker not a shill, and am posting another Marler blog link. Note that their blogs happen to have broke the story and provided a link to the full memo from the judge vs. other media sources.
Minnesota Judge Rules Hartmann Dairy's Raw Milk is Cause of E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak
http://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/2010/12/articles/foodborne-illness-outbreaks/minnesota-judge-rules-hartmann-dairys-raw-milk-is-cause-of-e-coli-o157h7-outbreak/index.html
"Judge Rex D. Stacey, Sibley County, Minnesota has ruled that Hartmann Farm's raw milk products embargoed by the Minnesota should properly be destroyed. In so doing, the Court found unequivocally that the farm's products were the cause of an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in May, 2010. To view the full pdf of the ruling click here. The twenty-three page ruling is a thorough rebuke of the manner in which the farm was operated. Furthermore, the untenable and unsupported arguments put forth by the farm are refuted point by point….
…I have a hard time understanding how people continue to rally around a business that operates in this manner.
Perhaps one final indictment of the dairy's credibility can be found in this argument that the products should be spared for the owners' "personal use." I mean, come on…. The Hartmanns' say they would like to keep the dairy products for personal use. A claim that a family of four will personally consume 900 packages, forty-odd tubs and boxes of cheese, and 76 cases of butter is not credible.
The ruling also contains solid explanations of the use of epidemiology in tracing the source of an outbreak that is well worth the read."
MW
So, why not change the horrendous environments and processors? That would eliminate the majority of contamination/toxins. More regulations does NOT change nor resolve the problem. This is no different than putting a band-aid on a boil…the pus is still beneath the surface.
"…I have a hard time understanding how people continue to rally around a business that operates in this manner."
I feel the same about the cafos/montsano/fastfoods/processed foods etc. It is amazing.
http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=17815
I heard on the radio, this morning, the powers that be are trying to figure out how much toxin is "ok". Is this like the poison in the baby formula…at first no amount was "ok" and then suddenly, a "small amount" was ok? If it is toxic, then NO amount is ok…and if you use water in any way, you have no choice in being contaminated. The govt is NOT looking out for the masses.
By Maurice Ogden
Into our town the hangman came,
smelling of gold and blood and flame.
He paced our bricks with a different air,
and built his frame on the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
only as wide as the door was wide
with a frame as tall, or a little more,
than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal? What the crime?
The hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were with dread,
we passed those eyes of buckshot lead.
Till one cried, Hangman, who is he,
for whom you raised the gallows-tree?
Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye
and he gave a riddle instead of reply.
He who serves me best, said he
Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.
And he stepped down and laid his hand
on a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for anothers grief
at the hangmans hand, was our relief.
And the gallows frame on the courthouse lawn
by tomorrows sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way and no one spoke
out of respect for his hangmans cloak.
The next days sun looked mildly down
on roof and street in our quiet town;
and stark and black in the morning air
the gallows-tree on the courthouse square.
And the hangman stood at his usual stand
with the yellow hemp in his busy hand.
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike,
and his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, Hangman, have you not done,
yesterday with the alien one?
Then we fell silent and stood amazed.
Oh, not for him was the gallows raised.
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us,
Do you think Ive gone to all this fuss,
To hang one man? Thats the thing I do.
To stretch the rope when the rope is new.
Above our silence a voice cried Shame!
and into our midst the hangman came;
to that mans place, Do you hold, said he,
With him that was meat for the gallows-tree?
He laid his hand on that ones arm
and we shrank back in quick alarm.
We gave him way, and no one spoke,
out of fear of the hangmans cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
the hangmans scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
the gallows-tree had taken root.
Now as wide, or a little more
than the steps that led to the courthouse door.
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
half way up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took, we had all heard tell,
was a usurer, an infidel.
And What said the hangman, Have you to do
with the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?
And we cried out, Is this one he
who has served you well and faithfully?
The hangman smiled, Its a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows beam.
The fourth mans dark accusing song
had scratched our comfort hard and long.
And what concern, he gave us back,
Have you for the doomed and black?
The fifth, the sixth, and we cried again,
Hangman, hangman, is this the man?
Its a trick, said he, that we hangman know
for easing the trap when the trap springs slow.
And so we ceased and asked now more
as the hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night
the gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
until they covered the square from side to side.
And the monster cross beam looking down,
cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the hangman came
and called through the empy streetsmy name.
I looked at the gallows soaring tall
and thought theres no one left at all
for hanging and so he called to me
to help take down the gallows-tree.
And I went out with right good hope
to the hangmans tree and the hangmans rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
to the courthouse squarethrough the silent town.
Supple and stretched in his busy hand,
was the yellow twist of hempen strand.
He whistled his tune as he tried the trap
and it sprang down with a ready snap.
Then with a smile of awful command,
He laid his hand upon my hand.
You tricked me Hangman. I shouted then,
That your scaffold was built for other men,
and Im no henchman of yours. I cried.
You lied to me Hangman, foully lied.
Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye,
Lied to youtricked you? He said Not I
for I answered straight and told you true.
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served more faithfully?
With your cowards hope. said He,
And where are the others that might have stood
side by your side, in the common good?
Dead! I answered, and amiably
Murdered, the Hangman corrected me.
First the alien then the Jew.
I did no more than you let me do.
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
none before stood so alone as I.
The Hangman then strapped mewith no voice there
to cry Stay! for me in the empty square.
THE BOTTOM LINE: I did no more than you let me do.
they all will. nothing has changed. believe what you will about hartman farm. believe what you will about liberty and rights.
once you're done with all that fairytale thinking look into the state of the world.
it's going to get ugly … uglier then you can imagine and then uglier still.
who's willing to die for their freedoms? i know the answer…. one in a thousand maybe one in tem thousand.
best thing we can do is help the system destroy itself. find a way to add to the states burden cost them money and resources. the "resistance" always goes underground, it's the only way to fight. you'll be labeled a terrorist either way. you cannot count on neighbors and "friends" (friends are a fair weather agreement, neighbors are strangers)
the time will come when you get up and fight. you'll know it when your neighbors and friends take it upon themselves to die for their cause.
please learn what in unraveling today. our system is collapsing and cannot be saved or pulled out of the ditch at the last second. what you as an individual need to do is learn the reality of that and overtly help it collapse.
i realize most of you think it's an insane, wacked-out crazy thought that billions of people in this world will die in the next decade, but it is highly likely.
don't be one of them. survive the storm however you must. as farmers, gardeners you are unique in this world (how weird is that!) and have the tools ability to survive.
i don't think it will take a decade. look at 2011 to give you an idea just how fast things can unravel. be aware that our federal reserve bank is now printing the money to fund our gov't debt each and every month. this will not, in fact, can not be stopped once started.
we will have the mother of all debt collapses. everybody holding money as their "wealth" will be wiped out. the slate will be erased and we'll start over somehow… someday.
you need to:
1. get out of debt. soon
2. buy old silver and gold coins.
3. build a deep pantry 6 months at least.
4. anytime you can cost the existing system money do so. do not pay fines do not start projects that require permits. if you get a ticket driving/parking fight it. tell the judge you cannot pay. do the community service or night in jail or whatever.
5. survive
there will be a day to fight but that day is after the collapse and that fight will be about building a new local gov't. at that point i hope to be there and when i identify a "concerned person" i will shoot them with no warning. i have little fear i'll actually have to do so because all the "concerned persons" will have died or been killed by then anyway.
it's going to be a harsh and very long winter coming and no american (me included) can imagine how sad and inhumane it is going to be.
I respect your verse and your guts. But we stood against the Raw milk hangman in CA and the noose is gone. Who says that all must turn to bitter bloody resistance. Stand up early and stand strong and the hangman is no man.
learn about energy, from wood to coal to oil.
learn how oil is so energy dense that humans had never seen such before.
learn how humans used oil to create a massive population overshoot.
learn how much oil there is in the world.
learn about cheap easy to get oil. 1 barrel in 100 barrels out.
learn about gulf of mexico deep water oil. 1 barrel in 3 barrels out.
learn why we need to drill 3-4 miles under the ocean to get more oil.
learn how america uses 1/4 of all oil produced to drive to the suburbs.
learn why gas is $3 a gallon and oil is $90 a barrel.
learn what gas will be when oil is $200 a barrel.
learn and you'll know why oil will never be $22 a barrel and a $1 a gallon gas is gone forever.
learn about how anerican manufacturing jobs left our country and will not come back.
learn and you'll understand.
population overshoot happened because of cheap (actually nearly free) energy.
our entire system requires cheap energy, was built on cheap energy, grew to it's massive unsustainable size fed by cheap energy.
the cheap energy is now gone. no longer can jed clampett shoot at the ground and see bubbling crude spring up.
learn about our fiet money system. made fiet in 1933 and 1973. and how suddenly it took two incomes to make ends meet. understand that since the 70's americans have used debt to keep up with the jones. look at the rise in debt since then.
learn how gov't meddled in the housing market and the education market. understand that student debt in the us is now greater then credit card debt. new grads nationwide now owe a trillion dollars of debt before they even get a job. and that there are no longer any jobs for them.
it goes on and on… there is no good news, no hope of digging our way out of this. it has gone so far now that the mega rich can force the gov't to cover their bad debt so they get out with 100 cents on the dollar while the unwashed masses carry the debt load for them. oh, but if the mega rich make a profit, they get to keep it.
heads they win, tales you lose.
oil caused this, we wasted it partying like it was 1999 for about the last 100 years and the population went from 2 billion to nearly 7 billion in that time. all because of oil. dam near free energy. there is no "next free energy" there is no "next cheap energy" there isn't even a "next even remotely affordable energy"
bio fuels, alge oils, whatever… are not the answer. all known alternatives are undoable because we wasted the seed that was cheap oil shipping chickens to china to be cut-up and shipped back here so we could have .99 a pound boneless/shinless breast meat at the grocery for a few decades. good jobs hunam race. but not the bill is due and it's a whopper…
you can't build a renewable cheap energy source without an existing cheap energy source. oil at $90 a barrel is telling us that cheap oil is used up. we would need to somehow keep the economy going as it is and at the same time allocate huge amounts of energy to building said new renewable energy source. yet we can't even keep our existing infastructure in decent repair and it is crumbling quickly. there is no "excess" oil there will be no renewable source coming.
look into how mother nature deals with population overshoot.
he says it much better then i can. this country is in trouble. hide under the bed. force yourself to stay in denial because facing this is hard and painful.
a good overview of where we were, are now, and are going.
Are we slaves whose right of what we put into our bodies come from unelected tyrants
that represent the state?
Or are we free men and women graced by our creator with the inalienable right to contract and to choose what we put in our bodies?
The Declaration of Independence tells us that we are the later. It also instructs us that we have the right to use whatever means necessary including bringing the tyrants to room temperature, to rectify the usurpation of the very limited powers that we trusted our government with.
Can anyone show me where in the US Constitution that we delegated to government the power to choose for us what we put into our bodies?
Can anyone show me where in the US Constitution that we delegated to government the power to interfere with our absolute right to contract?
(Hint: Even if it were there – and it is not – it would be null and void because no one and no thing can take away my God given Inalienable rights. Not even the Constitution.)
These agencies are acting in absence of legitimate authority. Their actions are tyrannical and treasonous in nature. At the very least those involved including law enforcement should be tried for treason with the possible penalty of death if convicted as that is something spelled out very clearly in the US Constitution.
As a compromise and to humour those that that think it is somehow proper for government to try and protect us from ourselves, I have a proposition:. We leave the USDA/FDA etc. in place. And they can purchase only food that is USDA approved. They can feed to their infants and family GMO, pesticide, aspartame, bovine growth hormone, irradiated, dead, lifeless , food that is USDA approved. They can feed their infants the UDSA approved fluoride baby water sold in ChinaMart. While on the other hand they need to respect my God given right to choose what I put in my body.
Very simply I respect their God given right to choose only USDA inspected food and they respect my God given right to determine, in any manner that I wish, what I put in my body.
They will respect that the USDA is NOT my God and they do not give me my rights nor can they take them away. I likewise will respect that they choose the USDA and government as their God and that they will make all of life's decisions for them.