Id like to try to answer the unspoken question that comes up when I explain to people I know that I am doing a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to complete and promote my new book, The Raw Milk Answer Book: What You REALLY Need to Know About Our Most Controversial Food.
Its a natural question: Why should we give you any of our hard-earned money to sell a book that you will profit from? After all, there are so many desperately needy causes out there that I can contribute to instead.
Even if you havent been asking the question (and not everyone ismore than 30 people have already backed the crowdfunding campaign for my book, and it has raised close to half the target funding in the first few days), Ive been asking it of myself: Should I be asking people for money to help me publish a book I could wind up making money on? Actually, its worse than that: Should I be asking people to help me publish a book I very well could have had a commercial publisher put out?
Even as I pose the questions, I wonder, am I crazy? I could very likely have had a commercial publisher take it on and escaped all the expenses and hassle associated with putting a book out myself. Like the hours of my time and hundreds of dollars in expenses to format the book so that it will be acceptable to Amazons Kindle site .and Im still not done. The $500-plus to buy ISBN numbers (those little numbers and bar codes on the back of every book). Finding and interacting with a cover designer, page designer, proofreaders, indexers, etc., etc. The tedious work of setting up and developing the prizes and answering the questions required for the crowdfunding campaign.
So Id like to try to answer the main question I posed at the start, for myself as much as for you.
It begins with the idea of gatekeepers. Americas mainstream media (New York Times, “Good Morning America”, Fox News) have long acted as gatekeepers, in terms of who gets access to their huge audiences. By and large, its the privileged and influentialthe big corporations and celebrities like sports and movie stars, the medical and scientific establishment, and the government, via its various rulers, whether at the State Department or the White House or the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
We have seen how the government, with backing from corporations, uses the mainstream media to explode various powder kegs in timely ways for its advantage. The current measles-vaccination “crisis” is just the latest powder keg. The media are fanning the flames each evening on the national news, demonizing parents who have chosen not to vaccinate, along with intensifying the campaign to force all children to be vaccinated for everything the government, and medical establishment, decide are essential.
Raw milk could well be the next powder keg. We are getting a vivid look into one possible future, in Australia, where the government and media are using several recent illnesses to fan the flames for a ban on raw milk.
When those powder kegs go off, no one is the least bit curious as to the important details about raw milk’s nutritional value or how the government-enforced absence of farmer education may have helped lead to the illnesses, as just one example.
No, education and accurate information dissemination are not part of the agenda when the powder kegs go off. Then it’s too late. Im afraid one of those powder kegs could easily go off in the U.S.
We know that the CDC-FDA misinformation campaign against raw milk over the past decade, in particular, has made many people receptive to a ban on raw milksome 56% according to a recent Oklahoma State survey. The spark to set off that powder keg of receptivity to a ban could be a serious illness or two. Dont doubt that the dairy cartel and its henchmen at the FDA and CDC havent thought of that, aren’t watching Australia closely, and arent ready to get their propaganda fans operating at full blast.
Getting back to my book and crowdfunding campaign .I concluded that by retaining control of my new book, I could do some things to disseminate it to a wider audience than might otherwise be the case, without relying so heavily on the gatekeepers. For example, a commercial publisher might well insist on publishing the ebook version at $14. Now I can decide to do it for half that, to encourage more people to buy it.
A commercial publisher is always trying to balance publicity and promotion among a dozen or more books, leaving any particular book (like mine) with very little PR effort. On my own, I can engage experts to expend more effort on PR than the publisher could. Or at least I can if I have some funding.
In the end, I concluded that the revolution that is overtaking publishing–via new self-publishing options, social media, and crowdfunding–creates opportunities for opening up new options for educating people about the importance of food choice. For example, this campaign will create advance book orders that, in turn, will hopefully influence Amazon and other distributors to give the book more prominence.
The reality is that, even if I make my funding goal with the crowdfunding, Ill be lucky to break even after I pay the crowdfunding site its commission, pay all the costs associated with publishing and promoting the book, pay for some of the prizes, and make the charitable contributions Ive committed to.
But making money hasnt ever been the goal here, in this crowdfunding campaign or in my eight years of writing about raw milk and food rights. The goal is to expose government and industry abuse and educate people about the misinformation campaigns designed to reduce our freedoms. The reality is that it costs money to amplify your voice, get a more prominent place in the marketplace.
So as you consider whether to get on board this crowdfunding campaign, remember that it isnt about charity. Its about activism. Its about sending a message to the gatekeepers that there are people who care. Its about creating a cadre of supporters who will get my book into the hands of those who need it.
I just want to say that I have been deeply touched that among those who have already committed to my campaign are a number who have had a make a financial stretch to do so. I ask those of you who care about the issues we talk about on this blog to make your commitment as well. Help keep that next powder keg from going off. Every little bit helps.
Yup, remember a while back I warned you folks south of the 49th that one of these days, your federal government will look at what Canada has (a total nation-wide ban on sales) and decide to do the same? Well, here it comes – their attempt to do likewise. It got passed in Canada because there was no organized opposition back in 1991. It’ll happen in your country too if you don’t do something about it – the Food Safety Modernization Act is the starting point – it bans all “adulterated foods” and they can easily define raw milk to be such.
I already have many pre-orders for the book out here in CA with our 20,000 FB followers. We will send these purchasers to your funding website.
Can not wait!!
Thank you, Ora. Truly appreciated.
Thank you, Mark. I very much appreciate OPDC’s great support, and your donation of two very neat prizes to the crowdfunding campaign. (I won’t describe them here–visit the site for the specifics of this and a few others, http://www.rawmilkanswerbook.pubslush.com.)
I love the quote by our friend and 2004 presidential candidate Michael Badnarik. When he was asked about vaccinations he said …”tell them to bring their syringes and i will bring my 45….we will which makes a bigger hole”.
The terrible tragedy of the massive increases in the number of shots given in the current recommendations for vaccination schedules is an outrage. In the EU 18 shots are given from birth to 18 years old….in the USA that number is about 80 ( depending on which schedule you look at).
Many of these vacinations are big combo packs like MMR and others.
Combine this with the failure of the average American child’s immune system strength…add crappy highly processed food, antibiotic abuse, little breast feeding, 30% c-section delivery rates, and you have a camel who’s back is about to break with just more straw being added. That vaccination can often be that straw!!
How about the study performed on gulf war vets that found that many of the vets who never saw combat and stayed state side suffered the same Gulf War Syndrone as those that were deployed in the gulf!!! The conclusion was obvious. All of these vets were hit with a huge number of shots literally on one day. Some nearly died as a reaction to these heavy vaccination super vac packs. Many became disabled. Many of these vets never saw the sands of the gulf war!!
Tom and Kelly, dear friends of ours saw their son stop talking and stop walking 48 hours after receiving the MMR.
When CA state senators bring a bill to force vaccinations on CA kids….They need to heed the quote by Badnarik, especially when the Pharma industry passed federal laws completely absolving them of any liability that a vaccination may bring to any person being negatively effected by their shot!!! This is war at an entirely personal level. There is a reason why Marin County has the lowest vaccination rate in the USA. It is not because they are stupid…it is because they are smart and love their kids and simply distrust the FDA !!
If the FDA wants us to trust them and vaccinations, they can start by providing single vaccination choices instead of super packs and a schedule that spaces out these shots so the child has a fighting chance at building immunity. They can also start by telling us the truth and stop advocating for pharma and their fda approved drugs that kill more than 100,000 Americans each year,…when used properly!!
This is going to go ugly real quick if the fda does not come to Jesus and really listen to the real concerns of parents. If they go nazi and start mandating injections…that will be the rocket fuel that starts a fire they will not be able to control. I can foresee huge numbers of home schooled children with parents simply opting out of American schools for good reason.
Some of the children that are currently catching measles have been vaccinated already. The FDA refuses to answer that one.
Bottom line….build the immunity of your child. A strong immunity will resist most illness and even measles will come and go leaving immunity as it did prior to having vaccinations for every little thing. A child with a weak immunity is open for all sorts of problems. That is the problem!! An MMR does not impart strong immunity…a gut that is filled with good nutrition and a biodiversity of beneficial bacteria is the basis of immune strength!
And perhaps the FDA should provide single vaccination choices to families so super packs can be avoided. Our children’s bodies can only take so many straws on their little backs.
I figured I needed to comment after what you wrote. I know someone (have known him since he was a little kid, and is now in his 40s) who is a former Marine. Even though he was a reservist, he did end up overseas for a few weeks. After more than ten years serving, he now has MS. He was discharged the moment MS was discovered, and that itself was over ten years ago. I had heard about all the vaccinations given to those who would be leaving the country, and wondered about the correlation between MS and vaccinations. A didn’t know if you had any of that information.
There are theories about the Gulf War Syndrome and there are real theories. Why is it that only the British and American soldiers suffered Gulf War Syndrome and the French did not? The French did not vaccinate like the Americans and British did!! That’s just for starters. Just start googling and doing investigation and you can do the math pretty darn quick. Couple that with US State Department denials and you have the indictment!! Vacinnations totally trick and play weird games with our natural immunity systems. The natural method to build immunity is through exposure and nutrition. The GUT is the main organ of the immune system. The NIH Human Genome project says so!
We must all ask ourselves the same question that is used against the autism parents when they are told that there is no cause-effect between vaccination’s and autism, because not every kid that is vaccinated becomes autistic…only some become autistic.
Then….why is it that only 90% of the kids that are vaccinated are protected from the disease that the vaccination was designed to protect against??
The same argument goes both ways. Perhaps only 10% of the kids that are vaccinated become autistic.
It is the straw that breaks the camels back. In America this back is deeply burdened and about to break to begin with. One super-vac or a series is enough to break a soldiers back….try that on kids.
The medical community needs to start thinking in terms of cumulative stressors and the condition of children’s immunity in our populations and lightening the load on our kids while at the same time increasing the bodies natural immunity and its systems.
I must stop…I am making way to much sense.
In 2001, certain vaccine manufacturers admitted that they were using fetal calf serum and other materials from cattle raised in countries at high risk for mad cow disease, in spite of years of warnings from the Food and Drug Administration. The vaccines include those to prevent polio, diphtheria, tetanus and anthrax Jamie was given all those, his father said. http://www.valdezlink.com/pages/alford.htm
Ken
PS You can bet I’ll take your book to the next raw milk legislative meeting or public hearing I attend. I may even enjoy being able to easily fire back, point-counter-point, against all the propaganda!!
The consumer has a right to know what is in his food. former FDA Commissioner, George Larrice
http://www.westonaprice.org/book-reviews/squeezed-by-alissa-hamilton/
You do not see this in the media….these are the dirty secrets that processors hate to let out of the genie bottle. Listeria listeria listeria….recalls upon recalls. This all happened in just one month…December 2014. This is the gift of pasteurization. You just do not see raw milk and or raw unprocessed dairy associated with listeria.
In this same Dairy Processors Food Magazine…raw milk gets slammed as a threat to their markets.
It is no wonder that the processors hate clean safe raw milk….their fluid pasteurized market share is falling faster than ever and nothing seems to be able to slow the terminal velocity of the market erosion.
OPDC is about to announce the first ever branded “test & hold” program for raw milk. This OPDC program builds on RAWMI RAMP programs and added Milk Filter Testing with 12-14 hour rapid tests performed at a local food safety lab. All products made at OPDC will have come from a lot which is associated with a milk filer and a test to verify that it is negative for Ecoli pathogens. Each product is also Triple Tested in addition to the test and hold program.
Now the dairy processors can really squirm….the latest technologies that our best scientists have developed ( AOAC and FDA approved as well ) have now reached a cross roads where the speed of pathogen test result and the sensitivity of the test design ( milk filters are 3-10 times more sensitive to pathogen detection than fluid finished products ) provides extreme confidence of zero pathogen raw milk.
Why not…the Raw fresh sprouts industry uses their plant ” water filters” to test for pathogens in their sprout cleaning water. The beef industry tests big lots of ground beef for ecoli….
The OPDC branded Triple Tested with “test & hold” prior to sale program is the first of its kind for pathogens ever in the USA for raw milk. My warmest thanks to Ed Shank for pioneering test and hold for coliforms. because of our close proximity to a world class lab…we are able to take this one more step even beyond coliforms by using mil filters. Our CDFA state inspector was blown away when he saw this program this morning.
Yes…we are very proud and even prouder of the fact that we open up this information for everyone to appreciate and use if they so choose. The cost of Liability insurance will drop, market confidence will grow, and most of all…safety will never again be random or based on hunch or good bet. Kids will thrive!!
Coliforms and other tests will still be performed…this pathogen test based on milk filters is an added layer and added risk reduction that builds on advances in technologies that have just become widely available.
Provide or someone else will.
Mark, please tell us more about this “test and holed” doesn’t that just mean the milk won’t be as fresh? Pardon my ignorance
Mark. I think you might check that December recall list again (I believe quite a few were raw milk cheese or based on low temperature batch-pasteurized product). As an environmental hazard in the milk room/cheese plant, I’m not sure any dairy product can be totally exempt from possible Listeria infection. Sorry.
John
A careful reading of an Orgsnic Valley RAW Cheddar cheese label indicates that the cheese had been heated to 158 degrees. Is that still RAW? In my book that is pasteurized physiologically, even though 165 degrees is techiccally the threshold on most pasteurizer protocols. So when a cheese is labeled raw and listeria is found…be ware, the fake raw cheese and the blame shifting begins.
The CDC has zero raw milk or raw cheese outbreaks that have caused illness that have been associated with an unheated “truly raw dairy product”. To quote a well known UC Davis Vet, “raw dairy products are NOT associated with Listeria M…processed dairy products ARE associated with listeria illness”. The Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (fda dairy regs ) allows for FAKE raw cheeses. At OPDC we have taken great care to educate everyone of our consumers about Fake Raw Cheeses! We have also branded our cheddar as “Truly Raw” to make the distinction crystal clear.
The CDFA inspector was just blown away in his mind only..he stayed right in his chair as he smiled and contemplated the implications of Test & Hold, added consumer confidence, how it makes his job easier, how it made so much sense …..he showed real joy for us. That to me is mind blowing….nothing like a happy regulatory agency inspector.
Mind Filters sounds like a great name for a rock band if I ever start another.
Milk comes out of the cow at 99 degrees F or so….goes through the teat liner into the claw, down a milk line to stainless pipe to a receiver, then a milk pump, a short piece of stainless pipe, through a “milk filter” into a plate chiller where it immediately is chilled to about 36 degrees F. this process takes about 45 seconds perhaps less.
The milk is never heated and stays cold from that point on.
Our Test & Hold does not take away from its 15 day expected shelf life. When the coliform levels are at less than 3 or so on average and the starting SPC is in the 500 range…you have plenty of time if the cold chain is constant. We utilize the 24 hour time period from “end of milking to delivery” to clear the Filter Test pathogen results. Our delivery software accounting systems are programmed in such a way….that unless the code date has been released….the product will not scan to be sold. So there is literally no delay….our program utilizes the time we already spend….bottling, loading, driving to our remote hubs, and delivering. It takes less time to Test & Hold ( 14 hours for culture and PCR reading ) than it does to bottle and deliver.
This represents the cross roads of lab test progress, extended shelf life due to RAMP plan standards and many other elements that took time and technology to mature to this level.
Very exciting for sure!! The FDA will soon not be able to deny this process exists. Soon they will be forced to pull their heads out if the sand and look to out to this bright horizon for clean safe raw milk.
Thanks you, Gayle and Ken. Very much appreciated.
Big Dairy is screwed and more than that…they are way behind the social network power-curve.
Here is a story about how they intend on fighting back using a cow bell truth campaign with 30 year old bloggers and defending the good name of highly processed, non digestible, uber allergenic… CAFO milk!!
Good luck with that!! My suggestion…stick Chinese exports, hang with Greek yogurt and processed cheeses on Pizza.
Allopathic medicines simplistic, relentless focus on using toxic chemicals and drugs throughout the course of history demonstrates a profound lack in understanding of the immune system. Some of the treatments used in medicine were barbaric to say the least and attributed to many disabilities and deaths. Vaccines are mere continuums of this toxic assault with autoimmune disorders and cancers such as leukemia the predictable result. And as I previously stated, “They represent one of the most insidious forms of abuse ever perpetrated on humanity, especially children”.
Ken
JMHO
This is getting ugly already. The media are going crazy with this. Even something supposedly light, like NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” was beating the vaccination drum this morning (Sat). The host was making “joke” after joke about the crazy parents who aren’t vaccinating their kids.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on vaccinations–the research and safety issues are pretty complicated from all I can tell. It just seems as if all those beating the hysteria drums is the least bit interested in the nuances here. For example, that we are vaccinating against many more diseases today than 40 or 50 years ago. That many of the diseases we are vaccinating against, like mumps, rubella, chicken pox, are not nearly as threatening to long-term health as polio and diphtheria. I would put measles somewhere in the middle. It can lead to serious side effects in a very small number of those who get it. Most all kids growing up in the 1940s and 1950s had it, and came through it okay. I don’t think it deserves to be treated like the bubonic plague, and those who don’t vaccinate (for any of a variety of serious reasons) don’t deserve to be tarred and feathered and run out of town the way the media and many in the medical profession are nearly demanding.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/jane-hansen-parents-should-not-swallow-the-food-is-medicine-mantra/story-fni0cwl5-1227210882704?nk=479ef4722738a0b34fd80e53ffe61e22
Ken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJGyN3gCsBg
Titled: Silent Epidemic; The Untold Story of Vaccines – Movie – directed by Gary Null
I saw this Muscle Milk label today. Why is it that the dairy industry allows products to be labeled as “Milk” to be advertized ….yet the label says that the product contains no Milk????
http://www.musclemilk.com/products/ready-drink/collegiate/.
These are the truest signs of an industry that has lost its way….and does not even know what it is, who they serve or even what its principle product is…Milk….it comes from a cow, not an almond, not a soy been, not rice, not hemp, not a chemistry lab, not GMO manipultation.
Raw fresh milk…it comes perefectly from a cows teat.
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KIo9agE9hUUUgArUb7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ–?p=andy+rooney+on+milk+quotes&vid=855e2abc186446c99f59a5ea5ff90cb9&l=2%3A42&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.607990227937591304%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZu_PCGJ-rkA&tit=Andy+Rooney+-+Milk&c=0&sigr=11bekas9k&sigt=10itf726a&sigi=11r64lp5s&age=1317242197&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=ipad&tt=b
What about goats? I’ve milked them before. Then, you have to look at sheep, camels, or even water buffalo. Yes, there are others, but I listed these because they are more known to be used for their milk.
If he needs help with any VA ratings, etc this web site has helped many. https://www.vawatchdog.org/
From Mark’s link: “in the January 2015 issue of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, the average number of foodborne illness outbreaks associated with drinking unpasteurized milk has more than quadrupled in recent years, as states approved more laws allowing retail sale of raw milk.”
Quadrupled? How many died?
Just curious, but what do you know about those who were in Vietnam? I have a friend whose husband was there, and he has all kinds of problems.
The average time for a claim is @ 3 years, unless you are high profile from the current wars, and even those are not in the media much any more. Make sure all Ts are crossed and I’s dotted. Make no mistakes on your claims and documentations. Get a copy of the VA Regs for claims and use their own words for the claim. The Vet is right, unless they can prove differently. That’s what the Regs used to say, I haven’t read them in 17-18 yrs.
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Thomas.Pilsch/Vietnam.html
http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/
http://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/claims-postservice-agent_orange.asp
Slush, at this point sounds so warm if you’re in Massachusetts Feb2015…
https://pubslush.com/project/4584
https://twitter.com/MJVentrice/status/567009560687173632/photo/1
Oh and
. I also told her about the links you posted, and I think she will check them out. I hope it will be of some help to her. Thanks for posting them!