An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released a couple days ago showed that more than 70% of Americans feel the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Now, headed in the wrong direction can mean different things to different peoplefailure to deal with immigration problems, education system deficiencies, rising prices in the face of stagnant and declining wages, health system screwups but certainly the ongoing worries about the poisoning of the food system have to be up there as well. Weve seen the worries expressed via heavy citizen opposition to genetically modified (GMO) food. So Id put judicial opposition to privately-distributed food in the wrong direction category as well. Especially when that opposition comes in the face of growing public preferences to be able to access good wholesome food, and buy it privately.
This is all prelude to the latest court decision against privately-distributed food to come out of Wisconsinan appeals court decision against two farm families (Kay and Wayne Craig and Petra and Mark Zinniker). The cases were similar to that involving Vernon Hershberger last year.
In all these cases, Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection argued that the farmers required dairy and retail licenses to sell food to private groups of consumers. You cant just have one. And if per chance the farmer obtained both licenses, and tried to include raw milk among the items being sold to food club members? Why, the sales arent allowed, since sales of raw milk except on an incidental basis (whatever that means) are illegal. A classic Catch-22.
The original state judges together with the appeals court judges have now all ruled against the Craigs and Zinnikers. In the Hershberger case, the judge overseeing the case, Guy Reynolds, made no effort to hide his desire to see the farmer convicted of similar offenses of selling food to members of a food club without what DATCP said were required dairy and retail licenses.
Except in the Hershberger case, the judge didnt get to rule. The people ruled, in the form of a 12-person jury, which 15 months ago acquitted Hershberger of all the licensing charges.
So now you have a situation where Hershberger is free to farm and serve his member community, and the Craigs and Zinnikers are prohibited from doing the same thing .unless Unless they insist on having the same rights as Hershberger. To do that, they are presumably going to have to take the same action Hershberger didjust go and do it. Challenge the state to stop them. Let a jury of 12 ordinary citizens decide if they are criminals for serving a private community with good food.
I say this appreciating that its much easier for me to give advice than for them to carry it out. But I also say it knowing that the Zinniker family has been carrying out biodynamic farming in Wisconsin since 1943. And that the Craigs have been fighting DATCP since 2002. Theyve all had to be very persistent to have gotten to where they have gotten. They have a lot to lose, and the people of Wisconsin have a lot to lose if either or both families decide to fold up the tent.
Its become obvious, in rulings from Maine to Wisconsin to Missouri and elsewhere that there isnt a single judge willing to rule against the insistence by Americas food oligarchy that the centuries-old practice of farmers selling food to members of their community is now illegal. At the same time, its become obvious that if Americans want to preserve that right, they are going to have to band together as communities and back their farmers in taking and preserving that right. People know things are going in the wrong directionthey need to come to the realization that they are the only ones who can fix it on the food front.
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Vernon Hershberger’s community is coming together yet again–on August 26, for a fund-raising dinner in Milwaukee to help the farmer re-build a shed that was destroyed by fire just prior to his trial last year. I’ll be there, together with Joel Salatin, Elizabeth Rich, Max Kane, and others.
NOW THAT IS A REAL TRICK.
http://www.organicpastures.com/find-a-store-location/
Hint to the FDA….we are in 600 stores statewide because people demanded it to be in those stores!!! Isn’t it about time to sit down and talk?? Raw milk safety has been reduced to a science.
http://lyrics.wikia.com/Was_%28Not_Was%29:Tell_Me_That_I%27m_Dreaming
http://www.last.fm/music/Was+%28Not+Was%29/_/Tell+Me+That+I%27m+Dreaming
Disco
Disgusted. Advice….do not give the regulators a target to begin with, turn on the cameras, always use a jury for these types of cases, and if you do have a raid….push “send” and have 200 people plus media show up to really make a scene and get not the news. Public Embarrassment and civil liability seems to be the only thing to keep the abusers in check.
Here is an analysis by a big law firm (Foley & Lardner) of the Wisconsin appeals court decision on raw milk, and it faults the appeals court for a technical oversight (and by implication, the appeal itself, for being based on inappropriate legality):
“The court of appeals decision was a long time coming (two years after it was submitted on the briefs), yet perhaps it should not have come at all.
“The plaintiffs appealed from the denial of their motion for summary judgment. Appellate courts in Wisconsin typically do not have jurisdiction to hear appeals from the denial of a summary-judgment motion because decisions denying motions for summary judgment do not dispose of the entire matter as to the parties, a cardinal rule for creating final, appealable orders. The opinion from Wisconsins court of appeals appears to have missed the issue entirely.”
Here’s the link for the law firm’s analysis. Warning: I found it difficult to access–you need a password, and the site seems very slow.
http://www.foley.com/got-raw-milk-how-about-jurisdiction-somethings-sour-in-the-raw-milk-case-08-08-2014/
In sum, though, another reason to avoid the judges. They don’t necessarily have the law straight and, as Mark indicates, they are by and large totally biased toward the government side–the regulators, cops, and prosecutors.
As far as blood numbers or values are concerned….huge problems there also. One huge one…CRP values verses cholesterol values. Now that could start a real argument….right along with low fat verses high fat!!
It doesn’t take a very vivid imagination to see corporations requiring employees to take blood pressure meds and statins to get people into “compliance.” Don’t forget, the numbers determining whether someone has high blood pressure or high cholesterol have all been coming down under pressure from the medical community (which in turn is being pressured by the drug companies). Don’t forget, also, that blood pressure meds and statins (and others) are lifetime prescriptions–the drug industry’s favorite. Their “annuity” products.
What will be interesting is when people like some of us here say, “No meds for me.” (I have refused these meds at various times, and made some docs very unhappy.) Will the people be fired for refusing to take the meds? Or, what if the stress associated with trying to come into compliance via natural means (exercise/diet/relaxation) stresses you out so much your blood pressure stays up? Could make for some interesting court cases. And I don’t think it’s too difficult to imagine where the judges likely to come down on such cases–the docs know all, right?
I think of it as ex-cersize since I don’t do it much anymore, but when you are young and growing it is an important part of staying alive and strong in a material world with an ever growing police presence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta_a5ohtWtc
First line: There is no political solution (in music or food.) Teach and never stop learning especially when you think you already know it all and yes I do realize I’m speaking to myself. Why drink milk?
http://www.nzhealth.net.nz/poisons/milk_1_2.shtml
Sometime soon, we will be gathering our forces to re approach the Humboldt Board of supv for another vote. Our distributor in that area has friends on the board and knows how to knock on the back doors.
I can remember three years ago, flying up to Humboldt for the meetings and hearings. I will never forget the icy reception by the health department. It was like they has succeeded from CA and state law did not exist. I also remember the very warm welcome from the very hip Ag Commissioner. He could and would advise me on how to grow Marijuana….but he was the “go to guy” at testimony time against raw milk. Funny how smart people can be paid to do really contorted things. I will always remember the dairyman that was connected to the Humboldt Creamery when he said….I would rather drink a cup of water from local “very dirty” river than to ever drink raw milk. He even brought a sample of river water with him for his testimony. Yet….he then bragged about the superior quality of his dairy products that were pasteurized.
I could not make any sense of this logic…neither could anyone else. How could superior quality dairy products come from filth….
Still scratching my head. The reason the very good people of Humboldt County do not have raw milk is because most do not know what they are missing.. And, the premiere political position of Humboldt Creamery in the food chain. Corporate protectionism. If pasteurized milk was so great…then it should do quite well up against raw milk in a fair store market fight. They are scared….simple as that.
Little old OPDC, scares big Huge Humboldt Creamery. I am very impressed. These are my private measures of true success. What a weird and truly unfree world we live in.