I received a text message this morning from a friend, asking, “Is James Stewart dead?”
What?!! Well, not since last evening he wasn’t, I replied.
It turned out that radio personality Joyce Riley had reported the “news” Monday morning on her Joyce Riley Power Hour. Her information seems to have come from the introduction from Mike Adams of Natural Health News to a YouTube interview of Stewart, in which Adams reports Stewart “nearly died” while in police custody for eight days following his arrest on charges connected to the financing of Sharon Palmer’s Healthy Family Farms in Ventura County.
I don’t think “hysteria” is quite the right term here, but clearly, the upsetting account Stewart has provided of his captivity–described in my previous post and in a YouTube video–have unnerved a lot of people. I’d like to run through the most common of the reactions, and examine them more closely:
What a bunch of whiners and victims. A few people, including veterans of the food rights movement, have wondered aloud if Stewart, and those like me, who have written about him, are just playing the old victimization game (i.e. They’re after us again, it’s all a conspiracy, etc.). There is something to that. Our law enforcement apparatus at any one time targets various groups for special treatment, be it Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, or “sovereign citizens”. All in the name of homeland security, or whatever. What makes us food rights activists so special we think we can avoid such treatment? The victimization syndrome is difficult to avoid, especially if they really are after us, as they seem to be. All of which leads to the next reaction…
Better toughen up. If you think Stewart was treated badly, just wait. It can get a lot worse. This is also a valid point. While Stewart’s experience wasn’t what I would call a walk in the park (see the accompanying before-and-after photos), I expect it will get a lot worse. In fact, I suspect Stewart was treated the way he was partly in hopes the experience would get attention, and thus send a message–a message of intimidation: If you are thinking about investigating us or standing up for your rights or defying us, think again. You could be treated like this, or worse. And I’m sure the message will get through to some number of people. But hopefully it will also have the opposite effect, and alert more people that they need to prepare themselves mentally for torture and abuse if they are going to follow through on plans to resist.
They deserve what they’re getting. It seems to me we always hear this when certain high-profile people are accused of crimes. There are some people who simply forget our system’s supposed credo that individuals are innocent till proven guilty. So convinced are some of these people that James Stewart is guilty of some terrible crimes, that any punishment meted out on him is okay. They ignore the reality that not only has he only been accused, he hasn’t even had a pre-trial hearing or any other sort of court proceeding to present evidence of his side of the story. Targeted torture and abuse of the convicted is bad enough, but of the accused?
Torture or just equal-opportunity abuse? C’mon, Stewart wasn’t tortured, goes the refrain here. Seven hours without food, that’s not torture. Jail isn’t a room-service hotel, after all. I’ll grant the fine-pointers that. Does abuse becomes torture at eight hours without food, nine hours, 24 hours? Just like the confinement in a cold room. When does garden-variety abuse become torture? When your body temperature goes down to 95 degrees, 90 degrees, when you become unconscious? Does a little dousing become waterboarding when your head is submerged in water for 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or 45 seconds? Anyone who goes in for these fine points is doing just what the government enforcers want–getting lost in the minutae while they keep turning up the heat.
We better get ready to defend ourselves. Talk about guns or elaborate sovereign-citizen agendas may sound neat, but I think the authorities are on to such ideas. The one they have a more difficult time with is civil disobedience. The recently unveiled “Declaration of Food Independence” by the Raw Milk Freedom Riders commits adherents to “respectfully declare that we will peacefully reject laws and regulations that infringe on this God-given right” to obtain food directly from the farmers and producers of our choosing.
Sure, there is lots of baggage that comes with the Rawesome situation. Better for us to leave the distractions and focus on the issues that matter most in educating people and preparing for the struggle ahead.
You are absolutely right; the focus needs to be ahead of us, and on public education. The Wisconsin rally also saw a food rights workshop that presented important relevant information for producers and highlighted the sucess of and need to partner with consumers. There are millions more consumers than producers the producers need to think about thatwe need to start operating in the arena of public opinion.
You might start by sharing the following link with ALL of your esteemed elected officials! Be proactivenot reactive.
Genesis Communications Network GCN News New Scientific Study Links Pasteurized Milk to Cancer
http://www.gcnlive.com
I posted this link on the last thread, but I'll post it here again.
It would appear that the problems James Stewart faced are systemic to California's prison-industrial complex:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/prison-hunger-strike-swells.html
Also, one prisoner hunger-striker died last year:
http://rt.com/usa/news/california-hunger-strike-gomez-187/
Clearly, America has a major human rights problem. This is what happens when we treat private property as more important than human rights.
Your last few posts have sounded like the "old victimization game", which I felt was not your normal style of writing.
If James Stewart was treated in violation of whatever the jails/county's standards of practice are, then Mr. Stewart has a case and should sue. As I said before, if he was treated inhumanly and does not sue,shame on him, as that only strengthens the perpetrators and sends the message that it is ok to abuse people.
Looking at your pictures of James Stewart, the 1st one you can see his ears very well, in the 2nd one his ears are more difficult to see, If he had lost any significant amount of weight, his ears would have been greatly pronounced and they are not. The 2nd photo looks like he just needed a shower , shave and a smile back on his face and he would look the same as the 1st. Oh yeah, have the same lighting for the pictures.
As for toughing up: All the jails in LA county have bad reputations, some worse than others. It can be a rough town. Some areas you wouldn't want to see the jail sites…Mexico would be another not encouraged to visit….
"individuals are innocent till proven guilty." This is SUPPOSED to be how our country's legal system works. Yet, when there are prior allegations/convictions people lose faith and/or trust. If you've cheated someone (s) in the past, and/or broke the law, why should I trust you now?
As for the allegations of abuse; If the jail did not follow their standards then there is a case against them, Every jail have standards of practice (They may be called a different name). Those standards include: temperatures, eating times, food quality, etc.
What is abuse to one person isn't to another…That is one reason why there are standards written. Being in a restaurant listening to someones kid screaming or running around is torture to me, or the kid kicking the back of my chair on a flight….
As said, if he was abused, he should sue, money talks and that is the only way to get them to stop or change any abuse in the prison system.
"civil disobedience" You neglected to use the word PEACEFUL…Peaceful civil disobedience. Anything other than peaceful will make those who want the change out to be dangerous thugs. MLK had it right, use peaceful as much as possible, it will endear others to your side and only re-enforce the unjustness of the powers that be to the masses.
"baggage that comes with the Rawesome situation. Better for us to leave the distraction"
These types of "distractions" only serve to further divide any movement…it is transparency and honesty that must be maintained to be successful.
before you unload that crap-ola…. I want to see the expression on your face, as some uniformed meathead cranks the handcuffs on so tight your mind goes blank with pain, while smirking "so sue me". Lady, you haven't got 2 clues to rub together about the psychic trauma of being belted-in for a ride on the 'whirly-go-round' of jail
your homework is to read the story of how Congressman George Hansen was treated, for criticizing the IRS
Me? If so, you are way off the mark. You have no clue what roads I've walked. I certainly haven't apologized for any prison. I have no clue who Hanson is and don't care.
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. " Mark Twain
when's the last time you were in jail? … enough to qualify you to denigrate James Stewart, for what he just went through? Your notion that torture is, children making noise in a restaurant?! is ridiculous in the extreme. Your notion that ML King is some kind of heroic icon as to how to go about the Campaign for REAL MILK, proves you do not have the measure of the enemy
Apparently you missed the part where the leaders of this movement call it a "WAR"
This last Saturday evening, there was an eight hour, all day movies festival at the Guild Movie theater in Sacramento that featured most of the recent great food rights movies. The last to be shown was FARMAGEDON.
I was invited to sit on a farmers panel at the end of the showing. The festival presentors had invited a conventional dairyman to attend and sit on the panel to be my oposition…guess what….he was a no show!! I spoke to the crowd along with the other really great organic farmers on the panel and gave away a big ice chest of raw milk for free to the large crowd. Wow….they were impressed and converts to raw milk!!
Teaching scares the living hell out of them!! Giving gifts of raw milk after a day long food festival at the Guild Theater in Sac…that scares them even more.
Teaching beats guns…teaching beats protests. Teaching is the ultimate protest!!
Teaching builds markets, adds consumers and dissolves the opposition with an erosion of their base that is like waves crashing against the rocks on a beach…creating sand.
It takes time…it is incessant…it does not go away, it takes patience, it takes energy, it is inevitable….. hightides and a full moon helps.
It works!! Teach someone today. It is safe and it is extremely radical.
If you have never spent a day in jail…you need to shut-up. Seven years ago, I was jailed once. I was brutalized by two CHP officers when I exposed their abuse of my young daughter in a DMV hearing. I was maced, hand cuffed, choked, denied paramedic care, left in a patrol car with the windows rolled up and A/C off. I literally thought I would die from superheating and enduring the mace spray with super tight hand cuffs that had caused my hands to turn blue ( all on the final Paramedic report after 45 minutes of being locked in the blazing hot locked patrol car ).
My bail was $130,000 dollars. Several felonies were charged by the cops. Making terrist threats and assaulting a police officer were some of the very convenient charges.
I never touched the police officer. I was in a DMV hearing and the officer was being cross examined by my daughters lawyer….our lawyer caught the officer in a lie and pursued him…the officer got pissed off and threatened me with arrest because of a hand guesture that he said I made to him….I made no hand guestures and even the judge at the hearing testified that no guestures were made. Does not matter….the officer launched on me…angery, macing me, handcuffing , brutality!! My daughter was terrorized.
The DA never pressed any charges and nothing is on my record. The cops got away with assault and battery and far worse!!!
I sued in federal court….I lost and had to pay the court expenses. Why did I lose? The jury believed the cops and said that "cops just do not lie" even though they were found to have lied in the case against my daughter. The jury did not believe my daughter, the hearing judge or the lawyers rendition of the events.
I did get final payback. Both CHP officers were reassigned to the worst areas of LA to patrol. Both officers have been back in court on other police brutality charges. Becuase of my very careful documentation of my case….they can not prosecute effectively and all of their cases get thrown out becuase the public defenders have my case in their personnel files. I know this because each year for the last five years I get a call from a Public Defender wanting me to come testify against one of these two cops….the case is settled immediately…no charges are filed. They do not want me to come tell my story. What an ugly chapter of my life. An ex Paramedic, CEO and organic farmer attending a DMV for his daughter…getting brutalized by two crazed ass hole CHP officers that were caught in a lie. Brutality was covered by felony charges to make me seem like a felon and terrorist. The system is corrupt.
The lesson I learned was this.
Juries are the problem.
It was "we the people" that failed to get these two jerks fired and more. It was we the people that failed to send the message to the establishment to CHANGE.
Look no farther than "we the people". It is the jury that has failed us all. It is we the people that are weak in this America.
That is why I " TEACH to change America".
When was the last time I was in jail? 1975. And you?
When I was a newly married 19 yr old, I had the opportunity to go an a tour to Berlin. Some friends and I went into East Berlin as tourists. I was mistaken for another person by the Volkspolizei. Too bad you didn't see the expression on my face when I was slammed into a wall then onto the ground. Do you know what it is like to have a machine gun crammed into the base of your skull? I do. Have you ever had the 'pleasure' of visiting the holding cells in East Berlin? I have. Food? I couldn't have eaten even if it was offered, my mouth and teeth were busted, I couldn't stop barfing from the concussion. I was picked on in the jail, didn't speak German well enough to know what the hell was going on. I did nothing wrong other be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Psychic trauma? I am well acquainted with PTSD, are you? I can walk the talk, can you?
Mark, are you telling me to shut up? I'll put you in the same category at Gordon.
"…when's the last time you were in jail? … enough to qualify you to denigrate James Stewart, for what he just went through?"
"If you have never spent a day in jail…you need to shut-up."
I am so SICK of the self-proclaimed "leaders" of the raw milk movement and their "I got more street cred than you" attitude and the way they use their own self-importance to denigrate others in this movement. If these two men are my choices of leader, I'll go it my own, thank you.
It also works pretty well not to drive drunk and to keep your shirt on in public. We'll see what evidence arises with Stewart.
God bless all of you.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
I am one who has a very long record of familial history to check against the teachings of historical times. My ancestors fought for freedom, they gave their blood for it…and they swore their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for freedom….Now we squeal when someone is cast as a criminal in the state owned media, we turn our ever so chaste and perfect faces from those who have been denied the access to "standard" loan and banking agreements, and we are ready to cast stones without even LOOKING at the evidence. Really? How about due process? A fair trial? All that?
Oh my.
I have children. And so do many of you. Is this what you want?
What do you wish to leave them? A society that tries actions on the first thing that comes into report? Facts and situations be damned—the first thing heard has to be true, right? The most sensational thing has to be the truth, right?
Oh my.
Is it life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; or life liberty and the pursuit of a broad base of support from 501 C-3 Corps?
Under the "We better get ready to defend ourselves" reaction that you list, I submit a sub reaction I hear fairly often: "Let's get arrested for the raw milk cause, and build support for raw milk! Let's emulate Michael, and Vernon, and James!"
I'm glad you pointed out the need for peaceful, proactive and organized protest. I don't have the intellectual, charismatic, network, moral, or financial means to defend myself.
I just want to help bring raw dairies together so they teach each other and build political clout to influence laws – in their local circle.
Gayle – Colorado won passage of the raw milk bill in 2005 in part because we agreed in back rooms not to disparage pasteurized milk. Our producers honor that agreement (they honor all farmers), but their shareholders, not so much.
If we aggressively advertised the allergenic, toxic effects of commercial milk, we'd gain more for raw milk, but we'll also put some good farmers out of business. In the process we also risk exposing new uneducated raw milk producers to a demand they aren't ready for. Let's get our ducks in a row first, and maintain a niche market for now. Don't mean to offend but neither our soils nor ALL our farmers are ready for prime time.
Mark – I agree with you about education. That is critical! You are lucky to live in CA. Denver county health dept recently banned giving away free samples at the farmer's market, saying their interpretation of the CO (herdshare) raw milk statute required that a contract and bill of sale be in place before a consumer could "acquire" raw milk. "Acquisition" legally includes free samples. As one of our farmers put it, this is a "tortured interpretation", but it would likely hold up in a court of law, given the current climate of fear about food safety.
Sylvia – I was surprised to read your interpretation of the before and after pics of James. To me he looked like he had been subjected to extreme stress. I'm not looking at his ears; I'm looking at his expression. He looked like he had lost muscle mass, and he definitely had that "cheated and beaten" demeanor. Given your testimonial about your arrest, I am humbled, but this is America, not East Berlin in 1975.
Oh wait. Things have changed in america, huh. Can somebody tell me a reliable source for buying silver?
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard, I love this opera too!
-Blair
"Friends of Stewart say they appealed to the Red Cross Friday for assistance, claiming he is being held as "a political prisoner." They say he won't accept any supplies or eat any of the food in jail, based on his need for a special diet relying heavily on raw dairy and meat."
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2012/3/3/hershberger-lives-to-fight-another-dayand-be-first-signer-of.html
Only in SoCal would someone get hypothermia from 50-degree weather.
This case is worth no one's time but Mark McAfees (who wants to reach the Rawesome market again). Let the courts work it out and move on to important cases of food access.
Amanda
I am proud to live in Madison, WI, the capital city of America's Dairyland, which has also been repeatedly ranked the most educated city in America. Madison is also the most progressive city in the Midwest. (To give you an idea how progressive we are, the local elementary school in my neighborhood operates on the principles of Kwaanza.) Madison has the largest producer-only farmer's market in the United States. Green urban development is also hot topic here — public fruit and nut tress, urban agriculture & community gardens, back yard chickens, solar water heaters, etc… Coincidence? No. We are eco-socialists.
Most of the people I know in Madison support the goals of Agenda 21… sustainable and green urban development. Why is this a bad thing? Many of us are also consumers of raw milk.
If you want to know the real threats to our freedom, then we must look at the institutions of global corporate capital — the WTO, IMF, World Bank, G8, etc…
Has anyone here noticed that Obama recently moved the G8 meeting from Chicago to Camp David? This was intentional. It was shortly after a judge struck down some of Rahm Emmanual's draconian police-state policies (put in place, in anticipation of the anti-G8 protests). Rahm, the mayor of Chicago (and former Obama White House cheif of staff) was trying to prevent a redux of Seatle 1999, when hundreds of thousands of people showed up to protest the WTO meeting, and they had to impose an unconstitutional police state in order to protect the banksters from the protestors.
The Agenda 21 stuff is a red herring put out by paranoid right-wingers who are probably also closetted racists and John Birchers. The real threat to our freedom is the combination of military and corporate power.
With regards to the subject of Sovereign Citizen, this concept has been around for a very long time, it is not something that is new, but it is making a resurgence again. Just like other concepts, this one was to provide some protection from a government that has exceeded its bounds, but like everything else it also became corrupted in its use. Many people took advantage of this concept & of course, it now has a very negative & bad reputation. The major problem that everyone faces today is that our government has consistently & slowly (with the intent that hopefully no one will notice)taken our rights away from us. History has shown us this same pattern in other nations, countries, localities, etc. So what is the answer to help us, probably the biggest is that people need to education themselves on all the people running for offices, from little, insignificant offices right up to the biggest, most important offices. By educating ourselves, I am referring to finding out all that one can about the background, ideologies, beliefs, standings, opinions, etc of those people running for these offices. When this is not done, then we end up with these &$%#@ who are in positions to drastically change our freedoms.
And trust me, their community, my community, it is worth every bit of our time. I grew up in Wisconsin and I have to admit your blood does thin after moving to CA and cold is relative. So sitting in 50 degree temp is cold to us.
As far as ""Friends of Stewart say they appealed to the Red Cross Friday for assistance, claiming he is being held as "a political prisoner." They say he won't accept any supplies or eat any of the food in jail, based on his need for a special diet relying heavily on raw dairy and meat."
This was written hours old after James was arrested and we are told that he was "lost in the system for 5 days, know one could find he or Palmer in the jail system" So this is debatable. I am not saying that his friends didn't try or that Red Cross did get that info from the jail, I am just saying that, you can't determine and jump to conclusions based on that and it being so early on.
I know when I spoke to James on saturday at Sharon's farm, he said he did eat, he said at some point they threw him white bread, squeeze jelly and peanut butter and a baggie of carrots, he didn't give me the impression that he refused any food. My take from talking to both Sharon and James is that the worst treatment happened in the first 5 days or so.
I saw James 3 weeks ago at a market and then saw him at the farm saturday which was hours after he got out, and he definitely looked different.
I know after visiting Sharon, she will have her story to tell as well, but that's okay, it won't be for the close minded. She has already been judged and is guilty by some of you.
Just because someone was accused of fraud etc, doesn't mean they are guilty. So far, she hasn't been found guilty of any of it, including from 10 years ago. Their case doesn't make sense, and there is a reason for it.
If anything, this case is worth peoples attention because it is all about "our right to chose food" It is about proving someone's innocence and putting to death the slander, accusations etc with REAL PROOF and EVIDENCE.
Colorado won passage of the raw milk bill in 2005 in part because we agreed in back rooms not to disparage pasteurized milk. Our producers honor that agreement (they honor all farmers), but their shareholders, not so much.
Why do you suppose the shareholders dont honor that agreement? All American farmers/producers have legal access to raw dairy. Consumers are at the mercy of local, state and federal laws except where the producers are willing to defy. Its the rights of the consumers being taken away, there are more of them. And it is the demand by the consumers, i.e. their consumer dollars that are at the root of this war.
If we aggressively advertised the allergenic, toxic effects of commercial milk, we'd gain more for raw milk, but we'll also put some good farmers out of business.
Am I naive to believe that as a consumer I have a right to eat real uncontaminated food? Are you saying its better to negotiate politically and agree to allow conventional dairy and government to aggressively advertise to our legislators and the public that raw milk is a human health hazard? Are you aware of the negative media campaign against raw milk nationwide? Are you saying we should ignore that? And that protecting a few good farmers is an acceptable trade off?
In the process we also risk exposing new uneducated raw milk producers to a demand they aren't ready for. Let's get our ducks in a row first, and maintain a niche market for now.
By the time the raw milk movement gets its ducks in a row the conventional dairy and the government will have passed laws taking away our right to produce and consume the foods of our choice and will have convinced the uneducated that raw milk is dangerous. This is not about a niche market for those educated farmers and their enlightened customers who dont have to eat what passes for food thats available to the masses.
Some states offer a limited version of legal raw milk salesfor now, but the FDA other states are fighting hard to criminalize raw milk sales, you know this. I see no benefit to playing closed door political games that allow raw milk to be shown in the worst possible light while ignoring the very real hazards associated with pasteurized dairy.
Don't mean to offend but neither our soils nor ALL our farmers are ready for prime time.
I also don't mean to offend and welcome the debate; but the health of our people & planet cannot afford to wait for prime time. This debate is looming large right now; do we play the negotiation game with industry and the government? With the aggressive anti raw milk campaign such as the recent study released by the CDC I see absolutely no benefit to keeping quiet about the health risks of pasteurized milk. I think its this kind of back scratching that got us into this mess in the first place.
You got most of it right….but there is more.
I submitted a written complaint against the 2 CHP officers based on my intimate knowledge of CHP policy. ( having been a Paramedic for 16 years and my closest friend is a great CHP officer ). The officers never took a breath test, she passed all field sobriety tests, she had no smell of the odor of ETOH on her breath, she was arrested and had over tightened hand cuffs applied to her ( she was 120 pounds ). She was never secured with a seat belt on the way to the jail. They raced at over 85 miles per hour down HWY 41. She never resisted or became abusive to the cops.
To this day…I really think they were both on anabolic steroids. They were both very ego deficient and short…they needed guns and badges to become something important in life. They also patroled out of their designated areas in hopes of seeing a a young college girl half naked near a UC campus.
She was pulled over for failing to dim her lights. The cops were enjoying her toplessness until a field commander arrived on scene and ordered the two jerks to cover her up. She could not cover herself because of the position they had put her in their patrol car with an over tightened set of handcuffs that left a scar on her wrist for five years.
That is why a father stands up and protects his daughter. That is what a father does….
It was pay back time for these two cops. They had received very pointed none favorable documents in their personnel files and they wanted me to pay. I sure did…..
This is America…an America of weak people that eat, think and do everything they are told or sold by the establishment. Boy are we in trouble.
Those that are cultivated and attracted to the roll of jailer….are indeed screened to be meat heads. To be heartless and brainless.
As they all claimed in Neuremburg. It was not me…Just following orders…they all hung.
In America today….just following orders. Not me. Weak in the GUT….Weak in the BRAIN.
Go teach raw milk.
Mark
I'm glad some others have corrected you on the hypothermia. situation. As someone who sits a lot when he works, I can tell you that sitting in anything under 60 degrees without layers of warm clothes will begin to create problems pretty quickly. You may just want to test out sometime sitting in short sleeves (sitting, not walking around or exercising) and see how you do.
As for my March 3 post about Stewart not accepting food, I corrected it on March 10: "I had originally reported when Stewart was arrested that his friends were concerned he wouldn't accept prison food or clothing. He said he never objected to either and accepted what was offered, 'minimalist' though it was." I suspect his friends were very worried, and not sure which way to turn in the immediate aftermath of the arrests.
Finally, just wondering what, if any, food rights case meets your purity tests (in terms of your suggestion to move on from Rawesome).
David
Sure there are cases that meet my standards. Are you suggesting that the other cases in the news in the last six months have the same purity problems as this one? If so, I am unaware of them.
I stand corrected entirely on the hypothermia. I certainly don't know why he was unable to move around the holding cell. Your report reads as if he was post-shackles at that point, but maybe that's when the sewage made its appearance.
Dear Mark,
I missed the retraction in the Fresno Bee because that story was definitely different than your recount here.
Amanda
I do not have kids, and frankly I wouldn't want to under our current political and economic situation. Its hard not to be jealous of nations like Norway or Sweden where new parents get a year of government-subsidized paid leave to raise their children, and there is free public higher education (their governments even pay for their citizens to attend universities out of the country! Oh, and by the way… raw milk is legal too.)
I happen to agree with you that our public education system in the US is terribly broken. I am a supporter of alternative educational models such as Waldorf and Montessori. I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic grade school and a public high school. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a more affluent (though very conservative) part of the state that had high quality public schools, though they were very "conventional" compared to a Waldorf or Montessori model.
But we are never going to fix the problems with the education system by continuing to blame the teacher's unions as people have been for years, and then trying to transfer public educational funding into private coffers via various right-wing schemes like vouchers. Alternative schooling options should remain fully public and accountable to democratically elected school boards. Otherwise we are just replacing one problem with another.
Of course, homeschooling is always an option, but that doesn't work for most American families where both parents have to work fulltime to make ends meet. If I had kids in a more conservative part of the state (aka, not Madison) I would probably be sending them to private Waldorf school if I could afford it. In Madison, our public schools already embrace some alternative and wholistic educational strategies.
But for now, I'm not going to have kids. America needs to get over its addiction to oil and corporate capitalism, and get on with the work of building a truely democratic and socially-just society, as Thomas Paine envisioned in his book "Agrarian Justice." If we continue to keep the blinders on and only worry about our own little private worlds, then we are guarenteed to be the subjects of a tyrannical and authoritarian political system.
This is a good article from the NYTimes about the educational system:
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/the-reproduction-of-privilege/?src=me&ref=general
The education system is an increasingly powerful mechanism for the intergenerational reproduction of privilege.
To All . . .
Sorry I have not been posting . . . I have been reading though . . . and I will fill you all in as to what I have been doing . . .
Washington County Maine . . . we were in the news big time last month with regards to our caucus . . .well our household was ground zero due to the fact that I was the Ron Paul County Coordinator . . .we signed up a huge number of Independents, and oh, my gosh . . . Greens! to caucus for Ron Paul on the 18th of February . . .My husband spoke for Ron Paul and we were able to pull everything together to . . . .get this . . . 163 votes for Ron Paul vs. 80 for Mitt Romney. Mark talked about Raw Milk in his speech and he got a huge amount of applause and it kept building from there . . . that said . . . in the past I have spoke about supporting candidates for Congressional and Senate seats to throw out the incumbents who supported S-510 . . . Olympia Snowe who voted for S-510 stepped down due to pressure of a primary challenger . . . Scott D'Amboise who is for the Small Local Farmer and against S-510 . . . If you can get behind him financially that would be great because 2 RINO Establishment types (so far) will be challenging him in June . . . . David has met Scott . . . .and Scott is the only one that had the &^%$S to challenge a sitting Senator . . . and won!!!
This is what must be done all across the country . . . No more Vilsacks for the Dept. of Agriculture and no more people like Tayolr for the head of the FDA . . .We can do this but party politics needs to be set aside . .
I am really busy with both the Ron Paul campaign and Scott's Campaign right now so I won't be posting often . . . . but we can do this . . . our whole political landscape needs to change to regain our freedom, liberty and our food rights!
Best,
Violet
http://www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
With all of your $ . . . . I would hope you could get behind challengers to both of your US Senators who would be for Food Freedom and not the status quo (Get rid of Fienstein and Boxer) because they both voted for S-510 . . . . we did it here in Maine with Snowe and you can do it too in California . . . . get those establishment politicians out and vote in those who are for freedom and liberty with regards to our food rights!
Mark, Ron Paul is the only candidate who believes in the right for us to be able to consume Raw Milk . . . and I am hoping you will be a California Delegate at your convention for Ron Paul:) Change your political affiliation now so you can participate in your caucus . . .
Best,
Violet
http://www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
Raw Milk War of Words:
Hypothermia, DUI, poopy prisons, boobies, lost in jail, torture.
Nope. I never need to read the National Enquirer again!
And it's gonna be hard to sleep at night. I think I have PTSD by osmosis.
We aim to please. 🙂
David
“… men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others. If … they refuse to govern themselves, then most assuredly in the end they will have to be governed from the outside. They can prevent the need of government from without only by showing that they possess the power of government from within, a sovereign can not make excuses for his failures; a sovereign must accept the responsibility for the exercise of the power that inheres in him, and where, as is true in our Republic, the people are sovereign, then the people must show a sober understanding and a sane and steadfast purpose if they are to preserve that orderly liberty upon which as a foundation every republic must rest.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Jamestown Exposition April 26,1907
http://www.statusisfreedom.com/troosevelt.htm
I think there is a need for what I would call an enlightened sovereignty.
“It is the manner of enforcement which gives Title 42 1983 its unique importance, for enforcement is placed in the hands of the people. Each citizen acts as a private attorney general who ‘takes on the mantel of the sovereign,Â’ guarding for all of us the individual liberties enunciated in the Constitution” (Frankenhauser v. Rizzo, 59 F.R.D. (1973).
Of course the outer government does what it can to truly discourage people from thinking of themselves as sovereigns, since that term represents a threat to their usurpation and all the violence that is committed under color of law. What other course is there? Either we resume our Rightful identity and all the powers that go with that or we suffer one way or another if not outwardly then in inner fears. This is why I am saying we really need to come back to a full understanding of our Foundation in Law as is clearly revealed in the Organic Laws: http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1829734
I imagine that we could have a course launched from this blog! I think we could make more progress in our intentions to “develop creative approaches to fight the food authoritarians”! At least that is my intention and the reason why in keep coming back here. But what brings others here?