Even veteran farmers occasionally receive cruel unexpected reminders about the dangers of handling livestock. Ron Klein, a Michigan dairy farmer who comments here, barely survived repeated attacks by one of his bulls late last month. In fact, when you read the harrowing account on this blog from Olga Bonfiglio, youÂ’ll wonder how he survived at all. It seems he could easily have been killed.
The bull was “in a frenzy,” as Klein described it. Even as Klein attempted to make his way toward a fence, and escape, the bull kept coming at him, a couple times catching his shirt in its horns, and flinging him about like a rag doll.
In the end, it was likely his experience and instincts that enabled Klein to survive with serious injuries. He tells me he is on the mend. The bigger issue, he says, is that “folks new to farming (understand about) getting livestock–it is not Disneyland.”
Here’s some data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on fatalities caused by cows and cattle. What happened to Ron not an entirely uncommon scenario.
**
Aajonus Vonderplanitz, the nutritionist, responded angrily to charges by Mike Adams of Natural News questioning VonderplanitzÂ’s lab testing procedures and academic credentials. He used an unfortunate tactic that IÂ’ve seen him employ several times now– suggesting Adams could be a government plant.
“Is Mike Adams truly a government and/or corporate mole? With the vehemence of his rhetoric, he is doing nothing but defending criminals and bashing me. He argues my credentials and laboratory tests (as) if they are what is important rather than freedom.”
In an email to supporters, Vonderplanitz seemed also to be admitting some degree of culpability in terms of his credentials and the lab tests, as if the ends justified the means.
He repeated his charge made on the Unhealthy Family Farm web site that Sharon Palmer and James Stewart “poisoned the (Rawesome) members with toxic commercial food, everything we work so hard to avoid.”
He also said his Ph.D. was an honorary degree. Adams “has attacked my HONORARY doctorate bestowed on me by the defunct Richmonds University. It seems that some sinister people are using the defunct university to forge diplomas for profit and fraud. He has compared mine with counterfeits. Because there are some counterfeits does not mean that all are counterfeits but that is his tactic.”
Since Vonderplanitz sent out his email, additional bad news has emerged for Vonderplanitz– a tape that seems to capture Vonderplanitz plotting with a lawyer to obtain the name and property associated with Rawesome Food Club, and $500,000 as compensation from farmer Sharon Palmer, presumably for him to discontinue targeting her with charges of providing poisonous food to the food club.
The ongoing revelations of recent weeks—that Vonderplanitz encouraged the Ventura County District Attorney to go after Sharon Palmer and James Stewart, used questionable testing procedures of supposedly tainted food, magnified his academic credentials (even a sincere honorary degree isn’t the same as a real degree), and schemed to benefit financially from Rawesome and Sharon Palmer—paint a very damaging portrait. The revelations at once undermine his credibility and his contention that he has been entirely focused on ensuring the health of Rawesome members.
**
There’s apparently a new move in Congress to legalize interstate shipments of raw milk—in the form of a proposed amendment by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to the huge farm bill. The proposed amendment hasn’t received much attention…except from the dairy industry. Not surprisingly, it sees a huge threat from the rapidly growing market for raw dairy products, and the growing support in Congress for removing the prohibition, which is used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to harass small farms. The industry groups, as usual, couch their opposition in terms of concerns about raw milk’s safety.
**
National Public Radio aired a report earlier today that linked the rise in allergies with benefits from raw dairy in countering allergies. The report made specific mention of a recent study of Amish children that connected raw milk consumption with lower incidence of allergies.
The NPR segment also expressed concern about endorsing widespread consumption of raw milk because of issues about its safety. It quoted a scientist involved in the Amish study as saying, “…there’s something about milkÂ…That’s key, along with exposure to large animals, particularly cows.”
It added, “Scientists don’t know exactly what it is in raw milk, or in the barn, or on the cows, that helps boost the immune system. They’re researching that now. But (the research scientist) cautions against drinking raw milk or serving it to your child. It contains too many dangerous, disease-causing bacteria.”
In the context of expanding, and increasingly sympathetic, media coverage of raw dairy, the NPR report is intriguing. While the health benefits of raw dairy are catching attention, the media arenÂ’t yet at a point where they will question the arbitrary fear-mongering by the medical and scientific communities over raw milkÂ’s safety.
Here’s the contradiction: If a new drug claimed to reduce the incidence of childhood allergies and asthma by 40 per cent or more, it wouldn’t automatically be slammed because it had potential side effects. The FDA would conduct a risk-benefit analysis to determine if the side effects were serious enough to outweigh the benefits. That doesn’t occur in the case of raw dairy, though. Scientists make blanket statements that raw milk contains disease-causing bacteria, as if that’s the norm, when in fact it happens exceedingly rarely. Presumably the scientists want to be in lockstep with the FDA, which won’t entertain the possibility that raw dairy could provide health benefits. Unfortunately, the scientific community and most media continue to buy into the irrational slamming—something that borders on criminal because they are scaring families away from a healing food.
Vonderplanitz, Rawsome et al will implode on themselves.
“Scientists don’t know exactly what it is in raw milk, or in the barn, or on the cows, that helps boost the immune system.”
Constant exposure to the environment/flora would build immunity/immune system. If it was detrimental, then people would have avoided that type of environment or died off.
It’s amazing how fast a bull’s temperament changes!!!
1. The provocateur allegation is often the refuge of a scoundrel. To equate criticism with being a police plant, without specific evidence to back up that allegation, is a totalitarian attitude which can only sow discord.
(Although, this blog has tolerated McAfee’s practice of ad hominem attacks on commenters based on their online names, any time he was losing an argument. That’s also an attack on standard Internet convention.)
2. Formal credentials don’t mean much in general, and only a system elitist would criticize a citizen based on lack of such a credential. But Vonderplanitz himself gratuitously chose to emphasize his alleged credential, so he opened up that whole can of worms for himself.
(“a sincere honorary degree isnÂ’t the same as a real degree”. What’s a “real degree”? It looks to me like the vast majority of the punctiliously credentialed are on the side of the corporate/government enemy, as are the universities that run this debt scam. So to buy into their bogus credentialing system is, to say the least, unhelpful to a democratic food movement.)
3. It sure sounds like he’s admitting his lab tests were bogus. Otherwise he’d fight for them rather than dismiss them as unimportant. (If they’re unimportant, why did he emphasize them in the first place?)
4. “If a new [proprietary Big Pharma] drug claimed to reduce the incidence of childhood allergies and asthma by 40 per cent or more, it wouldnÂ’t automatically be slammed because it had potential side effects. The FDA [might pretend to] conduct a risk-benefit analysis to determine if the side effects were serious enough to outweigh the benefits. [But since the FDA’s main job, like that of every regulatory bureaucracy, is to help the profiteering project go forward, adding its own imprimatur in order to allay citizen concerns, it would not only approve the drug regardless of side effects, but use taxpayer money to help market it and attack non-proprietary competitors.] “
I have no experience with water buffalo. Jersey bulls on the other hand have a reputation for being aggressive and as a result of an incident that occurred with my dad and a jersey bull; IÂ’ve learnt to not take any bull for granted. I prefer polled livestock hence my beef herd is Black Angus.
“It contains too many dangerous, disease-causing bacteria”?
This statement is extremely narrow-minded and if it weren’t for the overall tragic consequences of such a belief it would be laughable. It is indeed “irrational slamming” and representative of a belief, which has nurtured government policy that “borders on criminal”.
Ken
It just baffles me how scientists can’t figure out what it is about raw milk or cows that builds immune strength, lets see…could it be that humans evolved alongside farm animals?
Lets hope those active in the food rights movement don’t get distracted by the human drama surrounding Rawsome Foods and concentrates on stopping the abuse of power that was and is being used by the government in this situation.
The notion that the cosmos is nothing more than accumulated random happenings, over “Billions and Billions of years” after an initial Big Bang, is absurd. Just because that particular article of the Talmudic faith = passed-off as received wisdom in the public schools = is popular, does not make it true. A design indicates a Designer. The whole of creation witnesseth to His handiwork
Regarding degrees, I never got one but I always had the knowledge and ability to do work that the credentialed populace apparently could not. The sad state of the educational system is, if you owe us money you are legit but if you don’t we’ll discredit you.
Every moment is a gift.
Ron
Thank you for sharing your story. Thank God you made it through and thank God for your good
wife, true neighbors, and all those that responded to your need.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Ingvar
We call all the bulls at OPDC…”FDA”. That is their nickname….why. They are there to screw everything and they can not be trusted. We also ship every bull that looks at us wrong to USDA Organic Ground Beef immediately. No old bulls.
I just back from four days in Oregon. Billy Johnson at Wendy Acres is a new best friend. What a glorious spirit. I just love her. Mike Schmidt, Pete Kennedy and I all spoke at her fund raiser and it was a good old time with the best food I have ever had. Music was awesome…and the square dancing was awesome!!
I also met with Charlotte Smith near Portland. She and I are working very closely to gather together a small group of interested family cow and cow share operators in Oregon to become RAWMI listed in the next month or two. The dairy induistry has activated in Oregon to hold legislative hearings and oppress raw milk in earnest. Now is the time for raw milk food safety to take the lead and avoid Foundation Farms incidences. I was thoroughly impressed with Charlottes operation at Newburg. She is a model to be emulated for very small family cow operations. Local, very clean, pasture fed, detail oriented, well researched, consumer connected, consumer concerned and smart.
Safe clean delicious nutritious raw milk….is a mindset….
I am so glad to have Charlotte on the RAWMI Executive Board. We needed her voice for small operations.
http://runronpaul.com/endorsements/exclusive-schiff-radio-interviews-rand-paul-on-his-romney-strategy/
Ron Klein, you are one lucky guy, man! Good thing you were capable of running and I’d be willing to bet you moved faster than you ever thought you could, right? I’ve seen bulls do things you wouldn’t believe, since my Dad raised hereford breeder bulls (as well as pasture-fed hereford beef cattle). I grew up walking outside the fence, on a fast horse, or staying inside the truck, as much as possible because you have no idea what the heck is going through the mind of a bull. We had a couple of cows I wasn’t crazy about either. Get well fast and stay well, and chalk this up to a memory you won’t forget anytime soon.
|=8->)
Ingvar
Farm Food Freedom Coalition via Nature’s Path Organic Foods
?”EXCITING NEWS!!! The California Secretary of State’s office has officially announced that the California Right To Know initiative to label GMOs will be on the state’s November ballot. Thanks to each & every one of you for your overwhelming support for this historic labeling initiative. If passed, this will be the first law in the United States to require labeling of a wide range of genetically modified foods.” ~Jessica (Nature’s Path Organic Foods).
Is Leobon hamburger now?
“The sad state of the educational system is, if you owe us money you are legit but if you don’t we’ll discredit you.”
Yup. That’s because the main purpose of the educational system is to generate rents for the banksters and debt for the citizenry. That’s why they continue to propagandize for “going to college”, and require a college degree for ever more “jobs”, even as they continue systematically to destroy all jobs which even pay a living wage, let alone could service this debt.
Farming was just the first sector to be destroyed in this way. That’s also why the corporate/state agricultural system so furiously resists the participatory farmer-to-farmer educational movement which is part of Food Sovereignty.
One question, even though I do not have any experience with water buffalo, I do remember in my youth that we always had multiple dogs and they were very helpful with livestock of all types including the big boys. Would it have helped if you had dogs with you? I have personally witnessed dogs sacrifice themselves, and not just in the movies, and also just lost a rooster this week that saved his girls from a fox. We all need some help at some point, and knowledge and experience sometimes are not enough.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Syngenta_Charged_for_Covering_Up_Livestock_Deaths_from_GM_Corn.php
“Independent studies have shown that basing health assessments on flawed scientific assumptions is not only arrogant, but foolish.”
Ken
http://polyfacehenhouse.com/2008/11/scaling-up-without-selling-your-soul-part-3/
“No difference really exists between an empire and an aspiring empire. A one salary sole proprietorship that aspires to be an empire will have the same attitude as the business that already has an empire…I havenÂ’t seen one yet that seemed fair and honest. Empires tend to bully and abuse in my opinion. When does a business morph from integrity to scandalous? In my opinion, the day it decides to become an empire. If size never registers on your company radar screen, you can become pretty big without selling your soul. But the day you aspire to be the biggest player is the day you begin disrespecting the other players. How about aspiring to be the player that practices hardest? That gives other aspiring players the best hand up to join you in the winnersÂ’ circle? ”
And we have all seen exactly this played out in the attitude and actions of the biggest fish in the raw milk pond.
Same goes for political isms. We ignore their foundational problems, but happily build and promote structures upon them anyway.
Bill, it is so with socialist theory. Socialism is a reaction to the powers accumulated by ruling classes, but where do the fundamental evils responsible for accumulated power reside except in man? In a most dissonant and paradoxical irony, socialists (and other “ists”) would confidently build systems which codify concentrated power, doing nothing of course to change the inherent wickedness in then men who will take the helm (neither men nor systems invented by men have the power to make other men good). In the end we are left only with a tool that will be used to express wickedness on a larger than human scale. The very symbol you use to identify yourself on this blog Bill, is emblematic: The word “solidarity” combined with a clenched fist. The fist is both the tool necessary to create homogeneity, and the indication that there is no solidarity in that homogeneity at all.
David Gumpert states this: “This blog’s mission is to help improve access to the foods of our choice. Increasingly, our access is under attack by government and industry forces that seek to impose their choices on us.” It would do us all well to remember that sentiment as we consider and present ideas.
it takes more faith to believe in the theory of evolution, than it does to believe in Intelligent Design, ergo, a Designer
[Here’s an excerpt from the article:]
“Why would milk fat — a powdered substance that remains when fat has been separated from butter and dehydrated — trigger inflammation when polyunsaturated fat did not? The researchers traced the answer to the gut microbiome, the complex mix of hundreds of bacterial strains that reside in the bowels.”
[end of excerpt]
Read and try to stay calm! http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/590197/
IMO, they also place too much emphasis on “genetic pre-dispositions” which I don’t really buy into all that much. It’s comfortable to blame genetics, just not factual sometimes.
The title alone speaks volumes. Words I would expect most people to already know.
I wonder if those “genetic pre-dispositions” weren’t triggered by the SAD if the “immune-mediated diseases” would have stayed rare? “genetic pre-dispositions” has become a catch-all slot and you are very right, it isn’t all that factual.
I can fully imagine some of this being related to the ingestion of pasteurized milk, however, because it is a dead food, no matter how many ways they try to prop it up. A health food it is not. Who is the target audience for pasteurized milk? Children and teens, right? They put it on (gulp) cereal almost daily. Who is the unhealthiest group in our citizenry right now? Pretty much the child/teenage group – they have all these different “mental” diseases (or so say the skull jockeys), and now are being tossed under the bus with diabetes rates skyrocketing, as well as thyroid issues – just to name a few. There are a lot of things which could be to blame for those escalating numbers in that age group, but I would hafta guess that pasteurized milk is among the items to blame. It certainly offers little in the way of nutrition but the advertising campaigns are pretty damn convincing to the contrary.
What’s truly funny is that I wrote a scathing comment after reading that article – which they are not posting (at least not the last time I looked). Imagine that.
Oregon seems to be a real potential hot bed for growth with political heat building, especially this fall. The dairy community is gathering steam to oppress and make raw milk non attainable by the introduction of new laws.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.448058021180.239556.171911861180&type=3#!/photo.php?fbid=10151017106721181&set=a.448058021180.239556.171911861180&type=3&theater
After spending time with Billy Johnson at Wendy Acres….there appears to be no sign of the demand for raw milk slowing. Charlotte Smith near Portland says the same thing…everyone wants clean delicious raw milk. Charlotte told me the story of her two teenage kids and their bout of Excema….and how raw milk healed it completely in two months. Now she is a very passionate raw milk producer and teacher. Nothing like the truth ( acting on your own kids ) to get you motivated.
Mark
Mark
I go back so far that I remember when one of the stock come-backs to a heckler at a political meeting was “go rent your own hall” : the internet is miraculous for the sake of having your own soapbox to address whosoever wants to gather information then think for themselves
But you’re right that in this case (or in any case which will come out of Congress, from the top down) the goal isn’t to relocalize economies, but to enable large-scale commodification. We can bet that any actual interstate milk legalization (not to be confused with decriminalization) will involve the usual arduous regulatory hurdles for small producers, and just ease them for large ones.
The goal isn’t to render rational the irrational situation where large numbers of people from NJ have to cross arbitrary borders to get milk in NY or PA. The goal is to make it possible for a raw milk cartel to sell in every city it can reach. The fear is that the existing raw milk regulatory regime is creating an opening for a resurgence of small dairies, and in the process providing a potent vector for the movement of people becoming active citizens of food (in their self-education and buying habits). All this is perverse from the system’s point of view. So some within the system might prefer corporatized “legalization” to the status quo. Perhaps some of the regulators the RAWMI people claim they can appease fall into that category. We’ve seen how one of RAWMI’s stated principles was to enable passive consumerism.
I’m surprised to see you lauding the democratic (or is that “commie”, since it’s trying to flout the domination of money) aspects of the Internet.
my doctrinal position is = “the love of money is the root of all evil” = in the Bible, debasement of the money is used as a metaphor for degeneration of national morality of the Israelitish people, ie. us – white people, anciently, and today in America, seen in Scripture as the daughter of Zion. No small co-incidence that the very same thing happened here, from 1965 : see the book by Merrill F Unger, about how the silver was stolen from America’s coinage.
I have rented halls in order to have my say. Comically = in the most recent round of Court, part of the allegation against me was, having convened a political meeting which I advertised as a “Raw Milk Information night”…. When’s the last time you put your money where your mouth is ? ponied-up some of your own cash to assert freedom of speech? Apparent from your postings, no doubt your policy will be that of infamous commie agiator Jerry Rubin “it’s a free country and free means you don’t pay” … yeah, well Jerry’s dead now ( another classic example of the self-loathing commie committing suicide) while freedom of speech continues, for those of us who pay the price to practice it
Your blog appears to have become mostly political/religious ideology and not about ways to “help improve access to the foods of our choice.”
I mean, in reality, it’s ok for people from one State to drive to another State to visit family or vacation or whatever, and shop in their grocery stores and even take food from the stores back to their homes (in that other State). That’s legal, right? I mean heck, they give out peanuts and wine while you’re flying and it’s not like those peanuts and grapes were grown on board the plane. This whole regulatory thing has gotten totally out of hand. Either inter/intraState commerce and consumption is legal in all regards, or it isn’t – why are they singling out raw milk origination? Is it only because of the delivery angle?? If people go directly to a farm to purchase milk and eliminate the delivery part, why isn’t that ok? IME, that’s the way raw milk SHOULD be purchased anyhow. What is people went to a farm, purchased a quart of raw milk and drank it right there. Would that be “controllable” by our gubment?
So then, while I’m thinking out loud here, that means if Obozo wants to fly to Chicago and meet up with some of his old basketball playing buds, he can’t buy a jug of raw milk for his kids and take it back to WADC? (Give me some license here!) I’ll bet if it was put on that very level to some yokel in the Senate, it might finally make a point – but then again, maybe not.
If the purchaser is willing to take responsibility for whatever it is they buy (when was the last time you had to sign a contract to purchase food at Target?) what difference should it make WHERE the purchase was made? WHY should CONgress or gubment even be involved? This is a FOOD RIGHT is it not? But see, all the food at Target is dead food (basically), and raw milk is a living food. Evidently our CONgresspeople understand at least that much about raw milk and if they do, why do they think a living food is bad, when there have actually been more problems (health-wise) with pasteurized/dead milk/foods?? We’ve had problems will illnesses in the past from spinach and cantaloupe, just to name two living foods, but I can still drive to Wyoming or Montana or Colorado and buy either of those items and take them back to my home State, without consequence.
I guess I’m trying to figure out why raw milk is being singled out these days.
Don’t email, don’t fax, don’t text or whatever – MAKE THE CALLS.
= = = = = = =
Please call your U.S. Senators as soon as possible about the amendments listed below. If you don’t know who represents you, you can find out at http://www.senate.gov or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.
MESSAGE: “I am a constituent from ____ (state), and I urge Senator _______ to:
* Vote YES on the Paul Amendment #2180 to legalize interstate shipment of raw milk for human consumption;
* Vote YES on the Tester “Seeds & Breeds” Amendment #2234 to dedicate a portion of USDA’s research to classical breeding; and
* Vote NO on the Feinstein Amendment #2252 to impose uniform standards for egg production.”
More information on each amendment is provided below.
The amendments could be voted on at any time, so don’t wait – call now!
YES to SUPPORT RAW MILK – #2180
Support raw milk – Vote YES on Senator Rand Paul’s amendment #2180 to legalize interstate shipment of raw milk.
Senator Rand Paul has filed an amendment based on HR 1830/ S 1955, the bill that would overturn the FDA’s current ban on the interstate sale or distribution of raw milk and raw milk products for human consumption. States would still be free to impose whatever regulations they think appropriate, but the FDA would no longer be able to harass raw milk farmers and co-ops based solely on the fact that the milk is unpasteurized. Americans have the right to consume these products but access has been severely limited by the FDA’s regulations.
Consumers are increasingly seeking out raw milk as a natural, unprocessed food. Consumers and artisan food producers in states where raw milk cannot legally be sold (although it can legally be consumed) are seeking sources of raw milk from neighboring states. For example, consumers in Georgia buy raw milk from farmers in South Carolina, while consumers in New Jersey and Virginia seek out Pennsylvania raw milk farmers.
– – – – – – – – – –
YES to SUPPORT non-GMW SEEDS – #2234
Support non-GMO seeds – vote YES on Senator Tester’s “seeds and breeds” amendment #2234.
More and more, agriculture research is controlled by corporations who are focused on expanding their genetically engineered crops, and every year farmers are left with fewer choices of seeds that are not genetically engineered. Farmers who want to avoid growing genetically modified (GMOs) simply don’t have good alternatives. And when farmers have no options, consumers have no options.
In the last Farm Bill, Congress directed the USDA to make classical plant and animal breeding a priority for funding, but the agency imposed hurdles in the grant-making process that have undermined this Congressional mandate. Tester’s amendment would require the USDA to dedicate at least 5% of the grants for research to support classical breeding, as opposed to research on genetically engineered crops. The amendment does not call for any new expenditures by the government, merely an allocation of some existing research money for non-GMO research.
– – – – – – – – –
NO to EGG BILL AMENDMENT – #2252
Protect pastured poultry producers from new regulations – vote NO on Senator Feinstein’s egg bill amendment #2252.
Senator Feinstein’s bill was developed by the US Humane Society and the United Egg Producers and requires various changes in the living conditions for caged laying hens. Although pastured producers do not use cages, they will still be affected by the bill’s requirements for labeling eggs and euthanasia. The bill’s exemption for small producers covers only those who handle eggs solely from a single flock of three thousand birds or fewer. Thus, if small farmers work together to create a joint brand for marketing purposes, they will not be exempt from the bill no matter how small their individual flocks are. And those farmers who are trying to expand consumer access to high-quality food by maintaining large enough flocks for wholesale or restaurant distribution will be subject to the bill.
The egg bill requires that eggs be labeled as either “eggs from free-range hens,” “eggs from cage-free hens,” “eggs from enriched cages,” or “eggs from caged hens.” There is no option for labeling the eggs as “pastured.” This means that pastured producers will be forced to label their eggs with the same label as a factory farm that allows the minimal access to the outdoors required for the free-range label, placing pastured producers at a significant competitive disadvantage.
The bill also places the American Veterinary Medical Association, an organization that has repeatedly supported factory farm production practices, in charge of what constitutes humane euthanasia for laying hens. It is unclear whether on-farm slaughter will be allowed, creating a significant problem for pastured producers who sell stewing hens once their layers are no longer productive.
While the conditions in factory chicken farms undoubtedly need to be changed, this bill is NOT the right way to do it.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
Thanks to all who make the calls. You’ll be glad you did and it only takes a minute or two for each call.
In a perfect world, none of us would ever pay for anything we can’t pay for without going into debt. Banks are the problem! And, those who are better off would actually care and help others less fortunate. Barter when you can and leave the government and corporations out of the equation, I’ve been weaning myself for years.
And Sylvia again I agree with you, especially about the political/religious ideology overkill, but please keep in mind that people will argue about just about anything and when it’s a basic, passionate topic such as food (or milk) they resort to bashing as a defensive/aggressive tactic.
My other insistent question is, can’t we go about it in a more respectful civilized way? Most people who follow this blog are obviously not stupid, but the dissonance is sometimes informative and occasionally disdainful. Don’t ask for any rights you would willingly not grant to others.
I hear what you are saying. Unfortunately “bashing as a defensive/aggressive tactic” only serves to alienate everyone.
I haven’t seen any reason other than money. It is established that singling out raw dairy isn’t about safety. If it was about safety, then other foods would have been banned long ago.
The CAFOs cannot produce any dairy for consumption without boiling it. Apparently the growth in consumer demand for raw dairy (and other healthier foods) is growing so large as to alarm TPTB and their bedfellows.
It appears the small farms can produce safer raw dairy and produce. (No this is not an absolute)
http://www.capitalpress.com/dairy/CRD-milk-sales-w-graph-071511
http://www.pcrm.org/health/diets/vegdiets/health-concerns-about-dairy-products
Milk consumption has been declining. As said, the demand for healthier foods is growing and that must put fear into those CAFOs.
Now back to the fridge for some of that delicious milk, get it while you can.
Maybe I just live in a place where nicer folks come from, but my calls lasted less than two minutes each, and they never pressed me for information at all. Both offices said “would you like to leave your name and address?”. I gave my name and city, no address. If they REALLY need to talk to me, they’ll find me, I’m sure of that. The only other thing I did was to really emphasize my support for the raw milk issues. Even though individual State’s will still have control, it’s monstrously better than corporate sell-out FDUh control.
Thank you so much for calling. Who knows – our efforts might even make some difference. And, if not now, maybe down the road.
= = = = = = =
5 years. ThatÂ’s how often the farm bill comes around.
5 minutes. ThatÂ’s all it takes to speak out for reform.
A lifetime. ThatÂ’s the kind of impact youÂ’ll have.
Our nation’s schoolchildren deserve to eat fresh, local food in schools – and with it, the opportunity to develop healthy eating habits for life. Now’s the time! Amidst the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, the Senate is debating the 2012 Farm Bill, and decisions are being made that will impact farmers, the environment, and rural communities for years to come. If you can spare 5 minutes today, you will have an impact.
Thank you for speaking up yesterday! Today is our third and final day of action, so here we go –
TodayÂ’s action:
ENSURE A WIN-WIN FOR FARMERS AND FOR CHILDREN –
SUPPORT FARM TO SCHOOL PURCHASING
Produce and protein from nearby farms on school lunch trays – it seems like a smart, simple concept. Yet the opportunity for farmers to create jobs, spur economic growth, and provide healthy and wholesome foods to schoolchildren is often harder than it seems. Current policies make it difficult for schools to purchase products from local farms and create barriers for local farmers that want to supply their products to schools.
We can do something about this! Senators Sanders (I-VT) and Leahy (D-VT) have introduced an amendment to the 2012 Farm Bill to make it easier for farmers to supply local school districts. It allows schools to use program dollars from Department of Defense Fresh (a fruit and vegetable distribution program) to purchase produce from local farmers.
Will you help us make it easier for students to eat fresh, local food in schools?
= = = = = = = = =
I am assuming this is also in conjunction with Senate Bill S. 3240, although the email didn’t say for sure.
Yes, I reject money, including the depraved notion that Money=Speech. Everything else I say is consistent with that. You start out saying you hate it and then go on to exalt it ad nauseum. And you still haven’t explained why a Galtian “wealth creator” like yourself doesn’t have lots more of it. It can’t be because those darn commies steal it all. That didn’t stop Rockefeller or Carnegie, did it?
“my doctrinal position is = “the love of money is the root of all evil”…
When’s the last time you put your money where your mouth is ? ponied-up some of your own cash to assert freedom of speech?…freedom of speech continues, for those of us who pay the price to practice”
Hmm, it must be difficult always contradicting one’s own proclaimed doctrine, and about what’s evil, no less.
Meanwhile real milk and the dairies that produce it would be far better off without the command economy of money and landed property.
Barney, do you have a blog or a forum of your own where you post your frustrations with Bilderberg, religion or other things NOT pertaining to food/raw milk/ healthy eating? If you do, could you please post the link to it here so we can all visit and talk about that sort of thing without clogging up David’s blog with unrelated topics? I would love to hear your opinions on all kinds of different issues, but not here. I wish we could comment through private messages because I have a forum set up to do just that, but I hesitate putting the link here because I’m really not here to promote my stuff. I just like to follow the current legislation issues regarding food and raw milk, get other folks opinions about those topics, and educate myself – and this seems to be a good place to do that, most of the time.
Command economy? that term was coined by Josep Stalin and his pals, who ran Russia that way … ran it into the ground, that is. A textbook case study of how Stalin-ism doesn’t work, is : the Canadian dairy supply management system. The Powers that Be are bothering us because the success of our little dairy puts them to open shame. We put our own real capital to work, underwriting it, operating usury-free, nor do we take a dime of subsidy from the state. Whilst we deliver thousands of gallons of REAL MILK per month, the kvetching of our critics and all your babbling in cyberspace, amounts to zero. I your theories work, you wouldn’t have to open your mouth … you’d just show this forum someone who’s actually doing what you prattle-on about … but of course you can’t
what’s that old Chinese proberb? “Those who cannot do, ought not to criticize those who are doing”
Are you saying that what I post is not relevant to food rights, but what you post is?
Bilderberg IS relevant to food rights. It’s not my fault that you’re too ignorant to see that.
Bilderberg is not lots of wealthy people – it is 140 world leaders and corporate executives who meet in secret to discuss policy – do you think issues such as agriculture, GMOs, etc., are not part of that conversation?
Go ahead and continue to believe that you can just call an elected official’s office and they will magically do what is in your best interest. They are not going to do what’s in your best interest, unless it’s to throw you a bone to keep you complacent.
Don’t like what I post? Tough. Ignore it if you want, but don’t shoot the messenger.
“Documents read by the BBC and later released by Wikileaks divulge how Bilderberg members were discussing the creation of the euro single currency nearly 40 years before it was officially introduced in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.”
“HarrisÂ’ notes, made while Reuther was giving his presentation, reveal how Bilderberg were panicked about NATOÂ’s declining relevance and sought to manufacture a new threat to elevate its importance.
“NATO is in trouble because common fears are reduced,” he writes.”
And this one’s for Bill:
“The most alarming portion of HarrisÂ’ hand-written notes concern a speech given during the Bilderberg confab by one time Communist Party member and union leader Walter P. Reuther, who was politically active from the 1930?s up until his death in 1970. Reuther was a leading force in the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and later helped set up the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.”
“The documents show that even as far back as 1966, Union representatives like Reuther, who called themselves socialists, were selling out their members in favor of secretly scheming with Bilderberg power brokers, many of whom were titans of capitalism and industry – illustrating how the left/right political paradigm is a fraud.”
http://www.infowars.com/leaked-bilderberg-documents-nationalism-is-dangerous/
I just wish more people would take this shit seriously !!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism)
labels will only “confuse the consumer”.
You didn’t reply to my offering Polyface farm as an example. Were you scared to call Joel Salatin a “commie”? Of course, that’s an example of someone doing the best he can in an extremely hostile environment.
There’s only two reasons why corporate agriculture is temporarily winning over natural agriculture – cheap fossil fuels, and Might Makes Right. The former is an ephemeral circumstance, just an ahistorical blip. As for the latter, we’ll see how that tyrannical might holds up without its oil subsidy. But again it’s interesting to see you exalt Might Makes Right and sneer at those who are at the moment unmighty.
We’ll see who’s really mighty in the end – these phony corporate/government structures, or the Earth.
Why do you keep deploring and celebrating the corporate command economy, usually in the same comment? For example your schizophrenic view of system money? The blathering about “capital”? How can a system based on capital benefit anyone but the biggest power structures? And if you repeat the prattle about “entrepreneurs”, I’ll remind you of where that leaves you on the totem pole.
When the American people had gold and silver coins in their pockets and homes, they controlled application of that capital for their own best uses. Today, rather than employ such real capital, the little serfs sit around the inkwell, waiting to ‘get well” with a new injection of the drug of choice = imaginary “capital’ from its fount in Washington/ New York, The strength of the Campaign for REAL MILK is, we disregard that rigged game, and use what we’ve got to produce the real thing.
Salatin’s farm came about through the application of capital within a family….. the absolute opposite of what you, and Karl Marx, propose.
Talk is cheap … meanwhile, right in your neighbourhood, children are starving for good nutrition … so what have you done about it? Oh, that’s right – you parcelled-up all your blather into a proposal about how society should be re-organized along the lines of the soviet model, and fired it off to the White Houe …. I’m sure your boy Barry, will get right on it!!
It’s mystified me for a while now that if I drink the milk in the state where I purchase it, it’s apparently okay but when I bring it into our state it’s suddenly a dangerous substance! Excuse me while I laugh very loudly at this insanity.