Two more Maine townsAppleton and Livermore– have passed food sovereignty ordinances in the last few days during the current town meeting season. This brings to eight the total number that have legally sanctioned private food sales by local farmers over the last year.
In the meantime, the states prosecution of Blue Hill farmer Dan Brown for selling raw milk under his towns food sovereignty ordinance, passed last spring, continues apace, with depositions being taken of key participants. A trial is possible by late fall.
The dissonance implied in the Dan Brown case–between the expanding will of the people, as expressed via the adoption of food sovereignty ordinances, and the resistance of the bureaucrats–isnt just a chance occurrence. Now it can be tracked and at least partially explained, thanks to a treasure trove of nearly 700 pages of documents obtained by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund from the state of Maine under its Public Records Act, in connection with the Dan Brown case (which it is helping Brown defend). The documents include email communication between officials within the Maine Department of Agriculture and with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as between the regulators and farmers, along with various policy statements. Its not the most scintillating readinglots of stuff about upcoming meetings and depositions and who can attend and cant attend, for examplebut buried within the tedium are important statements that enable an outsider to track the motivations of key participants.
Because the documents touch on a number of important areasthe evolution of Maines stiffening policy, an effort to pin the blame for illnesses on raw dairy farmers, and the important role of federal regulators–Ill be writing about the revelations from these documents in several installments. In this first one, I track the evolution of the Dan Brown casea major suit against a two-cow dairy– as an outgrowth of the federal governments ever more intense war on small dairies in general, and raw milk in particular.
I should say at the outset that Maine has long had one of the more liberal approaches to raw milk in the country, being one of some ten states that allow sales by permitted dairies, not only from the farm, but at retail outlets. As part of that liberal approach, it has long allowed tiny dairies that dont advertise to sell raw milk privately without requiring a permit. This is what the Food Sovereignty movement has been seeking, for the sale of all farm-produced foods.
Departing from History. For raw milk producers, the first inkling of a shift came in a letter they all received in late November 2009. In that letter, Hal Prince, director of the Division of Quality Assurance and Regulations of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources, said there seems to be confusion among businesses and inspection staff alike as to whether or not a license and inspection is needed by those not pasteurized (raw) milk processors who do not actively advertise the sale of not pasteurized (raw) milk. In the rule, there is no exemption of any kind that allows the sale of milk or milk products without a valid license. As such we will begin immediately to identify those processors who are operating without a license and assist them into compliance through proper inspection and licensing.
Why the sudden change? Maines chief veterinarian, Donald Hoenig, said in a 2011 email answering an inquiry on this subject, In talking with one of the dairy inspectors who has worked for the state for 30 years, Im told that this policy (no need to be licensed if you did not advertise) was in place when this person began work in 1981. When oversight of the program switched from my division (Animal Health) to Quality Assurance in July 2009, a decision was made to take a new look at the enforcement of all the dairy rules and thats when the policy changed.
I love that expression, a decision was made As if it was made by robots in a vacuum.
In the Maine Agriculture Department documents, a couple of explanations are offered for what happened. In August 2010, a laboratory evaluation officer, Cathleen Cotton, sent an email that seems to have gone to everyone in the department, stating, There has been a misconception that if you didnt advertise, you didnt need to license. This is not true now, nor has it been. It was simply a problem of resourceswith only 2 Dairy Inspectors it was impossible to check every place that may be selling milk without a license. Now the Dairy program is with Quality Assurance and Regulations and we have many more inspectors around the State to keep their eyes open for unlicensed sellers of milk of milk products.
But just at the time the letter was going out to dairy producers in late November 2009, the state vet, Donald Hoenig, wrote in an email to Hal Prince, the department director, My recollection is that when the determination was made to only license those folks who advertised, it was on the advice of our assistant AG I believe it was the AGs office who probably advised us that offer for sale could be interpreted to mean advertise. Im sure there could be other interpretations also but what youre proposing is a significant change in policy which could impact dairy farmers who may just sell a few gallons out of their tank sporadically. We made the decision to not require those people to be licensed since the practice was widespread at the time. Its probably not as common now as most dairy farmers are scared of the liability and think its just a pain in the neck.
Hmmm. Nothing to do with number of inspectors. Rather, the practice of private sales was sanctioned by the state attorney general because it was perceived to be legal, and part of a long-standing tradition.
Sparks Fly. It was this decision to eliminate the long standing private sales that would most directly spark the Food Sovereignty movement that took hold in Maine, and led to the formation of the Five Musketeers I wrote about a little over a year ago. They would organize themselves to push through food sovereignty ordinances in six small Maine towns last spring, and the concept took hold in Vermont, Massachusetts, and as far away as Santa Cruz, CA.
The Five Musketeers were far from alone. So intense was the opposition to the elimination of the no-advertising provision in Maine that the states governor, Paul LePage, began hearing from upset dairy farmers. He didnt like what he was hearing, and last September wrote a memo to the head of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Walt Whitcomb. I am particularly concerned about over regulating the small farms with large capital investments and costly licensing. In recent weeks I have received letters, emails and constituent visits concerning regulations involving intrastate commerce.
Attached to the memo was a proposed bill in the Maine legislature that a license is not required of any person who produces and sells milk only on the premises of the producer and seller. Underneath the text of the proposed legislation was a note that appears to be from the governor or an aide: This statute sounds reasonable. Please advise the problem you see with it?
Also attached was a letter from a Maine farmer, John ODonnell, who wanted to let the governor know what was behind the Food Sovereignty movement, and why the FDA was out to stamp out small dairies. As you may know, several Maine towns passed food sovereignty resolutions last year. This was mainly driven by small farmers experiencing unfair regulations that are barriers to entry, and restraint of trade. Many of these farmers fought for the same Maine bills I did, and saw how the Subcommittee on Agriculture was mainly under the control of the large farm and dairy interests and would never let small farm bills out of committee favorably. We also saw how the Department of Agriculture testified in these hearings that there would be repercussions from the USDA or FDA if we relaxed the standards for selling poultry, milk, and other products in our local communities and state.
Under this paragraph was a hand-written note, presumably from the governor or an aide, Why would this concern us, if the products are sold intrastate.
A State Department Goes Its Own Way. The Maine Department of Agricultures response? There is no direct response to the governor’s memo that I could find in all the material. The Department of Agriculture appears to have simply ignored the governor, and instead made its views known in a form letter from Walt Whitcomb, the Department of Agricultures commissioner, to everyone like farmer John O’Donnell who shared thoughts with the Administration regarding local food sovereignty ordinances.
It stated in part: Local food sovereignty ordinances leave the false impression that residence in certain towns exempt individuals from food licensure and inspection requirements. Because the ordinances conflict and would frustrate the purposes of state food licensing and inspection laws, these ordinances are preempted by state law persons who fail to comply (with state laws) will be subject to the Departments statutory responsibility to enforce state law, including the removal from sale of products from unlicensed sources and/or the imposition of fines.
Why would the governors own executive department ignore the boss? It appears that several months before the governor wrote his memo, in the spring of 2011, the Maine Department of Agriculture enthusiastically accepted emailed overtures from the FDA to help defeat the legislation the governor liked. John Sheehan, the head of the FDAs dairy division, submitted an 18-page tirade against raw milk as testimony against the legislation.
The Maine Department of Agriculture appears to have cast its fate with a federal agency rather than with its own constitutional superior. Interesting matter of sovereignty, it would seem.
But understandable from a practical point of view. Bureaucrats know well that politicians come and go, while the bureaucrats remain, always having to scrounge for budget to promote their own ongoing employment. The Maine ag regulators appear to understand well that their best opportunities for future revenue growth are going to come from the FDA as a reward for their good-ol-boy approach in supporting John Sheehan and all the guys and gals at the FDA. (The FDA hands out funds to states in the form of “co-operative agreements” up to $500,000 each, which are highly prized by state ag and public health regulators. Many of these aren’t publicized; as one federal report states: “There is a long history of federal collaboration with state and local food safety agencies, with the result that federal, state and local programs are today intertwined and interdependent in many ways.” In other words, the money is often buried in budgets and can’t be easily identified.)
Maine’s Department of Agriculture has made an investment in its future.
Scintillating can easily equal distracting, and can be downright trivial. “Tedium” often is the critical stuff.
I recommend skimming the scintillating and developing an appetite for the tedium. I know that David knows and does this. Any journalist worth his salt knows to dig, dig, dig. Not, perhaps, just for paper-selling sensationalism but for what we rely on from the journalistic world in the truest way which is to get a handle on the truth of events. The theologians and the philosophers can guide us on the deeper things.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Fortunately the issue was publicized by an astute journalist and the govt. was so embarrassed, that they allowed the Bill to “die on the table in the Legislature. Another example of how the battlefront in the Campaign for REAL MILK is, the right to use and enjoy private property
a decision was made Is there any means to track that comment to the individuals in position of power to make the decision? I’m sure they’d rather not have it be easy to find out, but is that legal beyond FOI laws?
Sorry for all the questions, but my little mind finds this regulatory labyrinth rather mindboggling and can’t comprehend how they set their priorities.
Thanks for the great investigative work you do. Maybe someday you could even write a book about it…
I am not sure that I agree with this statement. I would certainly agree that what the towns have done is “lawful” though.
In our system of divided sovereignty, where the state of Maine and the people are the sovereigns except in those matters where they delegate some limited powers to others, as has was done to the federal government, and in most States the State also delegates certain powers to internal entities such as counties, cities, and towns. Perhaps for the sake of argument the State of Maine has not delegated this power to anyone. (It certainly did not delegate it to the federal government regardless of the feds unconstitutional power grab.) So that would make the towns declarations illegal.
Perhaps the State of Maine does not have this power.
The fact of the matter is that no government entity has the right to alter or abolish God given/Inalienable rights. Nor do these rights have to be enumerated as was tried with the 10 Bill of Rights. I should hope that you will agree that what you choose to put into your body is an Inalienable right. The whole purpose of government is to protect your rights, Including the Inalienable right of choosing what you put into your body. No one else is possibly harmed when you choose to ingest something – so the government can not say that they are protecting the rights of others. They are not.
These towns and citizens need to stand their ground. Try the legal methods if they work. Rely on jury nullification if it gets to that. And ultimately the use of force if it comes to that. Does not the militia exists to protect us from enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC? Even if that domestic enemy happens to be the State of Maine? From where I sit most of our rights are violated by domestic enemies and very rarely by foreign enemies.
One of the proofs of its provenance, is, the prediction that Quasi-non-governmental agencies would be used to disguise usurpation of power from elected representatives, into control of bureaucrats. Which is exactly what we see here with the health authorities, the Transit authority, the Safety Authority etc, not forgetting the public-private partnerships, which are corporations created by the state, ostensibly non for profit. A couple of the hallmarks of these monstrosities are ; access to borrow against the credit of the state yet without acountability, and categorical exemptions from basic laws of the province, written in to the enabling legislation. All the while, those in the high places, directing these entities, stealthily arrange to have their powers expanded, always to the detriment of individual liberties. What happened in BC – the way the regulation was implemented to criminalize raw milk – is a textbook example of how its done.
Gordon S Watson
Below are a few reviews of the book, from the Amazon website
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It explains how the people of Czechoslovakia were manipulated into voting themselves into slavery. Through targeted mass agitation, a free government was transformed into a totalitarian dictatorship — legally! Today more than ever, the revolutionary methods described by Kozak are being targeted against American liberties.
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This political tract book outlines Marxist revolutionary tactics at subverting a democratic parliamentary government. Thus, making a ‘legal’ change to a social democracy which then erodes into a socialist totalitarian dictatorship. This book illustrates the ‘legal’ transitional communist takeover of Czechoslavakia without a shot fired. This is strikingly similar to the Hitler-led NSDAP takeover of Germany in the 1930’s.
This book should serve as a cautionary warning of how democracy can be subverting and how the constitutional checks and balances of the American Republic serve as a protection against this subversion (assuming that there preserved and not subverted.)
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This book presents a blueprint for the takeover of a free government by communists without bloodshed as opposed to that of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia.
The introduction to the book is a short lesson in current American History (1945-1999).
The tract was written between 1950 and 1955 by Jan Kozak, (?) one of the men who oversaw the overthrow of the Czech government by the use of propaganda and subversion in 1945-1946. The plan he used mirrors that which is being used in the U. S. today.
After reading this tract, if you don’t believe there’s a conspiracy to overthrow our government, you’ve been living in a political vacuum.
Guaranteed to bring up the hair on the back of your neck.
I’m not sure about the shift in animal health to to quality control, but I do believe there has been a concerted national effort to involve the states in cracking down ever harder on raw milk production and countering initiatives that would expand food rights, like the food sovereignty movement and lifting or reducing regulations on small food producers.
At the state level, it is usually the top person, like the commissioner of agriculture, who is appointed by the governor. The rest are career bureaucrats. At the federal level, it is usually some handful of top people in an agency like Health and Human Services who are “political appointees”–appointed by the president. Everyone else is civil service, and thus career bureaucrats.
Whether at the state or federal level, the political appointments often go to close advisers or friends, or else to important campaign contributors, or the friends of important campaign contributors.
The fundamental question is, Who has the power to govern?
Bureaucrats making laws? What sort of legislators and executives (and judges) would tolerate such a thing? Weak-minded, weak-willed, enamored of process control, ignorant of history, irresponsible, all of the above?
Back in the 1830s de Tocqueville saw it coming. Here’s a quote from his book, Democracy in America:
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
The situation in Maine is kind of murky, since it does have “home rule” provisions, whereby towns and counties retain certain powers or can share power with the state. Whether food regulation is covered is unclear at this point, and may have to be determined by the courts.
http://www.memun.org/public/local_govt/home_rule.htm
Dave,
de Tocqueville was quite the perceptive guy. Overall, he was pretty impressed by the U.S., though as you point out, he anticipated important political trends early on.
It’s my sense that legislators and governors/presidents tolerate, even encourage, such power grabs of the sort I describe in Maine as a way to exert their will, while appearing moderate or protective of people’s rights. Thus, a cynic might argue that Maine’s governor wrote his memo encouraging accommodation with a wink and a nod toward the bureaucrats. Then, when someone like me comes along, digging through the fine print, I point out that the governor meant well, when in fact, he was simply using the memo to posture. Now, we’re more into Machiavelli’s territory.
Heres some scintillating stuff (just kidding, wake up!), this is the URL for the Plum Book. Any incoming federal administration that is not prepared by knowing its mind and doing its homework is going to be weakened in many ways not the least of which is that it will suffer for incoherency. Consider what is involved in the Plum Book. I am thinking of the executive branch here, not the legislative.
Plum Book URL:
http://www.opm.gov/ses/facts_and_figures/plumbook.asp
If you have time for entertainment, Mitchell and Webb have a great skit called The Pet Hospital. I laughed so much. But heres what I think when I watch this skit: think of it from a political point-of-view (POV) and consider that we are the pheasant with the gun-shot wound to the chest (&c) and the Pet Hospital Staff are going to help us and watch them closely when they lick their lips. What a give away! From the political POV the hospital staff (that would be pretty much any career politician and their bureaucratic minions/colleagues) desire a) our wallets, and b) authority to control everything, dictatorial authority.
Pet Hospital URL:
http://youtu.be/4qP8LHurwHw
Lassitude in the citizenry => anything can fall away into either chaos or tyranny. This is a battle that rages about us. Pass the milk, please. Thank you.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
That sums up the basic challenge of democratic sovereignty to usurped tyrannical power. The ordinances are indeed preempted according to the system measure, and the system’s courts will find that to be the case. In the long run reformism and legalism, like any other ways of playing according to the system’s rules, cannot work. Which is why such ordinances, like many other things including FTCLDF lawsuits, are primarily political exercises in public education, movement-building, and democratic participation. But in the long run this is a struggle for power, and only power will win – either that of the people, from the bottom up (the only thing which has ever really worked), or that of the corporate/government tyranny.
“The FDA hands out funds to states in the form of “co-operative agreements” up to $500,000 each, which are highly prized by state ag and public health regulators.”
This kind of central government purchase of state and local governments is by now pandemic. If you read the local papers looking for it, you’ll find this unhealthy dependency everywhere you look.
In the long run, and often immediately as well, no democracy movement, including Food Sovereignty, can prevail unless we break free of dependency on top-down handouts. I’m not talking about details like Social Security, which we already paid for anyway. I’m talking about the entire hierarchical, supply-driven, money-based corporate command economy which results in all power flowing upward leaving only submission and dependency below it.
It’s the same thing everywhere as with milk – the only strategy that can work is to relocalize our economies, basing them on fulfilling local/regional needs out of the local/regional economic capacity.
Were we to be directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread
Grow food instead. Barter when you can. Thanks everybody for keeping it civil so far on this post, please keep it up.
##*$@*!! So Ora, who ##$@!! are you to tell me to ##$@!! keep it ##$@!! civil?
Oops, wrong side of the bed.
Have a nice day,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Ingvar, I was not “telling” anyone, and nobody has to because I said so. I just tried to ask politely, but I’m sure there are times and issues that will flare people’s tempers, and that’s ok by me as long as it’s not pervasive and constant.
I do think your comment was tongue in cheek and got a good chuckle out of it. That’s the spirit, don’t get offended and/or offend back.
Ingvar
When I was deeply involved with Senator Dean Florez in CA when we were trying to pass Raw Milk Regulatory policy ( SB 201 ) and food safety reform, he said repeatedly to me that term limits actually play into the power of the regulators hands and against the people. He said that elected legislative rookies get played all the time. They do not know what is happening and they do not know the history. The regulators do know the history and do know how to pull one over on the legislature. This happened with AB 1735 when CDFA sneaked a change into the law regarding Coliform limits for raw milk….and no one asked about it and no one demanded hearings. Dean told me that the legislative old guard knew all about the Alta Dena raw milk wars and would never have let AB 1735 pass with out exposure to hearings and democratic light.
Most people think that terms limits are a good thing….but it sure gives the regulators, the lifer beaurocrats and corporate lobbyists the upper hand…and does not let the elected good guys ( if we the people elect good guys ) stand watch for us all.
So it appears that the true power resides with the upper end regulators that are very smart and know the history of the power struggles. There power comes from the industry that is so connected to them. regulators do not serve the people…they serve industry. Look at the CDFA mission. It is in service to the agricultural industry….specifically not the consumers.
I think I have this one right. A week legislature plays into the hands of corporations and the regulators. CDFA even refused to respond to senator Dean Florez demand to show up for hearings and answer questions about AB 1735.
Isn’t this contept of state congress? This is a clear demonstration of who has the power. And Good Old Arnold did not make CDFA comply. Arnold was elected by money provided by BIG Ag….
When the legislature is weak….the regulators can do what they want.
Things are now quite different with Gov. Jerry Brown. CDFA has changed its culture and its tune and now are much more friendly to raw milk as an emerging market as demonstrated at the ongoing Cow Share Working Group process. The power is not in the legislature….it is in the culture of the regulators. The culture of the regulators is determined by the directives given by the governor and the pressure provided by corporate interests.
Of course it will never happen since we know that the media is also owned by the same corporate interests and has perhaps even worse restrictions and regulation, especially with all the consolidation in recent years. It would probably be career suicide to buck the system, both in the food regulatory and reporting aspects. Thankfully we have alternate media such as this blog, but unfortunately it does not reach the masses. And even if it did, the powers that be would simply try and discredit it as just another conspiracy theory.
Steve Bemis
Bureaucrates are not elected, bureaucracy is the nonelected segment of government, the bureaucracy generates regulations by passing elected officials, regulations are oppressive—ergo? I gotta go with the original quote.
Good posting David.
“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” ~Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson also espoused the Rule of 98: http://mises.org/media/1851/The-Principles-of-98
I see no reason why the nullification of State actions by towns, by the Rule of 98 is not a feasible tactic.
Hence we have implemented all 10 of the planks of the communist manifesto thanks to Christian voters:
http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist-Manifesto-Planks.html
There were many tools used: The federal reserve. The council on foreign relations. The United nations.
The single party system described in “Tragedy and Hope”…. etc.
Perahps Judge Napolitano says this more clearly:
When Napolitano says that no person has the right to tell another person how to order his life, and no human may impose his will forcibly or coercively to deprive another human of his free will, he really means it. Prostitution is a victimless crime. As long as it is voluntary, there is no justification for governmental intervention. Want to consume unhealthy foods and beverages? It is not the job or interest of the government to determine what should or should not be consumed by a free individual. That, of course, includes the right to partake of drugs, any drug. Drug prohibition is a failed public policy that must be abolished. Obscenity restrictions are themselves obscene. Only conduct which can properly be described as harmful, and not merely offensive, can be criminalized.
Criminalizing dangerous or risky behavior is hopelessly subjective and opens the door to the regulation of practically any activity the government chooses. Consensual acts between individual persons have no victim and therefore cannot properly be crimes. Naturally, Napolitano opposes criminal prohibitions on various forms of gambling. I was particularly impressed with the authors defense of organ sales all seven pages of it. His conclusion? We must leave this predicament, like any supply-and-demand scenario, to the markets.
Napolitano perceptibly recognizes how all of these restrictions on individual and commercial freedom come about in the first place: people go into government in order to utilize its powers to tell others how to live their lives. They often prefer to have the state, and not themselves, solve their problems for them because doing so is much more convenient, even if it comes at the expense of liberty.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd1203f.asp
Hmmm–10 great slogans for food rights? Consistent with the Mission of this Blog???
Cheers,
Ron (walking and talking)
It you want to play the game of ‘Due Process of Law’ – make sure you know that, first and last, all it’s about is : “Who’s the Boss?” Compelling bureaucrats to play by their own rule-book is endless, it draws away time, energy $$ from the main thing. Yes, sometimes it’s necessary in order to keep functioning / stay out of the clutches of the Beast. In BC, raw milk is labelled and delivered to its owners as a ‘cosmetic’ ’cause that’s what it’s been deemed by the bureaucrats. After age 60, my theme is “Whatever works”
Russ, chicken or egg? Without corporate form, there would be no Dean Foods or Monsanto.
“Welcome to the Fight, Sort Of
June 20, 2012, 9:46 am
…Technocratic idealists ALWAYS lose control of the game. It may feel good at first when the trains start running on time, but the technocrats are soon swept away by the thugs, and the patina of idealism is swept away, and only fascism is left. Interestingly, the technocrats always cry our only mistake was letting those other guys take control. No, the mistake was accepting the right to use force on another man. Everything after that was inevitable. …”
Interesting, No?
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Without massive government command economy intervention, for example creating and enforcing the corporate form, food commodification and globalization could never have existed. Food markets are naturally local/regional, with broader-scale trade just a small appendage of that economy. (That’s also true of all other markets, but it’s true of food to the greatest extent.)
The same is true of corporate technocracy in general. Its alleged successes and efficiencies are based on direct lies and accounting fraud. If the train is running on time, that’s by redefining “on time” according to a much longer time frame, while the previous train which was faster and provided much better service was intentionally derailed.
No one should ever concede the lie that technocrats ever succeeded by any measure, even the most instrumental, except for the anti-human measure of helping governments and corporations concentrate wealth and power. That’s the one and only true goal of scientism and technocracy. We see that most starkly with the system’s assault on food.
Very interesting indeed. This just pisses me off. The local EcoLabs rep is a great guy and extremely knowledgable. Concrete evidence that Monsanto and the FDA have deep roots in corporate America.
Mark
http://worldtruth.tv/usda-admits-exterminating-birds-crops-and-bees/
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/No-need-for-labels-on-GE-foods-just-more-safety-tests-says-AMA/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=TJ6pZf%2BpD7fdvOhdeZzeTw%3D%3D
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/06/indiana-holding-virtual-public-hearing-on-raw-milk-sales/
Old PT Barnum knew a thing or 2 about the power of publicity. He quipped “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right”
We see what comes of appeasement and collaboration. Such attempts are always in vain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opinion/lets-add-a-little-dirt-to-our-diet.html
Speaking generally, it makes no difference whether one chooses to be a pro-government flunkey or a pro-corporate/capitalist one. It’s the same pathetic appeasement attempt doomed to fail.
The comment above, like every other actual interaction OPDC (or anyone else) has with the system, proves this.
“yeah, so far, Organic Pastures Dairy only puts out about 1200 gallons per day of raw milk”
Except when they shut it down, which seems to be happening more and more often, in spite of all the sucking up to the CDFA. What keeps going wrong?
Too bad that NYT article you linked us to appeared as an opinion piece, but it had to of course, since Jeff Leach is one of those “alternative” thinkers, apparently believing the crazy notion that modernity does not automatically equal accuracy. Nevertheless, good to see his words in the NYT.
But let’s think ahead. What would be the likely outcome if modern research (read “narrow-minded, microscopic, can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees pseudo-science”) does discover that unnatural is, well, unnatural, that food should be grown and not manufactured, and that exposure to nature is better than being walled off from nature? My guess is that the heroes of science, technology, and industry will immediately be handed the wheel of change by government, and proceed post-haste to save us all from our phoney foods and battered immune systems. Pipsqueak media will help by screaming the good news that modern science is moving us forward, and we’ll be off to the races again. Of course the transition will be mighty expensive…
(Sure feels good to get my cynical lobe up and exercising first thing in the morning.)
Good article!!!
Ken
and b ]- evade the question which matters, ie. “do you have a better alternative to how it’s being done, now?”, I mean, in the real world = the objective reality the rest of us share. Either you provide the name + phone number of someone who’s at work, this hour, producing REAL MILK for the local market, in your model, or else admit you’re just a dabbler, sent-in to bother those of us who are actually doing the chores. Time to put up or shut up
Our farm is at 49211 Prairie Central Rd. Chilliwack BC. Come on up to the Raw Milk Symposium in Vancouver, October 19/20, or sooner, and I’ll show you around = get you-self a few facts to work with, instead of figments of your imagination, which is all I’ve seen from you, so far on this forum
Glad to hear you’re recovering. Keep it up:)