Getting ready to take some time off for July 4, Independence Day. I find myself thinking about our economic independence, in light of a number of recent news developments in the food arena.
* I saw a report that the U.S. Supreme Court has, over the last three years, decided in favor of corporate interests nearly 90% of the time. Makes me feel awfully naive to have thought that in Maines Food Sovereignty case, learned judges of that state’s Supreme Court might actually relate to the simple notion that farmers can produce and sell food directly to members of their community outside the system of distributors, processors, and huge supermarkets the way it always has been in this country and around the world.
Yet all the Maine judges could do was partake of awkward verbal exercises so as to concludedespite the fact that not a single person has been sickened in Maine by raw milk as far back as anyone can rememberthat whatever the State said about public health was fine by them. Damn those crazy Food Sovereignty theories, the judges decided, after seeming during their court hearing on the Dan Brown case to show a sense of understanding about the importance of locally-produced food.
* That factory chicken producer in California I wrote about last year, Foster Farmsthe one that promised the U.S. Department of Agriculture it would clean up its act and stop making people sick with antibiotic-resistant salmonella ..well, it keeps making people sick. Its made nearly 600 people sickincluding 50 in a recent two-week period and it hasnt lost a day of production, or suffered a fine, or had to carry out any kind of recall.
No State lawyers making grandiose speeches about public health. No self-important judges in their black robes asking questions about what the regulators are doing to protect public health. Just a bunch of corporate hacks telling the regulators, Were doing better, fewer people getting sick this month than last. Were getting a grip on this doggone bugger.
* Monsanto profits continue to rise, as does its stock price. This despite ongoing worldwide protests against its genetically modified corn and soy. Monsanto sees it profits doubling over the next five years. It has rolled out more high-tech soybean seeds that boast built-in protection against insects and weed-killing sprays, says a report.
* Hillary Clinton, the presume Democratic nominee for President in 2016, tells biotech executives shes okay with genetically modified foods. I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record, she said, citing drought-resistant seeds she backed as secretary of state. Theres a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.
* The Hillary-and-Bill money machine has raised upwards of $2 billion for the Clintons and their political pursuits since the 1990s, The Wall Street Journal reports. Most of that has come from corporations, some of which no doubt benefit from the Clintons backing of GMOs around the world. And you think Hillary Clinton as President might be sympathetic to sustainable farming and food rights?
Have a happy non-corporate-sponsored July 4, with plenty of local food.
Some food for Independence Day:
Philip Hamburgers book Is Administrative Law Unlawful? is brought up by Scott Johnson at powerlineblog.com who posted today:
Is administrative law unlawful? A word from the author
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He is a distinguished scholar of legal history and the author, most recently, of Is Administrative Law Unlawful? It is the most important book I have read in a long time.
I think this will be the first post in a series that will feature the book. Here I have invited Professor Hamburger to preview the book for Power Line readers and he has graciously obliged. Professor Hamburger writes:
Is Administrative Law Unlawful? This is the title of my new book, and I am grateful to Scott Johnson and Power Line for allowing me to preview its thesis: that administrative power revives absolute power.
But there is something off about administrative governance. It feels like off-road driving. The Constitution generally authorizes two avenues of binding power: acts of Congress, and judicial acts. The executive, however, prefers to drive off road, not through statutes and judicial acts, but along other, administrative paths. For those in the drivers seat, this off-road driving is exhilarating, but for the rest of us, it is a little unnerving.
. . .Most profoundly, the English defeated absolute prerogative power by developing ideas of constitutional law. The English constitution (although allegedly lost in the mists of time) was said to be the source of all government power, and it was said to place legislative power in the legislature and judicial power in the courts. The constitution thereby made clear that there could be no extralegal or absolute power.
Americans reenforced this rejection of absolutism. Americans knew the English experience with absolute power, and they feared any recurrence of it in America. They therefore framed the U.S. Constitution to bar any version of this power.
Most prominently, the U.S. Constitution precludes extralegal power by placing legislative powers in Congress and judicial power in the courts. And to prevent Congress from subdelegating the legislative powers to prerogative or administrative bodies, the Constitution emphasizes that All legislative Powers herein granted are vested in Congress. If all legislative powers are in Congress, they cannot be in any prerogative or administrative agency.
~~~~~~~~~
This is not the place for a full history of absolute power. Nor is it possible here to explain all of the ways that it is unconstitutional. For that you should read Is Administrative Law Unlawful? But I hope this brief summary is at least suggestive as to how administrative power revives absolute power.
Put simply, extralegal power is an ancient and familiar problem. Administrative power thus cannot be assumed to be a modern necessity. More clearly, it is a recurring threata contemporary version of a danger inherent in human nature and the temptations of power.
This matters for constitutional purposes because it is the foundation for recognizing that the U.S. Constitution barred extralegal power. In the past it was called prerogative, and nowadays it is called administrative, but either way, extralegal power was something that the Constitution prohibited.
Hardcover: 648 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (May 27, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 022611659X
Happy Fourth of July, everybody!
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Synopsis: “The hidden story about vaccines, autism, drugs and food Americas health has been BOUGHT. Your health, your familys health. Now brought to you by Wall Street ”
From the same people who made the film (DVD) Doctored, which I just purchased at amazon.
Talk about far removed from reality . . .
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/california-chicken-linked-salmonella-recalled-24424043
That said, I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe, family-oriented 4th of July.
Sylvia, I don’t believe the Foster Farms chicken is being recalled, till just now:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2014/07/04/foster-farms-chicken-recall-one-million-pounds-salmonella/12208535/.
That’s the point. It keeps making people very sick, and absolutely nothing has done to protect the “public health.” No recalls, no shutdowns, no bans, for many months, till finally the authorities were embarrassed enough that they finally prevailed on the corporate chieftains, probably begged them (“You’re making us look bad. We can protect you, but this is ridiculous.”) You’re right about what would have happened if it had been raw milk. It is what has happened to many raw milk farmers–shut down without making anyone sick.
This email from Groton Wellness of Groton, MA, about the hearing upcoming on Tuesday, July 7, about reversing the town’s ban on raw milk:
GROTON, MA – 50 years ago Groton put a restriction in place prohibiting the sale of raw milk. On July 7th The Board of Health will hold its 4th hearing on whether or not to eliminate this restriction. Raw milk offers several nutritional benefits and Groton residents currently have to travel to other communities to purchase it.
Please attend the hearing to support Groton’s Master Plan and local businesses in their quest to sell raw milk in Groton.
Groton Town Hall (Second Floor Meeting Room)
173 Main Street, Groton MA, 01450
July 7th, 8:15 pm
I wonder what the cows ate, if they were given any type of medications, etc. Were these 52 cows at or from a CAFO? The summery didn’t say.
http://www.horizonpress.com/cimb/v/v11/67.pdf
There is a fairly balanced NPR report on the Raw Milk Institute and one of its members, Charlotte Smith of Champoeg Creamery. Mark McAfee is quoted as well. All in the context of farmers working to develop safety standards. There’s even an interesting quote from a CDC scientist about beneficial bacteria.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/07/07/raw-milk-producers-aim-to-regulate-themselves?from=social
I linked to this article and your books, David. Thanks for the great research. Be Well
http://www.naturalblaze.com/2014/07/historic-approach-to-raw-milk.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709113/
This is not new information, so why do they continue to classify these bacteria as pathogens if they are found with similar frequencies in children without diarrhea?
Out of desperation they are grasping for something to blame, despite the evidence and the absurdity of their reasoning.
If a child is administered a vaccine and develops diarrhea, (a recognized side effect), what is to blame?
If a child has an earache, is administered an antibiotics (a common practice) and develops diarrhea, again, what is to blame?
The medical profession treats the last scenario as inconsequential stating that the child will eventually metabolize the antibiotics with no ill effect Rubbish! The effect on the child can be substantial and long lasting with respect to damage done due to the toxic effect on the childs kidneys and/or to the enzyme secreting cells in the lining of the childs stomach.
Abandoning our toxic assault on our and the microbes external and internal environment is our best bet for safe, healthy food. Attempting to limit their presence in our food is a narrow unsustainable band-aid approach.
Ken
People must seek out the primary evidence, as the internet and textbooks are full of disinformation.
So I’ll take the liberty of quoting from the Prologue of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration here, an interesting passage:
“Weston Price’s search for isolated so-called “primitive” groups living entirely on indigenous foods, took him to remote Swiss villages, windswept islands off the coast of Scotland and idyllic South Sea islands. He visited Eskimos in Alaska, traditional American Indians, African tribes and Australian Aborigines. His studies occurred at a pivotal moment in the history of the world – one in which groups totally isolated from the civilized ways could still be found, but which also supplied a key modern invention, the camera, that allowed him to record for future generations the superb physical condition of peoples yet to experience the industrial age.
…Price found fourteen tribal diets that, although radically different, provided almost complete immunity to tooth decay and resistance to illness. Contact with civilization, followed by what Price called “the displacing foods of modern commerce” was disastrous for all groups studied. Rampant dental caries was followed by progressive facial deformities in children to parents consuming refined and devitalized foods. These changes consisted of narrowed facial structures and dental arches, along with crowed teeth, birth defects and increased susceptibility to infectious and chronic disease. Significantly, when some natives returned to their traditional diets, open cavities ceased progressing and children now conceived and born once again had perfect dental arches and no tooth decay.
The diets of the healthy primitives Price studied were diverse. Some were based on sea foods, some on domesticated animals, some on game and some on dairy products. Some contained almost no plant foods while others contained a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. In some mostly cooked foods were eaten, while in others many foods-including animal foods-were eaten raw. However these diets shared several underlying characteristics. None contained any refined or devitalized foods such as white sugar and flour, canned foods, pasteurized or skimmed milk, and refined and hydrogenated vegetable oils.. All of the diets contained animal products of some sort, and included some salt…
The foods that provided the vital fat-soluble activators included butterfat, marine oils, organ meats, fish and shellfish, eggs and animal tallows- most of which our modern pundits of diet and nutrition have unfairly condemned as unhealthful…
With picture after picture after picture, from around the world, Price shows in his book that the healthy savage idea is no myth. He proves it beyond any reasonable doubt. He shows beyond any reasonable doubt that crooked teeth are caused by a severe problem with diet. He shows with pictures of living people and skeletons that you are not supposed to have crooked teeth. The thoroughness of his documentaion is hard to believe.
And yet the establishment calls his work unscientific.
I have repeatedly pointed out in my posts in this forum that the establishment is controlled behind the scenes. They have their own agenda, and it aint a good one. Slandering Weston Price is not some kind of fluke, it’s business as usual for these degenerates.
As todays’ system continues to devolvee into life based less and less on real world experiences and more and more on keystrokes on a computer, people who care about their health, and reality in general must seek out the real world evidence and hold onto it. Price spent years taking those pictures. People need to hold onto them. and other real evidence, so you don’t fall for the endless stream of lies coming from the textbooks, media cartel, internet, and sea of spaced-out people that generally surround us today.
But, that’s just skeptical lil ol’ me. 😉
http://benswann.com/charge-against-minnesota-raw-milk-farmer-dismissed/
This probably is not the end of the story, but we can always hope that it is.
On another note: If you are hard up for money in Orange County.. http://benswann.com/exclusive-ad-promises-6000-a-month-tax-free-to-house-immigrant-children/
No Shelly D, that is not true. Read Wikipedia’s rules and you will see they give priority to information from “larger” and more established sources. The only problem is the larger sources of information in “our” society are corrupt, it is the smaller local sources where you are more likely to find truth. Wikipedia is simply another outlet for establishment propaganda.
Do you really think the military went to all the trouble to set up the internet, to then loose control of the information game? I’m not surprised if they let you edit articles on subjects they consider trivial, but they’re not going to let me go in and correct their deceptions in the big picture areas, I guarantee it.
The main thing I disagree with with many people linked with Weston Price, is they are against eating fruits or sugars of any sort, except in very small amounts. Price’s own book talks about extremely healthy societies, such as the rainforest Indians of Peru, that ate lots of fruit. Lots of fruit means lots of sugar.
I personally believe natural whole sugar, which comes bundled in Nature with various trace minerals and who knows what else, is good for you, but refined sugar is a totally different thing. Since it goes into your blood so quickly and is a powerful fuel, if it’s missing these “fuel additives” that whole sugar contains, it doesn’t burn right, and can wreck havoc with your system.
When I told my belief to the manager at the local health food store, he said he’s heard that people that work in sugar cane fields and eat the raw sugar cane every day, don’t get cavities or diabetes. But he said he can’t be sure if that’s true. It would fit with my theory. It would be nice to have an exact, truthful answer on that.
LadyFarmer, here it is: http://thecompletepatient.com/article/2014/june/18/public-health-takes-precedence-over-all-maine-supreme-court-says-blow-food