Back to Basics

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A Sauk County, Wis., jury kicked the State’s dairy lobby and fascist agriculture agency in the chin last week when it acquitted dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger on three charges of producing milk without a license.

Hershberger has been persecuted for four years by the State, working at the behest of the Wisconsin Dairy Products Association, for the “crime” of selling his raw milk and other dairy products to his friends and neighbors who had bought a piece of his farm as part of a buying club. The ruling means he can continue to sell his products to members of the club.

He was found guilty on the lone count of breaking a holding order issued by the State in June 2010 that barred him from moving any of the food he produced without a license. The shame is the jury didn’t nullify that count against him as well. He faces as long as a year in jail and a $10,000 fine for the one guilty count.

“This is a huge win for food rights,” Liz Reitzig told The Wall Street Journal. Reitzig is a founder of Farm Food Freedom Coalition, a group advocating for greater consumer access to natural, unprocessed food. The case “should give small farmers renewed courage to continue to operate within their communities.”

According the Food and Drug Administration, raw milk can be sold for human consumption in only 30 States. Wisconsin isn’t one of them. And it is a crime in the United States to sell it across State lines. A statement from the Wisconsin Safe Milk Coalition’s mouthpiece made after the trial explains why it’s a crime. “We strongly urge lawmakers to keep it illegal to sell raw milk in Wisconsin to protect the state’s $27 billion dairy industry…,” Shawn Pfaff said.

The FDA, which approves drugs that sicken and kill thousands of people each day, claims raw milk is dangerous because it contains “harmful microorganisms.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that from 1993 to 2006 1,500 people in the United States became sick from drinking raw milk or eating cheese made from raw milk. Hmm. That’s a whopping 115 people per year. Meanwhile, FDA-approved drugs kill 274 people (according to the agency’s own statistics) every day.

Pasteurized milk is dead food. The pasteurization process converts a healthy food to a synthetic non-food substance under the pretense of purity, cleanliness and shelf life and changes it from a potent non-allergenic food (one that helps to build natural immunity to allergies) to one that is allergenic. The good bacteria in raw milk is killed and destroyed as is the all-important bone-forming enzyme alkaline phosphatase. The result is a substance sold as milk but that resembles cow’s milk only in color.

Hershberger’s lead attorney in the case, Glen Reynolds, said: “This is as close to Prohibition as anything I have ever seen, but this time it’s milk and an Amish farmer rather than liquor and gangsters.” The prohibition against raw milk should go the way of liquor prohibition.

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The European Union is considering a law that regulates all plants by placing immediate restrictions on vegetables and woodland trees and laying the groundwork to restrict all other plant species in the future.

The psychopathic elites at the EU understand that if they control the food supply, they control the population. The Plant Reproductive Material Law makes it illegal to grow, reproduce or trade any vegetable seed or tree that has not been tested by the newly created EU Plant Variety Agency, which will be tasked with making a listing of “approved plants.”

Following an upheaval by hundreds of thousands of people protesting the possibility of such an Orwellian control agency deciding what foods are approved and making criminals out of farmers who want to use their own seed, the law was amended to:

• “Permit” home gardeners to swap “unapproved seed” without breaking the law.
• Allow individuals and small organizations (with fewer than 10 employees) to grow and sell “unapproved seeds.”
• Establish seedbanks that can grow “unapproved seeds” without breaking the law.

Even with these minor changes it’s still an egregious assault on liberty. Under a similar law, rather than being considered one of the United States’ greatest scientists, George Washington Carver would have been a common criminal and enemy of the state.

The law is designed to give Big Farm organizations like Monsanto, DuPont and and Archer Daniels Midland absolute authority over seeds, limiting the availability of sustainable heirloom seeds and forcing consumers to use genetically modified seeds. I have pointed out how well that is working here, here, here and here.

Understand that if this becomes law in the EU, it’s only a matter of time before the collectivists in the United States begin a similar move here.

The Ag Department first announced it as “exciting changes” to school lunches. Then a student tried the new menu and was admitted to the vomitorium for evaluation. Then another. Then several more. Before too long there was lost appetite pandemic. In response to the criticism, the caloric regs were loosened a little — which brings us to some good news, and some bad news. The good news: Michelle Obama says they’re working to make school lunches more “delicious.” The bad news: She’s referring to the same administration that said they were going to make health care more affordable.

From The Hill:

First lady Michelle Obama said Friday that the Department of Agriculture (USDA) was working on making school lunches “delicious” after the implementation of new school meal regulations that have drawn fire from some conservative critics.

“I believe that that legislation is truly one of the greatest legacies that we can leave our children. Because of this act … 32 million American children are getting more of the nutrition they need to learn and grow and be successful,” Obama told workers at the USDA.

“And I do hope that it’s delicious,” she added, to laughter. “We’re working on that, yes indeed.”

Last autumn, conservative critics of the new standards — which cap meal calories at 650 for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, at 700 calories for middle school students and 850 calories for high school students — charged that the restrictions made meals unappetizing to children.

And by “conservative critics” they mean “anybody who tried eating the stuff”:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IB7NDUSBOo

Have any of these supposed attempts to get kids to eat better ever included calling on parents not to rely on the school for everything and instead pack their own brown bag lunches? Sorry, silly question.

Once upon a time there was a street fair. It had striped awnings and bright colors and from far and near, farmers came with wagons full of produce to sell at the street fair. The produce was plentiful and cheap and the crowds it drew were huge which created all sorts of concerns for the government.

So the government created a Ministry of Street Fairs which it funded by taxing the produce sold at the fair. At first the Ministry brought some order to the street fair, but it would periodically launch new “street fair initiatives” to justify another expansion and pay for them by raising taxes on the produce.

At first the taxes were small, but as the ministry grew, so did the Produce Tax. The Ministry of Street Fairs built itself a towering stone headquarters overlooking the street fair. In its shadow, the street fair dwindled as its produce was now more expensive than anywhere else in the city.

The empty fair would once have been a relief to the government, but was now a source of concern because it had grown dependent on the Produce Tax and plenty of its nephews and nieces had picked up lucrative positions in the great stone building.

So after some consultation the Ministry of Street Fairs launched an “Emergency Street Fair Stimulus Plan” to promote shopping at the street fair.  The stimulus plan offered people credit for shopping at the street fair, but the credit was paid for by borrowing against the expected returns from an enlarged produce tax. The stimulus plan also piled on new regulations to be enforced by new branches of the Ministry of Street Fairs detailing exactly how many pears can be placed in a basket and the exact shade of green that a Granny Smith apple should be.

A short term burst of shoppers excited by the credit arrives and then fades away. The new taxes and regulations force the fruit sellers to raise prices again. The credit goes away, but the high prices remain.

Worried, senior members of the Ministry of Street Fairs do the unthinkable and consult with some of the vendors at the fair. They learn that their old customers are choosing to shop for their fruit at supermarkets where all the taxes and regulations don’t apply because there is, as of yet, no Ministry of Supermarkets.

Tackling the problem head on, the Ministry of Street Fairs demands that supermarkets be classified as indoor street fairs and put under its jurisdiction. The “Supermarkets are now Indoor Street Fairs” bill is introduced and not only puts the supermarkets under the Ministry’s authority, but taxes them at twice the rate of street fairs. Supporters of the bill denounce the evil “Supermarket Lobby” for its indoor unregulated street fairs which use a legal loophole to profit at the expense of starving children who need fresh fruit.

The bill passes. The Ministry is congratulated for its commitment to fighting for the right of everyone to buy fruit at vastly inflated prices.

Produce sales fall drastically as fruit becomes a luxury. Most fruit now spoils on the stands with no one to buy it because no one will buy it at the minimum price necessary to turn even the most minimal profit.

Not so fast.

The “portion control” movement takes a hit:

A state judge on Monday stopped Mayor Bloomberg’s administration from banning New York City restaurants and other venues from selling large sugary drinks, a major defeat for the mayor who has made public a health initiatives a cornerstone of his tenure at city Hall.

The city is “enjoined and permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations,” New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling decided Monday.

The regulations are “fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences,” the judge wrote. “The simple reading of the rule leads to the earlier acknowledged uneven enforcement even within a particular city block, much less the city as a whole….the loopholes in this rule effectively defeat the state purpose of the rule.”

Oddly enough, I think Bloomberg has two yachts named “Arbitrary” and “Capricious.”

Now the city’s stuck with a bunch of 17-ounce inspection cups that the mayor will probably have converted into three bedroom loft apartments.

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We are less than one year out from healthcare tyranny under the oligarchy-endorsed Obamacare.

It’s very deceptive to call Obamacare socialized medicine. The law has nothing to do with healthcare. It’s just the opposite. It’s sickness care. The Nazis had their gas chambers and America has “medical care,” which is the most sophisticated killing machine that demented minds can create.

Americans are mentally dependent on the “medical” brainwash. When our dumbed-down people hear the trigger word “medical care,” they go blind and hyperventilate. They do not know a scam from a sham. They will go unanimous for anything with the term “healthcare” in it.

Obamacare is not healthcare. It has absolutely nothing to do with healthcare. It’s a great transfer of wealth and population control with a ticket to the death panels when we are no longer considered productive citizens.

As the paper money regime collapses, the money creators are speeding up the printing presses in a desperate ploy to transfer the wealth of the American people before it becomes worthless anyway. It is disguised warfare against the American people.

It reminds one of the last days of the Nazi regime. As the cities were reduced to rubble, German citizens were being shot for “treason.” In the last days of any regime, the process of oppression of citizens is intensified.

In the United States, stepped-up oppression is being done under the cloak of benevolence (healthcare). It is not an issue of so-called healthcare. If it achieves anything related to Americans’ health, it should be called sickness care.

It’s all very simple: The medical cartel needs sick people like military machines need human cannon fodder; no difference. The military industrial complex promotes war under the pretext of patriotism. The medical establishment promotes sickness under the pretext of healthcare.

If you readers grasp the esoteric (hidden) agenda in Obamacare, your thinking runs deep. You should survive the coming crash. Obamacare is a symptom of collapse of the social order. We have no economic order.

As the last days of this system nears total collapse, there will be more and more political calls for synthetic social and medical benefits. Recognize it for what it is: a camouflage for stealing.

Once again for emphasis, Obamacare is not about the healthcare of the American people. It is not about the cost. It is about the stepped-up transfer of the wealth of the American people to the global elite.

Obamacare would be impossible under the gold standard as the medical cartel would not exist, and most of the politicians would be in jail.

Despite denials by the elites, a government-run healthcare system will quickly bankrupt the U.S. Treasury. What’s more, it will condemn millions of elderly and disabled Americans to substandard care and perhaps even to fatal rationing of medical resources.

The New York Times’ resident nincompoop, former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, famously said: “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”

Yes. Sarah Palin was right. Krugman, as was the case in his advice to Enron and in most of his Keynesian screeds, was wrong. There will be death panels.

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America was once the breadbasket for the world. Produce grown in the U.S. fed people across the globe. No longer.

Now countries are banning U.S. foods in an effort to spare their citizens from the health hazards of genetically modified foods, also known as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Monsanto leads the way in GMO foods. About 90 percent of all corn, soybeans and cotton are grown from genetically engineered seeds. The genetically modified products are now found in about 70 percent of all American processed food. And Monsanto controls about 90 percent of all genetically engineered seeds.

In other words, Monsanto has almost a complete monopoly on the U.S. food supply. It accomplished this by becoming the fourth branch of government. There is a revolving door between government regulatory agencies, Congressional staffs and Big Agriculture companies Monsanto, Dow and Bayer. Michael Taylor is a perfect example.

Taylor is the Deputy Commission for Foods for the Food and Drug Administration. Over his career he has jumped from the FDA to a law firm representing Monsanto (where he worked specifically for Monsanto), back to the FDA, over to the United States Department of Agriculture, back to the law firm, over to Monsanto, to a think tank, to a university and back to the FDA.

During his second tenure at the FDA the agency’s policies regarding GMOs were changed to allow them pass without scrutiny.

GMOs are hazardous to the people and animals exposed to them, as I wrote here. Unfortunately, avoiding GMOs is becoming an impossible task.

GMOs got their start at a Monsanto plant in the backwaters of Louisiana. During the 1970s, Monsanto was one of the nation’s largest chemical companies. It has a patent on a product named glyphosate, which it markets as Roundup. Roundup is a weed killer, and since its weed-killing properties broke down quickly in the soil, farmers could coat the ground with it to kill the vegetation and then plant crops a short time later.

At the Louisiana plant, organisms that could withstand glyphosate were found growing in waste ponds. Scientists isolated and extracted the gene that gave them tolerance to the chemical and began placing that gene into soybeans and corn. The result is what is known as Roundup Ready crops: crops that can withstand repeated sprayings of Roundup during the growing season.

But glyphosate is now showing up in ground water in unhealthy levels miles removed from the farms at which it is used. Traces are even being found in the urine of city dwellers. It also crosses the placental barrier and is found in the blood of unborn children.

The technology used to make crops Roundup Ready has evolved to where pesticides are now also placed within seeds, making them resistant to the pests.

But these “advances” are having deleterious effects on nature. Just as increased use of antibiotics have begun creating antibiotic resistant “superbugs,” use of Roundup Ready crops is creating “frankenweeds” that are impervious to herbicides and use of seeds containing pesticides are creating “frankenbugs” that withstand and even thrive on the plants. But it’s decimating the populations of the pollinators.

The Wall Street Journal in its December, 12, 2012, online edition reports:

“Sales of land used to grow crops are surging, with owners capitalizing on a sustained rise in real-estate values driven by low interest rates and historically high prices for corn and soybeans.”

This is a repeat of the phenomenon that occurred during the destructive stagflation of the 1970s, when money was channelled into fixed assets such as farmland as an inflation shield.  Farm prices, by 1982, collapsed, leaving farmers bankrupted by unsustainable debt, when the Fed under Paul Volcker stopped creating fiat money and stopped inflation.

The farmland price picture today is further distorted by Congress’s ill-advised mandate for use of ever-increasing amounts of ethanol as a gasoline additive.  Not only does that not reduce so-called greenhouse gas production, it also diverts large acreage from production of other foods, driving up their prices. People around the world have to reduce their food consumption, while farmers in the United States are hit with higher feed costs.