Leave My Food Alone!!!!

Announcing The Most Powerful People's Advocacy Tool EVER!! The word we are getting is that our "good for nothing but photo-ops and grandstanding" Congress may try to sneak through HR 2749 real fast, the latest phony food safety bill on a suspension of rules any day. Yes, we do need to take action to protect our food safety. But, no, this bill does absolutely nothing to identify or address the real problems. And by NOT addressing the real problems it can only do more harm than good. But we now launching an incredibly powerful new advocacy tool, especially for the fight against HR 2749, and to stop all such future lunacy in its tracks, the People's Phone Lobby interface. It's so simple to use, just go to the page below and call your members of Congress and there is even a link to give you all their direct congressional and local district office phone numbers. HR 2749 People's Phone Lobby: http://www.peaceteam.net/lobby.php?bill=HR2749 Then when you speak to the staffers in your congressional offices, you don't JUST tell them your position, first you ASK them for their position. Are they supporting HR 2749 or not? And THEN you give them your position and MAKE them defend theirs if they do not agree with us, that HR 2749 is just more very bad news, another deceptively titled bill that in fact does the opposite of what it purports to be about, assuming it is anything besides totally worthless. Why is this such a powerful new approach?? Because when you go to the link above and record your notes of your phone calls with your members of Congress, it becomes a permanent public record of just how many of us are calling, and just how many of them are trying to completely ignore the voice of the people, that any of their constituents can go out and read for themselves. To protect your privacy, the record you make of your conversations with them will only display your initials and your city and state on this new blogging site. But then ANYONE can see for themselves the real numbers as to how many of us are demanding real change, and which members of Congress think our calls can just go in one ear and out the other. Go to the page below and put it to work for you and your family now. HR 2749 People's Phone Lobby: http://www.peaceteam.net/lobby.php?bill=HR2749 In fact, this is basically just what the corporate lobbyists do behind our backs day in and day out and all night too. They jam members of Congress about their positions on bills. And if they aren't falling in line they apply pressure. But now with this revolutionary logging tool, we can jam them right back. Why, we can see them huddled in small groups in their cloakrooms even now, talking about, "OMG, the people are on to us!!" The fact is that a REAL food safety bill would be easy to write. Provision one, force the filthy factory farms, which are breeding all the antibiotic resistant bacteria and mutating viruses now, to clean up their act. And JUST the big factory farms, not the small, healthy organic farms that are the backbone of our real food safety. Provision two, ban all ban GMOs until AFFIRMATIVELY proven safe and require full disclosure labeling of all such products, cows shot up with bovine growth hormone, etc. Of course, GMOs can never be proven safe because they AREN'T. Rats fed GMO soybeans get sick and die! That's right, they wouldn't feed this stuff to rats, but they want to give it to our children. So Congress having gotten the directive from the corporate special interests that put profit ahead of our real food safety, a directive to IGNORE the real problems and look somewhere else, along comes HR 2749, which lacks even a preamble to identify why the bill even needed to be written in the first place, or what exactly it is intended to correct. Instead, ALL HR 2749 does is grant the FDA expansive and unprecedented new POLICE powers to the FDA with no guidance of congresional intent as to how that power should be exercised. And who will be the administrators wielding this awesome new and truly frightening power, you ask? Why, President Obama just appointed a former Monsanto VP to oversee the FDA food safety group. There's a example for you. What a coinky-dink!! Remember when Obama told us not to worry (because HE was the "decider") about all the drop dead creeps he was appointing to government administrative positions, the worst of the worst, the SAME people who were under all the rocks in the Bush administration? So what happens when THOSE same people are making all the real policy decisions because Congress has totally abdicated it's policy making function? Well ... we get wolves in sheep's clothing legislation put forward like HR 2749. It MUST be stopped. And by getting on the phones now and making a public record of all our calls at the page below, we can generate so much bad PR for members of Congress who won't listen to the people, that even the most tone deaf of them will have to start dancing eventually. So let's get it started, and show the whole country how many tens and hundreds of thousands of us are on to them. HR 2749 People's Phone Lobby: http://www.peaceteam.net/lobby.php?bill=HR2749 The problem with food safety is NOT that the FDA doesn't have enough Gestapo like police power to harass small farming operations. The problem is that the FDA is perversely determined not to look at the real source of all the filth in our food supply, and Congress is doing nothing by way oversight to make them do it. And HR 2749 just gives more powerful weapons to people who can't be trusted to use responsibly the ones they already have. And yes, you can also respond to this action through the new Twitter gateway. Just send the following Twitter reply, and add any personal comment you like. @cxs #p996 And if you want a step by step explanation of how to set up the Twitter thing here is the link for that. Twitter Activism Step-By-Step: http://tcxs.net/step_by_step.php Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible. If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

Palin, Limbaugh, Murkowsli & Exxon: Unholy Alliance Are Out to Kill Us ALL

**************************************** A lavishly funded unholy alliance including Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and ExxonMobil has whipped up ideological extremists into a partisan frenzy. At stake is our last best chance to stop global warming and create a clean energy future. Please make your emergency donation today your gift in the next 24 hours will be tripled $2-for-$1 match. http://support.edf.org/site/R?i=ltxgO053OFg_emXnlnFK0Q.. **************************************** Dear Auntie Nanuuq, A small, immensely well-financed cabal of polluters and ideological extremists is on the verge of selling out our nation's future in the name of political gain. At stake is the path-breaking effort to cap America's global warming pollution and unleash our clean energy future. Led by radical ideologues Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and financed with hundreds of millions of dollars from big polluters, climate action opponents have unleashed a shameless and disgraceful tidal wave of lies, distortion and naked partisan muscle. You and I and other committed Americans are all that stands between victory and defeat in what may be our last best chance to get America on course toward a clean energy future. That's why two of our most committed supporters, Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham, through their Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, have offered to match your online donation $2-for-$1. http://support.edf.org/site/R?i=JIHqg0ziEitvtxhUC2ReKg.. For the next 24 hours, for every $1 you donate, $3 will go toward our global warming campaign to win climate action this year. What is so infuriating is that this is not a principled disagreement over the best course for the nation -- it is an ugly and cynical effort to embarrass and undermine the President and the enemies of action show no concern for the consequences. As South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said bluntly, they think if they can block President Obama on issues like global warming and health care, they'll "break" his presidency. These forces are spending millions every single day on scare tactics, fake grassroots action, junk science, lavishly funded ad campaigns, and an army of K Street lobbyists. During the House fight, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck practically ran a round-the-clock telethon urging their listeners and viewers to call Capitol Hill. For some House offices, their calls overwhelmed the switchboard. And now Sarah Palin has thrown her hat in the ring and is rallying her "Drill-Baby-Drill" base to block climate action. It will take everything we have to take on the forces of obstruction. We need to unite our supporters and fight fire with fire. Will you step up your support today? Please donate now to our $2-for-$1 Summer Match Campaign to triple your support for global warming action. http://support.edf.org/site/R?i=pmYaZG4O8z4OVKox7UCcKA.. Here's what we're doing to fight back. In concert with other environmental groups, business, industry and labor, we are working round the clock in Washington and in key swing states to: * Produce hard-hitting ads on the urgent threat of global warming action and the economic opportunities of unleashing a clean energy future. * Continue to reach out to the business community -- from large corporations to local businesses -- to recruit them in our efforts to show that we can fight global warming and grow our economy. * Counter the radical right and the big polluters on TV, radio and in the blogosphere to set the record straight. * Recruit 50,000 new online activists in August to mobilize grassroots public education efforts. Produce a detailed video series to educate online audiences on the urgency of global warming action. * Provide expert analysis on the climate threat and economic opportunity. I've worked in and around legislative politics for many years, but this is frankly the sleaziest and potentially most destructive display of cynical politics I have ever witnessed. There is too much at stake. We can't let them win. Please help today with a donation to our $2-for-$1 Summer Match Campaign. http://support.edf.org/site/R?i=ptXsfgH0Ji8U79RCfobt8w.. Thanks for your activism and support, Fred Krupp President Environmental Defense Fund 257 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10010 1-800-684-3322

Ask Congress for Solar Power Now!

From the sun-drenched desert lands of California, Arizona and Nevada to solar hotspots in Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, America's southwestern states are blessed with ample renewable solar energy.

The Obama Administration thankfully is moving forward on plans for a vast array of solar projects in the American southwest, and we need your help to make sure it is done right from the start – take action today!

Along with other renewables like wind and geothermal, solar development is critical to achieving our nation's energy and climate goals. But solar development can also have huge impacts on the landscape, making it all the more important that solar projects are carefully located.

The Wilderness Society is leading the effort to ensure that while our nation develops sustainable energy sources, we also protect environmentally fragile places from the development of those renewable sources.

By prioritizing development in already-degraded areas or areas lacking special natural values, we can protect sensitive lands and speed good projects by avoiding conflicts. Now is the time to set the stage for responsible renewables development, and you can be a part of the solution!

Thank you for taking action, and making a difference.

Sincerely,

Kathy Kilmer
The Wilderness Society

Stop the Feds From Forcing Us to Eat Poisonous Foods

Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749

Filed Under Big Agri, Future of Food, Police State, Population Control

Not what the American people ordered – HR 2749, martial law and the enslavement of their farmers

HR 2749 is a strange bill in many ways. While the other “food safety” bills have been around since winter, allowing for much public discussion on the internet, HR 2749 has only suddenly appeared. It is a mutant conglomeration of the worst of the other bills, with the addition of one very original part – martial law.

When it was a draft, it was Waxman’s bill. But once given a number, it became Dingel’s who already had a “food safety” bill, HR 759. So Waxman got none and Dingel got two. (Was this because Waxman, being Jewish, was a hideous choice to introduce a bill with Codex in it – designed by the Nazi pharmaceutical companies that funded Hitler, provided the gas for the gas chambers, experimented on prisoners with vaccines – and is expected to kill millions?)

* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including “prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.”

[This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home or any pickup someone has eaten take-out in, so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this. This is using food as a cover for martial law.]

Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area.

[This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.] See this DailyKos entry.

The bill is unusual, too, because slow as it was to appear. The little bugger of bill has made up for it since. It got a number on June 10, went to committee on June 17, passed instantly, and is headed for a vote on the floor of the House.

The first Patriot Act was passed using fear of terrorism. This Patriot Act is more coy, hiding under a cloak of “food safety” and but also using fear – fear of food contamination. Evidently, Americans are supposed to be so frightened by the slightest possibility of a terrorist or of E-coli, they would trade away all their precious, hard fought freedoms for the promise of safety. Or at least, that is what the trade-off has become. “Terrorism” and “contamination” are great bugaboos used to open doors to an end to the US Constitution. That is exactly what we are left with after those who wrote HR 2749 are done.

Who did write these bills? It seems Monsanto had not only a hand, but a “defining” influence. http://farmwars.info/?p=594

This redefining of reality is what seems to be underlying all the loss of freedom. Normal and free are disappearing into the maw of corporate definitions of reality. See this Yup Farming piece.

So, we begin with contaminated food from filthy corporate processors and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). And what do we end up with after that reality is ground up by corporate legal hands? Changes in the definition of risk so that natural things are treated as dangerous and toxic things are untouched, such that:
Healthy, normal farms are taken over by government as though they were run by criminals and contaminated corporate slaughterhouses are untouched;
The necessary freedom of individuals to live and grow food and be left alone are somehow suddenly destroyed, though they were never the source of any food contamination issue; and such that
The profit and control and power of corporations which were absolutely the source of the increasingly terrible food, is somehow suddenly vastly increased.

Thanks to corporate control over reality, our wanting to clean up corporate processors and feedlots and CAFOS and end up with farmers’ markets and local farms and organic food has become the industrialization and potential destruction of every healthy part of the food system and the triumph of the most contaminated and toxic part. And in the non-bargain, we lost all freedoms and they took all control. And “all” is not a hyperbole here, for one need only look at another provision of HR 2749 to feel how insane, how distant from all we ever wanted.

* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers.

[What is missing in pointing out this astounding control, is that it opens the door to CODEX and WTO "good farming practices" will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry's products. They will be slaves on the land, doing the work they are ordered to do - against their own best wisdom - and paying out to industry against their will. There will be no way to be frugal, to grow one's own grain to feed the animals, to raise healthy animals without GMO grains or drugs, to work with nature at all. Grassfed cattle and poultry and hogs will be finished. So, it needs to be made clear where control will take us. And weren't these the "rumors on the internet" that were dismissed but are clearly the case?] See this DailyKos entry.

When we wanted not to get E-coli in processed meat, did we intend to put our farmers into corporate servitude? Did we plan to have our own lives straight-jacketed by a million new controls over our own gardens, our own desire to grow food, our own plans to start small businesses, our own dreams to have a small piece of land and farm ourselves? Who has the audacity to take our needs and grotesquely bastardize them in these ways, while giving the destruction and totalitarian control the sham name of “food safety”?

We wanted good food. We never wanted to trap our farmers into an industrial prison on their own land, afraid moment to moment of not fulfilling some monstrous set of instructions that never end – rules the farmers loathe, rules that have not only nothing to do with real farming but which are antithetical to it. Why have we ended up with HR 2749, an intense corporate nightmare around the most central and necessary aspects of a free country and of free human beings – farming and food?

American farming needs to be relieved of the burdens it has been under, not finished off by its corporate competition. It needs freedom to flourish again. Obviously – and Congress people who would think to vote for such absurdities, take note – the imposition of surveillance, monitoring, warrantless entry, taking of all records, licensing, fees, Codex and NAIS, in addition to massive penalties and prison terms (all without judicial review over even appropriateness and validity), are not how one thanks American farmers for holding together the only working part of our food system. See Literal Enslavement by Linn Cohen-Cole.

HR 2749 is the most vicious and insane bill one could imagine. Who treats our farmers in this way? Who believes that such police measures can provide for the rebirth of farming and the return of healthy food? Who wrote this bill that trashes the freedom of all our lives? HR 2749 was not what we ordered and it should be sent back the bowels of hell it came from.

HR 2749 is both insane and cruel. And the deceptiveness of hiding a Patriot Act in it and the brutal rush to slip it through Congress are ANTI-democratic.

Go here to tell Congress, “No.” http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php

http://farmwars.info/?p=1145

http://blogs.healthfreedomalliance.org/blog/2009/07/06/strange-martial-law-via-food-control-hr-2749/

Freedom to Choose Good Health

July 4th, 2009

Happy Independence Day!

---

The Fourth of July weekend is upon us, and it is a day to celebrate the freedoms that our forefathers have laid out for us. They willingly fought to establish a country that gave us the freedom to change what we feel needs to be changed. Knowing, first-hand, just how tyrannical government could be, they sought to do everything in their power to give this country the tools to fight for our freedoms against such oppressive oversight. All the groundwork has been laid in the United States Constitution, and from that, we have the inherent power to improve our lives, and most importantly, our childrens' lives.

July 4th was a pivotal day for our nation, and it goes deeper than a summer night illuminated by fireworks. Today is a day to reflect upon what it is still free, and what ought to be free. Each of you, as members of Health Freedom Alliance, are helping us work toward fighting against the impeding legislation that are slowly weaving their way into the tightly-knit fibers of this nation. We all see what is happening to our health freedoms. There is a blatant display of increasingly unbalanced and unchecked power- leaving our general health and well-being at the bottom of the agenda. This monumental day is the sole reason that we, as the people of America, have the power to keep these beasts at bay, if we so choose to exercise it.

The problem we are facing now goes beyond merely government taking advantage of the people. In a world governed by money, it should come as no surprise that the corporations are running America. Our government no longer calls the shots here and has surrendered its role to the new power profiteers. In far too many cases, laws are made in accord to the financial gain at stake. Make no mistake; if a law is put into place, odds are, the person who lobbied it is gaining more than the general populace.

The relationship of our puppet government to our corporate governors is a daisy chain of hands to pockets. This symbiotic relationship has set the precedent for what is being done to our health freedoms every day. Big Pharma is our biggest predator when it comes to our lives, and Big Agri is not too far behind. They run together like a pack of hungry wolves at a free-for-all buffet of the fat sheep they see us as. Our puppet government plays the role of our shepherd; unfortunately for us, he's made a deal with the wolves.

The ties between the wolves and the shepherd can be severed by the sharpest tool at our disposal: the Constitution. With this, we have been given the freedoms to choose what we put into our bodies, because we are the only ones who will look after ourselves. We have the liberty to refuse the toxic onslaught of vaccinations that are being pushed into our bodies under obscene public health and safety laws. It would be one thing if public health and safety were actually the case, however the evidence is stacked against them. It is your country, it is your body, and above all, it is your freedom.

Take this Independence Day to observe its true meaning, and keep fighting for your right to be alive and free in this country. America was founded with each of us in mind, and because of this, we have inherited all the tools we need to keep our country as we want it to be. Happy Independence Day, and keep up with your health!

Well, It's ABOUT Time!

---

July 3, 2009, 5:30 pm

Palin to Resign as Governor of Alaska

By Mitchell L. Blumenthal AND Kate Phillips

Robert DeBerry/The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, via Associated Press Sarah Palin at the news conference on Friday afternoon.

Update | 7:00 p.m. Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska announced Friday that she would step down by the end of the month and not seek a second term as governor, fueling speculation that she is trying to position herself as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Her decision follows a week of extraordinarily bad publicity, from within her own state over ethics inquiries and across the national landscape as top aides on her vice-presidential campaign and supporters have been engaged in a highly public feud that has spilled out in vociferous tones online on blogs and on television. Bloggers in Alaska, critics of the governor as well as former Palin supporters, suggest also that pending releases of e-mails among the Palins were about to expose her to further questions about her finances and governance issues.

In fact, Governor Palin signaled in her nearly breathless news conference that more trouble may lie ahead, as she cited battles that could cost her millions of dollars, a pile-up adding on to her burdens.

Ms. Palin, who was Senator John McCain’s vice presidential running mate last year and solidified the support of the party’s conservative base, explained her decision at a news conference at her home in Wasilla, Alaska, accompanied by her husband, Todd, and other family members.

“We know we can effect positive change outside of government,” she said in making the announcement. Full text of the speech.

Known as Sarah Barracuda when she played basketball in high school, Ms. Palin used point guard analogy in explaining her decision, saying she knows “exactly when to pass the ball so the team can win.”

She said that she planned to hand over the reins of the state government to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who would be sworn in at the governor’s picnic in Fairbanks later this month.

“This decision came after much consideration,” Ms. Palin told reporters gathered at her home, and added, “I really don’t want to disappoint anyone with this announcement.”

There had been wide speculation that she would seek to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in 2012. Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who is also considered to be a leading Republican candidate for president in 2012, announced last month that he would not seek re-election.

By leaving office early, Ms. Palin, a 45-year-old mother of five, will be able to travel around the country more freely and not be constrained by the duties and responsibilities of being a governor.

However controversial, the Alaska governor still draws big crowds among conservative voters and national Republicans, responding to the news, suggested that she would be a great weapon in this year’s elections in various states. Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, acknowledged her pull in a statement issued tonight: “I plan on talking to Governor Palin very soon. She is an important and galvanizing voice in the Republican Party. I believe she will be very helpful to the Party this year as we wage critical campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey.”

Reached by CNN at her farm in the Shenandoah valley, Mary Matalin, a top Republican consultant, called Ms. Palin’s move “brilliant” although she said she was initially taken aback by the news. But she seconded the notion that the governor’s decision was smart in the sense that it will free her up, as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been, to travel the country to make inroads with potential voters.

The resignation would remove Ms. Palin, for example, from criticisms like those she received earlier this year when she was forced to cancel appearances in the “lower 48” to pursue her national ambitions at a time of disastrous flooding in Alaska.

Ms. Matalin joked that despite her own initial inside-the-Beltway reaction of surprise, shoppers at her local WalMart in the Shenandoah would be whooping “hoo-rahs” because of Ms. Palin’s continued popularity among conservative voters.

Democrats were quick to seize on Ms. Palin’s controversial role in state and national politics. Brad Woodhouse, communications director of the Democratic National Committee, issued these remarks:

Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can’t handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way - her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.

At her news conference, Ms. Palin took no questions. But she also alluded to what may be lingering doubts as to the date of her announcement, given a series of very public, unflattering portraits of her in the national and state media.

“Some are going to question the timing of this, and let me say this decision has been in the works for quite a while,” she said.

But the timing is quite extraordinary. At home, she has faced new criticism that ethics inquiries surrounding her — including Troopergate involving her former brother-in-law — had cost upward of $300,000 in state money, according to The Anchorage Daily News.

And just this week, a new Vanity Fair magazine article exposing exceptional animus toward her by top aides to Senator McCain, her running mate, has revived questions about her political acumen and her political future.