tagged w/ food control
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In arguing for S.510, the "Food Safety Modernization Act," there are all sorts of attorneys, legislators and internet commentators who keep claiming, "The government won't try to control the food production of small farms." They say, "Your backyard garden is safe" and that the feds won't come knocking on your door to control your seeds or foods.
As usual, these pushers of Big Government are utterly ignorant of the history in their own country. Because as you'll learn right here, not only CAN the U.S. government control and dictate to single-family farms what they can grow in their own backyards; the government has already blatantly done so!
In this article, I'll share with you the full and true story of how Big Government has already run rampant over the rights of individuals to grow their own food -- I'll even cite the US Supreme Court decision that "legalized" this tyranny.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/feds-order-farmer-to-destroy-his-own.htmlIn arguing for S.510, the "Food Safety Modernization Act," there are all... more
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Being honest, I must confess some slight personal agitation at the thought of writing another article on yet another “food safety” bill making its way through congress with the words “tyranny” and “Codex” written all over it. It seems that every legislative session, we are faced with the prospect of the same food bill cloaked in a different name. Invariably, this bill seeks to corral all food production into the hands of a few major corporations and essentially destroy the ability of the population to feed themselves. Here in late 2010, we have the new version of food imperialism known as S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act.
While it is true that S.510 contains new and improved tyrannical sections that are unique specifically to it, the truth is that it is merely a repackaging of past bills (See here and here ) and attempts to control people through food. It is also yet another attempt to implement Codex Alimentarius guidelines under the guise of domestic legislation.
One example of hidden Codex guidelines in the Food Safety Modernization Act are the overly broad provisions regarding “traceability.” The desire for enhanced traceability of food products is sold to the public as a desire to better respond to food-borne illnesses and follow them back to their source. However, as with almost anything that comes out of the mouth of government, there is a more sinister role that traceability programs have to play.
Essentially, traceability has little to do with food safety in this context. While no one could argue being able to trace food contamination back to the source is a bad thing, the fact is that these mechanisms already exist. Unfortunately, they are generally ignored and unused when it comes to adverse health effects related to food produced by multinational food corporations. While there is always an exception to the rule, it is a fact that international corporations are by far the source of food adulteration more often than small independent farms.
The real reason behind traceability programs lies in the desire to monitor where food is coming from to ensure that, in the future, it only comes from large agribusiness. Hence, the new traceability procedures involve massive financial, management, and bureaucratic burdens placed on the shoulders of mainly small “food producers.”
It should be pointed out that, while it is true that major corporations will also be burdened with these regulations (unless the Secretary exempts them), it is also true that a company that makes billions in profits can afford to deal with them. Your neighborhood farm down the road simply can’t.
For all the claims that small independent producers will be exempted, the fact is that the “exemption” is merely semantics. Small independent producers will be held to essentially the same guidelines as Big Agro. This is because, in order to be exempted from the regulations as S.510, they have to submit to similar regulations as the S.510 regulations themselves dictate. As Eric Blair points out in his article Why the Tester Amendment Does NOT Help Small Food Producers Under S.510:
Those [S.510 Tester Amendment Exemption Requirements] bear a striking resemblance to the ‘expensive’ food safety plans outlined in subsection (h) of S.510 that small producers are supposedly exempt from. In other words, they must submit similarly comprehensive plans just to qualify to be exempt from creating them. But it gets worse.
If Grandma wants to sell her famous raspberry jam at the county fair (within 275 miles of her canning kitchen) she will indeed be a small producer exemptions, but not before she forks over 3 years of financials, documentation of hazard control plans, and local licenses, permits, and inspection reports. She must submit this documentation to the satisfactory approval of the Secretary; and if she fails to do so, the entirety of S.510 can be enforced on her. That’s hardly what I call an exemption.
He goes on to point out that the bill does not explicitly make it illegal to sell food independently produced, but it does make it so cumbersome that small producers will be unable to maintain compliance with the law.
While one could successfully argue that by forcing independent producers to file information and obtain permits and licenses is in fact making the production of food illegal, there is no doubt that small producers will be forced out of business by the overbearing regulation.
Nevertheless, cumbersome traceability provisions have surfaced before in other areas. In reading the traceability-related sections of S.510, there is a striking similarity between the language of the bill and that of Codex Alimentarius in its own proposed guidelines.
The HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), a “food safety” methodology used by Codex Alimentarius (and addressed in S.510), plays an important role in the tracking, tracing, and monitoring of food production. Under this system, food business operators (defined so broadly so as to include both big agribusiness and recreational gardeners) are required to “identify any steps in their operations which are critical to the safety of the food; implement effective control procedures at those steps; monitor control procedures to ensure their continuing effectiveness; review control procedures periodically and whenever the operations change.”
Likewise, in the document entitled, “Recommended International Code of Practice General Principles of Food Hygeine,” Codex states that “Where necessary, appropriate records of processing, production and distribution should be kept and retained for a period that exceeds the shelf-life of the product. Documentation can enhance the credibility and effectiveness of the food safety control mechanism.” Although the language of the bill and the Codex document are not identical in every section, they are similar. Unfortunately, this is all that is needed to initiate the implementation of Codex Alimentarius guidelines in the United States.
However, there is yet another danger posed by S.510 in regards to Codex Alimentarius. The fact that this bill provides the FDA, HHS, and even DHS with even more authority over food production, transportation, and consumption should be alarming enough. But because these agencies often respond to policy as much as they do law, the chances of Codex Alimentarius guidelines being implemented domestically rises sharply. This is due to the fact that no congressional approval would be needed to implement them. Simply an executive order or change in policy from the executive branch or even the FDA, HHS, or DHS acting independently would be enough to enact Codex guidelines in the United States.
Because Codex Alimentarius guidelines are enforced by the WTO, any dispute brought before the WTO and its dispute settlement board could essentially force the United States to buckle under and implement Codex guidelines. With the passage of S.510, the need to gain congressional approval for such a change would be effectively erased.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/s-510-and-codex-alimentarius-link.htmlBeing honest, I must confess some slight personal agitation at the thought of writing... more
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By a vote of 74 to 25, at noon today, the U.S. Senate voted for cloture on S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, which means it must now be voted on in the full Senate within 60 days. All amendments to the controversial food control bill must be completed by that time.
One of S 510′s supporters, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, opposed cloture because modifications to the bill do not reflect its original intent, he said on C-SPAN. Chambliss fully supports giving the FDA more power over the US food supply, but is unhappy with the Manager’s Amendment submitted in August.
He objects to the small farm exclusion on the grounds that the $500,000 annual gross revenue limit is an arbitrary number that is too quickly reached by small farms. He called for numerous amendments to the bill as it appears today.
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio supports S 510, and called out the statistics by the Centers for Disease Control that report there are 76 million foodborne illnesses a year, with 5,000 resulting in death. What Brown did not say was that the FDA — the very agency further empowered by S 510 — is responsible for the approval of pharmaceutical drugs that results in 100,000 deaths a year.
None of the supporters of S 510 will acknowledge the corrupt nature of the Food and Drug Administration. Monsanto executives now work at the FDA or on President’s Obama’s Food Safety Task Force.
What legislators continue to ignore from the public is that we do not support giving federal agencies even more power — especially over something as inherently private as food choices.
None of the legislators will discuss the FDA raids on natural food operations which sickened no one, while it allowed Wright County Egg to sicken people for decades before finally taking action.
Yesterday, Senator Bob Casey informed his Pennsylvania constituents that the$1.6 billion price tag for S 510 will stop food smuggling in the United States. I kid you not:
“These provisions add personnel to detect, track and remove smuggled food and call for the development and implementation of strategies to stop food from being smuggled into the United States.”
Is food smuggling a problem in the United States? Well, the “biggest food smuggling case in the history of the U.S.” busted wide open in September. Eleven Chinese and German executives were indicted for bringing in $40 million worth of commercial grade honey over a five year period, reportedly to avoid paying $80 million in import fees. (No wonder they tried smuggling.)
That amounts to 3 percent of the 1.35 billion-dollar honey market over a five-year period.
Since that was the biggest food smuggling bust, food smuggling is not the problem. Clearly. It hardly seems worth it for the US taxpayer to cough up $1.6 billion so the FDA can stop such illegal activities, especially in our current economic recession.
Blogger Steve Green interprets the S 510 smuggling language to mean:
“It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.”
§309 defines it as:
“In this subsection, the term ‘smuggled food’ means any food that a person introduces into the United States through fraudulent means or with the intent to defraud or mislead.”
Although only 150 new hires will be responsible for food smuggling under S 510, the total number of new hires sought is at least 18,000 employees.
This is absurd. Food smuggling is not the problem with food safety. Tainted food comes from monopoly operations in a highly centralized food system. Break up the monopolies and revert to localized food systems to ensure food safety. Let local authorities control local food safety.
RELATED ARTICLE:
Food Fascism in The Land of the Free
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/breaking-senate-votes-cloture-on-s-510.htmlBy a vote of 74 to 25, at noon today, the U.S. Senate voted for cloture on S 510, the... more
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http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/history-of-health-tyranny-codex.html
Contrary to popular belief Codex Alimentarius is neither a law nor a policy. It is in fact a functioning body, a Commission, created by the Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization under the direction of the United Nations. The confusion in this regard is largely due to statements made by many critics referring to the “implementation” of Codex Alimentarius as if it were legislation waiting to come into effect. A more accurate phrase would be the “implementation of Codex Alimentarius guidelines,” as it would more adequately describe the situation.
Codex is merely another tool in the chest of an elite group of individuals whose goal is to create a one world government in which they wield complete control. Power over the food supply is essential in order to achieve this. As will be discussed later, Codex Alimentarius will be “implemented” whenever guidelines are established and national governments begin to arrange their domestic laws in accordance with the standards set by the organization.
The existence of Codex Alimentarius as a policy-making body has roots going back over a hundred years. The name itself, Codex Alimentarius, is Latin for “food code”[1] and directly descended from the Codex Alimentarius Austriacus, a set of standards and descriptions of a variety of foods in the Austria-Hungarian Empire between 1897 and 1911.[2] This set of standards was the brainchild of both the food industry and academia and was used by the courts in order to determine food identity in a legal fashion.
Even as far back as 1897, nations were being pushed toward harmonization of national laws into an international set of standards that would reduce the “barriers to trade” created by differences in national laws.[3] As the Codex Alimentarius Austriacus gained steam in its localized area, the idea of having a single set of standards for all of Europe began to pick up steam as well. From 1954-1958, Austria successfully pursued the creation of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus (the European Codex Alimentarius). Almost immediately the UN directed FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) sprang into action when the FAO Regional Conference for Europe expressed the desire for a global international set of standards for food. The FAO Regional Conference then sent a proposal up the chain of command to the FAO itself with the suggestion to create a joint FAO/WHO programme dealing with food standards.
The very next year, the Codex Alimentarius Europeaus adopted a resolution that its work on food standards be taken over by the FAO. In 1961, it was decided by the WHO, Codex Alimentarius Europaeus, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the FAO Conference to create an international food standards programme known as the Codex Alimentarius.[4] In 1963, as a result of the resolutions passed by these organizations two years earlier, Codex Alimentarius was officially created.[5]
Although created under the auspices of the FAO and the WHO, there is some controversy regarding individuals who may or may not have participated in the establishment of Codex. Many anti-Codex organizations have asserted that Nazi war criminals, Fritz Ter Meer[6] and Hermann Schmitz[7] in particular, were principal architects of the organization. Because many of these claims are made with only indirect evidence, or no evidence at all, one might be tempted to disregard them at first glance. However, as the allegations gain more and more adherents, Codex has attempted to refute them. In its Frequently Asked Questions section, Codex answers the question, “Is it true that Codex was created by a former war criminal to control the world food supply?”[8] It then goes on to answer the charges by stating:
No. It is a false claim. You just need to type the words "Codex Alimentarius" in any search engine and you will find lots of these rumors about Codex. Usually the people spreading them will give no proof but will ask you to send donations or to sign petitions against Codex.
Truthful information about Codex is found on the Internet - there is nothing to hide from our side - we are a public institution working in public for the public - we are happy if people want to know more about our work and ask questions. There is an official Codex Contact Point in each member country who will be pleased to answer your questions on Codex.[9]
But, as one can see from the statement above, Codex’s response does very little to answer this question beyond simply disagreeing with it. While it is true that many individuals who make this claim provide little evidence for it, the presentation of the information does not necessarily negate its truthfulness. In fact, Codex offers its own website as a source for accurate information about the organization; yet, beyond the FAQ section, there is nothing to be found that is relevant to the “war criminal” allegations. Furthermore, the codexalimentarius.net website is virtually indecipherable, almost to the point of being completely useless. In the end, this response raises more questions than it answers. This is because Codex, if it wanted, could put these rumors to rest by simply posting a list of the individuals and organizations that funded or played an integral role in its creation. However, it does nothing of the sort. Beyond mentioning the FAO and the WHO, we are completely unaware of who or how many other individuals and organizations participated in the creation of Codex Alimentarius.
READ MORE: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/history-of-health-tyranny-codex.htmlhttp://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/history-of-health-tyranny-codex.ht... more
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