tagged w/ S. 510
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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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Democrats passed a massive budget bill late Wednesday night. The bill narrowly passed by a 212-206 vote.
“A widely backed food safety bill is hitching a ride on the legislation. The measure passed the Senate by a 73-25 vote last week but got caught in a snag because it contained revenue provisions that, under the Constitution, must originate in the House.” Yahoo News
That’s right, S.510 has apparently HITCHED a ride on the budget bill that was passed during a late night session. Our food freedom has possibly been destroyed by the lame duck congress and their big agriculture masters.
Our government is attempting to steal away our food freedom!
Natural Solutions Foundation:
Natural Solutions Foundation Was There: We Saw The House Vote 212 to 205 (WITH NOT A SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTING FOR THE BILL) When the House Shamefully Attached S510′s language to HR 3082.
Why is their act shameful? Two reasons. First, the contents of S. 510 is anti-health, anti-supplements, anti-freedom, anti-small business and anti-clean food to say nothing of anti-sense. Second, the regulatory language of S. 510 should never have been attached to a Continuing Resolution, which is an administrative bill allowing the government of the United States to continue its activities by funding it.
This tactic shows how desperate the Uber Cartel is to have this measure pass. Think about that for a moment: apparently it is vitally important to the Uber Cartel, which makes, among other things, drugs, vaccines, agro-chemicals, GMOs and which grows food, to make sure that you do not have the choice to grow or eat clean food. The reasons for that present themselves quite rapidly, don’t they? Clean food = bad customers for Big Pharma. Poisoned food = great customers. And then there is the subtext of genocide.
But we are far from finished here.
Here’s what Ralph Fucetola,JD, our Counsel and Trustee, wrote from Washington, where he spent the day, meeting with Ron Paul while he was there, by the way.
Our Next Step is to Continue Inundating the Senate -
1. We agree with Ron Paul (with whom we visited today, that [S510] is very bad legislative practice to combine a controversial regulatory bill with the Continuing Resolution needed to fund government activities. This bill will impact dietary supplements. That is clear from the way the FDA used section 301(11) of the 2007 FDA “enabling act” to outlaw a form of Vitamin B-6, although Congress put a clause in that bill “exempting” DSHEA products.
FDA will use any new food authority to attack supplements and natural remedies.
2. It is unprincipled to push this bill against the clear will of the voters that the Federal govt is too big and must stop over-regulating.
3. A clean Continuing Resolution is needed so that Congress can decide to continue funding at a certain level without muddying the process with extraneous matters.
4. The vote was nearly a pure partisan vote, with no Republicans in favor of this maneuver, and only a few Democrats standing against the lame-duck “leadership.” We will remember!
5. The People will keep a close eye on all GOP Senators and expect them to act from principle and not add this budget-busting bill, with its 4,000 new FDA agents to harass local food production and distribution.
For those of you who didn’t follow the events on Twitter or C-Span, the House lame-duck “leadership” pushed the “Food Safety” Bill, formerly known as S.510 into the “Continuing Resolution” Funding Bill to keep the Federal Govt running for another year, pass this Hot Potato to Senate again. That body could act Thursday, December 9th.
The House vote appears to have been 212 to 205, with no Republicans voting for the bill. The next step is to continue inundating the Senate with voter outrage.
Please help us stop S.510 as a tack-on via HR 1755 to HR 3082.
1. Take Action NOW for each member of your household to tell your Senators that you STONGLY OPPOSE adopting the language of S. 510 in this or any other amendment or bill:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5303
2. Visit http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm, enter your State to find your Senators’ names and phone numbers. CALL THEM! Yes, the line may be busy. Keep trying. Give the person who answers this message:
“I am calling to strongly opposed adopting the language of S. 510, the so-called Food Safety Modernization Act. This language is currently attached to ‘CR/Food Safety House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 3082 – Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011/FDA Food Safety Modernization Act’ which has been sent to the Senate. I urge Senator [name] in the strongest possible terms to vote against this dangerous, unnecessary and expensive amendment and to oppose this language in any bill or amendment.”
The phone lines may be busy. Keep trying. This is literally an 11th hour attempt by Big Agribiz to control every bite you eat, and make sure it is to their liking, not yours.
IT IS TIME TO TAKE A STAND!!!!
RELATED ARTICLE:
Endgame Legislation: Lame Duck Session Ushers in TyrannyDemocrats passed a massive budget bill late Wednesday night. The bill narrowly passed... 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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It is now being revealed that US Senators slipped up in a big way when passing the Food Safety Modernization Act on Tuesday: They added what are effectively "new taxes" into the bill, and according to the U.S. Constitution, only the House of Representatives can initiate legislation requiring new taxes.
Thus, the House is now obliged to give this food safety legislation the so-called "blue slip," meaning that it rejects the law and sends it back to the Senate for yet another vote. This would take time and effort, of course, and the Democrats have very little of either remaining in their lame duck session.
As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_slip):
"This blue-slipping procedure, done by an order of the House, is routinely completed to enforce its interpretation that the House is the sole body to introduce revenue or appropriations legislation. The failure of the House to consider the legislation means it cannot become a law. This tactic has historically proven to be of great use to the House and, as a practical matter, the Senate does not introduce tax or revenue measures to avoid a blue slip."
In other words, the House wants to remain the sole originator of all new taxes and will therefore need to "blue slip" S.510 in order to slap the hands of Senators who are trying to enact their own new taxes under the bill.
Continued at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030588_Food_Safety_bill_blue_slip.htmlIt is now being revealed that US Senators slipped up in a big way when passing the... more
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http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/unconstitutional-food-bill-driven-by.html
While over 200 organizations lobbied on the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510), no one seemed to notice an unconstitutional section in the bill until after it passed on Tuesday. That day, Roll Call advised that the bill contained a provision, Sec. 107, allowing the Senate to raise revenues. This violates Article I, Section 7, of the U.S. Constitution, granting that power exclusively to the House. S.510 opponents now celebrate the House’s use of the “blue slip process” to return the bill to the Senate.
The Alliance for Natural Health figures that:
“The only possible ‘quick fix’ would be a unanimous consent agreement in the Senate to strike that revenue-raising provision from the bill—but Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has already stated that he will oppose, so unanimity will be impossible.”
ANH believes it is unlikely that the Senate will return to a debate on S.510, given its full agenda. Its only other option is to “allow the bill to die at the end of this Congress [which means] a new Food Safety Bill will be introduced next year."
After S.510 passed, President Obama issued a statement: “I urge the House — which has previously passed legislation demonstrating its strong commitment to making our food supply safer — to act quickly on this critical bill, and I applaud the work that was done to ensure its broad bipartisan passage in the Senate.”
Apparently, the Senate moved too quickly. Their overreach only supports the natural foods movement assertion that the entire bill is over-reaching as the federal government seeks complete control over local foods.
The Money and the Vote
In an email, Canada Health whistleblower Shiv Chopra noted, “It is all about corporate control of food and public health.” He’s not alone in believing that a ‘hidden corporate agenda’ is driving the federal government to impose itself on local food production and distribution. This belief is bolstered by a detailed look at the financial contributors in support of food control legislation. Open Secrets.orgreports that 208 groups lobbied on S.510. According to an analysis by Maplight.org, financial supporters of S.510 include:
* The US Chamber of Commerce (no friend to small business);
* Kraft Foods North America (the world’s second largest food and beverage company;
* General Mills (which earned $15 billion in revenue in 2009); and the
* American Farm Bureau Federation (a Big Ag and insurance industry lobbyist that supports the use of genetically modified foods).
According to data at Open Secrets.org, AFB spent $9.5 million since 2009 to lobby for S.510 and against the House version. Food & Water Watch noted that AFB president Bob Stallman “condemn[s] consumers and farmers who oppose the industrial model of agriculture, referring to them as ‘extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule.’” Clearly, the American Farm Bureau Federation does not favor small farms.
Breaking agribusiness lobby spending down by sector, Open Secrets reports that in 2009, the:
* Crop production and basic processing industry spent $20.3 million;
* Food processing and sales industry spent $30.2 million; and the
* Agriculture services and products industry spent $34.4 million.
In 2009 and 2010, Pepsi spent over $14 million and Coca-Cola spent $4.5 million on both S.510 and HR 2749 (the House version). Other groups supporting S.510 include the International Bottled Water Association, International Dairy Foods Association, International Foodservice Distributors Association, and the Snack Food Association. Hardly advocates of small producers or natural foods.
Under the guise of food ‘safety,’ food control legislation has been widely supported by major food industry lobbyists, who spent over $1 billion since 1998 to influence Congress. Do the American people even have a voice in food choice, when measured against the hundreds of millions of dollars multinational corporations foist on Congress to influence legislation?
Monsanto and the Tester Amendment
Two final comments are in order: one on the ineffectual Tester Amendment and the other on Monsanto’s influence over food safety.
First, the Tester Amendment “exemption” — defined as those generating less than $500,000 a year in revenue – is ludicrously low. Kraft Foods generates that every seven minutes : it earned $40 billion in revenue in 2009. There can be no single bill that adequately addresses food production when talking about producers as disparate as these. Small farms are in a different universe from multinational corporations.
A ten-million-dollar exemption is more reasonable. Farms earning less than $10 million a year are much more similar to Mom & Pop operations than they are to Kraft Foods or Monsanto. Farms earning between a half million and ten million annually are more likely than Mom & Pop to achieve product consistency and, because of a higher output, lower market price, thus appealing to locavores on three levels. That ludicrously low $500,000 figure only highlights the overreach of an obese federal government.
Second, the Tester Amendment does not exempt small food producers as broadly as proponents claim. Eric Blair noted that “even a ‘very small business’ making less than $500K per year, doing business ‘within 275 miles’ and directly with ‘end-user customers’ is still required to adhere to all of the [other] regulations” in the massive food control bill.
In order to qualify for exemption, he points out that small producers must file three years of detailed financial records, detailed hazard analysis plans, and detailed proof of compliance with local, county and state laws. Then, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must approve each exemption.
How many “food producers” who donate food to the homeless, or who supply homemade products at bake sales, county fairs, church bazaars, and community picnics are going to bother with such hyper-regulation? Obama’s vision of food “safety” destroys the local economy, and it destroys community relations.
S.510 opponent Sen. Tom Coburn has repeatedly stressed that the bill will not make our food supply any safer and will “drive small producers out of business.” No wonder so many multi-billion dollar corporations support it.
Finally, let’s not forget that Obama has stacked his administration with former employees of Monsanto, making Michael Taylor his Food Czar. Anything this Administration supports in the way of food control will surely benefit Monsanto, while harming the natural foods industry and small producers. Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration is already waging a bureaucratic war on private food contracts and natural food producers.
Meanwhile, the battle for food freedom rages on, with a temporary reprieve now that S.510 has been recalled to the Senate Chamber.
Rady Ananda’s work has appeared in several online and print publications. She holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from The Ohio State University’s School of Agriculture. Using years of editorial experience and web publishing, Rady now promotes the ideas and work of a select group of quality writers and artists at Food Freedom and COTO Report.
Related Articles by Rady Ananda
Tester Amendment To Food "Safety" Bill Puts Lipstick On A Pig
Patriot Act For Food: A Close Look at Bizarre Propaganda For S. 510
RELATED VIDEO:
Who Voted For S. 510?http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/unconstitutional-food-bill-driven-... more
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“There’s a rat in the kitchen. Here’s what I’m gonna do, Gonna fix that rat…”
Today, the US Senate passed the Patriot Act for Food, S510, by a vote of 73 to 25. We can expect to watch the raids on natural foods increase, and we can expect continued malicious prosecution of growers, like the 2-acre gardener in Georgia.
We can also expect private food arrangements to go underground, so as to opt out of the increased rules and regulations we can expect from the FDA.
“Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
“Hope has two beautiful daughters: Courage and Anger. Anger at the way things are and courage to make them the way they ought to be.” ~Augustine of Hippo
“The idea that life can ever be without risk is an invitation to self-selected enslavement.” ~Claudia Woodward-Rice
Grow your own, buy local, decentralize the food system.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/us-senate-passes-patriot-act-for-food.html“There’s a rat in the kitchen. Here’s what I’m gonna do, Gonna... more
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Need a good laugh? Check out the bizarre reasoning offered in support of the Patriot Act for Food (S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act), which the U.S. Senate will vote on shortly (likely Monday). From a need to stop food smuggling, to the law is too old, to the terrorists are gonna get us, elites sure are shy on brains when it comes to credible propaganda. They must be drinking fluoridated water and smoking Monsanto marijuana, or hoping you are.
A couple weeks ago, we reported that Senator Bob Casey informed his Pennsylvania constituents that S.510 will stop food smuggling in the United States. Never heard of the problem? That might be because the “biggest food smuggling case in the history of the U.S.” amounted to $40 million worth of commercial grade honey over a five-year period. Food smuggling is clearly not a problem – nor is it a fiscally sound reason for giving the Food and Drug Administration an extra $1.6 billion.
Admittedly, no one is accusing U.S. elites of being fiscally sound – just look at our rising unemployment, hunger, and home foreclosure rates. Clearly, food smuggling is just bizarre bunk that lazy propagandists invented out of thin air.
Next, the well-regarded Christian Science Monitor listed as the “strongest argument for the bill” – get this – because the law in place is too old. Nothing about whether or not the old law is effective, nothing about the tens of thousands of deaths the FDA causes each year by the drugs it allows on the market. No – that very agency needs more power, more money, more authority over what’s on your table, according to S.510 supporters.
Here’s some more penetrating analysis by CSM:
Would SB 510 put America’s cornucopia under the control of a “globalist mafia” led by the World Trade Organization?
No. Some people have been concerned that the bill would give international groups more power over food matters in the US. The bill does state that the US will not knowingly break any existing agreements with the World Trade Organization, but it doesn’t cede any inspection or enforcement powers to international agencies.
Merely because the bill does not cede inspection or enforcement powers to foreign agents does not preclude domestic ones from inspection and enforcement authority. CSM’s response is absurd, as well as deceptive. The correct answer is YES, SB 510 puts US food under the control of the WTO. Read the section and decide for yourself:
SEC. 404. COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.
Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.
Black is white; war is peace; and who are you going to believe: corporate media or your own ability to read plain English?
And, who is the enforcement agency for these agreements? Why, the DHS, otherwise known as the:
Dept. of Homeland Stupidity – you know, those folks who want to build a bioterrorism lab in the middle of Tornado Alley, where a huge bulk of the nation’s food is grown and raised (map here);
Dept. of Heck-of-a-Job Security that miserably failed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and has again failed the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil catastrophe this year;
Dept. of Homeland Perversity that sexually molests children and adults who travel by air, that is collecting naked images of those who pass thru their carcinogenic body scanners, and which has not prevented a single terrorist from boarding a plane.
That’s who’s going to be in charge of protecting the US food supply. Feel safer?
This leads us to the latest absurdity emanating from the federal government: The terrorists are going to try to poison us. Like the “red menace” that was so effective a bogeyman in the last century, the Muslim “terrorist” is this century’s bogeyman. It’s just as overblown.
How are terrorists going to poison the food supply? Seriously, that might be accomplished in a centralized food system that is forced to adulterate natural foods because laws and rules have decreed it or allowed it – like the FDA allowing BPA, fluoride, chlorine,pesticides – all known poisons. Notice how sick Americans arecompared to the rest of the world? You can thank the alphabet soup of federal agencies that allows our skies, lands and waters, and thus our food, to be poisoned by industrial processes.
It’s nearly impossible to poison the food supply under a decentralized scenario with tens of millions of producers and distributors. Food safety is enhanced by decentralization and localization, not by allowing monopoly production as we have now in the U.S. Centralizing control in the hands of a fewpeople who used to work for Monsanto, the company that brought us PCBs, DDT, rBST, Agent Orange, aspartame, and glyphosate, amounts to a clear and present danger to our health, and certainly to our food safety. But that’s what S.510 intends to do.
How likely is a terrorist attack on the US food supply? About as likely as 19 Muslims destroying four significant structures without a defensive response from the world’s largest and most technologically advanced military. The threat to our food safety lies within, from a corrupt and bloated federal government owned and controlled by pharmaceutical, chemical and biotech corporations, not from outside our borders.
The entire food “safety” legislative scheme at the federal level is really a “food control” scheme backed by corporate monopolies. It is part and parcel of the Full Spectrum Dominance plan to control every aspect of human life. “Control the food and you control the people,” planned Henry Kissinger back in the 1970s.
We might expect more effective propaganda when going for complete control over our natural born right to sustain ourselves as we deem fit, but we’d be expecting too much from this crop of elites. Rather than intelligence, they rely on brute force and hyper-regulation in destroying small producers and distributors of natural, unadulterated food.
To view a list of articles that detail the dangers of such legislation, click here.
Welcome to the food wars.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/patriot-act-for-food-close-look-at.htmlNeed a good laugh? Check out the bizarre reasoning offered in support of the Patriot... more
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Over the past several decades, no matter which political party has been in power the government has continued to become a larger part of our lives. These days many people are speaking of the "nanny state" that we have created, but the reality is far worse than that. The truth is that the government has become a gluttonous, out of control behemoth that is gobbling up everything in sight and that is attempting to exert full spectrum dominance over our lives. Today, the government seems to have an insatiable hunger to watch us, track us and control us. Now they even want to feel our private parts before we get on an airplane. No matter what politicians we send to Washington D.C., it just seems to get worse and worse.
Anyone who still believes that we live in "the land of the free" is completely and totally delusional.
It isn't just in one particular area that all of this government intrusion into our lives is so offensive. What we are witnessing is the government slowly digging its fingers even deeper into our lives in a thousand different ways. Sadly, most Americans see the government as the one who is supposed to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, as the one who is supposed to fix all of the problems in society and as the one who is their ultimate authority.
This is in direct contradiction to the concept of a "limited government" that our Founding Fathers tried so desperately to enshrine in our founding documents. The American people need a big-time wake up call. The following are 8 examples of how the U.S. government is attempting to take even more control over our lives....
#1 Taking Total Control Of Our Food - S. 510 "The Food Safety Modernization Act"
S. 510, "The Food Safety Modernization Act", is another huge power grab by the FDA and the federal government over our food supply. The bill is written so broadly and so vaguely that nobody really knows what it means. The potential for abuse of these vague new powers would be staggering. So will the government abuse these powers? Those who are in favor of the bill say that of course the government will be reasonable, but those who are opposed to the bill point to all of the other abuses that are currently taking place as evidence that we simply cannot trust the feds with vague, undefined powers.
Fortunately, the Tester Amendment has been attached to S. 510 at least for now, but big agriculture is not happy about this, and they will be doing everything they can to get it kicked out of the final version of the law. In any event, if this food safety law does get passed, tens of millions of Americans will be left wondering what they are allowed to grow in their back yards, what seeds they are allowed to save and what can and cannot be sold at farmer's markets.
In case you think this is paranoid, just consider what is already happening. It has been documented that the feds recently raided an Amish farmer at 5 AM in the morning because they claimed that he was was engaged in the interstate sale of raw milk in violation of federal law. If the feds are willing to stoop so low as to raid Amish farmers, do you think they will have any hesitation when the time comes to raid your home?
#2 Taking Total Control Of Air Travel - The Dehumanizing Full Body Scanners And "Enhanced Pat-Downs"
Totalitarian governments throughout history have always sought to dehumanize their subjects. Sadly, that is exactly what is happening in America today. If you want to get on an airplane in the United States, you will now be forced to either let TSA agents gawk at your naked body or let TSA agents grope your entire body including your genitals.
What these TSA agents are being instructed to do to ordinary Americans is so bizarre that it is hard to believe. It is being reported that in many instances TSA agents are actually reaching down the pants of male travelers and up the skirts of female travelers. One retired special education teacher was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an "enhanced pat-down" by TSA agents. Quite a number of women that have been through these "enhanced pat-downs" have used the phrase "sexual assault" to describe the experience.
So is this what America has become? A place that is so "dangerous" that we all must be treated like prison inmates? Large numbers of Americans are swearing that they will simply not fly anymore, but what happens when these "enhanced pat-downs" start showing up at our schools, our shopping centers and our sporting events someday?
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/full-spectrum-dominance-8-examples-of.htmlOver the past several decades, no matter which political party has been in power the... 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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