Seeking Nader and Paul to help save desperate American farmers, our farmland, our animals.

Dear Sirs,

You are each known for your commitment to the Constitution and your opposition to corporate control over this country.  You are badly needed now. 
Would you become friends and help us?  In coming together, you would be uniting left and right, and we must be together for what we need to do to save our farmers, our farmland and our animals (in normal form).

As inauguration approaches, Obama could shut out the grassroots uproar over his appointing Monsanto's good friend, Vilsack, to the USDA because the press was asleep about the dangerous implications of choosing a Monsanto crony, especially at this moment ... given plans already moving into place.  

The press has missed the across-the-board assaults against non-corporate farming and thus the full picture of heavily masked, aggressive efforts government efforts to actually destroy normal farming in the United States. 

This is only some of what is happening:

• Ag department armed SWAT team raid on a organic coop in Ohio
  

• increasing Ag department raids on Mennonites and Amish for selling milk and cheese and butter they have sold for generations without an issue

• Monsanto's eliminating seed cleaners across the Midwest in Missouri, Indiana, Illinois - without whom collection of normal seed is impossible.
  

• Monsanto seed laws pushed through state legislatures, making seed collecting and saving so onerous as to be almost impossible
  

• anti-democratic laws Vilsack invented and Monsanto is pushing state to state that deny communities control over what is planted. http://www.environmentalcommons.org/image/seed-preemption-map.jpg

• Monsanto-influenced "seed contamination" regulations inside the FDA that criminalize essential parts of farming - including small farmers' seed cleaning equipment.
  

• Homeland Security regulations that are preparing for military type "surge capacity" warrant-less attacks on farmers, and the seizure and destruction of their animals/crops using "bioterrorism" as the excuse
  

• NAIS - designed by Monsanto and the big meatpackers - which threaten a take-over of all US farmland as well as the destruction and replacement of normal animals by patented genetically engineered animals (as is happening now to small farmers in Asia)
  

All of the above are justified using "food safety" or "disease control" or "bioterrorism" regulations - driven by the very corporations which have caused the diseases, blocked inspections, blocked labeling, and lowered contamination standards further.  

Our small farmers who are being set up to be attacked, represent the clean side of farming - the healthy and sustainable and organic side we must have to stop global warming and save the earth from collapse.  

Right now, this minute, with Obama selection of Vilsack greatly abetting it, there is a take over of all US food and farmland taking hold.

Astoundingly, though NAIS is one of the most massive and Orwellian regulations in this country's history (making NSA-spying look like a picnic by comparison), the New York Times' only reference to NAIS was to a review they did of a foreign film by the same name.  

We ask you, we beg you, please, to help.  You are both honest people with the courage and determination to stand up to corporations.  They have gone berserk in seeking control over all food sources (seeds and animals) on earth and are destroying farmers to achieve.  We need your help.

Please read these articles on what is happening to farming in this country across all sectors of farming - seeds, animals, dairy, orchards ....  Though only a sketch, when taken together, the shape and potential are terrible enough to require massive investigations.  And since the suggested shape is actually happening in other parts of the world, the direction of things is clear even if we wish to consider it too incredible to be credible.  (Isn't that precisely how the big lie works?)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/FOOD-SAFETY-REGULATIONS--by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090108-947.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/NAIS--a-coerced-AND-hidde-by-Marti-Oakley-090115-879.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Raids-on-Seeds-life-itsel-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-081215-45.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/PASTEURIZATION--PULLING-T-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-081231-343.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/MONSANTO-investigator-in-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090110-871.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/NAIS-bogus-Avian-Flu-epid-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090113-29.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20051127&articleId=1333  

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2006/2006-02-27-01.asp 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article584036.ece

http://www.opednews.com/articles/During-a-world-food-crisis-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-080723-548.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen04262008.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/NAIS---the-Fourth-Componen-by-Darol-Dickinson-080711-756.html

http://agrariangrrl.blogspot.com/2008/12/manna-co-op-case-taken-up-by-buckeye.html

We did more than bring "freedom"' to Iraq.  We helped Monsanto as well.
http://au.messages.yahoo.com/news/localnews-vic/2527?p=last
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/62273/?page=entire

The two letters from farmers below will give you only the smallest indication of the terror the government has been inflicting on our farming communities on behalf of Monsanto and agribusiness, and in 2009, things are now raining down hard.


We are not looking at random government injustices against innocent hard-working people and their healthy animals and safe food, but intentional attacks by corrupted agencies in league with corporations raising sick animals under terrible conditions and now setting in motion a coordinated destruction of all non-corporate farmers.  Or, in a Monsanto's investigator's laughing words, "rural cleansing."  

It is not an exaggeration to say there is terror in farming communities across the country.

Our country's food supply is being taken over by multinational corporations.
Yet the "industrial" agriculture is a major contributor to global warming, deforestation, poisoned soil, suicides of farmers, dead fish stocks, dying bees, sick birds, an epidemic of diabetes, etc. etc.  

Bad as all of that is, multinational control of food supplies means total control of populations.  It means slavery.


Our farmers need the entire country's help now just as blacks did in the last century, and just like then, that help will determine whether we are a democracy or at the mercy of thugs and terror.  But this time the threat to real farming is a direct threat to all of our lives, and the whole planet is on the line.  

Either farming will go under and our food supply will be absolutely controlled by multinational chemical/biotech/drug corporations using our government as its police arm, and the devastation and poisoning of biosystems and biodiversity will continue at an even faster pace, or we come together for the largest civil rights movement in this country's history and stand up for the most profound human freedoms - to collect seed, to farm, to raise animals, to choose food we wish, to have access to nature in all its "normal" forms.

Please, will you help? 


Most sincerely and hopefully,FarmOn


P.S.  Here are the letters from two farmers.  What is described is happening across the country and not exaggerated.  What follows are words from Ronnie Cummins, making clear the dangerous and cruel intentionality.

"I was asked by someone on the No NAIS lists to write ... about NAIS. THis is how it has effected me.

 
"I have a small farm with mostly small livestock. Until NAIS raised its ugly head we raised them mostly for our own use and sold a few a year or sold their products for our income. It was our practice to vaccinate, test and treat regularly. Our veterinarian and the state university veterinary school were taught us quite a lot about health issues and proper treatment. We sold breeding animals only and sold them within a three state distance in any direction. All our animals were purebred and many are heritage breeds. We loved our animals and our life.

 
"Since NAIS we no longer sell across state lines. We have made the decision that if we are forced to register this premises, we will stop breeding and not sell any breeding stock. This is not just a problem for us but for other heritage breeders as the gene pool for those animals is small. While others had the option of buying some of our genetic lines in exchange for thiers they no longer have that option. We used to talk to veterinarians on a regular basis. We not only used our local vets but also spoke to those who were experts in their feilds when we had a problem we couldnt solve. We no longer call the vet unless we absolutely cannot handle it ourselves. If the USDA memo goes through we will have to put a lot of animals down that dont need to be because vets will be directed to register us without our consent. We have quit dealing with two feed stores because they required a premise ID. We spread the word on them and many of our friends who bought their no longer do so. We do not sell at livestock barns. We no longer sell anything to anyone unless we know them. We no longer allow strangers on our farm. We question everyone who writes or calls about an animal or any of our products before allowing them access to our place. Our fear is so great of someone making a complaint or reporting a  real or imagined "disease"  that we cannot be the open farm we used to be. We no longer allow the vet school to collect data for research on our animals. We no longer have school groups come for farm day. We have become closed, paranoid and defensive.  A cattleman who was pro-NAIS once said we didn't matter anyway because we didn't make any real money. We don't make a lot of money but we made enough to give us a reasonable standard of living and the contribution we make to genetic diversity was real enough. When NAIS goes in and people like us are gone, the price of food will go us as will the food bourne illnesses. People like us who raised animals on grass and whole grain and did not use a lot oc chemicals or unneccessary medication will be gone. The terrorists that the government is so afraid of will have a single databse to look up the biggest feedlot in America and in one fell swoop contaminate the whole food supply. People like us made America. We still exist by the thousands in number far larger than the big farms. WHat will America be like without us? Do you really care?" 

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"He closed the latch on the barn door for the last time. The structure built in the 70's had housed livestock since then, but now stood empty, soulless without animals.  He had agonized over making a final tour before leaving the property for the last time.  Not even a barn swallow remained; the fields had been sprayed the year before when the Department of Natural Resources had moved earthworms onto the invasive species list.  Forced to pay for the eradication had broken him financially and destroyed the fundamental building blocks of the land itself.  The animals had gone a few years before with the implementation of the National Animal Identification System.  Refusing to register his premises and allocute his allodial title to the property that he owned, free of mortgage, he had sold the livestock to slaughter.  His family had labored for years to own the land and had done so without any government payments.

"Turning the corner by the farm shop he viewed the gardens and high tunnel greenhouses that now were in tatters and full of weeds.  He reminisced of how he and his wife dreamed 35 years before of owning and operating a farm in harmony with the land and its true community. He remembered meeting Robert Rodale at a book signing in Pennsylvania, just prior to his oldest daughter being born, and asking him what was the best way to build organic matter into the soil.  "Sheet composting" Robert replied "it will enhance the soil and increase the earthworm population."  He considered the profiteering of carbon sequestering by heartless corporations that had been all the rage a few years before.  Rodale understood the carbon relationship long before, combined with lime, it afforded the soil a buffer to the rain and airborne toxins.  The now illegal practice of allowing the synergistic effect of the applied composted animal manure (carbon) to heal the soil and subsequently the creatures that drew life from it.  He recalled having challenged Gene Logsdon's opening statement "You can't make a living organic farming" rising up from his seat stating "My organic farm paid my way here, and will pay my way home".

"Gene had smiled, as if he had been waiting to hear those very words.

"He came up the lane by the big greenhouse and wondered how it had come to this.  He knew the answer; Charles Walter's novel "A Beast of Muddy Brain" outlined the history of the demise of farming at the hands of government and the big corporations.  It spoke of how Farm Bureau had been created by the USDA's public relations division to prevent farmers from organizing during the depression.  Along with the National Farmer's Union they had forwarded one government program after another, refusing to recognize the reality of NAIS and other programs and their negative impacts on small producers while centralizing food production.  Like the two party political system they were only another example of the Hegelian Dialectic, creating controversy while the real players behind the scenes consolidated power.  These government programs came with strings attached, contractual servitude, many became slaves on farms and ranches owned by their families for generations.  Even those who had avoided these entangling alliances had been sucked in.  He recalled having filed legal motions in defence of Emmanuel J. Miller Jr., an Amish man he had never met, having been burdened with proving innocence against the state of Wisconsin's charge of failure to register a premises.  With the implementation of federally mandated NAIS prior to the new administration coming into office, he and others like him would not defy their religious convictions and had sold out their livestock.  Within a year, fresh market produce fell under the same restrictions via the revival of the Fresh Produce Safety Act, where the USDA had granted regulatory power to Disney, McDonalds, and Walmart.  The new administration had brought change all right, all the wrong kind, as it found the farmers markets void of vendors unable to comply with the new regulations.

   
"He reached the car where his wife was waiting, "I love you, you know"she said, he did his best to smile, but it wasn't easy.  As they turned on the gravel road toward the covered bridge he pondered what other's thought of him now, he had rallied people who were depressed along the way, folks he had come to know in this battle against big ag and all its many appendages, would they think him a fool?  The dust rolled up behind the car%u2026.

  
"Paul wake up, blue number two is having problems lambing".  It wasn't the first time Carol had awakened me from an hours sleep to help a ewe.  "I've been having another dream, they put us out of business and we had to leave.  To hell with them, here we will make our final stand."

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"Mad Sheep" by Linda Faillace
Foreword to the Book by Ronnie Cummins, head of the Organic Consumers Association:


"Warning: reading this riveting tale of good and evil will make you angry. After a few chapters, you will likely suffer from a deep sense of disillusionment and an uncontrollable urge to speak out or strike back. As this twisted and wicked pastoral unfolds, outrage after outrage, it will become increasingly clear that this is not just a tragic case of administrative bungling or faulty science on the part of the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).


What we are confronted with in Mad Sheep is a government conspiracy. A politically inspired ritual of fabricated charges, manipulated science, and doctored evidence. A modern witch-hunt to sacrifice the innocent in order to protect the massive profits and scandalous practices of the guilty. A diabolically orchestrated, media-scripted search and destroy operation in the Vermont countryside, designed not just to murder some innocent sheep and thereby exorcize mounting consumer fears about food safety and mad cow disease, but also to turn us all into sheep, to fan the flames of fear and ignorance, and to foster our continued dependence on an abusive Big Brother government that has promised to protect us from the contemporary terrors that lurk, well, nearly everywhere.


In their highly acclaimed 1997 book, Mad Cow USA: Can the Nightmare Happen Here, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton recount how they used a Freedom of Information Act investigation to pry loose secret planning documents from the beef industry and the USDA. These liberated documents included a "crisis management" plan for how to manipulate public perceptions and concerns surrounding a likely outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States. A central part of this plan was to keep quiet about the fact that leading experts on mad cow disease, such as Dr. Clarence Gibbs and Dr. Richard Marsh, had warned government officials as early as 1989 that a form of mad cow disease was likely circulating in U.S. cattle herds, and that the extremely risky, profitable practice of feeding blood and slaughterhouse waste to animals needed to be halted immediately.


By the late 1990s, as scores of Europeans who had eaten contaminated beef from mad cows began dying from a fatal brain-wasting human disease called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nvCJD), USDA officials began to implement their crisis management plan. As wary Americans began to learn about mad cow disease and animal cannibalism and cut back on their beef consumption, something had to be done to restore consumer confidence. Since stopping the feeding of animals to animals and ordering universal testing of cows for mad cow were deemed serious threats to industry profits, the USDA's public relations specialists came up with diversionary tactics: round up imported livestock across the country and harass family farmers like the Faillaces, all in the name of preventing mad cow disease in America.


Meanwhile the disinformation flacks at the USDA, aided by public relations firms and the news media, worked to sweep under the rug the alarming fact that U.S. corporate agribusiness was doing exactly the same thing that Europeans had been doing to spread mad cow disease%u2039feeding cattle, pigs, chickens, households pets, and deer and elk on game farms billions of pounds of blood, slaughterhouse waste, animal fat, and tainted manure every year.

The Faillace's sheep were absolutely healthy and presented no risk whatsoever to the American public. But the Clinton and Bush administrations wanted a scapegoat. Never mind that the imported sheep on the Faillace farm had been quarantined and certified by European Union authorities as having never consumed slaughterhouse waste. Never mind that these sheep had been tested for scrapie, so-called mad sheep disease, and found healthy. Never mind that a breed of imported sheep on the Faillace farm, East Friesians, has never in recorded history suffered from a single case of scrapie. Scrapie has been endemic in U.S. sheep herds for decades, and as Stauber and Rampton point out in Mad Cow USA, the USDA has done little or nothing to help U.S. sheep farmers eradicate the disease.


Blame Europe and a small group of stubborn Vermont sheep farmers for endangering public health, and maybe people wouldn't notice that American agribusiness had continued importing hundreds of millions of pounds of bargain-priced slaughterhouse waste from the UK for eight years after the outbreak of mad cow disease in 1989. Maybe people wouldn't notice that the 1997 FDA "feed ban" on feeding ruminants to ruminants is full of holes (allowing cattle blood, cattle fat, poultry manure and slaughterhouse waste from pigs and chickens to continue being fed to cows). Maybe consumers would forget that Europeans have boycotted U.S. non-organic beef and poultry routinely laced with antibiotics and hormones since 1988.



As for those farmers and consumers who won't behave like proper sheep, who refuse to shut up and swallow the official story: harass and threaten them, seize their animals, ruin their reputations, and destroy them financially and psychologically.


Linda and Larry Faillace, and their children, Jackie, Heather, and Francis, along with the Vermont consumer and farm activists who stood by them, are not only good shepherds, they are national heroes. USDA bureaucrats like Linda Detwiler, CDC bureaucrats like Lawrence Schonberger, indentured politicians, and their puppet masters behind the scenes%u2039the leaders of the corporate-industrial agriculture and pharmaceutical complex%u2039are the real offenders.


After campaigning in the trenches for thirteen years to get the USDA and FDA to stop the hazardous feeding of billions of pounds of blood, slaughterhouse waste, and manure every year to farm animals, and to require mandatory testing of cattle for mad cow disease at slaughter, I had lost or repressed some of my anger and frustrations. But then I read this book, and like post-combat stress, a flood of memories rushed back.


Hate mail arriving at my Washington office in 1993 along with a series of anonymous telephone death threats to my colleagues, just after we launched a national campaign against McDonald's and filed a legal petition to stop the feeding of animals to animals. A creepy ex-military intelligence agent provocateur who infiltrated our campaign and followed me around Washington, posing as a representative from the World Council of Churches. A private investigator in Wisconsin reporting that our office telephones were tapped, probably by the beef industry. A national news producer sheepishly apologizing to me for "alterations" in the script of a nationally televised ABC News story on mad cow disease that aired in 1997% following what he described as a "call from the White House."


And more. Fruitlessly petitioning the Centers for Disease Control to make the human equivalent of mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt- Jacob Disease (CJD), an officially reportable disease. Petitioning the CDC, again in vain, to require autopsies for a significant number of the 50,000 Americans who die every year from Alzheimer's disease, to determine whether they actually had CJD (CJD is often mistakenly diagnosed as Alzheimer's, because its symptoms are similar). Watching the Bush administration USDA blame the Canadians for our first mad cow cases, and shortly thereafter threaten a Kansas meat packer, Creekstone Farms, for the "crime" of wanting to test all of their cows at slaughter for Mad Cow disease.


No wonder millions of Americans no longer trust the government or the media. No wonder millions of consumers are turning away from industrial meat and food and voting with their pocketbooks for healthy, sustainable, locally produced organic foods.


But voting with our consumer dollars is not enough. The mad sheep battle described in these pages is not an isolated case. Armed with $90 billion in taxpayer money each year, the USDA is waging war against all of us consumers, family farmers, farm animals, and the environment. The direct and collateral damage of this war includes rampant water, air, and food pollution; an epidemic of cancer, birth defects, obesity, and hormone disruption; pollution by genetically engineered crops; an unsustainable, massive venting of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases; pesticide and antibiotic contamination; proliferation of junk food; systematic exploitation of small farmers, farm workers, and slaughterhouse workers; and the dumping of millions of tons of subsidized crops and meat at below the cost of production on developing nations, thereby destroying the livelihoods of millions of small farmers and rural communities.


It's time to follow the example of the Faillace family. It's time to stand up and fight, not only for ourselves, but also for future generations."
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Michael Schmidt in Canada, is. 
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2008/12/15/raw_milk_farmer_michael_schmidt_slams_criminal_charges.htm



Here, US marshals just arrested a nutritionist in an FDA raid.http://www.naturalnews.com/025347.html

Our most fundamental human rights in terms of freedom to farm, to choose food, to decide how to heal ourselves, to have access to natural substances, are all being massively violated.  

We need your help.

farmon@googlegroups.com