HR2749 Eat from Factory Farms or No Food

Do you want to be forced to eat produce grown with insecticides and herbicides and who knows what other chemicals and dairy products from cows injected with rBGH (bovine growth hormones) a proven carcinogen in humans.  No, then sign this petition and add your own comments.

This is another bill, HR 2749 and HR 759; The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, being fast tracked in Congress.  This bill is more dangerous than HR875 and S425.  HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply.  The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but this bill does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas.  The following are the most alarming government powers created by the government to enable the government to taking away our basic freedoms.   Since the government is fast tracking this one we need to fast track our response in the form of a petition against this bill and all those that are similar in their true intent of control not safety. 

This bill was introduced June 8th and pushed to House Energy and Commerce Committee on June 17th. The bill is an enhancement to H.R.759, and to a lesser extent, H.R. 857, previously proposed food safety bills in the 111th Congress. It is also co-sponsored by the same Representatives as the latter two bills, although new to the line of support is Rep. Henry Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee.  As a co-sponsor how can he be part of the review process, isn't that conflict of interest? Go to: Open Congress web-site - http://www.opencongress.org/bill/all  and read the bill and check out Rep. Waxman's profile and comments from his constituents in California. 

The issue is freedom, not safety.  "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin.

Food safety, through totalitarian bills in Congress, now threatens ALL FOOD IN THE US, our democracy and survival. 

ALARMING PROVISIONS:  * Power to Quarantine a Geographic Area; the FDA can also Halt All Movement of All Food in a geographic area. [This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home 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 safety, and do it at any time.

* Random Warrant-less Searches of Business Records.  Used against small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation.  If these bills cover all who "hold food" then this allows for taking of records of anyone at any time on no basis at all.  Even farmers selling direct to consumers would have to provide the federal government with records on where they buy supplies, how they raise their crops, and a list of customers.  

* Regulation of How Crops Are Raised and Harvested.  How wrong this is, just read the heading.  HR 2749 puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers how to do what they have been doing successfully for generations.  (This astounding control opens the door to CODEX.  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 will be forced into the 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.  Grass-fed cattle and poultry and hogs will be finished.  So, it's obvious where control will take us.  And weren't these the "rumors on the internet" that were dismissed but are clearly the case?

 * Establishing a Tracing System for Food.  Each person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food (Is this not every home in the US?), would have to maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food, establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons.  The bill does not explain how far the trace back will extend or how it will be done for multi-ingredient foods.  With all these ambiguities, [with all these ambiguities, it is dangerous, period, separate from the money] it's far from clear how much it will cost either the farmers or the taxpayers.  [It is massive and absurd and burdensome beyond the capacity of people to comply - is this not fascism? - so it is a set up for being used to impose penalties endlessly and/or to eliminate anyone at will.]

* Severe Criminal and Civil Penalties.   A prison term of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for each individual.  [Does it include judicial review, Congressional oversight, a defined and limited set of penalties and punishments for a defined set of "crimes?)  NO. It is entirely ambiguous and left to the whim and sole power of "the Administrator"?  Who is that person set to be?  Is it Michael Taylor, Monsanto lawyer and executive, as Food Democracy has said?  That is, do these bills set up an agency by which the entire US food supply will be turned over to the control of a multinational corporation under WTO regulations (and not to US farmers and not to US laws under the Constitution), with boundless freedom to do what it wants, and one infamous for harm to farmers and lack of safety of food?]  

 * Annual Registration Fee of $500.  Who do you think this would impact first and hardest the big Agro Corporation or your local small farmer that struggles to get by financially now?   

If it was not clear before how frightening these bills are, especially HR2749, this small section of provisions should make their actual, absolute control on all the people, clear now.  It goes way beyond food safety to absolute control over farms, animals, food, and us, including our movements and access to the food choice at all.   Please pass this information and petition to sign, and be sure to add comments, to everyone as quickly as possible.  I would like to be able to send the petition to Washington DC with thousands, hopefully tens of thousands of signatures. 

If you don't believe this type of control by the government could happen read the news articles on my Profile page and Share page.  It is already happening here in the USA.  Read news reports: PA Church Ladies Raided by ‘Food Safety’ Cops and  The Criminalization of Raw Milk-A Mennonite Farmer is Hauled Away by Linn Cohen-Cole.

There are currently individual state regulations/laws testing these types of overstepping government controls into our lives. This is one example of the fight for our freedoms going on right now.  In this one case this man's constitutional rights are being stepped on and ignored. The Mennonite culture and religious practices, and constitutional rights are being violated.  Keep watch in your own states and communities.   

If you want the links, more information or want to send me more information please send me a private email by clicking on my name in "Sponsored by" at the top of the petition.  When you sign the petition I cannot link to your information or any links you include.  

Thanks so much for your support.