While Mrs. Obama plants an organic garden on the White House lawn and tours around the country promoting her pet project of adding salad bars to public school cafeterias to fight childhood obesity, Mr. Obama’s out of control and power crazed Executive Branch – namely the FDA, USDA, and CDC are sponsoring terrorist raids against organic health food store operators and small farms all over the nation.
The latest raid took place yesterday at Rawesome Foods, a private club in Venice CA. The armed raid was the culmination of a year long investigation in which undercover government operatives purchased unpasteurized goat milk, cheese, yogurt and kefir at farmer’s markets and at Rawesome Foods, a private organic food club.
While this raid and the subsequent arrest of three innocent citizens was clearly outrageous and illegal in every sense of the word, my biggest concern is how the private contracts between Rawesome, its primary farm supplier Healthy Family Farms and its customers are being completely ignored and swept under the rug by government authorities.
The contract, after all, is a primary vehicle in the exercise of this economic system we call Capitalism. When the contract falls upon shaky ground and is not recognized by the governing authorities as the binding and legal agreement that it is, the entire economic system becomes seriously at risk.
In the case of Rawesome, the issue appears to be the use of herdshare or boarding agreements for its dairy goats. Other goat farmers in California have experienced similar problems. Mike Hulme of Evergreen Acres in San Jose received a cease and desist letter from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Mr. Hulme along with several owners of the goats boarded at his farm are suing the State and County for denying their fundamental right to enter into an agreement to board livestock.
Since when are citizens of the United States of America denied the right to enter into private contractual agreements with each other?
This shocking development has occurred in tandem with the escalation of the Federal government’s efforts to destroy private food organizations whose intent is to obtain nutrient dense foods directly from small family farms. Clearly the government will stop at nothing – including denial of fundamental rights – to prevent consumers from circumventing the disastrous and recall plagued food distribution system monopolistically controlled by Big Ag and Big Food.
Protests are about more than Rawesome, although getting these three innocent citizens released as quickly as possible is certainly of paramount importance. This protest is about the sanctity of the contract, freedom of food choice and the right to conduct private business without the interference of government authorities.
If you are not in the Los Angeles area and want to help, please consider donating to the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund which assists business owners, consumers, and farmers with legal advice and representation during times of harassment such as this.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sarah, have you seen HR 1830, proposed in May 2011? http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-1830 “To authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption.”
In truth the buck stops at the top of the chain of command. If the president was concerned for freedom like he has said he is many times he would immediately tell the TSA to get it’s prying fingers and x-rays out of our pants and tell the FDA and the CDC to back off on beating up tiny dairies and farmers stands. He certainly has the power to do that. The fact that he does not do so but instead makes jokes about such things tells me he is not really interested in freedom–at least not on those issues. So it does not matter if it is a republican or a democrat in the white house if it is an alphabet agency doing the oppression you better believe that if the president wanted to stop it he could.
It is disingenuous of any political official to tell us to all “eat local and eat healthy” while at the same time their henchmen are taking away our ability to do so.
1st Lady Obama touts organic gardens as the FDA, USDA, CDC are bullying – terrorizing organic food providers across US http://t.co/ykkAFSH
I am unable to follow the train of thought on some of the above statements. The food subsidies which are totally geared towards big business ( Cargill and its buddy McDonalds) are creating the food you detest. This started way back with the corn subsidies which brought forth High Fructose Corn syrup and the grain feeding of animals to make meat faster and cheaper. In the recent debt reduction fight did you see the GOP willing to cut any of these farm subsidies? They were screaming bloody murder to keep them in place because their lobbyists are paying for their campaigns. You are fighting the small fight and ignoring the big issue. If these subsidies are discontinued and fair commerce results it will not only help the small farmer but it will also make these foods less attractive financially. I know that you are already voting with your feet by not supporting these businesses. Be careful not to ignore the forest for the trees. Pandering is when a politician gives you something he doesn’t care about to get you to ignore the big stuff.
Why do you assume I am Republican? I am an Independent and don’t agree with how either party handled the debt reduction fiasco. Both parties are to blame for our current mess.
Sorry, I tried not to assume anything. I do think your attack on Obama was unfounded and a distraction from the big issue. The Democrats are surely not without blame. At this point I think that if anyone believes the GOP is going to do anything to hurt their golden goose they are off their rocker. The Dems are a close second. In my state if you are an Independent you give up your rights to vote in the primaries.
I would like to humbly suggest reading the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. For those defending Obama I would like to suggest that you stop listening to what is voiced by our government and pay attention to its actions. By the way, you will not find evidence of what is going on through popular media, you must dig deeper.
I LOVE THAT BOOK! I read it in the fifth grade and have always been suspicious of government ever since that tender age of 10. I doubt many schools include it on the reading list anymore as schools want to bring up robots who can regurgitate information and take standardized tests well, not teach children to THINK.
Well said, CMMOM! People really need to dig deeper rather than only listening to the mainstream media.
Lori:
You see the picture of the burly police officers with bullet proof vests, you read how those men were courageously taking on the bad guys in a organic food store, and you read the point of the story that the government won’t let its citizens eat what they want, and your first thought is to be offended because Sarah mentioned Obama?
The government as a whole is taking away, has been taking away, our individual rights for quite some time. Not an individual political party. It’s not the GOP and their lobbyists, and the Democrats a “close second.” There’s no battle of ideology going on in Washington, only a power struggle.
Coming to this understanding allows one to rise above the fray and then to focus on the real issues at hand.
Well said, Ray. Has anyone looked into the news lately regarding the Council of 13 or “Super Congress” set up for the debt ceiling? I am very shocked that there aren’t any large protests in front of the White House at this point.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/31/super-congress-debt-ceiling-deficit-deal_n_914272.html
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way,”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Lori, Corporate “phood” industries support the GOP on a far wider percentage per capita than the democrats. “GOP screaming their heads off”… ?? Yeah, screaming because they didn’t want to lose their lobbyists and the corporate $$ which follows. If that’s the kind of thing you support, the smaller farms won’t stand a chance in the long run. Sort of on the same par as paying farmers NOT to grow certain crops.
Both parties brought the USA to where we are now, and both parties will keep us there. It’s in their best interests not to help small farms, even though in reality they are no threat at all to the Dean Foods and Cargill’s of the world. It’s greed, pure and simple for every last buck.
Wow, I must really be a bad writer because you totally don’t understand my point.
Lori, you are quite a good writer. I think D is either aggressively agreeing with you, or drank some bad raw milk. 😉
I agree with you though, as long as this petty fighting continues, the larger, real battle will never be fought. I don’t understand why corporate America has such a huge stranglehold over our govt…republican and democrat alike. I guess money really is the root of all evil.
I think you are correct, and I agree with D also.
You know, I’m no longer surprised at anything the government does. I think it is above and beyond repair and many of us know that. 🙂
It’s making more and more sense why the Communist Party just endorsed Obama for 2012.
In North America, it seems easier to board a child than a goat…
Exactly. See, most small farmers are not wealthy and that is who the gubment attacks because that’s where they can win. When our country starts threatening to put people in jail for growing a front-yard garden and for consuming our foods of choice (rather than corporate produced, lifeless foods) we will be attacked because it’s a freedom they don’t want us to have.
I really like this website. It is inspiring to me the commitment that Sarah has towards caring and feeding her family. It is unfortunate that she felt the need to get into the political debate. I hope she isn’t going into religion next. For all of you that think total deregulation will solve our problems step over the border to Mexico ( a totally deregulated government) and while you are there enjoy their food!
On this blog, food is very much a political issue because access to Real Food is being attacked by our government. Have you seen the documentary Farmageddon yet?
America needs to wake up or in a few years the only food we will have a choice to consume will be factory farm produced franken foods.
That is certainly the hope of the GOP.
Wait…I am confused…are you saying that Mexico doesn’t have amazing food? Because it has one of the richest, most beautiful of local cuisines! One of my favorite culinary destinations!
Hi Lori Swenson,
I think it is very important that Sarah acknowledged this issue. What happens if our government performs raids on most, if not all, of our small farmers? Most of our small farmers are not in a good financial position to be continuously raided, and have thousands of dollars worth of food be thrown into the garbage. What will happen if their businesses were to eventually shutdown? Where will we be able to go to purchase nourishing food? This issue should be in the minds of every individual in this country because it concerns everyone!
“If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny,” Thomas Jefferson.
Regarding Mexico, there are many small farmers there that sell real, organic food that doesn’t need to be labeled as such. Many Mexicans know where to purchase good quality food like all the rest of the countries in this world that you would consider “deregulated.” They seem to be very healthy people since they purchase from trusted local farmers. This is how it has always been, even in the United States over 100 years ago.
I agree with you. Trusted local farmers is the key. Selling some products broadly will not be as successful as when they are sold with a relationship between the seller and the buyer. I have traveled to Mexico and enjoyed the food greatly. However their health standards for food are frightening to me. Flies on open hanging meat are only the beginning of things you see there. Also the working conditions of the people producing the food. The fat cats have rendered a lot of working people powerless. I am greatly concerned for family farms, I grew up on one. The biggest obstacle to that is an unfair marketplace where government subsidies big business.
Mexico a deregulated country???!!! You really don’t know what you are talking about. Mexico is a Socialist country — highly regulated! You can only buy government-owned gas at the government-owned gas station, for example. You cannot easily start a business. After a century of tight government control, the Mexican people have learned how to “beat the system.” They go around the system, rather than work with it — as we do in the U.S. (My husband is a Mexican citizen, and we live on the US/ Mex border.) Mexicans have very little respect for leadership because of nearly a century of the government’s tight grip on things. Because of so many years of regulation, Mexicans have lost all faith in their government and its laws. They are quick to break the law in little ways, such as selling and buying illegal merchandise here. REGULATION has created the problems in Mexico, NOT deregulation. My mother-in-law once suggested that we sell some illegal liquor in the U.S. that she could buy in Mexico. I was shocked. My mother-in-law is a lovely, law-abiding woman. I would never do something illegal — because I have been trained to follow my country’s laws. My mother-in-law sees laws that keep a person from selling a product a nuisance that should be overlooked because making a living is more important than obeying the government.
The current president, and the last one were the first to try to de-regulate Mexico. They have had some success, thus the economy of Mexico is growing and is much stronger than in that of the U.S. as a result.
President Calderon is trying to clean up decades of corruption, much of it closely tied to the drug-trafficking industry, but the drug industry has gotten very powerful, and is nearly impossible to beat — because of over-regulation. Now here we are, becoming the over-regulated nation.
I’d like to hear how Mexico is a totally “deregulated” country.
She seems to be confusing Mexico’s lack of the rule of law with no regulation. In reality Mexico has regulations coming out of the ears.
If Ms. Swenson or anyone else is genuinely interested in such things, a good place to begin is freetheworld.com. They do an objective analysis of the nations and their economic systems.
The Rawesome Raid and The Sanctity of the Contract – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/GRwHkQo