The Last Thanksgiving: The Bush Administrations legacy of Famine and Death

Are Agri-corporations and the Bush Administration putting in place the last pieces need to guarantee a famine? If you want to continue to eat wholesome food best get on the phone to your Congress critters and start screaming.

The "new Ag Policy" based on WTO-AoA and FREE TRADE

1. Shuts down disease testing and foreign product quarantine and substitutes "traceability" and "risk Assessment". That means you get sick or die and they use RFID tags and a database system to pin the blame on some farmer and the food processors who caused the problem get off scottfree. Meanwhile the Transnationals import cheap food and drugs without inspection or border checks as "low Risk"

2. The USDA and FDA will use Premise, Animal and Plant ID, the EPA carbon tax and Ag business one-side contracts to force farm families out of business so big mono-culture polluting farms can grab their land.
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3. The worst is the Global Biodiversity Treaty, life patents and laws such as the EU law forbidding sale of any seed not on the official and very expensive list. Soon the US is to harmonize with EU regs. Can you say only Monsanto and Cargill patented GMO veggies YUM...yum...yuck?

4.The "Freedom to Farm" bill in 1996 did away with USDA and farmer held grain reserves. As the food supply dropped to a 35 day reserve, the grain traders show their [sarcasm] humanitarianism [/sarcasm]

“In summary, we have record low grain inventories globally as we move into a new crop year. We have demand growing strongly. Which means that going forward even small crop failures are going to drive grain prices to record levels. As an investor, we continue to find these long term trends very attractive.” Food shortfalls predicted: 2008 www.financialsense.com...

“Recently there have been increased calls for the development of a U.S. or international grain reserve to provide priority access to food supplies for Humanitarian needs. The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) and the North American Export Grain Association (NAEGA) strongly advise against this
concept..Stock reserves have a documented depressing effect on prices... and resulted in less aggressive market bidding for the grains.” July 22, 2008 letter to President Bush
www.naega.org...

Is it any wonder when you start digging into the mess you find:

Dan Amstutz, 25 years as grain trader and VP at Cargill drafted the original text of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture in 1995, the "Freedom to Farm" bill in 1996 and then became president & CEO of the North American Export grain Association, NAEGA in 1998. In 2000 Cargill, and the others formed Pradium Inc. and Amstutz became chairman.

Michael Taylor, former lawyer representing Monsanto and Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto.
He was an FDA staff lawyer 1976-1981, Deputy Commissioner for Public Policy at FDA 1991-1994, and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service Administrator 1994-1996. While at the FDA, Taylor wrote the guidelines on milk labeling and rBGH, which was the basis of Monsanto’s lawsuit against Oakhurst dairy.

THE PROBLEM

Children at Risk

By SAM ROE — American children with food allergies are suffering life-threatening — and completely avoidable — reactions because manufacturers mislabel their products and regulators fail to police store shelves, a Chicago Tribune investigation has found. In effect, children are used as guinea pigs, with the government and industry often taking steps to properly label a product only after a child has been harmed. The government rarely inspects food to find problems and doesn't punish companies that repeatedly violate labeling laws, the Tribune found.
www.chicagotribune.com...

The Safety Gap

by Gardiner Harris, 11/2/2008 This year, 18.2 million shipments of food, devices, cosmetics and drugs are expected to enter more than 300 U.S. ports; the FDA. had 454 investigators in 2007 — one and a half per port — to scrutinize them.

China’s leap to one of the biggest suppliers of pharmaceutical ingredients in the world over the last decade, Generic drug makers in the US were the first to seek cheaper drug ingredients...Over the past six years, the FDA has managed to inspect annually an average of 15 of the 714 Chinese drug plants. At its present pace, the FDA. needs more than 50 years to visit all Chinese plants.
www.nytimes.com...

FDA Fails Consumers

FDA's efforts to combat foodborne illness are hampered by staffing shortages, infrequent inspections and lax enforcement at fresh produce processing plants. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said only 1% of produce imported into the U.S. is inspected, and the practice of mixing produce from several sources makes tracing contamination challenging...inspections at produce-processing facilities are rare, and when problems are discovered, FDA relies on the industry to correct them without oversight or follow-up. Between 2000 and 2007, FDA detected food safety problems at more than 40% of the 2,002 plants inspected, yet half of those plants were inspected only once. The plants with food safety problems received only warning letters from FDA, and even those ended in 2005

The Salmonella associated with the latest foodborne illness outbreak has been found, in irrigation water as well as in serrano peppers at a Mexican farm located in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. “The agency seized no fresh produce, sought no injunctions and prosecuted no firms”
www.americanvegetablegrower.com...

Meatpacking Maverick: John Munsell's against-the-odds struggle for improved food safety

By Michael Scherer Dec 29, 2003, “Before the tainted beef arrived -- USDA-approved and vacuum-sealed – Munsell had no reason to doubt the integrity of the food-safety system. But that changed after the meat he ground for hamburger tested positive for E. coli 0157:H7. Instead of tracking the contaminated meat back to its source, the USDA launched an investigation of Munsell's own operation. Never mind that the local federal inspector had seen the beef go straight from the package into a clean grinder -- a USDA spokesman called that testimony "hearsay."

By February 2002, three more tests of meat Munsell was grinding straight from the package came back positive. This time, as he would later testify in a government hearing, he had paperwork documenting that the beef came from a single source: ConAgra: Munsell fired off an angry email to the district USDA manager, warning of a potential public-health emergency, and adding that if no one tracked down the rest of the bad meat, "both of us should share a cell in Alcatraz." The agency moved immediately and aggressively -- not to recall meat from Greeley, but to shut down Munsell's grinding operation, a punishment that lasted four months.

Despite Munsell's continued whistleblowing -- to Senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), national cattle associations, and his fellow meat processors -- the USDA failed to address the alleged contamination at ConAgra's Greely Plant. Then, in July 2002, Munsell's worst fears came true. E. coli-tainted burger from Greeley killed an Ohio woman and sickened at least 35 others. ConAgra then recalled 19 million pounds of beef, one of the largest recalls in history.” www.motherjones.com...

Unfortunately these are just a few of many “incidents” handle in such a way that transnational corporations are not “inconvenienced”. Stanley Painter, Chairman of the National Food Inspection Unions, stated in his testimony at the congressional hearing on the Hallmark Dower Cows:

USDA Consumer protection in Action

“..when we see violations of FSIS regulations,.. we are instructed not to write non-compliance reports... Sometimes even if we write non-compliance reports, some of the larger companies use their political muscle to get those overturned....Some of my members have been intimidated by agency management in the past when they came forward and tried to enforce agency regulations and policies. I will give you a personal example:
[SRM removal regulations concern brain and spine removal to prevent BSE] In December 2004, I began to receive reports that the new SRM regulations were not being uniformly enforced. I wrote a letter to the Assistant FSIS Administrator for Field Operations at the time conveying to him what I had heard...I was paid a visit at my home in Alabama by an FSIS official dispatched from the Atlanta regional office to convince me to drop the issue. I told him that I would not. Then, the agency summoned me to come here to Washington, DC where agency officials subjected me to several hours of interrogation including wanting me to identify which of my members were blowing the whistle on the SRM removal violations. I refused to do so....I was then placed on disciplinary investigation status. The agency even contacted the USDA Office of Inspector General to explore criminal charges being filed against me...
domesticpolicy.oversight.house.gov...

Time for charges of treason??

head of FDA ordered a self-portrait.
the price was 17k.
he is probably ready to leave.
it's up to Obama to change this madness,
or have for 4 more years...

Start getting into the raw food organic diet people's!

GM Crops and the Coming Famine

i'll plug this old thread because it fits neatly into the picture and reveals the real reason GM crops are so much in favor with the BGs. they are a Trojan Horse which will, if not aborted in time, help exercise pressure both by allowing to charge more (via royalties) and reducing supply.

biofuels will do the rest.


Famine is probably the most effective implement of war, because people will destroy themselves and one another for diminsihing resources, while more modern strategies force the attacker to do that all by himself.

[edit on 2008.11.26 by Long Lance]

reply to post by Long Lance


I think you have got it. Famine has been in use as a weapon of war since the dawn of mankind and is still in use today. The US already has the plans drawn up on who lives, who dies. Given that the Plum Island disease lab is moving onto the mainland. Famine and a bio-weapon maybe used.

Government Report Answers Who Lives, Who Dies in Flu Pandemic
5/5/08
In the case of a flu pandemic — yes, say government officials in a new report. Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die. Who will die in the event of a pandemic? The very old, seriously hurt, severely burned and those with severe dementia, according to an influential group of physicians. The group has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services. The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits
The recommendations get much more specific, and include:
— People older than 85.
— Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings.
— Severely burned patients older than 60.
— Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer's disease.
— Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.
www.foxnews.com...

This is one of the most significant threads I have read in a while, very timely and I appreciate the links and work you have put into this, just need a few and I will be back to make personal comments,

Obama will not be changing it. He is putting in a Monsanto puppet as Sec of Ag. I had real hopes too


Can you please send comments to Obama about NAIS, the National Animal ID System. If we do not kill this we can kiss our locally grown food goodbye.

Stop NAIS! www.change.org...