FDA Lunacy...Attacks on Real Food and Real Birth
This installment of Radically Natural Living is brought to you by the popularly overworn phrase, "Seriously?! [Warning: the information contained within this post mingles with some sarcastic incredulousness.]
Today we are going to look at a couple examples of how our government regulatory agencies are crossing the line and continuing to erode our liberties not only as Americans, but as human beings. For those of you who read Real Food blogs, the first item will not be news. But I believe it important to broadly disseminate the truth about the Real Food culture war so that more Americans can be spurred to thought and action.
I have no intention of re-inventing the wheel here, so I will link to the articles that have already described the recent outrageous behaviour of our government agencies. Please read and pass along....
If you were unaware, on August 3, the FDA and CDC raided an organic raw milk buying club in southern California. The owner was arrested, as was an organic farm owner and her employee (who also happens to be a WAPF chapter leader). These people were charged as felons. That's right, felons. And the food was confiscated and/or destroyed. OK, say it with me now...Seriously?!
This is about food! Real Food! Raided...arrested...charged...confiscated...destroyed...! Food and the people providing it! Food made available to a public that wants to consume it! That knowingly chooses to buy and consume it! This is criminal activity in our country?! Seriously? You have got to be kidding! This is the best use of our society's resources (time and taxpayer money)? Arresting and prosecuting organic farmers and food sellers? Wasting resources in a continued attempt to outlaw a simple, pure, natural food?! How is this anything other than lunacy?
We have allowed our government, which was to be of the people, by the people, to grow into a beast that believes it has the right to control everything we do, including what we eat. The simplest thing like choosing Real Food is now a battleground, complete with a criminal trial. Among a long list of other offenses, the FDA and the CDC constantly bombard the public with manipulative messages that raw milk is dangerous...we must save you from yourselves...it could kill you! (*We will look more closely at the basis of these claims in my next post.) These taxpayer-funded agencies (and others) have become dictators. The FDA has actually said that Americans have no right to any particular food, nor the right to physical health! Seriously?! Don't take my word for it...read the brief for yourself. The behaviour and policies of the FDA are egregiously offensive and fundamentally wrong.
First of all, we do not need to be saved from ourselves...we have every right, endowed to us by our Creator and affirmed by natural law, to make our own decisions, especially regarding what food we eat. We have become a culture so accustomed to being controlled by nanny government agencies that we have forgotten what liberty is. And now that we are here, will we willingly remain? Where is our American revolutionary spirit? Our love for independence? We need to go back and read our nation's founding documents.
Secondly, even if, through improper farming/milking practices, raw milk were to have a negative impact on a few individuals, that in no way comes close to the despicable damage, illness and death being caused by the industrial franken-foods and pharma drugs that are regularly pushed on American consumers. Where are the raids on the processed food aisles of American grocery stores and their pharmacies?! Why is the FDA not confiscating and destroying palettes of corn-syrup-ladened, adulterated, modified, fake food...the stuff that is causing millions of Americans to suffer with chronic illness and early death?! Regulatory agencies certainly are not inhibiting people's freedom to stuff themselves full of soda, alcohol, twinkies, corn chips, cigarettes and psychotropics.
If the free market were allowed to regulate itself and consumers continued to become educated about how Real Food needs to be produced (ie: don't drink raw milk from grain-fed, confined cows; and make sure you know your local farmer and insist he use sanitary milking conditions or he loses your business), we would have a plethora of safe Real Food available to all the people who desired it.
Our government allows and encourages Americans to poison themselves regularly with "regulation-approved" foods (I use the term loosely) and drugs. Why the blatant attempt to remove Real Food from our spectrum of choices? Various theories have been postulated, the answer is undoubtedly multifaceted. One factor I believe fundamental to the discussion is the potential loss of profit to the commercial dairy industry. As more Americans become independently educated about Real Food and responsible farming practices, they will begin to expose the dirty dairy industry for what it is...and eschew its products. The desire to keep consumers in the dark and protect their ability to irresponsibly, inhumanely and unhealthily produce food is the likeliest reason that industrial ag-friendly lawmakers have introduced bills to make it illegal to photograph farms.
This is out of control. The expenditure of taxpayer resources to attack Real Food and its producers/sellers...the absolute abuse of power...when there are actually real criminals at foot, perpetrating real crimes against humanity every day...it defies reason. Where was the FDA when Vioxx was killing thousands of Americans?!
In another gestapo move, the FDA in late May raided an Oregon warehouse and confiscated inflatable birth pools...the kind that many of us have used to enjoy the numerous benefits of home waterbirth. And it gets worse. The FDA actually stated that pregnancy is an illness and that birth tubs are an illegal medical device. Seriously?! What's next? Confiscating and destroying all the blow-up kiddie pools at Target? Outlawing pregnancy altogether? Oh, wait...that would damage the profitable medicalized birth industry. Rather, let's just continue to erode freedom of birth choice and force-funnel all women into the technocratic factory birth system. Make no mistake my friends, this is a war; this latest FDA lunacy is only one battle.
[Ladies, pregnancy is NOT an illness...normal birth is NOT dangerous...you are not a broken machine requiring modern technology and regulation to save you and your baby from yourself. The rare exceptions to normal pregnancy/birth are no reason to create an illegitimate birth climate that views this natural and beautiful process as something to be feared and medically managed. No government agency, nor doctor has the right to tell you how to birth ... to restrict your freedom of choice in how you bring your children into this world. Nor should we continue to allow the industry to perpetrate fraud upon women, convincing us that there is no other way but the industry's way.]
These agency actions against food and birth choices cut to the core of a civil and human liberties battle that should enrage us all. Why, as a culture, have we chosen to acquiesce to such dictatorial treatment by governmental agencies? These people work for us! But this is the America in which we all now live. And I ask again, why are we allowing this?
Lest we believe that we need all these "protections" and that we must inherently trust these agents of control, we should remind ourselves that control is exerted more often through fear-mongering than through honest examination and revelation of fact. (*More on this in my next post.)
Some final food for thought (yes, yes...pun intended): If the FDA is truly concerned for the welfare of Americans and desires to catch the bad guys, perhaps it should turn its gaze inward.
I will leave you with these cogitations for today...please, share and discuss amongst yourselves.
For further reading:
The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements
Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
The Untold Story of Milk
Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First
Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
Web links:
Real Food Media
Organic Pastures Raw Grass-fed Dairy
Eat Wild
Real Milk
Raw Milk Facts
Waterbirth Int'l
Today we are going to look at a couple examples of how our government regulatory agencies are crossing the line and continuing to erode our liberties not only as Americans, but as human beings. For those of you who read Real Food blogs, the first item will not be news. But I believe it important to broadly disseminate the truth about the Real Food culture war so that more Americans can be spurred to thought and action.
I have no intention of re-inventing the wheel here, so I will link to the articles that have already described the recent outrageous behaviour of our government agencies. Please read and pass along....
 |
| "You're under arrest!" |
This is about food! Real Food! Raided...arrested...charged...confiscated...destroyed...! Food and the people providing it! Food made available to a public that wants to consume it! That knowingly chooses to buy and consume it! This is criminal activity in our country?! Seriously? You have got to be kidding! This is the best use of our society's resources (time and taxpayer money)? Arresting and prosecuting organic farmers and food sellers? Wasting resources in a continued attempt to outlaw a simple, pure, natural food?! How is this anything other than lunacy?
We have allowed our government, which was to be of the people, by the people, to grow into a beast that believes it has the right to control everything we do, including what we eat. The simplest thing like choosing Real Food is now a battleground, complete with a criminal trial. Among a long list of other offenses, the FDA and the CDC constantly bombard the public with manipulative messages that raw milk is dangerous...we must save you from yourselves...it could kill you! (*We will look more closely at the basis of these claims in my next post.) These taxpayer-funded agencies (and others) have become dictators. The FDA has actually said that Americans have no right to any particular food, nor the right to physical health! Seriously?! Don't take my word for it...read the brief for yourself. The behaviour and policies of the FDA are egregiously offensive and fundamentally wrong.
 |
| Grass-fed organic raw milk |
Secondly, even if, through improper farming/milking practices, raw milk were to have a negative impact on a few individuals, that in no way comes close to the despicable damage, illness and death being caused by the industrial franken-foods and pharma drugs that are regularly pushed on American consumers. Where are the raids on the processed food aisles of American grocery stores and their pharmacies?! Why is the FDA not confiscating and destroying palettes of corn-syrup-ladened, adulterated, modified, fake food...the stuff that is causing millions of Americans to suffer with chronic illness and early death?! Regulatory agencies certainly are not inhibiting people's freedom to stuff themselves full of soda, alcohol, twinkies, corn chips, cigarettes and psychotropics.
If the free market were allowed to regulate itself and consumers continued to become educated about how Real Food needs to be produced (ie: don't drink raw milk from grain-fed, confined cows; and make sure you know your local farmer and insist he use sanitary milking conditions or he loses your business), we would have a plethora of safe Real Food available to all the people who desired it.
Our government allows and encourages Americans to poison themselves regularly with "regulation-approved" foods (I use the term loosely) and drugs. Why the blatant attempt to remove Real Food from our spectrum of choices? Various theories have been postulated, the answer is undoubtedly multifaceted. One factor I believe fundamental to the discussion is the potential loss of profit to the commercial dairy industry. As more Americans become independently educated about Real Food and responsible farming practices, they will begin to expose the dirty dairy industry for what it is...and eschew its products. The desire to keep consumers in the dark and protect their ability to irresponsibly, inhumanely and unhealthily produce food is the likeliest reason that industrial ag-friendly lawmakers have introduced bills to make it illegal to photograph farms.
This is out of control. The expenditure of taxpayer resources to attack Real Food and its producers/sellers...the absolute abuse of power...when there are actually real criminals at foot, perpetrating real crimes against humanity every day...it defies reason. Where was the FDA when Vioxx was killing thousands of Americans?!
 |
| My first birth tub (Target kiddie pool) |
 |
| Second birth tub, a la waterbirth.org |
These agency actions against food and birth choices cut to the core of a civil and human liberties battle that should enrage us all. Why, as a culture, have we chosen to acquiesce to such dictatorial treatment by governmental agencies? These people work for us! But this is the America in which we all now live. And I ask again, why are we allowing this?
Lest we believe that we need all these "protections" and that we must inherently trust these agents of control, we should remind ourselves that control is exerted more often through fear-mongering than through honest examination and revelation of fact. (*More on this in my next post.)
Some final food for thought (yes, yes...pun intended): If the FDA is truly concerned for the welfare of Americans and desires to catch the bad guys, perhaps it should turn its gaze inward.
I will leave you with these cogitations for today...please, share and discuss amongst yourselves.
For further reading:
The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements
Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
The Untold Story of Milk
Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First
Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
Web links:
Real Food Media
Organic Pastures Raw Grass-fed Dairy
Eat Wild
Real Milk
Raw Milk Facts
Waterbirth Int'l