CODEX ALIMENTARIUS AND THE IDIOCRACY

by Scott Tips, JD
September 14, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

Three years ago a film came out of Hollywood that was conceptually great even if the execution was fatally flawed. Called Idiocracy, this comedy follows the mishaps of a character named Joe Bowers who is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but who, through a government hibernation experiment gone wrong, awakens to a society in the year 2505 that has become so stupid because of mass commercialism that Joe shines as a genius in comparison. After a predictable series of mishaps, the point is clear: We are on the wrong track in pushing dumbed-down, ‘me too’ concepts and products. Society will only worsen, not improve.

Organic vs. Artificial

It is a lesson that modern-day fighters for individual liberty learned decades ago. In ensuring and protecting freedom for the individual, we create a better society. On a pragmatic level, individual liberty is a concept that sees the health and happiness of the parts as leading to the health of the whole – not the reverse. Put another way, individual liberty is organic – when not blocked artificially, it flows naturally and creates healthy relationships in an ever-expanding web of mutually-beneficial interactions among people.

On the other hand, much of today’s political and economic structure is not organic but artificial. It comes from the Top down, not the bottom up. It does not flow naturally, easily, and quickly but with artificial constraints that are marked by dissension, delays, and waste. It is, by nature, coercive. ‘You do what we say because you have to and at the ultimate point of a gun. You do not do it voluntarily.’

With this in mind, we can see that the larger structures being created or expanded in the 21st Century are not geared to preserving or even considering individual freedom. Rather, they are all about mass uniformity and commercialism in their worst forms. Whether it is the European Union or the still-in-utero North American Union, their object is the same: stifling individualism in favour of a collectivistic uniformity. Yes, of course, lip service will be paid to the individual with such hollow slogans as ‘Land of the Free, Home of the Brave’; but it is still the Whole consuming the Parts. It is still artificial, stiff, and unnatural.

Codex Alimentarius

For those readers not familiar with the Codex Alimentarius Commission, it is just one more of these mass-uniformity structures. Originally created in 1962 by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization with the noblest of stated intentions – that is, to protect consumer food health and eliminate barriers to international food trade – the Codex Alimentarius Commission has been engaged in developing food standards and guidelines that will be imposed from the Top down. Captured by interests antithetical to health freedom, Codex is now well on the path to promulgating food rules that will lead to ‘dumbed-down’ health – a kind of health Idiocracy – for individuals throughout the World.

That is precisely why the National Health Federation (NHF), an international nonprofit consumer health-freedom organization, has been sending me to these Codex committee meetings every year for ten years in a row now. Having obtained official Codex observer status, the NHF is able to attend and speak out at these meetings. It is also able to submit, and has submitted, written arguments in favor of health-freedom positions at many of these meetings. As the only health-freedom organization accredited by Codex, NHF has almost always been the lone voice striving to eliminate oppressive standards and guidelines while enhancing consumer freedom of choice. The other delegates and organizations at these meetings are basically FDA-style bureaucrats and trade organizations with their own special commercial interests and agendas.

In particular, NHF has opposed the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplement Guidelines that were adopted in framework form in 2004-2005, and that will limit access to healthy dietary supplements as well as ‘dumb down’ their potencies to non-beneficial levels. These maximum upper permitted limits have not yet been set. However, if the Germans, Danes and others have their way, then ridiculously-low limits will be imposed that will ensure that supplements pose no competition with their pharmaceutical industry. For example, the German Institute (BfR) that has conducted ‘research’ into this area has determined that niacin is dangerous to consumers at levels higher than 17 milligrams per capsule! This is the madness that they would impose upon the rest of us as they die from their drug-and-sausage-induced heart attacks. That is a party we have no intention of joining!

In another area, ironically enough, the EU and NHF have worked together at the Codex Committee on Food Labelling meetings to see that genetically-modified foods are labeled as such for the consumer. In this case, the North Americans, joined by the Argentineans, Australians, and New Zealanders, are the bad actors, contending, as the American delegate has said, that “the consumer is too ignorant to understand GM-labelled foods.” So far, this battle has been a draw but NHF has been aggressively vocal at each of these meetings arguing for the right of the consumer to know what he or she is eating.

Codex guidelines and standards cover many more subjects than those just mentioned. Ranging from oils and food additives to pesticides and natural mineral waters, Codex is involved. And while these standards are ostensibly to be applied to international trade, the Codex Strategic Plan specifically states – and almost all countries agree – that they will be applied domestically as well. It is just a matter of time, they say.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

In the European Union, which began innocently enough as nothing more than a Customs Union, decisions – important decisions – are increasingly made by the European Commission in Brussels. Each year, fewer and fewer decisions are being made in Dublin or London or Paris or Madrid. The natural tendency of governments and their institutions to grow over time is asserting itself, inexorably, like the laws of gravity and space. Power is being sucked in to the Center. It is being increasingly centralized.

And therein lies the major problem, for the more that you distance the power wielders from those over whom they exercise that power, the more corrupt and arrogant they will become and behave. It is ultimately about accountability, and you cannot have true accountability when the rulers are not immediately and directly 

accountable to the citizens.

The problem with the latest attempt to accumulate even more power in the hands of the EU Superstate, through the Lisbon Treaty, is that the rulers and the ruled will become even more distant from one another than they already are! Centralization of power is the bane of freedom. As rulers become less accountable to their subjects – or citizens – they will become more corrupt and more likely to do harm.

But as unlikely as it may seem now, there is another, more important reason to shun centralization: Increased concentration of power attracts sociopaths to it like flames attract moths. Such power in one place is irresistible to those who crave it. This is hard for the average decent person to comprehend, but sociopaths do exist and they do gravitate towards power. A more powerful Brussels will be an even stronger magnet for the future power-mongers of the World. Do we really need to invite another Hitler or Stalin to rain ruin down upon us?

The Banality of Centralization

While some might scoff at a future EU dictator in the same way that the Germans scoffed at a Nazi Germany in the 1920s, even the scoffers must accept the very real risk – I would say certainty – that a more powerful and centralized European Union will result in the banality of life – its ‘dumbing down’ as political, economic, and social life is forced into an artificial, bureaucratically-crafted mold of European uniformity. 

This is already taking place. The heavy hand of distant bureaucrats is felt throughout the EU’s member states over the littlest of details – from weights and measures to employee relations to vitamin and mineral food supplements. Think of any aspect of your life in the European Union and the EU Superstate is involved at some level. Again, distant bureaucrats making important decisions about your life.

Codex and the EU

This, too, is where the worlds of the EU and Codex intersect. Unknown to the average citizen, the Codex Commission and Committees are trundling along, each year, making rule after rule that its member countries, the EU included, are expected to adopt – both in international trade and domestic trade. There are treaties and agreements that exist right now that commit the member states to adopting these Codex ‘guidelines.’ These include, but are not limited to, the Technical Barriers to Trade and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreements, and the EU is a signatory to both of these.

At Codex meetings, the EU representative has been pushing his narrow view that consumers must be protected from vitamin and mineral food supplements. They are too strong in potency and there are too many ‘unproven’ ones, he claims, so they must be ‘dumbed down’ to a level that will be of no benefit to anyone except to the pharmaceutical companies whose profits are protected by the elimination of competition. The EU representative at the Codex Committee dealing with this issue has immense influence; and I have even seen him giving instructions to the Committee Chairman right in front of the other delegates during the meeting. That is how bold it has become!

So the EU Superstate – claiming all the while that it of course has the best interests of the consumers in mind – is pushing reduced potency and variety of supplements within the EU and internationally through Codex. Within the EU, Ireland, Britain, Sweden, and the Netherlands (being the most liberal countries, permitting the sale of a wider variety and higher potency of supplements) will be the first to fall (at the end of this year through EU Food Supplements Directive – not because of Codex as some misinformed persons will tell you), to be followed later at some as-yet-to-be-determined date by global Codex rules. The United States and Canada, represented as they are by food bureaucrats of their own, are happy enough to be along for the ride.

Unless resisted successfully, the end result will be EU markets full of foods that are less healthy without the availability of food supplements to bridge the gap. The Idiocracy will have arrived – literally – as the general population is starved of real nutrition for their brains and bodies. A compliant, non-rebellious citizenry, what more could our distant Rulers ask for?

© 2009 - Scott Tips - All Rights Reserved

Scott Tips received his Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1976, studied at the Sorbonne (Paris I) from 1976-1977, and obtained his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 1980, where he was the Managing Editor of the California Law Review. A California-licensed attorney, he has specialized in food-and-drug law and trademark law, but also engages in business litigation, general business law, and nonprofit organizations, with an international clientele.

Since 1989, Mr. Tips has been the General Counsel for the National Health Federation, the World’s oldest health-freedom organization for consumers, and is now its president. He also writes a regular column for NewsWithViews.com and Whole Foods Magazine called Legal Tips, a column he started in 1984. Currently, Mr. Tips is occupying much of his time with health-freedom issues involving the Codex Alimentarius Commission and its and other attempts to limit individual freedom of choice in health matters.

To understand better the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the global food standards and guidelines that it is creating, you must read Codex Alimentarius – Global Food Imperialism. This book is a collection of articles by those few health-freedom activists with first-hand knowledge of Codex and the dangers that it poses to our health and health freedom. Compiled by Scott Tips, this easy-to-read book can be purchased here.

Website: National Health Federation

E-Mail: sct@thenhf.com

http://www.newswithviews.com/Tips/scott101.htm

Farmer "Soul-Killing" HR2749 "Food Safety" Bill

"These definitions and restrictions run from mind-bending (even for a retired lawyer) to soul-killing." - Steve Bemis

Friends Who Eat - It's Fight Back Friday!

The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense is mounting a vigorous campaign to STOP HR2749, proposed Food Safety Legislation on Congress Fast-Track. Provisions in the Bill are Alarming.

What we want instead, is deregulation of small farmers.

Overregulation, Overreaching and Overlapping regulations already drive up the prices of local foods. Farmers are spending more money and more time behind a desk to comply with local, state and federal agencies - Ag Departments & Health Departments.

You saw what over regulation did to staffing and costs at your doctor's offices. Imagine Farmer's Needing Office Managers, Food Safety Experts, Risk Managers and HACCP Food Technicians. You get the picture? It adds up to more food cost for you for local foods. The corporate food system pay the same, but they can leverage the costs over hundreds of thousands of products.

Did you wonder why you pay more for local food sometimes? Our small farmers are made to pay the same permits, fees & fines as the large agribusiness. And, it's about to get worse - much worse. The fees & fines aren't scalable. Nor, are they fair. The food recalls are NOT coming from small farmers.

Helping is Kim Hartke-Guardian Angel of the Fund, Farmers & Food Read her Blog

And Steve Steve Bemis Read his Guest Blog Here and More

Sign & Pass This Petition Around

Join Stop! HR2749Facebook

Follow It on Twitter - CathyAtTheFund

Feed the Fund - Join, Renew or Donate

http://saveafarm.blogspot.com/2009/07/farmer-soul-killing-hr2749-food-safety.html

Action Alert: The Gestapo Food Act, H.R. 2749, Must Be Stopped

TAKE ACTION HERE

Here we have yet another phony food safety bill, which does NOTHING but grant the FDA massive new police powers without actual policy oversight. And it would do NOTHING to solve the actual problem, the stinking cesspools which call themselves "modern" factory farms, the SOLE source of whatever filth there is in our food supply. We don't need burdensome new tracing regimes to drive small farmers out of business, we already know exactly where the problem is.

H.R. 2749 [text of bill] would give some FDA administrator (read self-serving corporate lobbyist) the power to dictate what farming practices must and must not be used nationwide (read enforced GMOs, growth hormones, and weird chemicals in our food). How can Congress make sane policy without identifying the specific problem and its source before empowering 10 year criminal sentences and $100,000 fines? It can't. But only if we stop them from doing it, by speaking out now.

The one click form below will send your personal message to all your government representatives selected below, with the subject "Reject HR 2749 and Clean Up Factory Farms Instead." At the same time you can send your personal comments only as a letter to the editor of your nearest local daily newspaper if you like.

http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum996.php

Food rationing a possibility unless consumers cut back on 'water footprint'...WTF??

Here we go...the global robber barons are striking while the iron is hot! And you can be sure that the same warnings will hit the shores of the U.S. very soon...who the f*ck do they think they are...God? You can bet they won't be rationing their food and water!!!! Only the peasants must fall in line...

Households face the prospect of rationing unless they stop rampant consumption of dairy products, meat and soft drinks, according to a senior Government food adviser, who has warned about Britain's "water footprint".

By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 11:41AM GMT 21 Mar 2009

Prof Tim Lang said people needed to wake up to how much water farmers and food factories use in producing staple goods, particularly meat, coffee and milk, saying the threat to Britain's food chain from its water footprint is just as great as its carbon footprint.

A return to rationing, though "almost unthinkable" in peace time, cannot be ruled out, he warns. While such direct Government intervention would be a very last resort, indirect "editing" of people's diets by supermarkets and central Government is essential, he said.

Prof Lang, speaking to The Daily Telegraph on the publication of his latest book 'Food Policy', is mid-way through a project to ascertain what constitutes the perfect "sustainable diet".

His team at City University London is trying to come up with a system to help consumers navigate the minefield of shopping for food that is nutritious, ethical and sustainable.

He is aiming to definitively ascertain whether, for example, a Fair Trade banana from Costa Rica is as "sustainable" as a lamb shank from Wales, or a high-fat ready meal.

Prof Lang, who coined the term "food miles" more than a decade ago, now believes that overuse of water is the biggest threat facing Britain's food chain.

"Huge amounts of water is being used as irrigation or fed directly to animals. It is a nightmare. Water stress is huge across huge swathes of the globe.

"We think that we are liberally supplied by God's water. But that's not true."

According to the World Wide Fund, the production of a simple pint of milk uses up more than 550 litres (968 pints) of water – the equivalent of running six full baths.

A cut of coffee uses up 140 litres (246 pints), while a hamburger uses an astonishing 1,800 (3,168).

These figures take into account the amount of water used from the start to the end of the food chain, including the irrigation on the farm, the processing of the food, such as washing the coffee beans, and the cooking of the product. Meat uses so much because of the water needed to irrigate the crops that end up as animal feed.

"We cannot carry on consuming the same amount of meat and dairy that we do currently. We are convinced about that now. It is absolutely madness."

Prof Lang backs a call from Australian academics who have called for people to eat no more than 90g (3.17oz) of meat a day – nearly half the current level of 170g that the average British adult consumes.

The UK has become the sixth largest net importer of water in the world, the environment group WWF estimates, with every consumer indirectly responsible for the use of thousands of litres a day. Only a third of the UK's total water use comes from its own resources; the rest depends on the water systems of other countries, some of which are already facing serious shortages.

While rationing, as experienced during and after the Second World War, is very unlikely, Prof Lang says supermarkets and the Government will need to "choice edit", the products on sale to reduce shoppers water footprint.

"Don't think it doesn't already go on. It is a myth that consumers have free choice," he said, pointing out that food companies frequently change the formula of food to cut out salt or additives – under pressure from campaigners or legislation.

While coffee, African-grown vegetables, milk and meat all use up vast quantities of water, Prof Lang points out that some products are far more "sustainable", including tea, home-grown apples, porridge and British seafood, such as mussels and oysters.

"I have porridge every morning," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenerliving/5023730/Food-rationing-a-possibility-unless-consumers-cut-back-on-water-footprint.html

Also read:

London imposes de-facto 9PM curfew on under-16s

ACTION ALERT: BEWARE THE FOOD POLICE!

HR 875/S425 WOULD NATIONALIZE FARMING, DESTROY ORGANICS, ATTACK YOUR PRIVATE GARDEN!

The New Administration is pushing Farm Control that will drive Organic Farms out of Business: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXNJNjYBvw

Buried in the bills are fine print that will force farmers to buy and use pesticides and to comply with severely onerous red tape (ostensibly to "protect consumers") or be driven out of business by gigantic fines.

It is "claimed" and being presented to establish a "Food Safety Administration" with in the Department of Health and Human Services to "protect" the public from food born illnesses... but as usual, nothing that happens in DC is actually the way it seems on the surface- its all smoke and mirrors- all LIES!!!

Congresswoman Rosa De Lauro (D-CT) deserves burial by phone call, fax, email and irate personal visits for sponsoring the slimiest piece of legislation I've seen in a very long time: HR 875 The (So Called) Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-875

This bill aleady has 31 cosponsors who most likely never read anything more than the PREAMBLE to the bill which seems reasonable enough, but as usual, the DEVIL is in the DETAILS. Peter Defazio (D-OR) is even cosponsoring this. He needs to REMOVE HIS NAME, and I think he will once he realizes whats actually in this bill. He is normally on our side against huge corporate powers like Monsanto, but in this case he's clearly making a mistake.

Whats driving this despicable P.O.S. was the recent contaminated Peanut Plant in Georgia http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,497425,00.html

As usual, Monsanto's lobbyists are up to no good, however, and they've stuck language into this puppy that needs to be yanked outa there PRONTO- and we're all going to have to do some work to make that happen!

If we don't, you can say goodbye to all that nice organic produce that you buy at your health food store, in the organics section of your supermarket, from farmers markets, and you can even expect to have the Fedstapo show up on your DOORSTEP to FINE you for growing a garden in your own YARD- THAT is how overly broad the bill language in this thing is!

Check it out: Full Text: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:h875:

HERE IS WHATS SPECIFICALLY WRONG AND WHAT YOU CAN DO:

This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor.  One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it.  As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying.  Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation.  Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few.

I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers.  This legislation is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property siezed.   It will effect anyone who produces food even if they do not sell but only consume it.  It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods. 

If people choose to farm without industry standards such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers they will be subject to a vareity of harassment from this completely new agency that has never before existed.  That's right, a whole new government agency is being created just to police food, for our own protection of course. 

DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, READ THIS LEGISLATION FOR YOURSELF.

The more people who read this legislation the more insight we are going to get and be able to share. 

Post your observations and insights below. 

Urge your members to read this legislation and to oppose the passage of this legislation.

Pay special attention to:

Section 3 which is the definitions portion of the bill-read in it's entirety.
Section 103, 206 and 207- read in its entirety.

Red flags I found and I am sure that there are more:

Legally binds state agriculture depts to enforcing federal guidelines effectively taking away the States’ power to do anything other than being food police for the federal dept.

Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn't actually use the word organic.

Affects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.

Affects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.

Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal.  There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.   

Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?

Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more

Section 207 requires that the State's agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the State’s power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.

There are many more but by the time I got this far in the legislation I was so alarmed that I wanted to bring someone's attention to it

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s425:

During times of Stalin’s regime, the nationalization of farming methods took place. This enabled his administration to gain control over the food supply. He used food rations to control the population.

Last word. Legislate religion, and enforce gag orders on ministers, controlling what can and can't be said in the pulpit, instituting regulations forcing people to rely fully on the government, control the format of money (cash, plastic or digital), seeds and food.

I haven't read any of the Senate's version of the bill as I have been pouring through the House's version. Here is the link and I hope some of you can take a look and post your observations and insights below.

S 425 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s425: 

Theres also a chance that as this bill moves through Congressman Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee, he could use it as a vehicle for attacking the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 which defends our access to dietary supplements. Waxman is DSHEA's biggest opponent in Congress and he's never had more power than he has now. IAHF is especially monitoring this aspect of the bill, but the rest is very bad as it is!

Things you can do:

Contact your members at 202-224-3121 (Capital Switchboard) and ask them to oppose HR 875 and S 425. While you are at it ask them if they personally have read the legislation and what their position is? If they have not read the legislation ask them to read it and politely let them know that just because other representitives are not reading the legislation and voting on it does not mean they can do the same  

Get in touch with local farmers and food producers by attending a local farmers market and asking them how you can understand further the implications that this will have on them

Attend a local WAPF meeting, as a good start to learning about what is going on in farming and local & state initiatives .  The website is http://www.westonaprice.org/localchapters/index.html

Check out the Farmers Legal Defense Fund at http://www.ftcldf.org/index.html

Find out who sits on your State’s agriculture and farming committee and contact them with your concerns

Continue to contact your elected officials and let them know your position on legislation and why

Get active at the local and State levels as this is the quickest way to initiate change.

I will be out of my office for a week, leaving Wednesday to work with a client in California, but I sure would appreciate if you forwarded this widely! Anyone can be on the IAHF list by signing up at www.iahf.com

Donations make it possible for me to do this Health Freedom work. If you appreciate this timely heads up, please consider sending a donation to IAHF via paypal at http://www.iahf.com/index1.html or by sending a check or money order to IAHF 556 Boundary Bay Rd., Point Roberts WA 98281 USA

For Health Freedom, John C. Hammell, President International Advocates for Health Freedom 556 Boundary Bay Road Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA http://www.iahf.com jham@iahf.com 800-333-2553 N.America 360-945-0352 World

'Food Safety' Legislation Written by Big Agrico to Take Over Food Suppy

Will outlaw organic farmers markets, CSAs, and roadside produce stands, etc.

The "food safety" bills in Congress were written by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.  All are associated with the opposite of food safety.  What is this all about then?

In the simplest terms, organic food and a rebirth of farming were winning.  Not in absolute numbers but in a deep and growing shift by the public toward understanding the connection between their food and their health, between good food and true social pleasures, between their own involvement in food and the improvement in their lives in general, between local food and a burgeoning local economy.

Slow Food was right - limit your food to what comes from your region and from real farmers, and slow down to cook it and linger over it with friends and family, and the world begins to change for the better.  

And as we face an unprecedented economic crisis, and it is hard to be sure what has value, one thing that always does is food.  Which is why the corporations are after absolute control over it.  But what obstacles to a complete lock on food do they face?  All the people in this country who are "banking" on organic farming and urban gardens and most of all, everyone's deepening pleasure in and increasing involvement with everything about food.

Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.

Those are things we not only all want, but things we are actively getting involved in, and things we very much need.  And where they are truly good, they are growing.

The international financial corporations which have wreaked havoc around the world with astounding nonsensical "solutions" that are destructive of everyone but them, are brothers to the international agribusiness giants (Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.) which are just as aggressively after their own form of "taking."  Just seeds, animals, water, land.

And freedom. 

Because human beings are by in large good and by in large incredibly resilient and clever, and left to their own devices - that is, free - they would handle this gargantuan financial stupidity the corporations brought us with NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and all other globalized schemes (which they hope to eventually top off with CODEX).  How?  By being productive in real ways and locally.  And farming is the solid ground under that.  Farmers produce something of real value (something we used to take for granted), and from that base, businesses grow up.  Local markets, local food processors, local seed companies, local tool and supply companies, local stores ... and an economy based on reality and something truly good for us, too, begins to grow.

So, look again at what has been exciting us - Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands. - and realize that they are not only wonderfully healthy but fun and naturally community building.  And more, they are a real economy and deeply democratic - and just at a time we need something that works economically, that supports our democratic rebirth, and that protects food itself and our easy access to it.

And it is all those things that threaten the corporations ... which is why we now have these massive "fake food safety" bills in Congress.  Everything is going under thanks to these fools, and they wish to be there like vultures to make sure that every drop of blood that can be sucked out of our resources and us, is theirs.  To wit, they must get rid of such good and innocent things and yet truly powerful things as:

Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.

And how will those who contaminate our country's food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that?  Why, by setting standards for "food safety" that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage.  Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up.  That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers.  Imagine having the government and corporations deciding every single thing you can do and must do in your kitchen and backing that up with the threat of 10 years in prison for screwing up - though you have never made anyone sick, and those corporations have.  Imagine being surveilled 24 hours a day by GPS tracking devices that feed into ... a corporate data bank, one they have now moved out of the country so no one here can have legal access to see what is in it.

Imagine the devil himself - or a whole boardrooms of them, dressed in suits - defining the only safe and healthy food in this country as dangerous and burdening hard working farmers with more work then anyone could bear, while his own, their own, food is so dangerous at this point that in the last 10 years alone, diabetes has gone up 90%.

And how did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country?  Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they cause themselves. 

How it works:  Tyson helps Bill Clinton get into office.  Bill Clinton immediately and significantly lowers contamination standards for poultry as a thank you.  And it is such contaminated waste from transnational poultry factories which is now implicated as the source of bird flu. Then fortunes on made on that fear.  And then poultry industry uses the crisis they created to push out small farmers and take greater control than ever.  Their mantra?  Biodiversity not only be damned but be eliminated.  And get rid of those damn farmers who protect it while we're at it.

The bills would require such a burdensome complexity of rules, inspections, licensing, fees, and penalties for each farmer who wishes to sell locally - a fruit stand, at a farmers market -  no one could manage it.  And THAT is the point.  The whole dirty tricks point.  The whole "be in tight control of everything needed for survival because it'll be worth a fortune" point.

So, if you like farmers markets, local farmers, fresh milk, fresh eggs, vegetables stands, and freedom, let your friends know that it's all on the line right now with those "fake food safety" bills brought to us with well-planned evil and more of it to come, by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.

Slow Food reminds us of just where we need to be (and notice how much would help any local economy):

Forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems;

Developing an "Ark of Taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated;

Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation;

Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products);

Organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada);

Promoting "taste education;"

Educating consumers about the risks of fast food;

Educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms;

Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties;

Developing various political programs to preserve family farms;

Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy;

Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering;

Lobbying against the use of pesticides;

Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners; and

Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces.

But we need to stop these bills first or we are left with no money from the financial bailout and no food from the food stealout.

Send a message to Congress.  

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:

Stop HR 875, HR 814, SR 425, and soon, HR 759

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

Linn Cohen-Cole is a a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

22 years on, Welsh farms still under Chernobyl shadow

Apr 26 2008 by Darren Devine, Western Mail

UP to 359 Welsh farms are still operating under restrictions imposed in the wake of Chernobyl, more than two decades after the Soviet nuclear plant went into meltdown.

The Food Standards Agency Wales revealed the figure before today’s 22nd anniversary of the largest nuclear accident in history.

Upland farms in Wales were caught out by unfortunate circumstances in the wake of the disaster. Heavy rain washed radioactive material from clouds onto fields.

The radiation is absorbed from the soil by plants, which are then eaten by sheep.

For the hundreds of Welsh farmers still living with Chernobyl’s legacy, the restrictions mean their animals are only allowed to enter the food chain after rigorous safety tests.

Vice-president of the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) Glyn Roberts, who works National Trust land at Ysbyty Ifan, near Betws-y-Coed, Conwy, is one of those still grappling with the restrictions.

Mr Roberts has two farms – Dylasau Uchaf spread over 220 acres of hillside and the much- larger Trawnant in the mountains.

The 850-acre Trawnant is subject to the Chernobyl restrictions while his hill farm is exempt.

As a result, if animals are moved between the two habitats, they must be strictly monitored.

In fact, Mr Roberts, 50, needs permission from Assembly Government agriculture officials to switch animals between the two locations. “In September and October, when I bring the sheep down from the mountain to the hill farm, I have to paint a red mark on them,” he said. “When there’s a red mark on the sheep, the Welsh Assembly Government comes to count them and they cannot be used for human consumption.”

Mr Roberts, and all other Welsh farmers subject to the restrictions, have to make a request to Assembly officials if they want painted sheep to enter the food chain.

Only if shown to be safe following radiation testing are the animals declared fit for human consumption. If they are shown to have more 1,000 becquerels per kilogram, they cannot enter the food chain.

A compensation scheme sees them receive £1.30 every time a lamb has to be re-tested. Farmers can opt to do this if the animals are recorded at more than 1,000 becquerels by an initial test.

But Mr Roberts said the £1.30 figure has not changed since the scheme was introduced more than two decades ago. He said one positive aspect of the restrictions is that Welsh lamb has an unparalleled reputation for safety.

The Gomel region of neighbouring Belarus received 70% of the fall-out. No-one knows precisely how many people died after Chernobyl. The Soviet authorities forbade doctors to record the word “radiation” on death certificates. But the World Health Organisation estimates at least 4,000 died of cancer due to the catastrophe.

The Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline organises holidays here for affected youngsters. Ann Sage and her husband Dave, both members, say a trip to Wales can add two years to the life of a child from Belarus.

Mrs Sage, 49, from Bridgend, said: “Just seeing them enjoying life so much while they’re here is so rewarding.”

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/04/26/22-years-on-welsh-farms-still-under-chernobyl-shadow-91466-20822842/

Hey, Americans: Are You Suffering from Pervasive Peanut Butter Avoidance Disorder?

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) While American consumers are running scared over the possibility of tainted peanut butter, it's worth pointing out that the number of people sickened by salmonella (529 at last count) is absolutely dwarfed by the number of people harmed or killed by toxic chemicals that are intentionally put into the food supply.

But that hasn't stopped people from freaking out over peanut butter. They're demonstrating a kind of mania that I've dubbed, "Pervasive Peanut Butter Avoidance Disorder" (PPBAD) as a nod to the disease mongers of modern psychiatry. You can generate your own disease names, too, at: http://www.naturalnews.com/disease-mongering-engine.asp

But is this peanut butter fear really warranted?

How many children die of cancer each year from eating sodium nitrite in hot dogs, bacon and processed meat? Nobody has an exact number, but it's no doubt much larger than 529. Brain cancer and leukemia kill a lot of children, and much of it is caused by chemical food additives. (http://www.naturalnews.com/022288.html)

How many adults suffer neurological impairment and ultimately die from drinking artificial chemical sweeteners? How many people get heart disease and die from eating partially-hydrogenated soybean oil used in margarine, cookies and crackers? How many future adults are going to die early from all the caffeine-spiked energy drinks they're consuming right now?

And for that matter, how many U.S. adults have been killed by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals? That number is at least 100,000 per year (http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm) and may be much higher. At 100,000 deaths per year, over 8,300 Americans are killed every month by Big Pharma's medicines.

In contrast to all that, how many people have been killed by tainted peanut butter?

Eight.

Yep: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Eight. I don't mean to minimize the value of those eight lives, but if we're talking about national public safety, we have to keep the numbers in perspective here. Eight lives versus eight thousand killed every month by pharmaceuticals.

That makes pharmaceuticals 1,000 times more fatal than poisoned peanut butter. And that doesn't even count all the suicides caused by psychiatric medications, most of which never get reported as anything other than suicides (the drugs are usually left out of the explanation of death).

Screaming about peanut butter, but silent about deadly pharmaceuticals

So where's the outcry against deadly pharmaceuticals? Sodium nitrite in processed meats? Aspartame and MSG in beverages and foods?

The silence is disturbing. People are too busy freaking out over peanut butter to get their heads on straight and focus on the real threats to the health of American consumers.

The real threats are the use of dangerous chemicals in foods, drugs and personal care products. Those chemicals are no doubt killing many hundreds of thousands of Americans each year and adding a huge burden to the medical expenditures by the federal government (and state governments, too).

My question to the remaining sane people in America is simply this: If you're worried about the salmonella in the peanut butter, why aren't you worried about the sodium nitrite in the hot dogs?

Or how about the artificial colors in the sports drinks and the hormone residues in meat and milk? What about the mercury used in dental fillings, or the synthetic fluoride chemicals dumped into the public water supply? How about the pharmaceuticals in the water supply, too?

We live in a toxic world, overflowing with cancer-causing chemicals that are routinely promoted to us as being "beneficial." Peanut butter is the least of our problems.

How to control the population: Spread irrational fear

But the public's focus on peanut butter certainly does show one thing: The complete insanity and irrationality of many consumers.

Fear mongering is highly effective at shoving the sheeple towards irrational behavior. It worked in the days following 9/11, it worked for the original bailout money fiasco (the stupid Bush bailout, not the stupid Obama bailout, which is even larger), and now it's working to get Congress to approve a new government bureaucracy: The proposed Food Safety Management Administration (FSMA), a whole new layer of bureaucratic interference with the food supply that's bound to end up doing to foods what the FDA did to nutritional supplements.

America, get your head on straight! If you're afraid of peanut butter, your priorities are completely askew. Yes, your health is being seriously threatened today, but not by peanut butter. Your chance of being killed by tainted peanut butter is even less than being struck by lightning this year.

You can send all that recalled peanut butter to my house, by the way. I'll gladly eat it. Probably 99.999% of all the peanut butter being recalled right now is completely safe. And for the other point-zero-zero-one percent, I'm quite certain that a healthy immune system and the regular use of probiotics will allow me to survive a little salmonella consumption. I've eaten far stranger stuff as a kid in the public school system anyway…

About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming. He's also a successful software entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose technology currently powers the NaturalNews email newsletters. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and pursues hobbies such as Pilates, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org

http://www.naturalnews.com/025585.html

The Whole World Is Rioting as the Economic Crisis Worsens -- Why Aren't We?

"The "slave mentality" is stronger in the U.S. than elsewhere, "in part because no other country on earth has so successfully crushed every internal rebellion."

Slaves in the Caribbean for example rebelled a lot more because their oppressors weren't as good at oppressing as Americans were. America has put down every rebellion, brutally, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Confederate rebellion to the proletarian rebellions, Black Panthers, white militias ... you name it. This creates a powerful slave mentality, a sense that it's pointless to rebel.

Anyone who has witnessed the brutal police riots that have become so common since the infamous "Battle in Seattle" protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999 can tell you there's some merit to the argument."

One must also take into consideration that the U.S. is the most drugged population in the world, drugged by the medical and pharmaceutical industry that most of the population blindly trusts, drugged/poisoned per our water with toxic mind numbing fluorides first used on humans in Nazi, Germany to keep the prisoners docile, poisons in the air we breathe and the food we eat...forced vaccinations. One can't honestly believe that all of those poisons are actually given to us for our protection/health do you??

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted February 3, 2009.

Americans are rightfully angry about the economic decline, but with a few small exceptions, quietly so. Why? It depends on whom you ask.

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion. 

It's not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.

Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.  

For the most part, those living in wealthier countries took little notice. But now, with the global economy crashing down around us, people in even the wealthiest nations are mad as hell and reacting violently to what they view as an inadequate response to their tumbling economies.

The Telegraph (UK) warned last month that protests over governments' handling of the crisis "are widespread and gathering pace," and "may spark a new revolution": 

A depression triggered in America is being played out in Europe with increasing violence, and other forms of social unrest are spreading. In Iceland, a government has fallen. Workers have marched in Zaragoza, as Spanish unemployment heads towards 20 percent. There have been riots and bloodshed in Greece, protests in Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Bulgaria. The police have suppressed public discontent in Russia and will be challenged again at large gatherings this weekend.  

Consider a snapshot of a single week of unrest, courtesy of the Guardian: 

Greece: "There are many wellsprings of the serial protests rolling across Europe. In Athens, it was students and young people who suddenly mobilized to turn parts of the city into no-go areas. They were sick of the lack of jobs and prospects, the failings of the education system and seized with pessimism over their future.

"This week it was the farmers' turn, rolling their tractors out to block the motorways, main road and border crossings across the Balkans to try to obtain better procurement prices for their produce." 

Latvia: "The old Baltic trading city had seen nothing like it since the happy days of kicking out the Russians and overthrowing communism two decades ago. More than 10,000 people converged on the 13th century cathedral to show the Latvian government what they thought of its efforts at containing the economic crisis. The peaceful protest morphed into a late-night rampage as a minority headed for the parliament, battled with riot police and trashed parts of the old city. The following day, there were similar scenes in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital next door."

France: "Burned-out cars, masked youths, smashed shop windows and more than a million striking workers. The scenes from France are familiar, but not so familiar to President Nicolas Sarkozy, confronting the first big wave of industrial unrest of his time in the Elysée Palace.

"France, meanwhile, is moving into recession, and unemployment is going up. The latest jobless figures were to have been released yesterday, but were held back, apparently for fear of inflaming the protests." 

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion. 

It's not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.

Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.  

For the most part, those living in wealthier countries took little notice. But now, with the global economy crashing down around us, people in even the wealthiest nations are mad as hell and reacting violently to what they view as an inadequate response to their tumbling economies.

The Telegraph (UK) warned last month that protests over governments' handling of the crisis "are widespread and gathering pace," and "may spark a new revolution": 

A depression triggered in America is being played out in Europe with increasing violence, and other forms of social unrest are spreading. In Iceland, a government has fallen. Workers have marched in Zaragoza, as Spanish unemployment heads towards 20 percent. There have been riots and bloodshed in Greece, protests in Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Bulgaria. The police have suppressed public discontent in Russia and will be challenged again at large gatherings this weekend.  

Consider a snapshot of a single week of unrest, courtesy of the Guardian: 

Greece: "There are many wellsprings of the serial protests rolling across Europe. In Athens, it was students and young people who suddenly mobilized to turn parts of the city into no-go areas. They were sick of the lack of jobs and prospects, the failings of the education system and seized with pessimism over their future.

"This week it was the farmers' turn, rolling their tractors out to block the motorways, main road and border crossings across the Balkans to try to obtain better procurement prices for their produce." 

Latvia: "The old Baltic trading city had seen nothing like it since the happy days of kicking out the Russians and overthrowing communism two decades ago. More than 10,000 people converged on the 13th century cathedral to show the Latvian government what they thought of its efforts at containing the economic crisis. The peaceful protest morphed into a late-night rampage as a minority headed for the parliament, battled with riot police and trashed parts of the old city. The following day, there were similar scenes in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital nextdoor."

France: "Burned-out cars, masked youths, smashed shop windows and more than a million striking workers. The scenes from France are familiar, but not so familiar to President Nicolas Sarkozy, confronting the first big wave of industrial unrest of his time in the Elysée Palace.

"France, meanwhile, is moving into recession, and unemployment is going up. The latest jobless figures were to have been released yesterday, but were held back, apparently for fear of inflaming the protests."

Iceland: "Proud of its status as one of the world's most developed, most productive and most equal societies, Iceland is in the throes of what is, by its staid standards, a revolution.

"Riot police in Reykjavik, the coolest of capitals. Building bonfires in front of the world's oldest parliament. The yogurt flying at the free market men who have run the country for decades and brought it to its knees." 

Britain (via the Times of London): "Wildcat strikes flared at more than 19 sites across the country in response to claims that British tradesmen were being barred from construction jobs by contractors using cheaper foreign workers." 

Russia (via Al-Jazeera): "Thousands of protesters have rallied across Russia to criticize the government's economic policies and its response to the global financial crisis.

"Russian police forcefully broke up many of the anti-government protests on Saturday, arresting dozens of demonstrators."

At least in Western Europe, cries of "burn the shit down!" are being heard in countries with some of the highest standards of living in the world -- states with adequate social safety nets; countries where all citizens have access to decent health care and heavily subsidized educations. Places where minimum wages are also living wages, and a dignified retirement is in large part guaranteed.  

The far ends of the ideological spectrum appear to be gaining currency as the crisis develops, and people grow increasingly hostile toward the politics of the status quo.

The Financial Times quotes Olivier Besancenot, a young leader of "France's extreme left," promising "to reinvent and re-establish the anti-capitalist project." "We want the established powers to be blown apart," Besancenot said. Europe's far right is gaining momentum, too, using the economy and populist outrage over immigration to gain a legitimacy it hasn't enjoyed in some time. 

Notably absent from the list of countries where the economic crunch is rending the social fabric is the good ole US of A, a state with the greatest level of economic inequality in the wealthy world.

Outside of a few scattered and quickly contained protests, the citizens of the U.S. -- a country born of revolution, but with an elite that's been terrified of that legacy since immediately after its founding -- have been calm, despite opinion polls showing that Americans are more dissatisfied with the direction in which the country has been headed since they began measuring such things.  

It's a baffling disconnect, considering that real wages for all but the top 10 percent of the economic pile haven't increased in 35 years.

It's more bizarre still when you consider that while European governments have handled their own bailouts relatively transparently, the U.S. government has doled out close to $10 trillion in bailouts, loan guarantees and fiscal stimulus -- if there were a million-dollar bill, that would be a stack of 10 million of them -- with a stunning lack of oversight or accountability.

Even the congressional commission charged with overseeing key parts of the banking bailout can't get answers to basic questions like "who's getting what?"

Americans are rightfully angry about that state of affairs, but with a few small exceptions, quietly so. Why? It depends on whom you ask. 

In a 2006 interview with Harper's, Barack Obama shared a subtle, but rather fundamental observation about America's political culture: "Since the founding," he said, "the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary."  If there is to be positive change, Obama has argued, it must be gradual; "brick by brick," as he put it in one of his final campaign speeches.

Mark Ames, author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion -- From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond, argues that Americans have been beaten down to a degree that they're now a pacified population, largely willing to accept any economic outrage its elites impose on them.

In a 2005 interview with AlterNet, Ames said the "slave mentality" is stronger in the U.S. than elsewhere, "in part because no other country on earth has so successfully crushed every internal rebellion."  

Slaves in the Caribbean for example rebelled a lot more because their oppressors weren't as good at oppressing as Americans were. America has put down every rebellion, brutally, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Confederate rebellion to the proletarian rebellions, Black Panthers, white militias ... you name it. This creates a powerful slave mentality, a sense that it's pointless to rebel. 

Anyone who has witnessed the brutal police riots that have become so common since the infamous "Battle in Seattle" protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999 can tell you there's some merit to the argument. 

It's also the case that European societies tend to be more homogenous than the mishmash of tribes we call the United States. Whereas Americans are divided by religion, region, ethnicity, urban-rural tensions and all the other trappings of the "culture wars," the primary split in most European countries is class.

Thomas Frank argued eloquently in What's the Matter With Kansas that those wedge social issues that the American right nurtures with such care obscure the fundamental differences between the rich and poor, the powerful and the disenfranchised.

Indeed, any hint of discussion of economic inequality in the U.S. is shot down with cries of "class warfare" -- exactly what is playing out in the streets of much of the world today. 

As the crisis deepens, as virtually every analyst predicts it will, that may well change. As The Nation's Bill Greider told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, "you can't do this to people year after year -- that is, upturn their lives, take away what they thought they had earned, and so forth and so on, without provoking rather intense political reactions. ... We're just, just beginning to see a few bubbles like that around this country. I don't say we're going to have riots, but I think ... people, out of their own distress and anger, will organize their own politics, and they will make themselves seen and heard around this country."

Stay tuned.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/124836?page=3

The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

by Robert Weissman / February 3rd, 2009

What a year for corporate criminality and malfeasance! As the Multinational Monitor compiled its annual list of the 10 Worst Corporations, it would have been easy to restrict the 2008 awardees to Wall Street firms.

But the rest of the corporate sector was not on good behavior during 2008 either, and didn’t deserve to escape justified scrutiny.

So, in keeping with the tradition of highlighting diverse forms of corporate wrongdoing, the list includes only one financial company out of the 10 worst. Here, presented in alphabetical order, are the 10 Worst Corporations of 2008.

AIG: Money for Nothing

There’s surely no one party responsible for the ongoing global financial crisis. But if you had to pick a single responsible corporation, there’s a very strong case to make for American International Group (AIG), which has already sucked up more than $150 billion in taxpayer support. Through “credit default swaps,” AIG basically collected insurance premiums while making the ridiculous assumption that it would never pay out on a failure — let alone a collapse of the entire market it was insuring. When reality set in, the roof caved in.

Cargill: Food Profiteers

When food prices spiked in late 2007 and through the beginning of 2008, countries and poor consumers found themselves at the mercy of the global market and the giant trading companies that dominate it. As hunger rose and food riots broke out around the world, Cargill saw profits soar, tallying more than $1 billion in the second quarter of 2008 alone.

In a competitive market, a grain-trading middleman would not make super-profits. In fact, rising prices would crimp the middleman’s profit margin. But the global grain trade is not competitive, and the legal rules of the global economy — devised at the behest of Cargill and friends — ensure that poor countries will be dependent on, and at the mercy of, the global grain traders.

Chevron: “We Can’t Let Little Countries Screw Around With Big Companies”

In 2001, Chevron swallowed up Texaco. It was happy to absorb Texaco’s revenue streams. It has been less willing to take responsibility for Texaco’s ecological and human-rights abuses.

In 1993, 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians filed a class-action suit in U.S. courts, alleging that over a 20-year period Texaco had poisoned the land where they live and the waterways on which they rely, allowing billions of gallons of waste to spill and leaving hundreds of waste pits unlined and uncovered. Chevron had the case thrown out of U.S. courts on the grounds that it should be litigated in Ecuador, closer to where the alleged harms occurred. But now the case is going badly for Chevron in Ecuador — Chevron may be liable for more than $7 billion. So, the company is lobbying the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to impose trade sanctions on Ecuador if the Ecuadorian government does not make the case go away.

“We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this — companies that have made big investments around the world,” a Chevron lobbyist said to Newsweek in August. (Chevron subsequently stated that the comments were not approved.)

CNPC: Fueling Violence in Darfur

Sudan has been able to laugh off existing and threatened sanctions for the slaughter it has perpetrated in Darfur because of the huge support it receives from China, channeled above all through the Sudanese relationship with the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC).

“The relationship between CNPC and Sudan is symbiotic,” notes the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights First in a March 2008 report, “Investing in Tragedy.” “Not only is CNPC the largest foreign investor in the Sudanese oil sector, but Sudan is CNPC’s largest market for overseas investment.”

Oil money may have fueled violence in Darfur. “The profitability of Sudan’s oil sector has developed in close chronological step with the violence in Darfur,” notes Human Rights First.

Constellation Energy Group: Nuclear Operators

Although it seems too dangerous, too expensive and too centralized to make sense as an energy source, nuclear power won’t go away, thanks to equipment makers and utilities that find ways to make the public pay and pay.

Constellation Energy Group, the operator of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland — a company recently involved in a startling, partially derailed scheme to price-gouge Maryland consumers — plans to build a new reactor at Calvert Cliffs, potentially the first new reactor built in the United States since the near-meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.

It has lined up to take advantage of U.S. government-guaranteed loans for new nuclear construction, available under the terms of the 2005 Energy Act. The company acknowledges it could not proceed with construction without the government guarantee.

Dole: The Sour Taste of Pineapple

A 1988 land reform effort in the Philippines has proven to be a fraud. Plantation owners helped to draft the law and invented ways to circumvent its alleged purpose. Dole pineapple workers are among those paying the price.

Under the land reform, Dole’s land was divided among its workers and others who had claims on the land prior to the pineapple giant. Workers were then required to form labor cooperatives. However, wealthy landlords maneuvered to gain control of these cooperatives, and then focused more on maximizing profits than providing fair wages and healthy working conditions, according to an October report by Washington, D.C.-based International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF).

Dole has since slashed its regular workforce and replaced them with contract workers from these labor cooperatives. Contract workers are paid under a quota system, and earn about $1.85 a day, according to ILRF.

GE: Creative Accounting

In June, former New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston reported on internal General Electric (GE) documents that appeared to show the company had engaged in a long-running effort to evade taxes in Brazil. In a lengthy report in Tax Notes International, Johnston reported on a GE subsidiary’s scheme to invoice suspiciously high sales volume for lighting equipment in lightly populated Amazon River regions of the country. These sales would avoid the higher value added taxes (VAT) of urban states, where sales would be expected to be greater.

Johnston wrote that the state-level VAT at issue, based on the internal documents he reviewed, appeared to be less than $100 million. But, he speculated, the overall scheme could have involved much more.

Johnston did not identify the source that gave him the internal GE documents, but GE has alleged it was a former company attorney, Adriana Koeck. GE fired Koeck in January 2007 for what it says were “performance reasons.”

Imperial Sugar: 14 Dead

On Feb. 7, 2008, an explosion rocked the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Ga., near Savannah. Days later, when the fire was finally extinguished and search-and-rescue operations completed, the horrible human toll was finally known: 14 dead, dozens badly burned and injured.

As with almost every industrial disaster, it turns out the tragedy was preventable. The cause was accumulated sugar dust, which, like other forms of dust, is highly combustible.

A month after the Port Wentworth explosion, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors investigated another Imperial Sugar plant, in Gramercy, La. They found one-fourth-inch to 2-inch accumulations of dust on electrical wiring and machinery. They found as much as 48inch accumulations on workroom floors.

Imperial Sugar knew of the conditions in its plants. It had in fact taken some measures to address its operations prior to the explosion. The company brought in a new vice president to clean up operations in November 2007, and he took some important measures to improve conditions. But it wasn’t enough. The vice president told a congressional committee that top-level management had told him to tone down his demands for immediate action.

Philip Morris International: Unshackled

The old Philip Morris no longer exists. In March, the company formally divided itself into two separate entities: Philip Morris USA, which remains a part of the parent company Altria, and Philip Morris International. Philip Morris USA sells Marlboro and other cigarettes in the United States. Philip Morris International tramples the rest of the world.

Philip Morris International has already signaled its initial plans to subvert the most important policies to reduce smoking and the death toll from tobacco-related disease (now at 5 million lives a year). The company has announced plans to inflict on the world an array of new products, packages and marketing efforts. These are designed to undermine smoke-free workplace rules, defeat tobacco taxes, segment markets with specially flavored products, offer flavored cigarettes to appeal to youth and overcome marketing restrictions.

Roche: “Saving Lives Is Not Our Business”

The Swiss company Roche makes a range of HIV-related drugs. One of them is enfuvirtide, sold under the brandname Fuzeon. Fuzeon brought in $266 million to Roche in 2007, though sales are declining.

Roche charges $25,000 a year for Fuzeon. It does not offer a discount price for developing countries.

Like most industrialized countries, South Korea maintains a form of price controls. The national health insurance program sets prices for medicines, and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs listed Fuzeon at $18,000 a year. South Korea’s per capita income is roughly half that of the United States. Instead of providing Fuzeon at South Korea’s listed level — and still turning a profit — Roche refuses to make the drug available in South Korea.

South Korean activists report that the head of Roche Korea told them, “We are not in business to save lives, but to make money. Saving lives is not our business.”

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action. Copyright © 2007 Robert Weissman Read other articles by Robert, or visit Robert's website.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/02/the-10-worst-corporations-of-2008/

The Failure Empire: Bob Greene Rakes It In While Oprah Fails

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 by: Byron Richards, Health Freedom Editor

(NaturalNews) The scene is comic: Bob Greene sitting next to Oprah on her TV show, kicking off the New Year, as Oprah tries to explain to her viewing audience why she gained forty pounds – again. Not once did she turn to Greene and say, "Bob, I guess your program is just a bit too hard to follow, something must be wrong with it."

This spectacle first caught my attention in December when Oprah made her weight-gain story national news by featuring her balloon ride to 200 pounds in the January issue of her Oprah magazine. As she talked about her weight problems on her TV show it became obvious that her story coincided with a sales pitch for Bob Greene's new cookbook, which goes along with his Oprah-sponsored diet book. I see from some of the news stories that I am not the only one who thinks this is bizarre. However, it is an interesting case study for future university-level marketing classes in how to market utter failure.

As one of the top clinical nutritionists in the country, the oddities of this story began to perk my interest. After reading through the gibberish in the January Oprah magazine and sitting through my first ever entire Oprah TV show, I went out and bought a copy of Greene's diet book. Within moments of reading the book it was easy to visualize my working title for this article, "Why Bob Greene's Diet Fails Oprah."

Upon further research a new question entered my mind, "Is there anything Bob Greene won't do for money?"

I thought it was peculiar that Oprah was introducing Bob Greene as her long time friend and trainer, while allowing him to portray himself as a nutrition expert. Why wasn't she introducing him in a factual way: "I just want to let all of you know that Bob Greene is part of Oprah, Inc. He doubles as my property manager for my 102 acre estate in Hawaii and together we have purchased a total of six other oceanfront properties nearby (one for a Bob Greene house, one for an Oprah guest house, and four to be left vacant). We have made over ten million dollars on the diet book that has resulted in my dieting failure. And Bob has made millions more promoting McDonalds and other junk food companies on my coattails. In fact, I've personally made Bob Greene a multi-millionaire many times over and I just can't tell you how thrilled I am that I've gained back forty pounds while being an expert in, advocate of, and profiting from his advice."

The New York Times interviewed him just before he and Oprah did their joint promotional webcast on January 12, a webcast that somehow managed an extremely accurate title: "Falling Off the Wagon With Bob Greene." He told the paper, "It doesn't bother me in the least, everyone knows she follows my plan, but when she doesn't, she gains weight, and when she does, it's the only thing that works for her. It's a very positive thing for me and book sales aren't suffering."

Bob, that is not exactly what everyone knows. Oprah's two big weight-loss experiences came on a liquid diet and by starving herself, not from following your diet and reaching an ideal weight. In fact Bob, following your diet is next to impossible – which is why Oprah so easily goes off it – and this simple fact is directly your responsibility and the fault of your diet program. Furthermore, Oprah's following your program has resulted in her having a significant increased risk for breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and early death – nice friend.

Before I explain some of the many flaws in the Bob Greene diet approach, I first must get back to the subject of Oprah, Inc.

Please Don't Super Size Me

I met Bob Greene briefly back in 2004. At the time, I did a popular one-hour segment every Wednesday morning on the local CBS radio station in Minneapolis (WCCO). The host of the program was the local media celebrity, Pat Miles. It was a very popular program as I answered non-stop call-in questions about how to use vitamins to fix your health – while continually pointing out the pitfalls of medications. The listening audience was a bit older, based on the high popularity of the radio station for many decades.

One day the show producer told me that next Wednesday we would be broadcasting from the Mall of America and I would be joined by Oprah's trainer, Bob Greene. I'd never heard of Bob Greene and I didn't know why he was coming – but it wasn't long before I found myself in the middle of a rather surreal experience.

I showed up a few minutes before broadcast time. A typical WCCO crowd was filing in and taking up chairs, getting ready for the program. I asked the producer where Bob Greene was and she pointed to the children's play area/stage about 200 yards away. There was quite a crowd of little children and their mothers – making a lot of noise.

As show time approached this crowd started moving towards the broadcast stage. In the front of the pack was Bob Greene, playing the role of the Pied Piper. And then my brain went almost numb – flanking him was none other than Ronald McDonald – dressed to the hilt.

I had no idea what was going on. The producer introduced me to Bob Greene and we sat down next to each other on stage. We had a few minutes so I attempted some shop talk. I mentioned how interesting all the new science on uncoupling proteins was, and that it was a huge breakthrough for exercise and weight loss (which I thought was his expertise). His eyes glossed over and he ignored my comment entirely, making an unrelated comment about the day. I thought to myself, "A fitness expert that doesn't keep up with his own subject." (Note: Uncoupling proteins are activated in muscle with a combination of sustained aerobics, healthy leptin function, and nutrients like Q10 – resulting in disposal of calories as heat without any adverse cardio effects.)

The program began and Bob launched into his promotion of McDonalds and how he was going to reach so many people with a health message and partnership. He was going to turn McDonalds addicts into salad eaters. As the audience began asking questions it was apparent that his knowledge of weight loss was extremely limited – based on exercising more and eating less fat – and mostly exercising more. His message fell on deaf ears for the WCCO crowd – who in many cases were lucky to be exercising at all.

All the while this was going on Ronald McDonald kept jumping around in the background – either suffering from hyper-stimulation from the chemical flavorings in the McDonalds food he must have eaten that morning or in dire need of some ADD medication. The whole scene was beyond comprehension.

I wonder what I might have said if I had known what the program was going to be. As it was, I bit my tongue out of respect for the radio station, which was obviously being paid by McDonalds to do this. I couldn't believe I was sitting on stage with a phony health advocate who actually thought people would eat salad when they went to McDonalds – a place that in my opinion epitomizes the evil empire of junk food that is causing disease in America.

It wasn't until I started doing research for this article that I even understood what happened that day. McDonalds was having a PR dilemma expecting extreme negative publicity from the film Super Size Me. They teamed up with Bob Greene to help promote his new book, offering a 60% off coupon the day he went on Oprah and promoted his new book, his salad campaign with McDonalds, and his bike trip across the Southern United States where he would be stopping at various McDonalds locations. After that day's Oprah appearance Bob Greene sold 50,000 copies of his book – and that was just the start.

McDonalds struck a PR gold mine, using Bob Greene and Oprah to get 1 billion favorable media impressions, which completely negated the effect of Super Size Me on their sales. For its part, McDonalds produced 8 million promo flyers for Bob Greene's book. The program was a financial win-win for McDonalds and Bob Greene – but not for little children.

The Bob Greene campaign was dreamed up to lure young mothers into McDonalds under the guise of eating a salad, who would bring their children for junk food feeding. And so it is that a pretend health expert, acting like the Pied Piper, helped keep children coming to McDonalds, and on the fast track to obesity and diabetes. On this point alone, Bob Greene should be banished from the national health scene.

The Bob Greene Business Model

Bob Greene's business model is based on endorsement deals that provide a link to the Oprah marketing machine via Bob Greene. This is not a small-time operation. He has a lot of large corporate sponsors – which invariably means fake foods masquerading as health foods.

The foods he promotes are laden with metabolically disrupting amounts of soy (which is often genetically modified), highly processed ingredients, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, Splenda, artificial flavors, and various chemicals. There are so many anti-metabolites in the foods he promotes that it is a wonder any person's metabolism wouldn't gag to a halt eating the foods he promotes for profit.

His business couldn't be better. After his recent exposure on Oprah he has now secured a new two-year deal on another product - Nestlé Pure Life brand bottled water, a line of water that is not quite so pure, as it uses Splenda as a sweetener.

Scientific evidence clearly shows that Splenda significantly alters healthy digestive balance. If Bob Greene knew anything about nutrition he would know that such a problem will help cause food cravings and obesity – as well as other potentially serious digestive problems. I guess this will now be Bob's beverage of choice.

Bob Greene is Nutritionally Deficient

One of the themes of Bob Greene's diet is that you walk around all day in a self-introspected condition while carrying on a psycho-babble conversation with yourself. Obviously you are an emotionally defunct, weak-willpowered individual. Therefore, you must get to the bottom of your deep-rooted emotional disturbances. Keep yourself focused: What are you hungry for? Why are you overweight? Why have you been unable to maintain weight loss in the past? Why do you want to lose weight? What in your life is not working? (This last question must have been ripped off from another Oprah weight-loss guru, Dr. Phil.)

You have to keep yourself introspected all day long because the hunger pains are never going to go away on Bob Greene's plan. Why? When you eat all the snacks, carbohydrates, sweeteners, and artificial sweeteners he thinks you should have so that you don't feel deprived – you will never get over your addictive problems with food.

You have leptin receptors on your taste buds and they can no longer tell which end is up. This means you are stuck craving and eating more food than you really need because you have a misguided sense of fullness based entirely on his high carbohydrate, sugar-and-sweetener-laden plan. Since you'll never get rid of these ghosts on Bob's plan, you better assign their cause to the lack of love you felt as a child – and if you happened to have had a great childhood then you better figure out what else is whacked out in your head. And then you can just keep focusing on that when you are hungry.

The only other alternative would be for Bob Greene to give up all of his endorsements, so that you could un-addict yourself from highly processed garbage "health" food that he promotes, which is loaded with addiction-enforcing chemicals.

Bob is trying his best to improve his neophyte understanding of nutrition. On page 152 of the January Oprah magazine he makes a rather feeble attempt to explain the pleasure of eating and dopamine levels in your brain – as if such information is brand new. I recall giving a lecture back in 2005 to the American Society of Bariatric Physicians titled, "Thyroid, Food Addiction, and the Metabolically Unfit Fat Cell." Back then, I explained the science on how dopamine-related problems fuel food addiction and cravings, and what needed to be done to solve the problem.

The issue of dopamine and pleasure is very problematic for dietician-minded "experts" like Bob Greene. The information means that you have to have some saturated fat in your diet while you are losing weight, much more than a dietician or Bob Greene ever recommends, or the next time you are under high stress and your adrenals start crashing you will eat a bowl of ice cream, a bag of potato chips or corn chips (like Oprah), or you will be off to McDonalds or your other favorite junk food stop – so that you can get a pleasure fix to stop the acute trauma in your brain.

Diets that lack saturated fat set you up for this problem – as well as forcing you to overeat carbohydrates in an attempt to satisfy the lack of dopamine-related pleasure resulting from the lack of saturated fat in your diet. In other words, you may be able to stay with a low saturated fat diet as long as you don't get too stressed. As soon as stress levels get too high, you must have salt and fat to calm your brain down. This relieves the feeling of stress in the short term, but it is a disaster to your weight-loss efforts. The combination of adequate saturated fat with increased soluble fiber will make you much more resistant to stress-induced binges.

After Bob Greene attempts to explain dopamine, on the next page he gives you his diet strategies for improvement, which all center on reducing saturated fat intake. His advice sounds fine on the surface, but it sets you up for eating binges. People don't live in stress-free bubbles.

The only way anyone could lose weight on Bob Greene's diet is if whatever they were doing before they started his plan was far worse – which lucky for Bob is a lot of people like the 237 pound Oprah of many years ago. The low protein nature of his diet means that you will lose muscle and bone while doing it, even though he has you exercising (you'll just end up more tired rather than more fit). This sets you up for yo-yo dieting, like his prize student, Oprah.

Sure Oprah had a tough childhood. And she maintains an incredibly demanding and stressful schedule. And now her metabolism has taken another numbing hit from menopause. And she has a terrible yo-yo diet history. Bob Greene is clogging her thyroid with soy. And he has her addicted to the sweet garbage that he's promoting. Over the years, his diet has made her insulin resistance and leptin resistance much worse. He's increasing her risk for disease. And Bob Greene is totally out of his league.

Related reading:

Oprah's Thyroid Problem Explained
http://www.wellnessresources.com/health/articles/oprahs_thyroid_problem_explained/

Insulin, Leptin, and Blood Sugar – Why Diabetic Medication Fails
http://www.wellnessresources.com/tips/articles/insulin_leptin_and_blood_sugar_why_diabetic_medication_fails/

How Protein Helps Weight Loss
http://www.wellnessresources.com/tips/articles/how_protein_helps_weight_loss/

Byron's lecture notes to the American Society of Bariatric Physicians presentation: Thyroid, Food Addiction, and the Metabolically Unfit Fat Cell http://www.wellnessresources.com/weight/articles/thyroid_food_addiction_and_the_metabolically_unfit_fat_cell/

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About the author: Byron J. Richards, Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist, nationally-renowned nutrition expert, and founder of Wellness Resources is a leader in advocating the value of dietary supplements as a vital tool to maintain health. He is an outspoken critic of government and Big Pharma efforts to deny access to natural health products and has written extensively on the life-shortening and health-damaging failures of the sickness industry. www.wellnessresources.com askbyron@wellnessresources.com

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