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12/20/10

Food Safety Bill S 510 Vote tomorrow in House; it globalizes control of our food and farms.  WRITE!!!! Senate passed this unanimously!!

(Thanks to "Awaker" on forum for the alert!) We at KBC are posting several articles FYI

Excerpt from:
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/150801#comment-1594784

1. It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency. It resembles the Kissinger Plan.

2. It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security. It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection. Instead, S 510 says:

“COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.”

3. It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.

4. It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements. Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.

5. It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.

6. It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease. Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents. Animal diseases can be falsely declared. S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.

7. It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.

8. It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer. The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.

9. It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe. The five items listed — the Five Pillars of Food Safety — are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.

10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied. It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review. It is (similar to C-6 in Canada) the end of Rule of Law in the US.

PEOPLE DO NOT LIE DOWN ON THIS ONE.... GET TO THE PHONES/FAX ETC.. EXPRESS YOUR ANGER AND RAGE..CALL THEM BE PISSED!! LET IT SHOW IN YOUR VOICES!! (this may actually work..) go to the links in the main thread, for fax# and phone #'s...Use these 10 points as talking points
 

 

http://wokv.com/blogs/jamie_dupree/2010/12/food-safety-bill-lives.html

 
 
Jamie Dupree  

Food Safety Bill Lives

By
Jamie Dupree
@ December 19, 2010 8:39 PM
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
A major food safety bill that had almost been given up for dead was suddenly revived in the Senate late on Sunday evening, and may be ready for House approval as early as Tuesday.

 
In a parliamentary move laid out on the Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just after 7pm, the Senate took the food safety language that was passed as part of a stop-gap budget plan by the House, attached it to another House-passed bill and approved that by unanimous consent.

A Democratic Senate aide told me that Republicans did not object to the plan, even though the bill has garnered fierce opposition in some GOP quarters.

The move was a surprise, as it seemed like the Food Safety bill was going to die in the waning days of this year, despite strong support in both the House and Senate.

The bill almost went down the drain originally because of an elementary mistake by Senate Democrats, who added revenue provisions to a measure that originated in the Senate, despite the Constitutional requirement that all spending and revenue bills start in the House.

The House refused to act directly on that legislation, because of what's known as a "blue slip" problem.

That problem was solved when the House approved its long-term Continuing Resolution last week, which included the language of the Senate-passed food safety bill.

As reported above, the Senate on Sunday night simply took the revised food safety language that was approved by the House in the CR, substitued it to the language of HR 2751, one of the original "Cash for Clunkers" bills from last year, and approved it by unanimous consent.

That move will fix any Constitutional issues, because the plan originated in the House as part of the CR, and by using a bill that was already approved by the House, the Cash for Clunkers bill.

Before you start screaming about that - the food safety language replaces the Cash for Clunkers language in the amended version of HR 2751.

I was told that the food safety bill should be up for a vote as soon as Tuesday in the House.
 
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Senate Bill 510 May Be the Most Dangerous Bill in the History of the US

Apr 26th, 2010 | By Kevin Hayden | Category: Health, Food News & Big Pharma
 
 
 

http://www.truthistreason.net/senate-bill-510-may-be-the-most-dangerous-bill-in-the-history-of-the-us

 

Source: Food Freedom

Senate Bill 510, the Most Dangerous Bill in the History of the US

Nov. 30th Update: The Food Tyranny Act has been passed by the Senate today.  The bill passed 73 to 25, with Sen Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) emerging as the greatest “voice of reason” in the debate. His last-ditch amendment to reduce the scale of the bill was defeated this morning.  Here’s the official vote record: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L…

So, what’s next? The Senate version of the bill must now be reconciled with the House version that was passed last year. This reconciliation committee must hammer out the differences between the two bills.
 

Nov. 29th Update: Slammed by a barrage of phone calls and emails today that the mainstream media isn’t even reporting, the U.S. Senate today has decided to postpone their vote on S.510 — the Food Safety Modernization Act — until tomorrow morning.  Internet reports that S.510 has already passed are incorrect. The final bill has not yet been voted on.

Nov. 17th Update: Senate Bill 510 is now on the Senate floor where a vote is expected shortly. Yesterday, the Motion to Invoke Cloture passed on a vote of 74-25, sending the bill forward for a vote with shortened debate.  A final vote is expected over the weekend.

Oct. Update: At the beginning of October, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) announced that he had sidetracked Senate Bill 510.  The very next day, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that he would bring the bill up during the lame duck session because he had the votes to pass it.

S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010,  may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US.  It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.

“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.  It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.”  ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower

It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.

Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create — without judicial review — if it passes.  S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming.

History

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton introduced HACCP (Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Points) purportedly to deal with contamination in the meat industry.  Clinton’s HACCP delighted the offending corporate (World Trade Organization “WTO”) meat packers since it allowed them to inspect themselves, eliminated thousands of local food processors (with no history of contamination), and centralized meat into their control.  Monsanto promoted HACCP.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton urged a powerful centralized food safety agency as part of her campaign for president.  Her advisor was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller*, a giant PR firm representing Monsanto.  Clinton lost, but Clinton friends such as Rosa DeLauro, whose husband’s firm lists Monsanto as a progressive client and globalization as an area of expertise, introduced early versions of S 510.

S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds.

1.  It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency.  It resembles the Kissinger Plan.

2.  It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security.  It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection.  Instead, S 510 says:

“COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.”

3.  It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.

4.  It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements.  Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.

5.  It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.

6.  It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease.  Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents.  Animal diseases can be falsely declared.  S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.

7.  It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.

8.  It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer.  The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.

9.  It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe.  The five items listed — the Five Pillars of Food Safety — are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.

10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied.  It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review. It is (similar to C-6 in Canada) the end of Rule of Law in the US.

For further information, watch these videos:

Food Laws – Forcing people to globalize
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-P4rL2IWc

State Imposed Violence … to snatch resources of ordinary people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onw_PkVvpts&feature=related

Corporate Rule
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PwqUQ_HIlg&feature=related

Reclaiming Economies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXoJHG-er7A&feature=related

Hayden’s Note:

Here is another portion of a recent article regarding Senate Bill 510 -

Source: BlackListed News

When it comes to S. 510, the question that you need to ask yourself is this….

Do you trust the FDA?

If not, then there are some very real reasons for you to be concerned.

The following are 12 reasons why S. 510 could be absolutely disastrous for small food producers and for the U.S. economy….

#1 All food production facilities in the United States will be required to register with the U.S. government.   No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it.

#2 Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.

#3 The FDA will hire an army of new inspectors to enforce all of the new provisions in the bill.

#4 The FDA will be mandated to conduct much more frequent inspections of food processing facilities.  

#5 The fees and paperwork requirements will be ruinously expensive for small food producers and organic farms.

#6 Senate Bill 510 would place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major “contamination” or an ”emergency”.  What exactly would constitute a “contamination” or an “emergency” is anyone’s guess.

#7 S 510 mandates that the FDA facilitate harmonization of American food laws with Codex Alimentarius.

#8 S 510 imposes an annual registration fee on any facility that holds, processes, or manufactures food.  It also includes draconian fines for paperwork infractions of up to $500,000 for a single offense.  Just one penalty like that would drive a small food producer out of business.

#9 S. 510 would give the FDA tremendous discretion to regulate how crops are grown and how food is produced in the United States.  Basically, small farmers and organic farmers will now be forced to farm exactly how the federal government tells them to.  It is feared that the U.S. government would soon declare that many organic farming methods are “unsafe” and would outlaw them.  In addition, there is the very real possibility that at some point the U.S. government could decide that the only “safe” seed for a particular crop is genetically modified seed and would require all farmers to use it.

#10 S 510 will give the FDA the power to impose a quarantine on a specific geographic area.  Basically the FDA would have the power to stop the movement of all food in an area where a “contamination” has been identified.  This would be very close to being able to declare martial law.

#11 S 510 will give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken.

#12 Opponents of S. 510 believe that it would eliminate the right to clean and store seed.  Therefore, control of the U.S. seed supply would be further centralized in the hands of Monsanto and other multinational corporations.

As mentioned above, this bill gives the FDA a ton of discretion.  It is written very broadly and very vaguely.  It opens the door for all kinds of abuses, but that doesn’t mean that the FDA will behave unreasonably.

So should we trust the FDA?

Is there a viable future for small food producers and organic farmers in America?

Or is the handwriting already on the wall?

“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”

-Thomas Jefferson

“My right to produce, distribute, and consume the foods of my choice is part of my right to life and liberty under the Constitution.”

The FDA has no business telling us we can’t buy raw milk, or we can’t save our own garden seeds or grow organic produce and sell it at the farmer’s market.

Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

Price: USD 8.25
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Related Articles:

  1. Senate Bill 510 Might Be Revoked and Blocked for Technical Infraction
  2. Farmer, Consumer Outcry Helping to Stop Passage of Draconian ‘Food Safety’ Bill, SB 510
  3. Germany Bans Genetically Modified Corn, ‘Dangerous’ to Environment and Human Health
=================================================================================================================
The PPJ Gazette

Marti Oakley (c)coyright 2010 All Rights Reserved

_________________________________________________________

The FDA and USDA have routinely used the Federal Register to “update” the food safety system, always granting themselves far reaching authority and empowering themselves far beyond the intent of the original legislation that created these blights on America.”

____________________________________________________

And the Republicans joined right in!

I can only imgaine that the halls of the Senate were virtually awash in  “funding” from lobbyists as Republicans joined Democrats in the greatest assault on agriculture ever launched by our own government.

It seems there is no stopping the nefarious Harry Reid (D) NV.  With the country screaming no to the ill conceived S.510 Fake Food safety bill, Reid was successful in attaching the agricultural police state bill to a non-related bill and rammed this piece of garbage through the senate once again.

And where were those Republicans who got the message from voters that things needed to change?  Well…they were right in there voting yes along with the Democrats.  Even Senator Tom Coburn (R) OK., jumped on the band wagon and voted to pass this attack on food production and supply into law.  Its just amazing what bags of corporate lobbying money can do to politicians.

S.510 Fake Food Safety bill was passed quickly late Sunday afternoon; a vote taken when the Senate could be assured few were watching or even aware that the vote on the criminalization of independent and family agriculture was taking place.  Like rats scurrying across the deck of a sinking ship, senators lined up one by one to vote against the best interest of their districts and in favor of the industrialization of agriculture. And like rats, they hurriedly scurried away before their presence was detected.  Rats are like that.

“Tonight we unanimously passed a measure to improve on our current food safety system by giving the FDA the resources it needs to keep up with advances in food production and marketing, without unduly burdening farmers and food producers,” Reid said in a statement.

This statement by Reid is an outright lie.  He knows better than anyone else this bill has nothing to do with food safety.  What is relevant in this statement is the alluding to “marketing (exports) and “food production (gmo, cloning etc.,)   He also knows that the CDC report that was withheld for more than a year prior to shoving this attack on America by its own government, indicated food borne illnesses were markedly  declining contrary to the phony emotional drivel of Senator Durbin on the senate floor prior to the last vote on S.510.

Reid went on to say that this was the first time in almost a century that the food safety system was updated.  This is also a blatant lie.

The FDA and USDA have routinely used the Federal Register to “update” the food safety system, always granting themselves far reaching authority and empowering themselves far beyond the intent of the original legislation that created these blights on America.  All S.510 will do is to unlawfully empower these agencies to openly construct a police state in agriculture with an eye on making the continuance of family and independent farming and ranching so untenable, so riddled with onerous regulations, reporting requirements, warrantless searches and seizure of private property, unnecessary licensing, property rights violations, and the abrogation of individual rights in order to benefit corporations and all the costs associated with these acts of aggression against independent agriculture, that many farmers and ranchers are already bailing out ahead of the FDA Gestapo plans.

Jean Halloran, director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union, said, “This is a wonderful day for consumers.”  Well, actually Jean…no it isn’t.

Unfortunately for Ms. Halloran, this bill will not relieve the problem of contaminated food.  This is not a wonderful day for consumers as this bill conspicuously did not contain any provision which identified or corrected the major causes of food borne illness.  All HACCP (self-inspection) protections for corporate industrialized producers and processors, the sector where most contamination occurs, remain in place.

Nothing in the bill punishes or halts trade from countries such as China who have a long and sordid history of shipping contaminated food products into the US.  There are no fines, penalties or other hindrances to prevent these contaminated products from being continually dumped into our food supply.

Halloran went on to say: This bill gives FDA essential tools like mandatory recall authority to insure that the food we eat is safe.”

This bill gave the FDA a lot more than mandatory recall authority, and the last place I would look to ensure food safety is the FDA.  We have only to look at the cancerous history of the FDA in regards to pharmaceuticals to know that this agency should have been the last one considered to stand guard on our food supply.  How many people have been harmed, maimed, or killed as a result of FDA approved drugs that were lethal, yet approved for use on the public?  Anything for a buck, right?   When will we see Senator Durbin on the floor of the senate lamenting that?

This bill also authorized the hiring of thousands of new agents but these new agents won’t be on the docks inspecting imports before they enter the food supply and they won’t be used to increase the number of inspections in processing plants.  No….these new agents will be attacking domestic farmers and ranchers and they will do it knowing all the while that they are infringing on idividual rights, property rights and in clear violation of multiple Constitutional protections meant to prevent this very kind of thing from happening.

This bill represents an overt assault on the people of the United States by their own government.  The groups chiming in, in support of this bill either didn’t read it, didn’t understand what they were reading or didn’t care. This is not and never was about food safety.

This is the theft and seizure of the US food supply on behalf of corporations, who were conspicuously protected in this bill.

One more time, Mr. Reid:

“Tonight we unanimously passed a measure to improve on our current food safety system by giving the FDA the resources it needs to keep up with advances in food production and marketing, without unduly burdening farmers and food producers,” Reid said in a statement.

And to think this man told this lie while staring blankly into a camera all the while knowing that what he had just done would adversely affect millions of lives and end any safe production of food from local sources.  The key to the private joke Reid is alluding to are the words “unduly burdening”.  I guess its all relative. If you aren’t likely to be affected by the egregious bills you concoct, the burden may not seem “undue” to you.

Senator Reid along with 99 other senators were not at all adversley affected by this attack on agriculture.  In fact, the majority of them profited quite well from voting for corporations and the eradication of domestic independent agriculture.

Shame on all of you!

=======================================

More info HERE http://www.dailypaul.com/node/152658

 
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