Tag(s): Agribusiness; Birds; Corporations; Disease-Epidemics; Doctors; Faith; Fear As Policy; Fearmonger; Lies; Science Fake Bush GOP; (more...) Science-Nature; Seizure; Suspicion; Totalitarianism; Trusting; USDA, Add Tags (less...)
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December 22, 2008 at 15:57:17

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Liberal fear of diseases and trust in science. A totalitarian's dream.

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By Linn Cohen-Cole (about the author)

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Instead, the small farmers' stocks are eradicated by the health departments and the poultry corporations move to substitute genetically engineering birds. That is, they substitute "privatized" birds so the small farmers then don't own the birds, they are merely renting them and now work for the corporations.

Bird Flu, something intelligent liberals would feel justified in fearing. A terrible disease so a time to listen to scientists and doctors and take precautions. But alerts about diseases is just what liberals need to start to be as suspicious of as alerts on WMDs.

"Donald Rumsfeld and other major stock holders of Gilead Sciences or Roche Inc., the marketers of the much-hyped Tamiflu (see previous articles, ‘Is Tamiflu another Pentagon Hoax? ;‘Bird Flu: A Corporate Bonanza for the Biotech Industry’) are reaping nice gains, as sales of the medication are booming thanks to promotion by the Bush and Blair governments.

Agribusiness companies stand to reap huge gains in the event that scientists at Cambridge University and elsewhere are able to replace the entire world chicken population with genetically-engineered chicks allegedly resistant to H5N1 virus.

Little-noticed beneficiaries of the current Avian Flu scare, however, are the giant agribusiness chicken producers based in the United States, who claim ‘their’ chickens are safe. Their sales are booming and all indications are that Avian Flu, paradoxically, has come like a Godsend to their corporate balance sheets. Are they also responsible for breeding unsanitary conditions and exporting the product worldwide causing disease, illness and even deaths?"

click here

The poultry industry thus used the crisis they had created through their filthy, cost-saving, profit-gouging methods, to push out small farmers and make them laborers.

click here

Herds of cattle were wiped out in the UK over Mad Cow. But the corporations disgusting practices caused Mad Cow while small farmers' heritage breeds of cattle were lost forever, being slaughtered when there was evidence that animals were not sick.

click here

Then, here, to prove it was "on the job," the USDA went after a small farmer in Vermont to make a show of its fake diligence - not increasing inspections at or going after the squalid conditions and activities corporate factory farms, giant feedlots, and slaughterhouses.

"Slaughtering healthy animals on suspicion -- this has been a horrific week for livestock worldwide. In Vermont, the suspicion was thathealth of beef exports might be adversely affected if the US did not hunt down perceptions of risk from European live imports. The sheep seizure is an alarming precedent for abuse of government power: no convincing evidence was ever put forward that the sheep had any form of TSE, much less BSE; the seizure is taking place despite an appeals court agreeing to finally give the sheep their day in court. The USDA can be ashamed of itself for this cold-blooded, hypocritical seizure -- which may signal abandonment of science-driven TSE policy for the United States. Do the mistakes of Britain really need to be repeated here?

Livestock producers large and small, cattle and sheep, have a very special stewardship relationship with their animals. Farm animals are not viewed as faceless production units in some overarching global economic trade agenda, and rightly so. Massive culls in Europe have been extremely wrenching experiences for affected farmers, experiences that compensation does not even begin to address. So it behooves us to be careful -- whether it is foot-and-mouth, the over 30 month grass fed cow, or healthy sheep -- to make the decision for the sometimes necessary cull only when there is a solid scientific basis for them. This scientific standard has not been met in Vermont."

http://www.mad-cow.org/00/mar01_last.html

Meanwhile, the FDA and Homeland Security have Orwellians regulations already in place to allow for "surge capacity" for destruction and seizure of farmers' crops and animals in case of "bioterrorism." And they will use NAIS, their centralized corporate data bank which is for surveilling any farmers with animals 24 hours a day, to get hold of those stocks. Though those animals make up only a teeny portion of the American food system, and are isolated in many ways from it so would be the last place any terrorist with half a brain would bother with, I suspect that those will be the animals seized. The threat, though lies with the corporate industrialization of farming - the "efficiency of scale" of cramming of millions of corporate chickens, millions of corporate hogs, millions of corporate cattle, together. They would be easy to attack and already live in degraded, disease-inducing conditions, with costs being cut at every point in terms of their feed and health.

While it is alarming to think the government might go after small farmers and destroy them on a scare based on lies Agribusiness and the Pharmaceutical industry has already been known to us to ramp up fear and then mop up control and profits, we can at least be reassured that corporations will not have their animals wiped out or equipment seized or be destroyed. Particularly since the Left is so fearful of diseases, it can't see the destruction of real people - our farmers - for jumping on cue at diseases alerts and for demanding regulations to ensure its 100%-guaranteed-"food safety" sandwich.

Nazis and hygiene win again.

To get it clear about the relation between how science is being manipulated by government in a way that it terrible for real farmers and for your health, look at what the FDA did to the cherries growers when they found out their cherries were potentially 10 times stronger than aspirin or ibuprofen in controlling pain.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/mar2006_cover_cherries_01.htm

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Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Stop NAIS and stop the FDA regulation of dietary supplements.

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

Met libertarian and conservative farmers and learned an incredible amount about farming and nature and science, as well as about government violations against them and against us all. The other side of the fence is nothing like what we've been (more...)

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You need to be succint and clear. by John Toradze on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 9:02:56 AM

clear? by William Whitten on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 4:38:02 PM

There is a lot of kitchen sink by Linn Cohen-Cole on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 7:45:48 PM

RIght On! by Thaddeus Kaczor Jr on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:02:11 AM

Thank you. That is what I tried to do, to bring a lot of by Linn Cohen-Cole on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 7:49:06 PM

Thanks a lot Linn by Keith Mothersson on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:30:16 PM

You're very welcome. We have a lot to do. But the by Linn Cohen-Cole on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:04:02 PM

Where are the Conservatives in you blame game? by nightgaunt on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 3:43:38 PM

It's Now or Never by William Whitten on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 4:56:34 PM

Totally agree about the divide that is worthless. by Linn Cohen-Cole on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:41:30 PM

You are right that I should explain more fully by Linn Cohen-Cole on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:43:31 PM

Fear of disease by Perry Logan on Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 at 4:37:29 AM

Vaccinations by William Whitten on Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 at 7:10:52 PM

Also Consider: by William Whitten on Thursday, Dec 25, 2008 at 5:47:39 PM