It has not been easy reaching the progressive community about what is happening to farming. Eyes glaze over. It's "only" farming, good for dinner or discussion of organic food through one's CSA, but otherwise all that subsidy stuff or farm bills or imports and exports is just ... boring. Bigger fish to fry like wars and NSA-spying and torture.
But do progressives really think that the corporations which are control so our other agencies, have somehow left the USDA and the FDA, untouched? Do they really think the bills coming out of the administration for food safety, are safe for any of us, let alone the farmers who are on the line, competing against corporations in a rigged market already?
Do liberals know that corn and soy, the basis of most of our food and now of our fuel, are almost entirely "owned" by Monsanto, via Clarence Thomas, a Monsanto employee, being put on the Supreme court just in time to rule genetically engineered organisms were the same as normal and for a vast extension of the intellectual property laws which locked in ownership of biology itself? Are progressives watching? Are they aware of NAIS click here an animal (and animal owner) tracking system that makes NSA-spying look like a picnic by comparison. Have they thought about the impact NAIS will have on sustainable agriculture, to say nothing of freedom itself and safety from the government?
The answer is no. The left doesn't really know what is going on yet it must because our farmers are in serious trouble, which means we all are. Corporations are doing what they can to take complete control of food, here and worldwide.
I have a fantasy of bringing right and left together, around farming issues - around our American table. I have been pushing the farmers and ranchers I know to call the ACLU for help since there are profound civil rights issues involved in NAIS and control of seeds and with the banning of raw milk click here Most farmers are conservatives who dislike the ACLU for its defense of gay rights or abortion rights, but still, they would take the help but it's not there. And they say themselves, they try to tell people but are told "it's JUST farming" (that is, irrelevant).
Where is the ACLU? Why hasn't it been leading the fight on behalf of farmers' rights against Monsanto's Orwellian control over seeds, over its take-over of our land grant colleges, over its dangerous displacement of indigenous seeds, over its pushing to block labeling of rBGH milk (associated with increased risk of breast cancer, prostate and colon cancer), over its suing farmers for honest labeling of non-rBGH milk, over .... ? They should see how large these issues are.
So, I wrote the ACLU in my - and after months, still have not heard back. I have written (by email) every ACLU in the US that had an email, and written many times to the ACLU in Pennsylvania. They say I have be from Pennsylvania and one can get help in one's own state. But my state ACLU is mute. So, what do I tell farmers? They are right, the ACLU only cares about gays and abortion and not about their David and Goliath struggle to survive at all against huge undemocratic forces?
I tell friends who are farmers that these are constitutional issues so the ACLU will care and help them, too, but the ACLU is silent as a stone. Yet, if the ACLU would show up as a white knight against NAIS or the seed monopoly or the banning of raw milk, that would go a HUGE piece toward bringing together conservative farmers and progressives around the country who do care about injustice (once they look up from the familiar set of issues they focus on and see their own countrymen are in trouble and that trouble is life and death for all of us). That coming together is what has to happen. It is critical to deal with saving our farmers and our food - and coming together is needed to fight so much else, too.
But our farmers first.
The ACLU needs to see past most people's blinders about "agriculture as non-political" to the immensity of what is happening on the land and to control the land, animals, plants and people. Our country and food itself is being taken over and to do that, the government and those corporations which have bought their control of it, are undermining the most basic principles of freedom, including working to pre-empt farmer and/or community control of what is planted. When a horse and buggy Mennonite farmer is arrested in Pennsylvania for merely selling real milk and real cheese, and his property stolen by state troopers and he faces prison for doing what his family has done for generations, we are looking at THE civil rights movement of our time - against our own government which has become a front for corporations.
Does anyone know people with the ACLU I could speak to?
As a former ACLU Board member (in my local county, not the nation-wide organization) here is the schtick:
Yes, the LOCAL ACLU Chapters would get involved in defending their own LOCAL people.
The ACLU National is so swamped with much higher-priority matters such as torture, warrantless wiretapping et al. The national organization has to focus in on its core mission: Litigate and hopefully stop arrests of the US Constitution and the greater American way of life.
The local Chapters work with their local County issues and their County cases.
It's important to understand that, because a) the missions are different even if they work together as one organization and b) funding is limited. It must be channeled to the highest priority issues, even if the issues raised as concerns are absolutely right. I agree with you, FYI.
It would be very important to present the civil liberties angle of this. Board members may not understand: Why would farming issues have impact on civil liberties? You must make a very clear case for why, specifically, and how, this is a civil liberties issue. Even if it seems clear to you, it may or may not be so clear to all individuals or all BOard members.
Go through your local County ACLU Chapter and you should have success. And, write lots of letters to the editor, asking for more people to join you in doing teh same! LTE's are the most-read pages in the paper and have the power to influence public opinion, if fact-based (not opinionated) and well-written.
Thank you for all you do, Linn. You are great. ---Kathryn
by
Kathryn Smith (93 articles, 2 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 361 comments)
on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 12:33:26 AM
This article was a request for anyone who knows ACLU people, who works for the ACLU themselves, to do what they can to wake them up to what is happening. So, while I will keep doing what I can, I am asking for help.
by
Linn Cohen-Cole (11 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 47 comments)
on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 10:15:14 AM
My suggestion is to go to your local ACLU Chapter Board's meeting and talk with them face-to-face. You might want to check in ahead of time, letting them know you will be coming. Don't write a letter: It obviously has produced no results.
Again the clarity of understanding may be lacking in the Board members, which is why they have not written back to you. "The ACLU does not get involved in health matters" may be their thinking.
So as before, to prepare a face-to-face verbal presentation, letting them know exactly how you see this to be a civil liberties violation, is the key thing. Quote specific laws. Give them food for thought and ask questions: Questions often lead to understanding (and they don't have to know that you are deliberately mind-manipulating them in asking those questions. Shhh!)
My prediction is that they will say it's not a civil liberties matter and not their field of expertise. They may not "get it".
Talk about The Right To Choose. Not about abortion, in this case, but about health, cancer or wellness.
Talk about The Right To Choose....food not produced by giant corporations who dominate the country's food and thus control it. Point out to them that the key word here is "control", which is by definition a violation of civil liberties because it is unconstitutional. People in a free society have the right....to choose.
Slogans work! Use them.
Good luck and let me know how this works. Best wishes, Kathryn
by
Kathryn Smith (93 articles, 2 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 361 comments)
on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 12:40:31 AM
Linn, while I can empathize with your plight I get a feeling of the short hairs at the back of my neck rise at your lashing out at the progressives as they are the cause of the mess the farmers are in. For years it has bewildered me as to how the farmer has supported the conservatives, yet those they put in office pass laws that favor corporations who are putting the true farmer out of business here in the United States like these conservative initiated “free trade” agreements have done to the farmers in Mexico and soon to follow Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and others.
I, like you, would love to see the divisiveness between our people based on this “conservative-progressive” political separation. However, by falling into the “trap” that has been devised, that of constantly pointing a finger at the other side when something goes astray, only tends to separates us further. In truth this separation is, in my opinion, nurtured for two primary reasons; 1) to provide for the finger-pointing, and 2) to bilk money out of the people for elections. Actually, elections has evolved into a mega-industry in itself and without the “two-party system” there would be far less money to be filtered to the corporate media propagandists. To confirm that there are not two parties once elected simply look at Congressional votes and policies that are brought before us.
You are correct in looking at the ACLU with concern over the slow progress they are making, but be mindful they are working against huge odds as the judicial system has been stacked against the people and their individual rights, which is what the ACLU exists to protect. Congress itself is stacked against those same “guarantees.”
We have seen our Constitution stripped to be nothing more than that “G*ddamned piece of paper” George W Bush once called it and because Congress has merely stood by, in essence been complicit in that, and the Judicial system condoning it the ACLU, which has for years been chastised by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who by the way is far from “progressive”, as being “communist” and much more, is left with having to do something. Yet, we once again fall into the “trap” and point the finger while those who have created the dilemma we are in continue to give us the finger.
You are correct, we must come together as a citizenry because if we do not we will only become sheep to be herded by those who are taking over. In our efforts to come together we must not shut out organizations like the ACLU as they are but a few who are actually on our side.
by
Dennis Kaiser (14 articles, 0 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 229 comments)
on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 5:58:34 AM
I am not pointing to progressives as the cause of the problems for farmers - the corporations and their lackeys, the USDA and FDA, are. I am saying that progressives need to wake up to what is occurring HERE, on our land, to our farmers, which is a threat to their very existence and through that, a threat to all of us.
But "farming issues" falls into some glazed-eyes category and not under democracy itself or freedom to farm or the right of free access to what citizens need to live or to choice itself.
It is the waking up part that I care about, and the realizing that conservative farmers who have been crying "freedom" and "no more regulations" are speaking a language we have to hear.
And yes, I do know they supported the war in Iraq under the same banner of freedom and they supported deregulation of the very corporations that are hurting them now, but being sincere and being manipulated by fear of terrorists or by appeals to freedom from excessive control, are two different things. And progressives have voted for more and more regulations through the USDA and FDA, not seeing how they are manipulated by food scares.
Our farmers are in serious trouble and NAIS must be stopped. So must Bush's Food Safety Plan and fear of tomatoes or even Mad Cow can't be used to give them an iota of more control.
I appreciate your comments and am hoping we all do what we can to reach out in respectful ways to conservatives who are also yelling about the constitution being trashed. To fight back effectively, we must connect to each other as just plain people.
by
Linn Cohen-Cole (11 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 47 comments)
on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 10:31:41 AM
"And progressives have voted for more and more regulations through the USDA and FDA"
What the hell are you talking about. The FDA and USDA are unelected bureaucracies. We don't get to vote for them. The people on the agencies are appointed, I'm guessing by the US President or his cabinet. The problem with the US government agencies is they have no accountability to the public and are filled with people representing corporations. Pretty much the same problem with our elected officials in Congress and the President. Even with beneficial regulations they often are unenforced.
The ACLU is not an ideological organization and they are non-partisan. They're sort of like Libertarians. Their organization defends civil liberties. Unfortunately they also support corporate personhood. So when "corporate rights" conflict with individual rights they would probably side with the corporation.
by
Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 821 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 1:07:12 PM
Real progressives are against Monsanto and other Corporations who wish to monopolize the food supply just like we would oppose corporate monopolies in any industry.
by
Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 821 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 1:17:55 PM
Trying to stir up hatred of the ACLU and undocumented immigrants I see. For your information the US Constitution applies to everyone on American soil not just US citizens.
by
Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 821 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 12:46:20 PM
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