Government control of our food supply is the ultimate step in our enslavement. Barack Obama has moved swiftly, and largely unnoticed by either Congress or the public, to seize authority over the very food we eat. The mechanism for this power grab is legislation that most Congressmen will vote for without reading, as usual, based on the synoptic introduction listing intended improvements. From the HR version:

To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.

Going through process in the House of Representatives is H.R.875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009.

• The version maintained by the Library of Congress is here.
• The version maintained by GovTrack, a civic project to track Congress, is here.
• The version maintained by Open Congress, a project of the Sunlight Foundation, is here. This website allows readers to comment on line items in the bill after free registration with Open Congress.

Concurrently being rammed through the Senate is S.425, the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act.

A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act, and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes.

That sounds innocuous, doesn’t it?

• The version maintained by the Library of Congress is here.
• The version maintained by GovTrack is here.
• The version maintained by Open Congress is here.

These bills are being coordinated by their sponsors to stifle the debate that would normally occur during the reconciliation of the House and Senate versions:

These bills have the legal potential to eliminate organic farming, destroy small family farms, outlaw natural seed banks, and criminalize even backyard vegetable gardens. Their overt intention, although nobody is noticing, is to force all of the American people into a more costly diet entirely composed of genetically modified plants and animals.

How will this work? The genetically modified seeds are patented, so farmers who purchase seed from Monsanto are not allowed to save seed from one year’s crop to sow the next year. If they do, they will be sued out of business by the agri-giant. So once they get on the treadmill, they are forced to purchase every year from Monsanto. (Monsanto has even routinely sued farmers who didn’t want their seed, whose fields were contaminated by Monsanto seeds blown from neighboring farms.) This could be a moot point, as the hybrids often produce sterile seed. In fact, there is a danger that eventually the world’s grain crop could become totally sterile, destroying life on earth as we know it, since even the animals that we eat feed on the grains.

Whether deliberately or through their native ineptitude, Congress permitted the American people to be softened up to accept this restrictive legislation. Fear for public safety was induced by recent crises from Chinese (April, 2007) and Mexican (July, 2008) food imports, among many others.

Such events could be almost entirely prevented by adequate enforcement of exisiting laws and honest effort by responsible government agencies. But instead of correcting the failed existing system, the Obama administration will use these shortfalls as an excuse to pass even more legislation, and in the process, prevent Americans from providing for their own sustenance.

Worse, after claiming freedom from the influence of lobbyists, Obama is doing this at the behest of agricultural giant Monsanto, among others. One of his campaign advisors was Stanford University plant biologist Sharon Long, a director at Monsanto. Obama appointed former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, so close to Monsanto that he often travelled in their corporate jet,, as Secretary of Agriculture. Most egregious, Obama’s reputed choice to head the new “Food Police” agency that will be created by this legislation is Michael Taylor, who joined Monsanto as Vice President for Public Policy in 1998.

Monsanto, you will recall, was one of the companies that produced Agent Orange, the herbicide used to defoliate the forest cover in Vietnam which was linked to veterans’ diseases. They also acquired the subsidiary that made the artificial sweetener Aspartame, linked to many reports of health problems because it breaks down into formaldehyde (enbalming fluid) in the human body.

On the European Common Market, Aspartame is banned for all children’s products. Why is this not the case in Canada and the U.S.? Because Monsanto – which owns the NutraSweet Company which manufactures Aspartame – pays off the FDA, the American Medical Association, The American Dietetic and Diabetic Associations, Congressmen and Senators and virtually anyone who gets in the way, and in other countries too. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation caught them red handed and aired a program where Monsanto was trying to bribe Canadian Doctors at Health Canada.

From 1930 until they were banned in 1977 Monsanto was the sole American producer/marketer of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), persistent organic pollutants which bioaccumulate in animals. Won’t a Monsanto minion make a great leader for the Obama food police?

The rest of the world already resents being forced to use genetically modified seed from the United States, 90% of which is from Monsanto. Pay particular attention to the spokeswoman from India in the following video:

There may be some unintended consequences for Barack Obama in these choices. His support in highly polarized — he has little among republicans and conservatives. And democrats and liberals are generally the ones who favor organic food and care deeply about the environment, so this goes against his political base. And, oh yes, Michelle and the girls just planted an organic garden on the White House grounds, amid much fanfare about promoting healthy choices. We wonder how that squares with her husband cozying up to Monsanto?

[Full disclosure -- author Nancy Matthis is a fiscal conservative, but is also a vegetarian, animal rights advocate opposed to factory farms, environmentalist, and passionate organic gardener.]

Related:

Yale Rudd Center — The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big Food? (Research Report, PDF format):

The tobacco industry had a playbook, a script, that emphasized personal responsibility, paying scientists who delivered research that instilled doubt, criticizing the “junk” science that found harms associated with smoking, making self-regulatory pledges, lobbying with massive resources to stifle government action, introducing “safer” products, and simultaneously manipulating and denying both the addictive nature of their products and their marketing to children. The script of the food industry is both similar to and different from the tobacco industry script.

Food is obviously different from tobacco, and the food industry differs from tobacco companies in important ways, but there also are significant similarities in the actions that these industries have taken in response to concern that their products cause harm.

The Ecologist, Vol 28, No 5, Sept/Oct 1998 — Terminator Technology: The Threat to World Food Security:

Monsanto’s latest flagship technology makes a nonsense of its claim that it seeks to feed the worlds hungry. On the contrary, it threatens to undermine the very basis of traditional agriculture ~ that of saving seeds from year to year. What’s more, this “gene cocktail” will increase the risk that new toxins and allergens will make their way into the food chain….

Health Freedom Alliance — Monsanto’s Dream Bill – Dr Mercola’s take on HR 875:

The bill is essentially a giant gift package for Monsanto, mandating the criminalization of seed banking, prison terms and confiscatory fines for small farmers and 24 hour GPS tracking of their animals, and of “industrial” standards to independent farms.

The corporations want nothing less than full control of the land, the end of normal animals so they can substitute patented genetically engineered ones, and the end of normal seeds and thus of seed banking by farmers or individuals.

And now Monsanto wants its own employee, Michael Taylor (the man who forced genetically engineered rBGH on the country when the Clintons placed him over “food safety” in the 90’s) back in government, this time to act with massive police power as a “food safety tsar”. HR 875 would give him immense power over what is done on every single farm in the country and massive police state power to wield over farmers….

The Idaho Observer, September, 2006 — Suicide seed food weapons being readied for deployment by F. William Engdahl:

We are familiar with the “terminator” seed concept: Genetically engineered and patented crop species that do not produce viable seed for replanting. We are also aware of the implications should farmers be made dependent upon the likes of Monsanto to provide the seeds needed to plant the fields that produce the food for people and livestock….

The U.S. government has been financing research on genetic engineering technology which, when commercialized, will give its owners the power to control the food seed of entire nations or regions. The government has been working quietly on this technology since 1983. Now, the little-known company that has been collaborating in this genetic research with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—Delta & Pine Land (D&PL)—is about to become part of the world’s largest supplier of seeds for genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) patented by the Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri.

Relations between Monsanto, D&PL and the USDA, on closer scrutiny, show the deep and dark side of the much-heralded genetic revolution in agriculture. It proves deep-held suspicions that the “gene revolution” is not about “solving the world hunger problem” as its advocates claim. It’s about handing over control of the seeds for mankind’s basic food supply—rice, corn, soybeans, wheat, even fruit, vegetables and cotton….

The Idaho Observer, March, 2009 — The most Orwellian federal food regulatory scheme ever proposed…:

Since the Obama administration moved into the White House 64 days ago, it has zealously gone forward with plans to disarm law-abiding Americans and demonize them as domestic terrorists, pass laws to protect every form of sexual perversion imaginable, betray injured enlisted service personnel, dump everyone’s personal history into a massive health information database, fund legions of conscripted “Obama youth (and Obama seniors) into “volunteer” service, provide amnesty for Mexican illegals and take direct control of the Bureau of the Census to phony up statistics to justify government service agency expansion and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of imaginary stimulus dollars to finance some of the greasiest pork projects in U.S. history. Now this highly-motivated administration wants to make it unlawful for people to grow vegetable gardens and eat their own produce.

Apparently alarmed that farmers markets are becoming increasingly popular places to obtain fresh, organic produce and enjoy community interaction and, apparently, concerned that home and community gardens may impact sales of chemically-contaminated corporate produce, HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced Feb. 4, 2009. The 18,000-word bill, obviously drafted by lawyers from the biotech and agribusiness industries (with help from the “healthcare” industry that benefits enormously when people are starved onto genetically-modified/chemically-contaminated foods devoid of nutritional value), was sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). All 39 co-sponsors are Democrats. The bill, which would create and fund a huge new cabinet-level federal bureaucracy called the “Food Safety Agency,” is currently with the House Agriculture committee….

Health Freedom Alliance — Criminalizing Organic and Home Growers:

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 seized. 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 variety 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.

Health Freedom Alliance — Slavery Means Someone Else Controls Your Body. Freedom Means You Do:

Which is it? Are you a slave or a free man or woman? If you do nothing to oppose the disingenuous and deadly (literally deadly) “Food Safety” (sic) and “Food Security” (sic) bills like HR 875, S 425, and the even more dangerous HR 759 you are saying “Enslave me. Take away my access to clean, unadulterated food. Pump me up with toxins – pesticiedes, fungicides, herbicides, Mad Cow Disease or BSE (only 1/10 of 1 % of the commercial cattle in our food supply MAY be tested for BSE although BSE occurs ONLY in commercial animals – and never, never in pasture grazed cattle. Pasture grazed cattle raisers run small operations. Just one more category of food producers these bills will run out of business – just like your grandma who makes her jams for the Church Bizare – gone, forbidden from making, producing or storing clean unadulterated food. Oh, by the way, your garden’s gone, too. Slaves eat what they are given.)

Ideas for Change in America — HR 875/S 425: Farm to Fork Food Fascism Comes to America:

Congress often comes up with bad ideas. This is not just a bad idea: it is a catastrophically bad idea for health and freedom. In fact, it is nothing short of food tyranny and will kill not only organic farming, but lots of people as well, along with the entire private farming sector. Your own gardens are at risk as well.

OpEdNews — Monsanto’s dream bill, HR 875:

To begin reversing GM [genetic modification] contamination will require ending the power biotech companies such as Monsanto exert over our government and through that, over our food.

HR 875 was introduced by Rosa DeLauro whose husband Stanley Greenburg works for Monsanto.

The bill is monstrous on level after level – the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international “industrial” standards to independent farms – the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means.

The corporations want the land, they want more intensive industrialization, they want the end of normal animals so they can substitute patented genetically engineered ones they own, they want the end of normal seeds and thus of seed banking by farmers or individuals. They want control over all seeds, animals, water, and land.

Our farmers are good stewards. That is who is threatened by Rosa DeLauro’s bill (and because of that, we all are)….

MonsantoToday — HR 875: Monsanto’s Dream Bill – Or Just an Internet Rumor?:

….The likely root of the offending blog post is a concern that food laws will make it more difficult to sell and process food that is grown locally. That is a legitimate concern—especially for small enterprises that would be hurt disproportionately by the fixed costs of regulation that larger businesses can spread across more revenue.

It is uncertain whether HR 875 would be effective at improving food safety, or whether it would create unreasonable burdens on local production and sale. This is the discussion that needs to take place in both the blogosphere and in Washington….

Seeds of Change, a Canadian documentary film — Farmers, Biotechnology, and the New Face of Agriculture:

The farmer focus of the Seeds of Change video provides an opportunity to hear firsthand accounts of the good, the bad and the ugly of GM crops from those who are most affected by the new crops’ impacts on agriculture and rural life. It is especially critical of the impacts that biotech giant Monsanto and its products are having on farmers and rural communities across the Canadian west.

Organic Consumers Association — Millions Against Monsanto Campaign:

Monsanto’s GE Seeds are Pushing US Agriculture into Bankruptcy — Genetically engineered crops are causing an economic disaster for farmers in the U.S. So says a new report released by Britain’s Soil Association. The report is a massive compilation of data showing GE crops have cost American taxpayers $12 billion in farm subsidies in the past three years….

Asheville Magazine — Monsanto: THE BAD SEED:

For more than a decade, the Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis has been maneuvering to dominate the world’s supply of seed for staple crops (corn, soybeans, potatoes) — a business plan that Monsanto’s critics say is nothing short of diabolical. Monsanto says it is just devilishly good business….