One of the key witnesses at Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershbergers criminal trial in May over his private food sales was his father, Daniel Hershberger. The elder Hershberger testified about how he moved with his son from an area of Ohio, which was becoming more urbanized, to settle in rural Wisconsin.
During cross examination, prosecutor Eric Defort tried to get Daniel to admit that the private membership food club at his son’s farm was mainly about making a lot of money.
Daniel resisted Deforts effort. Sometimes monetary valuation is not to be trusted, he said. To truly measure success, You have to ask the community.
Then he added, I come from a generation where a handshake meant something. And I seem to be in a generation where it doesnt, and where everything is based on money.
That last observation threw Defort off, and pretty much ended his questioning. But I find myself thinking about it during the wrangling over the government shutdown.
Daniel Hershberger was really bemoaning the loss of trust in our super-connected and super-polarized society. We have the most amazing communication tools in human history, and trust that erodes visibly nearly by the day.
How else do you explain the painful events that are making a mockery of our Constitutionally-mandated governing processes and the political leadership that is supposed to keep it all working? Now, theres enough trash talk around the blogosphere and social media about the government shutdown and debt-limit threat that I would ordinarily shy away from adding to the piles of verbiage. But because theres such a clear connection to what has evolved in the world of food rights, I cant resist adding my two cents.
Taken at face value, the arguments being raised by the Tea Party Republicans who have created the government shutdown are glorified rationalizations .The House of Representatives controls spending .We just want to negotiate .We must prevent Obamacare to save the nation .
On Facebook, Ive seen even more ridiculous rationalizationsshutting down the government is a way to oppose the federal income tax, the President proposed Obamacare and therefore illegally used his Constitutional authority, lets wipe the slate clean and start over, etc., etc.
The fact of the matter is that Obamacare, whether you agree or disagree with it, was passed into law and has survived based on Constitutionally-mandated processes. It was passed by Congress, signed by the President, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, and has withstood Congressional challenges to repeal it. Never before have opponents of one piece of legislation sought to use their opposition to bring down the whole house of cards as a means of protest–in an act of legislative sabotage and extortion.
Of course, thats not the whole story. Its essential to inquire further about whats really going on here. Why would supposedly patriotic individuals take such extreme and possibly damaging actions over one piece of government policy?
The only thing I can figure is that the polarization we are now witnessing is the result of a massive erosion of trust. There cant be meaningful negotiation if you are so suspicious of the other side you wouldnt trust whatever might be negotiated to be implemented.
The Obama Administrations counter kick-sand-in-their-face attitude is made clear by its shutdown of national parks, even to the extent that visitors to Mt. Rushmore have been prohibited from pulling over to the sides of a state road to take photos .The message: Well show you how they are making you suffer.
In the food world, where many of us spend a lot of time and energy, we have been witness to a steady erosion of trust as well, via lies and deceit. As just one very recent example, my previous post about the pullbacks by regulators in Illinois and South Dakota amount to lies. Regulators agreed to compromises, and then ignored their commitments. The prosecutors of Vernon Hershberger had the gall to tell the jury that all he had to do was pay $250 for a retail license and he would have avoided all the legal hassle he faced. That was deceitfulwith a retail license he would have been prohibited from selling his most popular product, raw milk.
Ive not even begun to get into the undercover investigations, examples of entrapment, and piling on of criminal charges against peaceful farmers.
You go to other arenas of life and you see the deception acted out again and again in big and small ways. The National Security Agency (NSA) is accessing our most private datainfo about our telephone conversations and emailsand were told its not a violation of the U.S. Constitutions Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. Assuming you can make an argument that there are national security gains to be obtained from doing the analyses of our communications, the real damage has occurred in the area of trust because the violations have occurred in secret. The federal governments ongoing refusal to recognize state sanctioning of marijuana–even after suggesting changes in its approach– is another example.
So, getting back to food ..While I support the Raw Milk Institute (RAWMI) and encourage dialog with long-time raw milk opponents like Michele Jay Russell of the University of California, Davis (who commented following my previous post)I do believe there are legitimate issues that can be worked throughI worry, with Russ, Dave Milano, and others about whether the disagreements and different views of the world can be bridged the old-fashioned way, whether a handshake can actually be made to mean something once again.
The one example we have of accommodation in the food world occurred in Michigan, and that took six solid years of hard work to overcome the suspicion and mistrust.
**
I’ve done a few radio and podcast interviews over the last couple weeks on behalf of my book, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights. One that I enjoyed immensely was by Ben Stone, aka The Bad Quaker. He has been following closely what’s been happening in the food rights arena, and his questions were right on target. There was also a radio interview by Katherine Albrecht, for the Katherine Albrecht Show, who offered an interesting personal perspective to her questioning.
One of the great virtues of Community Food is that rebuilding community in its social sense is hardwired into the whole idea of getting to know your food producer, and becoming one yourself. Pretty much all the people I know who I would and often do trust on a handshake, are people I’ve met this way.
2. How was the budget passed before securing the funding?
3. If the worlds nations needed money they wouldn’t be cutting corporate taxes. Did you know GE pays no tax?
4. We forget there is no need to increase the debt sealing. Why should we borrow more money just to give it to corporations that aren’t going to spend it?
5. The republicans invented Obamacare. They are not against it. Did everyone forget Romneycare?
http://libertypenblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/video-will-govt-shutdown-harm-economy.html
You say that “The fact of the matter is that Obamacare, whether you agree or disagree with it, was passed into law and has survived based on Constitutionally-mandated processes.”
Well, that’s careful language, since the “processes” were tacitly followed. But really, were they Constitutional? Obamacare, as well as countless other modern “legal” maneuverings, could never have found footing in earlier times. America needed first to creep away from Constitutionalism–slowly, steadily, and cleverly, which it did (the process beginning I’m sure in the minds of power-hungry (or well-intentioned but misguided) men even before the Constitutional ink was dry).
The tea party emerged after a surprise wake-up as some Americans suddenly noticed that even rights that once seemed untouchable are being gradually, blithely revoked. Perhaps they woke up too late. We’ll have to see about that. But as all this plays out we should at very least allow that tea-party notions give light to the reality of the now galloping trend toward centralization of money, power, and thought, and the loss of individual freedom necessary for centralization to take hold. Centralization is THE story of our time, and we should all, I think, be blunt about it, and do what we can legally do (and I mean legally in fact and truth) to turn the tide.
In the same way, during this alleged “shutdown”, the government feels free to keep spending on those same malign and destructive things, but only claims its legal inability to spend where it comes to spending which might help anyone.
It’s a total fraud. As always, the government does exactly what it wants to do and feels it can get away with, nothing more, nothing less. There is no “government shutdown”. It’s pure theater.
It goes back earlier than that. What’s today called Obamacare was first proposed by the right-wing Heritage Foundation in 1993 in response to Hillarycare. Obama has often bragged that his plan is a Republican plan.
It’s another example of how ignorant and fraudulent liberals are. The same people serving as shills and cheerleaders for Obamacare in recent years opposed the exact same plan when Republicans proposed it back then.
Obama’s poll tax could be found constitutional only according to the jurisprudence of a totalitarian interpretation of the commerce clause. It’s no surprise that the SCOTUS did so, since this is the core jurisprudence of corporatism. The goal, as with all other system policy, is to shift all real power to this extra-constitutional fourth branch of government, the corporations.
More on that here (raw milk is also mentioned) :
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/relocalization-and-federalism-vs-the-commerce-clause-wickard-v-filburn-and-peak-oil/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhzlQq1oBq0
http://youtu.be/DLIeW9agjoY
Sarcastic? Hardly.
Also, this in-store layout is arranged to give the impression that far more of the produce on display is “local” or “organic” than actually is. The banner will be much wider than the physical produce layout.
And of course the farmers are squeezed like any other Walmart supplier, getting far less of their rightful earnings than if they were to go for direct retailing.
I haven’t read this specifically about Whole Foods, but given their “natural” label scam, their attempted impresario role in brokering a scam “co-existence” deal with Monsanto, and their general Walmart-style hostility to workers and suppliers, I’m sure I’m on safe ground predicting a scam here as well.
I specifically said in my above post that we are not broke. You don’t think we should cut the budget?? You don’t think we should eliminate, for instance, parts of the US Ag dept like Ben Powell suggested? Really? Farmers don’t need the USAg dept to grow their crops, but instead they want to be paid for NOT growing crops. He says farmers should easily be able to make a living growing crops without any “gubment assistance” of any kind or they shouldn’t be farmers, and he’s right. And I never once heard either of them mention GE so where you came up with that I have no idea.
Actually, I’m not sure you were paying attention if you did watch the video. The sequester didn’t make a dent in most people’s lives and I doubt that anything other than the fear-mongering from politicos isn’t going to affect people from this “shutdown” either. We are NOT in a real shutdown. If we were, we’d all be quite aware of it.
I really think you need to watch it again. You really think americans should be paying for a comedy tour in India? A clothes-folding robot? A study on Chinese pig feces? But you don’t think we need to start making some changes and some cuts??
Ok then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0eYb9eX9iA
Not paying government workers. Hurts all workers and the economy.
And will not save the working class a penny.
Ben Powl says it’s like No toy in your happy meal.
No toys in happy meals hurts the company and the customers.
The Shutdown may not have hurt everyone yet but it hasn’t helped anyone either.
We know that farm subsidies are bogus but to say that farmer don’t need our help is also bogus. Farming has to be the least profitable of all professions. What a jerk.
How is this going to shrink government. They only want to shrink government services and responsibilities. They want to be paid for doing nothing but cause trouble.
Ben says don’t worry about your neighbors. Ok fine then, how has your employer been treating you? Have you been furloughed yet?
The Shutdown will not reduce your income-tax. How could it?
They have shifted the focus away from debt to health-care which may have been the plan all along. The debt sealing will go up.
Bankruptcy? That’s why I pointed out that GE pays no income-tax. Our government must not want the money if they keep slashing taxes. Before Kennedy, Regan, and Bush the top tax rate was like 90%.
Then he changes the subject to “nothing left to cut”.
And says we can eliminate the deficit. Doesn’t he realize that the federal government no longer prints money. Money has been privatized like so many other things. All of our money is now borrowed. Even if we gave it all back we’d still owe the interest unless we started charging the fed interest.
He wants to cut entitlements like Social Security–Retirement & Survivors, Unemployment Insurance, Veterans Benefits, Medicare, Social Security Disability, and Medicaid. Things that are all prepaid. To take these funds is stealing.
Cutting middle class retirement programs, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare is what is meant by limiting government.
John doesn’t think worker should get severance pay.
Stop collecting taxes ya right. But then again in some respects they have already.
Fannie/Freddie FHA
John says farming just happens.
John hates the Federal communication commission. I wonder why?
John hates The dept. of Labor. And labor unions. And Public broadcasting.
He wants to raid Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Cutting benefits only serves to increase government involvement in our lives.
What a snob. Maybe he thinks those furloughed federal workers should shine his shoes.
He can hardly keep from laughing.
Maybe he’s the one being sarcastic.
We’re Not Broke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhzlQq1oBq0
Super Rich – The Greed Game (Documentary)
Dave, I agree with much of what you says about the corrosive effects of centralization. What I was saying is that Obamacare was enacted under the procedures specified by the Constitution: It passed both houses of Congress, and was signed into law by the President. There were several suits filed in federal court challenging Obamacase as unconstitutional, and one of those cases was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the law as constitutional by a 5-4 vote. There were several more votes in Congress after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, to rescind it, and those failed. The only other specifically Constitutional avenue open to opponents would seem to be for Congress to vote against providing funding necessary to operate Obamacare, but Congress won’t do it. So the Tea Partiers undertook another avenue, never before tried, which was to tie a one-year delay of Obamacare to the overall budget. When Democrats wouldn’t go along, Republicans united to pass that, but the Senate wouldn’t pass it. So, a budget has essentially been held hostage to passing a budget needed to get the government operating. It looks now as if the Republicans are probably going to abandon the Obamacare delay tactic, and everything will get back to “normal.”
My sense is that if Obamacare is going to be so horrible, Congress should just let it be implemented, and let people get so pissed off they push Congress to rescind it. But then, Obamacare may wind up succeeding in providing medical care to people who have never had it, and in the process become a success.
I guess I am arguing that because the Constitution has been subverted in various ways doesn’t mean those of us who respect its importance should also try to subvert it further….that two wrongs don’t make a right.
His point about not putting the toy in the happy meal was simply to illustrate that because you change something at a huge company like mcdonald’s does not mean you shut the whole thing down and come to a complete halt.
But as I said, you’ve missed the essence of the points he made. Good grief.
John Stossel – Will The Shutdown Harm The Economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0eYb9eX9iA
John Stossel made his point very clear. The furloughed federal workers are nonessential and should be fired so they can look for better jobs elsewhere. The silly thing is, that’s not even on the table and neither is the debt sealing. The only thing on the table is what concisions will be made on health-care? Chances are we’re not going to like what ever they are.
More important than John’s point was his statement that America is bankrupt and that we need to raid Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. D, do you agree John Stossel said this. If so do you agree with him on this point? Do you think John has the same definition of big government as we do?
He especially loves GMOs, CAFOs, and industrial ag in general, and hates organic food, local food, grassfed beef, raw milk, etc.
http://blog.americangrassfedbeef.com/john-stossel%E2%80%99s-take-is-just-wrong/
I wasn’t really all that interested in what Stossel had to say, Mike. I was more interested in what Ben Powell had to say. Stossel, however, did not suggest raiding social security or medicare, etc., he simply pointed out they are behemoth items. And they are. But if some of the other things he referred to were brought down to a workable size, and if some of the other totally wasted funds were brought under control, then things like social security, medicare and the other biggies would be easier to manage and support. This idea that we have to pay for studies on chicken poop in China – I mean, really? You support that? Let China pay for it’s own studies. If america were a privately owned corporation, do you think it would/should keep ALL non-essential workers instead of paring down those numbers and making it more manageable?
Yes, the debt ceiling is most certainly a part of this whole package, indirectly. We’re talking about an approaching 17 billion dollar debt, and a lot of people think it’s really a much much higher number than that. The interest is being paid on that debt, so they say, but america will never be able to come close to paying on the actual principle – unless we stop the rate of waste. The current administration just wants to keep printing federal reserve dollars with no boundaries. Do you think that’s a good idea?
And you’re right – we are probably not going to like any of the concessions we’ll have to submit to concerning obozocare, which is why there are a whole lotta people who aren’t interested in seeing it fully implemented. Not now, not ever.
Federal reserve dollars are instruments of credit. Our federal government no longer prints money.
You never said if you thought these guys had the same definition of big government as we do.
By keeping social security benefits ridiculously low there has always been a surplus that was skimmed off to pay for all those ridiculous programs you mentioned. You have got to know that those ridiculous programs would be the last to go. All you hear entitlements in other words social security. chicken poop in China ain’t shit, is not on the table, and would be the last to go. The pharmaceutical industry(the anti-raw milk lobby) sucks $4 trillion a year from our economy.
Corporations do fund things like we saw in Nancy’s cupboard.
What’s obozocare Russ said What’s today called Obamacare was first proposed by the right-wing Heritage Foundation in 1993 in response to Hillarycare. The first thing I remember about Obamacare is that it would penalize people who couldn’t afford health-care. The next thing was that insurance companies didn’t want to keep up their end of the bargain when they heard they wouldn’t be able to refuse coverage on preexisting conditions. They will probably remove any good parts. In the end we will be forced to pay the penalty when our employers refuse to provide health insurance or buy overpriced insurance with hug deductibles and copays that don’t cover anything we want.
Unless we reduce the work week and decrease the retirement age, where would those non-essential workers work?
Of course corporations fund stuff, but the gubment wastes plenty of our money funding useless, unnecessary stuff too, and it isn’t about someone keeping their job. A free market produces jobs without gubment help or interference, do you not get that?? You probably would benefit from reading more of the writings by Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano concerning the banks, free markets, etc. Less gubment, not more, man.
Obozo was not smart enough to put together something like obozocare and he certainly couldn’t have done it in his first four years, if that’s what you’re trying to tell me. That’s a given and even stupid people like me had that one figured out.
So America is “broke” except insofar as it can still coast along on a plunder/tribute economy based on the might-makes-right of the dollar as the global reserve currency, and the threat and use of military violence. It’s basically a gangster system. The real economy is in shambles, and the money measures nothing but brute power.
The only solution to this is to reject globalization (all planned economy supply-based “trade”, like industrial ag) and rebuild the real economy from the locality/region up. And if we’re to still have a centralized currency, it must be restored to its proper role as a unit of account based on real economic productivity. In that case the government would directly issue money in proportion to real productivity. No taxation is necessary, no Wall Street, no Fed.
That’s what US farmers used to understand. They were greenbackers, which means they fought for the kind of money system I just described. That’s why the Populist movement adopted the greenbacker platform.
One of the tragedies of our time is how we’ve lost this history, so that farmers today are prone to think the opposite, and to parrot Wall Street propaganda. That’s a big part of why farmers are in such an awful mess today – they’re absolutely the worst in terms of being prone to think and act against their own interest.
I can see we are on different pages about this, so it would be best if we don’t discuss it here.