Liberals, eager for an organic future in farming, have not seen the carefully-crafted corporate traps that, this year, are criminalizing and dismantling most aspects of farming. And there are ones still coming - attacks on the three things at the heart of organic farming - seeds, manure, and earthworms.
+ Manure (not chemical pesticides or fertilizers) is now listed as a source of seed contamination, a set up to ban its use for the sake of "food safety."
+ Farmers' seed storage areas are now listed as a source of seed contamination, a set up to require "FDA-certified facilities" beyond small farmers' means.
+ Earthworms are now listed as an invasive species, a set up to eradicate them through spraying, destroying the floor under everything - the soil.
Farmers are being aggressively attacked and living in fear, heritage animals are being located for easier destruction through disease scares or "bioterrorism" to facilitate the substitution of genetically engineered (corporately privatized) animals, and through force and deception, farmers' ownership of US farmland is being stripped away, perhaps for use as collateral on the bailout.
2009 appears to be the year for the trap to shut.
The excitement over Obama and the upset over the economy provide a distracting cover for the disappearance of farming in the US. A White house "farmer" and an organic garden on the White House lawn are a cruelly empty show, because out in the countryside, farming is being systematically and aggressively killed by the government. Vilsack was not selected by mistake. Vilsack, Vil[e]sack or Vil[lage]sack, he has a job to do that Monsanto wants and it is proceeding on target while liberals see "a White House farmer" as a sign Obama cares.
Some history
"The Young Executives Plan to Liquidate Farming" Congressional Record
Clinton connection to Monsanto and industrial agriculture
Monsanto inside the FDA
Dismantling of sustainable farming
Monsanto outside the FDA
Monsanto goes after Steve Hixon, a seed cleaner
Rural Cleansing
USDA largest regulations ever - NAIS and Premises ID
What is NAIS?
Concerns about NAIS
Draconian penalties under NAIS
Is Premises ID a US farmland grab?
What are the legal questions around Premises ID?
Out in the countryside - USDA attacks on non-corporate farmers
Worries of Paul-Martin Griepentrog
Wisconsin's state agriculture department threatens Griepentrog
Raid on Mark Nolt, a horse ad buggy Mennonite farmer
Farming communities living in fear of the USDA attacks
The means of pushing this all forward:
Distortion of science
Ramped up fear of disease in the public
Intimidation of farming communities
International plans dressed in humanitarian concern
The control and profit in "alleviating hunger and suffering"
A new civil rights movement
Civil rights implications of attacks across all sectors of farming and bars to farming
Petition seeking help from left and right anti-coporate constitutionalists