The Proposal to Outlaw the Home Garden - HR 875 and S 425

[stormymater]

You have heard the old adage - Live carefully as life is uncertain, right? I believe we have an incredibly safe clean food supply. Amazing given the degree of mechanization & behemoth scale processing plants have grown to - keeping foods cheap. So safe for generations now that many (most) citizens have forgotten basic home sanitation techniques - washing lettuce & other produce, for example.
So safe that people do not blink about buying bulk produced processed foods or fruits/vegies from other countries - way out of season. So safe people do not read those labels - shrimp or crabmeat from C#@$# anyone? (It's cheap! It also earned the USDA stamp of "filthy" - an honor bestowed on very few US made products).
I am keen on promoting local gardens & small scale operations with people knowing who is growing what & when & eating within the season. I think it is possible & preferable but that is just my opinion. We may be forced to this option - I'd prefer that to monolithic government with more rules & regulations (& poor oversight & much higher $$$$ in both cost of food & worse, taxes). We may be forced into just such a setting WITH the Federal Government providing "oversight" & "regulation" (ugh - the worst scenario). Such a change may even bring back farming in areas that used to be famous for products - Cape Fear rice anyone? I'd prefer it to be without the Feds legislating. Imagine a year without new laws - the $$$ saved & the freedoms retained.

[Charley Gardener]

If you want something to get messed up just let the government do it. No body can make a mess like they can!

[lumierefrere]

Compare and contrast Fed Ex or UPS v USPS.

[feldon30]

Love FedEx.
Can deal with USPS.
Hate UPS.

Go figure.

[Ruggs]

I think that Worth has the right idea!!!! Just think of how fast we can get out of this recession, with all the jobs that it creates!

[Lee]

What do you propose? We can't go to the peanut proccessing establishment with shotguns in hand and make them clean it up. The food industry is creating health hazards and are not policing themselves.

I deleted what I propose since I think it might have gotten a little too political, but since you asked...

Don't buy processed foods. When we stop buying the junk the food industry creates, they'll stop creating it. Easier
said than done, I know. But perhaps American society needs
to get back to not having everything so easy.....

Lee

[Ruth_10]

What these bills don't do well is *prevent* food borne illnesses. Laws already exist to deal with that.

What the bills do do well is (1) create a new bureaucracy and (2) a new revenue stream generated by said bureaucracy.

(I don't believe for a minute that the monies generated by registration and "inspection fees" will actually be used for that. If you believe they will, then let me introduce you to the Social Security fund.)

They also create a paper trail for trial lawyers to get their &%^! fingers on.

Lee said it well. You can't remove every last bit of risk from life. And several others have pointed out that, all in all, our food system is pretty safe. Probably as safe as it has ever been. What's different now is that TV and radio and the internet inform us, ad nauseum (pun intended) about every last thing that happens.

[organichris]

Originally Posted by Lee

...I think the real solution is that we need to return to taking responsibility for ourselves and stop expecting government to provide us a protective bubble for our lives so nothing bad ever happens...

This is correct in my view. I would be willing to bet (and there's really no way to prove it at this point) that if all the proposed measures of HR 875 were put into place, we would have the same rare occasions of food contamination.

I'll admit that I would be fighting mad if my child had fallen ill or died from bad peanut butter, but I wouldn't be looking to the government to build more bureaucracy so that I would have to pay for it either in the form of more taxation or higher food prices only to have the same thing happen to someone else five years later.

I think what some of us are growing weary of is the government's savior complex. But truth be told, they receive this power from the people who always either blame them or look to them for solutions.

In Tulsa, a city councilman recently objected to a proposal to allow community gardens. He basically said he was afraid someone might try to grow pot. I'm thinking, "Seriously?" So the objection to people producing their own food is that some naive person would actually think he could get away with growing cannabis in a public setting without it being noticed.

[WVTomatoMan]

Odds and ends:

FedEx has backed into my car and run over my bird feeders. UPS and USPS haven't. Guess which I request NOT make deliveries to my house? But, I digress.

Yes I have issues with the media and how they present things. I think they contributed to the economic situation. However, they have to report on two of the largest food recalls in American history (the current peanut products and the beef recall of about a year ago). So, the question is did they handle it correctly and responsibly? Are they scaring people more than necessary?

I think the government is going to do something. I have concerns about that. I guess my government approval rating isn't as high as some people's. I've been trying to keep politics out of it, but here's what I said about the financial bailout:
Let me get this straight you're trusting the same people who helped create a problem to fix it?

Randy

[lumierefrere]

Randy:

Last time I heard Congress's approval rating was in the single digits. How much lower than that is yours?

Barb

[feldon30]

Most of the current financial situation now can be traced back to the banks.

Banks dreamed up these fractional mortgages and bizarre 300 page securities that nobody (even the banks) could understand. You had banks that were parceling up a person's mortgage into 500 pieces and then selling them as if they were stocks. If the person doesn't pay their mortgage, then that stock is worthless. And then they were giving out mortgages to people without even doing credit checks or just taking their word for it on income levels.

Want proof? Look at court cases across the US where banks were unable to prove that they owned the mortgages on the houses they were trying to foreclose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_backed_securities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collate...bt_obligations

And banks were the main cause of the cost of oil going from $40 a barrel to $150 a barrel. Did you know that for over 100 years, crude oil has been a commodity like orange juice or other items. Then the banks got the bright idea of speculating on oil prices. Banks started buying up oil futures and drove the price up. Then they sold when the price was high. All in the interest of making money.

The biggest traders in oil in the last 3 years were banks and mortgage companies who have no business buying and selling these commodities. Why in the world is Bank of America buying and selling crude oil and driving up the price?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=9042

At least 60% of today’s $128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups

US margin rules of the government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today's price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme “leverage” of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population.

There was no supply problem. Oil consumption did not significantly change in the last 3 years, in fact it went down.

America changed their driving habits, perhaps forever, based on $4 gasoline. People cut cut cut back on spending habits, they stopped driving places. Companies that relied on deliveries of inexpensive items folded or had to change their habits. Transportation costs became a huge factor in the price of everything which led to inflation and loss of jobs.

Finance has gone from an actual measurement of profit and loss, loans and repayments, interest and dividends and become a computer game played by whichever math whiz they can find who can conceal the losses the longest until it is too late to do anything about it.

Really, I blame everything on banks. Do you want to know where most of the expert traders went after Enron went down? They got hired by banks.

This is not conspiracy theories folks, this is confirmable reality.

[organichris]

Originally Posted by feldon30

Most of the current financial situation now can be traced back to the banks.

Exactly. Ever notice how it has been spun to reflect negatively on borrowers when they are a comparatively small part of the equation?

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

- Thomas Jefferson

In case you happen to be uninformed, this is the situation we are currently in. The Federal Reserve is a private bank that controls the issuance of U.S. dollars. It is NOT a part of the U.S. government and is not accountable to anyone - least of all American citizens.

[BattleOfBennington]

It is a private bank which is owned by the banks it bails out - Citi, Chase, Wells, BoA, etc.

Also - when the Fed prints a dollar, the US must pay it back with interest (instead of just the US printing their own interest free) which is why the US can never get out of debt when we only use the federal reserve note.

but I digress, and to not take away from the discussion relating to gardening, tomato's and the like, I will stay on topic.

if you have any questions, just PM me so that we can keep Tomatoville what it is.

Thanks
C

Originally Posted by organichris

Exactly. Ever notice how it has been spun to reflect negatively on borrowers when they are a comparatively small part of the equation?

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

- Thomas Jefferson

In case you happen to be uninformed, this is the situation we are currently in. The Federal Reserve is a private bank that controls the issuance of U.S. dollars. It is NOT a part of the U.S. government and is not accountable to anyone - least of all American citizens.

[WVTomatoMan]

Last week, I brought up HR 875 to a friend of mine who is quite active in the Farmer's Market community. Here is what the Executive Director of her Farmer's Market Coalition reported:

...Calls to Congresswoman DeLauro’s office from me and several colleagues have been met by assurances that she is an advocate for small family farms, and that the bill’s intent is to minimize (or eliminate) the impact on such entities while addressing the challenges posed by a global food supply by more closely regulating imported food. Based on what we know at this point, farmers markets are not considered "food establishments" under Section 3 (13), and would not be subject to inspection as such...

I wanted to email DeLaura for clarification on issues brought up in this thread and on the internet, but you can only email her if you are from her district. However, I am satisfied with this source and it has addressed some of what I consider to be misinformation and/or over-reaction hype.

I still have issues with the bill and oppose it as is.

Randy

[WVTomatoMan]

No one has explained what this bill has to do with Monsanto. Could someone please explain it to me?

Whilst I'm on the subject. Ms. Delauro has been in Congress since the 90's. She's probably been married longer (I couldn't find out). It is 2009. It sure did take a long time for her to get around to her hidden agenda.

BTW, there are many web sites that say that DeLauro's husband, Stan Greenberg, works for Monsanto. Actually Monsanto is one of his coporate clients. IMHO, there's a difference there.

Just a reminder, I've had issues with Monsanto for a long time and the Percy Schmeiser (sp?) issue really pushed me over the top. Then why does it look like I'm defending them? Because I don't believe in wrongful accusations even if it is aimed at people I don't like.

Randy