GMO VICTORY
I live in Jackson County, Oregon,
where local people recently passed a
GMO crop ban initiative that made
national news. Here’s what happened:
Over two years ago, a local organic
seed grower discovered that Syngenta, a
Switzerland-based corporation, had for
a number of years leased many small
tracts of local land for GMO beet seed
production, distributed so widely that
no pollen-free place was left for related
organic seed production. Syngenta’s
move into the valley had been so covert
that hardly anyone knew about
it.
A “GMO-Free Jackson County”
group gathered signatures to put an
initiative on the ballot. The state
legislature responded by taking
away local rights, allowing only
state control of GMO farm issues.
Jackson County was exempted because
they had already qualified for
the ballot. A large number of farms
and businesses joined the effort with
“Our Family Farms Coalition.” Our
local WAPF chapter added support.
Opposition was fierce, with
large donations from Monsanto,
Syngenta, nationwide farm bureaus
and sugar and food industries, using local
farm bureaus and “Good Neighbors
Farmers PAC.” Most local government
officials and news editors vigorously opposed
the measure, repeating arguments
identical to agribusiness propaganda,
and claiming that the conflict could
be resolved if farmers would be “good
neighbors.” Scientists from Oregon
State University and the University of
California at Davis assured the public
that every aspect of GMO science had
been thoroughly tested and found to
be absolutely safe, and that any fear
of contamination of organic crops was
unfounded.
A Portland publicity firm had
plenty of money for TV spots, multiple
mailings to voters and phone calls from
Nevada. Voters were told that enforcement
of the measure would cost so much
that law enforcement budgets would be
decimated and teams of enforcement
agents would be inspecting local farms
and gardens.
With a very high voter turnout, the
initiative passed with 66 percent in favor
of banning GMO crops. Neighboring
Josephine County passed a similar ban
with a 56 percent margin, in spite of the
state takeover.
David versus Goliath, or the mouse
that roared? What I see is a massive
increase in public awareness that GMO
is not safe.
If the FDA had not conspired with
agribusiness to decree GMO safe, the
industry would have been required to
do adequate testing. Glyphosate and
Bt crops of soy, corn, beets and alfalfa
would not pass real tests.
Oregon is now gathering signatures
for a statewide labeling requirement. We
will win again. A band of local volunteers
with tremendous effort can be an
effective force.
See the website www.ourfamilyfarmscoalition.
org or contact me at
imedwds@gmail.com.
Ira Edwards
Medford, Oregon
HARMFUL TO
HUMAN HEALTH?
I didn’t renew because I started
investigating more about health and
found that arachidonic acid [found
in foods like butter and liver] is very
harmful to human health, causing
inflammation down to a molecular
level.
Name Withheld
Chris Masterjohn replies: There are
two problems with the idea that arachidonic
acid is inflammatory. The
first is that inflammation is important,
and should not be viewed as a
bad thing. The second is that arachdionic
acid is not “pro-inflammatory” or
“anti-inflammatory,” but is rather a raw
material that our bodies use to regulate
the process of inflammation.
Inflammation protects us from
infection and cleans up damage within
our bodies. Inflammation is one of the
reasons we are all alive. Our bodies
regulate the initiation of inflammation
and regulate the resolution of inflammation.
We do not want a diet and lifestyle
that are “pro-inflammatory,” nor do we
want them to be “anti-inflammatory.” We want to assist our bodies’ attempts
to properly target inflammation, initiate
it when needed, and resolve it when
needed, by giving them all the raw materials
they need to execute and regulate
these processes.
Arachidonic acid is a raw material
that our bodies use to communicate
about inflammation. When we need to
initiate inflammation, our bodies use
arachidonic acid to make the signal.
When we want to resolve inflammation,
our bodies use arachidonic acid to make
the signal. In our guts, our immune
systems use arachidonic acid in a very
special way: there it forms a critical part
of the signals that train our immune systems
to tolerate the foods we eat instead
of mounting attacks against these foods.
Interfering with arachidonic acid metabolism
by using “anti-inflammatory”
drugs has been shown to contribute to
food intolerances and autoimmune diseases
by interfering with these signals.
In order to understand arachidonic
acid in its proper context, we need to
move beyond terms like “pro-inflammatory”
and “anti-inflammatory” and
instead think of supporting homeostasis.
One part of supporting homeostasis is
providing our bodies with all the nutrients
they need, and arachidonic acid is
one of them.
THERAPEUTIC SEA WATER
I want to take this opportunity to
share something with you. A friend just
sent me a video filmed by a Spanish
activist, Alicia Ninou, which was just
subtitled into English, and which covers,
among other issues, the use of sea
water for therapeutic purposes. Spain is
probably the world’s leading country on
the use of therapeutic sea water.
This is the link: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=vL4WrJ9GYTs. The
main theme of this video is a new medical
policy that is currently being applied
in Nicaragua. They are using alternative
medicine therapies as part of their public
health program, which is very impressive
indeed. One of the therapies they
use is based on taking sea water orally.
This subject is discussed in depth from
minute 6:20 to minute 20:20.
Monica Parea
Gijon, Spain
THE MILK DIET
A few months back, I was with my
mom in the attic of her home in St. Paul
(the one I grew up in) and we were putting
away Christmas decorations, when
I looked over at a shelf on the wall and
saw some old letters that were stacked
on top of each other. I pulled one of
the letters out of the middle and saw it
dated 1941 and that it was written to my
mother’s parents (Mr. & Mrs. H.
A. Peterson) from my mother’s
maternal grandfather, Dr. Grant
Simpson Van Horn.
Grant was a doctor in
Batavia, Ohio up until the
early 1940s. This letter that I
randomly selected must have
been meant for my eyes to see!
It is dated October 20, 1941 and
here is what it said:
“Dear Folks, Yours at hand
and thanks for invitation to be
with you Sunday. Will try to
come down about the usual
time unless something prevents.
Have a confinement at Elk-lick
overdue and it might come just
as we wanted to get away. I am
not feeling at all well & have decided
on a milk diet. If that don’t help, I am
lost. Was up every hour from 9 on and
am feeling like I have not been having
enough nitrogenous food & am turning
to milk diet as cannot eat or chew tough
meat with store teeth. Love to all, G.S.V
(Dr G. S. Van Horn, Batavia, Ohio)”
Well, sadly for my great-grandfather,
he was at the last stage of prostate
cancer at the time of this letter and
passed away just a few short weeks later.
Finding this letter was no accident.
I truly believe this letter was meant for
me to find, hidden between all the other
letters and antique items in my mother’s
attic. To learn that my great-grandfather
understood the importance and healing
ability of the raw milk diet means more
to me than words can express. I feel
so blessed to have found such a gem
amongst the many treasures in the attic,
especially because of my diligence with
the Raw Milk Campaign I am working
on so hard here in Minnesota. Perhaps
I’ll bring this letter along with my raw
dairy petition when I get my meeting
with our governor, and prove to him that
the milk diet was real, and relied upon
for healing!
Diane Smith, chapter leader
White Bear Lake Area, Minnesota
DILEMMA
My husband and I just became
parents in March when our WAPF baby
Evangeline arrived. We have both been
eating a very healthy diet prior to and
during my pregnancy and Evie is a very
healthy girl.
What concerns us is the fact
that parents-in-law, my parents, some
relatives and friends have been making
remarks about Evie getting treats from
them here and there—such as purple
cupcakes, Doritos, Coke. . . you name
it. We are afraid that even though they
all know our beliefs, they are going to
sneak things in and possibly pressure
her to eat them. We hope that Evie is
going to refuse them due to
the fact that her taste buds are
going to tell her the truth. We
understand we cannot avoid
everything 100 percent but . . .
My question is, is there
a special Wise Traditions issue
or any like-minded resources
that discuss a similar topic? I
wonder how other WAPF parents
deal with this, especially
the ones that send pictures of
their babies to the Healthy
Baby Gallery. My mother-inlaw
is convinced that cereal is
the way to go for a baby even
though I gave her some WAPF
flyers, etc. Any advice is greatly
appreciated! Thank you!
Anna Simpson NTP, MA
Jared Simpson
Vernon, Connecticut
My own advice would be to make it
very clear to family members that you
don’t want junk food given to your
children. Bring healthy alternatives
to family gatherings and don’t accept
invitations from these family members
to watch the child during mealtimes
or for sleepovers. We invite comments
and other ideas from our readers. The
Nourishing Our Children Facebook
page often has discussions on this topic. See www.facebook.com/groups/
nourishedchildren/.
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
I went to Lincoln, Nebraska last
week and rented a room with a WAPF
family (hotels were full for the Berkshire
Hathaway Shareholder event that
weekend). I had an incredible time.
WAPF education has gone far and deep
into America and has helped entire
families become healthy and mentally
well-adjusted that give birth to children
free from chronic, lifelong problems. It
was shocking for me to see the difference
between WAPF nourished children
and non-WAPF nourished children. We
all owe the Foundation a great debt of
gratitude.
I did not know Nebraska lets its
farmers sell raw milk on their farms. I
went to four different farms in the four
days I was there and drank some of the
best Jersey milk I’ve ever tasted. I think
I overdosed on milk, pastured eggs and
fine cheeses! All the farmers’ wives had
heard of WAPF, fed their children along
the same principles, and the children that
I met were simply bursting with life,
health, curiosity and intelligence.
Also, I met farmers Charuth and
Kevin Loth who make goat milk and
cheese. They want to create a fund to
purchase a one-hundred-sixty-acre adjacent
lot for about one million dollars,
where they want to set up a farmerowned
community—before the land
gets consumed by McMansions. Do
you have any thoughts on these matters?
Land trusts? Non-profit grants?
Farm loans? What’s a good structure?
Any ideas? If so, do pass them along to
me. There is a somewhat similar threehundred-
acre intentional community
of fifty first-generation farmers here in
Sebastopol. It’s very cool, and they are
just starting. I think two of the farmers
bought this land outright several years
ago. They are still figuring out leasing
arrangements, revenue sharing, etc.
Sushama Gokhale
Larkspur, California
VITAMIN D LEVELS
Chris Masterjohn has made so
many valuable contributions to our
understanding of how food and health
intersect—I have great respect and
gratitude for him. But his article, “Beyond
Cholesterol: Fat-Soluble Vitamins
in the Prevention of Heart Disease,” left
me uneasy about his conclusions on
optimal serum 25(OH)D levels. I am
not a scientist, only an avid reader and
thinker about food and health, so please
forgive my layman’s vocabulary and
lack of clarity.
I think that what Masterjohn really
wanted us to take away from the article
was that we don’t know exactly what
the connections between serum 25(OH)
D levels and heart disease are, and we
need to ensure that we are getting A, K
and D together, through food sources. I
agree.
But at the same time, he makes this
statement: “. . . people with vitamin D
status higher than 40 ng/ml. have a higher
risk of heart disease.” As evidence
for this statement, he apparently relies
on two citations—the animal study by
Taura, Taura, Kamio and Kummerow
(citation 16) and the chart in Figure 2. I
don’t think these two pieces of evidence
are strong enough to support such a
definitive statement.
The animal study showed calcification
and lesions in coronary arteries
(similar to that seen in humans) in pigs
who were supplemented with vitamin
D. But the pathology was found only in
pigs who had been supplemented with
31,250 IU or more per kilogram of feed.
I don’t know how much feed pigs consume
but my guess is it is some major
fraction of a kilogram per day, making
their supplementation level much higher
than most humans would take. Their
serum 25(OH)D levels were apparently
never measured.
The other piece of evidence was the
chart shown as Figure 2. At first blush, it
seems to support the premise—the rate
of major cardiac and cerebrovascular
events is lowest for a 25(OH)D level of
20-40, and is higher for the >40 group.
But this study was not done on a
general population—the subjects were
cardiac surgery patients. Could it be that
lower vitamin D levels were part of what
got these people into the study group
in the first place—and that if they had
higher 25(OH)D levels and still wound
up as cardiac surgery patients, that
there were other underlying factors that
undermined their health and increased
their risk? In addition, what we are really
looking for is—where does the right
hand side of the U-shaped curve begin?
But how can we tell, when everything
over 40 is lumped together in a single
band? What if everybody from 40 to 60
were fine, but then at over 60, the incidence
of events jumped sharply? That
could be depicted with the same graph.
As I mentioned above, I agree with
Chris’s basic message about vitamin D.
But the simplified statement, especially
as it is highlighted in a side bar, is likely
to send people running to the lab and
panicking about their 25(OH)D levels if
they are over 40. Based on the evidence
presented in the article, I’m not sure that
is warranted. We need more research on
this question.
Pia Chamberlain
San Jose, California
Chris Masterjohn replies: Thank you for
voicing your concerns about my article.
The phrase you quote, “people with
vitamin D status higher than 40 ng/ml
have a higher risk of heart disease,” is
part of a sentence explaining why many
people might find this surprising. The
initial statement of this fact is found two
sentences prior to this, where Figure 2
is clearly provided as a reference. Figure
2, in turn, clearly cites the human
study justifying this statement and the
legend explains the data in more detail.
You are correct that the figure does not
show where the risk begins increasing.
The paper from which these data
are drawn provides a figure (Figure
2 in that paper, not in my article) that
attempts to estimate this, and it shows
that the risk of heart disease in those
patients was lowest at approximately 28
ng/mL. Perusing the continuous curve
from the original research paper leads
to the conclusion that although the risk
of heart disease begins increasing immediately
thereafter, it does not become
statistically significantly greater until
about 40 ng/mL. I chose to provide my
own bar graph derived from one of their
tables (Table 2 in that paper, not my
article) because the statistical analysis
of such a graph is less complicated than
the analysis of the continuous curve,
because I believe it is simpler and easier
for most people to understand than the
continuous curve, and because using
it does not substantially change any
conclusions.
The second paragraph after the
phrase you quote from my article makes
two important points that moderate the
conclusion I drew from these data: one
is that vitamin D status this high may
be helpful in some people but harmful
in others. I cited the specific example
of the background diet and its content
of vitamins A and K. The second is a
point that you make, that the statistical
correlation may not represent a causeand-
effect relationship.
There could be other contextual
factors besides the background diet. As
you point out, for example, these are
cardiac surgery patients, which means
they clearly have other cardiovascular
risk factors. Similarly, the Israeli lifeguards
with a mean 25(OH)D of just
over 50 ng/mL and a 20-fold increase in
the risk of kidney stones (referred to in
the “Naked Ape” sidebar) also had signs
of dehydration and sun damage that
may have played a role in their kidney
stones. One reasonable conclusion from
this is that 25(OH)D over 40 ng/mL may
contribute to soft tissue calcification in
people with other predisposing risk factors,
but not in everyone. This does not
make it any less of a concern, because,
if this is true, we don’t yet know what all
the relevant risk factors are.
Even so, we must keep in mind the
consistency between this study and
the meta-analysis cited in Figure 1 of
my article. The meta-analysis showed
that cardiovascular disease bottoms
out around 24 ng/mL in the general
population, while a great unknown is
associated with higher levels of 25(OH)
D because of the paucity of data. This
finding is very close to the level at which
the risk of major cardiovascular events
bottoms out in cardiac surgery patients.
There is no basis for believing that the
risk increases thereafter in the general
population like it does in cardiac surgery
patients, but there is only a very
weak basis for believing that it does not.
As described in the last paragraph of
the “Naked Ape” sidebar, and as stated
more briefly in the second paragraph
after the phrase you quote, we do not
know if correlations between 25(OH)D
and good or bad health outcomes represent
cause-and-effect relationships
because there are a variety of things
besides vitamin D exposure that affect
25(OH)D. Nevertheless, there is a general
consistency between the epidemiology
and the animal experiments that
cannot be ignored. I cited evidence that
both dramatic deficiencies and dramatic
excesses of vitamin D have been shown
to contribute to cardiovascular disease
in animals by inducing soft tissue calcification,
and I proposed a mechanism
to explain this based on the regulation
of vitamin K-dependent proteins by
vitamins A and D.
You are absolutely correct to suggest
that the animal experiments use
more extreme changes in vitamin D
status than we find associated with
cardiovascular disease in humans, but
animal experiments are always performed
in the context of a genetically
homogeneous animal population with
homogeneous background diets meant
to be nutritionally adequate. In humans,
variations in vitamin D status occur in the context of many different genetic
variations in nutritional requirements
and considerable variations in the status
of other nutrients, with the intakes of
many other nutrients often inadequate.
These variations mean that changes in
vitamin D status are more likely to be
harmful in some people than others, and
more likely to be harmful in humans
than in experimental animals.
My article was not intended to produce
panic. Panic is very bad for a person’s
health, and few situations justify it.
In this case, I concluded that “we need
to pay more attention to optimizing the
nutrient density and nutrient balance of
the diet rather than overemphasizing the
usefulness and importance of optimizing
blood levels of vitamin D.” I do not
believe that shifting the emphasis away
from optimizing 25(OH)D and towards
a more holistic approach to health
constitutes a state of panic and I do not
believe it is likely to predispose someone
towards panic. If anything, I think taking
some of the emphasis off of optimizing a
specific blood marker is likely to reduce
anxiety.
I believe that you and I are in strong
agreement that these studies raise many
unanswered questions and that more
research is needed, and I appreciate
your critical feedback.
GMO MOSQUITOS
I just received my Spring Wise Traditions
and read the piece about GMO
mosquitoes. I wanted to give you more
information to add to what you already
have.
In February I was a guest and panel
member for a day-long local food and
sustainability workshop at Valencia
College in Orlando. In the evening they
included Jeffrey Smith via Skype to join
our discussions. He was in the Florida
Keys working with local government
officials there concerning these GMO
mosquitoes which Oxitec, the British
biotech company that developed the
insects, would like to release into the
Florida Keys as part of a test.
The short version of the story is that
Jeffrey Smith discovered the GE gene
that makes the mosquitoes sterile is unstable
outside of the laboratory setting.
Exposure to tetracycline causes the gene
to fail and offspring to survive instead
of die. Tetracycline, it turns out, is found
anywhere there are factory-farmed
chickens including bowls of dog food
(made from factory farmed chicken) left
outside in the neighborhoods where the
GE mosquitoes are released.
I give more details in my blog
article including Jeffrey’s thoughts
and comments from University of
Florida scientists. Here is the link: http://
wellfedfamily.net/?p=490
On another subject, I’ve been thinking
a lot about the sacred foods detailed
in Dr. Price’s work, and the great effort
made by the traditional populations to
obtain certain nutrient-dense foods,
and how this would have applied to the
ancient Israelites of the Old Testament.
I realized that the sacrificial laws given
by God to the Israelites include a way
for us to deduce the nutrient-dense (and
therefore sacred) foods of these ancient
people. Particularly with animals set
apart for sacrifice we see specific mention
of liver, kidneys and the internal fat
surrounding these organs plus the very
fatty parts of the meat such as the tail
and the thigh.
The very idea of sacrifice means
giving up something precious, something
you would normally keep for
yourself, and giving it up would create
great hardship for you. So to have the
command given to give up the internal
organs and fatty portions and burn it
completely—not getting to eat any of
it—for the Lord seems to be God’s way
of highlighting the very crucial part
these items would play in the nutrition
and health of His people. Giving
these valuable things to God meant
their hearts were obedient and focused
outwardly rather than selfishly. I wrote
an article here http://wellfedfamily.
net/?p=823#comments.
Thanks for all you do to promote
good food, farming and health!
Lee Burdett
Saltamonte Springs, Florida
RAW MILK IN AUSTRALIA
Greetings from Australia! Despite
a recent drawn-out court case where
the judge ruled against raw milk sales,
we continue to have clear access to
real milk from a couple of dairies near
Adelaide. These dairying families rely
entirely upon the discerning people who
buy directly from the farm as their sole
means of income.
The court case involved a farming
family named Tyler, who did things a bit
differently, in that they offered not only
cow-share opportunities, but they delivered
the milk in 1.5 litre bottles (about
3 pints) to designated pick-up points in
shops (with refrigeration cabinets, obviously)
around the city. That use of shops
was what drew attention of the food
inspectors and led to the prosecution.
Not written in the judgment is a
comment by the judge, saying “I grew
up on fresh, raw milk, as did my parents
and all the generations before me—and I am satisfied that there is no harm to
be had by people using fresh, clean raw
milk.”
The dairy farm I patronize has been
selling directly to consumers for more
than forty years now─with no health
scares ever!
John Patchett
Rostrevor, Australia
SENEFF ON CANCER
The recent issue`s cancer article,
by Stephanie Seneff, is one of the best,
most, informative articles I`ve read in
years! If only MDs would read it, too.
I`ve read Dr. Price`s take on cancer, even
some works by Otto Warburg, and this
piece ranks amongst them!
John Garbarini
Canar, Ecuador
ON KOMBUCHA
AND MORNING SICKNESS
Some people are saying we
shouldn’t drink kombucha. Our family
has been using kombucha daily for at
least two years without any problems
to our teeth, that is, until I accidentally
started not fermenting it enough and
added too much sugar. I started to get
tooth decay again and I couldn’t figure
out what the problem was—although I
hadn’t been taking cod liver oil or eating
liver much, I must admit. Then my
husband started to complain of feeling
sore and stiff again like the “old days”
(before we changed from the Standard
American Diet to the WAPF diet). I had
previously dreamed that the kombucha
was “poisoned,” which didn’t make sense
at first.
So, you do have to be careful of the
kombucha if you add too much sugar and
are not eating as you should (liver, cod
liver oil, high vitamin butter oil, etc). I
am also predisposed to tooth decay as
I had rheumatoid arthritis (as does my
mother), but my RA disappeared thanks
to the WAPF diet. However, I was also
physiologically stressed due to breastfeeding
at the time of the kombucha
incident.
You also might be interested in what
I learned regarding morning sickness
(which I got in spades with our first baby,
pre-WAPF wisdom). I found with our
second child that even though I drank
loads of raw milk I would still get sick.
When I started eating raw milk yogurt,
I stopped getting morning sickness. As
you can imagine, I consumed a lot of it.
I also ate raw pineapple when I could get
it, which was a nice combination with
the yogurt.
When I got lazy and fell behind
on the yogurt making, the morning
sickness came back. I’m not sure if raw
pineapple alone would stave off morning
sickness or not, as I’ve heard that it does
help prevent it.
Our second and third children are
super healthy thanks to the wisdom we
received from WAPF. Which brings me
to the third tidbit, which is I discovered
that if I eat anything that has been
sprayed with pesticides or may have
GMO in it (even secondary contamination
from animals eating GM grains),
our baby gets a terrible diaper rash. It
looks more like a really bad sunburn.
Even a tiny bit of (gasp!) chocolate inflamed
it to no end. So, it pays to watch
what you eat for your kid’s sake! Our
children have excellent eyesight, which
is more than I can say for me.
God bless all of you for helping to
save children (and adults) from a life of
medical misery. Seeing people my age
(early forties) who are already failing in
health makes me wish that more people
would wake up and realize that their
food is killing them.
Jenny Murdock
Littleton, West Virginia
MORE ON COCONUT OIL
Regarding letter from Louisa Williams
about Clostridium difficile, I had
C. diff caused by an antibiotic I was using
(confirmed by blood tests, etc.) and
discovered that coconut oil halts it in
its tracks. I still take a tablespoon daily,
unless I need to use it as an antibiotic
(which I did for C. diff ).
I also cured a massive abscess under
a tooth with a coconut oil and sea salt
mouth wash, as well as massaging the oil
on the exterior of the jaw bone. It cleared
it up within three days. Had I gone to
a dentist, he would have prescribed an
antibiotic, which I would have needed
to take for five to seven days!
Coconut oil is even great for first
aid—it seals and heals wounds and
leaves no scar! Burns? No problem, just
reach for the coconut oil and spread over
area—the pain will be gone and there
won’t be any blisters.
The husband of one of our parishioners
has Alzheimer’s. She has started
giving him coconut oil. What a difference
after just a few days. He is bright,
full of conversation, can now concentrate,
and she does not have to tell him
more than once to do something. I did
warn her that it was not a cure and he
would have to keep taking it. Like me,
she puts it in his hot drinks.
Jenny Smith
Dunedin, New Zealand
CELL PHONE DANGERS
I thank Ken Hardy for his letter
(Spring 2014) reminding us of the harm
of cellphones. A great many people
sense intuitively that there is something
harmful about our electronic age, and
in particular about computers and cellphones.
In some fundamental way these
tools cheapen life and do us harm. Some
intuit further that this mode of living is
really an addiction that draws us away
from healthy ways of living, and that
ultimately carries a very high price.
As Ken Hardy reminds us, in some
particulars we WAPF members do not
need to intuit; we already know. It has
long been said of human missteps that
those people who are not part of the solution,
are part of the problem. Sometimes
a small group of people or even one person
can make a great difference. It matters
what we do. Chris Masterjohn has
reminded us of Weston Price’s humility;
perhaps we want to adopt some of it and
admit that we can be doing better.
A little story comes to mind of a
travel agent talking to a would-be passenger
on the Titanic:
“Look, you’ll have a billiards room,
squash courts, library and staterooms
comparable to none; the appointments
are the best anywhere.”
“Yes, but the ship is going to the
bottom.”
“Oh, let’s not think about that. Live
in the present! Look how easy and convenient
and comfortable it is.”
David Ellis
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?
Apparently this is the year for
the global governance agenda, New
World Order or The UN’s Sustainable
Development Agenda 21, to start taking
the land from the rural owners and
livestock owners. It is happening here in
Washington state, but equally as much in
every other state in the USA right now.
I have always said that the Agenda
21 plan was just going to be “theory”
until the rubber actually met the road.
It would all seem fine until it came time
for them to start taking people’s property
and rights away in order to satisfy the
Wildlands Project portion of Agenda
21. (If you don’t know about the UN
guidelines for the Wildlands Project,
pick up a copy of my book called The
Perils of Sustainable Development). At
that point, I figured the wolf would be
forced to shed his sheep’s clothing and
reveal who he truly was to the people;
a predator waiting for the right moment
to attack. That moment is coming to
Washington on July 1st.
According to our legislative representatives,
the governor of Washington
has said he wants Washington be the
shining beacon to the rest of the world
on how to be green. This means that our
regulations in Washington would have to
be more intrusive and more demanding
than anyone else’s in the entire world.
There’s an economy-crushing statement if I have ever read one. That is a global
governance ideal, and not an American
reflection. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution
does it say that we are to comply and
submit to the sustainable development
eco-governance regulations system of
the United Nations—nowhere.
That is called “foreign governance”
and requires a ratified treaty at the U.S.
Senate level. If you might recall, we rejected
the idea of “foreign governance” a
few years back when we ran the British
right out of our country! We didn’t want
it then and we don’t want it now. When
the governor or anybody else suggests
that we need to be in compliance with
“sustainable development,” that is what
they are referring to: the global ecogovernance
regulations system called
sustainable development. So July 1st is
fast approaching. The Washington landowners
and livestock owners have tried
unsuccessfully for the past eight years
to pass bills in the legislature that would
benefit the landowners and protect their
private property rights and livestock
ownership.
Almost every single attempt has
failed, as we have been fighting against
federal grants that are used to sway our
politicians in the opposite direction.
Now is the year we have been dreading
and fighting to prevent—the year that
the servant (government agencies) has
become the tyrant and has morphed into
some unruly agency that is now master
and commander of the people, attempting
to take people’s private property
through unconstitutional regulations
and foreign dictates, and acting outside
its legal boundaries provided for by the
state and U.S. constitutions.
On July 1st, the Washington state
Department of Ecology (DoE) can establish
their own 75′-100′ buffer zones
around water areas and sub-irrigated
areas on private property where livestock
might be present. This single move
will wipe out most livestock owners and
crush our local economies, as the land
they seek to regulate around these waterways
is the best grazing land that people
have available to feed their animals. It
will wipe out many cattlemen because
the cattle─that you and I eat—the best
and healthiest meat in the world—require
grass. The best grass and grazing
is exactly where the DoE wants to stop
all grazing. Do you agree that livestock
owners should not be allowed to feed
their animals? Do you agree that we
don’t need a local healthy food supply?
Nobody in his right mind would ever
agree to either of those things.
“Seventy-five to one hundred feet
beyond the highest watermarks” means
that a farmer could have his entire land
boundaries within that watermark—
some people have several thousand acres
that exist within these watermarks, all of
which they have bought and paid for at
full asking price, and all of which they
pay taxes on. Yet they are being told to
give it up without due process of the law,
which is a repeated requirement in both
the state and U.S. constitutions, and they
are also being told they must give it up
without any form of a buyout transaction
either. The DoE will offer a person
a couple dollars per acre per year, even
though the farmer had to pay full price.
They are never presented with a legitimate
buyout offer reflecting the current
land values, and loss of revenue from
legitimate livestock business transactions.
Instead they honestly think people
should just more or less give their land
and their businesses to the agency at a
total loss to themselves, and yet still pay
full taxes on it as well.
In history, the only time I have seen
anybody demand land for free is when
a country invades and conquers another
country in a war.
So I ask you, when did an agency
that was first established to serve the
people and handle huge issues like
industrial pollution on a mega scale
slither into their current position of being
our private property rights master,
telling us to give them our private land
without even having to go through both
state and U.S. constitutional guidelines
of due process?
“Due process” is guaranteed in
both constitutions and simply cannot
be trumped with the Revised Code of
Washington—it’s not even legally possible.
Typically those kinds of practices
are left to dictatorships and communist
countries, and they have absolutely no
place in our nation. So we must refuse
to submit to anything that opposes our
“due process of law” guarantee, which
is repeated many times throughout both
the state and U.S. constitutions.
René Holaday
Chewelah, Washington
This sounds like a good case for the
Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense
Fund.