Update for this entry:
After I wrote this I discovered that HR 2749 had passed in the House in July 2009, but has yet to pass in the Senate under a different name, "Food Safety Enhancement Act." (doesn't that just sound sosoo benevolent and kind??) I have also discovered that this push for control over small farms and herbal remedies has been an ongoing world wide attack under something called Codex Alimentarius. You can search for that name on the web to educate yourself on it. Meanwhile back at the ranch...(ahem) the Obama government and others, including John McCain, are trying to enact this bill to micromanage every bite of food you take, lower dosages for vitamins and minerals, prosecute anyone who grows or sells Rosemary and Thyme, hand over all pharmaceutical business to the global players such as Monsanto (for one) and basically disallow anyone who holds a pen of chickens in their yard to provide eggs for their family. The "organic" label in the market will disappear and be unlawful to produce. If you don't think Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler are alive and well in our midst, you would be wrong. Anyway, you can contact your senators to try to stop them from passing this disastrous monster.
Repeating an often used phrase, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Our Marxist government with the guidance of the Marxist Obama is now in the process of trying to take away your ability to grow your own food on your property and to completely control small farms. You like the local farmer's market? It is going to disappear and or be regulated so much that the farmers who participate now will no longer be able to do so. What better and more complete way to control the population but to control the food supply? Marx prescribed this recipe for hell, and it was implemented by Joseph Stalin as well as Lenin before him, and Hitler contemporaneously.
So here is part of the bill now in front of our elected officials:
* HR 2749 would impose an annual registration fee of $500 on any “facility” that holds, processes, or manufactures food. (Hmmm...I think I am storing and processing food in my home kitchen. I occasionally make my own bread or jam or salads. Guess I'd better register with the Federal government and hand over $500 buckaroos.)
* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers. ( I think the Feds have already been doing this to some extent. This just hands the FDA more power on steroids....instead of at the point of market, it is on the private property of the farm.)
* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including “prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.” (You better not drive your SUV to the Farmer's Market to transport that food to your home...the food police are on your tail. Martial law for Farmer's Markets)
* HR 2749 would empower FDA to make random warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation. ( You're screwed. Don't even think about taking that pie to the wake of your friend's dead relative.)
* HR 2749 charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing a tracing system for food. Each “person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food” [Is this not every home in the US?] would have to “maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food,” and “establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons.” (Bog them down with regulations that cannot be possibly adhered to....it's the Marxist way. You will not be able to sustain yourself without collective government force. )
* HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for individuals. (Punishment by fiat? Who enforces this? The FDA now assumes the right to implement fines and penalties without judicial review? Are we having fun yet?)
So here is the History Lesson of the Day
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming area, known as the breadbasket of Europe, with the people deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands.
Stalin also imposed the Soviet system of land management known as collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmlands and livestock, in a country where 80 percent of the people were traditional village farmers. Among those farmers, were a class of people called Kulaks by the Communists. They were formerly wealthy farmers that had owned 24 or more acres, or had employed farm workers. Stalin believed any future insurrection would be led by the Kulaks, thus he proclaimed a policy aimed at "liquidating the Kulaks as a class."
By mid 1932, nearly 75 percent of the farms in the Ukraine had been forcibly collectivized. On Stalin's orders, mandatory quotas of foodstuffs to be shipped out to the Soviet Union were drastically increased in August, October and again in January 1933, until there was simply no food remaining to feed the people of the Ukraine.
By the end of 1933, nearly 25 percent of the population of the Ukraine, including three million children, had perished. The Kulaks as a class were destroyed and an entire nation of village farmers had been laid low. With his immediate objectives now achieved, Stalin allowed food distribution to resume inside the Ukraine and the famine subsided. However, political persecutions and further round-ups of 'enemies' continued unchecked in the years following the famine, interrupted only in June 1941 when Nazi troops stormed into the country. Hitler's troops, like all previous invaders, arrived in the Ukraine to rob the breadbasket of Europe and simply replaced one reign of terror with another.
An Account from a Survivor
"In 1932-1933, Stalin was dissatisfied with Ukraine. People didn't want to give up their individual property in favour of collective farms. So a "solution" was found. All food was taken away from villages, by force. People trying to hide even small amounts of food were arrested and sent to labour camps. Trains were monitored so that peasants could not leave. 7 million dead is probably a good guess, though no one will know for sure. In Ukraine, these years are known as "Holodomor" - "slow killing by starvation". It has been called a Ukrainian Holocaust, a genocide."