These days, it is hard to tell if this is good intentions gone awry or just another giveaway to Big Ag, but this certainly appears problematic:
The panics over salmonella, E. Coli and unsafe foodstuffs from China have heightened the prospects that Congress will enact a measure known as H.R. 875, the “Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009″. radishseedShould the measure in its current form become law, “food establishments”, which to quote Patrick at Popehat “means anyone selling or storing food of any type for transmission to third parties via the act of commerce”*, will have to register with a new federal regulatory agency, submit to federal inspections, and, perhaps most significant, keep “copious records of sales and shipment by lot and label”. Penalties for infractions will be very, very steep.
Acccording to OverLawyered and all the links therein, this will essentially kill the farmer’s markets all over the country where I go and buy really good vegetables and locally raised products.
You know what to do. Contact congress.
(via Cain in the comments)
*** Update ***
And as is the case with almost every hysterical claim on the intertrons, this is turning out to be a bunch of nonsense. I will always be a sucker, it seems.
aimai
Once again the ordinary people–exactly the ones who operate on trust with their customers and the customers themselves, will pay for the sins of agribusiness. And this won’t make us any safer since we still won’t have an effective regulatory regime of the large offenders. Why not just work more closely with local farmers and have farm food inspections periodically during the summer months? Farmer’s markets are run on familiarity and trust. If people were getting sick from a given stall that owner would pretty soon get closed down by the other farmers and by word of mouth. There’s a lot of local leverage on business owners that is completely absent at the national level.
aimai
Napoleon
I can see this as really ticking off a part of the Democratic base if it passes.
Dennis-SGMM
The “Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009″ sounds way too much like the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000."
As far as I know, no one has become ill from produce obtained at a farmer’s market. Requiring an additional layer of federal inspections seems kind of silly while the currently-mandated inspections are either not being performed or they are being performed by agencies hired by the food producers themselves.
Phaedrus
this goes hand in hand with how they legislated lead free children’s toys in response to problems in China.
Small craft and hobby makers that my business partnered with are all planning on shutting down, and I can’t buy toys at the local Goodwill anymore.
aimai
Phaedru’s right. Goodwill has had to vanish all the kids *clothes* too.
Ohmygod THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL! I have a bag of kids clothes I’d like to see go to some needy family. I wonder whether our local women’s shelter/clothing donation site has had to start refusing good used clothes? Can I be arressted for giving a bag of clothes to another mother? I think I’d better contact Erick (phosphates or nothing) Ericson about organizing a protest. No. Seriously. I’m going to become a republican over this.
aimai
NJDave
Is there an attorney around?
The reason I ask is the ‘third parties’ construct. If I grow something and sell it directly to you, then only 2 parties are involved. If I sell it to you, and then you sell it to someone else, is that ‘someone else’ the third party?
Was the language crafted to avoid involving farmer’s markets?
QDC
Here’s a letter I sent on behalf of my wife and myself last night. It’s an edited version of a form letter I found online. Feel free to cut and paste if you’d like. For what it’s worth, there is apparently some good stuff in the bill, hence the support in the first paragraph. From what I’ve read, it’s a well-intentioned piece of legislation containing some overdue reforms, but was written without thought to small producers and is therefore too sweeping. I think "small business" and "local" are the key angles to get your representative’s attention.
MikeJ
Is there any info from sane people, i.e. ones who’s stated mission is not objecting to any regulation ever anywhere?
and:
From what I understand, there’s a very good inspection system in place for meats. Not for veg though, which is how we got sewage contaminated spinach with e coli.
ploeg
@MikeJ:
There’s an inspection system in place for meat. They’re somewhat understaffed unfortunately, and slipups have been getting more common from that quarter.
NonyNony
@Phaedrus:
Yes and this sucks, because it’s how big business in this country has always gamed the fucking system and nobody ever figures out how to fix it.
First they cut corners – lots of corners. Eventually someone gets hurt but of course what the company did wasn’t illegal, just unethical. Outrage comes and people demand that the government do something so they can’t do it again. Government passes some legislation that is just enough that it hurts small businesses due to increased costs, while the big businesses that caused the mess in the first place spread that increased cost around and continue to find new corners to cut, repeating the cycle and increasing their market share now that some of their smaller competitors can no longer afford to compete.
Fuckers. The corporate system in this country is so broken I don’t even know where to start fixing it. Mostly I’d like to take away protections for high-level executives once a company hits a certain size – if your company can be shown to have cut corners in safety that lead to the death of a customer, even if it isn’t illegal, you personally are up on manslaughter charges if your company is of size X or larger. Right now they’re shielded from those sorts of things by corporate charter laws, but it’s about the only way I can think of to get the guys at corporations who don’t really have to care to start to care about what they’re doing.
Comrade grumpy realist
Am a law student. Would have to read the proposed legislation, but yeah, that "third party" use in the classification sounds like it was put in there to get things like farmers’ markets off the hook.
Wouldn’t help if the farmer sold to a trucker who then sold, however. They could get around a lot of the potential problems if they put in a de minimis clause–> you want to regulate industrial amounts of stuff being sold, not stuff out of the backyard garden.
Other thing though: how much stuff at "farmers markets" is produced together with stuff for commercial markets, simply not sold via a middleman (and thus fresher and riper and supposedly cheaper. Ha. Not here it ain’t.)
JL
Surely, they will exempt family farms who do not sell to stores. Ah, never mind.
Even if a person became ill from a purchase at a family farm, it does not put the larger population at risk.
Tom
Relax. from C&L:
To set the record straight: There is no language in HR 875 that would regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens or ‘criminalize’ gardeners; the bill focuses on ensuring the safety of food in interstate commerce. Farmer’s markets would not be regulated, fined, or shut down, and would, in fact, benefit from strict safety standards applied to imported food to ensure that unsafe imported food doesn’t compete with locally grown produce. The bill would not prohibit or interfere with organic farming, or mandate the use of any chemicals or types of seeds. The National Organic Program (NOP) is under the jurisdiction of the USDA. HR 875 addresses food safety issues and falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA.
The perp here is yet another rightwing lunatic spreading bizarre conspiracy theories. I’m amazed they still work, temporarily, on you John.
someguy
When did you people decide to argue in favor of poisoning our kids with lead and e-coli? If you oppose tighter lead and e-coli standards, then clearly, you must be against teh childrehn. I don’t know if you’ll buy that argument but it worked pretty good to steamroll Republican opposition to the last year’s tightening of the rules in the "toy" market, so I don’t know why it won’t work to steamroll people who want to buy locally grown arugula.
Oh yeah, and since when did John start shilling for that anti-plaintiff Walter Olson? His big project appears to be opposing civil suits for people injured by big corporations. It makes his opposition to this bill suspect in my book.
grandpajohn
Another grand fuck up like the CPSIA act in which because of problems with imports by large corporations, the corporations are then allowed to help write legislation that effectively eliminates competition from small cottage industries with in our own country.
If someone wants to see good intentions gone to hell by legislation written by idiots abetted by the criminals who caused the problem, read about the CPSIA .
james low
Oh Noes!! Check out this post at lavidalocavore by Jill Richardson. It set the facts straight on the myths about this bill that have been debunked over and over yet still raise they ugly heads.
james low
Ding it I can’t get the link to load right. Here is the URL
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/1329/
mr. whipple
Exactly. This is one of them zombie lies that will not die.
sgwhiteinfla
I went to the link and then I went to read the text of the legislation here
http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.875:
And I gotta tell you that this sounds like a wingnut who hates regulation who wants to wrap this bill in "Farmer’s Markets" so as to get the real assholes targeted in the bill like the fucking peanut company that was selling salmonella so they could turn their diseased peanuts into dollars off the hook. The only letter I will be sending is one of encouragement.
Surly Duff
^ I skimmed the bill and didn’t see a thrid-party listing that would exempt farms selling directly to consumers instead of retailers, but maybe I missed the language.
The great irony here though is that the food recalls and health warnings have occurred due to contaminations at large-scale operations, and I have never read about illnesses from market-to-market transactions. However, such regulations will place undue burden on smaller operations resulting in a loss of an increasing local market for food while the big ariculture farms/companies will have the resources to fulfill the bill’s requirements. Let’s guess who probably helped create this bill.
Throwin Stones
I found this a good book on regulations and the small farmer in addition to locally grown food.
JL
@Tom: Thanks for the information. Normally I do additional research but when I saw that last night, it seemed plausible.
Svensker
@aimai:
And kid’s books printed pre-1990. They had lead in some of the colored ink then. I help out at a local charity that runs a book sale to raise money for poor kids to go to college and this year, they’re only going to be selling new kids’ books and will be throwing all the donated used kids’ away, because they’re scared of that new law.
Brick Oven Bill
This is a very bad bill, and a dumb one too. At the very mean and scary Glenn Beck meeting I attended last night with the young moms and ladies from France who like Dairy Queen, we discussed the book The 5,000 Year Leap.
In this book, two theoretical forms of government are presented. The first is anarchy, which is no government, and the second is tyranny, which is total government. The Founders, of course, sought to minimize government to the extent practicable.
Colleges these days do not teach anarchy/tyranny, but instead left/right, as represented by Red Communism/Nazism. But this representation is false. Both Red Communism and Nazism as essentially the same form of government, which is more or less total government control.
The practical alternative to both Red Communism and Nazism was presented to us in 1789. The 1789 form of government would not presume tell me how to grow my potatoes or who I can sell them to. This bill should be an insight into to the true nature of the Administration’s intentions which is, of course, control.
President Obama has a very poor sense of spatial situational awareness. People of all political persuasions are turned off by the government messing with their gardens. I hope this bill passes as Farmer’s Markets organizers would be judged by a jury of their peers.
Karmakin
One thing that I think is interesting about all this is that I’ve never really heard of a problem ever with farmer’s market/back of the truck food. Probably says a lot.
KCinDC
Some of us live in places where all the farmers’ markets are engaging in interstate commerce. We don’t have a lot of farms within DC, so the food crosses the Virginia or Maryland border.
KCinDC
I didn’t realize someone had started a spoof BOB.
JL
The organization that I volunteer at has a food pantry and a clothes closet. They also have household items and books. The only time that extra caution was taken was for the peanut butter scare. Most of the childrens items are in excellent shape though.
Comrade Darkness
@KCinDC: "I didn’t realize someone had started a spoof BOB."
Since BoB is already a spoof . . . what does that make, a REAL BoB?
reddew
ahh, "interstate commerce"
The courts have said that growing certain things like say, marijuana and wheat for your own personal use most definitely does interfere with interstate commerce. I don’t see how saying it’s only supposed to regulate interstate commerce shows how reasonable a law it’s gonna be.
Comrade Darkness
@JL, yeah because books don’t have dates in them or anything. Ever.
Wilson Heath
On the constitutional law front, Wicker v. Filburn has been validated by Gonzales v. Raich — any produce grown and sold without crossing state boarders still effects interstate commerce, so Congress can pass laws that reach such production and sales. There needs to be an exception if the law would literally apply to small producers.
(Unless the Rehnquist court just thought that the commerce clause only authorizes laws against things they hate, like pot, but not things they love, like guns and violence against women. We can always try to find out if the Roberts court feels the same way.)
KCinDC
Comrade Darkness, I first encountered BOB on Obsidian Wings, before he got banned there. I never got the impression he was a spoof at that point, though with today’s beyond-parody right-wingers one can never be sure.
EdTheRed
Contact Congress, eh? Too f’ing bad I live in DC, which has the second-most farmers’ markets per capita (behind Honolulu), but not one single rep in Congress…who are too busy making sure we don’t give any rights to teh gheyz, and figuring out how to issue us all AK-47s and cop-killer bullets.
What a messed-up country…
Oh, and who drafted that legislation anyways? Does Archer Daniels Midland still exist, or did they change their name after their last criminal conviction?
The Other Steve
This is clearly Barack Obama’s fault.
Kirk Spencer
First, here’s the bill.
Second, it depends on what your local farmer’s market really is.
If it is, as implied, a place where local producers can and do sell their own goods then the impact will be practically nil. Practically as the reg pretty much only adds the need for producers with more than one site to be able to identify the site of origin, and they have to allow irregular sampling and testing of their product.
On the other hand, if what you’ve got is an open-air retailer’s display where most people sell goods from several sources, it’s probably going to have significant impact. In this case the sellers have to identify the source of each of their goods (among other things). As a worst-case example, a coop rep who is selling the tomatoes of a dozen local farmers has to be able to identify which tomatoes came from which farmer – and keep records of same for each day they were selling goods.
Basically, Joe selling the extra zucchinni is going to have no problem. Harry’s Orchard is going to have a bit of paperwork but most of it is stuff already covered. Sarah’s Farms, a retailer for several of the county’s farms and orchards, is going to want to pull hair.
One more small thing. Supermarkets will be doing this too – the burden is pretty much the same regardless.
BenA
I’d like it spelled out in the bill that small scale local growers and farmers markets aren’t included… of course, how small is small…. I don’t see where you couldn’t come up with something reasonable… of course this is Congress we’re talking about.
Surly Duff
John-
OK, I understand the update, but don’t be too quick to say all of the claims are hysterical. Yes, the myths sheet does debunk many of the ridiculous, overstated, and plain incorrect claims regarding the bill, including that farmer’s markets will be regulated. However, the "fact sheet" does not address one of the actual concerns regarding the bill, that these regulations will place an undue burden on small farmers, possibly placing high costs that may force them to amend or suspend their operations. And who supplies the local farmer’s market? The small farmer.
Please don’t dismiss all of the arguments just because some of the claims are wrong.
–
http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-02mar2009.htm
The burdensome requirements the bill imposes on small farms and the intrusive federal control it creates over small farm operations threaten the future viability of sustainable agriculture and the local food movement.?
Persia
@JL: There’s a congressman who’s trying to get a books exception– the ALA has a form where you can email your congressman and ask him or her to co-sponsor/support the bill.
Robin G.
Heh. I contacted my representative before even reading all the way down to see that this was an overreaction. I live off my farmers’ market during the summer.
But, hey — even if it *is* an overreaction, a ton of people coming out of the woodwork and telling their representatives that they fuck with the farmers’ markets at their own peril is, in my mind, hardly a bad thing. Won’t hurt for Congress to know that stepping between me and my tomatoes is a good way to get a beatdown.
Bob In Pacifica
Maybe it won’t close down all farmers’ markets, but it will mandate Obama’s brownshirts taking away our guns. Right?
Das Internetkommissariat
@Brick Oven Bill:
Oh really? And I thought that Nazism, more precise: National Socialism, was a political ideology which used Anti-Semitism (or any other minority as scapegoat) and Social Darwinism (I got mine, …) together with a rampant corporocracy/fascism to conquer more Lebensraum in the West and the East.
But then, what do I know, being born only one hour away from Hitler’s birthplace. We never discussed such stuff in school.
Wait, we did! For years actually. Over and over and over. And now when I think about it you Republicans sound exactly like the fucking Nazis in the 30ies and 40ies.
My grandfathers shot hundreds of you bastards back then. Seems you weren’t exterminated.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Toxic, contaminated food? Don’t look to government to solve that problem. As all good conservatives know, government IS the problem.
Who do you want vouching for the safety of your food? Your good neighbor farmer, Old McDonald, or some jack-booted government thugs?
Do you want bureaucrats picking out your salad ingredients?
Think it over.
NonyNony
@Robin G.:
Actually, as long as you aren’t acting like a screaming nutjob when you contact your Congressperson, it’s a good thing to let them know that you have concerns about your local farmers market having problems with this bill.
I contacted mine even knowing that, given what I saw, it was likely that the links John pointed at originally were overstating the case (mostly because I’m always concerned about unintended consequences). I sent a nice little note saying that even though I understood that large agribusinesses (like the Peanut Corporation of America) were the targets of this bill, I was concerned that the bill might harm our local farm markets. And our Rep is a native of the city I live in, and I know she has frequented the markets from time to time and knows how popular they are with her constituents.
Just alerting them to the possibility that you’re concerned about this and they should be aware of it is often enough if you have a decent Rep – the staff can take over and decide if they think it’s important to try to get some wording changed or if they think it’s an overreaction based on Internet rumors. But don’t start sounding like a ranting nutjob – those e-mails or calls they just ignore because they get dozens of ranting nutjob missives per day and eventually they learn to block them out.
Dennis-SGMM
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
They’ll pry my arugula from my cold dead hands!
L Boom
BOB, there’s so much straw in your comment you’re going to turn this site into a major fire hazard. You’re accusing the administration of one form of radical reductionism in favor of your own form of radical reductionism.
That said, I’m very curious to hear your opinion of Ben Franklin’s opinion about intellectual property law prohibiting farmer’s re-use of genetically-modified seed. I was flipping through Poor Richard’s Almanac and he didn’t seem to deal too much with this issue on either side. I was, however, very interested in his opinions on the virtues of older mistresses compared to younger mistresses.
someguy
@ Tom, I’m not sure that the National Organic Program – which appears to be aimed at promoting and truth-in-labeling of organic food, has any jurisdiction over food safety, or that USDA’s jurisdiction over food safety at farmer’s markets is exclusive and that they would be exempt from the FDA.
That said, I’m sure John’s been duped, that Walter Olson is an industry-funded crackpot, and that the 10 Senate Republicans and Ron Paul (the only people to oppose CPSIA) are assholes. Just so you know I’m not questioning any of the premises here, just some fine points.
joes527
@Kirk Spencer: The net-net of this bill will be that a lot of folks are going to find out that their cherished "farmer’s market" is really just a retail outlet in drag.
If the bill gives actual farmer’s markets an advantage over open air retail then it is a win all around.
El Tiburon
Quick, who said the following, George W. Bush or John Cole:
wasabi gasp
For a second there, it sounded like one-stop shopping for my peaches and my herb, yeah, yeah.
Paul L.
I would guess some power hungry control freak in the Federal Government is going to abuse and overreach with this law.
Case in point.
Remember Government agents overreaching with the Patriot act?
Or using RICO statues against pro-life groups.
KCinDC
Joes527, you mean I should be suspicious of those open-air markets here in DC selling coconuts and bananas?
The Moar You Know
@sgwhiteinfla: I couldn’t agree more. If this ends up being burdensome, so be it.
I’ll give a great example of why we need this legislation even at the farmer’s market level – here in SoCal we get a lot of folks selling Mexican food at the farmer’s markets. It’s really good. But some of these guys are cooking up that yummy Mexican white cheese in (I shit you not) bathtubs, and people have gotten very ill from it. And it’s very difficult to trace it back to the manufacturer. Is it a legit cheesemaking place, or some guy with a spare bathtub and some past-date milk?
If you can’t be bothered to keep simple records, then I have some concerns about your ability to follow basic food safety practices. If that’s the case, maybe you shouldn’t be selling food for other people to eat.
The Moar You Know
@Paul L.: I’m perfectly fine with this being the case. I know plenty of people who I wouldn’t accept food from – I’ve seen their kitchens. If you want to serve food to the public, get certified.
Hans Bader
Yes, the bill does reach small producers, as any constitutional lawyer (like me) could tell you.
Your belief that the concerns about the bill are a "bunch of nonsense" is based on a legally-ignorant post, "The HR 875 Myths and Facts Update," which peddles legal myths in support of regulation.
It says, "The focus of the bill is to ensure the safety of food in interstate commerce."
That SOUNDS like it doesn’t reach home gardens. But it DOES reach home gardens and farmer’s markets, thanks to rulings by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) that even home gardens (in that case, a farmer’s growing wheat for his own consumption) are subject to federal laws that regulate interstate commerce. (Economists and scholars have criticized this decision, but it remains good law, and continues to be cited in Supreme Court rulings, such as those applying federal anti-drug laws to consumption of even home-grown medical marijuana.).
Moreover, the bill has a broad jurisdictional provision that creates a presumption that activities do affect interstate commerce. Section 406 of the bill reads as follows: “PRESUMPTION. In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist.”
Successful challenges to regulation as not being "interstate commerce" are incredibly difficult and rare. I should know. As an attorney, I brought the last successful challenge in United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), one of two cases in the last 70 years where a challenge was successful (thousands of other challenges were unsuccessful).
Martin
Yeah, food safety here in SoCal is a real concern. There’s a lot of produce that crosses the border daily and Mexico’s laws on pesticides are not as strict as the US. The soil down there is loaded with DDT in places because it was in use so much longer. That’s the one thing about NAFTA I would most like to see changed.
Robin G.
@NonyNony: I was a good girl — lots of "intent of bill certainly seems good, but I’d hate to see critical local farms which are good for my health and for the health of the economy damaged because of imprecisely written legislation" stuff. It’s McCollum — a reliable Democrat, certainly, but the sort who prefers people respect the established system. (I like her fine, but given what a very very liberal district she represents, I’d rather see her slinging a little fire from time to time.)
Gotta be respectful as long as your people aren’t batshit insane. If I was writing to Bachmann I probably would have used, er, a slightly different tone.
Martin
Yeah, it’s not like any of them ever organized the killing of doctors. Oh, wait…
Brick Oven Bill
“My grandfathers shot hundreds of you bastards back then. Seems you weren’t exterminated.”
Wow. One goes to a meeting to participate in a discussion about the Founding of the ‘Beacon of Liberty’ and he gets called a Nazi and death by firing squad is alluded to. Thus strengthening the Projection Theory. In any case, here is an interesting page comparing and contrasting Hitler and Stalin.
So let us again expand the discussion beyond Hilter and Stalin, and include the Founders of the United States.
Hilter = Central Planning = Big Government = Death Camps
Stalin = Central Planning = Big Government = Death Camps
Founders = Minimal Government = Small Initial Government = No Death Camps
This is one reason why I would prefer to keep the government small and out of farmers markets.
The Moar You Know
@Martin: Bad news. They’re still using it, especially on a lot of the smaller farms.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Brick Oven Bill:
You ran out of material months ago, Bill. You are just embarrassing yourself now.
Give it up.
The Moar You Know
@Brick Oven Bill: Let’s keep going:
Sweden = Central Planning = Big Government = Hot Blondes
US in WWII = Central Planning = Big Government = FTW
Norway = Central Planning = Big Government = Lutefisk, also Hot Blondes
Iceland = Central Planning = Big Government = Bjork, more Hot Blondes
Somalia = No Government = No Gun Laws = Hellhole
Sudan = Minimal Government = Thriving Machete Industry = Bad Fuckin News
I could do this for days. But so far, central planning wins the crucial Hot Blonde quotient that I consider necessary for civilization.
Dennis-SGMM
@Brick Oven Bill:
You might consider learning a little more history. The U.S. started out as a minimal-government confederacy established in 1781 by the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. This small government turned out to be so ineffective and unworkable that the Constitutional Convention was convened in 1787 to address the faults of the Articles.
Brick Oven Bill
The Moar You Know;
You are getting it all wrong. As we have learned in these Balloon Juice pages, the reason that the Scandinavian countries have low crime rates is because they are no longer a religious people.
The reason the Sudan and Somalia are violent is because Sudanese and Somalians are a religious people. This does not have to do with small government as much as I would argue with faith.
But the Constitution is again a nice balance between anarchy (Somalia, Sudan) and tyranny (Nazis, Communists). Scandinavians are tip-toeing a fine line, and let us pray to God that they never go to church again.
Brick Oven Bill
Dennis-SGMM; You will note that my initial comment included the year 1789 instead of 1781. This is because in the years between 1781 and 1789, the only industry Americans engaged in was piracy. This was because the Articles of Confederation were weak and the population was much more religious back then.
Comrade Darkness
For the win.
Plus, we already have enough trouble understanding the British. Throw another dose of Norse in there and it’s game over.
Comrade Darkness
@KCinDC, you just have to read his website. Hm, he’s not linking to it anymore. Maybe this is a spoof spoof.
But at any rate, this BoB or the previous BoB, or BoB on his old meds, BoB on his new meds–however you want to describe him/them–has never said anything remotely bannable, by my take. And besides there are even bizarrer places, like wonkette he could go to.
Evinfuilt
All this complaining about Local Farms possibly (doubtful) being affected still ignores one issue few like to touch on. Due to inefficencies food from a farmers market will have higher carbon footprints than even shipped food.
Of course, I’ll still go local or self-grown so I can select the exact variety a prefer. But we have to be aware that Locavores aren’t always better for the environment (and of course most suburban backyard farms use more pesticide and fertilizer than any properly managed farm.)
Grandpa Eddie
It’s just another way for Big Ag to control the supply of food in this country, and make sure they’re the ones making all the money the sale of food.
Cris
Reunited, and it feels so good
kwAwk
radishseed…… radishseed…… Is that a subliminal trigger?
If somebody kills the pope today we’ll know its Coles fault for distributing the subliminal.
Cain
Goddam it, I finally end up on the front page, and it’s some debunked myth. I suck. Sorry, John. I’ll post my fear mongering B.S. next time after my 4th glass of wine instead of my first. :-)
Damn you Sully.
cain
Das Internetkommissariat
@Brick Oven Bill:
Firing Squad? You wish, vermin. Your brothers-in-spirit were shot in ambushes, in forest, mountain passes, on battlefields and in the streets.
Those who were captured were tried and then hung high.
As for the ridiculous statement that Nazi-Germany was centrally planned with a big government: you are kidding, right? The only thing big was the military (is this a surprise?) and the internal security aparatus.
Manufacturing was exclusively in private/corporate hand, the Nazi DoD published their demands and the corporations delivered (current company names in parentheses):
Steel: Krupp and Thyssen (Thyssen-Krupp)
Aeroplanes: Fokker (Fokker), Messerschmitt (Daimler-Mercedes), Junkers (Daimler-Mercedes)
Chemicals, explosives, poison gas: IG Farben (broken up after WWII, now: Agfa, Bayer, Hoechst, BASF)
Cars, trucks, tanks: Daimler, BMW, Opel (GM), Horch (Audi), Volkswagen
Their versions of Boeing, Northrop, KBR and Halliburton, you see?
The owners and investors of these companies got filthy rich and
transfered all the monies into Switzerland so they could access it after the war. Or why do you think Germany did not attack Switzerland? They needed a safe haven for the loot.
So please spare me the bullshit about Nazi Germany and the USSR being the same. Number of victims and atrocities does note make same political systems.
And again: You are a Nazi and so are all Wingnuts.