S.510 - The End Of Farmers Markets

The Senate recently voted 74 to 25 to pass cloture on the new Food Safety and Modernization Act (Senate bill 510). This means it will have 60 days from the time of the vote (November 17, 2010) for any final amendments before it is passed as law.

If passed, S510 will be a massive power grab by our Federal Government over the very food we eat. It could literally mean the end of Farmers Markets where small farmers and home gardeners trade produce with the general public. If you like buying your produce from local farmers, farmers markets, and road side produce stands instead of big corporate factory farms, then you should be outraged by this bill.

S510 is being sold to the American public as necessary to prevent food contamination. I find it sadistically ironic that the only ones who will be capable of adhering to the licensing, paperwork, and mountains of bureaucratic red tape that this bill will require of anyone selling food to the public are the big corporate factory farms. Yes, the very farms that have brought us massive recalls in meat, dairy, and vegetable produce due to contamination from unsanitary conditions. Anyone remember the recalls of E. coli contaminated meat, salmonella contaminated eggs, or contaminated peanut butter. All courtesy of big corporate factory farms bereft of common sense sanitation.

So, the very bill that is supposed to protect us from these big corporate factory farm contamination incidents is guaranteeing that they will be the only choice we will have left.

Say good bye to yet another freedom. How long will it be before they expand this power grab to cover even the very garden you have in your own back yard? You will still have the freedom to grow your own food, so cherish it. It may not last long.

TSA Coverage Too Late

It was the subject of TSA's body scanner/pat-downs that prompted me to start this blog with my initial post Don't Touch My Junk.

However, when the main stream media gives so much coverage to a single topic, you should become suspicious. Over the past few days I have been gathering bits and pieces of the untold story that has been unfolding for years now. Ever since the TSA was born into existence in 2003 when the Patriot Act was passed by the Bush administration, they have been practicing unconstitutional acts against American citizens.

In fact, the media was utterly silent several months ago when the body scanners could have been prevented due to concerns of health risks. One blogger sums this up nicely...

The corporate media could have blown the whistle on countless credible experts expressing their concerns about the health risks surrounding the use of these body scanning devices months ago. They could have also revealed that people like George Soros and Michael Chertoff have benefited greatly from the TSA's purchase of these body scanning devices through their involvement in Rapiscan a corporation responsible for creating these devices. Of course, instead of trying to provide legitimate coverage when we actually had a chance of preventing these devices from being installed in airports, we saw next to nothing on the subject from the talking heads on cable news or on the nightly news broadcasts.

The full post is well worth the read: http://www.roguegovernment.com/Corporate_Media_Saturation_Of_TSA...

There is no way the body scanners are going away, no matter how much people protest. The amount of money already spent on these devices precludes them ever being done away with.

So, why is the main stream media now giving so much coverage to this subject? My opinion is that big corporations which own and control the main stream media outlets are using this as a diversion tactic to remove the attention of the populace from other more important news. News that is receiving little to no coverage now, may also receive excess coverage once there is nothing that anyone can do to reverse the damage.

Taxes and Serfdom

I doubt many Americans have taken the time to consider just how heavily they are taxed in this day and age.  It is comparable to "death by a thousand scratches".  If each American were give a summary of the total taxes they pay in a year, they would be flabbergasted.  However, since they pay a little here and there, the totality of it never crosses their minds.

Here are just a few in a seemingly endless list of taxes that grows ever larger year over year:

1. Federal income tax
2. State income tax
3. State sales tax
4. Local sales tax
5. Property tax
6. Capital gains tax
7. Vehicle registration tax
8. Fuel tax
9. Alcohol tax
10. Phone tax
11. Hunting license tax

And the list goes on and on.  Add to that list the very nasty hidden tax of inflation.  That's right.  Every time the federal government decides to print more money and devalue the dollar it is simply another tax on the money you have been able to keep after all the other taxes (i.e. your savings).  And if you try to hedge against inflation by investing your money, any interest you make in return is considered to be capital gains.  Since capital gains are taxed, you necessarily have to make quite a bit more interest above the rate of inflation just to break even on purchasing power.

The government continues to grow larger and more intrusive on a seemingly daily basis.  To feed this insatiable beast, it is going to require more and more of your money in the form of taxation.

I contend that the burden of perpetually growing taxation of Americans is turning them into serfs who are in servitude to the feudal lord known as our government.  Here is the definition of a serf according to dictionary.com:

1. a person in a condition of servitude, required to render services to a lord, commonly attached to the lord's land and transferred with it from one owner to another.
2. a slave.

Foreclosure Fraud and Washington Oddness

I find myself perplexed by what I have discovered today concerning a bill that has been floating around Congress since last fall.  The extremely baffling realization that the Obama Administration may have actually done something right.  I say that with the utmost of caution.  However, unless I misunderstand the implications, I must hold to my inclination.

House of Representatives Bill H.R. 3808, the full text of which you may find here...
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:4:./temp/~c111zjtfiR::

Basically, the bill would make it a requirement for "any Federal or State court to recognize any notarization made by a notary public licensed by a State other than the State where the court is located when such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce."

 The proverbial "fly in the ointment" being Section 1.2.B of the bill where it states  
"in the case of an electronic record, the seal information is securely attached to, or logically associated with, the electronic record so as to render the record tamper-resistant."


Before your eyes glaze over, think about the "robo-signers" situation. Essentially there was notarization of thousands of mortgage documents without anyone ever having reviewed the documents.  HR 3808 would essentially legalize that sort of practice and give homeowners one less legal option to fight against the fraud being engaged by big corporate financial institutions.

President Obama actually vetoed the bill as you can read about here...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/07/obama-pocket-veto-foreclosures_n_753987.html

However, the House recently attempted to override the veto by a 2/3 vote which failed on Nov 17, 2010.  You can see the results here...
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2010-573

What I find to be very odd, is that all but 16 Democrats voted against the bill while all but 5 Republicans voted FOR the bill.  At this point I was struggling to understand why my view would be against the Conservative party.  However, once I noticed that Ron Paul, the very bastion of true conservatism in Washington, was one of the 5 Republicans who voted against the bill, I found solace in my conclusion.

In summary, I grow ever more distrustful of either party in Washington and less hopeful that my freedom is safe while the two party system continues in perpetuity.

Don't Touch My Junk!

It is as if I have been trapped in a nightmare and cannot awaken from the deluge of assaults on the freedoms once enjoyed by all Americans. I must say that I realize many of the freedoms enjoyed over the life of this country were snuffed out long before I was born. One need only dust off the history books and spend a few minutes reading to come to this conclusion. However, it does not make it any less horrific to my senses to contemplate the loss of freedom just in the past 10 years.

The subject of this blog post is the "nail-in-the-coffin" moment that prompted me to start this blog. I am not sure how often I will post my thoughts here, but I can no longer sit by and shake my head in disbelief.  I must voice my opinions if for no other reason than to placate my temper.

"Don't Touch My Junk!"... the phrase that rang out across the world. An average American traveling by air refused to be virtually defrocked and exposed to radiation by the airport scanners was given only one more option... the groping, humiliating, and utterly unconstitutional pat-down. He could not help but protest. I believe I would have done the same.
http://theweek.com/article/index/209417/the-dont-touch-my-junk-guy-should-the-tsa-leave-john-tyner-alone

You see, there is a breaking point for every person. The point at which we say "enough is enough". I already despised air travel due to the humiliation of being treated as "guilty until proven innocent". But this new invasion of privacy and violation of liberty is the breaking point for me. Short of an absolute repeal of these procedures, I do not believe I will every travel by air again.

The truly sad fact is that I believe the latest uproar about these procedures is just a little bit of hot air before the masses settle down and accept the loss of more of their freedoms. I doubt very many know what our founding forefather, Benjamin Franklin, had to say on the subject...

"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."

There are so many things going wrong in America today that I shudder to think of them in whole.  This subject of airport scanners and pat-downs is simply a small piece of a very rotten pie that is being force fed to the populace.

So, I leave you with this question.  When will you reach your breaking point?  Will it be naked pat-downs? Or anal probing?  Perhaps being restrained in your seat with shackles will be that moment?