Representative Rosa DeLauro, whose husband Stanley Greenburg works for Monsanto, has introduced H.R. 875, a very bad piece of legislation that promises to put every backyard gardener in jeopardy of property seizure.

Monsanto is a monster corporation that sinks its controlling tentacles deep into the minds of every presidential administration and every Congress. Just last year, I described the corruption Monsanto engendered in a fair amount of depth. And how very convenient to have their very own pet member of Congress!

Naturally, like all monstrous attacks on our freedom, this attack is made in the name of “safety.” If you understand the intention of the legislation, and carefully read sections 3, 103, 206 and 207 in their entirety, you’ll see that the danger I am reporting is quite real. This is essentially a bill to restructure agriculture in this country along lines suitable for Monsanto’s profitability, at the cost of the impoverishment of both our material well-being and our health.

Let me be clear.
A human being’s most fundamental needs in this world are food, clothing, shelter and self-defense. As long as you have the ability to provide for these yourself, you are free. But when you must depend upon government (or the government’s designated global corporation) for these — nay, when it is even illegal for you to provide these for yourself — you are a slave. Any attempt to outlaw our ability to grow our own foods in our own gardens using our own methods or to save our own seeds or cooperate in seed banks — any attempt along these lines should be seen as nothing less than an attempt to drop the chains of slavery across our shoulders.

This legislation is currently in committee, and I strongly encourage you to contact the members of that committee at this link and let them know in no uncertain terms that this legislation is unacceptable and should never make it to the floor.
Seeds and home gardens are as important as your right of self-defense, because without them you eat whatever a global corporation tells you to eat. Your diet determines your health, mental acuity, longevity, level of energy and much more.

Just because you may not grow a garden currently doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, or that you wouldn’t be better off growing one in the future. Just like your neighbor owning a gun can protect you, your neighbor owning seeds can protect you.

So take this seriously and contact the members of the committee considering this legislation. Let’s get this bad special-interest legislation shut down in a hurry!

The ostensible purpose of this legislation is to enhance the safety of food in the wake of numerous deaths due to e. coli and salmonella contamination. Almost all of this contamination was caused on large factory farms, and practically none occurred in smaller, family-run, organic or Certified Naturally Grown farms.

In one case, the contamination was due to the violation of existing standards regarding the use of fresh manure on crops that come into contact with the ground. In another case, it was due to a peanut processor knowingly allowing contaminated machinery to be used rather than lose a few dollars by shutting down the line for a thorough cleaning. In yet other cases, the products came from Mexico where sanitation — as we understand it — hardly exists.
All of these practices are a violation of not only existing laws and standards, but violations of common sense and basic moral decency. A new federal law that takes away your right to raise your own food will not inspire people who will already endanger your life in pursuit of profit to be any more diligent.

In fact, the very companies whose influence spawned this legislation have already had legislation passed that denies you the right to even know when you are eating genetically modified Franken-foods that have been proven to be dangerous to laboratory animals. They don’t care one iota about your safety, and the idea that they will suddenly grow a conscience in the face of legislation they wrote to put their competition out of business is laughable.

If Representative DeLauro really cared about the safety of our food, she would make the following proposals:
1. No importation of food from any country whose standards of sanitation are less than our own. (This would include China, where raw human waste is dumped onto fields or Mexico where basic facilities to flush human waste and wash hands afterwards are unavailable to the workers.)

2. No importation of agricultural workers or workers in food processing plants from countries whose sanitation standards are less than our own.

3. If a company executive knowingly allows the violation of a safety standard such that he could reasonably expect that harm could result, he should be charged with manslaughter for each death he caused and the sentences should be served serially rather than concurrently.

4. An enforcement of the same standards that apply to organic certification upon all commercial agriculture over $100M/annum in size as it pertains to the use of animal wastes.

5. Mandate that genetically modified foods be disclosed, and that they be subjected to the same safety trials applicable for newly developed drugs before being cleared for human consumption.

None of these proposals require a whole new government department, and none threatens our freedom.

We shouldn’t have to give up our freedom to garden just because a bunch of greedy global corporatists won’t shut down a contaminated assembly line or insist on employing filthy laborers under abominable conditions where basic human sanitation isn’t even possible.
So contact the committee members, and let them know you won’t stand for this!

House Committee on Agriculture
1301 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515