You Will Be What They Want You To Eat

Posted on July 24, 2024 by marcia

Control the Food and you Control the People

by Meryl Nass

July 16, 2024

Dear Friends,

There is an apochryphal phrase that, despite its disputed source, probably everyone can agree with: “Control the Food and You Control the People.”

Our grandparents and great grandparents produced much of their own food in their gardens or on their farms. Food choices in stores were limited, with little frozen food available and fewer fresh and canned foods for sale.

In 1850, 64% of American workers worked on farms.¹ In 1900 there were still 6 million US farms, with an average size of 150 acres.² By 1920, 30% of US workers still did farm work.³ But after World War 2, the US government adopted policies to reduce the number of farmers and expand the size of farms–for more efficiency, it was said.^{4 5 6} Today, only 1% of Americans work on farms⁷ and the number of farms has dropped by 2/3.

Most US farmland belongs to farms that are over 2,000 acres in size, or more than 3 square miles. But along with efficiency came worsening food quality. The so-called “Green Revolution” allowed farmers to apply chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides while ignoring the overall fertility, quality and texture of their soils. Depleted soils subsequently produced less nutritious foods, while accumulating low levels of neurotoxins and carcinogens.

Decades of consolidation of food production, processing and distribution has steadily increased the size and power of a small group of global agricultural corporations. Most of those companies are in turn members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) or its Food Action Alliance, and they are wielding unelected power to influence food production and distribution in the name of climate change, sustainability,⁸ health, and equity.⁹

For example, the WEF had this to say about food systems in 2022:

“In the face of volatile global shocks from conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and extreme weather events, it has become more urgent than ever to transition food systems to a net-zero, nature-positive infrastructure that nourishes and feeds everyone.¹⁰

Net zero means “removing an equal amount of CO2 from the atmosphere as we release into it.”¹¹ This has never been accomplished by any food system, and the implications could drastically reduce the food supply–yet it is said to be the reason we must change the way we produce food.

The WEF and other international entities have recently increased the intensity of this concerted push, most visibly in policies targeting the reduction or elimination of livestock and related farming activities.

Climate change as a justification to attack food production

Advocates of climate change urgency have steadily honed their concerns about agriculture. The WEF boldly proclaims:

With the food system responsible for a third of overall global CO2 emissions, attention on ‘climate-beneficial’ foods has been slowly but steadily increasing.

The US EPA disagrees with the WEF that agriculture plays such a large role in global CO2 emissions.¹² Nor are the many CO2-lowering effects of regenerative agriculture (like sinking CO2 into the soil from the air) mentioned as offsets.

Organic and regenerative agriculture, in which topsoil is rebuilt through composting, “green manure” plantings that enrich the soil, and good forestry practices, can sequester more CO2 in the soil and trees than is lost through other agricultural processes. These could potentially achieve ‘net zero’– and increase the production of more nutritious foods and healthier soils, but are not being touted as solutions. One must ask then, is the goal really “net-zero” or is there another goal?

Numerous international agencies and NGOs have converged to accuse cows and farming of harming the climate. They offer technological rescues, to be provided by corporate WEF members. These include the United Nations Environment Program and AIM for Climate.

Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas that is said to contribute to global warming. Over 150 nations have signed the “Global Methane Pledge” to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030¹³–and some are reducing dairy and beef cows because the gas produced in their intestines contains methane. (Humans also expel methane.¹⁴) Methane is released naturally from cracks in the earth, as well as from fracking and oil drilling–which were recently shown to release 5x as much methane as earlier estimates suggested.¹⁵ But it is the gas produced by cows that is the current target for methane reduction.

Issues that have not been satisfactorily addressed include:

whether our methods for measuring temperature in comparison to past decades provide accurate comparative results,
how the doomsday targets for temperature and CO2 were arrived at,
how members of the IPCC, an unaccountable body responsible for climate targets and projections were selected and retained,
since scientists worried about a coming ice age during the 1970s, doesn’t that suggest considerable changes in climate (both up and down) over relatively short periods of time,
what is the evidence that increased heat and increased CO2 are dangerous when both contribute to increased growth of plants,
while it was claimed that sea level rises would be catastrophic, what we are seeing in fact is evidence of small changes in sea level in both directions.

Health

WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that “a transformation of the world’s food systems is needed urgently, based on a One Health approach that protects and promotes the health of humans, animals and the planet.” We all want to protect animals and environment, as well as our own health, but it seems the obvious way to do that is to address the evils of factory farming and excess chemical additives used for crops and livestock, rather than a major transformation of what we eat. Consuming large amounts of insect proteins, or lab-grown ‘meat,’ for example, will have unpredictable effects on health. Do we really want to perform these experiments on billions of people at once?

“One Health” is also being used as the justification to vaccinate fur farm workers against bird flu in Finland,¹⁶ even though there have been no human cases in Finland, the disease does not spread person-to-person, and everyone in the US who has developed bird flu in the past 2 years has had an extremely mild illness: conjunctivitis +/- symptoms of a cold. None were hospitalized or died. The excuse is that vaccinating people will allow continued farming of mink and foxes, which were culled last year due to alleged bird flu infections. Here is how Finland’s health department draws from “One Health” to wordsmith the need to give experimental vaccines, never before tested in humans, to farmworkers in expectation that an outbreak of bird flu might occur:

“This issue must be evaluated within a framework which considers the intricate interplay between the environment, animals, and humans. Recognising this interconnectedness and the vast array of environmental impacts of human activity is crucial, and our protective measures should consider the overarching goal of maintaining and enhancing planetary health.”¹⁷

Equity

Equity is repeatedly embraced as the justification to change the way food is allocated. The roster of corporate players at AIM for Climate proclaims “Diversity, gender equity, and inclusion are critical to the success of the mission.” But real equity is allowing people to choose the food they eat, without interference, rather than restricting populations from accessing the foods they prefer and imposing new foods on them.

Animal Rights

The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) joined the plan to balance environmental demands against human needs for food through adherence to the loose “One Health” approach. At the same time, WOAH admits, “More than 75% of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day depend on subsistence farming and raising livestock to survive.”¹⁸

The world’s largest food producers, processors, and retail sellers are joined with governments and NGOs through the WHO, UN, WEF, and a plethora of interconnected organizations. Yet all these supposedly charitable organizations have become focused on reducing or eliminating livestock, despite the fact that the poorest peoples as well as the wealthiest rely on livestock for meat, dairy and for enriching the soil. The multinational organizations and food conglomerates want humans to convert to a state-specified diet comprised instead of synthetic meats, insects, and other novel food products manufactured by these companies, which have not previously been known for their concerns about our health.

Many question whether a group of global industrialists and politicians have either the expertise or desire to “improve the state of the world,” but there is no question that the proposed intention is to consolidate and control food production and distribution, thereby improving the state of member corporations’ profits. GMO crops and related chemical applications will be increased under the pretense of climate rescue, and synthetic meats will be favored in government food programs. Even more small farms will be shuttered.

This coordinated justification for global/government food control is presented in the name of sustainability, reducing global temperature, improving animal welfare, nurturing human health, and improving equity. However, there is no evidence it does even one of these things.

We do not intend to allow a small group of globalists to control global food production and thereby achieve control of the population.

This is why Door to Freedom will place a major focus on turning this agenda around. We will encourage government (at all levels) to support small farmers rather than industrial giants, to improve animal husbandry practices, to incentivize enhancing the soil and to achieve a much healthier food supply for all.

Our methods include education, policy development, and working for change at all levels of government. We will use the same strategy we used to stop the WHO’s agenda. Basically, once people understand what is happening and what is at stake, they refuse to go along–whether they are citizens or political leaders.

Our first large project will be a 2-day Symposium September 6-7 (online only, and I put in the wrong dates earlier) titled The Attack on Food and Agriculture, 2nd Annual. Please join us, support us, and work with us to heal our food systems and our planet.

My best wishes,

Meryl Nass, MD

from: https://merylnass.substack.com/p/control-the-food-and-you-control?publication_id=746368&post_id=146736206&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Giving Rights to Marine Mammals

Posted on February 23, 2012 by marcia

Marine Mammals Need Rights, Too, Scientists Say

Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience Staff Writer

Date: 23 February 2012 Time: 08:15 AM ET

Killer whale and Weddell seal.
CREDIT: Robert Pitman/NOAA

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Orcas mourn their dead, right whales have accents and dolphins like to have fun (and they “talk” in their sleep). Because of their special intelligence and culture, marine mammals should have their own set of rights, researchers attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting here said.

“Because of their cultural sophistication these are enormously vulnerable individuals,” said Lori Marino, who studies brain and behavioral evolution in mammals at Emory University in Atlanta. “We have all the evidence to show that there is an egregious mismatch between how cetaceans are and how they are perceived and still treated by our species.”

Giving rights to cetaceans, the name for the group of marine mammals that includes dolphins and whales, would allow them better treatment under the law, including making sure they have healthy habitats and enough food to hunt and survive, as well as getting them out of captivity.

Special brains

Scientists point to a few qualities of marine mammals when suggesting the animals deserve some basic rights: they are self-aware, display complex intelligence and even have culture.

“These characteristics are shared with our own species, we recognize them,” Marino said. “All of these characteristics make it ethically inconsistent to deny the basic rights of cetaceans.”

And what do they mean by “basic rights?”

“When we talk about rights, that’s a shorthand way to talk about the fundamental needs of a being,” Thomas White, of Loyola Marymount University in California, said at the symposium. He also draws the difference between “human” and “person,” similar to how philosophers distinguish the two: A human is a biological idea — Homo sapiens, to be specific, while in philosophy, a person is a being of any species with a particular set of characteristics that deserves special treatment. [10 Things That Make Humans Special]

“You have to have a species-appropriate understanding of rights,” White said. These include the basic set of conditions for growth, development, flourishingand even a rudimentary sense of satisfaction in life.

The researchers noted some areas where humans are stripping these animals of their rights. For instance, by keeping them in captivity we are exploiting their right to live in their natural environment without human interference, and taking away their right to physical and mental health, Marino said, adding, “The effects of captivity are well known. These animals suffer from stress and disease in captivity. Many captive dolphins and orcas show physical and behavioral indications of stress.” (Some endangered animals are kept in captivity for specially designed breeding programs meant to protect their population from extinction.)

PETA problems

The meeting comes on the heels of a recent ruling in a San Diego court that animals such as whales and dolphins don’t have human rights, shutting down a lawsuit from the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who had claimed that SeaWorld’s orcas were slaves. PETA claimed that the park broke the 13th Amendment of the Constitution — banning slavery — by forcing their animals, specifically the orcas, to work against their will for the financial gain of their owners.

San Diego District Judge Jeffrey Miller dismissed the case before the hearing even began. “As ‘slavery’ and ‘involuntary servitude’ are uniquely human activities,” he explained in his decision on Feb. 8, “there is simply no basis to construe the Thirteenth Amendment as applying to non-humans.”

His statement makes clear, Marino pointed out, why she and others are fighting for “person” status for marine mammals. “Without obtaining legal status as a person in the law there’s nowhere to go and there’s nothing that judge could have done in that PETA case, even if he wanted to,” Marino said. Before we start asking for legal action, she said, we need to get these animals their basic rights.

http://www.livescience.com/18611-marine-mammals-dolphins-human-rights.html

New Directions in Animal Rescue

Posted on October 18, 2011 by marcia

Soren Petersen

Design Research Ph.D.; Author, Profit from Design

Creativity in Animal Rescue

Posted: 10/18/11 12:09 PM ET

Co-written with Marysia Wojcik, Animal trainer and behaviorist

Animal abandonment is on the rise and many blame the current recession that has resulted in people losing their homes and dumping their animals at shelters or even worse leaving them tied to a tree in a deserted back yard. Few of these people are heartless, most simply felt desperate and out of options. In 2008, at least 20,000 dogs and cats were euthanized in Los Angeles shelters alone, at a huge cost to the taxpayers.

Animal rescue groups shoulder the brunt of this work and these dedicated, passionate folk invest all of their time sitting crunched over their computers every night attempting to find adequate boarding facilities, foster parents, donors and more volunteers. For many, their rescue work ends only hours before they go to their daytime jobs. At times, these well-meaning individuals go down with the ship; some become mentally ill and turn into animal hoarders themselves. What are the human, animal and financial costs of all this madness?

Using social-media, our design research team reached out to animal lovers for creative ideas in dealing with the growing issue of animals being abandoned to shelters. We challenged the creative community, to come up with innovative new ideas to address this issue and spark the creative juices. During one month, we moderated the discussion and logged in more than 50 suggestions.

These ideas were evaluated together with Marysia Wojcik, an animal trainer and behaviorist in South Pasadena, California with over a decade of experience in animal rescue and public animal policies. Here are the top five ideas that were gleaned from the creative community:

1) Change people’s beliefs, values and behavior towards animals through music or perhaps a documentary highlighting the animal’s contribution to society.

2) Create billboards on animal issues that appeal to inner city youth and promote shelter adoptions and the control of animal fighting and breeding.

3) Introduce empathetic courses on animal ethics for local grade schools.

4) Support local state and federal politicians who are humane animal advocates and who oppose “breed profiling” laws.

5) Create a shelter environment that is pleasant and welcoming for both people and animals in order to encourage adoptions as well as volunteers.

Please help us to generate more creative ideas for changing the way animals are treated in our society and over the next two weeks, we will vote on these ideas and look for ways of implementing them.

Instead of Dr Demento’s, lament that “Dead puppies aren’t any fun,” let the theme for this endeavor be “live puppies take responsibility, but are also loads of fun.”

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soren-petersen/animal-rescue_b_992954.html

Chromographics Institute

Color + Art = Healing

Tag Archives: Animal RIghts