Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:51:03 -0500
From: Erika Wolff <erikawolff@...>
To: Erika Wolff <erikawolff@...>
Subject: [ErikaWolff] Preserving our Freedom of Choice!



Dear Friends.

Many of you have heard me many times quoting from Alice Walker, the author of the Colour Purple:

“Activism is the price we pay for being on this planet.” All of our action is required right now in support of Michael Schmidt. The issue isn’t just raw milk but our freedom to choose.

I invite and urge you to action. The Power of Raw is the Power of One!

Please continue to read below the detailed account of the event by Marilyn Gang.

Thank you for your help.

Erika

Subject: CALL CITY TV AND BE HEARD   forwarded from: biodynamicgardenersandfarmers

******ACTION ALERT********
 
City TV is conducting a poll ABOUT RAW MILK
 
There is a City TV telephone number where you can call to count yourself in.
 
All you have to do is call the number:

(416) 870-2242 and your vote will be counted in as a "YES".
 
Please share this with as many people as possible so we can gather as many "YES" votes as we can.
 
Another place where you can mark your opinions about raw milk, this time online at:

http://www.citynews.ca/

This from a friend's letter, copied with permission.

Michael is an idealist, holding fast to his beliefs and training as a biodynamic farmer. He’s an enlightened soul, and I and his other customers are doing all we can to support the freedom to choose our food.

The government should come to see that their role is guaranteeing the safety of food, not denying us access.

You can follow the fight on the website: 

 

http://glencoltonfarms.com  
           

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Toronto Dowsers and Interested Friends,

 

Please forward any of the following information to those you feel would be interested:

This past Tuesday morning, November 21st, 2006, a swarm of armed  officers and investigators invaded the home and property of a Durham, Ontario area farmer with a search warrant and, for the next seven and a half hours, investigators searched, questioned . . . and searched and questioned some more. Two investigators from the Ministry of Finance also arrived and spent several hours in the office, confiscating one computer hard drive, its monitor and keyboard, back-up CDs, boxes of paper files, the farm product
and processing equipment.

They raided the farm of a well respected conscientious dairy farmer.
They took his farm fresh milk and in doing so deprived 150 families of their food source.

This information is being disseminated through the Toronto Dowsers as well as many other grassroots organizations in Ontario at this point) because for the last 2 years a statistically significant percentage of our membership and their families (at least 10%) has expressed interest in and appreciation of raw milk and raw milk products.  I too have enjoyed its benefits and sense of well being and am more than piqued that the government of Ontario is purposefully undermining my health and the health of my friends by depriving us of this product and our rights.

You may have heard of Michael Schmidt, of Glencolton farms. 

 

Michael runs a cow share program on his farm (about 2 hours NW of Toronto) that enables families to obtain their own milk. Michael is a BioDynamic farmer. His father studied with Rudolph Steiner.

Michael provides shelter, feed and care for their animals. In fact, at least one of our members is a member of this cow share program.

The sale of raw milk is considered to be not legal in Ontario and in
most jurisdictions.  They claim that illness, such as E.Coli, tuberculosis, etc., can result.   This is true.   Illness can result any time microbes are not handled under clean conditions.   When cows are milked under clean conditions, the safety factor is quite high.  The positive health benefits are enormous.  (read The Untold Story of Milk, Ron Schmid, ND.)

This is a huge issue. You can get into BIG TROUBLE if you sell raw
milk. Probably more trouble than if you sold crack cocaine. Why? Because it means you jeopardize the BIG BUCKS as in BEAUCOUP DOLLARS of the Dairy INDUSTRY and the bureaucrats who run the MILK MARKETING BOARD.  Note that food is no longer food --- we now have INDUSTRIES.

 

Your health is so irrelevant they would laugh at you if you appeared to be serious about the issue. It's all about money. About their deep fears that your interest in your own health will reduce their immoral income.  
  
Michael has been attacked and his activities curtailed by the government previously for his sales of raw milk (see links below).

Similar attacks have been perpetrated on other Ontario farmers and raw milk providers this year. However their network is not as extensive as Michael's and our legal system has so far deprived them of their freedom, rights, families and deprived their customers of better health.

[It is ironic that this  travesty  was promulgated by the Ministry of Natural Resources. What is their mandate? By this action, it appears that their mandate is to destroy Natural Resources. Just like job of the firemen in Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" was to burn books!]

Another irony: The Ontario Landowner's Association (OLA) has learned that the (Ontario) Honourable Minister of Finance, Greg Sorbara, and his family drink raw milk and consume unpasteurized cheese and butter from Michael Schmidt's farm. Sobara's family is, and has been shareholders in this cooperative venture since 1992.

==================================

(1) THE HUNGER STRIKE: NOVEMBER 23rd.

Michael said: "As of now, I will begin the hunger strike until all of the equipment, documents and other items removed from this farm have been returned. The Government has to agree to be financially liable for the personal property of cow share-owners. As well, they need to agree in writing that the farm is to be left alone, so that it can carry on its service to the 150 families, until and unless all of the issues have been dealt with in court or in the Legislative Assembly or House of Parliament...."

[Michael is drinking one glass of raw milk a day. Probably better than anything else.]

"The cow share program on this farm enables families to obtain their own milk. I am providing shelter, feed and care for their animals. I'm not arguing the fact that raw milk is better; I know it is better; it is the cow owners' choices to drink their milk. This fight is not about me; it's not about the farm; it's about the freedom of informed choice for every individual in Ontario.

"We are farmers who care with our heart for the land and the people.
Government is regulating and controlling the farmers and consumers with bureaucrats and raw power. Everyone should have the right to own a cow and drink the milk that nourished our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, and us. Milk is nature's perfect food. Let's restore our respect for the land, our respect for the farmer who cares for the land, our respect for all human beings who are quite capable of making their own decisions. 

"The Queen of England has just turned down a submission to ban raw
milk in England.  She is drinking milk from her own cows. Please, all of you bureaucrats and government officials, respect our human right to choose.

About 300 people attended the press conference this past Thursday.

Jamie Kennedy, Michael's friend, will be hold a press conference this Wednesday at his downtown Toronto wine bar.  Sally Fallon will be in attendance. [Note: This is for the PRESS only and Jamie would like to avoid a big crowd.]

At Toronto's annual Whole Life Expo Nov. 24, 25, 26, attended by over 10,000 holistic minded people, there was a table in the lobby offering information on this situation, with petitions, etc. More support was gained through this.

==================================

(2) WEB SITES AND WHAT TO DO:  

Michael Schmidt's Glencolton Farms web site:

 

http://glencoltonfarms.com/

 

itemized listing of articles:

 

http://glencoltonfarms.com/index.php?

 

option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=1&id=1&Itemid=2

On December 7th there will be a private members bill introduced at Queen's Park by Bill Murdoch MPP from the Grey Bruce area that asks that the issue of small raw milk producers be settled once and for all.

Story in Owen Sound Sun Times:   

 

http://tinyurl.com/ylc3ob

Story in 11/24 Globe and Mail: 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061124.wrawmilk1124/BNS
tory/National/home

 

==================================

(3) COST TO US???
   

Photos of the Raid:

 

http://www.dowsers.info/schmidt.htm

If you look at the photos and note the number of personnel --- and
guesstimate about $50,000 was spent on salaries and equipment (e.g., hi-tech truck rental) just for that day.

When you view these photos you can see what our officials look like when they are protecting us from ourselves.

How much time and salary for the conceptualization and planning? 

And the aftermath? And then how much will the taxpayers of Ontario have to pay Michael Schmidt when he (successfully) sues the Ministry et al and wins?

Perhaps a million dollars -- or more -- wasted by all parties concerned on this most unfortunate wrongheaded boneheaded boondoggle?

WHOSE MORONIC  IDEA  WAS  THIS, anyway? Is it possible to find out
the REAL source from whence this has originated?

==================================

(4) What you can do to help:

http://glencoltonfarms.com/index.php?

 

option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=2

MG notes:

If you read the Toronto Star, consider asking them why they have NOT
reported one word of this.

It is requested that you sign a petition, or print one off from the link below and get it signed.  Generally, I am not in favor of petitions since I don't feel they do much good and the signers feel that "all" they need to do for a cause is to sign a petition.
  
I feel that this time the petition will be useful and that the province has no idea how many people really are in favour of removing the restrictions on raw milk sales that are counterproductive.

DO consider  contacting your MPP --- do more than consider it --- DO so.

This is yet another test for us, to see what we are willing to do or not to see how much we can be cowed (!).

It is my sense that this is the/a time where we have enough of a dynamic mass to grab their attention and effect a change.

It is my sense that in doing so, this effort shall be successful and
shall be the springboard to other similar efforts removing bureaucratic blockages to our health and freedom of choice, such as a realistic look at problems with EMFs

 

http://www.dowsers.info/emf/emf.htm , etc.

Michael Schmidt has gone about things the right way.  He has class, he has style, he is intelligent and totally passionately committed, he has well placed long term good friends -- many ingredients to bring about a successful conclusion.

 

==================================

(5) Synergistically, Nov. 16, Cyndi Arseneau (THANK YOU CYNDI!!!),

from Vermont, forwarded an Oct. 25 an article from the well known newsletter of Dr. Joseph Mercola: "Federal, State Regulators Target Raw Milk Sources"

http://www.mercola.com/display/router.aspx?docid=34397:
 
"The Michigan Agriculture Department, together with state police,
confiscated an estimated $7,000 worth of food products from a three-farm cooperative. Raw milk was the concern at the center of the investigation. No charges have yet been filed, but the investigation has expanded; the FDA and Indiana Board of Animal Health have twice sent investigators to the Amish Indiana dairy that supplies the cooperative's raw milk.

The investigators are exploring possible violations of a federal
prohibition on the sale of raw milk via interstate commerce. Friendly retailers providing space to the coop have also felt the effects of the crackdown. Because one small Ann Arbor grocer was served cease and desist orders by Michigan's Agriculture Department to prevent the coop from distributing raw milk and organic food to customers in a warehouse behind the store, others are shying away from the coop for fear of losing their businesses."

[IS THERE A CONNECTION between Michigan and Ontario tactics AT THIS TIME?]

The link includes a 40 minute video by  Dr. Rima E. Laibow, MD, National Association of Nutrition Professionals, called "Codex and Nutricide", as to how nutrition, in the form of herbs and other natural foods, has been increasingly criminalized by the U.S. government.

 

www.healthfreedomusa.org

==================================

(6)

http://glencoltonfarms.com/Petition/FreedomOfChoicePetition.pdf

A PETITION TO THE MINISTER OF NATURAL RESOURCES, DAVID RAMSAY, MPP
We, the undersigned, do hereby request the right to make informed decisions about how, where and by whom our food is grown and produced. For the Provincial Government to prohibit the availability of raw milk to those of us who take the responsibility for our own health and have made and informed choice to consume raw milk, is a basic violation of human rights. We ask Minister Ramsay to return all of the equipment, documents and other items removed from Michael Schmidt's farm. The Provincial Government must agree to be financially liable for the personal property of cow shareowners.
Likewise, the Government must agree in writing that Glencolton farm is to be left alone, so that Glencolton Farms can continue to service the 150 families that the farm provides food for.

 

==================================
(7) Subject: A Message from Michael Schmidt
November 26, 2006

 

Dear Friends of Glencolton Farms:

This is day four of my hunger strike. I certainly can feel how my body is rebelling. I am still able to do all the work on the farm but with an increasing need of brakes. I am fine.

I am touched by the outpour of support from everywhere. You Cow shareholders certainly understand the urgency to act. We need to act  now because we have a certain momentum, which will carry all of us.  It is beautiful to experience, that we the people actually have moral power to counter the raw power of government. Uncritical conformity can make one responsible for injustice in society. Here we can recognize that we have a responsibility to act. Not for me not for us but for society at large.

Several people are questioning the timing of my hunger strike. There  is never a good or a bad time for these kinds of actions.  I needed  to follow up on my statement I gave in 1995. The only way how you  gain respect is, if you act on what you say.

May you have a blessed Sunday
Warm regards
Farmer Schmidt

 

==================================

(8) If you have read down to this point --- thank you. An additional email may be sent if more useful info on this topic comes my way.  Michael and his friends have put together an impressive, cool headed well prepared cooperative non hierarchal organization in the 5 days since the raid. For updates, first check http://glencoltonfarms.com/ . We are doing this for ourselves and for every province in Canada and every state in the U.S.A.

"We shall prevail. With kindness, compassion, intelligence, caring and in our belief in ourselves and that we are doing the right thing for the right reason. Well prepared, comfortable and practiced in their use we may stumble from time to time and stub a toe or more, however we shall prevail and with more glory, gratitude, joy happiness and wealth on all levels than ever before.  We remain:  Unstoppable.  And so it is."  - mg, November 26, 2006

with deep gratitude,
 - Marilyn -
              Marilyn Gang  ---------  

mgang@...
                        Head Honcho, Toronto Dowsers
                         www.TorontoDowsers.com
               "We strive towards Conscious Awareness"


Erika Wolff, Certified Hippocrates Health Educator   
e-mail erika@...

Erika Wolff – The Power of Raw, A Division of Neg-A-Splice Inc.
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