The Battles

CONTENTS

1. COMMENTARY
2. WONDERFUL VICTORY!  CWB (CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD)
3. SWAT TEAM RAIDS OHIO FOOD CO-OP.  I TALKED WITH JACKIE STOWERS.
4. FOR NEWCOMERS:  ANOTHER MEANS FOR HANDING DATA OFF TO CORPORATIONS, “Govt fronts”.

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(1)  COMMENTARY

Join in conspiracy with me.  We conspire:  when something is wrong we fight it.

Our conspiracy is all that matters.

There is no need to worry about other conspiracies.  Keep our energy focussed on our conspiracy.

By fighting what is wrong, our conspiracy will prevail.

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We have

a.  Items  2 and 3,  Canadian Wheat Board and Ohio food co-op.  They are about FOOD.

b.  FOOD at a time when work is on Lockheed Martin and the Government, in preparation for a trial over the CENSUS.

How, in my weird mind, does  a. have anything to do with  b.?

The topic in 2008-12-06 is the threat posed by “massively organized information”. MOI.

MOI was a central factor in the success of Hitler’s campaign to exterminate a group of people.

IBM’s system of data storage on “punch cards” that could be mechanically sorted by Hollerith machines not only made a fortune for IBM, it enabled rapid identification of individuals based on selected characteristics.

“Herman Hollerith invented IBM”. ..  In 1879 he “accepted the invitation of his Columbia professor  to become an assistant in the U.S. Census Bureau.”  Census data was manually generated.  Imagine the time it took.  A new census would be underway before the last census results were reported.

Hollerith came up with the “idea of a card with standardized holes, each representing a different trait:  gender, nationality, occupation and so forth.  The card would then be fed into a “reader”.   …  Any desired trait could be isolated by simply sorting and resorting for data-specific holes.  … It was nothing less than a nineteenth-century bar code for human beings.”

“By 1884 a prototype machine was constructed …Hollerith patented it  … found it could be used in many more ways than just the census …”The clanging contraption could calculate in a few weeks the results that a man previously spent years correlating.”   Hollerith’s machine was used in the 1890 U.S. census.  Eventually Hollerith’s company became IBM.  The first overseas subsidiary was in Germany, for census work.

And so ..  on into IBM’s lucrative market for population data in Nazi Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

From there to Lockheed Martin Corporation’s involvement in the Canadian (and American and UK) censuses.  I objected to being complicit with this corporation that makes its money from killing people.  I concentrated on cluster bombs because it should be easy in a court of law to prove that LM manufactures cluster bombs.  And that cluster bombs contravene International Humanitarian Law (IHL)(the laws of war) (may be more difficult to prove).  My email of Dec 8^th was the news that Canada has signed onto the international treaty to ban cluster bombs.  Great!  that’s easier than IHL to prove.  Our signature on an International Convention to ban cluster bombs is meaningless if we simultaneously financially support one of the largest producers of cluster bombs.   You use economic sanctions to stop inhumane practices.

There is another, unexplored, side of LM.

I am indebted to Lisa for sending in stacks of information that put a name and the details to Lockheed Martin’s international surveillance systems.  That’s later in another email.

“massively organized information”, surveillance systems, the amoral nature of corporations, the lessons from Nazi Europe — it is not too hard to figure out that we need to conspire to stop Lockheed Martin’s contracts for census work.

(I am reminded of the lesson in “Women Who Run With the Wolves”:  it isn’t smart to be naïve.  The wolves that are naïve and not vigilant end up infected, maimed or dead.)

But how does this about Lockheed Martin and population data connect to the food stories?

–        “here’s the good news”, victory for the Canadian Wheat Board and

–        “Now for the bad news”, SWAT team raids on the Ohio Food Co-op?

The relationship is that they are parts of the conspiracy:

–        What’s happening with the census (Lockheed Martin) is wrong.  Action: don’t comply.  Action:  plead “not guilty”.  Creates opportunity:  trial (public attention, spot-light on the issue.)

–        The illegal, undemocratic, and unethical steps taken by the Harper Government to get rid of the CWB are wrong.  I haven’t kept this network informed of the details of that on-going hard-fought battle.  Now there has been a very significant victory in the recent elections to the Board: four out of five of the elected positions went to pro CWB candidates!  Most of us have little idea of how great a victory this is, in the face of abuses of government power.  People banded together, fought hard and won back some ground.  (item #2)

–        Item #3, bad news  (SWAT team raids Ohio Food Co-op)  is so incredible that it’s hard to believe.   I tracked down a person, Jackie Stowers, to make sure.  It would be so nice if I could write Jackie off in some way — discredit her –  it would be more comfortable than believing the article.  Alas!  there’s nothing wrong with Jackie Stowers.  She works to connect people with local growers of naturally-raised and organic food products.

Why is Jackie’s story (SWAT team raid on her home) important? Other people have had the same happen to them. ..But it is happening in the USA.  We are in Canada.

Draw the parallel with Hitler’s expansion from Germany into other European countries.  His forces didn’t just arrive one day and take over.  The Hollerith machines were working at frantic speeds in many different countries well before the official arrival of the Nazis.  IBM had subsidiaries in those countries.  The President of IBM was delighted with the money IBM was making.

Our first communications to Statistics Canada over the out-sourcing of census work to Lockheed Martin were met with “The contracting-out is to a Canadian company (LM Canada), not an American company.”.  We called them on that piece of nonsense.  StatsCan (now headed by Mr. Munir Sheikh) also contradicted itself by saying, in other communications, that they were obliged to accept Lockheed’s tender because of NAFTA rules.  If the contract was truly with a Canadian company, NAFTA of course, would not apply.

IBM with its subsidiaries in various European countries. Population data collection for the Nazis, with no qualms.   Lockheed Martin with its subsidiaries in Canada.  Population data collection through the census gets into the hands of the American military.  Legitimately, from the American point-of-view.  They passed the Patriot Act.  On 26/11/2008 I sent the email to you “News report Nov 01,  U.S. wants more information on Canadians”.   … No.  You don’t let Lockheed Martin work on the Canadian census.    You stop it right now….  No.  WE put an end to it, because there ain’t nobody else who is going to do it for us.

The point is, and we know it:  the loss of democratic functioning in the U.S. doesn’t stop at the 49^th parallel.

In Jackie Stowers’ Ohio world, people laughed at those who were concerned about the erosion of fundamental principles.  After the SWAT team’s arrival and walking off with the family’s food supply, computer, food co-op membership lists, cell phones, etc.  people are no longer laughing.

The good news is that an organization (sorry, I don’t know the name) contacted the Stowers.  The organization will most likely supply resources to help out.  Jackie met with them yesterday.

What happened to the Stowers is wrong. Our conspiracy is to fight wrong.  We are part of a huge conspiracy that is fighting wrong.  I am certain that the Stowers will win.  The key is that the battle has to be fought.

I wanted Jackie to know that there are many Canadians who stand shoulder-to-shoulder in support of her and her family.  I know that the more abuses that are allowed in the U.S., the more vulnerable we become in Canada.  With more people connected and working together on this continent, the fight against wrong will prevail.  We are in a giant tug-of-war.  We add more people to our side of the rope.

We build our strength through every wrong that is righted.

Just in case you missed it,  I repeat information that is important for Canadians to understand – the American “Bush” regime has to have access to oil.

• Lockheed Martin and the census fits into the safeguards to ensure access.
• Massively organized data to identify resistance to their claims on oil and gas.
• The RCMP anti-terrorist squad sent to Dawson Creek and the Encana pipeline would have its “terrorists” locked away.
• The  supply of oil exists in the more northerly areas of Canada, largely populated by indigenous people.  You can predict that there will be a large effort to gain compliance with the census from First Nations communities.  The carrot is “we have to have the population data in order to give you money”.

The safeguard for us is dispersed power.  Centralized power, centralized control of information is not healthy.

From 2008-12-06 and the video link below:  Author Edwin Black uses American daily oil consumption figures to establish the extent and consequences of American dependency on oil imports.  He makes the point that the Americans do not have a plan for a disruption in supply (European countries do).  The role of the Straits of Hormuz in the supply line become abundantly clear.

He does not mention the Tar Sands, nor the fact that Canada is now the number one oil supplier to the U.S.  I am left with the feeling that the American “Bush Administration”, contrary to Black’s statements, DOES have a strategy for oil security.  It lies in Canada.  Uneasiness about that comes with the Troop Exchange Agreement (signed Feb 14, 2008)  and the new “Canada First Defence Strategy”  (June 2008) in which Canada has “interoperability” and “compatible doctrine” with the U.S..

I can choose to know or choose not to know:  we are part of the strategy for oil and water security for the U.S.

Watch this video if you have any doubts about how serious the situation is.

Edwin Black at Western Automotive Journalists’ Symposium video (Be patient or bypass the introductory comments.)

(Link no longer valid)   http://video.google.ca/videosearch?hl=en&q=edwin+black&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#

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Most of you received the email about the RCMP anti-terrorist squad deployed to Dawson Creek because of the “incidents” on the pipeline.   It is important to put people associated with the police and military onto our distribution lists.  It was very easy, in the Encana case, to demonstrate that the police are being used to protect the interests of large corporations.  The “incidents” happen because ANY people, in ANY place – any sane person – will protect their families and loved ones from being poisoned to disease, infertility and death.  The Government is not regulating, in service to the corporations and “money”.  The RCMP is truly searching for THE VICTIMS, not the terrorists.  The RCMP anti-terrorist squad is looking in the wrong place for the terrorists.

Talking with people in the police and military, at every level, is the best insurance against a repeat of what happened to Jackie Stowers and her family.  We can spare ourselves from SWAT teams descending upon us.

In my mind, all of this is connected.

Edwin Black’s book “IBM and the Holocaust” is a great motivator for me to get as much press as possible for the trial.  Jackie Stowers’ story reinforces my motivation.

“Their” conspiracy will not win the day.  It won’t get off the ground.  “Our” conspiracy will win out.

Cheers,

Sandra

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(2)  WONDERFUL VICTORY!  CWB (CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD)

Column #698   Farmers Show Strong CWB Support in Director Elections,  Paul Beingessner   08/12/08

One of the most contentious CWB director elections to date ended on Sunday, with a result sure to have the federal government gnashing its teeth. Supporters of the CWB’s single desk won four out of five of the districts holding elections. The exception was District Two, in Alberta. Three of the five elected directors are new to the board, as incumbents in these three districts were not eligible to run again.

In the four districts that elected CWB supporters, the margins of victory were large, with 60 percent of voters, on average, voting for single desk supporters. The largest margin fell to Bill Woods, in District Four. This was formerly held by Ken Ritter, who could not run again. Significantly, the two Conservative MPs whose ridings cover most of District Four are Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and David Anderson, the MP with responsibilities for the CWB. Both Anderson and Ritz have been vocal and aggressive opponents of the CWB, claiming that their own electoral victories showed that farmers want to see the single desk eliminated.

Woods took the district on the first ballot, with 63.4 percent of the vote. Wood’s main opponent, Sam Magnus, held several positions with the federal Reform and Conservative parties, including a stint on the national council of the Conservative Party. Magnus’ status within the party didn’t help him much as he garnered only 28.5 percent of total votes. If Ritz and Anderson have a vestige of honesty, these MPs will drop the pretense that their schemes to neuter the board are supported by a majority of farmers.

Several other points stand out from the election. The Conservative government continued its overt interference in the election, including pruning the voters list further and sending letters to a select group of farmers, telling them how they might obtain ballots.

The culmination of government interference came when five prairie MPs used their parliamentary expense accounts to send personal letters to farmers on the voters list, telling them to vote for anti-single desk candidates. One of these MPs was David Anderson. As Wood’s substantial victory demonstrated, this strategy failed miserably. Hopefully, when Parliament resumes in January, in whatever form it might take, Anderson will be required to account for this misuse of Parliamentary money, and to explain how he acquired the voters list. That list is supposed to be confidential to the candidates.

Another of the four MPs, Andrew Scheer of Regina-Qu’Appelle, used his expense account to send a personal attack on re-elected CWB director Rod Flaman. Flaman was Scheer’s Liberal opponent in the federal election. Scheer claimed that Flaman “shamelessly shirked his responsibilities to the farmers who elected him and spent the last year campaigning for federal office while collecting his CWB pay cheque”.

Apparently farmers trusted Flaman more than they trusted Scheer, whose closest connection to agriculture is being an insurance salesman in Regina. Flaman won the district with 60.3 percent of the vote on the third ballot.

Currently, the CWB board consists of fifteen directors, with ten elected by farmers and five appointed by the federal government. Eight of the ten farmer-elected directors support the single desk, but the directors appointed by the Conservative government in Ottawa line up directly with the government in its opinion of the CWB. The very strong showing by pro-CWB candidates calls into question the legitimacy of the directors appointed by the government. Clearly they do not represent the wishes of farmers who want the CWB to continue its current mandate. As such, their role at the board table should be minimized to any specific areas of expertise they might have. Obstruction is not considered an area of expertise.

On a positive note for those candidates who were defeated, the Saskatchewan government seems to have a home for anti-single desk defeated candidates in Enterprise Saskatchewan. The Agriculture Sector Team has a couple on its board, including the chair, Gerrid Gust. While the province has aligned itself with the federal government’s anti-board stand, maybe it’s time for the Saskatchewan Party to reconsider its support of a position farmers’ clearly do not support.

On a final note, the rate of return of ballots reached 54 percent, a very good return for a mail-in ballot. The Conservatives have yet to find a way to manipulate the voters list that will give them the result they want.

© Paul Beingessner

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(3)  SWAT TEAM RAIDS OHIO FOOD CO-OP.  I TALKED WITH JACKIE STOWERS.

Alarming: SWAT Team Raids Ohio Co-op

Fri Dec 5, 2008 6:51 am (PST)
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/08/swat-team.htm

On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years.

There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly supicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor  justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.

Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge? This incident has raised the ominous specter of a restrictive new era in State regulation and enforcement over the nation’s private food supply.

This same type of abusive search and seizure was reported by those innocents who fell victim to oppressive federal drug laws passed in the 1990s. The present circumstance raises the obvious question: is there some rabid new interpretation of an existing drug law that considers food a controlled substance worthy of a nasty SWAT operation? Or worse, is there a previously unrecognized provision(s) pertaining to food in the Homeland Security measures? Some have suggested that it was merely an out-of-control, hot-to-trot ODA agent, and, if so, this would be a best-case scenario. Anything else might spell the beginning of the end for the freedom to eat unregulated and unmonitored food.

One blogger familiar with the Ohio situation has reported that:

“Interestingly, I believe they [Manna Storehouse] said a month or so ago, an undercover ODA official came to their little store and claimed to have a sick father wanting to join the co-op.  Both the owner and her daughter-in-law had a horrible feeling about the man, and decided not to allow him into the co-op and notified him by certified mail. He came back to the co-op demanding to be part of it. They refused and gave him names of other businesses and health food stores closer to his home. Not coincidentally, this man was there yesterday as part of the raid.”

The same blog also noted that the Ohio Department of Agriculture has been chastised by the courts in several previous instances for its aggression, including trying to entrap an Amish man in a raw milk “sale,” which backfired when it became known that the Amish believe in a literal interpretation of “give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away” (Matthew 5:42)

The issue appears to be the discovery of a bit of non-institutional beef in an Oberlin College food service freezer a year ago that was tracked down by a county sanitation official to Manna Storehouse. Oberlin College’s student food coop is widely known for its strident ideological stance about eating organic foods. It seems that the Oberlin student food cooperative had joined the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in order to buy organic foods in bulk from the national organic food distributor United, which services buying clubs across the nation. The sanitation official, James Boddy, evidently contacted the Ohio Department of Agriculture. After the first  contact by state ODA officials, Manna Storehouse reportedly wrote them a letter requesting assistance and guidelines for complying with the law. This letter was never answered. Rather, the ODA agent tried several times to infiltrate the coop, as described above. When his attempts failed, the SWAT team showed up!

Food cooperatives and buying clubs have been an active part of the American landscape for over a generation. In the 1970s, with the rise of the organic food industry (a direct outgrowth of the hippie back-to-nature movement) food coops started up all over the country. These were groups of people who freely associated for the purpose of combining their buying power so that they could order organic food items in bulk and case lots. Anyone who was part of these coops in the early era will remember the messy breakdown of 35 pounds of peanut butter and 5 gallon drums of honey!

These buying clubs have persisted and flourished over the years due to their ability to purchase high quality organic foods at reduced prices in bulk quantities. Most cooperatives have participated greatly in the local agrarian economies, supporting neighborhood organic farmers with purchases of produce, eggs, chickens, etc. The groups also purchase food from a number of different local, regional and national distributors, many of them family-based businesses who truck the food themselves. Some of these food cooperatives have become large enough to set up mini-storefront operations where members can drop in and purchase items leftover from case lot sales. Manna Storehouse had established itself in such a manner, using a small enclosed breezeway attached to their home. It was a folksy place with old wooden floors where coop members stopped by to chat and snack on bags of organic corn chips.

The state of Ohio boasts the second largest Amish population in the country. Many of the Amish live on acreages where they raise their own food, not unlike Manna Storehouse, and sell off the extras to neighbors and church members. There is a sense of foreboding that this state crackdown on a longstanding, reputable food cooperative operation could adversely impact the peaceful agrarian way of life not only for the Amish, but homeschoolers and those families living off the land on rural acreages. It raises the disturbing possibility that it could become a crime to raise your own food, buy eggs from the farmer down the road, or butcher your own chickens for family and friends – bustling activities that routinely take place in backwater America.

The freedom to purchase food directly from the source is increasingly under attack. For those who have food allergies and chemical intolerances, or who are on special medical diets, this is becoming a serious health issue. Will Americans retain the right to purchase food that is uncontaminated by pesticides, herbicides, allergens, additives, dyes, preservatives, MSG, GMOs, radiation, etc.? The melamine scare from China underscores the increasingly inferior and suspect quality of modern processed institutional foods. One blog, commenting on the bizarre and troubling Manna Storehouse situation, observed that:

“No one is saying exactly why. At the same time the FDA says it it safe to eat the 40% of tainted beef found in Costco’s and Sam’s all over the nation. These farm raids are very common now. Every farmer needs to fully eqiped [sic] for the possibility of it happening to them. The Farmer To Consumer Legal Defense Fund was created just for this purpose. The USDA just released their plans to put a law into action that will put all small farmers out of business. Animals for the sale of meat or milk will only be allowed in commercial farms, even the organic ones.” December 3, 2008 7:09 PM

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Seems U.S. forgot to tell Navy Seabee Chad Stowers the Real War Is being fought here…and he’s the enemy: “When officers from the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio arrived last Monday at the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in LaGrange with weapons drawn and trained on Jackie Stowers and her children, along with her in-laws, there was one member of the family missing. Jackie’s husband, Chad, is a U.S. Navy Seabee, helping in construction projects in the midst of combat in Iraq. He’s been there, separated from his family, for the last five months, supposedly protecting our rights from abuse—the sort of abuse that appears to be taking place on an ever-more-frequent basis at farms and food outlets around the country.”

UPDATE:  June 2011,   Court rules against food co-op

http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2011/06/08/court-rules-against-food-co-op/

UPDATE, November 2, 2011.  WHAT EVENTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE STOWERS’ CASE?

http://www.ohioconstitution.org/2009/10/09/manna-storehouse/

The Ohio Supreme Court rejected the appeal of the lower court’s decision.

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(4)  FOR NEWCOMERS:  ANOTHER MEANS FOR HANDING DATA OFF TO CORPORATIONS, “Govt fronts”.

Email sent:  October 23, 2008

Subject:  Corporations in Governance – Nader video. Government use of word “Corporation”.

It’s more than Government serving corporate interests.  Governments are converting themselves to corporations.  . . .

(Oct 11, 2012.  The Government is doing what I feared, as spelt out.  I separated this out to make it easier to find – please click on http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=6838 )