The Scary Implications of Greg Niewendorp's Civil Disobedience
Sunday, March 4, 2007 at 12:25PM Greg Niewendorp's act of civil disobedience--and that is what is going on here--has stimulated a great deal of emotion, witness the comments from my original Thursday posting. Which is as it should be, since civil disobedience is at once an act of desperation and an act of dignity. It is the last option of desperate people standing up against overwhelming power, usually in the face of public apathy. Yet to the powers that be it is the most terrifying of tactics because it has the potential of stirring up the masses to such an extent that their wishes cannot be ignored.
The most recent example of civil disobedience in our experience occurred during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Desperate people stood up and the government quaked. Suddenly government flexibility that had seemed so distant became a reality as Martin Luther King and his followers pressed on in the face of overwhelming force.
Like the Civil Rights activists, Niewendorp is standing up to a government arrogant in its refusal to acknowledge and deal with injustice. I chronicled a snapshot of that arrogance in my posting about the open hearing in January of Michigan Department of Agriculture commissioners--going through the motions of listening to complaints about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), but really not hearing anything that was being said.
The injustice of NAIS, as many of the comments suggest, is that it forces small farms to adopt the practices of a system they not only want no part of (the factory agriculture system), but that they find abhorrent to their way of doing business. The real purpose of NAIS is to reassure the international marketplace that our meat is safe. If that is what the mega-farms need, let them partake of the system. But don't force small farms selling their products locally and direct to consumers into the straitjacket of globalization. Surely it is possible to draft regulations that exempt farms smaller than, say, 100 head of cattle, 3,000 chickens, and so forth.
The comments from "David" raise the old tired issue of "protection," as in, "Trust me, the government, with all your most personal and intimate secrets, and I'll provide you with the wonderful technology that will keep you safe." It sounds so soothing. Who could possibly be against protectiing our citizens, especially our children, from illness? It is the same argument the FDA and USDA give us all the time to justify heavy-handed actions against raw milk and cherry farmers, alternative health care practitioners, and ordinary consumers seeking merely to exercise their right to consume the foods they want. It is a view filled with wish fulfillment: if only you do what we tell you, you'll finally achieve the nirvana of risk-free eating. No food will ever make you sick again.
Unfortunately, this view neglects to allow for our rights as individuals to make choices about what we'll eat and where we'll obtain the food. It also fails to acknowledge the willingness of owners of small farms and their customers to self police, and to assume the risks that comes with such self policing. in other words, if I want to buy Greg Niewendorp's beef, knowing it hasn't been tested for bovine TB and knowing his cattle don't wear RFID tags, I should have that right.
Reader Comments (6)
Thanks for your coverage of this issue; I am grateful for your effort to provide a forum for discussion and a gathering place for those of us who are concerned about this.
You made a mistake in your article. East Jordan, MI is not in upper penninsula. It is in northern MI but in the lower pennisula.
In the last ten years,the megafarms and giant processors have completely taken over the markets that farmers sold to and they made it perfectly clear that they had no interest in dealing with small producers. The hope was that the small farms would go out of business. But at the same time,because of the consolidation of animal agriculture,people started to notice their failing health and the poor quality of the food. Alternative doctors started recomending real food.People were out beating the bushes for alternatives to factory farm food.When they found a source ,they let their friends know and the small farms grew.Now its a big enough bother to the industry that they feel the need to squash it.
If we will accept government regulation,they are content to use the regulations to put us out of business. If we refuse the regulations they will use our "noncompliance" to put us out of business.
Our advantage is that together , farmers and consumers, we have them badly outnumbered. I would advise anyone with any amount of grass at all to consider becoming a producer. It doesn't take much room to keep a few chickens or a goat. They might be able to put a 70 cow dairy out of business,but how would they handle 70 one cow dairies?
I have No faith that the legislature will act because of a few brave farmers standing up. The kind of civil disobediance that they will respond to will have to come from great numbers of people like the civil rights movement was. If we can shine a light on them as they take away small flocks of chickens and family cows from people producing their own food,it will serve to "heighten the contradictions" and get more people to see what is happening.
Thanks for having the courage to write what you have. You brilliantly put this all in the proper historical context, pointing out that it is really about liberty after you get right down to it.
The European Union and Australian form of NAIS has reduced animal owners by 50% already because the system is designed to do just that-eliminate all the private animal ownership.
We just saw lacadasic and ignorant responses from the Reps in our state about NAIS. I had thought we could rely on our legislative process to protect us from this garbage, but they're already bought off by the cooperative agreements from the Federal Governemnt/USDA to implement NAIS asap. I hadn't realized how far gone the system already is until I watched what happened in our legislative branch. How disheartening! To know the law makers are not interested in anything other than promoting corporate profits actually defines fascism, according to Benito Mussolini. If anybody can define fascism it would be him.
We will be witnessing the American version of industrialization of Agriculture that the world saw devastate the farmers of Russia-over 20 million of them. Industrialization of Agriculture puts the control of the food supply in the hands of the govt, our- government- who are now answering and reporting back to the UN, as if the American people are no longer who they should be answering to.
It is the UN who's 3 goals are 1.) Food Control 2.) Population Control and 3.)Guns/weapons control. ALL the garbage we are watching in America right now goes directly to UN mandates being sent out to all the UN countries. The last time our country answered to anybody other than the American people was before the Boston Tea Party- so why would we accept it now?
Civil disobedience on a large scale is what is necessary right now, because we're only about 1 inch away from being a microchipped civilization of people and animals, all under the dictatorial/totalitarian rule of the UN.
My name is Cindi Henshaw and we have a story to tell, also. For anyone that is interested and would like to read about another's dealings with a corrupt system, please Google "Cindi and Danny Henshaw" or "Henshaw Incident" or even, "Hog Masacre". I am so proud of Greg for doing all he has...at his own expense. One day we will all be asked to draw our own line in the sand and make a stand. In our situation, we were given no warning, and just had to believe it was a mistake...or we would have stood at our gate with arms, come what may. We have been raped and ravaged by the USDA, VDACS, VDGIF and the State Veternarian. The worse part is that it is too late for us...but we will assist ANY OTHER PERSON WHO STANDS IN NEED OF MORE BODIES to stand up to this insane system...
Godspeed, Greg. We salute you. We back you. You make us proud.