Lessons from the Brigitte Ruthman Assault--Why It's Treasonous to Collaborate with the Enemy During Warfare
Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 08:40AM 
Copyright NaturalNews.com and Counterthink.comBrigitte Ruthman received her cease-and-desist notice from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources on Tuesday via regular mail. On Thursday, she had a visitor. An MDAR inspector, Sheila Phelon, stopped in at Ruthman's Joshua's Farm to personally leave off another copy of the C&D...even while a certified envelope containing yet a third copy of the order still awaited at a local post office.
Interestingly, Ruthman was home all day on Thursday, except to go out for an hour. It was during that very brief absence that Phelon was on the farm. What else did she do besides drop off the order? Not clear. It was rattling to Ruthman, as you might expect. "That seems awfully quick for them to show up."
Now, who knows if it was just one of those things that Phelon missed Ruthman, but one thing seems eminently clear: The MDAR is sending very strong signals in its actions, and they aren't pretty. But that's how it is during warfare: the aggressors send signals via their actions. They may massacre some soldiers to try to demoralize other soldiers. Propaganda blitzes are the norm.
MDAR has declared war on raw milk producers and consumers in Massachusetts, with strong encouragement from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. This hasn't been done casually. Believe me, the regulators think very carefully before they declare war, and then equally carefully about the signals they send as part of their assault plan.
We may think of raw milk as small-potatoes stuff, but the regulators know it's an emotionally charged issue. Many are determined to stamp out raw milk, but they know they have to be careful they don't inadvertently create a hornet's nest on the order of what they created last May in Massachusetts, with their threats to shut down all buying clubs, which had been operating for years with MDAR knowledge.
Showing up at Ruthman's farm two days after she received the C&D, and publicly expressed her outrage and commitment to resist, was a signal of intimidation. The regulatory equivalent of torturing some prisoners of war. A signal that there's much more to come where that came from, so she may want to think twice about being a rebel.
But there was another signal as well. This was a signal to the Northeast Organic Farming Association. I've made some disparaging remarks about NOFA-MA on this blog, including in my previous post.
Basically, NOFA-MA has a problem. It has positioned itself as being the insider guys with access to MDAR. It got advance word three days before a planned demonstration and hearing on raw milk in May about MDAR's decision to withdraw a proposed regulation. NOFA-MA rewarded MDAR by advising its members not to attend the hearing, without any commitment of a quid pro quo--and in the process took some of the air out of the rapidly expanding balloon of outrage then developing in Massachusetts. The demonstration and hearing went off, but certainly with fewer people than would have been there. It was classic divide-and-conquer strategy by MDAR and it worked to some extent.
Then in June, NOFA-MA breathlessly issued a statement from MDAR (not published anywhere else) about the agency's supposed plan to indefinitely delay implementation of any new regulations against buying clubs, partly because it didn't have the resources. Another implicit endorsement of MDAR activities, but one suggesting weakness. (Hey, guess what, the enemy has agreed to stop bombing us for a few months, after which they may bomb us harder than ever.)
Why do I bring up all this seemingly small-time insider organizational stuff? Because it contains important lessons about the usefulness of collaborating with the enemy.
During warfare, governments are merciless on their citizens who collaborate with the enemy. Remember the case of the "American Taliban"? He's still rotting in jail.
MDAR launched its assault against Ruthman two days before the biggest event of the NOFA-MA year--its annual summer conference, including a Friday morning symposium on raw milk. The signal? Something akin to what governments sometimes do to spies who have lost their usefulness, and were never fully respected. They pull their cover, and let the enemy figure out how best to kill the offender. MDAR obviously feels emboldened to do whatever it wants now that NOFA-MA helped blunt the May activities. If things get hot again? Well, it may come back to NOFA-MA whisper sweet little nothings.
In the meantime, what could be more humiliating to NOFA-MA than for MDAR to flagrantly break its promise of a letup in enforcement activities, two days before the organization's biggest event of the year?
Not surprisingly, the NOFA-MA leadership didn't even mention the Ruthman assault during the three-hour raw milk symposium. Finally, during the Q&A at the end, I brought it up, and questioned Winton Pitcoff, the NOFA-MA raw milk point person, publicly about whether NOFA-MA had known about it in advance. He said NOFA-MA hadn't known about it, and wasn't pleased about it.
Now, I don't want to paint myself as a hero here. There are any number of people in NOFA-MA who feel I'm being destructive in hanging out the organizational dirty laundry. Pam Robinson, an owner of Robinson Farm in the middle of the state, told me I was being "divisive." She said my blog had become discouraging to her because it seemed so negative. She feels that NOFA-MA has been a "true friend" to Massachusetts raw dairy farmers, even if its May collaboration was an error.
I agree that NOFA-MA was a true friend, but the emphasis is on "was." Being an insider was helpful when MDAR was being constructive, in the years before 2010. But once MDAR declared war on raw dairy farmers this year, being an insider became a loser's game.
This is serious stuff. People's livelihoods are at stake. I don't pretend that fighting back is a guarantee of success. I do know that among the few examples we have, the resistance in Michigan of raw milk consumers and dairy farmers following on the 2006 Richard Hebron assault (described extensively in my book, The Raw Milk Revolution) is instructive. Consumers and farmers were united in their resistance, and eventually convinced a district attorney and the Michigan Department of Agriculture to take a more constructive approach. Today, there is more cooperation in Michigan between regulators and consumers on raw milk and other agricultural issues than in nearly any other state.
So I don't criticize NOFA-MA to be spiteful or divisive. But we all know well that appeasement is not the way to respond to a powerful enemy lusting for destruction.
***
Aside from the above mentioned problem, the NOFA-MA Raw Milk Symposium was an informative affair. In addition to talks by Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation (about the health benefits of raw milk) and Pete Kennedy (about raw-milk-related legal activity around the country), a panel of three Northeast farmers provided insights into their experiences fighting for food rights.
"You have to be vocal," said Chris Newton, a Connecticut raw dairy farmer, in recounting how he successfully pushed back against regulators who wanted him to re-do his recently refurbished milking parlor and barn. He also described how Connecticut farmers, consumers, and legislators united in successfully fighting an effort by agriculture regulators in 2008 to prohibit retail sales of raw milk, which have long been allowed.
Lindsay Harris, a Vermont raw dairy farmer, told a delightful story of how she took on a microbiologist in a debate before a meeting of the Vermont Dietetics Association, and came out with many converts--in part because she used The Raw Milk revolution in preparing her PowerPoint presentation.
Reader Comments (40)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1636000/
“The bug”???
Clearly a stereotype has been established based on the superstitious and paranoid belief that mad cow is infectious via consumption. This in turn is what has prompted California’s irrational concern and action.
I agree with Brigitte Ruthman, the system is not fine and would add that it won’t be as long as bureaucrats continue to have their way, whimsically manipulating the basic rights of individuals.
Ken Conrad
A CA DHS permit allows the operation of a processing faility which includes a composting site for dead animals. Read the code and the Permit Authority.
Few people have one of these permits and that is why what we do appears to be illegal...but in fact it is not illegal. It is just unusual, very wholistic and green.
Amanda, What is your address so I can send you some raw milk. It would make you feel so much better. I am serious!
I just finished the Milk Barn Moooooving video...it will be up next week.
It seems that the thing that Amanda and CP are teaching us all is that it is dangerous to be different and stand-out in your practices. Their comments teach us all to conform and shut- up, get into line and sit-down.
Their comments, in reality, show us exactly what we must do more of...stand-out, invent, stand-up, teach a better way and pioneer. Consumers need pioneers to bring them whole unprocessed foods. If we were to be compliant with current paradigms....we would get even more of the current paradigms outputs and products
Current dead food dogma produces suicides, below market milk prices, sick consumers, disconnected bankrupt farmers...that does not work for me or my consumers or my cows or farm.
Mark
How much of being healthy is just the refusal to eat processed, dead foods? Eliminate these from the diet and I bet many people will notice improve health without consuming one drop of raw milk Three months with out hydrogenated oils, fructose corn syrup, sugar, artificial flavors, etc… , and adding whole grains, legumes, fresh fruit and vegetables, healthy beef and poultry, nuts, seeds, yogurt and kefir, creates a healthy human being.
This reverence to raw milk is out of control.
cp
Amanda states from the previous post, “On the cow compost issue, I found out that the specific reason it's illegal in California dates back to the Mad Cow concern. Apparently the bug isn't degraded in composting.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1636000/
I wonder if Amanda is trying to insinuate a link between OPDC's cow composting practices and Mad Cow Disease. I wish she had substantiated her assertion of "apparently the bug isn't degraded in composting" with a reference, because I would like to know the basis for her statement.
To me, bug implies a virus or bacteria, which in germ theory usage implies an agent of transmissibility of illness. I believe current mainstream thinking, as seen in Ken's link, identifies an abnormal prior protein rather than a virus or bacteria as the causal agent of Mad Cow Disease. It's been a while since I've read Mark Purdy's work, and others who support his views, so I can't give links, but he has raised serious questions about the idea of abnormal prior protein causing Mad Cow Disease. Purdy's theories also dissuade one from believing Mad Cow Disease is transmissible.
Nevertheless, for anyone that accepts the mainstream idea that Mad Cow Disease is transmissible via abnormal prior proteins, it would be important to know if the protein is degraded during cow composting. The authors of the article Ken linked to ran two experiments, composting samples of animal tissue containing abnormal prion protein for 108 days and 148 days each. Their experimental conditions differed quite a bit from burying a whole cow in the dirt. In the shorter experiment, all 5 of the samples showed complete degradation of the abnormal prior protein. In the longer experiment, only 1 of 5 samples showed complete degradation of the abnormal prior protein. The authors discuss possible explanations for the difference in the outcomes of the two experiments. But given the 100% successful degradation in the first experiment, I cannot agree with Amanda's assertion that "the bug is not degraded in composting".
As for Sheila leaving off a copy of the state’s letter, that’s not an unusual practice for any regulator, particularly if they’ve been meeting with the person. I’ve been a member of our town’s Conservation Commission since the mid-90s, and we’ve often used that three-way approach (as well as a phone call) to give a resident as much heads-up as possible on a critical issue.
Brigitte’s issues seem far different than the MDAR’s crackdown on buying clubs as a method of sales and distribution. I wish we could get back on track on that issue. I’ve heard that there is really only one of the buying clubs that raised red flags.
As for NOFA-MA, I’ve written before that I think that the organization’s inability to be effective on raw milk issues is more due to youth and lack of outreach to folks in the community who have lobbying abilities and experience with dealing with state regulators. I’m sure their naivety will fade as they gain experience and weather more posts such as this.
I also find David’s reaction to our MA issues stressfully divisive. I’d like that stress to help build a dairying climate in MA that supports raw milk, means to market, and the practices that keep our ruminants and their milk healthy.
ROFLMAO!!! Control, indeed. So that's the problem? Astonishing how much time you spend on this blog simply to assert control over what other people may consume. I'm going to drink an extra glass of raw milk today as a gesture to save your soul.
While I admire the food choices for your family and children please remember that "heart disease, Asthma, Diabetes, etc.," were not commonplace in this country until FDR and his USDA ilk declared war on "animal fats" (lard, butter, duck and goose fat, coconut oil, raw milk, etc). Oleo Margarine and refined corn and vegetable oils were more healthy, FDR said back then.
Well, we have taken nearly all animal fats out of our diet since the 1930's and the direct consequence is epidemic heart disease, stroke, asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, etc., etc., etc.,
A diet rich in vegetables, fruit, grass fed meat and pastured poultry, raw milk, cheese, pastured eggs, wild caught seafood, whole grains and a limited amount of processed sugar is the way to go.
Unfortunately, our USDA and FDA are responsible for promoting of all of our corporate processed food choices at the supermarkets and consequently contributing to all of the health problems associated with the SAD.
Yesterday I felt so bad for these two pasty complected, obese children behind me in the grocery store. Mom had her cart filled with pizza pockets, Top Ramen, Kraft Mac and Cheese, etc.,
People tend to fill up on cheap processed foods because they are so "out of touch" with the way food used to taste and no one really has time to cook anymore and those boxes are just so darn convenient.
cp, you are wasting your time going after people who drink raw milk. We are 100 X healthier than those who consume the SAD. But of course, the FDA or USDA will never, ever do a study comparing the few of us who consume nutrient dense foods vs. all the processed junk that a majority of our neighbors and friends consume.
This country never, ever needed a "Health Care Bill". To cut the costs of our health care . . . . all that is needed is to go back to local food systems rich with nutrient dense foods. Bring back to our small towns the butcher, baker, green grocer, dairy, etc., Small farms will thrive and everyone will be much, much healthier.
Kind regards,
Violet J. Willis
www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
I am an American Farmer, if even part time. These are proud words I worked many years to achieve, a status that earns me long hours and a loss of income, and what is perhaps an inexplicable pride in drawing food from animals properly managed on land that must also be nurtured, and turned over to people who also know it. In ever growing numbers in a complicated world, people are craving a vicarious relationship with these things farmers have long known.
It is a profession that has for to long been regarded as a lowly, dirty way of life, instead of one that requires many years of apprenticeship and mentors if not a generational internship. There are many thousands of small farmers still working outside the corporate structure who work much harder than I do, but who like me wish to be recognized, tested and work within a government structure than against it. It is their life and their work. It is often thanks to them that we have what little land was spared from development in the Northeast, land that will be coveted by future generations.
I go back to the morning of April 6, at 4 a..m, when my first calf was born to a first calf heifer who was in trouble. Her water wouldn't break, and her very large calf was stuck at the shoulders. No vet would come that far, and not at that hour, and no extension service worker would even recognize my existence. I pulled the calf alone, trying my darndest to remember all I had learned on a dairy farm in northern Vermont many years before. It was with the help of other farmers who came and offered assistance and advise by phone and by medications given at the cow's side in the hours that followed- Rick Plumb and Wendy and Jim Kennedy - that she was returned to her feet.
Her heifer calf, Ruby Mae, is now a beautiful four month old milking shorthorn heifer and her mother has turned out to be a prized milker. Both are allowed access to pasture, together, shared by other cattle, on land that has been farmed since the mid 1700s. It is remarkable how much healthier Ruby Mae is, given access to her mother's milk half the day, than calves given replacement feed. Instead of a life lived in a stanchion for four or five years- the average life span of a Holstein corporate cow- she might live to 15 or 20 years and will only be held fast for as long as it takes to milk her.
I learned about cows from my father, who learned about them on a Wisconsin dairy farm before he went off to war. He granted my persistent wish to work on a farm and trucked me from one to another to satisfy my wish 35 years ago when there were still farms in Fairfield County in Connecticut. Today there are almost none.
I left for Vermont, where I learned herdsmanship and the art and science of its farming culture from generational farmers like Lucian Whitehill and his son Ken in Morgan Center. Their words and the experiences, and the legacy of their lives in fields where I learned to mow, ted, and rake hay, milk cows and search for their calves on hillside pastures made stronger impressions on me than anything else in my life.
It is unfortunate that state regulators can't recognize the careful nature of good herdsmanship on small farms where cleanliness is a religion and herd health more carefully monitored- chemically free- than at large corporate farms. Though many seemed determined to debate it, real milk is safer than countless other supermarket products.
It is not illegal to share a cow's ownership in the Commonwealth, yet the state inexplicably spent tax dollars to mail me a certified cease and desist order for doing so, and a state inspector to my farm the following day with a stamped version of the order.
In a tour of my farm I extended to the state last year with the interest of meeting certification requirements for the specific reasons of being recognized, tested, and able to advertise, Sheila Phelan pointed out tens of thousands of dollars worth of necessary additions- including a septic, effluent system, cooling systems and hot and cold running water outside of the home. Plastic would need to cover even impermeable wood. I have met Phelan only once. The letter she dropped off happened after I was mailed a certified copy.
All of the state's raw milk dairies were retrofitted from existing dairies, or had the benefit of wealthy landowners who offered barns and improvements to farmers who owned their cows but not the farms they rent. For any small farm owners, the state's requirements are prohibitively expensive and largerly unnecessary and could easily be replaced by a farm by farm assessment of cleanliness and proper practices.
There is no state assistance for these costs which can't be supported by the sale price of milk at $4 per half gallon. After spending $60,000 in savings, I am tapped out.
I want to milk cows, not fight. Herd shares are not illegal. Certificates of registry are reserved for the wealthy who can afford to meet the long list of expensive requirements needed to acquire it. In this economy, what right minded banker would loan $50,000 - $80,000 to a dairy farmer to meet a long list of largely unnecessary regulations on a small farm?
-Brigitte
There are a number of raw dairy farms licensed in your state. What part of the regulations are causing your farm a problem? Despite what David says in his post, my reading on the issue shows that Massachusetts has been very supportive of raw dairies and small farmers. There isn't a "crack down," but rather an upsurge of people who want to break the law by refusing to get a license, or follow on-farm sales that support local agriculture. Have you talked to the folks who contacted you about how to work it out for your farm?
MW
You make the assumption that Brigette is breaking some law. It seems that she is not breaking any laws as there is no law against herdshares.
MW-You need to reread what has been written.
From David-
"You have to be vocal," said Chris Newton, a Connecticut raw dairy farmer, in recounting how he successfully pushed back against regulators who wanted him to re-do his recently recently refurbished milking parlor and barn."
Massachusetts is simiilarlly unreasonable- and I can loan you the two-inch thick rules book. I mentioned above some of the requirements, many of which are unnecessary. However, if you are willing to give me $50,000, I think I could just barely meet them.
Brigitte
Working with regulators is inherently problematic! It is either their way or the highway and communication is of little concern to them. Those who have chosen to consume raw milk have no vested interest other then good health and the preservation of their inherent right to consume real foods.
If you give an inch they'll take a mile.
Ken Conrad
How low and despicable can you get MW?
The answer is very simple. Brigitte doesn't HAVE to get a “certification,” or permission of any sort, from the state to engage in legal, private transactions. She's an American, and is guaranteed that freedom by our constitution. You could just as well ask (and I mean no disrespect here) “Why doesn't Tricia just shut up?” Well, Tricia doesn't shut up because she doesn't have to. Tricia, like Brigitte, is an American, and is guaranteed the right of free speech. Tricia would undoubtedly (and justifiably) be hopping angry if some government agency decided to remove or ignore her right to speak her mind. Why is she not angry that an agency has taken similar action against Brigitte?
and from MW:
“There isn't a 'crack down,' but rather an upsurge of people who want to break the law by refusing to get a license.”
MW, There is a difference between law and regulation, a bigger difference between law and illegal regulation, and an even bigger difference between law and regulatory bureaucrats acting illegally. I believe you understand this. You ought to be be more careful in your language.
and how wonderful that your land has been farmed since the 1700's.
and yey's to violet . truly and ken
Can you please provide some data? The USDA was established in 1862, 20 years before FDR was born. Margarine was popular during both World Wars due to the scarcity of dairy products, particularly in Europe (where the USDA and FDR had little power). many people thought vegetable fats were more healthy, but it hardly constituted a "war."
One of the interesting aspects about this whole raw milk "thing" is that it transcends the great ideological divide. People who drink raw milk come from a multitude of political persuasions. Another interesting aspect is how the politicians of the major political persuasions consistently side with industry and not their constituents, irrespective of their ideological leanings. Raw milk advocacy isn't a right vs. left thing.
It seems the USDA and FDA has been used as tools by politicians of every stripe to satisfy their corporate overlords throughout their histories.
For what it's worth, the margarine people had a long hard fight against big dairy back in their early days. (Note: I am not pro-margarine, not in the least.)
MW
This is not a gray area. Herd shares are not illegal. If it is not illegal, it is then legal.
How does having a herd share undermine local agriculture? Please give a specific impact that can be measured and not just your opinion.
A specific example would be the divisions in NOFA-MA described in this post.
MW