re: Time for a new group?

[Guest guest]

,

I took the step of creating a new group so that we have something in place

for when it is needed. Looks like we do need it, and sooner than I feared.

Several people have expressed publicly and in private the concern that this

group is too public, and viewable by outsiders. Some have noted that posting

plans can lead to problems. The political tone can be off-putting as you've

noted.

My intention for this new group is: To share information about product

availability including raw milk, TFMN Warehouse news, planning events and

activities with respect to the Warehouse and other venues, organizing actions to

change bad laws, and so forth.

What it is NOT intended to be:

1. a place to air grievances or assign blame.

2. a " replacement " this group by any means, because it never could hope to.

If members are interested in a safe place to discuss and ask questions, they

should contact me privately.

Joe

> Toward that end, I would suggest organizing one or more separate political

action groups.

>

[Guest guest]

On Saturday 19 June 2010 09:50:26 am wrote:

> 3) There needs to be a separation of concerns.  Political expositions will

> eventually decimate group membership.  People joined the group because they

> are interested in food, health and local economies -- not being flooded

> with political philosophies they may largely disagree with.

>

> OK, maybe one more point.  Food issues do not correlate well to particular

> political philosophies or parties.  If anyone wants to succesfully organize

> a defense against some of the current goverment initiatives, they will need

> to be very careful to focus their energy and words very narrowly and avoid

> bonus commentary and large sweeping goals or they will alienate too many

> potential allies to ever be successful.    

Okay, but I am a busy mother of 7. If something political is going on that is

going to directly affect how, where, and from whom I obtain the food I'm going

to feed my family I want to know about it and I don't have time to be reading

posts from yet another group. My dh says I'm on too many groups as it is and

now you want to cut off the political discussion here, as it pertains to food,

and put that on another group? I think that is not a good idea. I think all

of us who eat need to know what's going on politically. " Compartmentalizing "

your life is not a good idea.

God bless,

, the lady in purple, in Oster MN

Isaiah 26:3

" The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction,

is the first and only object of good government. "

--- Jefferson

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Announcements of political occurrences that relate to food, farming and

eating in general certainly seem well within the list's purpose to me.

Interpreting an announcement according to one's own opinion, and making

values judgments and inflammatory comments about it do not fall within the

list's purpose. My suggestion for additional lists was more for ongoing

discussion for those who want to approach a political issue from a

particular angle. I was thinking something along the lines of

MNFoodPolitics-Progressive and MNFoodPolitics-Libertarian. However, for

simple announcements to alert the list that something of potential concern

is happening, this is a fine forum.

However, I'm obviously not going to be taking the initiative to create those

lists since I'm obviously not interested in following those discussions

(regardless of their leaning), so feel free to take my opinion or leave it.

Kroyer

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:33 PM, L s <

.s@...> wrote:

>

>

> On Saturday 19 June 2010 09:50:26 am

<%40>wrote:

> Okay, but I am a busy mother of 7. If something political is going on that

> is

> going to directly affect how, where, and from whom I obtain the food I'm

> going

> to feed my family I want to know about it and I don't have time to be

> reading

> posts from yet another group. My dh says I'm on too many groups as it is

> and

> now you want to cut off the political discussion here, as it pertains to

> food,

> and put that on another group? I think that is not a good idea. I think all

>

> of us who eat need to know what's going on politically.

> " Compartmentalizing "

> your life is not a good idea.

>

> God bless,

> , the lady in purple, in Oster MN

> Isaiah 26:3

> " The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction,

> is the first and only object of good government. "

> --- Jefferson

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I'm going to respectfully disagree. I certainly agree that we should keep all

discussions respectful and on topic to food. But I don't think that we still

have the luxury of expecting to maintain our food choices and ignore what's

going on politically. Food is food, and we either have access to it or not.

It's not progressive or libertarian. I don't blame any one political party, but

the entire system, including the bureaucracies. So if you want to continue to

have non-commodity food choices, you'll either have to grow it entirely

yourself, or you'll have to get involved, somehow.

When this group started, there you didn't have the gov wanting to shut us down.

Now, you have the feds planning on making all raw milk sales illegal and have

made statements such as " There is no absolute right to consume or feed chldren

any particular food. " " There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of

unfettered access to foods of all kinds. " and " There is no fundamental right to

freedom on contract. " You also did not have the state shutting down our access

to buy/sell our food or searching individuals homes for information about our

food.

Most people have absolutely no clue how the smallest farms are being crushed by

state policies enforced at the local level through property tax and ordinances

like animal units/feed lots that are designed to put the smallest farms out of

existance and promote the ..ahem.. " small " commodity farms. Did you know that

you can't even have one chicken if you don't have at least 4 acres in some

outstate counties? At least in the cities, you're allowed to have a few

chickens!

The attention on " politics " right now won't last forever. But if we ignore it,

we may very well wake up one morning and find that we have no way to replace the

food in our cupboards. The gov powers attempted to shut down Wilderness

Families and are currently focusing on the Hartmans. Let me tell you from

experience, it's incredibly intimidating to be standing up in court, knowing

that if you loose you could face up to several years in jail. My case was very

minor and all I did was to get a couple of very minor bureaucrats to back off.

There are people whose paid, full time jobs are to figure out how to end the

access to the traditional foods that we enjoy and choose to eat. If we sit back

and just ignore them, we won't have our food choices.

How badly do you want access to traditional foods? If the farmer is the one who

has to face the work of protecting our foods, then he may have the time to

produce it. A weekly phone call from everyone on this group to the govenor's

office and the commissioner of ag would be easy and could quickly stop the

harassment.

The govenor's number is 651-296-3391 or 800-657-3717

Commissioner of Ag Dept is named Hugoson 651-201-6210.

Lynn