Free Kindle e-Book December 28th

Tomorrow is the day! First They Came for the Cows will be free on Kindle. Tell your friends, share it on your social platforms, put it in your forums. This is a must read for anyone who owns livestock.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:    Sharon Zecchinelli

                    (802) 933-6709

                    henwhisperer@gmail.com                         

                    henwhisperer.blogspot.com

"First They Came for the Cows: An Activist's Story" – Kindle Release, 2^nd Edition

December 24, 2012  -  Enosburg Falls, VT – Having a personal encounter with federal deceit can awaken a desire to know the truth. This awakening can motivate ordinary people to take extraordinary actions. Just such a journey is detailed by author Sharon Zecchinelli in “First They Came for the Cows: An Activist’s Story”. The story is a fictionalized account of Sharon’s own journey as a reluctant activist against one of the federal government's greatest deceptions, the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

The protagonist, Maddie Gillman, turns activist when she and her husband, the new owners of a homestead, encounter NAIS, a well-funded USDA program that is designed to become mandatory, then touted to be voluntary “at the Federal level”, while the USDA pressures States and livestock groups to roll their members into the program without their knowledge or consent. Maddie and her fellow activists are outraged with the deception and probable consequences of the program, and appalled to discover the ties between those in government and the industrialized agriculture corporate beneficiaries of the program.

“This is a great book for explaining to people the decline and corruption of the USDA,” wrote one reviewer on Amazon.

This 2^nd edition of First They Came for the Cows on Kindle unexpectedly becomes available at exactly the same time as USDA’s final rule establishing general regulations under the guise of “Animal Disease Traceability Framework” December 28^th.

What is new in the 2^nd edition is the Epilogue written by Doreen Hannes aka, Truth Farmer. Since 2005 Hannes has been a full time volunteer advocate for independent agriculture, and is a nationally respected leader in both the food freedom movement and the effort to halt individual animal identification. Zecchinelli, a retired chef, lives in Enosburg Falls, Vermont on a 12 acre homestead with her husband, laying hens, seasonal meat animals, a horse, and two dogs.

For more information about First They Came for the Cows, or to schedule an interview, contact Sharon Zecchinelli at 802-933-6709 or by email at henwhisperer@gmail.com.

First They Came for the Cows - Kindle

We are live on this blog once more!

In advance of having First They Came for the Cows put out on Kindle, I came back to refresh my memory of all that had transpired back then. Wow! It's been a couple of years since I posted anything. Nice to see that there is still traffic coming here. Thanks!

So I guess I'll be posting more frequently because NAIS did not go away. They've renamed the beast the Animal Disease Traceablity. You'll notice on that page the term One Health. You might want to take a minute to parse that. I'm personally not in favor of having a veterinarian give me a yearly exam.

If you are looking for other blogs, I recommend Truth Farmer.

I've got to go make laundry soap now. See you again soon.

Hen

So You Think Your Activist Organization Is Really On Your Side?

Just finished another round of fighting S510. What a confounding mess that was. Worked a week solid to rouse support from my many networks to ask their Senators to vote the thing down. What I knew hardly ever meshed up with what the 'activists organizations' were saying. And that Tester amendment, later called the Tester-Hagen amendment, that sure was a line drawn in the shifting sands. Those activist/policy groups supported the amendment from the get-go, never mind that is was a worthless piece of poo when held up to these words in the bill:

Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.

Here's some background info on the Tester Amendment that was posted to one of these policy setting activist groups that I am complaining about.

Senator Jon Tester has reached an agreement with the managers of S.510 to include a new, compromise version of the amendment in the Senate food safety bill.

The agreed-upon amendment exempts producers who gross under $500,000 and who sell more than half their products directly to consumers or local restaurants and retailers from the HARCP and produce safety standards provisions.

As part of the compromise, "local" restaurants and retailers are defined as those who are either in-state or within 275 miles of the producer. (the earlier version of the amendment had allowed for up to 400 miles)

The compromise also added language that gives FDA authority to withdraw an exemption from a farm or facility that has been associated with a foodborne illness outbreak.

The amendment text and a summary are posted on Senator Tester's website: http://tester.senate.gov/Legislation/foodsafety.cfm

How many times is compromise used? That's what it is all about, compromise. These activist groups will not stand firm for the truth, in this case, S510 is going to hurt small farmers. Period.

This morning the emails are ablaze with information about S510 and I haven't seen much that is actually accurate. Just in, one from Alliance for Natural Health USA that addresses the current situation, S510 is dead in the water.

What I have learned is that the policy/activist groups I am talking about here (and I'm sure you belong to one or two, get newsletters from more than a few of them) are in business for one reason and one reason only....to pick and choose from a variety of issues that have grassroots interest the ones that they know they can win (or make a lot of winning noises about) so that they can keep themselves going and look good in the process. The Raw Milk bill here in Vermont is a perfect example of that. And while the fight over S510 was going on, these groups continued to offer on-farm slaughter clinics, raw cheese making classes, and courses on how to get grants to start your own CSA.

I'd like to list these groups for you, but I won't. Just pay attention to the organizations you belong to and watch them like a hawk. Do they really represent your interests or are they compromise makers?

Pre-emptive Cauliflower - Won't you join us?