Alert: Newly Designed Blog Site on the Way...Hopefully By Tomorrow

I've alluded to it here and there as something on the short-term horizon. It's the newly designed site for The Complete Patient blog. That short-term horizon kept lengthening but alas, I'll be pulling the switch tonight. (I won't be doing it, the very patient development team working on this will.) Hopefully, there won't be any short circuits or explosions or such.

One of the huge challenges has been moving five years worth of content from one platform to another. The new site should be up to date on all the content accumulated here. But for today, I'd suggest refraining from comments or, if you do comment, keeping a copy of your comment, in case it doesn't make it as part of the transition going on today and tonight.

Hopefully the new site will be a significant improvement. I'll talk more about the advantages in a post on the new site tonight. But just as a preview, the new site will do a nicer job of highlighting comments, and also give users more options for  subscribing to posts and comments, and searching out content.

So I look forward to catching up from the new site. It will be at the same old address, so there's no need for you to do anything differently in accessing it.  

David

Let's Not Get Hung Up on Distractions in the James Stewart Jail Affair--5 Excuses We Need to Prepare to Deal With

I received a text message this morning from a friend, asking, "Is James Stewart dead?"

What?!! Well, not since last evening he wasn't, I replied.

It turned out that radio personality Joyce Riley had reported the "news" Monday morning on her Joyce Riley Power Hour. Her information seems to have come from the introduction from Mike Adams of Natural Health News to a YouTube interview of Stewart, in which Adams reports Stewart "nearly died" while in police custody for eight days following his arrest on charges connected to the financing of Sharon Palmer's Healthy Family Farms in Ventura County.

I don't think "hysteria" is quite the right term here, but clearly, the upsetting account Stewart has provided of his captivity--described in my previous post and in a YouTube video--have unnerved a lot of people. I'd like to run through the most common of the reactions, and examine them more closely:

James Stewart, two days before being jailed, and immediately after his release on Friday. (Thanks to www.thegirlsgoneraw.com.)What a bunch of whiners and victims. A few people, including veterans of the food rights movement, have wondered aloud if Stewart, and those like me, who have written about him, are just playing the old victimization game (i.e. They're after us again, it's all a conspiracy, etc.). There is something to that. Our law enforcement apparatus at any one time targets various groups for special treatment, be it Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, or "sovereign citizens". All in the name of homeland security, or whatever. What makes us food rights activists so special we think we can avoid such treatment? The victimization syndrome is difficult to avoid, especially if they really are after us, as they seem to be. All of which leads to the next reaction...

Better toughen up. If you think Stewart was treated badly, just wait. It can get a lot worse. This is also a valid point. While Stewart's experience wasn't what I would call a walk in the park (see the accompanying before-and-after photos), I expect it will get a lot worse. In fact, I suspect Stewart was treated the way he was partly in hopes the experience would get attention, and thus send a message--a message of intimidation: If you are thinking about investigating us or standing up for your rights or defying us, think again. You could be treated like this, or worse. And I'm sure the message will get through to some number of people. But hopefully it will also have the opposite effect, and alert more people that they need to prepare themselves mentally for torture and abuse if they are going to follow through on plans to resist.

They deserve what they're getting. It seems to me we always hear this when certain high-profile people are accused of crimes. There are some people who simply forget our system's supposed credo that individuals are innocent till proven guilty. So convinced are some of these people that James Stewart is guilty of some terrible crimes, that any punishment meted out on him is okay. They ignore the reality that not only has he only been accused, he hasn't even had a pre-trial hearing or any other sort of court proceeding to present evidence of his side of the story. Targeted torture and abuse of the convicted is bad enough, but of the accused?

Torture or just equal-opportunity abuse? C'mon, Stewart wasn't tortured, goes the refrain here. Seven hours without food, that's not torture. Jail isn't a room-service hotel, after all. I'll grant the fine-pointers that. Does abuse becomes torture at eight hours without food, nine hours, 24 hours? Just like the confinement in a cold room. When does garden-variety abuse become torture? When your body temperature goes down to 95 degrees, 90 degrees, when you become unconscious? Does a little dousing become waterboarding when your head is submerged in water for 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or 45 seconds? Anyone who goes in for these fine points is doing just what the government enforcers want--getting lost in the minutae while they keep turning up the heat.

We better get ready to defend ourselves. Talk about guns or elaborate sovereign-citizen agendas may sound neat, but I think the authorities are on to such ideas. The one they have a more difficult time with is civil disobedience. The recently unveiled "Declaration of Food Independence" by the Raw Milk Freedom Riders commits adherents to "respectfully declare that we will peacefully reject laws and regulations that infringe on this God-given right" to obtain food directly from the farmers and producers of our choosing.

Sure, there is lots of baggage that comes with the Rawesome situation. Better for us to leave the distractions and focus on the issues that matter most in educating people and preparing for the struggle ahead.

What Is the Message in a Food Rights Activist Being Labeled a "Sovereign Citizen"? James Stewart Finds Out, Via Shackling, Isolation, Hypothermia, Food Deprivation

James Stewart was feeling "disoriented" when I caught him on his phone this morning in Los Angeles. He had just been released from a Ventura County jail last evening, finally, on $100,000 bail. "I feel like I just got off an amusement park ride," he said.

He was actually lucky he was just feeling disoriented. During his seven days in jail, "They tortured me, without touching me." The torture included being deprived of meals, being shackled for hours so tightly he couldn't move, being kept in 50-degree confinement cells with only a thin short-sleeve shirt, and being kept in solitary confinement.

The worst parts came during his first couple days of confinement, in Los Angeles, after he was arrested immediately following a courtroom appearance March 2 in connection with previous felony charges stemming from Rawesome Food Club's distribution of raw milk to its members. Also arrested during the courtoom appearance was Sharon Palmer, who had supplied milk to the food club. She is still in a Ventura County jail, as efforts to reduce her bail further, from $500,000 to $250,000, failed yesterday.  

The March 2 arrests of Stewart and Palmer were in connection with new felony charges stemming from alleged mortgage fraud associated with the purchase of Palmer's Healthy Family Farms property in 2008.

The brutal treatment accorded Stewart almost certainly stems from the government's recent campaign to label him a "sovereign citizen." He says has never declared himself as such. Sovereign citizens supposedly detach themselves from ordinary linkages to government authority, such as drivers licenses and Social Security.  

In recent years, American security authorities have sought to link people so labeled with "domestic terrorism" associated with "attacking Americans because of U.S.-based extremist ideologies."  Here is what the FBI says in an Internet posting:

"Sovereign citizens are anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or 'sovereign' from the United States. As a result, they believe they don’t have to answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities, motor vehicle departments, or law enforcement.

"This causes all kinds of problems—and crimes. For example, many sovereign citizens don’t pay their taxes. They hold illegal courts that issue warrants for judges and police officers. They clog up the court system with frivolous lawsuits and liens against public officials to harass them. And they use fake money orders, personal checks, and the like at government agencies, banks, and businesses.

"That’s just the beginning. Not every action taken in the name of the sovereign citizen ideology is a crime, but the list of illegal actions committed by these groups, cells, and individuals is extensive (and puts them squarely on our radar)."

Stewart says he was questioned at one point during the holding-cell experience by officials as to whether he was a "sovereign citizen." "They tried to break me, get me to admit I was a sovereign." He says he never had declared himself such before, and didn't under questioning.

Several days later, during a hearing last week, a lawyer from the Ventura County District Attorney's office would, during a bail hearing, once again characterize Stewart as someone who believes himself tp be a "sovereign citizen."

While Stewart has never done anything hostile, he did, in running Rawesome, actively operate it as a private organization, outside normal licensing channels. When he was called on the carpet by health authorities immediately after the June 30, 2010, raid on Rawesome, he told them, via a lawyer representing Rawesome, that he believed Rawesome, as a private club, was outside the agency's jurisdiction. However, the lawyer never used any kind of remotely threatening language, or took any threatening actions.

More recently, Stewart has taken several actions that could be construed as threatening to authorities--though nothing an ordinary citizen would construe as threatening, or even disapprove of. For one thing, he decided several months ago to act as his own lawyer in the original Rawesome case.

Then, in the last couple months, as part of his effort to mount a defense in that case, he had been researching whether the various regulators and law enforcement officers connected to the original Rawesome case--those involved in obtaining search warrants, conducting searches, and arresting him and others-- had sworn oaths of office, committing to uphold the U.S. Constitution, on file with the state of California. Lo and behold, he had discovered that a good number didn't have oaths on file. And he had alerted authorities to his discovery.

Lawyers will tell you that the failure by officers involved in Constitutionally-sanctioned enforcement activities, like obtaining and executing search warrants, to have signed an oath of office, could eventually be interpreted during a trial or other judicial proceeding, as a significant procedural error .

So now the reason for Stewart's torture becomes clearer. The L.A. County and Ventura County District Attorney offices were sending Stewart a message: We know how to deal with people like you who would be brazen enough to even substantively question our authority. "Labeling you a sovereign is a convenient tool for them to claim you are a terrorist," says Stewart.

The worst of the torture occurred during his first two days of confinement, March 2-4, in Los Angeles. Immediately after his arrest, he was placed in a holding cell, and held for seven hours with no food being provided.

Then he was taken to Los Angeles' worst jail, and shackled and handcuffed to a desk for about five hours, before being  placed in a holding cell from midnight to 3 a.m., where the temperature was in the 50s. When finally someone came to move him, "I was in hypothermia, I was shaking."

They then placed him in a jail cell, not far from three cells where the toilets overflowed. The sewerage seeped into his cell. "My shoes and shirt were on the floor." Nothing was done to clean the cell for many hours, until late in the afternoon, he was handed a squeegee and told to clean things up.

Sleep was nearly impossible, given the cold and/or fouled conditions, and banging on cells by other prisoners. That Sunday, he was placed into another cold cell for six hours, waiting for a bus to transfer him to the Ventura County jail.

Conditions improved a bit at the Ventura County jail. There he was held for the first few days in isolation for 22 hours each day, with two hours allowed for walking around in a small area outside his cell. "At least we were given three meals a day, even if the food was nothing I would eat." There was no fresh fruit during the entire time he was jailed, and just a few carrot sticks for vegetables.

I had originally reported when Stewart was arrested that his friends were concerned he wouldn't accept prison food or clothing. He said he never objected to either and accepted what was offered, "minimalist" though it was. Though Stewart is 65, he noted, "My body is strong, and I was able to tolerate the treatment."

He labeled the new mortgage fraud charges, filed in Ventura County, as "completely ridiculous. I never accepted any money for the property, or any commissions...I didn't offer anything for sale." A preliminary hearing in the case is set for March 19. He notes that prosecutors in his case requested $1 million bail, versus $500,000 for Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State football coach accused of sexually abusing young boys. Both Stewart and Sandusky were eventually freed on $100,000 bail, though Stewart's was secured, and Sandusky's unsecured.

Is the Stewart torture affair a first step in an effort to begin discrediting private food clubs, and their operators, as involved in domestic terrorism? It wouldn't be the first time this country has resorted to extreme force and fearmongering to marginalize those deemed undesirable. We did it to Japanese citizens imprisoned during World War II, we blackballed and imprisoned so-called communist sympathizers during the 1950s, and since 9-11, we have thrown "terrorists" indefinitely into Guantanamo and other jails without charges or Constitutional guarantees.

Even As a Judge Reduces Palmer-Stewart Bail, There Are Important Lessons to Begin Adopting Right Now

The latest news out of Ventura Thursday evening was that a California judge reduced Sharon Palmer's bail to $500,000 (from $2 million) and James Stewart's to $100,000 (from $1 million).

Before the end of the evening, Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. had put up collateral to cover the Rawesome owner's bail, and Stewart was expected to leave jail any time. Family and friends of Palmer were at work trying to arrange for the posting of bail for her, presumably trying to determine whether they needed involve bail agents and how much might be put up in cash and/or pledging of property.

Regardless of the timing and outcome of this process, I want to say that for me, personally, this has been a very difficult affair to observe. I know I am not alone. It has created controversy and pain and dissension within a community of passionate supporters of sustainable and nutrient-dense food in Los Angeles and Ventura County.

FarmtoTable eloquently makes the case for Palmer on behalf of those close to her, following my previous post: "She is the most generous person I sincerely have ever met, that is why I am standing up for her along with the hundreds of customers that come to my booth every week that have been to the farm and always comment 'this is the best chicken, pork, eggs....I have ever had.' Many of these other market owners have been to her farm and have her still selling because of what they have seen."

A truck loaded dairy equipment being removed from Sharon Palmer's Healthy Family Farms barn two weeks ago. Of course, there have been many doubters as well, and they have been outspoken on this blog and elsewhere. 

The dissension had taken such a toll on Palmer that the week before she was hauled out of Los Angeles County Court last Friday and thrown into a Ventura County jail, she had emailed around some photos of the dismantling of her dairy barn, with the comment,  "This has been the saddest week of my life. The dairy is being dismantled today and tomorrow. The end of a wonderful natural place on this god-forsaken earth. The children in Ventura and surrounding communities will never know how it feels to milk a loving goat,or where butter and ice cream come from.The members of Rawesome will never experience fresh,local milk from their own animals."

When I inquired as to why she felt compelled to dismantle the dairy when she wasn't actually selling any milk, she responded, "Every week I have to deal with undercover agents, USDA investigators. Last month the DA actually asked my attorney how many animals I was still milking. I closed my dairy in 2010...two years ago and they are still looking for the milk...My family just cannot bear this abusive way of life."

I don't want to be an apologist for Sharon Palmer. I don't know the extent of her guilt in alleged mortgage fraud and tax evasion--if, indeed, there is any at all--as well as outsourcing of food (which she has admitted occurred on a very limited basis), but at a minimum, she definitely used very poor judgment at various points since she acquired her farm in 2008. It's been disconcerting, as well, to see her not take more responsibility for potentially misguided actions.  

As a result, the entire Rawesome situation has turned terribly painful for any number of people in addition to Palmer, beginning with James Stewart, who has long been passionate about helping people access the best possible nutrient-dense foods.

The situation has also opened the door to the enemies of food freedom to go to town, and claim Palmer and Stewart are indicative of a corrupt movement. At which point, it's essential to point out that while Palmer and Stewart may have shown poor judgment, they aren't anywhere close, in even a worst-case scenario, to a criminal level necessitating bails of $1 million and $2 million. Those are bail levels for serious drug dealers, or for murderers and rapists.

Now, I can complain all I want about the various injustices here, but I'm not sure that's what's needed right now. More important may be compassion for any number of those involved in this affair. And more important than that may be focusing on a couple of important lessons to be learned:

1. It seems as if it should go without saying, but if you are going to supply food directly to consumers, you need to be completely and totally honest and ethical in how you go about doing that. Maybe the big boys can get away with quietly doctoring their ground beef with "pink slime" to increase profits, but small direct-to-consumer farmers and other food producers shouldn't even be thinking about doing anything even slightly different than what they have committed to providing their customers or food club members.

2. If you are going to be in the business of raising or distributing nutrient-dense food, you better clean up any skeletons in your closet, and make your business transparent. First and foremost in that respect is paying your taxes. Whatever reservations you might have about how tax money is used, it's essential to just suck it up and do what must be done. As Gordon Watson pointed out following a previous post, once the government comes after you on tax evasion, you are in serious trouble. Few juries or judges will let you off on that one. And the reality is that they are after small farmers providing good food, and will look for any excuse possible to trip them up.

One of Vernon Hershberger's big advantages is that he has run an honest and transparent operation. That has forced the authorities to challenge him on the food distribution issues, and there the case is much less of a slam dunk. Supporters have felt free to come to his aid. Yes, low-level judges have ruled against farmers, but the issue hasn't yet been appealed to a federal court on Constitutional grounds.

The authorities would much rather come after a farmer on the basis of tax evasion or fraud. It's much easier to convince a jury, and much more difficult for the farmer's supporters to muster outrage.

In the meantime, the Rawesome situation will continue its march through the courts. I worry that it is so painful that lots of people have just tuned it out.

Two Rawesome Associates Seeking Bail Reduction; What Do They Really Think of Us? The Sauk County Court Officials Provide a Special Answer; Another Raw Milk "Study"

James Stewart and Sharon Palmer spent a fifth night in a Ventura County jail. The two, who are associated with the Rawesome Food Club--Stewart as its owner-manager and Palmer as a provider of milk (via a herdshare since discontinued) and chickens and eggs--are hoping to be released tomorrow (Thursday) during a hearing at which they will request a lowering of their bail.

Stewart is being held on $1 million bail and Palmer on $2 million bail. The Ventura County District Attorney has argued that the two are flight risks. Palmer back in 1998 fled to Mexico when a mortgage company she worked with came under investigation She detailed her version of what occurred in a comment on this blog in early 2009.

A third individual associated with Rawesome, real estate developer Larry Otting, was also hit with a $1 million bail; he apparently couldn't be found to be arrested last Friday, and turned himself in yesterday at the courthouse, where he posted bail and left the courthouse.

All three pleaded not guilty yesterday to assorted charges--including grand theft, securities fraud, embezzlement, mortgage fraud, and money laundering--in connection with the purchase by Palmer of Healthy Family Farms in Ventura County in 2008. In addition, Palmer was charged with evasion of state income taxes.

The three have been charged in connection with Sharon Palmer's acquisition of the property for nearly $2 million. Otting used his credit to obtain a mortgage of $1.1 million, and allegedly signed documents saying that the remainder of the purchase price wouldn't come from borrowed funds. But Palmer did borrow several hundred thousand dollars of funds from about half a dozen individuals, indicating they would be repaid from a government loan she had applied for. According to Palmer's lawyer, at least some of the individuals who loaned her money were sympathetic to her problems when the California Department of Food and Agriculture came after her in connection with providing goats milk to a herdshare organized by Rawesome, and were content to give her more time to re-pay the loans; others apparently haven't been so forgiving.

Palmer's lawyer, Matthew Bromund, accused the Ventura District Attorney's office of "grandstanding" via the high bail. He said that not only has she appeared at every hearing in connection with the Rawesome case in Los Angeles, but also at all hearings in connection with misdemeanor charges brought against her in connection with the the original CDFA actions against her in 2008 and 2009 on whether she had valid pasteurization and milk plant licenses. Her current detention is "a complete travesty," Bromund stated.

From what I understand, none of the latest charges have anything to do with a sore point among some Rawesome members--allegations that Palmer sometimes provided outsourced eggs and chickens to the club rather than what she produced at Healthy Family Farms.

James Stewart and Sharon Palmer, shown together at a fund-raising event for their court case in Los Angeles, last fall. At the bail hearing Thursday, lawyers for Stewart and Palmer are expected to point out that neither has shown any inclination to leave town since charges were filed last August by the Los Angeles District Attorney in connection with allegedly illegal raw milk sales at Rawesome. Each has appeared at any number of hearings that have been scheduled over the last seven months.

Friends of Stewart are collecting written character references for him, to present to the court on Thursday, which can be sent to friendsofrawesome@gmail.com. For Sharon Palmer, letters can be sent to her lawyer, Matthew Bromund <mbromund@bromundlaw.com>.

**

There was one piece of unfinished business from the Vernon Hershberger hearing Friday--something I hesitated to write about originally. But when I told a few friends about it, they said they thought it was highly germane to the whole event--a kind of a reality test as to what the keepers of the courts, and the prosecutors and judges who help employ them, really think of us food rights folks.

The reason I was in the hall outside the courtroom and ran into Andrew Hershberger (as described in my previous post) was because I was on my way to the bathroom. No big deal, except in the Sauk County Courthouse on Friday, it was a big deal.

See, when I originally entered the courtroom, near the front of a long line of individuals who had been at the rally, and took a seat, I went in as one of the crowd, one of those attending the rally. After I got inside, I realized I needed to use the bathroom, and went outside the courtroom to ask a court officer where it was located, and what I might need to do to get back into the courtoom (like go through the security metal detector again).

"You can't get back in," the court officer told me.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I need to use the bathroom. I'm glad to go through security again."

"If you go to the bathroom, you'll have to go to the back of the line," he said, pointing to the bottom of the stairs a floor below us.  

That meant I probably wouldn't get back into the courtroom, and maybe not into the overflow room, either.

"That doesn't sound right," I protested. "People shouldn't be prohibited from using the bathroom. That's just plain human decency."

"Sorry, those are the rules."

I asked another court officer, and was told the same thing. Can't use the bathroom. "I don't make the rules," she said. No, clearly, the rules came from on high.

Other people had the same problem--after all, we had all driven in from somewhere and then been out in the cold for a couple hours. Everyone got the same answer, and reluctantly returned to their courtroom seats.

So we all unhappily and uncomfortably gritted our teeth, and awaited the start of the session, hoping it wouldn't last too long. At that point, I noticed there was a media section to the courtroom, where a few reporters were sitting. I decided to try to sit there, so someone else could have my courtroom seat. I showed my press credentials, and changed seats.

I asked the reporter sitting next to me, Joe Orso, if he thought I might be able to get a bathroom break. He had the same problem, so we both headed out, to inquire with the court officers . The first fellow who had denied me, knew all about me as I emerged.  "You didn't tell me you were media," he said, enthusiastically, with a big smile. "Sure, head on down. You can just come back through security."

The message couldn't have been clearer. The court officials didn't like the pro-Hershberger crowd, and were going to make sure to make the dislike as clear as possible. Shutting off bathroom rights is about as demeaning and dehumanizing as it gets. Even ordinary prisoners get that.  

Why would they do that? Maybe they don't like Hershberger standing up for his rights. Whatever, there was a meanness of spirit that told me a lot about the hostility many in positions of authority feel about the audacity of some of us to object vocally about the trampling of our food rights.

By the way, there have been a steady stream of nice articles and posts about last Friday's rally and court hearing. One by Kim Hartke, and another by Bekah Wilce of PR Watch. And there's the incisive text of a talk by Kelly West, a member of Hershberger's food club.

**
With the previous Wisconsin courthouse experience fresh in my mind, I looked over a new study that came out last week, "Motivation for Unpasteurized Milk Consumption in Michigan, 2011". By large margins, those surveyed feel raw milk is healthier than pasteurized milk and should be legal to sell...and they don't trust public health officials.

Yawn. They needed a formal "scientific" study to learn that? At one point, the study's authors state: "Respondents were evidently very dedicated to drinking raw milk, since a majority drank raw milk exclusively and travel a great distance (mean of 24 miles) to obtain raw milk. The proposed health benefits of raw milk consumption were a major reason for their loyalty to the product. Unfortunately, there is little scientific evidence to support the beliefs regarding raw milk’s health benefits."

Yes, these poor delusional raw milk drinkers. Maybe put them in a zoo for the next phase of the study, so their brains and anatomy can be studied for defects and genetic problems. But definitely don't investigate the possible nutritional and health benefits of raw dairy products.