On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with
semi-automatic rifles entered
the private home of the Stowers family
in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the
family onto the couches in the living
room, and kept guns trained on
grandparents, a mother (whose husband
is currently serving as a U.S.
Navy Seabee in Iraq) and children for
four hours.
The team was aggressive and belligerent. The
children were quite
traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT
team was relieved by
another team, a “good cop” team that tried to
befriend the family.
Altogether, this traumatic intrusion lasted
more than eight hours.
The Stowers family has run a very
large, well-known food cooperative
called Manna Storehouse on the
western side of the greater Cleveland
area for many
years.
There were agents from the Department of Agriculture
present, one of
them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is
reportedly
suspicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of
the family’s
possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a
complete
upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were
taken that
were not listed on the search warrant.
The
family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what
crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights.
Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the
family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their
computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone
and
contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down.
There was
no rational explanation, nor justification, for this
extreme violation
of Constitutional
rights.
Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be
charged with running a
retail establishment without a license. Why
then the Gestapo-type
interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor
charge? This incident has
raised the ominous specter of a
restrictive new era in State regulation
and enforcement over the
nation’s private food supply.
Continue...
This same type of abusive
search and seizure was reported by those
innocents who fell victim
to oppressive federal drug laws passed in the
1990s. The present
circumstance raises the obvious question: is there
some rabid new
interpretation of an existing drug law that considers
food a
controlled substance worthy of a nasty SWAT operation? Or worse,
is
there a previously unrecognized provision(s) pertaining to food in
the Homeland Security measures?
Some have suggested
that it was merely an out-of-control, hot-to-trot
ODA [Ohio
Department of Agriculture] agent, and, if so, this would be a
best-case scenario. Anything else might spell the beginning of the
end
for the freedom to eat unregulated and unmonitored
food.
One blogger familiar with the Ohio situation has
reported that:
“Interestingly, I believe they [Manna
Storehouse] said a month or so
ago, an undercover ODA official came
to their little store and claimed
to have a sick father wanting to
join the co-op. Both the owner and her
daughter-in-law had a
horrible feeling about the man, and decided not to
allow him into
the co-op and notified him by certified mail. He came
back to the
co-op demanding to be part of it. They refused and gave him
names of
other businesses and health food stores closer to his home. Not
coincidentally, this man was there yesterday as part of the
raid.”
The same blog also noted that the Ohio Department of
Agriculture has
been chastised by the courts in several previous
instances for its
aggression, including trying to entrap an Amish
man in a raw milk
“sale,” which backfired when it became known that
the Amish believe in a
literal interpretation of “give to him that
asketh thee, and from him
that would borrow of thee turn not thou
away” (Matthew 5:42)
The issue appears to be the discovery of
a bit of non-institutional beef
in an Oberlin College food service
freezer a year ago that was tracked
down by a county sanitation
official to Manna Storehouse. Oberlin
College’s student food coop is
widely known for its strident ideological
stance about eating
organic foods. It seems that the Oberlin student
food cooperative
had joined the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in
order to buy
organic foods in bulk from the national organic food
distributor
United, which services buying clubs across the nation.
The
sanitation official, James Boddy, evidently contacted the Ohio
Department of Agriculture. After the first contact by state ODA
officials, Manna Storehouse reportedly wrote them a letter
requesting
assistance and guidelines for complying with the law.
This letter was
never answered. Rather, the ODA agent tried several
times to infiltrate
the coop, as described above. When his attempts
failed, the SWAT team
showed up!
Food cooperatives
and buying clubs have been an active part of the
American landscape
for over a generation. In the 1970s, with the rise of
the organic
food industry (a direct outgrowth of the hippie
back-to-nature
movement) food coops started up all over the country.
These were
groups of people who freely associated for the purpose of
combining
their buying power so that they could order organic food items
in
bulk and case lots. Anyone who was part of these coops in the early
era will remember the messy breakdown of 35 pounds of peanut butter
and
5 gallon drums of honey!
These buying clubs have
persisted and flourished over the years due to
their ability to
purchase high quality organic foods at reduced prices
in bulk
quantities. Most cooperatives have participated greatly in the
local
agrarian economies, supporting neighborhood organic farmers with
purchases of produce, eggs, chickens, etc.
The groups
also purchase food from a number of different local, regional
and
national distributors, many of them family-based businesses who
truck the food themselves. Some of these food cooperatives have
become
large enough to set up mini-storefront operations where
members can drop
in and purchase items leftover from case lot sales.
Manna Storehouse had
established itself in such a manner, using a
small enclosed breezeway
attached to their home. It was a folksy
place with old wooden floors
where coop members stopped by to chat
and snack on bags of organic corn
chips.
The state of
Ohio boasts the second largest Amish population in the
country. Many
of the Amish live on acreages where they raise their own
food, not
unlike Manna Storehouse, and sell off the extras to neighbors
and
church members. There is a sense of foreboding that this state
crackdown on a longstanding, reputable food cooperative operation
could
adversely impact the peaceful agrarian way of life not only
for the
Amish, but home-schoolers and those families living off the
land on
rural acreages.
It raises the disturbing
possibility that it could become a crime to
raise your own food, buy
eggs from the farmer down the road, or butcher
your own chickens for
family and friends – bustling activities that
routinely take place
in backwater America.
The freedom to purchase food directly
form the source is increasingly
under attack. For those who have
food allergies and chemical
intolerances, or who are on special
medical diets, this is becoming a
serious health issue. Will
Americans retain the right to purchase food
that is uncontaminated
by pesticides, herbicides, allergens, additives,
dyes,
preservatives, MSG, GMOs, radiation, etc.? The melamine scare from
China underscores the increasingly inferior and suspect quality of
modern processed institutional foods. One blog, commenting on the
bizarre and troubling Manna Storehouse situation, observed
that:
“No one is saying exactly why. At the same time the FDA
says it is safe
to eat the 40% of tainted beef found in Costco's and
Sam's all over the
nation. These farm raids are very common now.
Every farmer needs to
fully equipped [sic] for the possibility of it
happening to them. The
Farmer To Consumer Legal Defense Fund was
created just for this purpose.
The USDA just released their plans to
put a law into action that will
put all small farmers out of
business. Animals for the sale of meat or
milk will only be allowed
in commercial farms, even the organic ones.”
December 3, 2008 7:09
PM
"The police paramilitary units also conduct training
exercises with
active duty Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. State and
local police
departments are increasingly accepting the military as
a model for their
behavior and outlook.... The problem is that the
mindset of the soldier
is simply not appropriate for the civilian
police officer. Police
officers confront not an 'enemy' but
individuals who are protected by
the Bill of Rights. Confusing the
police function with the military
function can lead to dangerous and
unintended consequences...." (Diane
Cecilia Weber, Cato Institute,
"Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of
Paramilitarism in Police
Departments")
Update: A media response to this article
repeatedly refers to Manna
Storehouse as a "business", not a food
cooperative. That distinction may
be part of the problem. Perhaps
the government wants to redefine a legal
co-op as a "business" --
and is therefore using Manna Storehouse as a
warning to other
long-established co-ops. The Sheriff's report doesn't
clarify this
issue. But it does mention that one of the eleven
"assisting
officers" was wearing "raid pants" as "a member of the
Northern Ohio
Violent Fugitive Task Force."
Until now, rural co-ops like
Manna Storehouse have been operating
freely. For a glimpse of how
they might function, look at this
definition by "United Buying
Clubs:
"A buying club is a group of people who pool their
time, resources, and
buying power to save money on high quality
healthful foods. Members of a
buying club share the work and
expenses involved in acquiring and
distributing the food to their
group. Each member contributes to the
buying club by doing at least
one job, and the buying club in turn
benefits from the talents and
skills of many. Members divide the work
equally among themselves,
trading their time for the lower prices.
Members also enjoy the
camaraderie of working with other people in their
community."
Most of the cooperatives buy produce,
eggs, and a variety of meats from
local farmers. This is part of
their commitment to a simple and
sustainable lifestyle, a goal many
Christians share with
environmentalists. Co-op members seek to
reduce the costs of energy &
transportation. And they like to
know WHERE & HOW their food is grown,
so they can avoid
questionable food and ingredients from countries such
as
China.
What's at stake here is the freedom to purchase food
directly from the
farmer, or directly from one middleman. Can we no
longer buy eggs or
chicken from a neighbor? Would this become a
crime? When does the
traditional practice of communal sharing become
a formal BUSINESS? If a
few friends get together and split a few
cases of honey and soy milk,
should that be defined as a
BUSINESS?
Does the local police have the constitutional right
to treat peaceful,
unarmed families as dangerous
enemies?
It's not surprising that the mainstream news media
is downplaying and
distorting this event. The fact that the initial
"belligerent" SWAT team
was replaced by a "good cop team" that tried
to befriend the family --
and the lack of specific data on the
sheriff's report -- suggest that
someone recognized the threat to
the public image of "law enforcement"
and chose to conceal the most
damaging data.
Since globalist leaders plan to control food
and supplements, water,
physical and mental health, energy, and
"human settlements" – and as the
unthinkable global standards and
surveillance system are being
implemented -- they will obviously
need paramilitary forces to control
the unhappy masses. [We hope to
add more information about government
control of food
soon].
The Stowers family has been financially devastated by
this atrocity. As
far as they know, they have broken no law -- no
charges have been filed
-- yet they lost all of their computers,
phones [some have now been
replaced] and personal food for the
coming year. They are not asking for
help, but if you can help them,
you can find contact information at:
www.mannastorehouse.com
raw food
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