Judy's Homegrown Blog

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Wisconsin radio host Sly introduced me today on his morning show.

A listener to Sly’s show said that I was condescending. I listened to the show again and realized that there was a part where I said that many voters don’t realize what happens to a bill as it goes through congress. Case in point: the Dodd Frank bill. It was written with good intentions, the bill really fixed the problems of bringing the proper regulations back into the banking system, and then it was dismantled by special interests. Plus, a smear campaign went on the media to make it seem like Dodd Frank was a terrible bill.

I apologize for saying that voters don’t realize what happens to bills when they go through congress. Many, many voters do know what goes on and they don’t like it.

However, I still stand by this: that many voters are hoodwinked by the media. If they hear that Dodd Frank is a terrible bill, they will just believe it without reading through the text of the bill themselves to see where it had started out, before it was subjected to the slings and arrows of the “process” we have in Washington. I was wrong to say that voters don’t know what goes on, but I will also say that many people don’t have the time or effort to put in the research necessary to find out how a bill is being manipulated behind the scenes or “sold” (or trashed)  to the American people via the media.

If you can think of an example to prove me wrong, that voters do always know the process of how bills are written and re-written, then go ahead and give me a hard time about it. I don’t mean to be condescending: I admit that I myself don’t always know what goes on in congress!

Writeindependent.org

Writeindependent.org

Most people don’t know what is in the Affordable Care Act. If you don’t believe me, take this quiz to find out how much you know, and then at the end of the quiz, click on the link that says: ·  ·  Download an analysis of the Quiz »

Or, just go to the analysis to see how people did on the quiz.

Again, thanks to a “fair and balanced” media, we have an ignorant public.

Do you know anyone who has read the ACA? If you do, tell me, because I doubt very many people have actually read all 2,000+ pages. And if you have any questions about it, go here to read the bill in its entirety: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/full/

Writeindependent.org

A friend of mine sent me the following text, describing what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

She was trying to make a point of how freedom isn’t free.

That’s a contradiction: if freedom isn’t free, then it isn’t freedom, is it?

Let me tell you what I know about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, risking their lives for it. I know that they signed it because of their strength of character. I know they signed it because they felt strongly about getting out from under the taxation by Great Britain. They must have decided at the gut level that they couldn’t go on the way things were.

They were “taking liberty”, which no one can take away from you. Even in a jail cell, no one can tell you what to think or believe. They can take your life, but they can’t take your spirit.

Yes, freedom must be defended. But to say that it isn’t free, well, that just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I exercise my freedom every day, and I can exercise it in my death by showing my character as an example of that freedom.

So to say that you need to kill or be killed to have freedom, that’s just not true. No one can take away something that is your birthright.

Now, many people complain that we are “slaves” to our government. If you want to be a victim, go ahead and feel that way. I oppose this thinking by making choices of my own that don’t involve the government. If they want to tax me and use it in ways I object to, I have the choice to rail against the system. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t like what our government is doing with our taxpayer money. In fact, I think I could run the government at a fraction of the “budget” it used in Clinton’s time. I’m not jaded by bureaucrats or beholden to special interests. I would cut so much waste, so many pork barrel projects and subsidies, it would disturb the wealthy. But we would be so much better off than where we are today.

If things continue to go the way they’re headed, we won’t have a last bastion of freedom where we can flee to anymore. And we certainly don’t want to be confined to our cells by an overly military government either. Join me in regaining control over our country, instead of letting the biggest corporations have their way with us.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.  Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.  Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.  He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.  At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying.  Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4^th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It’s not much to ask for the price they paid.  Remember: freedom is never free!

What she should have said is: “freedom must be exercised” If you don’t use it, you lose it, so educate yourself and VOTE!

Writeindependent.org – Trans Pacific Partnership – TPP – international tribunal – free trade agreement

ONE person has legal power to rule the world?

Yes, it’s true. One person could have the legal power to decide the fate of countries. Does that sound right? Yet if the Trans Pacific Partnership is agreed upon, the US government gives an international tribunal made up of three attorneys the power to decide whether a corporation wins over a country’’s environmental, consumer protection or copyright laws.

If you don’’t know one of those attorneys personally, and trust them wholeheartedly, then do you want these three people to make the legal decisions that dictate policy over commerce, many times overriding the laws of a (once sovereign) country? Do you trust three attorneys to make the right choice when profit is their only motive?

I’’m a gardener. Not a great gardener, but a pretty good one. The reason plants flourish in my garden is for one reason: persistence. I never give up! If it’’s weeds, I pull them. If it’’s weather, I do succession planting. When it’’s a disease or pest, I figure out how to treat it. And then I never give up!

I think corruption in the system is like a disease or a pest. You figure out the problem, you determine how to fix it, and then you just hold your ground until life prevails.

Some people don’’t mind death and decay. Let that be their legacy. Death and destruction appeals to some people. It’’s not my thing, but it’s their thing.

There is enough room in this world for both. I believe that karma works in cycles: a person who strives to improve the place lives again in that better world that they created. And a person who strives to make money at all costs, even if it poisons their children and their children’’s children get to inherit that kind of hell. And there are infinite worlds hidden in the strings of the other dimensions that our senses can’’t pick up in this life.

So it’’s your choice to make the world the way you treat it.

If I were Dick Cheney, I’’d be very, very scared to die.

Writeindependent.org – Trans Pacific Partnership – Fox News – free trade agreement – corporate greed – wealthy elite – international tribunal – US losing sovereignty – US as a sovereign nation – news media manipulation

In this article, Fox News assumes that the Trans Pacific Partnership is already a de facto agreement, when in fact, the congress can throw the entire thing out.

The wording of their article goes like this: “The 132 Democrats, led by Reps. George Miller of California and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, urged U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to make sure ‘there is ample opportunity for Congress to have input on critical policies that will have broad ramifications for years to come.’”

This article is proof that at Fox News, there is an assumption that the TPP is a “done deal” because they are already expecting it to affect our future.

Don’t we the people have a say in our future?

If the people of the United States knew what  TPP was about, they would be screaming at the top of their lungs: “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” Learn specifics about the Trans Pacific Partnership and how it would affect your life.

We here at Writeindependent.org are posting the decision your candidates make about the TPP right on their platforms. And don’t be fooled: if they agree to one or two provisions, they are opening up the door to the entire agreement. All it takes is for that three-attorney international tribunal to be set up, and trade laws will start to favor the biggest corporations who essentially set up the tribunal in the first place.

It’s all or nothing. Do you want three people to decide commerce without any environmental standards for the entire world? Or asked another way: would you drink a gallon of water that you knew contained cyanide and mercury?

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/27/house-democrats-want-more-open-pacific-trade-talks/#ixzz1z7kgbjOF

Writeindependent.org – SOPA – TPP – Trans Pacific Partnership – trade agreements – free trade – internet access – internet privacy – civil rights violation – digital locks – Digital Millennium Copyright Act – DMCA – online police

You thought SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was bad? How about the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) which extends restrictive intellectual property laws around the world.

Under the TPP, “stakeholders” (code for certain corporations) have the ability to file for copyright infringement if anyone downloads content without the express consent of its copyright holder. If this provision sneaks by in this hundreds-page TPP “free trade” agreement, you can count on internet content to start costing money in ways you never expected.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, TPP also threatens to enact “…laws banning circumvention of digital locks (technological protection measures or TPMs) that mirror the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and treat violation of the TPM provisions as a separate offence, even when no copyright infringement is involved.”

Lori Wallach of the watchdog group Public Citizen speaks out against TPP’s new laws restricting our use of the internet in this YouTube published on May 12, 2012.

Lindsey Pinto, Canadian blogger at Rabble.ca wrote today of concerns over internet use because Canada has already agreed to sections of the TPP. “The TPP’s intellectual property measures would give large media conglomerates new powers to lock users out of their own content and services, provide new liabilities that might force ISPs to police online activity, and give giant media companies even greater powers to shut down websites and remove content at will.”

Again, and I can not stress this enough: do you know where your congressman stands on TPP? I’m going to start asking our candidates to vote yes or no on this horrible act, and see who knows how many civil liberties this law overrides.

Sources:

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIxvaTg_XkI&noredirect=1

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alex/2012/06/canadas-digital-future-risk-ottawa-joins-trans-pacific-partnership-agree

TPP – Trans Pacific Partnership – trade agreement – free trade – international tribunal – Public Citizen – US Sovereign – Obama on trade – Romney on trade – corporate control of trade

Secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)

600 secret corporate “official US advisors” wrote themselves a beautiful deal in the TPP or Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, the final nail in the coffin for the United States as a sovereign nation. If you were proud to be an American, you can kiss your country goodbye when this becomes international law. It effectively supercedes the highest court in our land, because the TPP gives corporations the right to sue governments, and gives them the upper hand if it can be shown that our country’s laws threatened their profit-making agenda.

For example, if a foreign company thinks that our environmental protections are standing in the way of them making a profit, under the TPP, they can sue our government, have the case tried by a three-person “international tribunal” instead of an American venue, and if they “win”, we the taxpayers have to foot the bill for the fines. “That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings,” writes Zach Carter of the Huffington Post.

But it’s not just about punishing us for having food safety laws and environmental protections. The TPP also gives corporations patent control over medicines and seeds. That means a small seed company can be driven out of business if a foreign company files a suit for patent infringement and the tribunal rules in favor of the multinational conglomerate. Who is more likely to afford the attorneys for such a case? And what difference would it make, when the deck is already stacked their favor because the tribunal was put into place by the same companies who want control over the seed supply.

This is bad on so many levels, that one wonders who would ever vote for this sort of thing. Yet, whenever trade agreements didn’t work for us Americans, like GATT, or NAFTA, or the FTAA, our congress and president passed those without any difficulty, and against public opinion.

Obama has already reaffirmed his commitment to the TPP, and Romney would sign it because he would argue that it represents “free trade.”

The TPP Agreements are so secretive that even members of congress have a hard time getting their hands on them. According to a Zach Carter, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness, was stonewalled by the Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) when he attempted to see any of the draft documents related to the governance of the TPP.

“I would point out how insulting it is for them to argue that members of Congress are to personally go over to USTR to view the trade documents,” an aide to Wyden stated. “An advisor at Halliburton or the MPAA is given a password that allows him or her to go on the USTR website and view the TPP agreement anytime he or she wants.”

Public Citizen, a non-profit that reviews trade agreements writes: “The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ‘free trade’ agreement is a stealthy policy being pressed by corporate America, a dream of the 1 percent, that in one blow could:

• Offshore millions of American jobs
• Free the banksters from oversight
• Ban Buy America policies needed to create green jobs and rebuild our economy
• Decrease access to medicine
• Flood the U.S. with unsafe food and products
• Empower corporations to attack our environment and health safeguards”

Lori Wallach, an attorney for Public Citizen’s Tradewatch.org who studied the one of the 24 secret TPP documents that were leaked so far, says that the “Dracula strategy” might be the best method for fighting this bill. “When something has been so secret and it so extreme, when it’s dragged out into the sunshine, if the public gets involved, and demands, demands that this is unacceptable, these agreements in the past have been stopped. … But if we’re quiet about it, if we don’t continue to dig, if we don’t demand that the whole agreement’s released, we could literally see this kind of imposition of corporate rule via so called ‘trade agreements’ through the Trans Pacific Partnership.

“The trade representative Ron Kirk said nothing would make him happier than if China signed this agreement. So we really need to get the rules right. We do not want this tribunal system for the whole world. It would set up a two track system of justice, where systematically, officially, formally, corporations are privileged over all the rest of us.”

Sources:

http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=3129

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Strategic_Economic_Partnership

http://www.ustr.gov/tpp

http://ianmasters.com/content/june-13-secret-trade-negotiations-exposed-gloom-eurozone-latino-voters-sleeping-giant-2012-e

http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/mp3/bbriefing_2012_06_13websitefullprogram.mp3

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/leaked-document-tpp-trade-agreement-p

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/trilateral-pact-would-redraw-trade-map/story-e6frg6ux-1226397983451

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/11736-tpp-secret-trade-agreement-puts-international-tribunal-above-us-law

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/obama-trade-document-leak_n_1592593.html

http://slysoffice.blogspot.com/2012/06/obama-pacific-rim-trade-leak-explained.html

http://arizonaatheist.blogspot.com/2012/06/leaking-of-trans-pacific-partnership.html

Dear Homegrown Friends,

I started writing a blog for Writeindependent.org in September, 2011.  Here is the story of the beginning…

One day, I went to a dry cleaner to drop off a pair of pants. It was an ecologically friendly dry cleaner, supposedly. Turns out, it was anything but friendly.

The owner of the shop asked what I was reading because I was holding a book.

“The Organic Manifesto,” I told him. “It’s written by Maria Rodale, who believes that carbon emissions can be cleaned up if we just switch our farming practices to organic.”

The next thing the owner of the dry cleaning shop said stopped me dead in my tracks.

“It’s too late,” he said.

He wanted to continue, but I didn’t have the time to stay and find out what made him say such a horrible thing. In fact, if he had already given up, it didn’t matter what he had to say next.

Part of me wanted to cry, and the other part of me wanted to go home and eat worms. If it was already too late, why do anything about anything? Why even try?

It was then that I decided I had to do something. If I just sat at home and let the world play out its unintended but usual course of events, then I deserved what I got. But if I stood up for what I believed in and used my voice, which is all any of us really have anyway, why then, I could maybe make a difference.

And what, exactly, do I believe?

I believe that even though people are a mixture of good decisions and bad impulses, of logic and reason and feelings, that deep down at our core, if each of us were asked “Would you save the world if the choice were yours to make?” that each of us would answer “yes.” Because if you say no, you’re as good as dead.

I also believe that the United States is full of basically good and decent people, who are creative, spirited, and love their country.

I have traveled all over the world, and I have always been happy to come home. Though I enjoy traveling, learning about other cultures, and I appreciate people with other insights and styles, I still love coming home to the great United States. I have been proud to be an American, and want to regenerate that feeling by improving our lot.

Every generation generally wants the same thing for their kids: they want to leave the world a better place than how they found it. For the first time in history, we can be very afraid that it will definitely NOT be better or we can strive to MAKE it better. And I believe that we still want our children to inherit a better planet.

So how do we do this thing? For more information, keep coming back here.