Natural Solutions Foundation

Funny what quiet progress is like here: we have been incredibly busy with meetings that run from pretty early each day to late into the night but, since they are all strategy meetings with our consultants here in Thailand, and since the meetings are all in preparation for what is to come this next week, there is not much to say right now.

We have been very fortunate, indeed, with the people whom it has been our good fortune to find (or, more accurately, to be found by) here in the metropolis of Bangkok, a city of 12 million people.  These team members are a dynamic group of Thais and non-Thais who understand the relationship between clean food, herbs, supplements, health freedom and Codex.  And they also know how to bring ideas forward in this unique and important country where the revered and beloved royal family has created programs designed to improve both health and the economy of health with clean, high quality food projects and an emphasis on natural methods.

You may remember how meaningful the contributions of Thailand should have been to the implementation of the Global Strategy during the Codex meeting here but were blocked because of the interference of the other side.  And you may also recall that the Natural Solutions Foundation is spending some time here in Thailand to connect with the pro-health forces of this remarkable country in a variety of pro-health interfaces.

But those interfaces require meetings and the meetings require preparation (including, for example, translating our materials into Thai).  Next week we will actually meet the people we are preparing for this week.  In the meantime, however, I have to share some experiences with you which our Thai team insisted that we had to have.

Experience 1: Thai massage.  Very, very good despite moments of real pain.  Someone should write a book on this unique and powerful technique called “Thumbs of Steel” since the delicate, quite and gentle women who administer this special form of massage use techniques which are, on occasion, exquisitely painful.  Rolling and pressing, kneading and pushing their thumbs, forearms, elbows, knuckles, etc., with great precision over bone, muscle, sinew and things you had no idea you owned, the net effect is sort of like being a piece of play-doh for 2 hours.  At the end, though, you are re-shaped and much refreshed.  Living through it is, at the end, worth it!

Experience 2: Thai Foot Massage: Very, very, very good without the pain (well, nearly without it).  This 1 1/2 hour delight includes hands, arms, head, neck and shoulders as well as legs and feet. “Reflexology to the max with scented oils” would describe it pretty well.  To misquote an old song, “How Can I Keep From Purring?”

Experience 3: Having my hair done: Very, very bad.

Since I did not have time to get my hair done before we left on this trip, I thought that, in the few hours between two meetings, I would go to a salon run by a guy who takes care of expats, people who come from somewhere else but now live in Thailand.  That way, a Thai team member assured me, there would be no language problem and I would be sure to be happy.  Wrong!  The mantra of the hair appointment gone bad applies here: “It will grow out, it will grow out, it will grow out!”  Sigh.

Experience 4: Food.  Very, very, very good.

Obviously we have to eat.  And eat we have been doing.  From the spectacular Food Loft of Central Chitlom (a large department store a block or so from our hotel) where Thai, Italian, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Indian and a host of other wonderful stands sell whatever you can imagine made fresh from high quality ingredients in a food court from heaven to the spectacular restaurants of the major hotels (which are pretty spectacular all by themselves) to the (outstandingly terrific) quick food joint selling Greek food in a shopping mall, the food we have eaten is astounding.  Street food?  Not yet.  My courage failed me.

More to come: more meetings tomorrow (Sunday) and more meals.  Tomorrow we go to the famous Bangkok night market and I’ll let you know what it’s like.

Oh, and tomorrow we have a day full of those meetings getting ready for the week to come.

Tomorrow is election day in the US.  We are, as you know, in Thailand, which is a monarchy (with the longest-serving [and arguably the most beloved] monarch in the world).

I want to depart from my usual format and give you a comparison of a Thai news item and a US one so that you can ask, as you consider your vote tomorrow, and your political voice beyond that, where we are, where we want to be and how to get there. This is no small responsibility incumbant upon each of us, whether the issue is food or democracy or travel of taxation or whatever.
First, the Thai item:

(The date, November 7, 2006, is one day ahead of the US date because of the international date line.

Bangkok Post, Tuesday, November 7, 2006)

By: Chartrudee Theparat

The country’s first Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index will be available to guage the happiness of the Thai people in the next two months, the National Economic and Social Development Board’s (NESDB) secretary-general Ampon Kittiampon said yesterday.

Drawn up by the NESDB, the happiness index will be used to measure how much the 10th national development plan has accomplished in ushering Thailand towards a “green and happiness socieity”.

The 10th development plan for 2007 to 2011 is the blueprint for thrusting the country forward, with the emphasis on economic stability rather than rapid economic growth.

The new index is based on His Majesty the King’s suffieciency economy concept, a human-centric development strategy, and the 10th plan’s principles, said the think-tank chief.

The index would measure the people’s well-being at the social, community and family levels, Mr. Ampon siad.

Five elements that will be used to evaluate people’s happiness are physical and mental health, work security, good family relations, a safe and sound living environment, and protection of human rights and liberties.

The NESDB will conduct the GNH measurements and publicise the results one a year, he said.

Now the US item:

Now You Need Permission to
Exit or Enter the Country?

Today’s comment is by Mark Nestmann, our Wealth Preservation & Tax Consultant and President of The Nestmann Group.

Dear A-Letter Reader:

Forget no-fly lists. If Uncle Sam gets its way, beginning on Jan. 14, 2007, we’ll all be on no-fly lists, unless the government gives us permission to leave-or re-enter-the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (HSA) has proposed that all airlines, cruise lines-even fishing boats-be required to obtain clearance for each passenger they propose taking into or out of the United States.

It doesn’t matter if you have a U.S. passport-a “travel document” that now, absent a court order to the contrary, gives you a virtually unqualified right to enter or leave the United States, any time you want. When the DHS system comes into effect next January, if the agency says “no” to a clearance request, or doesn’t answer the request at all, you won’t be permitted to enter-or leave-the United States.

Consider what might happen if you’re a U.S. passport holder on assignment in a country like Saudi Arabia. Your visa is about to expire, so you board your flight back to the United States. But wait! You can’t get on, because you don’t have permission from the HSA. Saudi immigration officials are on hand to escort you to a squalid detention center, where you and others who are now effectively “stateless persons” are detained, potentially indefinitely, until their immigration status is sorted out.

Why might the HSA deny you permission to leave-or enter-the United States? No one knows, because the entire clearance procedure would be an administrative determination made secretly, with no right of appeal. Naturally, the decision would be made without a warrant, without probable cause and without even any particular degree of suspicion. Basically, if the HSA decides it doesn’t like you, you’re a prisoner-either outside, or inside, the United States, whether or not you hold a U.S. passport.

The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized there is a constitutional right to travel internationally. Indeed, it has declared that the right to travel is “a virtually unconditional personal right.” The United States has also signed treaties guaranteeing “freedom of travel.” So if these regulations do go into effect, you can expect a lengthy court battle, both nationally and internationally.

Think this can’t happen? Think again.it’s ALREADY happening. Earlier this year, HSA forbade airlines from transporting an 18-year-old native-born U.S.
citizen, back to the United States. The prohibition lasted nearly six months until it was finally lifted a few weeks ago.

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are two countries in recent history that didn’t allow their citizens to travel abroad without permission. If these regulations go into effect, you can add the United States to this list.

For more information on this proposed regulation, see http://hasbrouck.org/IDP/IDP-APIS-comments.pdf

MARK NESTMANN, Wealth Preservation &
Tax Consultant on behalf of
The Sovereign Society
assetpro@nestmann.com
www.nestmann.com

“The Two Laws that make civilization possible:
Do all you have agreed to do.
Do not encroach on other persons or their property.” — Richard Maybury (I think that’s the essence of Common Law & it’s the code by which I endeavor to live–rw)

Think about it.  Act on it.

Thailand is a place of grace and beauty (hot, it is true, even in the “winter” season), and she is an astonishing center of cultures, values you have to experience to understand: perhaps the best phrase I can use to say it briefly is joyful integrated spirituality.

Every hotel, for example, every building and every facility (Western, air conditioned, equal to any facility in New York or London) has, in front of it, a Spirit House designed to provide a place of residence for any spirit which might otherwise inhabit the larger building and, as spirits can, make people unhappy.  These exquisite little buildings are tended daily with flowers woven into wreaths and breathtaking offerings.  They are built like little temples and contain at least one deity each.  Sometimes the devotion is made apparent by more than one of these little buildings.  Elevated on pedestals, they are obvious centers of belief and devotion.

This beautiful tradition is a part of the vital commercial blocks of international real estate as well as residential communities.  There is deep and, as far as I have seen so far, utterly universal reverence for the leader of this country (which has never been defeated by anyone throughout its long and rather astonishing history).

Thailand is a country devoted to food.  Food on the street is a way of life: vendors provide food for breakfast when people are on their way to work.  When they are done, the breakfast vendors pack up and leave.  Next come the lunch and dinner vendors.  After that, there is a thriving open-air bar culture so that as people stroll the streets, they can have what they want at that moment, freshly prepared to their liking.

We have not yet gotten to the point of eating street food (despite the fact that we are continually assured that hot food is fresh and safe) but we look longingly at the delicious options and gratefully breathe in the fantastic smells they provide.  Uh, with the exception of the huge cockroaches, delicate silk worms and other insects which are also part of the endless sidewalk cafe, that is.

And everywhere we go, when we talk about food freedom, when we talk about natural health and the right to select it, we have met a warm, resonant welcome.  We are being urged to plant our knowledge and our vision in the ready and receptive intellectual soil here.

I could go on and on and on about the food.  Suffice it to say that variety and spice are the spice of life.  NEVER ask for your food hot here unless you really mean it.  If you do, I suggest that you commend your taste buds and your soul to your maker before you chow down.

More to follow.
Because these conversations are preliminary, you will understand, I am sure, why we are not discussing them in detail.  But they are profound and getting more profound as we go along.

Before we leave Chiang Mai tomorrow morning for some very exciting discussions, we decided to take a day to see the area.  We asked a guide to show us the local area and decided that we would go to a local village which is designated as a cultural area where members of several hill tribes live and farm in their traditional ways.  Although there were women sitting on the porches of their homes (some with thatched roofs and some with teak-like leaves for roofing materials) tending babies or weaving traditional cloth, and women tending gardens, the only man we saw was an elderly man fletching an arrow.  Everyone was dressed in traditional clothing which was, for someone like me who loves indigenous textiles, a spectacular delight: colorful, beautifully detailed and meticulously decorated.  Here and there were signs that the modern world was not very far away: a couple of motorcycle helmets slung under a house on stilts, a plastic bucket holding balls of yarn being woven on a strap loom in a technique a thousand years old, plastic hose sprinkling a field, and everywhere the ubiquitous flip flops and plastic bags. These homes did not have electricity and therefore, had no TVs or other modern communication systems.

But these women told us, through our interpreter, that they never left their village homes, that they did not want to go to town and that they felt safe, protected and happy in their compound.  And they looked safe, protected and happy.  Their rice was growing in fields fed with mountain water through bamboo pipes.  Their chickens and chicks wandered freely in the open and their babies seemed healthy and were robust, friendly and beautiful.

As I wandered through their village, I thought about Codex.  I thought about the responsibility that you and I have to protect them (and us) from the mandated under nutrition and contamination of their food that Codex could bring them.  I thought about the bright and well fed babies and the difference that food laced with pesticides and genetically modified DNA would bring to their bright eyes and clear lungs.  I thought about what allergies and breast cancer and autoimmune disease would mean to them.  This simple day in the country was another reminder why we do what we do — and why you support us: health rests in clean food.  Health freedom rests in natural choices to get healthy and/or stay that way.

For all of us. Thai, Nigerian, Indian, Peruvian, American.  We are all built around food.  And our health depends up it.  Since we have electricity, the internet and a Western knowledge-base of great sophistication (which includes information about Codex), how could we fail to act to protect ourselves and our brothers and sisters spread around the world?  Of course not!

It was a good reminder for me of how vital this work is.  I’m glad we took the opportunity!

Friday morning we had breakfast with the Thai delegate who was so badly treated by Dr. Grossklaus on Wednesday, November 1. You will remember that the Thai paper on the addition of sugar to formula and beverages for babies and young children received not only short shrift, but rude and inappropriate dismissal despite the vital importance of the issue for world health.

The Thai delegate was startled and very unhappy with the proceedings. We spoke with him on Thursday on the way to the Floral Gardens, gave him our materials and asked if we could meet with him on Friday morning. He agreed. He was quite distressed: although he is one of the Codex managers, he had never attended Dr. Grossklaus’ Committee and he was deeply upset by what he saw and experienced for himself and others.

Our breakfast was interesting, to say the least. This gentleman is based in Rome at Codex headquarters and had never attended CCNFSDU before. He was
therefore not prepared for the proceedings which Dr. Grossklaus presides over.
We discussed that and we discussed options for better, more consumer- protective function in Codex and he seemed to be listening hard. It was a good meeting. We will see what comes of it, of course, but change is made out of such meetings.

Once the report was available, delegates read it carefully and the fun began: what gets into the report is really all that counts since nothing else is an official record of a Codex meeting. You can guess the outcome: what the Chairman wanted in got in. What he did not want in did not get recorded or included in many, many circumstances. And Dr. G. exercises absolute and autocratic power.

Let’s revisit the fluoride issue: you recall that South Africa, using our data, was able to get fluoride banned as an added ingredient in formula for normal infants. You will also recall that the US did not like that very much and opposed that decision. In the report of the CCNFSDU, therefore, the US insisted on undercutting SA by noting that the studies and information which SA cited were not part of the conclusions of a relevant study and therefore were not worth very much. So the issue is not dead, by any means! You can see why it is so important to continue to put information out, to meet with countries and to move the items forward one by one by one by one. And your support is essential to help us keep these world food standards pressing forward toward your health and mine.
Every one of the Codex decisions is part of a fabric which either supports the health of consumers or damages it.  Increased pressure, lobbying and country visitation is necessary not only to protect them, but to protect you as well.  The US, you remember, has announced its decision to “HARMonize” with Codex (October 11, 1995, Federal Register).  Therefore, whatever Codex ultimately says is what the US will try to do.  And there is a great deal of Codex that you do not want on your fork, I can assure you.

So making sure that foreign countries reshape Codex (the way South Africa did here) is very important to YOUR health.

But it is also very expensive.  If you haven’t signed the Citizens Petition, now would be a very good time.  If you haven’t made a tax deductible donation, or if you have but know that now is another good time to give, NOW is the operative word!

We are making great headway.  Your signatures help spread the word and your tax deductible donations provides the wind in our sails.

You may have noticed the funding thermometer has topped $155K out of $200K.  You have been wonderful, just wonderful.  But now we need some more help.  You know what and you know why.  You also know that there is no time to loose.  We are on the ground making things happen like no one else.   If you don’t think Codex is fighting back, guess again.  But we are not just passive targets.  Forewarned is forearmed.  And we have scientists, lawyers, educators, nurses, Nurse Practitioners, etc. who want to be part of OUR Codex process.  Reaching out to them is useful and effective.  It is also expensive.

We know you will do the right thing.  Your health freedom is too important to throw it away!