Email newsletter from February 11, 2008

The Thousand Cuts: We Must Be Doing Something Really Right

When you change the way the ‘forces that be’ control you and the society you live in, you know your strategy is working when you get attacked, impersonated and are the target of sustained (and skillful) disinformation. While it is not pleasant to be attacked, if the attacks follow a particular pattern, it gives you powerful confirmation that you are on the right track and that what you are doing is having an impact. That’s what appears to be happening with Natural Solutions Foundation!

The Four Classic Disinformation Drains:
Deceit, Deflection, Distortion, Defamation

Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=516) to read more about disinformation attacks on the Natural Solutions Foundation!

Our Privacy Policy:
Natural Solutions Foundation’s privacy policy is clear, and is clearly stated on our website: we NEVER sell, rent, barter or share our email list. NEVER.

Peanuts from the People’s Pockets

Secure servers are expensive but absolutely necessary. Funding is the limiting factor for winning the health freedom battle since we have courage, strategy, determination and flexibility. Let me make that more explicit: We are here in Benin, a very poor, but very forward thinking African country, talking with them about their natural role as leaders in the Codex battle.

We have set up research programs here which have the capacity to feed the people of Africa without chemical fertilizers, pesticides or other toxins while increasing yield many fold. This technology will protect the environment, the food, the farmers and the consumers while growing enough food to allow the farmers to remain on their farms rather than migrate to the cities where they and their families become part of the abjectly poor. We are developing a relationship with one of the world’s leading integrative agricultural centers and both the government of this country and this private sector center are testing our low tech, high impact technology.

This program is part of the Natural Solutions Foundation’s International Decade of Nutrition, a set of simple, effective and inexpensive solutions to the problems caused by the increasing industrialization of the world’s food supply. We brought our documentary film makers to Africa from the West Coast of the US to attend the Codex Working Group on the Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods in Ghana and then brought them with us to document our meetings here in Benin with Cabinet Ministers, scientists, agronomists, etc. because Codex meetings and the ways to reclaim food production are all part of the story that needs to be told in our Codex agenda documentary. Getting our film makers- and us – to Ghana and to Benin and getting all of us home again – traveling economy class all the way, has cost $29,722 for airfare alone. Our hotel rooms, pretty simple ones, I must say, have cost $3132 for Ghana and Benin.

That does not include food, transportation, cybercafe fees, film or any other expenses. That’s $32,854 for economy class travel using the best price internet sites to save money on every flight (which takes hours and hours of our time, I can assure you) and simple hotel accommodation.

What Did You Do With All that Money?

We used the money – your money – to create powerful documentation of what Codex is really about and what happens when developing countries take their power back! We used it to form powerful alliances with strong-minded public servants and scientists dedicated to health and freedom who are on our side. We used it to bring a world-view of possibility to Codex and national leaders who have been bamboozled into believing that Codex is really going to be helpful to them and that the US has the best food security and safety in the world.

They have been led to believe, through propaganda and artful misdirection of attention, that US food sustains life and health when, in fact, the reality is that the standard Western diet ("SAD") is a killer diet. Look at the US rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke, diabetes and obesity: they are all epidemic and getting more common every day. Yet these are the the same conditions which the WHO/FAO Special Report on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases,
whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/WHO_TRS_916.pdf, identifies as the preventable epidemic diseases of under nutrition.

They are, of course, the diseases easiest to prevent and treat successfully using high potency nutrition. And they are the diseases which produce the most money for the illness industry. Cancer and heart surgery are cash cows for the illness industry and if a little vitamn C and some Co Q10 or EDTA (all out of patent, all very, very cheap) can wipe out the market keeping your hospital afloat, you will definitely look for ways to stamp out the sale and skillful use of those [economically] dangerous substances.

So how can the US have the best, safest and cleanest food in the world if that food is killing the US and killing anybody who eats it anywhere else in the world? Simple. It can’t. Congressional hearings over the last few weeks documented the dismal failure of the FDA to keep our food safe (of course, the Congressional solution is just to throw more money at the already failed FDA.) And that is why, by the way, we are asking Congress to divest the failed and broken FDA of its food regulatory responsibilities.

Of course, we could have stayed home. We could have allowed Codex to win and the multinational corporations to continue to set US policy (and therefore the world’s policies) on food and health. Or we use these precious resources to do what no one else has had the foresight, courage or insight to do: create an effective strategy to take on the responsibility of fighting for your health freedom, your access to natural health options and your right to clean food and documenting the whole process so that the consciousness of the rest of the world can be raised, too.

If you were the other side wouldn’t you try to get us off the playing field with disinformation, too?

$45K for Freedom?

In our last Health Freedom eBlast we said that we needed a minimum of $45,000 per month to fight the health freedom battle successfully. Some people wrote to us and said, "What could you possibly need all that money for? After all, $45,000 per month comes to $540,000 a year. What’s all that much money for?"

Well, transportation to and from Codex meetings, for example, and to the countries that will take leadership in changing Codex, for one thing. Paying our film makers who cannot, unlike General Bert and me, work without any compensation at all and paying the expenses that go along with making this documentary. Paying for secure servers and a web master who is always there for us, for another.

I thought it might be helpful to share what our MINIMUM expenses for a month are. Remember, when you consider the amount of money that Big Pharma spends per year on convincing people that their concoctions are good for you (and buying legislators), the amount of money that the industrialized food supply companies, including the biotech industry, invest in convincing you to continue to eat food that is killing you, what the pesticide companies spend to make sure that your food has been sprayed with compounds that destroy your enzymes, add it all up and the number is so big that it is hard to comprehend. Billions and billions. It reaches toward the trillions. We don’t need that kind of money. Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=517) to take a look at our monthly budget.

This budget is a whole lot more shoe string-y than most people would imagine, and yet we are able to accomplish astonishing results on the tiny amount of money we have available to us. With a little over half a million dollars a year we can multiply our effectiveness many fold. With a million a year, imagine what we can accomplish together!

Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=463) to see a list of some of our recent accomplishments and here (http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/02/educating-congress.html) to read about what we accomplished in Washington last week.
What are we asking from you? Not much, really. Disseminate information by emailing out the Health Freedom eAlerts and urging people to sign up for them, regular participation by taking the Action Steps to communicate with your legislators and officials about important issues and a regular, monthly tax deductible donation (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189).

If everyone on our list, the largest in the health freedom world, donated just $2 per week, say, or $5 (or $10 or $50 or $100) per month, we’d never have to ask for money again. But this month, so far, 171 generous people have made donations. We appreciate their generosity, of course, but where are the rest of the hundreds of thousands of you? What can you give on a monthly basis? Or perhaps you can make a one time tax deductible donation (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189).

Please do it now. This is your battle. We’re willing to be out there in the field for you, but we need your support and your supply to keep us there. If you donate (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) $500 or more to the battle, we’ll be pleased to invite you to join our exclusive Health Freedom Heroes Forum. In fact, if you have already done so, please expect an invitation from the Forum with that invitation. Thanks!

Parakou in Panama

While we were in Benin, we made astonishing progress on our Panama Project! We were fortunate enough to be taken to Songhai in the old capital of Benin, Porto Novo, about an hour’s drive from Cotonou, the current capital. Lunching on organic foods in one of the two restaurants (including fish, rabbit, chicken, quail, and a vast array of vegetables and washing them down with organic, sustainably produced bottled juices from the trees and bushes of Songhai) we knew that we were somewhere out of the ordinary. Songhai, the ancient empire of West Africa from the early 15th to late 16th century was one of the largest empires in African history. Its landmass was larger than all of Western Europe.

Today’s Songhai is the astonishing creation of Fr. Godfrey Nzamujo, o.p. (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=518). It is a center of excellence in food production, training and integrated zero emission agriculture where nothing is wasted and nothing is allowed to contaminate the environment. Songhai is the site of the largest biogas energy production center in Africa and has been identified as a UN Center of Excellence for Africa. Whatever you have seen in integrated farming and sustainable agriculture pales in comparison to this center where, over 20 years, a set of techniques and possibilities for global sustainability have been developed from literally nothing at all except the ability to see wealth where there was only poverty, potential where there was only failure.

Of course, General Bert and I immediately asked ourselves, "If this lush and fertile land has been created out of arid and hostile land, what could happen on the virgin fertile land we have selected in Panama if we had Fr. Nzamujo’s expertise and technical input?"

Songhai (http://www.songhai.org/songhai_en/) is an astonishing and inspiring place: starting from abandoned, arid and infertile land 20 years ago, Father Nzamujo has created a multi-center model for total sustainability. And he has done so by focusing on the wealth of Africa, not her poverty. Her wealth is in the creativity and productivity of her people as innovators and creators, not victims.

Well, to make a long story short, Songhai and Natural Solutions Foundation have fallen in love. Songhai is a farm and a farmer’s school. It is a community with a variety of enterprises which support it. It is a seed community offering vision, wisdom, inspiration and practical support for agricultural and social institutions. Songhai embodies the same vision as the Santa Clara project.

Fr. Nzamujo is a man of boundless enthusiasm who describes himself as a "Cosmic Dancer" who articulated our vision while we, in return, articulated his in a series of astonishing interactions over several days. We offered Fr. Nzamujo the opportunity to test out our new agricultural technology to increase his already phenomenal crop yields and agreed to his request to help him set up a natural medicine clinic in Parakou, the second largest city in Benin and the site of Songhai’s 6000 Hectare (14,400 acre) totally organic farm and rejuvenation center. This center will, of course, be a sister site to the Santa Clara Health Center we will establish in Panama.

And, in return Fr. Nzamujo has agreed to mentor us in Panama to help us make the Santa Clara site not only a successful agricultural center and school, but to help us solve the problems of off-grid energy (in which he is an expert) and community design using the methods he has found work best for the creation of viable agricultural enterprises integrating:

• Local resources, traditional and modern methods
• Hybridization of traditional and modern agricultural practices
• Implementation of effective management
• Encouragement of individual and communal responsibility and initiatives
• Inclusion of diverse opinions

It would be difficult to tell you how much of a fast forward this connection can be for us and how much we have to bring to Songhai. For example, we know that we have good hydroelectric power in the rainy season on the Santa Clara land. We have good solar but there are cost considerations there. I knew that we had to find another source of renewable energy if the entire facility was to be off the grid all year long. Fr. Nzamujo has perfected biogas, an odorless and safe fermentation process by which animal and agricultural wastes are fermented and the gas used to provide abundant clean, safe energy. Suddenly, our power problem disappeared!

Best of all, our Benin contact works closely with Fr. Nzamujo on a variety of projects and the two of them have agreed to undertake the registration and creation of a new NGO: Natural Solutions Foundation – Benin to partner with the Natural Solutions Foundation (USA) and Natural Solutions Foundation – Panama!
If you have not yet joined the Natural Solutions Foundation Panama forum, now would be a good time if you are interested. We are in the process of securing the initial funding to secure an option on the Santa Clara property and perform our feasibility studies. The opportunity to get involved at this early stage is highly positive since we have created an program to help make it easier to become part of this outstanding opportunity to create sustainable living in the context of reclaiming food and health and community and ……

Please send an email to Ralph Fucetola, ralph.fucetola@usa.net, with "Panama" in the subject line and your contact information in the body of the email if you are interested in finding out more, an
d maybe participating in this international project. Ralph will send you an invitation to join the forum and you can find out much more about whether this sustainable community is just what you have been looking for! If you have questions, you can call Ralph directly at 973-300-4594 (he’s on Eastern Time – please take that into account when you choose the time to make your call).

Meeting and Action Items

1. Gen. Bert and I will be in the New York metro area this coming week. We’ve scheduled a chance to get together with any of you who are in the area. We’d like to discuss the recent Codex meeting, our exciting plans in Africa and Central America, and the important struggle to end all compulsory vaccination. We’re available on Thursday, February 14th from 7:00 PM at the home of Marie West in Mountainside, NJ. If you want to attend, please RSVP to dr.laibow@gmail.com and put "MEETING" in the subject line.

2. Our friends in NJ who have taken the lead in fighting forced vaccinations have an exemption bill pending before the state legislature. They’ve set up a petition and are asking people around the country to make their voices heard on this issue. We want to see them delivering a HUGE stack of petitions to Bergen County Assemblywoman Vandervalk, the courageous legislator who has introduced a very strong exemption bill.

So please exercise your Mouse Buttons and sign the petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/online/16754.html

With our next eblast, we will have a new Action Item that will let you send a direct message to the Governor of that state, urging him to sign the bill when it is passed; and all the list members from NJ will have messages sent directly to their own legislators asking them to cosponsor the exemption bill. That’s targeted netroots action!!

We’re learning to use the Internet in more sophisticated ways, so your voices will be heard!

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

 

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org