US media outrage over Russia incinerating contraband food ignores fact that FDA did EXACT same thing to Rawesome Foods in California
Jonathan Benson
(NaturalNews) The Western media machine is making a huge ruckus over Russia's decision to enforce an embargo on food products originating in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, which has led to the incineration and destruction of many tons' worth of contraband cheese, fruit and other products. But these same media outlets remained hypocritically silent as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) engaged in similar food warfare against Rawesome Foods of Venice Beach, California, nearly five years ago.
As you may recall, an armed SWAT team raided Rawesome Foods in the early morning hours of August 4, 2011, seizing roughly $70,000 worth of raw, organic produce and dairy products belonging to club members and store volunteers. The people who conducted this sudden and unwarranted raid proceeded to destroy these perfectly safe and highly nutritious living foods, which government officials involved in the case claimed were "illegal" and "improperly labeled."
Rawesome was a private food club, not a business, hence it didn't have an official business license. It was a perfectly legal operation under the terms established among its proprietors, owners, trustees and volunteers. But the state didn't like that it existed under this format, so it essentially hired a few dumb, "just following orders" thugs to seize the "contraband" food and destroy it, ultimately leading to Rawesome's closure (which was the goal all along).
At the time, NaturalNews was among the few media sources that gave this disturbing example of police state tyranny the attention it deserved, at least from an angle of honesty. Establishment news outlets like The New York Times (NYT), on the other hand, seemingly took the side of the state, insinuating in their reports that Rawesome should have obtained a business license (even though it was never actually a business).
Russia's food embargo is intended to protect the people
Enter the current Russian embargo on American food products and these same media outlets are going nuts, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of starving his people, or giving a slap in the face to the 10-odd percent of the Russian population that lives below the poverty line. Likening the nation's destruction of this contraband food to the Holocaust -- The New Yorker actually used the word "crematoriums" to describe the incineration process -- the Western media would have us all believe that Putin is engaging in the USSR tactics of his authoritarian forebears.
But if you've been following our recent coverage of Russia's ever-evolving food policies, you're probably already aware of the fact that Putin and his cabinet are trying to reestablish Russia's food sovereignty in order to protect the Russian people against the malevolent tactics of evil entities like America's biotechnology industry, which would like nothing more than to take over Russian agriculture and turn it into a GMO factory (which is what the U.S. has become).
Russia has repeatedly said no to genetically-modified (GM) crops, and in response to Western hostility against its efforts to remain free of the clutches of international central banks and corporate-owned agriculture, has established embargoes against its aggressors. This is what any sovereign nation trying to maintain its independence would do, and the destruction of large amounts of contraband food, though unfortunate, is a necessary part of this.
Even so, establishment media outlets in the U.S. and the E.U. will continue to paint Russia as some kind of backwards dictatorship that's destroying "perfectly good" food just to make a statement. Hunger is just as prevalent in the U.S. as it is in Russia, by the way, but that hasn't stopped the FDA from initiating raids against U.S. farmers. Remember Morningland Dairy in Missouri? The feds raided this facility in early 2013, stealing several tons' worth of "illegal" raw milk cheese worth $250,000, and later destroying it.
Today's Russia doesn't even foment this kind of ruthless tyranny against its own farmers -- America is virtually alone in actively criminalizing agriculture that operates outside the Big Ag paradigm. And ironically enough, all Russia is trying to do by destroying contraband food is protect itself against the type of takeover that completely destroyed America's once-decentralized agricultural sector.
Raids conducted because of a choice like wanting to eat raw food can only be described as tyranny. To read more stories like this one our current political state and other related topics, go to Tyranny.news
Sources for this article include:
http://www.naturalnews.com/z050877_raw_food_FDA_Russia.html