From the June 2004 Idaho Observer:

Your mission (should you choose to accept it): MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

This is the time that trys our souls: We are either buckling to its demands or bucking it with all our might. This can be a time where we dwell on the horrors of our modern world or celebrate triumphs of the human spirit. From the vantage point of this office, we have seen the most unlikely people rise nobly to monumental challenges in their lives and “warriors” lay down in the face of lesser adversity. How strong is our faith? What will we do when our best is demanded? Beginning five seconds from now, any one of us may face the answers to those questions.

Mercury from fish, bad; Mercury from doctors, good, says government

The FDA is currently cautioning pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers to abstain from eating mercury-containing fish to prevent fetal and infant neurological damage.

But then in May, the Institutes of Medicine's (IOM) released the results of a study it claims finds no causal relationship to thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, and autism.

Since mercury is toxic, not the manner in which it enters the system, Congress members, doctors, scientists and parents are outraged by the IOM's highly publicized conclusion.

At a press conference June 2, 2004, on the Cannon Terrace in the Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C., several notables convened to dispute the IOM's obviously compromised conclusion.

A partial list of speakers included Congressman Dan Burton, Congresswoman Diane Watson, Boyd Haley, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Chemistry Department, University of Kentucky, Dr. Mark and David Geier of the Genetics Centers of America, Dr. Bob Nash of ABCMT, Dr. Rashid Buttar, Beth Clay of BCA International representing Safeminds, and Amy Carson, co-founder and Executive Director of Moms Against Mercury, as moderator.

Among the many scientifically and common sense supported comments that totally discredit the IOM report, Dr. Rashid Buttar said, “The report released from the IOM clearly indicates the complete absence of any desire to discover scientific truth at the supposed highest levels of medical academia. The individuals responsible for the IOM report either severely lack any intellectual integrity or, are suffering from neurological impairment due to mercury toxicity themselves. There is NO other explanation for the IOM report.”

NotMilkMan “David” slays Monsanto “Goliath”

After 12 years of relentless activism, the NotMilkMan Robert Cohen finally achieved the ban of Monsanto's bovine growth hormone (BGH).

BGH was administered to most of the nation's dairy herds to make them produce more milk. To compete in the marketplace, dairymen were forced to use BGH even though it made their cows sick and prone to infections and diseases -- which were routinely treated with antibiotics and more vaccines.

It has been known for years that milk and milk products from these poor cows are contaminated with BGH, antibiotics and vaccines. The lifespan of dairy cattle injected with BGH is diminished from their normal 15 to 20 years to a mere 4 1/2 years. Many of these cows are riddled with disease during their last year of production.

In January of this year, Cohen discovered Monsanto had made a mistake that causes every batch of BGH (trade name Prosilac) sold in the market to differ substantially from the product approved by the FDA. As a result, BGH is consistently unsterile and contaminated with several forms of dangerous bacteria. Cohen reported that Monsanto has been unsuccessful in its attempts to correct the error and amend its manufacturing processes.

An FDA investigation documents two damning observations that will lead to the removal of BGH from the marketplace. “Monsanto's hormone will soon be off the market. FDA will allow Monsanto to withdraw its drug with corporate dignity. Posilac will soon take its own life and cease to exist,” said Cohen.

Because Cohen refused to give up, one dangerous substance will be removed from the food supply. This one victory could cause cows to be healthier and their general good health will remove the need for regular injections of vaccines and antibiotics. This one victory could lead to milk products once again being safe for human consumption.

Do we have the right to keep and bear them?

In Nov., 2001 Don Bird of Corning, California, 68, filed a writ of mandamus in a California district federal court in an attempt to force then governor Gray Davis and Attorney General Bill Lockyer to officially recognize the very clear language of the 2nd Amendment, to wit, “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The entire ordeal began when California began enforcing several laws that directly contradicted the right to firearms ownership as defined in the Bill of Rights.

Bird has persisted pro se through many proceedings, all the way to filing a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court (which was ultimately rejected). Throughout the process, the government has gone to great lengths, at great public expense, to avoid answering the simple question: “Do law-abiding citizens have the right to keep and bear arms?”

Most recently, Bird has named U.S. Magistrate Kimberly J. Mueller as a defendant in a civil action for her decision to dismiss his case without demanding the state answer his simple question. The U.S. attorneys representing Mueller have filed a motion to dismiss and a motion for summary judgment based upon the lamest of all procedural rules violations : “Failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Bird's response is truly eloquent and it speaks to the heart of the myriad issues plaguing our nation: Government no longer believes that its people have the right to petition it for redress of grievances.

The motions will be heard July 8, 2004, in courtroom 24 at the federal courthouse in Sacramento, Calif. “I am willing to go to jail before this is over,” said Bird.

322 communities and four states now defy federal Patriot Act

Within 45 days of Sept. 11, the U.S. Congress passed the Patriot Act to give the federal government phenomenally broad and sweeping powers to investigate anyone suspected of fitting its newly expanded profile of a terrorist. Shortly thereafter, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee was formed. Led by activist Nancy Talanian, the committee's first order of business was to organize resistance against the Patriot Act where she lived in Northhampton, Massachusetts -- a town of 30,000 people -- at a time when few people were even aware that the act had been passed into law.

Talanian and fellow activists urged newspaper editors to write about the legislation and hosted a public forum attended by 400 people, including Northhampton's mayor and chief of police. Word spread quickly to other communities, four of which passed their own resolutions before Northhampton passed its declaration the following May.

Three years later, 325 municipalities and four states -- Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont -- have Patriot Act resolutions.

The Patriot Act is the most civil liberties-violating, constitutional protection-usurping document Congress ever put down on paper. Virtually all Americans can become “suspect” at any time and, under the provisions of the act, may be subject to warrantless searches and indefinite detainment without legal representation or a trial.

If one is inspired to see to it that their community becomes a Patriot Act-free zone, The Bill of Rights Defense Committee provides copies of ordinances, resolutions and other helpful materials on its website at www.bordc.org.

VacLib Network growing very fast

Vaccination Liberation formed in Idaho in 1998 and received limited support, primarily from parents and alternative health care practitioners who understood the dangers of routine childhood shots. By 2004, VacLib has expanded to 15 chapters in states all over the nation. The group's primary focus is to provide support for those who choose not to vaccinate and to provide information that helps people “immunize” themselves against diseases without injecting cocktails containing the world's most toxic substances directly into their bodies.

Certain conditions have recently arisen causing parents all over the world to be part of the VacLib network. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends children receive 74 vaccines by the time they enter first grade. Currently record numbers of the nation's youth are developing chronic health problems and/or neurological problems. Even the mainstream is reporting the relationship between unsafe levels of mercury children receive with their routine vaccinations and permanent neurological damage.

* The CDC acknowledges that 1 in 6 American children now have a learning disability or a behavioral disorder and 1 in 166 have been diagnosed with autism. The CDC denies the vaccinations it recommends may be part of the problem, but angry parents of autistic and neurologically impaired children are making the connection.

There is no doubt that government-recommended vaccines, coupled with malnutrition, are behind epidemics of neurological problems in America's children. It does not have to be this way. Go to www.vaclib.org or call (888) 249-1421. Become part of this grassroots effort taking a stand against the poisoning of our children through forced vaccination.

Days of silence

An informal group of patients at Atascadero State Hospital is encouraging “hosprisoners” to participate in the second “Day of Silence” scheduled for June 27, 2004. The intent is to withhold all conversation with hospital workers for an entire day.

The plan is intended to be a non-aggressive protest of hospital conditions that have become increasingly bleak, dehumanizing and intolerable. The group claims the hospital (hosprison) is operated under oppressive, prison-like conditions.

Residents tell of rogue staff and officers who routinely threaten and antagonize patients with impunity and then make misleading comments on patient charts to cover their actions. There is no viable grievance procedure so these abuses are ongoing.

With no alternative, silence is these patients' only weapon. So they are using it.