Subject: Inspiring words & Organic Standards (fwd)

From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 20:01:56 -0500 (EST)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 1998 18:56:11 -0500
From: REAP <[email-masked]>
To: Beth von Gunten <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked],
    [email-masked], [email-masked],
    [email-masked], [email-masked],
    [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
    [email-masked], Jim Churchill <[email-masked]>,
    Lisa Brenneis <[email-masked]>, Lori Schiraga <[email-masked]>,
    Lorraine Timmons <[email-masked]>
Subject: Inspiring words & Organic Standards

Clare Cummings comments last Friday about organic standards are amongst
the best yet to reflect how people involved in the organic movement are
feeling. I could particularly relate to the last paragraph and her call
to action.

Last week students here at McGill university organized an evening to
remember Gandhi's movement 50 years ago. Being a Henry David Thoreau
fan, I took up the opportunity to read to the students excerpts from his
essay on Civil  Disobedience. It made me think that these were words the
organic movement should also be hearing at this time. After all,
Thoreaus's words were inspirational enough for Gandhi to name his
movement after and they deeply moved Martin Luther King in his fight for
civil rights.

 Here is just one small excerpt....but do read the whole essay it is
well worth the effort.

"How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy
it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is
aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbour,
you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or even
with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps
at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated
again. Action from principle, the perception and the performance of
right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary,
and does not consist wholly from anything which was. It not only divides
states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual,
separating the diabolical in him from the divine.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we
endeavour to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall
we transgress them at once?

Roger Samson
Executive Director
REAP-Canada
Box 125, Ste Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, H9X 3V9
Tel (514) 398-7743
Fax (514) 398-7972

>
> >> Claire Cummings wrote in her last paragraph:
> >>
> >>      Our food is so plentiful and the earth is so generous, we have
> come to
> >take it for granted.  These days, almost half of our food is
> purchased
> >already processed and consumed outside the home, mostly at fast food
> >restaurants.  If we care about food, it is often about price or
> purity; we
> >want our food to be cheap and safe. But as the price we pay for food
> >steadily declines, along with it we are losing our interest in how it
> is
> >produced.  This disconnection, on a spiritual and social level, with
> the
> >source of our nourishment, must be our greatest loss. We can continue
> to
> >abdicate responsibility for our food supply or we can take it back.
> Now.
> >Begin by telling the USDA to withdraw these rules and start over.
> >>
>
> >Claire Cummings
> >P.O. Box 5124
> >Mill Valley, California 94942
> >
> >tel: 415 - 491-1948
> >fax: 415 - 491-1240
> >
>
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