As first mentioned by attorney Jessica Newman (an Oak Park city official’s daughter), the city of Oak Park dropped the charges against Julie. Apparently city officials had received tens of thousands of calls and emails from all over the world and they realized that they did not have a very good case.
Today Julie posted that her attorney went to file a motion at the court and he found out that the case was dismissed. It happens frequently that court notices aren’t actually mailed out until a day or two after the filing.
So I consider that excellent news, although Julie is ill and not nearly as happy as she should be. Of course they could charge her again, but that’s EXTREMELY unlikely unless the city actually changes its laws and explicitly prohibits front yard veggies.
I’m very glad the charges were dropped and now we can move on to more productive projects such as finding out WHY some people feel that veggies will lower home values and we can focus on the big picture. I hope you will all take an hour to watch scientist and activist Vandana Shiva’s speech at UC Irvine. [7/2008]
This was three years ago and unfortunately, nothing has changed for the better. The American government is completely controlled by the corporations and the FDA and the USDA ignore the DOCUMENTED harm caused by genetically modified crops and monoculture.
I hope to get Jessica Newman (her letter to Time Magazine) and many local government officials to watch Food Inc., King Corn and Ms. Shiva’s speech. I am certain that none of the Oak Park officials have been bribed by Monsanto. I seriously doubt that Jessica Newman is on the big ag payroll.
Why do they feel so threatened by veggies?
Ms. Newman mentioned in her letter to Time Magazine that she is concerned with dropping home values.
Quite frankly, even if home values dropped because people garden, I’d rather have home values lowered and reduce the many illnesses and deaths caused by supermarket foods.
This reminds me of 2004 – 2006, when I sued mortgage spammers, scammers, brokers and lenders like Ameriquest. I knew that prices would have to come down a LOT. However, most people, judges and attorneys felt that it was a GOOD thing to make loans to anyone who could sign their name, to falsify documentation and to advertise completely false loan terms to entice people to apply.
Sure, if regulators had enforced the laws and prohibited these vile practices, the home prices would not have ballooned. It was NECESSARY to inflate home values to supply the money needed to keep the economy going. However, the entire world would be in much better shape today if home values had stayed at 2004 levels. The profits of many speculators and especially the big bankers would have been a lot smaller.
Would that really have been so bad?
As Vandana Shiva said in 2008, the investors moved into food markets.
They want to control the food supply just like the Federal Reserve controls the monetary supply. You KNOW what that got us!
WHY allow corporations to “continue” to kill millions of human beings for profits?
We can’t stop them, but we CAN grow our own food and we can grow organic and non GMO food that won’t make us sick. I’m not proposing laws requiring people to grow food and not everybody needs to grow food. But everybody in their right mind SHOULD support locally grown organic food — in front yards, back yards, community gardens and on local farms, preferably in a permaculture setting with lots of fruit and nut trees, nitrogen fixers, berries, herbs and flowers.
I hope to post my letter to the Oak Park officials and to Jessica Newman over the weekend.
Thank God I live in Germany, a country that knows all too well the dangers inherit in a state where the police overstep their mandate to trample on the well-being and livelihood of the common man. The state looks after its people whilst allowing them to live as they see fit without undue interference. The US seems more and more to be following a fascist route; as its influence diminishes around the world, it seeks to enforce its dominance upon its own people. There doesn’t appear to be any hope given the general decline in its education system and completely ignorant, unqualified people who run for office and are given headlines due to notoriety rather than experience and ability. What a dystopia the US has become, and we in Europe, grateful for the US of three generations ago, can only shake our heads and bemoan the loss of a former model and friend.
Hi Keir,
I just looked at http://www.tracesofevil.com and what an incredible coincidence that I just watched Triumph of the Will a week or two ago. We were looking for a documentary on Netflix to watch while cooking and I had never seen it before. I grew up near Nuremberg and lived a few years in the city and I was very disappointed that I didn’t remember the names of the buildings and places — it’s been 30 years. So it’s really nice to see that site (is it yours?) and learn what’s what.
But I don’t agree that German police won’t overstep their mandate. I had Arabic friends who were continually harassed by Nuremberg police (profiled) and if they didn’t show their visa during a traffic stop, they would be arrested. I remember attending a counter demonstration to a popular Nazi (Hoffman?) in the 70s and some Germans would yell at us that we should get jobs instead of demonstrating. I had a job.
I remember the CSU campaign events with many people singing “Deutschland Deutschland ueber alles”, yeah, they used the old lyrics and I’ll never understand why anyone would ever use that song for anything with any words. Those events were so much like Hitler’s. My dad got so offended he did the “Hitler Gruss” at one of those events (sarcasm) and he got arrested, had to go to court and I think he was fined DM 3,000. He made the front page of The Plaerrer, an alternative Nuremberg magazine at the time. Nobody got arrested for singing “Deutschland Deutschland ueber alles”.
I remember being strip searched after I passed a cop in a civilian car on my way home from visiting my parents on a rainy November Sunday. I was speeding when I overtook him. He called their drug dog unit and CLAIMED that he smelled hash in my car. That was an outrageous lie, but apparently he had checked my car registration and I lived at a commune, so he thought he’d give it a try and he took me to the Nuremberg airport for interrogation and strip search. Of course they found nothing and to make up for the “inconvenience”, he didn’t give me a speeding ticket. He was a young fat guy relishing his power and they took great pleasure in embarrassing the young female cop they got to strip search me, typical cop asshole.
My sister in a small Bavarian village is afraid of the young Nazis. These young guys get drunk, go on their property to urinate and sometimes even urinate on their front door, but what are they going to do? They have two girls and just want to live without being assaulted. Others have been beaten up. There is so much crime and hatred and people are very afraid.
To my knowledge, Germany and other Europeans are in Afghanistan and are currently bombing the crap out of Libya, WITH the Americans. Libya has done NOTHING to the US or Europe! What’s been going on in the word since Kosovo just goes to show why all these small countries need to have nuclear weapons. They’ll all be destroyed to become the 21st century colonies of the US and western Europe for the simple reason that they resources the “1st nations” want, they are unable to defend themselves and they don’t have the capabilities to launch counter attacks.
The last time I was in Germany in about 97 I almost missed my flight back because of totally moronic airport security. I was 3 hours early and they managed to delay me so much because I had my dog to check in (which they refused to do for 2 hours) and finally these soldiers with machine guns decided to take me to a room to powder my notebook for explosives. As soon as I finally sat down in the plane it took off. You can’t imagine the stress, I was so worried about my dog ending up in Chicago without me.
Of course since 9/11, American freedoms have disappeared and it is turning into a police state just like Germany. I’ll be happy if I NEVER have to get on a plane again.
I KNOW that you do NOT have more freedom in Europe. In fact, you have the exact same problems and if you do a little research on the Bilderbergers and related organizations and you’ll see that MOST countries are really governed by the super elite and their corporations and banks. CLUE: One of the first things the Lybian rebels did was to establish a CENTRAL BANK.
And stop being grateful to the Americans for coming to the rescue of Germany. Don’t you know that grandpa Prescott Bush and Union Bank FUNDED Hitler? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100474,00.html
Hitler was only a pawn in the hands of the elite. Wars are so profitable, which is of course why we have so many wars.
I’m sorry for this very off topic post and it is not meant to defend American abuse of police power, but don’t throw rocks in a glass house. We garden because healthy food is important and it’s something we enjoy doing. It’s also a type of peaceful resistance that comes with MANY benefits. To me personally the organic food benefits are as important as becoming INDEPENDENT from corporate factory farms and the government.