Thread: All charges dropped against Julie Bass, the Michigan gardene

All charges dropped against Julie Bass, the Michigan gardener threatened with jail time for growing vegetables in her own yard

Friday, July 29, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)

(NaturalNews) This is a breaking news update: Michigan gardener Julie Bass has confirmed with NaturalNews that all charges have been dismissed in her case, including the two misdemeanor dog licensing charges the city threatened her with after dropping her "illegal gardening" charge.

I just spoke with Julie and recorded a 20 minute interview that will be posted tomorrow here on NaturalNews. In that interview, Julie explained that she plans to continue growing her garden, and now even others in Oak Park, Michigan have decided to grow a few nice-looking food plants (peppers, zucchini, etc.) in their own yards in order to help reduce their food bills while increasing their own local food security.

Julie also explained that it was the power of the alternative media that really helped her bring scrutiny to the city planner's office and ultimately get the charges dropped. So this is a national health freedom victory of the People versus Big Government. Both Julie and NaturalNews thank all the NaturalNews readers who took action to apply pressure to the Oak Park, Michigan city administrators.

On her blog, Julie also related some of what she's learned about being an informed citizen and standing up for your freedoms:

"...the good news is that because of all the momentum that was generated, people's eyes were opened. lots of people, myself included, were sort of passive in the face of government before. I just went along, figuring that most rules had good reasons, and I was mostly happy to comply. but this entire experience has shown me that you have to be educated. you have to ask questions. you have to have a strong internal compass for morality, and you have to be willing to stand by your Self (capital S on purpose) even in the face of people standing against you." (http://oakparkhatesveggies.wordpres...)

Watch NaturalNews this weekend for the posting of the new audio interview with Julie Bass where we discuss food freedom, guerrilla gardening, taking a stand against local government tyranny, and dealing with the press. It's a really wonderful conclusion to this whole fiasco that originally had Julie threatened with 93 days in jail. She's now free, empowered and fully informed on the truth of how oppressive government can target innocent citizens for unreasonable prosecution.

Check NaturalNews.com this weekend for the full interview (and more details about this situation).

We love you, Julie! Keep gardening for freedom!

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033175_Julie ... z1TgmDGSvO



Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033175_Julie ... z1TglzwyeB

Health Ranger interviews Julie Bass - all charges dropped against Michigan gardener

Sunday, July 31, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)

(NaturalNews) Thanks to the help of NaturalNews readers and the alternative media, Julie Bass has achieved victory against the Oak Park, Michigan city planner's office that threatened to throw her in jail for 93 days for the "crime" of growing cucumbers and tomatoes in her front yard. All charges have been dismissed, but it turns out the city council may now be plotting to put even more draconian rules in place in the fall of this year.

I spoke by phone with Julie and asked her to share how the charges were dismissed, what allowed her to prevail in the case, and what she plans to do from here forward. My full interview with Julie is available right now at:
http://soundcloud.com/naturalnews/i...

Some of the highlights of the interview:

"The city council recently suggested they should make a rule that everyone in Oak Park now has to run every single landscaping decision by the city council before they can do it. They've just reacted time and time again by digging in their heels and getting more draconian and trying to make even more absurd statements." - Julie Bass

Alternative media helps Julie Bass achieve victory
In this interview, I asked Julie what role the alternative media (like NaturalNews, InfoWars and the Robert Scott Bell show) played in helping her achieve the dismissal of her charges. She said our public support for her case was essentially the primary reason why the charges were dropped:

"I think that if they didn't know there were so many eyes on them to do the right thing, I think it would have been really tempting to just have it be another citizen that they squashed down and put in her place. If no one was paying attention, it would have been so easy for them to just ride roughshod over us and give us all kinds of consequences and make up all kinds of other rules. I think it's 100 percent responsible that there was so much public scrutiny on this one, so we appreciated that... more than we can even say," said Julie.

Listen to the full interview at:
http://soundcloud.com/naturalnews/i...

Julie learns how even local Big Government can be tyrannical
I also asked Julie what she learned about standing up against local tyranny

"I never really realized how involved in your life the city government could get. I never realized it would turn into this beast that could persecute you and be very shameless in their desire to basically squash you like a bug," she said.

"This was just a really eye-opening experience about how many things the government does that fly under the radar, that no one pays attention, no one thinks it will ever affect me ... so I think this is a good wakeup call for us to just pay attention, and be more aware, and don't fall asleep at the switch or they'll run stuff by you that you'll just wake up with your jar hanging open, like oh my God what happened?"

"I hope it really does have a positive effect on government, to remind them that they are accountable to the people they work for. And to remind people that you can stand up. You can stand your ground. I'm glad that I didn't back down. I'm glad that I can show other people that you can just be a regular stay-at-home mom, but yet I was able to make my feelings carry some weight," she added.

Highlights of the backlash
Julie told me she also really enjoyed the comedy video skit I created that poked fun at the Oak Park city planner's office. You can watch that hilarious Monty Python-style animation satire at:
http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=3...

"It took a lot of stress off during a really hard time," Julie told me. Laughter is the best medicine, after all.

Some other details that emerged from my conversation with Julie:

• For an entire week after Kevin Rulkowski said on TV (twice) that the definition of "suitable" is "common," the website Websters.com reported that the most frequently searched word definition on their dictionary website was "suitable."

• There was a campaign organized to mail dictionaries to the city of Oak Park, Michigan so that the word-challenged bureaucrats there could see for themselves the definition of the word "suitable."

• The Judge of her case in Oak Park was very fair and took a considerable amount of time to understand the charges and determine the real story of what had happened.

Once again, listen to the full interview with Julie Bass at:
http://soundcloud.com/naturalnews/i...

... and watch the hilarious satire video at:
http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=3...

Yes, I did the character voice for the Kevin character. I do quite a few comedy character voices, including the voices in this hilarious skit called "General Mills Mind Games" at:
http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=8...

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033186_Julie ... z1Tgouo69R



Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033186_Julie ... z1TgopqVYM


http://www.naturalnews.com/033186_Julie ... ening.html


also here is a direct link to the audio

http://soundcloud.com/naturalnews/inter ... s-gardener

Should have not been charged anyway.Just simple people trying hard to servive.Way to go.