| TIME FOR A FARMING REVOLUTION IN AMERICA - A CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE |
http://groups.google.com |
| Robert Morpheal, Bob Ezergailis, Morphealism (morpheal@yahoo.com) |
2008/12/11 12:27 |
TIME FOR A FARMING REVOLUTION IN AMERICA = A CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE
One of the main problems with farming in North America, particularly
the USA, is political ideology.Farmers are encouraged to be
increasingly competitive with each other, and with big agro business.
They are encouraged to be strictly independent operators, free
enterprise businesses. That is the problem.
The system is so politically rigid and blasts so fiercely at any
deviation from its ideas as to how everything MUST be done, that there
are no alternatives allowed in thought or action. This has become
increasingly worse in the past 30 plus years.
The same problem is now plaguing Washington in other areas of economic
activity. We see the results of that rigid, ideological, approach,
every day in the news. Where too are the billions to bail out the
farming industry ?
First plan of attack..............
The constitution demands that farmers, who have more to do with the
"general welfare" of "we the people" get first dibs on any federal
money, long before for profit mega corporation manufacturers get a
hearing in DC as to federal handouts. It's the law, not an option. The
people and their good must come first, according o the preamble of the
constitution. Any farmer can make a case for precedence in getting
federal money at handout and bailout time. Simply by referring to the
preamble. A class action suit by farmers to gain those billions,
precedent to large corporations, is arguable, and long past due. Every
farmer knows how hard it is in America the way that governance as
treated the independent farm operator, owner. It is worse than tough
and yet the constitutional challenge remains to be made as billions,
trillions in fact, are allocated to big for profit corporations that
do not produce food, and do not directly meet the constitutional
criterion for precedence in government action. Farmers as a class of
legal entity should have constitutional precedence over and above GM,
Ford, Chrysler and so forth. So what has gone wrong ? In that case it
is time for farmers to hire on some good constitutional lawyers to put
government back in its place, in proper relation to "we the people",
not "we the big corporations". A dust bowl is not an option but even
that could happen if nothing is done. That can be avoided and solved
with federal money.
Now, second plan of attack.......
Back to that ideological bind. Farmers have been discouraged from
forming collectives, to decrease the amount of investment needed for
quality and productivity. Collectives are "communist" or at best
'socialist" and America wants none of that. Well, actually that closed
mindedness is the problem. You have to break with Washington's
ideological screws being tightened on thinking and action, to do
things in more pragmatic and effective ways. It's not only about
money, but it is about the quality of product and quality of life,
necessitating change. Communal farming, collectivized farming, real
sharing of knowledge, and the means of production is a way out of
increasing pressure to give it up and let big agro business take over,
and it is also good environmental and conservation sense. Big business
tends to ignore the environmental issues, when it comes to maximizing
profits. The smaller operators tend to have more traditional
sensitivity, even if less technically progressive savvy, but even the
latter can be more readily gained by a communal or collective farming
approach. Certainly more bang for the hard pressed buck.
The freedom to pursue non free enterprise, less narrowly capitalistic
modes of function, and to organize more communally and collectively is
a constitutional right that has been denied to the American farmer
for far too long. It is time to reclaim that inalienable right.
Third plan of attack......
I added this one after posting into the democratic underground forum.
It is about land. Farmers need to organize against the push, supported
by government wrongful actions and inactions, which pressures them to
sell of their lands, rather than farming them. It is wrong, for
government to support, actively or passively, the sell off of good
arable farming lands, and I argue it is unconstitutional. Government
must act to support the continuance of viable farming, rather than
land sell off for non agricultural purposes, if it is to act legally
immediate and long term policy. Where federal money is necessary to
act to protect arable lands for farming, and to support their
continued use for farming, that must take legal precedence above and
beyond lesser purposes, such as bailing out large for profit
corporations producing goods that are of lesser value to the general
welfare of the population than the products of agriculture. Not only
must governance act to preserve agricultural viability for the
immediate needs of the people, but to be legal and legitimate it must
plan for both climate effects, foreseeable potential disasters, and
the long term needs of the people in terms of agricultural production,
inclusive of the economic impact, within the scope of short term and
long term fiscal and agricultural planning. In other words, they
legally have to make sure there are enough farms, producing enough
product, to provide for tomorrow, not only today. It is their
responsibility to look ahead and preserve, conserve, and facilitate
for the viable future. Food crisis ? Land crisis ? Why announce such
things, without proactive government responsibility, of a legal,
legitimate, constitutionally bound government, looking after the
Fear mongering is not good government. If there is cause for fear,
then government must act to alleviate the conditions causing fear.
So we have a two pronged attack plan against the DC strangle hold on
farming.
Yes it can change, but it has to change at the grass roots. It has to
come from the grass roots farming communities, and the organizing of
farmers into a political force, against the Washington dictatorship,
which is leading American farming into ruin and disregarding the long
term general welfare of "we the people" in favor of "we the big
corporations".
Cheers.
It's time for a farming revolution in America.
Robert Morpheal
|
|
|