Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking (or maybe justprovoking:)

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking (or maybe justprovoking:)
  • Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 11:43:28 -0600

Jill Taylor Bussiere wrote:

> That is not what I understood from our communications - I read you to be
> denying that corporate welfare was "stacking the playing field", and that
> you denied that it was corporate welfare at all, and denied that it
> benefitted some over others unfairly. If you are were and are
> now admitting
> that there is such a thing as corporate welfare, and that it favors some
> over others, then I stand corrected.

We have many "special deals for special people" in our laws. Whether
corporations, companies of any type, individuals, etc. This is nothing new.
We do have people on this list however, who for whatever reason, actually
oppose the whole concept of corporations and greatly disapprove of having
large ones, as expressed in the most extreme manner that I have ever read
anyplace. So that tends to set the tone or agenda, rather than discussing
various pros and cons. Their view that was expressed here is that there are
only negatives and no positives.

My perspective is that most of the "special deals for special people" are
done with very good intentions. Sometimes you may have a really sleezy
politician who manages to slip in a highly special arrangement for an
individual company and gets paid with money under the table. But that is
quite illegal. The great majority do it is for other reasons and that reason
is usually jobs. That is why you get seemingly incongruous concepts such as
money for businesses to promote their products overseas. And when you do
that, it also means that Mc Donald's (as an example) gets a million here or
there to do it as well since they are a large company. But the intent was
more for job creation and not for directly benefitting a given company.

Do I think it is good or do I think it is bad to do this? I may not
necessarily mention my view on this. Only why it was put in place in the
first place.

> We may decide, as a society, that we
> want to favor some farming practices/enterprises over others, but we have
> not had that discussion as a society - the decisions of whom to favor have
> been made in other ways.

Well, I would have to disagree with you on that. We have had many years of
conservation money going to specific farms and it is in the hundreds of
billions of dollars over the years. It is interesting to note that the first
farm in the governments conservation program was the Manske farm here in the
driftless area of Wisconsin. This was the farm that you see in the Dec 1995
National Geographic article on Sustainable Agriculture (the one with Jane
Goodall's picture on the cover). After moving to Vernon county, I later
served on the V.C. Farm Bureau Board of Directors and have to admit that it
was a surprise that one of the fellow directors was ... Arlin Manske who is
one of the pricipal owners of that farm. Incidentally, when you see that
picture, you get a good grasp of why our farm is called Misty Ridge Farm:)

Further, in the last few months, it has been determined that dairy farmers
will get a substantial subsidy from the federal government. But it is only
up to a maximum amount of milk production so that large farms will not be
able to get more than the farms that typically milk 140 Holstein equivalent
cows. This is a HUGE statement of what we value, is it not?

Same thing with many of the programs, whereby there are maximum payments
allowed. And they are getting much more stringent in policing those who
attempt to divide up a farm into subunits that each collect the maximum.

> I see you as a messenger as much as I see anyone else a messenger. But I
> see you as firmly steeped in your worldview. You do know a lot about your
> topic, but you, as all of us, interpret things through your lenses. Which
> is why I find it ironic that you label others so vociferously. I might
> remind you, too, that the center these days is awfully far to the right -
> and that you are characterizing yourself as being in today's center. Or
> perhaps you are referring to a past center that has disappeared.

If you look at where the political center is today, compared with looking
over the past 100 years, it is far to the left on many issues. As you
probably already know, people tend to compare life in general to when they
were born and the way things were then. They tend to not look back and see
various cycles of political thought. We had a period, due to the depression
where things went much further to the left, and in fact, most of the
platform of the socialists of the 30's was eventually adopted as the
"center" of American politics. We see some slight movement toward the right
in some areas today such as welfare, but it is a very liberal society on
most things compared to even the 1950's.

Some folks here have been very vocal, and in my view, in the extreme, of
pointing out their radical politics. It is mostly what they claim as their
political views that count when you try to understand where people are
coming from. Then, if no one challenges those views, you can expect that
they represent a sizeable majority view. And that was clearly stated if you
recall. People considered my middle of the road position as being way out of
step with the majority of the list members. Now do I really believe that
there are many that extreme? Probably not. You often will get more
expressions from those folks than from many in the more moderate positions.
And the later are likely either not interested in politics or do not see the
connection to marketing.

> I do find your posts on market farming to be thoughtful on the actual
> farming issues, and I support the efforts of you and your family to raise
> grass fed beef.
>
> One final thing - if you look at people's views, you will find that they
> fall upon a circle graph, rather than a line - some people are right
> authoritarian, some left authoritarian, some right libertarian, some left
> libertarian. Although that is a wider interpretation than a
> line, I suspect
> that it would be more accurate to characterize people's views as falling
> somewhere within a sphere, rather than a circle. Your "true right" and
> "true left" definitions exclude a lot of reality.

I am not sure where you got the impression from me that there is some kind
of "true" right or left view as I have repeatedly pointed out the split at
both extremes and have even mentioned the libertarian right and the
controlling left.

I have also discussed how most people are not that consistent with all their
views and that most of us are left on some points and right on others. I am
certainly that way, depending upon the issue.

It is the extremists that have the strong view that they, and only they,
have the truth and that if you do not agree with them, then you are a
mindless person in the middle. This is true whether you have the right wing
Rush Limbaugh types or even worse, the Jim Hightower left wing types. I say
worse in terms of J.H. because he is so extreme about it that he even wrote
a book on it, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes
and dead armadillos."
Very obnoxious ... but very characteristic of the elitist left that I have
watched for many decades. Check out the John Birch Society if you want the
kooks on the right. Remember their motto, sort of ... "you have to fight
communism ... with communism."

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Direct marketed dairy beef and produce
(also dairy heifers and beef stockers)
Viroqua, WI







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page