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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] we'll have to confront the farm-labor crisis

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  • From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] we'll have to confront the farm-labor crisis
  • Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:36:17 -0400

At 12:06 AM 6/1/2008, you wrote:
I don't think it is as much a matter of getting entitlements as it is pure and simple they can't live on it. I don't hear really anything about entitlements being taught in the public fool system but I do hear: go to school, work hard (40-40 plan) and everything will be all right. Not so. To me the real offense is in teaching them to get a job. Being a red blooded white skinned Danish-American (how about that one, heheheh) I want to own my land and be able to work for myself. As such I am a whole more willing to work harder for less than I am if reduced to little more than a serf a.k.a slave. Dean

Yes, that's a good point. The time period I was talking about, when my family lived quite adequately on what my parents picked (potatoes, prunes and cherries), was the early 1950's, and even then the push toward consumerism was well under way. We did well because my parents chose not to have the fancy new expensive stuff. But if they had thought we needed a television, a "real" house instead of a 30 foot travel trailer, a nice car instead of the 1936 Olds that my dad kept running, closet loads of clothing, kitchen appliances, etc, etc., we couldn't have made it even then.

With the lifestyle being pushed now, even a true minimum wage for agricultural laborers wouldn't be enough. But as Paul keeps reminding us, that's going to change. When people's needs change, when "I want" comes closer to "I need," their income level can change too.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com




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