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  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking (or maybe just provoking:)
  • Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 20:09:57 -0600

Del Williams wrote:
> Gee, I don't see that as left wing at all. Individualism is the
> province of
> conservative thinking.

The left wing thinking is the concept in the "Brave New World" whereby the
few control the many. It can also be part of the more extreme right wing as
well. Both left and right eventually reach the point of totalitarianism when
they become extreme.

> For example, why frustrate the labeling efforts on feeding
> practices or seed
> development practices? Shouldn't the individual have full access to the
> information that would help that person make their own choices
> about what is
> good for their bodies and cultivation practices? Who seeks to block that
> legislatively? You know as well as I do. It isn't the left wing.

There are some farmers who oppose COOL, but many support it. The Farm Bureau
supports COOL. However, I think you will find that the NCBA opposes COOL.
When it has come to a vote by the public ... what has been the result on
referendums? Seems like it was not so good for COOL? COOL is not free for
the consumer. It will slightly raise prices of food. But it is expected to
be a very small amount.

> The locality
> needs the small independent grower/producer. Not one beset by legislation
> and controls that make solvency as a farmer more difficult. Corporate
> thinking does just that and you sure wouldn't call them left
> wing. Fascists
> perhaps?

Local food production is not feasible in most areas to meet the needs. But
the Corporations, big and small, are trying to succeed the best they know
how. They tend to be more in the middle and not to either the right or left.
In fact, you will find many apolitical people or even those who tend toward
the left as well as those who tend toward the right. Usually what brings
people to the "right" is the realization of how much money the government
confiscates from you when you have a high income. They become very angry and
vote conservative. And this is not for the rich, just higher income folks
like say a doctor and spouse who is a school librarian and they start to
realize that the government is taking over half the income of the spouse.

> Finally, and more to the point, when a locality quits taking care of their
> local ability to produce food to, say, develop recreation instead, the
> locality weakens its position on several fronts. Most notably, that their
> ability to live and control food availability is left in the hands of
> unknowable and geographically distant people who mainly care about profit
> margins. Those folks answer to no locality. The self
> determination of the
> individual locality is entirely lost in that kind of thinking.

This is total nonsense. This is not the way the world works. Food is
actually a very small part of the fabric of most communities. In many, food
production is nearly zero. You are up against so called sprawl vs. vertical
cities.

> A conservative view would promote local control and local production.
> Wouldn't it also want some of that profit benefiting its local economy?

It just is not that black and white. For those of us in the middle view it
has to always be a quid pro quo over the long term or it will never be
sustainable. That is more of the true test of sustainability.

> People must live and small producers have contributed an enormous
> amount of
> variety in food that we can't expect corporate interests to cater
> to. Local
> growers contribute to state and county coffers. They employ people, keep
> families off the welfare rolls, maintain small individual but
> vast expanses
> of individually owned land, and provide for the sustenance of the
> locality.

No one is suggesting otherwise. There are opportunities as I have said, for
those entrepreneurs who find niche areas and who strike out on their own.
Some will not succeed. As you surely know, most businesses do fail within a
5 year period. But some will succeed too. But no one has the right to
success. That comes with having the right services, products, for the
customer. The ultimate in voting.

> When localities (or businesses) decide to "outsource" their basic
> needs for
> survival, they become vulnerable to those outsourcers. That
> isn't wise long
> term thinking at the local, state or national level. I live in a pretty
> right wing area of Illinois. Maybe it's because we are mostly
> French and we
> thumb our noses to those who want to tell us what we should be doing
> locally. The irony of it is that it is almost apolitical. It's just
> profit, survival and keeping your children geographically close for their
> own financial survival.

Most people tend toward the middle and I suspect that is really what you are
seeing here.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams

The Buddha and the middle path over the extremes





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