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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking (or maybe just provoking:)

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  • From: "Del Williams" <delannw AT dlogue.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking (or maybe just provoking:)
  • Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 21:11:47 -0600

"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."
 
I agree.  Extreme thinking on either end, limits individual choices.  I'm not sure if I agree with you on the Brave New World interpretation.  It's irrelevant.  The fact is, there are people limiting our choices and, frankly, they aren't from the left.
 
" COOL is not free for the consumer. It will slightly raise prices of food. But it is expected to be a very small amount."
 
Well, I think consumers should pay what it costs to raise high quality food.  The problem is the disinformation campaigns about the so called food that is cheap.  Who is behind that?  It ain't the left.
 
"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."
 
Is that so?  Well, sure, how is NYC going to raise enough oats for all that Crème Brule?
And absolutely.  What are all those people in Phoenix going to do when they realize that water is an issue in food production?  Heck, they don't even think about that when it comes to flushing their toilets!  Or raising ridiculous lawns in a desert.  That is the kind of thinking that affects all of us.  Or should I say, non-thinking?
 
"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."
 
Well, I hate to go here but the government is taking taxable income from both spouses, not just the low earning librarian.  They are both losing, not just the librarian who puts the books back on the shelves.  And, frankly, it's simply selfishness.  They aren't suffering one iota in comparison to the two middle income married earners who are both working for minimum wage.  Boo hoo for the physician and her librarian husband.
 
"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."
 
Really?  When is the last time your locality functioned without a grocery store?  Come on.  Food is a major aspect of any community of human beings.  The fact, perhaps, that food production is zero in many localities is a commentary on their willingness to be vulnerable to interests that do not care about the health of the communities they make profit from.
 
"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."
 
Yes, and the point is if communities don't want to support sustainability, that is to their long term vulnerability.
 
"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."
 
Sure businesses do not all survive.  Some of the worst businesspeople I have ever seen are in agriculture.  Oh and healthcare.  This idea that if I plant it, they will come and buy it... someone will...or the government will.  This doesn't undermine the notion that local production of basic food isn't wise and worthwhile for any community.  And localities would be better off, in the long run, by promoting it. 
 
"Most people tend toward the middle and I suspect that is really what you are
seeing here."
 
Most people don't think, Rick.  You do.  I do.  They just spend their money and eat.  They get fat and unhealthy from poor eating practices promoted by corporate interests.  We all pay for that one way or the other in the long term.  And who, societally, evaluates that?
 
I have to pathetically laugh at one more statistic on smoking.  I'd like to see the real stats on the societal costs for people who eat in unhealthy ways because they walk into a grocery store and think that all those boxes actually contain decent 'food'.  Yeah, sure.  No one puts a gun to your head and tells you to light up.  Not any more than anyone puts a gun to your head and says, buy that food that will make you sick in the long run and cost society for your bad eating habits.
 
My point was, this isn't an idea promoted by the left.  These practices are promoted by the likes of those corporate interests who don't give a damn about the societal cost of poor food quality.
 
If you look beyond the cost of supporting or promoting (better) small, independent producers, who actually give a damn about the quality of food they are offering their localities, those grower/producers are worth every dime for what they are providing their localities. 
 
At the risk of naming names... do I really think Kraft, with all it's pushing of ersatz food over the past 50 years gives a damn about the health of people in Illinois as they sit in their corporate Chicago offices promoting that garbage?  I think they ought to be taxed and sued for presenting that stuff as decent food in our supermarkets... just like the tobacco producers who have promoted their addictive product.  It's all the same.  They are ruining people's health by promoting nonfood to people who are not thinking. 
 
Why do we sit around discussing soybeans when the very culprits for undermining quality food production sit right in our own backyards?  Our neighbors and friends.
 
Velveeta, doesn't really approximate real cheese, and you can't live on it, but hell, why argue with it?  It keeps people from feeling hungry and its cheap.  Still, people have a choice and they choose to eat poorly.  Another social trap that localities neglect in their attempt to outsource the health of their communities.
 
 
"The Buddha and the middle path over the extremes"
Do no harm.
 
Del Williams
Farmer in the Del
Clifton IL
 



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