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  • From: "Jill Taylor Bussiere" <jdt AT itol.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking (or maybe justprovoking:)
  • Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 19:46:12 -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.

>
> 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.

Indeed it is illegal, however, it is common practice. Nationally and in
Wisconsin. Perhaps you are aware of what has been going on in the Wisconsin
legislature for the past 6 years at least. The legislature recently
entertained a bill that would eliminate the "pay to play" practices that
have become common, sadly, in the Wisconsin legislature. And then there are
the felony charges to the leaders of both parties. Here is an area where
many on the right and on the left agree vigorously - Pat Buchanan and Ralph
Nader, John McCain and Russ Feingold - that monied interests have greatly
corrupted our electoral process, and also the bills that get passed.

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.

Rick, but you are very uninformed and naive here.

> > 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.

Rick, there are many good bills/laws that do benefit such practices as
conservation, and there are even a few sections in the farm bill - some for
value added, some for organic too that are new. But there are also a whole
mess in the farm bill that work against conservation, such as the extension
of EQIP benefits to very large farms, whereas formerly it was prohibited.

The limit that you mention about milk subsidies is indeed a good one. But
you must also realize that Feingold, and many others could not vote for the
Farm Bill in spite of their hard work on it, because when you add up the
plusses and minusses, the minusses (skewing the playing field so that
corporate agribusinesses have incredible advantages, indeed, some so large
that they can much more easily drive others out of business) mightily
outweighed the plusses. Kohl did vote for it, but he generally votes for
big business interests.

One difference that I have noticed between the right and the left -
controlling or not - the right seems to advocate for the individual
rights/good above all else, and the left advocates for the general good
above all else. To me, the best is to have a balance between the general
good, and individual good/rights. And we can't omit the well-being of the
earth, or subsume it under individual or greater good rights, because
without the well-being of the earth, we can not continue to exist - it is
our life support system. Without the earth, there will be not individual or
greater good.

Jill






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