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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 justprovoking:)
  • Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 21:26:07 -0600

Jill Taylor Bussiere wrote:
> 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.

I would not characterize this as common practice. It does happen. And we
need to be much more vigilent about exposing it and eliminating the
legislators who are found doing it. But we have to be very careful to not go
overboard about this because there will be a chilling effect on any new
legislation that could favor any group or person. And almost ALL legislation
always has some discrimination inherent. Which is the point of passing the
legislation.

The Wisconsin legislative leaders have been charged with crimes but have not
yet been found guilty. But there are mainly two people and are both
arrogant, especially the democratic who was even a previous candidate for
governor here in the state. The Republican legislator appears at this time
to be less extreme, but did allegedly use their office for campaigning.

> Rick, but you are very uninformed and naive here.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. It is one of those "is the
glass half full or half empty issues," and different people will look at the
same thing and have different conclusions. It is like asking if TIF
districts are good or bad? You will find differences of opinion.

> 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.

This is one of those things that in order to get the bill passed, it was
difficult to convince the legislators (and the farmers) that only some
should benefit. So they went ahead and made it a level playing field in this
case. I see that you disapprove of that. But it is a bit much to screw the
larger farmers who actually produce the food and fiber in the country and
only favor the small farmers. In effect the EQIP program is a type of
"corporate welfare" or at the very least, "business welfare." But it may be
good public policy in order to reduce the number of farms that go under with
the new NMP's (Nutrient Managment Plans). This is for any AFO as well as the
bigger CAFO's.

> 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.

I oppose the milk subsidies very strongly ... well, at least moderately:)
The reason is that not only is it dangerous for farmers because it
misallocates economic resources, but it makes them less competitive world
wide as they build the subsidies into the fabric of food production. Often
the money causes increases in rent payments to the land holders and I do not
support that kind of shift in resources.

The extreme danger of the milk subsidies is that the less efficient smaller
farmers will embed this deeply into their economic fabric. Meanwhile, the
larger farms will either go out of business in a few cases, or more than
likely will be forced to act even more business-like and find more efficient
ways to operate in order to compete and survive.

Eventually... and there WILL be an eventually...the subsidies will be
removed. This will be exceptionally damaging to the smallest farms. It will
not be a negative for the larger farms. We can expect a serious loss of
small farms at that point. I would rather not have "special deals for
special people." But that is my nature.

By the way, how come they don't give subsidies to market farmers???

> 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.

Sort of agree at one level, but like so many things it is in the eye of the
beholder. I see your point though with such contentious things as abortion
which is more of a general good for society vs. the life of an unborn
person. The conservative thinks (rightly or wrongly depending upon your
moral beliefs) that unborn individuals' rights should take precedence over
the individual who brought it into being. And the liberal thinks (rightly
or wrongly) that this is not an individual, at least not at the early period
of life, and if inconvenient, can be terminated and benefit society with
fewer unwanted children who may otherwise be neglected or worse.

> 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.

True, but that viewpoint is highly variable with different world views ...
even with middle of roaders:) Politics the art of bringing enough people
together to agree as a majority. But you will never please everyone.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams





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