I grew up in a farms, around farmers, and spent a lot of
time farming as a younger man. I met a
lot of amazing men while farming. Self-sufficient,
skilled, and fiercely independent men who taught me how to operate heavy
machinery, weld, and force a plot of land to produce a living for my
family. They were renaissance men – men who
could do anything that needed to be done, and WOULD do what needed to be done
without qualm.
This is why it breaks my heart to see these men become more
and more dependent on the largesse of the Federal Government farm aid
packages. A self-fulfilling prophecy if
there ever was one, designed to reduce the agriculture industry into a
politicized crony establishment, farm aid is only needed because farm aid
exists. A farmer who does not take it cannot
survive farming, because farm aid artificially depresses pricing (while
simultaneously boondoggling to increase them by paying farmers not to produce
crops) and so even the most fiercely independent among them must accept the dane-geld in order to keep the family
business alive.
As a result of all of this, the more politically connected
agri-businesses flex their crony muscles, gaining advantages in the market like
cronies always do, and as a result, more and more family farms shut down, and
sell out to these huge agri-business conglomerates. Conglomerates, as it were, which
are the poster children for why cronyiest policies result in bad businesses in
the first place.
So in an attempt to “help” farmers back in the ‘30s and ‘40s
via government largesse, the Federal Government has destroyed any semblance of
a rational market in the agricultural industry and turned an entire generation
of American farmers into welfare cases against their will (or caused them to go
under and sell out to the government’s cronies in agribusiness).
So when I read a story like this one, where a meat producer
who makes the much-maligned “pink slime” product (never did understand why it
was so maligned, but whatever) vs. a major news network for defaming them and
causing their business to go under due to people revolting against the “pink
slime” in their food, I can’t help but think of my old time-tested allegory of
the Nazis vs. the Communists: on one hand, you have one of the most
crony-infested industries in America today, who produces a faulty product that
does a disservice to every American citizen, and on the other hand, you have
agribusiness…
| In this example, the media are the... or Agribusiness is compared to... Fuck it, it doesn't matter, does it? |
Who do you want to win?
Me? I’m voting for
winter.
They’re both a perfect example for how government meddling
in industry will lead to ruin.
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