Marxists “Divide & Conquer”/ Riley Seeks to Unite

29. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

The following paragraphs are found in their context on the Issues page & on the earlier blog post “Farmers Applaud Failure of Trade Talks” — but I thought they were an important enough theme in our campaign that they should be a stand alone statement as well

One of the underlying trends in both on the American scene & in international geo-politics is the growing rift between “rural / small-town” & “urban / suburban” interests.

The Red-Blue politcal maps that everyone keeps shoving in our faces is just the tip of the iceberg The limosine liberals ultimately want to empty the countryside and turn the Great Plains into a big buffalo park. (Sort of like Stalin.)

So-called conservatives see God’s creation as nothing but “resources” and rural / small-town people as nothing but “cheap labor” to build make their brick-a-brack; consumers to fuel their “global economy” at Wal Mart; and “brave men & women” to fight their wars.

By and large our local customs & slow-paced lifestyles are seen as backwards.

Sadly, many well-meaning folks who want to help their communities play right into the hands of the “progressives” who want to turn their small towns into McTowns.

Ultimately, the way the elitists deal with the threat of an awakening among the “sheeple” in the countryside who just want to be left alone is to do what Marxist do best : “Divide & Conquer.”

They set the “big farmers” against the “small farmers.” Organic vs conventional. Hunters against producers. Enviormentalists vs those who live on the land. Economic development vs traditon.

With Riley as Ag Commissioner we will work together as neighbors for the good of our state, communities, & families.

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Agritourism — If Alabama can do this, why can’t we ?

29. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Our neighbors across the state line help promote their state’s farmers, help their economy, and display their state’s beauty to the world by promoting Agri-tourism. There’s no reason we cannot do the same thing here. It’s all about vision

http://www.alabamaagritourism.com/

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Salter : We already have a “Country Nissan”

29. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

This is an interesting piece from Sid Salter of the Clarion Ledger that highlights the unsung — but vital place that Agricuture plays in our state economy.
Of particular interest is this statement :

– and it’s an industry that operates without all the multi-million-dollar taxpayer incentives granted to Nissan and Toyota.

It’s about time that agriculture regained some of it’s formerly high esteem in our state’s culture & economy — and we don’t need $55 million dollar boondoggles to do it !

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007708220330

August 22, 2007

Still looking for the ‘country Nissan?’ It’s already operating

By Sid Salter
ssalter@clarionledger.com

One of the most recognizable phrases in Mississippi politics over the last decade has been that of state officials finding the mythical “country Nissan” - an industry that would be the rural equivalent of the mammoth auto plants in Blue Springs and Canton.

The $1.3 billion Toyota automotive plant at Blue Springs will employ 2,000 people and has the expectation of landing Mississippi more top-tier automotive manufacturing suppliers for the plant to bring another 2,000 to 3,000 jobs to the state.

Using MDA numbers, the Nissan plant, which opened in 2003, has a network of 186 Mississippi suppliers with nearly 25,000 employees. Nissan directly employs about 4,000 and has an annual capacity of 400,000 vehicles, far more than the 2,000 employees and 150,000 annual capacity in Toyota’s planned first phase in Mississippi.

But the state’s aggressive yet ill-fated effort to establish what politicians called “the country Nissan” in the form of the failed $55 million Mississippi Beef Processors plant in rural Yalobusha County ended in economic and political disaster.

Last week, Mississippi Beef Processors Inc. president Richard Hall Jr. was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for his part in the beef plant fiasco and five years probation. Hall was ordered to make restitution of more than $751,000, the maximum sentence allowed under federal guidelines.

While the finger-pointing and recriminations from the beef plant’s failure continue, the fact remains that Mississippi has had a “country Nissan” all along.

It’s called the Mississippi poultry industry - and it’s an industry that operates without all the multi-million-dollar taxpayer incentives granted to Nissan and Toyota.

Clearly, this writer is more than a little biased about the industry. I live in Forest in the very heart of the state’s poultry industry and I’m friends with poultry growers and poultry processing company executives alike.

I go to church with them and meet them in Wal-Mart and the grocery store. People passing through Forest, Morton, Sebastopol, Carthage, Laurel, Canton, Hattiesburg, Hazlehurst, McComb and the rest of the poultry industry’s whistle stops across the state still complain about the smell.

But as my banker taught me years ago, those feed mills, processing plants and broiler houses smell pretty good - they smell like money for Mississippians.

The Mississippi poultry industry racked up sales in excess of $2.4 billion in 2005, according to an economic impact study just completed by Mississippi State University.

In doing so, the industry directly employed over 24,000 people and indirectly employed another 23,000 people. The payroll from those jobs exceeded $1 billion.

From the broiler houses to the serving table, it’s hard work up and down the line. For every chicken Ceasar salad served with a nice chardonnay in a toney northeast Jackson restaurant, there’s a farm family growing the birds, a truck load of workers catching them, workers toiling on the kill lines and in the cold of the processing and freezer operations.

Trucking operations run 24 hours a day getting the product from farm to market.

While industrial diversification remains key for Mississippi’s future, policy makers would do well to remember that the state’s agricultural base is still capable of creating vast wealth through further processing and value-added products.

Rather than trying to invent a “country Nissan” as was the case with Mississippi Beef Processors, why doesn’t the state invest in fully developing the poultry, catfish, sweet potato, corn and biofuel markets in which Mississippians are already established?

The failed beef plant was a political exercise, not an economic development plan - and it shows.

——————————————————————————–
Contact Perspective Editor Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084; e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com; visit his blog at http://www.clarionledger.com/misc/blogs/ssalter/sidblog.html.

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If Brazil can grow their own fuel - So can Mississippi !

24. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Pull into any fuel station in Brazil and the question will be the same: “Alcool ou gasolina?” Ethanol or gasoline?

Most folks in these united States would think of our South American neighbors as being behind us in economic development & technology. However, two areas that Brazil is outpacing us are :
a) economic development built on their vast agricultural & natural resource base and
b) energy independance through sugar-based ethanol

This link is to an interesting article about how Brazil has been successfully using a sugar based ethanol system since the 70’s to be less dependant on Middle Eastern — or other foreign oil.

 If they can do it there’s no good reason Mississippi can’t — and shouldn’t. When Les Riley is elected commissioner of agriculture we will pursue energy independance & economic growth that is  better for the enviorment, increases security & helps our farmers & rural communities.

Our goal is not to increas the wealth of multinationals & the power of politicians, but to advance liberty by helping farmers while shrinking government. We have a plan to help Mississippi farmers produce fuel w/o multi-million dollar corporate/ taxpayer investments, that will be more beneficial to our farmers & communities.

We need your help !

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Water & Agricultural Aid for the World’s Poorest

24. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Anthony Mathenia — a Missionary from our church is doing some of this same work in Ethiopia. I found this through a link on his Blog ( I would encourage you to sign up for a udates and pray for/ support their work)

This link is from a mission organization that seeks :

“A holistic Christian development program in Bolivia teaching the poor to drill their own deep water wells. We are sponsored by Southland Baptist Church of San Angelo, TX. USA/Hendricks Ave. Baptist of Jacksonville Florida/ World Concern Bolivia/Baptist in Bolivia and other caring churches and individuales “

They also do the practical work of offering ” low cost windmills and low cost alternative, farming tools that help families grow more , stop slashing and burning, protect soils, wtih tools poor families can afford..” that helps ” small farmers trying to move beyond subsistance poverty” as detailed on this link.

The obvious question is, then, what does ANY of this have to do with a campaign for Ag Commissioner ?!?!?

The answer lies in the following :

Shortly after reading about the great work being done by these Christian missionaries, I read an article on South America Daily about a controversy over the way that Peru is inefficiently using all the foriegn aid that has come in since the earthquake.

The contrast between bottom up, Christian charity and top down government aid could not be more clear. One uses meager resources & relationships to provide real help that has many unforseen positive side effects that go well beyond the originally intended goal. The other bureaucratically — and usually tainted with mulitiple ulterior motives — throws money at problems and uses the “bull-in-a-china-shop” approach that often has unforseen consequences in other areas and often creates whole new problems.

Yet, more often than not, people ( even conservative Christians) see a problem & immediately want the governement to “help”.

Let us keep in mind when we go to the ballot box that not every problem can or should be solved by more government and politicians that make promises as such should be suspect.

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New Zealand- how ending subsidies revivied the farm economy

20. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

This is the amazing story of how New Zealand’s agricultural economy & rural culture was saved by less government “help”.
The oddest thing about this, getting rid of subsidies was the farmers’ idea :

What would the world look like without agricultural subsidies? What would the United States look like? If a crystal ball exists for those questions, its name is New Zealand, one of the first and still one of the few modern countries to have completely dismantled its system of agricultural price supports and other forms of economic protection for farmers.

Brace yourself: this is free-market faith to make Adam Smith proud. But the New Zealand experience is pretty persuasive. Well into its second decade of subsidy-free farming, New Zealand enjoys a worldwide reputation for its high-quality, efficient and innovative agricultural systems.

New Zealand agriculture is profitable without subsidies, and that means more people staying in the business. Alone among developed countries of the world, New Zealand has virtually the same percentage of its population employed in agriculture today as it did 30 years ago, and the same number of people living in rural areas as it did in 1920. Although the transition to an unsubsidized farm economy wasn’t easy, memories of the adjustment period are fading fast and today there are few critics to be found of the country’s bold move. . . . .

Interestingly, farming leaders were among the first to recognize the absurdity of the situation and to propose alterations, although they stopped short, at first, of advocating the total elimination of agricultural subsidies. In 1982, Federated Farmers of New Zealand (New Zealand’s leading farmer organization) submitted to the government an economic position paper declaring that controlling inflation, rather than compensating farmers for the consequences of inflation, should be the national priority. They reasoned that a key cause of inflation was the budget deficits required to fund farm subsidies (among other programs), so that more subsidies only made the problem worse. . . .

to read the rest, click here :
http://www.newfarm.org/features/0303/newzealand_subsidies.shtml

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Freedom to Farm OR Government Registering your Yard Chickens ???

20. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Ronald Reagan said the most frightening statement in the English language was :
“I’m from the government, I’m here to help you.”

In the article linked here, Conservative columnist Joyce Morrison details an effort by the Federal government to register every head of livestock in the country ( from the largest cattle herd to your grandmaw’s little flock of laying hens).

http://www.newswithviews.com/Morrison/joyce41.htm

Failure to comply with this proposed “National Animal Identification System” ( NAIS for short) carries heavy enough fines & penalties that it will force most small scale producers out of business & be costly and intrusive to all farmers.

The rationale behind this program is “to protect us”. Remember the warning attributed to Ben Franklin:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

As I mentioned in my essay : USDA- A Government Program that Works ? The causes of the health and secuity threat that leads to a “need” for Animal ID (NAIS) are easy enough to identify.

Heavy regulation (& the high costs thereof) of the meat industry has led to an unprecedented consolidation. As late as the 1980’s the countries three largest meat companies controlled only 15% of the market. This situation has more than completely reversed itself over the last two decades so that now these three companies control in excess of 85% of the market.

Other than harming a few areas’ economies locally & giving less of a market to livestock producers why should this matter? Wouldn’t this mean more efficiency, more buying power, and easier oversight — therefore a cheaper, safer meat supply? Only on Mars or in the isolated academic world of economists. The fact is that this less competitive environment has made our meat cost more for less quality & variety. Beyond this, food safety issues and bio-terrorist threats are much more amplified if a handful of packers are selling 85% of the meat to a handful of national grocery chains.
Things like mad cow, e-coli, and bio-terrorism are easily contained to a very small area in a world of hundreds of country meat packers dotting the countryside.On the other hand, the only response available with a centralized, highly-regulated meat supply is to install layer upon layer of ineffective, draconian bureaucracy. The latest of which is a little known effort called the NAIS ( National Animal Identification System) which seeks to register every head of livestock in the country & keep them in a database. Mom & Pop cattle operators & Grandmothers with a folk of laying hens could be heavily fined for non-compliance.

We can’t find, count or keep up with 12 million plus illegal aliens in a time of war & terrorism– how can they propose to find the resources to count horses & pigs?!?

If you want an ag commissioner that will interpose on behalf of Mississippi’s farmers and small livestock operators against invasive & expensive regulations from Washington and who will work towards market based solutions to the problems of packer concentration, please give me your vote & support.

Les Riley

P.S. 

For more information on this pending ”Stalinesque” effort to controll/ manage everything from dairy goats to parakeets look at these informative sites & articles:
http://farmersandfreeholders.org/

http://www.nonais.org/

http://www.westonaprice.org/federalupdate/aa2006/infoalert_032006.html

http://www.smallfarmtoday.com/Ridge/2006/Jul-Oct.asp

http://newswithviews.com/brownfield/brownfield54.htm

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul326.html

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Revive the Family Farm - and Restore Liberty ?

20. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

“Agriculture… is the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect.” –Thomas Jefferson to David Williams, 1803. ME 10:429
While THE bottom line foundation for America’s freedom and prosperity was Christianity & the family ( in that order) one of the major foundations this country was built upon was the family farm. With it’s demise, came the decline of much of our cultural stability & the vibrancy of our small town life. Jefferson warned against this with statements like :

“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442One of the things that I have proposed is using the Ag Commissioner’s office to secure private funding for a Small Farm Research & Education Center in Mississippi  — modeled after the Missouri Small Farms Research Center, but funded w/o using taxpayer money.

The AgriCenter International just outside Memphis, TN is an example of how Privately funded Ag research can be a help to farmers as well as more general economic & community development. However, whereas the Agricenter mostly focuses on commodity agriculture — which is the backbone of the economies of many Mississippi communities , we would like to see an effort to find enterprises that will help more families and young people get into farming on a small, but profitable scale as well.The Riley for Agriculture campaign would like to see Mississippi dedicate the attention to helping families make a full time living off small farms again that we put into recruiting large out-of-state companies.

For what we have in mind to try and duplicate here — or if you are simply interested in Agrarianism or simplifying your lifestyle by starting a home business/ farming enterprise on a small scale, check out this site for a wealth of practical ideas & information Missouri Alternatives Center
http://agebb.missouri.edu/mac/

Particularly helpful is there alphabetical listing of small farm enterprises with various articles on each ( here). There are several hundred headings & each with practical information. The site brags “On these links you will be able to find information on everything you want to raise or grow — from Asparagus to Watermelons, and Aquaculture to Worms!” and they do not exagerrate.

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Battle for Rural America - by Derry Brownfield

20. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

This piece by Derry Brownfield is four years old, but it still rings true :http://www.newswithviews.com/brownfield/brownfield19.htm

THE BATTLE FOR RURAL AMERICA Derry Brownfield May 4, 2003 NewsWithViews.com A couple of generations ago, our city cousins would drive a few hundred miles to visit grandma and grandpa down on the farm. There were a few city-raised folks that had never been out of town but the majority of Americans had some rural background. They were in touch with aunts and uncles and friends of the family and they had a fair knowledge of where food comes from and country living in general. Not so as we live in this high-tech world of a new century. There is actually a battle brewing between the city dwellers and those independent individuals that want to raise their families away from the congested, polluted, metropolitan areas. Today there are some big differences between rural and urban dwellers and the gap is widening. Most of us living out-in-the-sticks would be perfectly happy to just be left alone. The following excerpts are taken from an article titled “The Battle For Rural America” by Sheriff Michael E. Cook, Retired. It looks like the battle in America between the urban and rural dweller is still in full swing. The fight to move the rural people from the land into an urban area is going strong. People can’t leave others alone where they see that they are happy and living well. They want to drive through the rural areas and never see any people or signs of people on the landscape. Here are some statistics that show the murder rate and other crimes are lower in the rural areas of the nation. Remember the red and blue map that came out following the last presidential election? The red (rural) Bush area rate was only two per 100,000 people. It proves what I have always said, “An armed society is indeed a polite one and more crime free.” One of the last bright spots about living in rural America is that you are less likely to be the target of terror. Most terrorist know that we are armed in rural America and also that we are spread out so they can’t get us all at once. People living in cities are easy to bunch up and overcome. History shows that one reason we haven’t been invaded by another countries army is because we are spread out and almost every home has (or used to have) firearms in it. They would lose too many people if they attempted to conquer this nation. So if they can get us all into urban areas and take our firearms, then it would be much easier. Anyone who is fighting to take all our rural land is also fighting to take our right to bear arms. That person is a spy and a traitor who is attempting to help overthrow our government and take our freedoms from us. So stand strong rural America, you have the best life style in the world and others are jealous and want to take it from you. We must stand strong together and never let that happen. God Bless America. © 2003 Derry Brownfield - All Rights Reserved

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Americans need “China Free Food”

17. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Americans Need China-Free Food
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2007/aug07/07-08-15.html
 
Americans Need China-Free Food
 
by Phyllis Schlafly
August 16, 2007
 
The scandal of imported products from Communist China has accelerated to a level that the public should demand “China-free” labels on anything that goes into a mouth. This includes not only food, vitamins and medicines but toothpaste and toys which, as all parents know, go into children’s mouths.

The U.S. recall of nearly a million toys already sold by Fisher-Price, because its paint contains excessive amounts of lead, is only the latest in a string of Chinese product safety scandals. Those toys are Fisher-Price’s multi-million-dollar mistake, but the safety of our food and drugs is the responsibility of our government; that’s why we have a Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Communist Chinese government’s response was, first, to deny the problem, then, to execute its top food and drug regulator. Sorry, that doesn’t assuage our anxiety.

It would take a couple of generations and many billions of dollars to bring Chinese food up to U.S. health and safety standards. Nearly half of China’s population lives without sewage treatment, and the water isn’t safe, whether from the tap or in sea or pond.

The Chinese food scandal first came to public attention this spring when hundreds of U.S. cats and dogs died. The FDA discovered that our pet food used wheat flour from China contaminated with melamine, a chemical used to make plastics and fertilizers that fooled testers with false high protein readings.

The FDA announced an extensive recall of 100 pet food brands, but nobody asked the question, why is the United States importing wheat products? Can America possibly be short of wheat?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that as many as 20 million chickens and thousands of hogs in several states may have been fed contaminated feed.

In May, 900,000 tubes of toothpaste imported from China were withdrawn because tests showed that glycerine had been replaced by diethylene glycol, a chemical used in antifreeze. This poisoned toothpaste has turned up in U.S. hospitals, prisons, and juvenile detention centers.

We import 80 percent of the seafood we eat, and China is our largest foreign source. The FDA says that a quarter of the shrimp coming from China contains antibiotics that are not allowed in U.S. food production and cannot be eliminated by cooking.

The FDA rejected 51 shipments of catfish, eel, shrimp, and tilapia because of contaminants such as salmonella, veterinary drugs, and a cancer-causing chemical called nitrofuran.

China raises most of its fish in water contaminated with raw sewage, and China compensates by using dangerous drugs and chemicals, many of which are banned in the U.S. The Chinese try to control the spread of bacterial infections, disease and parasites by pumping the food with antibiotics and the waters with pesticides.

Chicken pens are often suspended over ponds where seafood is farmed, recycling chicken feces as food for the fish.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to allow China to sell cooked (but not raw) chickens to the U.S. even though public health officials have warned for several years about a potential avian influenza pandemic. Doesn’t the U.S. have enough chickens?

China exports more than 80 percent of the world’s vitamin C, which is put in thousands of processed foods from fruit drinks to applesauce to granola, and is used as a key food preservative. There is no claim of contamination yet, but many worry about dependence on China, which has driven all U.S. competitors out of business.

Last year, China sold us $675 million in pharmaceutical ingredients and products. It is estimated that 20 percent of finished generic and over-the-counter drugs, and 40 percent of the active ingredients for pills come from China or India.

The United States long ago banned lead in paint because it can cause learning disabilities, kidney failure, anemia and irreversible brain damage in children. But lead is widely used in Chinese manufacturing, and 80 percent of toys sold in the U.S. come from China.

Every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the U.S. so far this year was manufactured in China. Because of lead paint, the U.S. has recalled hundreds of thousands of children’s necklaces, bracelets, earrings, charms, rings, toy drums, and 1.5 million Thomas & Friends wooden trains.

Other recalled products include a ghoulish fake eyeball toy filled with kerosene, Easy-Bake Ovens that could trap children’s fingers and burn them, and 450,000 tires that lacked an essential safety feature called a gum strip to keep the belts of a tire from separating.

The FDA inspects only one percent of our imports from China. It’s not realistic to believe that doubling or tripling the inspection rate would make any significant difference in the safety of foods or toys.

Nor would FDA on-site inspection of producers in China be practical. When FDA investigators visited China in May, they found the factories closed, the machinery dismantled, and all records destroyed.

 

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