1. IrvingSnodgrass - July 9, 1999 - 10:49 AM PT
I am extremely pleased to introduce the Fray's latest Reading thread, a discussion of "In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest." The author and the host for this thread are one and the same: the Fray's own Spudboy. It's a very special occasion to have a fraygrant discuss his own work (only the second time ever), and I look forward to a discussion as informative and interesting as the book itself.
For those of you who haven't obtained the book yet, it is highly recommended (but make sure you have strong glasses to handle the small print -- not Spuds's fault). It's well-researched, well-written, and a treat to read. If you're lucky, you might be able to get an autographed copy (as I did)!
And without further ado, I turn things over to Spudboy (at least I hope he's around...)
2. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 11:55 AM PT
Thanks, Irv.
I'm going to try a different approach to this thread by sidestepping, at least for now, the temptation to go through it chronologically, unless I find it goes that way on its own. Instead, I think I'll start off by simply answering questions that people who've read the book might have, and then see if the discussion winds us through the book on its own. The Fray has a way of going taking off on its own anyway, so ...
Some notes about how the book came about: Those who've read it know that I've been dealing with our friends in the extremist right since about 1978, when the Aryan Nations moved into the same part of northern Idaho where I was working as a newspaper editor. (Indeed, I used to receive letters to the editor from Robert Mathews, later to achieve a kind of fame as the leader of The Order.) My contact with the subject was an on-and-off thing over the ensuing years, depending largely on how criminal their activities became.
But in 1994, a friend of mine who conducts political research passed along to me a "Free Militia" manual. It wasn't hard to figure out that the militias were the latest strategy for attaining mainstream acceptance from the same people I'd been dealing with for years on the far right. I was just beginning to launch a side career as a free-lance writer, and the story seemed like a relevant and interesting one. So I went about the work of conducting a series of interviews, attending militia meetings and conducting background research. After an interview with Militia of Montana's John Trochmann, I decided to circle the coming date of April 19 in my calendar book. And the rest, as they say, was history.
3. harper - July 9, 1999 - 12:14 PM PT
Let me see if I can get a copy of your book. I'd really like to get in on this discussion.
4. cllrdr - July 9, 1999 - 12:34 PM PT
First off, I'd like your reaction to the "mainstream" media and the deafening silence they've had on this -- the most important story of the decade. They have, as wel all know, been busy on the *much bigger story*: blow jobs.
It has always been my impression that part of the reason for this grotesque disparity has to do with class, as much as laziness. Nobody had to do any "legwork" to cover Monicamania and Impeachment-O-Rama. More important it didn't require dealing with people outside of one's own class.
Am I right or am I right?
5. ChristinO - July 9, 1999 - 1:42 PM PT
Nor did it require anyone to venture outside the beltline except to go to Beverly Hills for a couple shots of Monica. Gawd forbid they should go anywhere that real life occurs.
Spudboy,
I'll be picking up a copy this weekend. I'm looking forward to this and hope I can keep up with the reading!
6. patsyrolph - July 9, 1999 - 2:09 PM PT
Spudboy: I have read and enjoyed your book (now how can I get it autographed?). I think I at least partially agree with cellar; my initial reaction was who _are_ these peolpe? in _God's Country_ is the most even handed reporting I've read in a long,long time. It altered many of my opinions.
7. azurenw - July 9, 1999 - 3:05 PM PT
spudboy -
Is there much of a connection between the NW militia groups your book discusses and the World Church of the Creator? The two kinds of organizations seem to have some common goals.
8. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 4:08 PM PT
Cllrdr (and ChristinO): Well, you're humming my tune, that's for sure. I can't tell you how frustrating it has been trying to market the stories that I wrote en route to finishing this book. Most editors were simply not interested; either they thought we'd be giving free publicity to kooks, or they thought it just wasn't very important.
I think the biggest problem isn't so much laziness. I can assure you that MSNBC devoted a great amount of legwork and energy on covering Monicagate, as did everyone else. Certainly people worked *hard* on it.
I'd argue that the problem is more one of having a narrow vision. Editors and producers aren't really original thinkers these days, sorry to report. They tend to go with what they know instead of looking at what's new. A juicy political scandal promises much higher ratings than a troublesome and complex discussion of the growth of right-wing extremism. After all, any worthwhile handling of the latter immediately breaks down if you try to make it into a black-and-white, easily understood sort of issue. It's actually very complex. But with Monica, it was pretty easy for people to quickly choose up sides.
I'm reluctant to make it a matter of class, though such a model would not be inaccurate, since there are some elements of that at work. I view it as a matter of “urban-centrism”: Media folk, being largely urban creatures themselves, have only a dim understanding of rural (and, yes, working-class) issues. We tend to think that the only issues that matter are the ones that intrude on our particular realities: crime, urban policy, traffic, that sort of thing. The idea of covering the demise of the family farm bores us to tears -- even if it's actually one of the most important stories of the decade, culturally speaking.
9. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 4:13 PM PT
Patsy: At some point I'll provide a P.O. box where people can send their copies of the book for autographing, though I'm not prepared to handle that right now. Mebbe as the thread winds down. I appreciate your reading of it, though. I'm curious as to which perceptions changed and how.
A quick plug for those looking to buy the book still: Here's the Amazon page for it. For those who prefer to go straight to the source, here's the WSU Press page through which it can be ordered too (albeit more slowly).
10. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 4:16 PM PT
Azure: The short answer is yes, there certainly is common ground, and in fact several outright connections. First, let me reprise the info I posted in US Politics about the World Church of the Creator, for information purposes:
I have, as mentioned, discussed the WCOTC on several occasions (notably when ThomasD naively asked if there were any far-right groups in Illinois). Of all the really vile stuff I come across in researching the extremist right, theirs is probably the most repellent. I thought I had developed something of a mortician's steel in dealing with these guys until I came across the WCOTC and found myself gagging.
Here's the story: The World Church of the Creator was founded in 1973 by a Ukrainian immigrant named Ben Klassen, who made a living in real estate. Klassen -- who at one time was a member of both the Florida Legislature and George Wallace's presidential campaign -- struck it rich with a can opener he invented and put the money into founding a religion based on his beliefs. The religion's name: “Creativity.”
These beliefs were laid out in a series of books built around the idea that Christianity (founded by a Jew, you see) was at the root of America's decay. Instead, the greatest religion was one that would revolve around the white race, which Klassen believed was “the supreme act of creation.” Only whites were capable of divine “creativity” -- thus the name of the religion.
The books, with titles like “Nature's Eternal Religion” and “The White Man's Bible,” include chapters about how Jews are plotting to destroy America and enslave mankind, and how they are inducing a “black plague” of “subhuman” races. I won't quote from this stuff because it's just too nasty. (cont'd)
11. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 4:30 PM PT
Finally, in 1993, Klassen was forced to liquidate his holdings in order to prevent them from becoming the property of those he hated: One of his Florida followers killed a black man, and the SPLC successfully represented the victim's family in a civil case against the WCOTC. So Klassen sold off everything and gave the money to William Pierce, leader of the National Alliance and author of “The Turner Diaries.” Then he went home and took and overdose of sleeping pills, and that, we all thought, was that.
Unfortunately, Klassen had a number of devotees who strived to carry on his work, notably a former cattleman from Montana named Rudy Stanko. Stanko had been carted off to prison for selling tainted meat to schoolchildren (a crime which he blamed on a massive Jewish conspiracy), and during that prison term had become WCOTC Devotee Numero Uno. Before his death, Klassen had designated Stanko as the man who would receive the Creativity torch.
_________
Now, to complete the answer: Rudy Stanko has extensive connections with both the Freemen and the Militia of Montana, and if you become familiar with the Freemen's philosophical POV, you'll see that they're drinking from the same basic well. More to the point, Matt Hale's ascent to WCOTC leadership occurred during a gathering in July 1996 in western Montana where numerous Freeman and militia types were present (I nearly covered the event myself but wound up relying on observers).
However, there is an important distinction between Christian Identity (the wellspring of the Freemen philosophy) and the WCOTC: Klassen's religion is specifically non-Christian, while CI at least models itself strongly on the fundamentalist approach, though obviously it differs somewhat doctrinally. This difference actually makes WCOTC much more attractive to young people, especially the Eric Harris/Dylan Klebold types in search of an alternative worldview that doesn't require Bible studies.
12. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 4:46 PM PT
Oops! Left out the last graf of the summary from Politics. Here it is:
But Stanko, it seems, wasn't all that eager to receive the mantle (since there was no money attached, and he himself was no longer what you'd call a spring chicken) and retired back to Montana -- not far from the Freemen -- with Klassen's books and materials and set about distributing them by leaving them on people's doorsteps (always an effective tactic). Meanwhile, a young fellow from East Peoria, Ill., named Matt Hale showed up in Montana during one of Stanko's WCOTC gatherings, made it clear he had the desire and energy to become the church leader, and was promptly dubbed “Pontifex Maximus.” Since then, he's been building the WCOTC base in Illinois.
13. RyckNelson - July 9, 1999 - 5:40 PM PT
The news your spreading is important Spudboy, good work.
These groups represent gang mentality imho. They remind me of the Brown Shirts in some ways, zealot person worshipers. Followers, needy of group think mentality.
The complexity isn't touched by my labelling them this way. Your topic intrigues me, yet repulses me to the core. I would rather marginalize these pathetics than give them time or exposure. Yet, they will be destructive without someone babysitting them. So, who is babysitting this childish bunch anyway?
14. Philistine - July 9, 1999 - 5:43 PM PT
Hey! Turns out there is something to read in the Fray after all.
I'll see if I can find a copy of this one, too.
15. uzmakk - July 9, 1999 - 6:17 PM PT
Ah haven't read any of the posts or the book yet, but Ah know Ah could live up in God's Country with them peaeple.
16. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 8:16 PM PT
spudboy, thank you. Please allow me to ask this question:
Do you know what these World Church of the Creator people think they are going to do with the American Indian 'mud people'? They can't deport us, what is their plan?? The irony is a hoot.
17. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 8:19 PM PT
Ryck: Glad you wrote Message #13, because it raises an important point that is kind of central to my thesis. I'm like you: intrigued and repulsed simultaneously. And like you, I used to be wary of giving them too much attention -- after all, that's what they *want.*
My first experience with this came in 1978-79, when I was editor of the Sandpoint Daily Bee (a young punk of 22 then). The Aryan Nations had just moved in down the road at Hayden Lake, and we struggled with how to handle the coverage of them. Finally we decided to essentially ignore them and hope they'd go away. Five years later -- after numerous cross burnings, racial-harassment cases and The Order -- that policy changed (though I had by that time moved on to bigger papers).
That approach, though, is still largely how most urban editors handle white-supremacist stories. “I don't think we should cover this,” I had one tell me recently. “If you give them any attention it just encourages them.”
Well, obviously, that approach doesn't work. They don't go away if you ignore them. In fact, they take the silence as a tacit admission that *they* are right and that the mainstream is simply too cowardly to defend itself. And the vacuum gives them free rein to recruit more or less at will.
The flip side of all this is that the common shape of opposition actually helps feed their flames too. I'll use the recent confrontation between neo-Nazis and protesters at Coeur d'Alene as a prime example. This was a disturbing scene because you had busloads of out-of-towners showing up and creating a violent situation; these protesters' arrogance included the assumption that local folks were sitting on their hands. Actually, they had a subtle appreciation of the dynamic at work with hate groups like the Aryan Nations that their would-be opponents lack.
18. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 8:20 PM PT
Worse irony still, American Indians are forced to embrace racism by law. Do the World Church of the Creator people recognize their wannabe problem here? It's a bitch.
19. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 8:21 PM PT
The dynamic arises out of the extremists' worldview, which is a heroic one. They see themselves as cultural heroes, out to rescue their race or their society from the depradations of evil influences. This kind of view necessitates creating and naming an enemy -- in this case, Jews, “mud races” and “race traitors.” (White supremacists frequently harken to the “14 Words,” a motto created by The Order's David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The heroic mindset is obvious here.) Everything follows from that.
Groups like the Jewish Defense League and Citizens Against Nazis -- who plainly are feeding their own heroic myths -- play right into this dynamic. They give the haters real-life enemies that emerge from their usual abstractions, and they feed their persecution complexes, satisfying the need to believe that there are forces out to suppress and destroy them.
Their approach is in stark contrast to the locals in Coeur d'Alene, who sent their own message to the AN this year by issuing them a parade permit, as requested -- on a route that led directly to the city landfill. Meanwhile, local human-rights organizers have put together their own celebration of diversity on the same day, which in recent years has drawn crowds three times as large as the AN's. Again, message sent, and it's far more effective.
20. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 8:22 PM PT
So I don't think they need “babysitting” -- just effective opposition that doesn't play into the hero-enemy dichotomy. Who's effective at this? First, I've found local opposition to be far and away the most worthwhile. They do, however, rely on support from some of the better national groups -- typically human-rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. They do a good job of monitoring extremists' activities. But their mission is undercut by the fact that they have to raise funds for their work, which is in turn used against them whenever they raise important issues (“Oh, you're just trying to scare up dollars” is the typical reaction, especially from the conservative quarters where their points cause a great deal of discomfort).
I don't think ‘babysitting' is any kind of answer. But I do think principled, sturdy opposition that refuses to accept nutball theories or wild suppositions, while still addressing the underlying issues of disenfranchisement and government misbehavior, *does* go a long way toward defusing the problem.
21. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 8:26 PM PT
Uzmakk: You won't find many Southern accents in the Northwest.
In fact, let me take this opportunity to point out that this kind of stereotyping -- making rural folk out to be hapless doofuses whose needs hardly are worth considering -- is in fact a large part of the problem that I hope to address here.
22. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 8:35 PM PT
Azure: I think WCOTC's approach to Natives is roughly similar to that of Col. John "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" Chivington. I'll check my copy of "Nature's Eternal Religion" tonight, but I'm pretty sure that, since white people are God's highest creation for them, they have no compunction about rubbing y'all out, just as they recommend for Jews.
23. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 8:40 PM PT
hehehehe, that's pretty funny.
24. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 8:41 PM PT
That's a very weak position.
25. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 8:56 PM PT
Go ahead and read the short stories in Sherman Alexie's _The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven_. They are very sad, dangerous stories, so be careful.
26. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 9:11 PM PT
Reality is pretty scary, enit?
27. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 9:12 PM PT
Azure: For those who can't read, a good second recommendation is "Smoke Signals."
Here are the relevant WCOTC quotes:
"Our deliberate and unflagging policy is to stop subsidizing the mud peoples of the world, and LET THEM WITHER ON THE VINE. We should never have disrupted Nature's plan in the first place. In the future, let Nature take care of the mud races on their own merits, and Nature will properly reduce their numbers to where they will never again pose a threat to the survival of Nature's Finest." -- Ben Klassen, WCOTC founder
"It is the program of the CHURCH OF THE CREATOR to keep expanding the White Race and keep crowding the mud races without necessarily engaging in any open warfare or without necessarily killing anybody. In doing so, we are only following the same principle as the colonization and westward expansion of America. During this great and productive epoch of the White Race, we kept expanding westward and onward by settling the lands that were occupied I by an inferior human sub-species, namely, the Indians. It is true that there were some minor clashes, but there was not any open war of extermination. Had America not pursued this program of pushing onward and crowding the Indian, we would never have built this great stronghold of the White Race which we now call America. This is the real American way and we of the CHURCH OF THE CREATOR are expanding the American way on a world-wide basis." -- Matt Hale, Pontifex Maximus
28. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 9:13 PM PT
"Does the Church still support the idea of shipping the mud races back to their native lands?" "Of course, we have never deviated from that position. We never will and that's only the first step. We will withdraw all aid to them and they will wither on the vine. And one day white people will be basking in the sun of Africa in their own countries. I like that thought, Africa is a beautiful continent lets colonize the place as it should have been done, it was done at one time but it wasn't done right. It's time to do it right and drive the non-whites off the face of the earth." -- Hale
29. ACEofSPADES - July 9, 1999 - 9:16 PM PT
"Groups like the Jewish Defense League and Citizens Against Nazis -- who plainly are feeding their own heroic myths -- play right into this dynamic. "
I *knew* this was all the Jews' fault.
30. ACEofSPADES - July 9, 1999 - 9:17 PM PT
Just kidding, Spudder. Put that rifle away.
31. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 9:22 PM PT
Rifle? Moi?
I forgot to mention the World Jewish Congress, also obnoxious, shrill and counter-productive in their tactics, IMHO.
You reminded me, though, of the point I meant to make in all that: Demonization and marginalization is the neo-Nazis' whole agenda. When their opponents adopt the same tactics, they come to resemble them, and (as I indicated) they play right into their game.
32. ACEofSPADES - July 9, 1999 - 9:26 PM PT
And don't forget the Jew Media.
33. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 9:44 PM PT
What is the Jew Media? Are the responsible for
Jewish Humor?
34. AzureNW - July 9, 1999 - 9:46 PM PT
the = they
fart on this stifffff interface
35. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 9:55 PM PT
Yes, I have been reminded by some of our more rational and perceptive readers recently that I am indeed a slavering minion of the evil Jewish media. There was, for instance, this response to my recent package at MSNBC on domestic terrorism:
"Soon all America will know who is really behind the terrorism !!! The Elite Satanists Families that own the MSNBC Media and Banks !!! Justice Is Coming !!!"
Of course, I consulted with my New World Order masters about this troubling message, and we agreed to begin bombarding this troublesome person's home with our Permanent Stupidity Ray.
Or were we too late?
36. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 10:08 PM PT
And while we're on the subject...
There's this breaking news about the two white supremacists who apparently killed a gay couple in California this week. Seems they might be the same fellows who burned some synagogues there recently.
37. IrvingSnodgrass - July 9, 1999 - 10:17 PM PT
Spuds:
Your Permanent Stupidity Ray will never work. Your target is undoubtedly wearing a tin-foil hat to guard against just such attacks.
38. RyckNelson - July 9, 1999 - 10:23 PM PT
OK, now I'm mad. This Phineas Priesthood has just found itself an enemy. I'm not happy with their ideology to kill the mixed race couples.
I suffered an abomination of letters without post marks back when I married fifteen years ago. The letters expounding vehemently how evil my mixed marriage was. This crime was never completely solved. Though a retired white professor was reprimanded many years later for the same atrociousness to a political leaders daughter.
These Phineas characters piss me off. I've gained fear since these last two horrible killing sprees included race motivation in their lunacy. I'm getting ideas that these kids have to be screened through high school. Looked closely at. Interviewed perhaps. Well that's the paranoia of raising a child. But, these lunatics are bringing that paranoia home. This paranoia isn't necessary.
It's infuriating! Sheesh, the thoughts I get of these groups brings me to their level. I would rather the FBI storm all of these groups, shut 'em down. Make them hurt! But, then what? The cost of freedom and lives would be enormously high in that scenario.
39. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 10:31 PM PT
Ryck: The Phineas Priesthood is something of an enigma. It's not really an organization -- it's more of an idea, like the militias themselves; an organizing strategy commingled with a certain philosophy that avoids an overt structure. If you were to try to target them for investigation or any kind of suppressive efforts, you'd never find them, outside of the random cells you might encounter. That's how leaderless resistance is supposed to work.
Have you, by chance, read Chapter 6 yet?
40. RyckNelson - July 9, 1999 - 10:42 PM PT
Here
and
Here are sites of hate. They contain Phineas references. They also contain the spew of white trash race mongers.
41. RyckNelson - July 9, 1999 - 10:44 PM PT
Um, no I haven't, so you want me to get the book, eh?
Hmmm, suppose it wouldn't hurt. (me arms been twisted)
42. spudboy - July 9, 1999 - 11:12 PM PT
Ryck: Here is the Web site of Richard Kelly Hoskins, creator of the Phineas Priesthood concept. He runs an outfit called Virginia Publishing Co. that puts out the requisite texts.
43. spudboy - July 10, 1999 - 12:15 AM PT
Irv: Actually, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the people who profess wearing tin-foil hats in the Free Republic are just kidding. Go to a Preparedness Expo sometime and you'll see what I mean.
44. spudboy - July 10, 1999 - 12:23 AM PT
I guess they don't have many of those in Bali, though.
45. IrvingSnodgrass - July 10, 1999 - 4:27 AM PT
Heck, Spuds, it's hard to even find tin-foil here.
46. uzmakk - July 10, 1999 - 7:39 AM PT
Lurk. Just read through the thread. Amazing stuff. Guess I have to get my hands on the book. Ahhhhh, one thing comes to mind, spudboy, in Indispensible Enemiies, The Politics of Misrule in America by Walter Karp (nominated for a National Book Award), I believe he says that the government has been trying to get the farmers off the land for years, trying to close down the family farms. All government policy benefits agribusiness and is detrimental to the small farmer. (How about that Bovine Growth Hormone, the country is awash in milk and the gov't decides that we need BGH) None of this is inevitable, or even good. As a matter of fact U.S. government policy might even cause some kind of a strange and frightening backlash taking strange and frightening forms. Wadda you think?
Ofcourse, the story told by the capitalists and the Jew media is quite different, production is up, profits are up, the health of the stock market is piped to all of us intelligent people as lullaby and bedtime story, and we shall all be working within the behemoth organizations of capitalism soon when they start to devour themselves..
47. spudboy - July 10, 1999 - 8:52 AM PT
Uzmakk: Government, like the media, is geared toward the interests of the greatest numbers of people in a democracy, so naturally its policies are urban-centric as well. And I think it's fair to say that government policy has in fact favored creating what its economists argue is a more efficient way of delivering food goods to the consumer: "streamlining" agribusiness by turning it, like other industries in America, into one dominated by a few large companies rather than several hundred thousand small ones.
That certainly is what has taken place. Agriculture right now is dominated by about five big companies, and they are rapidly driving the family farmer out of business (it is a fait accompli in the pork business, a fact which has escaped most Americans, along with its significance). This is known as the vertical and horizontal integration of the food system. From agricultural economist William Heffernan, University of Missouri: "Vertical integration occurs in any given commodity when a firm manufactures and/or sells most of the inputs needed to produce a crop or livestock, and then maintains control over the production, marketing and processing of that commodity and sells it as a brand name in the supermarket. It controls the system from 'seed to shelf.' "
(The four biggest companies, BTW, are ConAgra, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and Philip Morris.)
I'm not even going to get into some of the obvious problems this scenario raises, such as the long-term ramifications of such consolidation, or the concerns that we're already seeing from massive corporate farms about food quality and environmental impacts (though I'll be happy to tackle them as we go along here). What's relevant here is the impact it's had on small-town America.
48. spudboy - July 10, 1999 - 8:55 AM PT
Because fewer people are now employed making the usual crappy money that farming offers, and the tax base has shriveled up as corporate farms take over the land base, the infrastructure in rural America is positively in shambles. Go into the downtown of most small towns and you'll find them boarded up, where once there were thriving small economies with corner drugstores and a local moviehouse and a local hardware store. Now everyone has to drive to a regional center where they can buy it all cheap at Wal-Mart. The schools, once the models of sturdy American education, can barely afford to hold a bake sale these days. And health care? Forget it. No doctor in his right mind would make a living in the country nowadays.
This is an important cultural change, and the Patriot movement's rise reflects the anger that it produces. Consider the continuing high rate of suicide in rural America (for instance, suicide last year became the leading cause of death on farms and ranches in Montana, finally outpacing work-related accidents). These are important signals.
“Losing your place” in a farming culture is more than just losing a job; urban workers can always pick up and move on to another job. But a farmer who loses his place usually is losing something that has been in his family for generations. He is literally losing his place in life. And it doesn't take long for the bewilderment to turn to anger.
This anger, and its concomitant irrationality, is either inverted and internalized, in which case it plays out as suicide; or it is externalized. In that event, it plays out as the scapegoating and paranoia of the Patriot movement.
49. spudboy - July 10, 1999 - 8:59 AM PT
Let me finish with an appropriate observation from my friend Jean Rosenfeld, a religious-studies professor at UCLA: “One should not discount the mythological importance of the family farm. (Read a backlog of _Reader's Digest_ just to get the flavor of the American myth.) The decline and fall of a mythical segment of society can and does give rise to radical backlash. Food for the soul is every bit as important as loose change in the pocketbook or a slice of the stock market. In fact, it may be more important. Thus, the ‘decline' of the farm leaves a spiritual void and the rise of global agribusiness creates a biological void. Taken together, these two voids may give rise to greater social and spiritual instability in the future.”
Now, it's a beautiful day outside and I'm going to go enjoy it. I'll check back in later today.
50. spudboy - July 10, 1999 - 9:07 AM PT
Argh! I just noticed that I accidentally omitted a paragraph of Heffernan's information that was intended for Message #47, to follow the graf on vertical integration. Here it is:
"Horizontal integration occus when the same firms expand in any given sector of the food system, such as broiler production or beef processing. Three or four firms, most often transnational corporations, now control between 40 and 80 percent of the slaughtering, milling, proccessing and shipping of most grains and livestock in the United States. For the most part, the same firms that dominate the U.S. food system control the system that moves food products in the international arena. While farm families struggle to survive on an average of three to four percent return on their investment, the food firms expect to receive at least 20 percent."
51. uzmakk - July 10, 1999 - 9:14 AM PT
Quite so, Spud. But is it not amazing that all of the productive farmland in the country will be controlled by just a few fellows. I hope they decide that feeding us is a profitable enough business. Seems to be so far. I have heard about those modern pig farms,quite the monstrosities.
I had better say that the comment about capitalists and Jew media was said for effect, lest some get the wrong impression. Heaven forbid.
52. IrvingSnodgrass - July 10, 1999 - 9:19 AM PT
Spuds:
Check out ProfEmeritus's posts in the Travel thread about returning to the farming community he grew up in 70 years ago. All the businesses have closed, and the vitality of the community is completely gone. His comments lend poignance to yours, and one can see where the anger comes from.
53. cllrdr - July 10, 1999 - 11:16 AM PT
I can't underestimate the importance of this thread, and the book it's devoted to.
This is the most important story of the moment. Isn't it odd that the "mainstream" media is so cluseless about it?
No, not odd -- pathetic!
54. elliot803 - July 10, 1999 - 4:41 PM PT
Of course, our libertarian friends will just shrug their shoulders, defend the collapse of the farming communities in the interests of the free market and economic efficiency, and reject any idea that the government has a responsibility to step in and help these people preserve their businesses or their communities.
55. Greystoke - July 10, 1999 - 4:49 PM PT
Elliot
"the government has a responsibility to step in and help these people preserve their businesses or their communities."
So what do you propose? The US already has rather generous farm subsidies and price supports.
56. AuNaturel - July 10, 1999 - 5:26 PM PT
Government "support" is a large part of the reason family farms have collapsed. The most common reason the family farm goes down the tubes in the part of Michigan where I come from is the land value is taxed at it highest possible value (what it is worth as residential real estate) rather than what it is actually used for. I have seen 80 acre spreads sporting bienial six figure tax bills.
Plus you will note that retail price support programs do not help the small producer nearly as much as the large producer and the retail outlets.
57. uzmakk - July 10, 1999 - 6:33 PM PT
Fucking shit. I just have to say that I lost a post that I worked for over an hour on. FUCKING SHIT.
58. IrvingSnodgrass - July 10, 1999 - 6:45 PM PT
uzmakk:
Let this be a lesson to you. *Always* save your posts before posting. You can do this in one of two ways:
1) Compose in a Word Processing program and paste your post in the Fray posting box.
2) After composing a post, copy it and paste it either in a WP program or a notebook program. Or, if you like living dangerously, keep it on the clipboard.
If you get the dreaded Slate blank page when you post, you can usually retrieve your post by clicking the "back" button on your browser.
If you are just a little bit careful, lost posts can be a thing of the past.
Sorry for the intrusion in this thread. This Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by "In God's Country."
59. ScottLoar - July 10, 1999 - 6:48 PM PT
re Message #54, but it seems that the federal government is, in fact, helping these communities. Recall that during one standoff with militia types in Montana several years ago - which drew the FBI and as a consequence a flood of the news media and some ideological supporters who straggled in - it was brought out that welfare was rampant. One old coot actually conceded that without welfare and various government subsidies farming or small ranching simply could not weather Montana.
And it's true elsewhere in rural America, more acutely so in some parts than others depending on the rigors of climate and terrain or crop specialization. Farmers are subsized not to plant, some (much?) of what they do plant depending on the crop is directly subsidized, or guaranteed a market price, or protected by high import tariffs, and others draw welfare. Well, tobacco is all of these.
Dole and other senators and house representatives from farming states are notorious in their pork barrel politics that narrowly support "the farmer" at the expense of consumer and taxpayer. Are you suggesting even more largesse which would somehow brush up the village center, keep Clem and his young'uns on the farm, and allow Joe to keep selling International Harvester? And these monies are to be administered by a kinder, more compassionate federal government?
60. uzmakk - July 10, 1999 - 7:44 PM PT
Message #47Spudboy:
Uzmakk: Government, like the media, is geared toward the interests of the greatest numbers of people in a democracy, so naturally its policies are urban-centric as well.
To be more accurate, government policies are auto-centric, i.e. automobile-centric. If government policies were actually urban-centric we would have a number of cities that would rival Oz in magnificence.
61. uzmakk - July 10, 1999 - 8:46 PM PT
You say that decisions are made by government economists for the benefit of our largely urban population, and that these decisions are based on improvedd efficiency, improved production, and that this can be achieved by reducing 1000s of small farmers into 5 large agribusiness conglomerates.
It would seem that there might be another reason that the government would prefer 5 conglomerates to 1000's of small farmers and that is not economic efficiency, but adminestrative control. It is easier for the government to exact tribute from a few large, highly structured,, entities than from 1000s of small farmers. It is difficult for a Senator to know thousands of small farmers, but it is easy for a Senator to know the CEO of Cargil. And these entities are huge indeed, did you say "from seed to supermarket"? Now whether these conglomerates actually produce more food from the land I don't know, but they certainly simplify the bookkeeping for the government. The government gets more out of dealing with ADM than it does from dealing with farmers. Now this simplified bookkeeping and adminestrative control and not necessarily an increase in productivity............I'm off to bed.
62. IrvingSnodgrass - July 10, 1999 - 10:57 PM PT
uzmakk:
You have the effect right, but you miss the cause. The government isn't interested in controlling farms or extracting revenue from large corporations so much as those corporations are able to influence the government through lobbying to get what they want, thereby making life difficult for the small farmer.
63. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 1:40 AM PT
Scott: You're on the right track in Message #59, but there are some key points that need clarification here.
You're quite right that the federal government helps these communities a great deal already -- or at least, it did. For that matter, they are almost purely the creation of government policies that, in the 1870-1920 period directly encouraged people to settle these godforsaken stretches of land. The real beneficiaries of these policies were the railroads. I strongly recommend Jonathan Raban's "Bad Land" for a highly readable and accurate portrait of the homesteaders who were drawn to this country during this period. (My own great-grandparents, I should note, were among these settlers.)
And it's true that the Freemen were the recipients of government "welfare," but you use the term rather loosely. Let's be clear about what actually took place. The Clark family took advantage, like a lot of eastern Montana farmers and ranchers, of government land-conservation programs that actually are intended to conserve soil. As you may be aware, erosion and its resulting land-production loss remains one of the chief headaches facing American agriculture. So the government pays farmers and ranchers to leave untouched certain lands with steep slopes, prone to erosion, and planting them with grasses that remain unused. It then compensates them for the amount the farmer normally might be able to earn on that land. It's called the Conservation Reserve Program.
64. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 1:42 AM PT
It was this money that both Ralph Clark and Bill Stanton (key Freemen figures) were known to have blown on rather foolish purchases. Clark, I think, bought a fancy car with it, and Stanton was known to take a Vegas vacation with his CRP checks. Smart farmers salted the money away.
Now, programs like the CRP are quite a different matter from the subsidies of popular mythology that have farmers getting paid for growing nothing. I find it interesting that eliminating these subsidies is actually the most common ground I've seen in the Fray among conservatives, liberals and libertarians alike. And all three segments demonstrate their own ignorance -- and urban-centrism -- in agreeing to this.
First, it's important to understand how price-support subsidies work and what effect they are intended to achieve. The nature of commodities, particularly foodstuffs, is such that wild fluctuations in both supply and demand occur unless production is carefully controlled through subsidies. In the simplest terms: If farmers grow too much corn one year, it drives the price down and gluts the market. So farmers get out of growing corn because it is no longer profitable; this results in an undersupply of corn the next year. Price supports are intended to smooth out these wrinkles; the government carefully monitors how many acres of agricultural products are active and tries to keep foodstuff production steady. Among the ways it does this is that it provides financial support for farmers to turn to alternative crops in their rotations, since such changes can be expensive propositions. And it sometimes pays farmers to simply not farm a stretch of land where they might normally grow wheat in a given year because it is guarding against oversupply in the market.
This benefits not just the farmers, obviously, but also consumers, who take the steadiness in both price and supply rather for granted. But without price supports, you would have neither.
65. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 1:46 AM PT
Unless, of course, food production were no longer the domain of hundreds of thousands of independent farmers but rather a wholly owned industry held by a few big corporations that have integrated both vertically and horizontally. Then you'd have everything run by employees instead of farmers. Cut to the bottom line when you need to.
So when you mention Bob Dole's reputation of standing up for farming interests, you're mistaking which side he's on. Dole is Mr. Archer Daniels Midland. (And Bill Clinton, for that matter, is Mr. ConAgra.) The programs that Dole and his friends in D.C. support benefit no one but big agribusiness, though they pay a lot of lip service to "farmers" in the process. Indeed, I agree that they support the "farmer" [read: Cargill, et. al] at the expense of the taxpayer and the consumer -- and of the family farm as well.
I find it amusing that the company I work for has been the object of years of pursuit by the Justice Department for supposedly anticompetitive activity, but its arm-twisting pales in comparison to what the Big Four agribusinesses have pulled off in the past six years, particularly with regard to the pork industry. Not only is corporate agribusiness able to get away with annihilating any vestiges of competition, it receives government subsidies and tax breaks to do it.
That said, I don't think Elliot's suggested solution is going to help either. The last thing farmers need is another government aid program. What they *do* need is some serious reform in the way government supports agriculture. There needs to be some fairness written into the tax code and into loan programs, etc., that give small farmers some even footing with corporate farms on the competitive field. They need government to quit favoring corporate farms at their expense.
But, as Irv suggests, money talks and bullshit walks, especially in the halls of government. I'm not holding my breath.
66. ScottLoar - July 11, 1999 - 4:53 AM PT
Those Godforsaken stretches of land were open territory and the federal government, the state's government, the nation believed that settlement was a good and fine thing as wilderness was turned under the plow and commerce and property brought to the common man. Have I got that catechism right? It wasn't just the railroads, but the "common knowledge" of the times that encouraged settlement. The dust storms of the 30's brought on by drought and bad farming practices showed how bad those high plains could be.
I can't fault your explanation of crop subsidies, you know the dialectic better than me, yet you explain that farmers on occasion are paid not to grow (you use wheat as a example; I know of corn and milo as well), yet even a blind man can see that marginal lands such as along rivers, gullies, depressions and hilly stands of hardwood are being cleared and tilled. Even that land traditionally used for windbreaks is being cleared - and by small farmers who are set on putting more land under the plow. Ducks and especially quail have become an uncommon sight on much Midwestern farmland. Seems that price supports do not discourage this.
67. ScottLoar - July 11, 1999 - 5:10 AM PT
Now as I try to heave myself up out of my ignorance and "urbancentrism" I fix my gaze on grain silos bursting with accumulated stocks mostly unwanted, unused, and... there.
When I talked with farmers (third and fourth generation) in downstate Illinois I was shocked (as some of them were my own albeit distant kin) that decent and upright, Godfearing, hardworking, and thrifty men and women could blithely finger their financial problems on the Jews who supposedly ran the banks and worse, much worse. On my shallow sorties into rural life I did not find wellsprings of enlightenment but a bitter people confident in the superiority of their way of life and scared that they can't make it. And so must have felt cast iron workers, hatters, piano tuners, loggers, crab fishermen, whalers, fur trappers, Shakers and others.
68. ScottLoar - July 11, 1999 - 5:21 AM PT
Sure, I agree that small farmers "need government to quit favoring corporate farms at their expense", especially as the easy loan policies to small farmers in the 70's and early 80's (correct me on the dates if you know, Spudboy) encouraged spending and when those loans came due The Farm Crisis became known. So, is having small farms and small farmers a good thing? A seemingly self-evident question but one I must ask even at the risk of being excoriated as "urbancentrist".
69. uzmakk - July 11, 1999 - 8:42 AM PT
Lost another couple of posts Irving. Now that I am putting a bit more effort into these things I will take your advice and make arrangements to save these bursts of sunlight currently being absorbed by Slate and Microsoft. I very seldom used to get the dreaded Slate blank page, now I get it all the time. I suspect that my posts are not simply lost, but are being channelled directly to a couple of computers in Washington State. Both Kinsley and Gates have beepers set to go off everytime I make a post.
70. uzmakk - July 11, 1999 - 8:43 AM PT
I would have posted on technical but here is where my heart is.
71. elliot803 - July 11, 1999 - 11:17 AM PT
AuNaturel:
"Government "support" is a large part of the reason family farms have collapsed."
Oh, of course. It's *always* the government's fault. That's the libertarian mantra, isn't it. The death of small towns and farming communities is never the fault of the free market. The free market is always force for good.
spudboy:
"That said, I don't think Elliot's suggested solution is going to help either. The last thing farmers need is another government aid program."
I didn't propose a "government aid program" in the sense of welfare or price supports. Although I wouldn't rule those things out. I don't know enough about the details of the issue to form an opinion. My point is that the problems of rural communities, and the threats that these problems create in the form of the rise of right-wing "patriot" movements, are at least partly due to the workings of the free market. The "Wal-Mart Phenomenon," one might call it. That's why we need the market to be regulated. That's why we need the government to step in and help when the market produces this kind of social disruption. Whether that means welfare, or price supports, or education, or tax incentives for new industries, or something else is a separate question.
72. AuNaturel - July 11, 1999 - 12:59 PM PT
Elliot:
"Oh, of course. It's *always* the government's fault. That's the libertarian mantra, isn't it. The death of small towns and farming communities is never the fault of the free market. The free market is always force for good."
I'm glad you see my point. If the family farm goes by the wayside because in a free market it is a less efficient method of getting produce to market, it may be regrettable but inevitable. No doubt many harness makers would have liked a government program to keep them employed while the automobile industry came on line.
On the other hand if the government is being influenced by large corporations to drive their smaller competition out of business or local government is using confiscatory taxes to drive landowners off their property for land hungry developers or government encouraged small farmers to take on loans they can't possibly pay off, then those are wrong and must be addressed.
Amish and Mennonite farmers seem to be doing OK, except that taxation and regulations sometime drive them off their original properties to the small farms being abandoned elsewhere by mainstream "family" farms.
The answer may not to be to try to compete against the big boys but to find your own niche and be creative about it. More than a few family farms/ranches have made it back into the black by diversifying into exotic crops, "organic" farming, recreation, direct marketing to the public and other creative ideas.
A good question might be where our environmental friends stand on this.
73. AuNaturel - July 11, 1999 - 1:35 PM PT
"The nature of commodities, particularly foodstuffs, is such that wild fluctuations in both supply and demand occur unless production is carefully controlled through subsidies."
This of course is mostly bullshit.
Overall food demand doesn't fluctuate, it continually grows with relative demand for different products shifting. It is relatively insensitive to price. I don't eat more because the cost of corn goes down, I just eat differently. There is such a huge diversity in NAFTA agriculture that there is never a lack of a useful alternative product or source.
Fluctuations in supply are environmentally mediated. No amount of government subsidy can yet make the rain fall. So shortages in some crops and overruns in others are inevitable. Price supports do not bring down the cost of a product in shortage but do slow me from switching to a product currently in oversupply. I am unable to benefit from any surpluses that may occur. Price supports HURT the consumer.
Many products are perenially at their price support levels. Milk in California is one of them and the supply of milk doesn't fluctuate very much. Remove the supports and the price of milk will drop. All this means is that there is too much milk capacity for the market. As less efficient producers abandon the dairy business the price will stabilize.
74. uzmakk - July 11, 1999 - 3:31 PM PT
Message #62 Are you quite sure, Irving?
75. FreetoChoose - July 11, 1999 - 4:05 PM PT
spudboy
“Consider the continuing high rate of suicide in rural America (for instance, suicide last year became the leading cause of death on farms and ranches in Montana, finally outpacing work-related accidents).”
Amazing stat. Has suicide increased or work-related incidents decreased, or some combination? Are these aggregate numbers or frequencies per farmer? (In other words, are work-related incidents down because there are fewer farmers, or are there fewer deaths per farmer?)
76. FreetoChoose - July 11, 1999 - 4:17 PM PT
Spudboy
I thought many of the extreme group had a strong Christian thread running through them. The World Church of the Creator appears to be different. Is this an anomaly? What is the reaction of the Christian based hate groups to groups such as this? Is it peaceful coexistence, active collaboration, or are they seen as enemies?
77. bloodnfire - July 11, 1999 - 5:47 PM PT
Uzmaak. Your Message #69 "I very seldom used to get the dreaded Slate blank page, now I get it all the time. I suspect that my posts are not simply lost, but are being channelled directly to a couple of computers in Washington State. Both Kinsley and Gates have beepers set to go off everytime I make a post."
Only if they're unkindly directed at me. :-)
78. bloodnfire - July 11, 1999 - 5:51 PM PT
I've ordered your book too, Spudboy. Congratulations on an interesting thread.
79. PincherMartin - July 11, 1999 - 8:35 PM PT
Spudboy --
I received your book some time ago from Amazon, and I'm looking forward to starting it. I must say that the print in the book is almost unbearably small (I hope the content makes up for it), but the cover is quite striking with its eye-catching black and red colors and large, bold title in smoky white with red outlines.
80. ACEofSPADES - July 11, 1999 - 8:39 PM PT
Pincher:
Have you voted yet?
Ace/Niner/Cartman needs your vote. And every vote counts, since almost no one is voting at all.
Sorry to post here, but the polls are about to close.
81. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 9:08 PM PT
Scott: I certainly don't intend to excoriate anyone for being “urban-centric.” I simply use the term to try to jolt people out of their usual patterns of thinking. Most city folk (myself included) seems to be so enamored of our current economic-well-being that it's easy to fall for the illusion that the good times must be widespread. But in rural America, the general mood is miserable, and for good cause. I'm simply trying to get people to take off their blinkers, recognizing that personal worldviews tend naturally to reflect the world people occupy.
I don't know if a less diffuse, more corporatized food-production system would be better for us in the long run. I think that's open to debate; certainly, we're already seeing problems with environmental impacts of mega-farms, as well as an increase in food-contamination cases.
But I find it striking that we are currently undergoing this massive shift in the way food is produced and delivered in this country, out of the hands of a wide-ranging array of independent farmers and into the hands of a few big corporate entities, and there is simply no larger societal debate about the major ramifications of this. Personally, I think the nation's food supply is about as fundamental a concern as one can have, and I am far from comfortable with seeing the diversity that used to be its foundation simply disappearing.
Again, though, the matter that is more relevant to our discussion here is the cultural impact of this shift. Do we really want to destroy something so central to the national identity, at least on a mythological basis, as our farming culture? Is it something we can just let die so blithely? I'm troubled by the easy willingness of urban dwellers to let this happen.
Remember: The Jeffersonian ideal, his vision for the future, was a nation built around a population of educated farmer-citizens. It may seem old-fashioned and outmoded now, but it may be more important than we think.
82. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 9:12 PM PT
Elliot: Your response reasonable and well thought-out. I'm sorry if I mischaracterized your position.
Pincher: Yes, I've had to apologize many times for the size of the print. The publisher wanted to keep the book's size within the 350-page parameter so we could sell it for under $20. Ultimately, I'm not convinced it was a good tradeoff, but I have little control over such things. I'm glad you like the cover, though. I do too. (I'm pleased that the photo I took while driving about in eastern Montana worked so well as the right image thematically speaking.)
83. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 9:12 PM PT
AuNaturel: Sorry, but if there is any bullshit floating in this thread it is your slavish devotion to libertarian propaganda. I'll just point out a few of the flaws in your Message #73:
Overall food demand “is relatively insensitive to price.” While this is true regarding declining prices, it is not the case at all, of course, when prices rise.
“Fluctuations in supply are environmentally mediated.” Check your history books. Prior to the introduction of price supports, supply was in a constant state of flux, depending on the prices farmers believed they could fetch for goods. One of the key triggers of the Great Depression, you'll recall, was an *oversupply* of certain food goods, which drove prices so low that hundreds of thousands of farmers were put out of business.
“Price supports HURT the consumer.” Only if you don't believe that maintaining relative stability in the price of goods is of no consequence to consumers.
Again, as I suggested before, your perspective is colored by your ability to take for granted the benefits of price supports, since you've not had to live with the consequences of their absence. The moment we return to a system without them, and you find that one year after you've paid a new low of $1 for a gallon of milk and then suddenly you're paying $5 for such goods (after all the dairy farmers go out of business), you might change your tune.
84. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 9:13 PM PT
FTC: I took that info on Montana farm suicides off the top of my head. Details to come.
Your question about the World Church of the Creator raises a very interesting point. Yes, Christian Identity without a doubt comprises the largest sector of white supremacism; it can be found everywhere from the Aryan Nations to enclaves in Pennsylvania. But there are a number of secular white-supremacist belief systems, such as that espoused by William (“The Turner Diaries”) Pierce's National Alliance, certain skinhead groups, and the WCOTC, which is overtly anti-Christian.
However, I think most practicing Christians will hasten to point out that, doctrinally speaking, Identity is anathema to the heart of Christianity. (Of course, I feel that a large number of fundamentalist churches are un-Christian as well, but we'll leave that for now.) And my own observation is that Identity is more a religion of convenience; it gives bigots a religious cover for their racial prejudices (and one need only look at the pre-Civil War debate over slavery to see that religion has served this function for a long time in this country). It does fit neatly for people whose quite conservative religious views are part and parcel with their racial views.
But the differences between Identity believers and the secular or non-Christian supremacists is almost always overlooked when it comes to their big-picture view of the world. The common ground is usually far more important -- and they all believe in the conspiratorial view of Jews, the idea that non-whites are intellectually and morally inferior, and that the government is working to enslave us all. (cont'd)
85. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 9:14 PM PT
Doctrinal differences do emerge in certain arenas and under circumstances in which belief systems are competing for the same followers. And this offers at least some comfort: Supremacists have so many sub-factions that, when left to their own devices, they almost inevitably splinter into competing groups. They'll be real trouble if some figure ever emerges to unify them.
86. jonesatlaw - July 11, 1999 - 9:15 PM PT
For years farmers have seen themselves as independent business men and business women, while they are more like pieceworkers for the big four. They've voted for every GOP hack who blew smoke up their coveralls. They've wanted freedom to farm, and they got freedom to fail. They have always assumed a free and efficient market, but the major commodities do not have a truly free market.
It isn't that corporate farming is more efficient in production, it is more efficient in farming the federal government. Mississippi Christmas Trees and other slight of hand have allowed corporations to reap huge subsidies meant for small farmers. The tax code, ag export subsudies, etc. have stacked the deck against family farmers for years. Then conservative idiot convince them that some "other" people, like the Jews (insert your racial religious or national target of choice here) have screwed them, when it's been those friendly folk at the companioes who sell them seed, chemicals and who buy their crops, who've bent them over all along.
They are people in similar circumstances to urbanites in Weimar Germany, and they're being fed the same hatred. We should fear a similar result.
87. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 10:09 PM PT
FTC: Here's the original story on farm suicides in Montana. I was off a bit in my characterization: Suicide was the largest single cause of work-related deaths in the state. And all but two of those were farmers.
88. AuNaturel - July 11, 1999 - 10:14 PM PT
Jones;
"They've voted for every GOP hack who blew smoke up their coveralls. They've wanted freedom to farm, and they got freedom to fail. They have always assumed a free and efficient market, but the major commodities do not have a truly free market."
Farmers vote for Democrats, a pattern that dates all the way back to the New Deal. Ranchers are a different breed and those who live in the sparsely populated western states vote Republican.
89. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 10:46 PM PT
AuNaturel: Though I agree that voting patterns are different in the Midwest, I can assure you that farmers in the West traditionally vote Republican and have for years. Look at not just the congressional delegations and the governorships of states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, but at their state legislatures as well. All predominantly GOP. Idaho has only six Democrats in its entire legislature and only one statewide officeholder. These are farming states, and ranching only secondarily. And truth be told, it's *ranchers* who tend to vote Democrat (cf. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., from an old Montana ranching family). Jones is quite right about farmers' voting habits since 1980.
Jones' characterization is harsher than I'd agree with, but our differences boil down to personal sentiment. We certainly come to the same conclusion.
Have you read the book, by chance, Jones? Um, has anyone?
90. AuNaturel - July 11, 1999 - 10:52 PM PT
"Overall food demand “is relatively insensitive to price.” While this is true regarding declining prices, it is not the case at all, of course, when prices rise."
What nonsense. You say we all go on a diet when prices rise? Poor people are just as obese as rich, maybe more so. How can this be? Food is such a small portion of most people's budget that relatively large price shifts result in small reductions in our discretionary spending.
Your argument is that if I cut prices in half demand won't go up but that if I then double prices demand will drop substantially? Gee, I if do that often enough demand will approach zero even if prices never get set above the original level.
"One of the key triggers of the Great Depression, you'll recall, was an *oversupply* of certain food goods, which drove prices so low that hundreds of thousands of farmers were put out of business."
The farmers were put out of business by foreign retaliation for Smoot-Hawley. The export market was taken away from them by - guess who? - the government at a time when they needed it most. At the same time they were impacted in the plains by the dust bowl caused by drought and exacerbated by poor farming techniques.
""“Price supports HURT the consumer.” Only if you don't believe that maintaining relative stability in the price of goods is of no consequence to consumers."
Then, by your logic, we should imediately introduce price supports for consumer electronics.
Price stability is of no consequence to consumers as long as the over all food supply reamins adequate. If enforced by fiat, it is a detriment. An increase in the price of beef tells me I should switch to chicken. A drop in the price of oranges means I'll eat them instead of apples.
91. EricCartman1 - July 11, 1999 - 10:59 PM PT
Spud:
I just started your book, so I've only read the first two chapters. Very good so far.
I am curious about one thing already -- at the militia shows that you attended, were you easily identifiable as a member of the media? If so, was there any adverse reaction from attendees? It seems that their antipathy toward most media is a major factor in all this.
92. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 11:11 PM PT
AuN: "Then, by your logic, we should imediately introduce price supports for consumer electronics."
I can live just fine without my computer, thanks. But food is another matter. Same for 100 percent of the population.
93. spudboy - July 11, 1999 - 11:23 PM PT
Cart: It depends. Generally I carry a camera with a big fat telephoto lens with me that identifies me as a media member, and I'm pretty upfront when asked. At other times I wield a notebook and tape recorder that I display openly. Little question what I'm doing. So to an extent, the face of the Patriots that I get to witness firsthand is their stage face -- which, as you'll see as we go along, is not what happens when the public's out of view.
Anyway, in a word, no, there was very little negative behavior. Sara Weaver didn't want to talk with me. But most of them are eager, just on the off chance that you might be persuaded toe their viewpoint, or at least serve as a secondary transmission device for their ideology.
So to an extent, I'm acutely aware that I'm being used by these folks to spread their word for them, even if my POV might be antipathetic to theirs. It's a dilemma, because it's almost inevitable that I will perform that function for them. This is the same dilemma I faced when trying to decide whether to cover the Aryan Nations in 1978. As I learned then, the benefits of providing the coverage far outweigh the detriments.
94. EricCartman1 - July 11, 1999 - 11:46 PM PT
Spud:
Well, it's a story that needs to be told, and from what I've read so far, you do it in a very even-handed way. Most of the media coverage on these guys sensationalizes their quasi-religious/racist ethos, and simultaneously plays up the "hillbilly" aspect.
A point you make in Chapter 2 is very true: Farming is hard work. Ranching is hard work. Keeping farm machinery running is hard, demanding work. These people are not idiots. They've been seriously disenfranchised by a urban-centric political culture, and it's a dangerous underestimation by many mainstream media to lump all these people together as extras from "Deliverance".
I didn't think you were necessarily "undercover" at the rallies, especially since the footnotes indicate you've personally interviewed Trochmann and other leaders of the Pacific Northwest militia movements. So they know you. I was just a bit curious as to whether the audience saw your tape recorder or camera or whatever, and regarded you with suspicion.
95. IrvingSnodgrass - July 12, 1999 - 12:56 AM PT
Spuds:
"Have you read the book, by chance, Jones? Um, has anyone?"
Well, speaking for myself, I've started it, but find myself wrestling with the small print. Fortunately, the writing makes it worth the struggle. This feedback should definitely be forwarded to your publisher, however... I think it was an unwise choice.
I am bringing the book with me to Oz tomorrow, and plan to make major inroads.
96. CalGal - July 12, 1999 - 1:09 AM PT
I'm through Chapter 3. I found the early 20th century Klan doings an interesting read, as well as the way you carefully delineate the different sorts of wackos. Let's see, there's the John Birch--they aren't racist or (technically) anti-Semitic, and then there's the Klan, who were originally fussed about the Catholics, and both of them are entirely different nutjobs from the Patriots.
Do you really think the protesters demonstrating against the Patriots are helpful? I don't mean to imply they're exacerbating the situation; I just don't think they make much difference.
97. patsyrolph - July 12, 1999 - 1:50 AM PT
spudboy, I've been waiting to answer your question as to how my viewpoint changed after reading your book. My reaction to the above post ia one example;
Wait a minute, he never said that and that type of
stereotyping now seems distasteful(ie nutcases and wackos). I realized that I have long been afraid of
both militia groups and the Christian right wing. I met a pleasant Dutch coulple in Madrid last November. The couple asked me how I felt about the last US midterm election abd I said that I had been pleased that the Christion Coalition had lost votes since I feared such groups and they heartedly agreed. "You can't reason with them" was their basis for agreement. It occured to me later that the Dutch couple and I were "of an age" and remembered all too well what happened before and during WWII. Well and so after reading your book it was pretty clear that reasoning was not called for and that listening was a better approach. Not agreeing just hearing. I've been interested in the many comments about farmers and urbanites and as is the case with "have you read the book?" wonder how many of us have been to the Northwest. It is a different and varied territory than much of th US.
98. Adrianne - July 12, 1999 - 3:58 AM PT
Spudboy
Sorry for joining late :-)
Congratulations on your wonderful book. I've read it through once, and if I'm able to participate in this thread I'll probably go through it again with you all.
Like Patsy, since reading it I am more able to see the Patriot-types as individual people, and I am amazed and heartened by your even-handed, kind and empathetic portrayal of these folks. My disgust at many of their professed beliefs would likely proclude me from being so fair in their description.
What I found really shocking and bone-deep frightening was the similarities between the rhetoric of these completely disenfranchised folks who have, seemingly out of desperation and fear, turned to violence and bigotry for solace, and some of the more mainstream political right/liberatarians (including some here on the Fray). In some cases, the catch-phrases and jingoism is verbatim.
I'm guessing an awful lot of people who have adopted these phrases, "facts" and debating techniques have no idea where they originated - at least, I'm hoping not.
99. Adrianne - July 12, 1999 - 4:02 AM PT
BTW, I'm not trying to point a finger at anyone in particular here in the Fray, and I won't get into specifics because I'm not trying to incite a riot.
My point is more that the filtering down into society of what can only be called fringe rhetoric -- until, at last, it is accepted as mainstream thought -- is shocking.
It's comparable, imo, to a scenario in which were common among liberals to quote Red Army pamphlets -- without knowing where the jargon came from.
100. IrvingSnodgrass - July 12, 1999 - 4:47 AM PT
Patsy:
"I... wonder how many of us have been to the Northwest. It is a different and varied territory than much of th US."
I know I've moved rather far away from it, but my roots (on my mother's side) are among solidly-Republican Washington-state farmers. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I find Spudboy's book so intriguing.