[Cog]

A crisis creates opportunities. Never let one go to waste.

[americandream]

This may all sound a bit biblical, but its not. It simply recognises that wealth consolidation is a natural process and the Tea Party is an agent in that process as are its followers (and the Republicans and Democrats). Those who seek to oppose it will either be bribed or fall by the wayside as its victims. Workers and the middle class in America and the West have enjoyed a Cold War premium. The market is clawing that back.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'A') crisis creates opportunities. Never let one go to waste.

[Loki]

Off topic text deleted.And as a full-time farmhand, I second the notion that I should get paid $20/hr

But it ain't gonna happen. Most office drones who make $50k/yr+ for shuffling papers and sharpening pencils would balk at the notion of paying 20% more for their carrots so the people who grow their food can make a living wage. There's also the problem of concentrated capital in the agricultural and food industry, which relentlessly drives down prices and debases labor, all heavily subsidized by Uncle Sucker of course. Cheap food is our national mantra.

The agricultural industry--and associated food industries (no more McDonalds)--will have to be thoroughly transformed before American citizens will be willing to do the majority of the fieldwork. It's damn hard work, but I don't think the physicality of it is the main problem. I really like farm work, but I work on a small organic farm that grows dozens of crops. Every day is something different. But it'd be pure hell working on a giant industrial monoculture where my sole job was to harvest strawberries by hand for months on end, breathing in fumigants, fungicides, and who knows what else. It'd be even worse if I had to be a migrant farmworker. Without a source of cheap, easily exploited immigrant labor, American agriculture will have to get a lot smaller, a lot more diversified, and food prices will have to go up considerably. I'm talking mostly veg and fruit.

Field crops are a different story, I think there are plenty of Americans willing to drive tractor. It can also be monotonous, but not nearly as bad as harvesting strawberries all day. I've done both, and I'd take tractoring over strawberries any day of the week. That assumes, of course, that ag continues to have plenty of oil slaves. As peak oil progresses, we'll likely see a rationing system where the military and Big Ag gets first dibs.

[Ferretlover]

Off topic posts deleted.