Rethinking Food Policy
Michael Pollan, our greatest writer on agriculture and the food business ( In Defense of Food
After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.
Pollan lays out a program to remove us from the fossil fuel intensive industrial agriculture system and return us to the perfection of solar based local harvests. Like many of the other suggestions I have been posting recently, he embraces the New Federalist doctrine of localism.
For your sun-food agenda to succeed, it will have to do a lot more than alter what happens on the farm. The government could help seed a thousand new polyculture farmers in every county in Iowa, but they would promptly fail if the grain elevator remained the only buyer in town and corn and beans were the only crops it would take. Resolarizing the food system means building the infrastructure for a regional food economy — one that can support diversified farming and, by shortening the food chain, reduce the amount of fossil fuel in the American diet.
A decentralized food system offers a great many other benefits as well. Food eaten closer to where it is grown will be fresher and require less processing, making it more nutritious. Whatever may be lost in efficiency by localizing food production is gained in resilience: regional food systems can better withstand all kinds of shocks. When a single factory is grinding 20 million hamburger patties in a week or washing 25 million servings of salad, a single terrorist armed with a canister of toxins can, at a stroke, poison millions. Such a system is equally susceptible to accidental contamination: the bigger and more global the trade in food, the more vulnerable the system is to catastrophe. The best way to protect our food system against such threats is obvious: decentralize it.
I am beginning to feel like the two strings of my recent policy obsessions–Natural Capitalism and New Federalism–are coming together in an elegant solution to many issues. It’s obvious that there is a lot of work needed to convince the Beltway that a decentralized solution is in everyone’s interest. But it is worth getting the conversation started.
The odd thing about supporting Agribusiness is that it runs absolutely counter to supporting the values of “small town America” that people are always purporting to want to preserve. Large farms lend themselves to mechanization. Small farms don’t. The result is larger and larger properties. Even if you’re a small farmer, you have to become large to compete, unless you specialize in some way. Even then, you end up needing to grow.
The French know this. They have long held that agricultural policy is actually a cultural issue, because they know that if they reduced protection that the small farms would become unviable, and the result would be the aggregation of smaller properties into larger ones. Small towns would wither and die as they supported smaller regional populations (sounds a lot like what’s happened throughout America in the past 40 years). Those charming stone walls in the Dordogne would need to be bulldozed to allow for increased mechanisation. The whole nature of French rural life would be irrevocably altered, and the food would certainly not get better.
On the other hand, the problem with maintaining subsidies, as the French do, is that it impoverishes Africa, making it cheaper for the local populace there to subsist on subsidized European grain given as “aid”, and impossible for African farmers to access European markets competitively. The result is nothing less than a crime against humanity.
Smaller farms in the United States would make a lot more cultural sense, too. They’d help support more labor, which would in turn support the local farms. But they can’t come at the expense of Africa. At the same time as the world needs to reduce subsidies, it needs to encourage smaller, more local production. The result will be a considerable increase in the price of food – not a series of minor increments – at a time when this is going to be very unpopular politically.
Pollan’s message is a good, strong one. There are a lot of reasons to embrace it, including reasons that cut across party lines. But Agribusiness employs thousands of lobbyists, and has deep pockets. I don’t expect this to be an easy fight to mount.
Nor do I think it can come at the expense of Africa. Subsidies on food need to be abolished, all around the world, but in such a way that promotes small business. I’m not sure how to do that.
The odd thing about supporting Agribusiness is that it runs absolutely counter to supporting the values of “small town America” that people are always purporting to want to preserve. Large farms lend themselves to mechanization. Small farms don’t. The result is larger and larger properties. Even if you’re a small farmer, you have to become large to compete, unless you specialize in some way. Even then, you end up needing to grow.
The French know this. They have long held that agricultural policy is actually a cultural issue, because they know that if they reduced protection that the small farms would become unviable, and the result would be the aggregation of smaller properties into larger ones. Small towns would wither and die as they supported smaller regional populations (sounds a lot like what’s happened throughout America in the past 40 years). Those charming stone walls in the Dordogne would need to be bulldozed to allow for increased mechanisation. The whole nature of French rural life would be irrevocably altered, and the food would certainly not get better.
On the other hand, the problem with maintaining subsidies, as the French do, is that it impoverishes Africa, making it cheaper for the local populace there to subsist on subsidized European grain given as “aid”, and impossible for African farmers to access European markets competitively. The result is nothing less than a crime against humanity.
Smaller farms in the United States would make a lot more cultural sense, too. They’d help support more labor, which would in turn support the local farms. But they can’t come at the expense of Africa. At the same time as the world needs to reduce subsidies, it needs to encourage smaller, more local production. The result will be a considerable increase in the price of food – not a series of minor increments – at a time when this is going to be very unpopular politically.
Pollan’s message is a good, strong one. There are a lot of reasons to embrace it, including reasons that cut across party lines. But Agribusiness employs thousands of lobbyists, and has deep pockets. I don’t expect this to be an easy fight to mount.
Nor do I think it can come at the expense of Africa. Subsidies on food need to be abolished, all around the world, but in such a way that promotes small business. I’m not sure how to do that.
So we send food aid to Africa so they can sell food to us and Europe? How about encouraging Africans to feed Africans instead of killing one another in stupid tribal and sectarian conflicts. Look at what happened in Zimbabwe when Mugabe took over… A net exporting nation turned into a subsistence and net importing nation.
Japan also protects their farming way of life, and so you see real food grown very close in to most urban areas.
So we send food aid to Africa so they can sell food to us and Europe? How about encouraging Africans to feed Africans instead of killing one another in stupid tribal and sectarian conflicts. Look at what happened in Zimbabwe when Mugabe took over… A net exporting nation turned into a subsistence and net importing nation.
Japan also protects their farming way of life, and so you see real food grown very close in to most urban areas.
I may not have expressed myself clearly, Rick. If there were fewer farm subsidies a lot of the food aid currently sent to Africa could be scaled back, because local farmers could grow for their local market. Because so much subsidized wheat, rice and corn is currently dumped on Africa as “aid” it’s often impossible for local farmers to compete, even if they wanted to.
Of course there is a need to provide aid, because in many places climatic or other issues prevent the locals from growing. But dumping by wealthy nations is also a very real problem too.
Zimbabwe is its own separate tragedy.
I agree with your inclusion of Japan as a nation that uses subsidy for cultural reasons, with good results.
But I’m not sure that retaining protectionism is the way to go. It could work, if we didn’t dump surpluses. But we do – almost all wealthy nations do. And protectionism used to support exports is almost never a good idea, however worthy it may be in cultural terms.
I may not have expressed myself clearly, Rick. If there were fewer farm subsidies a lot of the food aid currently sent to Africa could be scaled back, because local farmers could grow for their local market. Because so much subsidized wheat, rice and corn is currently dumped on Africa as “aid” it’s often impossible for local farmers to compete, even if they wanted to.
Of course there is a need to provide aid, because in many places climatic or other issues prevent the locals from growing. But dumping by wealthy nations is also a very real problem too.
Zimbabwe is its own separate tragedy.
I agree with your inclusion of Japan as a nation that uses subsidy for cultural reasons, with good results.
But I’m not sure that retaining protectionism is the way to go. It could work, if we didn’t dump surpluses. But we do – almost all wealthy nations do. And protectionism used to support exports is almost never a good idea, however worthy it may be in cultural terms.
Jon,
How do we prevent localism from becoming parochialism?
Jon,
How do we prevent localism from becoming parochialism?
Jon,
How do we prevent localism from becoming parochialism?
Understood, Rachel. Thanks.
Wonder how climate change will fit into this…
Understood, Rachel. Thanks.
Wonder how climate change will fit into this…
Patrick-If Mississippi wants to ban the teaching of evolution, then companies that need scientists won’t locate in Mississippi. Mississippi will then decide to rejoin the 21st Century.
Patrick-If Mississippi wants to ban the teaching of evolution, then companies that need scientists won’t locate in Mississippi. Mississippi will then decide to rejoin the 21st Century.
The people who live in the area we short-hand as Zimbabwe suffer from the disease that’s likely to eventually kill all of us: the ascendancy of the kleptocrats, who are many levels above and beyond mere plutocrats, and are to the body politic as an aggressive metastatic cancer is to our own frail bodies. We got ‘em here — Lay, DeLay, etc.
The people who live in the area we short-hand as Zimbabwe suffer from the disease that’s likely to eventually kill all of us: the ascendancy of the kleptocrats, who are many levels above and beyond mere plutocrats, and are to the body politic as an aggressive metastatic cancer is to our own frail bodies. We got ‘em here — Lay, DeLay, etc.
“Farm policy” as is generally understood by politicians, is considerably different from farm policy as practiced by farmers. My wife is a farmer, in that she and her brother and a cousin own and manage farmland and share in the risks (substantial) and rewards (small). This includes the selection of crops (basically rice and/or crawfish, soybeans, or grazing in southern Louisiana), decisions about fertilization, spraying, and when to harvest and the myriad other issues involved in producing and marketing farm products. While Pollan has some excellent ideas, not all farmers are monoculture bigots and millionaire suckers at the Federal teat. Small farmers generally do not have the resources to undertake wholesale modifications of their production systems. There are many other issues, like the fact that farmland is expensive, and in many cases, entailed by families for generations and the owners may never want to sell. The tools needed for most crop-producing enterprises are very costly. Where does the capital come from for beginners? In fact, where do the beginners come from? Starting up a farm is considerably different from starting up a shoe store, and if there is to be Federal money to help them get started, who evaluates their skills and potential. I know a number of experienced, hardworking farmers who just cannot make a living at it. And how do farmers break free of the vicious cycle of chemical fertilizers and pesticides? Southern Louisiana has been drenched in these toxins for a couple of generations, and, even stopping the flood of chemicals today, the soil and water will not be free of these for another generation or two. Even then, the heat and humidity will still be there, and so will the insects and fungi and molds and plant diseases. These factors limit the real possibilities of crop selection. My family have discussed these very issues with agronomists at Louisiana State University, and there are no easy solutions. In many farm regions, the land is virtually exhausted by decades of mining the nutrients from the soil and replacing them with chemicals. These issues and many more confront small farmers across the country. What happens to these farmers while they work toward the goals outlined by Pollan? Don’t get me wrong, I think Pollan is absolutely right, but outlining what should be done, in a newspaper article, is somewhat different from actually making it happen. I think your ideas for a New Federalism are headed in the right direction, but I see evidence that not everyone appreciates the enormous challenges that must be met in order to get there. And not just with farm or food policy. The states, using Federal money, may well work out the answers to these questions, but wherever the Federal money flows, Federal rules will follow, and not always with the best interests of the locals at heart.
Finally, your answer to my question about parochialism is glib, but superficial. There are parochialism issues that have nothing to do with religion or culture, but everything to do with resources, like rivers and ground water that do not respect state lines or regional divisions. This is especially true in the Southwest, and even in your own great state of California. I lived in Monterey during a drought in the late ’70s and 1980. I remember Northern Californians putting bricks in their toilet tanks and expressing real bitterness when viewing TV news shots of Angelenos washing their cars, filling their pools, and watering their grass, while lobbying for the Peripheral Canal project intensified. This plan was to take water from Northern California, including some of the scenic rivers north of San Francisco, and ship it south for more car washing.
So we are ultimately back to Federal management of these scarce resources, and Federal management of the “thousand new polyculture farmers in every county in Iowa.” There will ultimately be winners and losers. Much as I hate the thought, I’d put my money on the lobbyists and their hired hands in Congress unless there is a genuine movement toward something like your new Federalism. I don’t see it at the moment, but I remain an optimist.
“Farm policy” as is generally understood by politicians, is considerably different from farm policy as practiced by farmers. My wife is a farmer, in that she and her brother and a cousin own and manage farmland and share in the risks (substantial) and rewards (small). This includes the selection of crops (basically rice and/or crawfish, soybeans, or grazing in southern Louisiana), decisions about fertilization, spraying, and when to harvest and the myriad other issues involved in producing and marketing farm products. While Pollan has some excellent ideas, not all farmers are monoculture bigots and millionaire suckers at the Federal teat. Small farmers generally do not have the resources to undertake wholesale modifications of their production systems. There are many other issues, like the fact that farmland is expensive, and in many cases, entailed by families for generations and the owners may never want to sell. The tools needed for most crop-producing enterprises are very costly. Where does the capital come from for beginners? In fact, where do the beginners come from? Starting up a farm is considerably different from starting up a shoe store, and if there is to be Federal money to help them get started, who evaluates their skills and potential. I know a number of experienced, hardworking farmers who just cannot make a living at it. And how do farmers break free of the vicious cycle of chemical fertilizers and pesticides? Southern Louisiana has been drenched in these toxins for a couple of generations, and, even stopping the flood of chemicals today, the soil and water will not be free of these for another generation or two. Even then, the heat and humidity will still be there, and so will the insects and fungi and molds and plant diseases. These factors limit the real possibilities of crop selection. My family have discussed these very issues with agronomists at Louisiana State University, and there are no easy solutions. In many farm regions, the land is virtually exhausted by decades of mining the nutrients from the soil and replacing them with chemicals. These issues and many more confront small farmers across the country. What happens to these farmers while they work toward the goals outlined by Pollan? Don’t get me wrong, I think Pollan is absolutely right, but outlining what should be done, in a newspaper article, is somewhat different from actually making it happen. I think your ideas for a New Federalism are headed in the right direction, but I see evidence that not everyone appreciates the enormous challenges that must be met in order to get there. And not just with farm or food policy. The states, using Federal money, may well work out the answers to these questions, but wherever the Federal money flows, Federal rules will follow, and not always with the best interests of the locals at heart.
Finally, your answer to my question about parochialism is glib, but superficial. There are parochialism issues that have nothing to do with religion or culture, but everything to do with resources, like rivers and ground water that do not respect state lines or regional divisions. This is especially true in the Southwest, and even in your own great state of California. I lived in Monterey during a drought in the late ’70s and 1980. I remember Northern Californians putting bricks in their toilet tanks and expressing real bitterness when viewing TV news shots of Angelenos washing their cars, filling their pools, and watering their grass, while lobbying for the Peripheral Canal project intensified. This plan was to take water from Northern California, including some of the scenic rivers north of San Francisco, and ship it south for more car washing.
So we are ultimately back to Federal management of these scarce resources, and Federal management of the “thousand new polyculture farmers in every county in Iowa.” There will ultimately be winners and losers. Much as I hate the thought, I’d put my money on the lobbyists and their hired hands in Congress unless there is a genuine movement toward something like your new Federalism. I don’t see it at the moment, but I remain an optimist.
Patrick,
It’s always good to hear from someone embedded in the problem, but not co-opted by the “solutions”.
I think too many of us “progressives” have a sense of the family farm as a small local “truck” farm serving Saturday markets and local demand for niche products (herbs, greens, etc.). A wee off the mark of what you describe.
It’s going to be interesting as costs and carbon footprint force people back into buying more local foods. Perhaps then we will see small plots grow more profitable.
When I was in Kyoto, one of the things that struck me was the use of small plots of land in residential areas for commercial agriculture. It works in a very crowded nation, and the quality of produce I saw in markets benefited observably.
It may well be that, in the US, market forces and subsidies have shaped the process of growing food in such a way as to make it very difficult to replicate what I saw in Kyoto. But the collapse of the current big, Big, BIG corporate entities and their culture. which controlled congress, could force that to change.
I do anticipate a resurgence of home gardens similar to the victory gardens of WWII as the cost of living skyrockets. However that will be difficult to pull off in urban and water starved areas.
Patrick,
It’s always good to hear from someone embedded in the problem, but not co-opted by the “solutions”.
I think too many of us “progressives” have a sense of the family farm as a small local “truck” farm serving Saturday markets and local demand for niche products (herbs, greens, etc.). A wee off the mark of what you describe.
It’s going to be interesting as costs and carbon footprint force people back into buying more local foods. Perhaps then we will see small plots grow more profitable.
When I was in Kyoto, one of the things that struck me was the use of small plots of land in residential areas for commercial agriculture. It works in a very crowded nation, and the quality of produce I saw in markets benefited observably.
It may well be that, in the US, market forces and subsidies have shaped the process of growing food in such a way as to make it very difficult to replicate what I saw in Kyoto. But the collapse of the current big, Big, BIG corporate entities and their culture. which controlled congress, could force that to change.
I do anticipate a resurgence of home gardens similar to the victory gardens of WWII as the cost of living skyrockets. However that will be difficult to pull off in urban and water starved areas.
Patrick,
It’s always good to hear from someone embedded in the problem, but not co-opted by the “solutions”.
I think too many of us “progressives” have a sense of the family farm as a small local “truck” farm serving Saturday markets and local demand for niche products (herbs, greens, etc.). A wee off the mark of what you describe.
It’s going to be interesting as costs and carbon footprint force people back into buying more local foods. Perhaps then we will see small plots grow more profitable.
When I was in Kyoto, one of the things that struck me was the use of small plots of land in residential areas for commercial agriculture. It works in a very crowded nation, and the quality of produce I saw in markets benefited observably.
It may well be that, in the US, market forces and subsidies have shaped the process of growing food in such a way as to make it very difficult to replicate what I saw in Kyoto. But the collapse of the current big, Big, BIG corporate entities and their culture. which controlled congress, could force that to change.
I do anticipate a resurgence of home gardens similar to the victory gardens of WWII as the cost of living skyrockets. However that will be difficult to pull off in urban and water starved areas.
Some of you think farming is magical….it’s not, it’s difficult. I grew up on a farm in Tennessee and it can be heartbreaking and when you are completely invested in that farm, you tough it out and I don’t think you are that tough. No rain when you need it, too much when you don’t, damn, it’s hot out here, damn it’s cold out here. And yes, we went hunting to help stretch meals along with the stores we put up for winter and kept in the cellar. Most people think food comes from the market, gas comes from the gas station, and water comes from the faucet. Nobody today, or very few, would get up at 5:00 to milk cows, gather eggs, and get ready for another damn hard day of farm life…..except maybe Patrick.
Some of you think farming is magical….it’s not, it’s difficult. I grew up on a farm in Tennessee and it can be heartbreaking and when you are completely invested in that farm, you tough it out and I don’t think you are that tough. No rain when you need it, too much when you don’t, damn, it’s hot out here, damn it’s cold out here. And yes, we went hunting to help stretch meals along with the stores we put up for winter and kept in the cellar. Most people think food comes from the market, gas comes from the gas station, and water comes from the faucet. Nobody today, or very few, would get up at 5:00 to milk cows, gather eggs, and get ready for another damn hard day of farm life…..except maybe Patrick.
Some of you think farming is magical….it’s not, it’s difficult. I grew up on a farm in Tennessee and it can be heartbreaking and when you are completely invested in that farm, you tough it out and I don’t think you are that tough. No rain when you need it, too much when you don’t, damn, it’s hot out here, damn it’s cold out here. And yes, we went hunting to help stretch meals along with the stores we put up for winter and kept in the cellar. Most people think food comes from the market, gas comes from the gas station, and water comes from the faucet. Nobody today, or very few, would get up at 5:00 to milk cows, gather eggs, and get ready for another damn hard day of farm life…..except maybe Patrick.
Ken,
Actually, I do have a garden every year, and have had for most of the last 40 years, whenever possible given my location (difficult to do in military base housing and second floor condos). I don’t think I’ve saved much money over the years, but the quality of the tomatoes, squash, corn, etc that I manage to grow seriously outweighs the idea of cost. I grew up in the South, and most folks of my acquaintance in my youth had gardens as a matter of course. Not “victory gardens” then, just gardens. I have often wondered at the waste of good land and water given over to grass. None of us will ever have the huge English manor houses we try to model our suburban cracker boxes after. Except Jon, of course. But then, he probably deserves one.
I live in Southern New Mexico, and we are, by almost any measure, “water starved.” I still have a garden, but its size is definitely constrained by water limitations. And rabbits.
Desert hares, in fact.
Ken,
Actually, I do have a garden every year, and have had for most of the last 40 years, whenever possible given my location (difficult to do in military base housing and second floor condos). I don’t think I’ve saved much money over the years, but the quality of the tomatoes, squash, corn, etc that I manage to grow seriously outweighs the idea of cost. I grew up in the South, and most folks of my acquaintance in my youth had gardens as a matter of course. Not “victory gardens” then, just gardens. I have often wondered at the waste of good land and water given over to grass. None of us will ever have the huge English manor houses we try to model our suburban cracker boxes after. Except Jon, of course. But then, he probably deserves one.
I live in Southern New Mexico, and we are, by almost any measure, “water starved.” I still have a garden, but its size is definitely constrained by water limitations. And rabbits.
Desert hares, in fact.
Just to chuck this out there, regarding the comment above about grass and English manors:
A gentleman from my lovely hometown of Buffalo, NY last summer (I think?) decided not to waste all the dandelions that everyone else in the country spends countless dollars and man-hours throttling with pesticides.
He picked all of them off his lawn, looked up recipes, and ate veritable buttloads of dandelions for days and days. Just from his small, city lawn.
Here’s a link to the article: http://artvoice.com/issues/v7n20/getting_a_grip
Why using pesticide on your lawn, and watering it to grow lush grass isn’t a Sumptuary Crime in this day and age and country, I have no idea.
Write your Congressfolk, I guess.
Just to chuck this out there, regarding the comment above about grass and English manors:
A gentleman from my lovely hometown of Buffalo, NY last summer (I think?) decided not to waste all the dandelions that everyone else in the country spends countless dollars and man-hours throttling with pesticides.
He picked all of them off his lawn, looked up recipes, and ate veritable buttloads of dandelions for days and days. Just from his small, city lawn.
Here’s a link to the article: http://artvoice.com/issues/v7n20/getting_a_grip
Why using pesticide on your lawn, and watering it to grow lush grass isn’t a Sumptuary Crime in this day and age and country, I have no idea.
Write your Congressfolk, I guess.
I’m glad to here that localism is gaining momentum. Not only because of the many good reasons Jon sites, but also because localism concerns itself with the stability of (specifically local) economies as much as with their productivity. Many of the problems of globalisation have come from destabilising one’s economy (making it more vulnerable to external ‘shocks’, which include not just terrorism but far more mundane things like commodity price hikes) for the sake of a few extra points of GDP. Many of the problems faced with farming in Africa and places like Mexico is precisely that we’ve forced aggressive free trade policies upon them (IMF reorganisation and NAFTA) which have opened up their internal food markets to external shocks they previously wouldn’t have been exposed to, i.e., we’ve made their systems for feeding themselves less stable.
Anyway, a point I think you all might be interested in is that surprisingly enough, there’s good data to show that small farming is more efficient than agribusiness. Quite significantly so. I’ll point to an article by George Monbiot, who puts it better than I could:-
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/06/10/small-is-bountiful/
I’m glad to here that localism is gaining momentum. Not only because of the many good reasons Jon sites, but also because localism concerns itself with the stability of (specifically local) economies as much as with their productivity. Many of the problems of globalisation have come from destabilising one’s economy (making it more vulnerable to external ‘shocks’, which include not just terrorism but far more mundane things like commodity price hikes) for the sake of a few extra points of GDP. Many of the problems faced with farming in Africa and places like Mexico is precisely that we’ve forced aggressive free trade policies upon them (IMF reorganisation and NAFTA) which have opened up their internal food markets to external shocks they previously wouldn’t have been exposed to, i.e., we’ve made their systems for feeding themselves less stable.
Anyway, a point I think you all might be interested in is that surprisingly enough, there’s good data to show that small farming is more efficient than agribusiness. Quite significantly so. I’ll point to an article by George Monbiot, who puts it better than I could:-
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/06/10/small-is-bountiful/
Pete, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Our bodies constantly strive for the meta-stability that homeostatic biological processes achieve. Stability is bad for business (many businesses, at least — Lockheed-Northrop, e.g., whose logo is the charmingly ambiguous “We Never Forget Who We’re Working For.” )TM, and a guy I used to know said that as a broker, he never had a better day than Black Monday, 1987, when he was the agent for change as people desperately tried to sell paper that was turning back into — paper.
Ken, I just have to ask about the idea that big, Big, BIG corporate entities and their culture have “collapsed.” Imperial courts, like the whole area inside the Beltway and around the Capitol, and at places like Tallahassee, will always have “special pleaders” constantly whispering into the ears of those who have the power to “make law” and collect and dispense taxes. “The government” is not going to shrink magically any time soon, nor is power likely to diffuse out into the hinterlands. Look at how the “bailout” is going, and who’s winning and who’s losing (check your 1040 if you don’t know the latter.)
And do I not see a large number of “players” from earlier Big Governments among those who will be helping Obama wreak change?
The big concentrations of economic and political power seem to me pretty much unchanged, even though for a few shining moments Toto has pulled aside the curtain the Wizard operates behind, pulling the levers of power, so we pilgrims can see how they’re “doing it to us”.
And as to us all starting to pull together, I hope I’m way wrong, but was as said above, there will always be winners and losers, the former being the more self-interested. I get a kick out of what you might call the leaf-blower culture: here we are, supposed to be concerned about using up our peak oil and reducing our carbon footprints, but Sunday’s 4-color ads from Walmart to Home Depot are full of 2-cycle, oil-mix, gas-powered weed whackers and edgers and riding mowers (for your 40-tsubo — Japanese for the area of 40 tatami mats — monoculture “farm”) . And the most obnoxious and symbolic, the gas -powered, 300 mph “yard blower” that lets you blow all the crap from your suburban “farm” over onto your neighbor’s property or out into the public street to be whirled away in the wakes of SUVs and into the public sewers, so that all of us have to clean up the mess that some of us make. All because that’s so much easier and more ego-satisfying than using a rake and a broom and keeping a compost heap.
And the germ-warfare research goes on, and the Army and its contractors are developing “autonomous battle robots” like maybe none of them have seen and registered the meaning of the “Terminator” movie plots.
Tell me please, are the Borg right? Is resistance futile?
Pete, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Our bodies constantly strive for the meta-stability that homeostatic biological processes achieve. Stability is bad for business (many businesses, at least — Lockheed-Northrop, e.g., whose logo is the charmingly ambiguous “We Never Forget Who We’re Working For.” )TM, and a guy I used to know said that as a broker, he never had a better day than Black Monday, 1987, when he was the agent for change as people desperately tried to sell paper that was turning back into — paper.
Ken, I just have to ask about the idea that big, Big, BIG corporate entities and their culture have “collapsed.” Imperial courts, like the whole area inside the Beltway and around the Capitol, and at places like Tallahassee, will always have “special pleaders” constantly whispering into the ears of those who have the power to “make law” and collect and dispense taxes. “The government” is not going to shrink magically any time soon, nor is power likely to diffuse out into the hinterlands. Look at how the “bailout” is going, and who’s winning and who’s losing (check your 1040 if you don’t know the latter.)
And do I not see a large number of “players” from earlier Big Governments among those who will be helping Obama wreak change?
The big concentrations of economic and political power seem to me pretty much unchanged, even though for a few shining moments Toto has pulled aside the curtain the Wizard operates behind, pulling the levers of power, so we pilgrims can see how they’re “doing it to us”.
And as to us all starting to pull together, I hope I’m way wrong, but was as said above, there will always be winners and losers, the former being the more self-interested. I get a kick out of what you might call the leaf-blower culture: here we are, supposed to be concerned about using up our peak oil and reducing our carbon footprints, but Sunday’s 4-color ads from Walmart to Home Depot are full of 2-cycle, oil-mix, gas-powered weed whackers and edgers and riding mowers (for your 40-tsubo — Japanese for the area of 40 tatami mats — monoculture “farm”) . And the most obnoxious and symbolic, the gas -powered, 300 mph “yard blower” that lets you blow all the crap from your suburban “farm” over onto your neighbor’s property or out into the public street to be whirled away in the wakes of SUVs and into the public sewers, so that all of us have to clean up the mess that some of us make. All because that’s so much easier and more ego-satisfying than using a rake and a broom and keeping a compost heap.
And the germ-warfare research goes on, and the Army and its contractors are developing “autonomous battle robots” like maybe none of them have seen and registered the meaning of the “Terminator” movie plots.
Tell me please, are the Borg right? Is resistance futile?
Pete, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Our bodies constantly strive for the meta-stability that homeostatic biological processes achieve. Stability is bad for business (many businesses, at least — Lockheed-Northrop, e.g., whose logo is the charmingly ambiguous “We Never Forget Who We’re Working For.” )TM, and a guy I used to know said that as a broker, he never had a better day than Black Monday, 1987, when he was the agent for change as people desperately tried to sell paper that was turning back into — paper.
Ken, I just have to ask about the idea that big, Big, BIG corporate entities and their culture have “collapsed.” Imperial courts, like the whole area inside the Beltway and around the Capitol, and at places like Tallahassee, will always have “special pleaders” constantly whispering into the ears of those who have the power to “make law” and collect and dispense taxes. “The government” is not going to shrink magically any time soon, nor is power likely to diffuse out into the hinterlands. Look at how the “bailout” is going, and who’s winning and who’s losing (check your 1040 if you don’t know the latter.)
And do I not see a large number of “players” from earlier Big Governments among those who will be helping Obama wreak change?
The big concentrations of economic and political power seem to me pretty much unchanged, even though for a few shining moments Toto has pulled aside the curtain the Wizard operates behind, pulling the levers of power, so we pilgrims can see how they’re “doing it to us”.
And as to us all starting to pull together, I hope I’m way wrong, but was as said above, there will always be winners and losers, the former being the more self-interested. I get a kick out of what you might call the leaf-blower culture: here we are, supposed to be concerned about using up our peak oil and reducing our carbon footprints, but Sunday’s 4-color ads from Walmart to Home Depot are full of 2-cycle, oil-mix, gas-powered weed whackers and edgers and riding mowers (for your 40-tsubo — Japanese for the area of 40 tatami mats — monoculture “farm”) . And the most obnoxious and symbolic, the gas -powered, 300 mph “yard blower” that lets you blow all the crap from your suburban “farm” over onto your neighbor’s property or out into the public street to be whirled away in the wakes of SUVs and into the public sewers, so that all of us have to clean up the mess that some of us make. All because that’s so much easier and more ego-satisfying than using a rake and a broom and keeping a compost heap.
And the germ-warfare research goes on, and the Army and its contractors are developing “autonomous battle robots” like maybe none of them have seen and registered the meaning of the “Terminator” movie plots.
Tell me please, are the Borg right? Is resistance futile?
As a son of a man who kept a garden, who mulches, who refuses to go Bermuda for the look and breeds grass year by year, and only adds nitrogen, who lives among the larger plots of still farmed land in our county, the quality most lacking among my neighbors is patience.
They come to a wooded neighborhood, cut down all the trees on their lot so they won’t have to clear gutters, strip off the top soil then cover with Bermuda mats, then buy the biggest HVAC system they can to cool a home that is 2000 sq feet on average larger than they need for a semi-retired couple to occasionally house sit their grandchildren, all the time complaining about the neighbors who kept the trees to reduce the cost of air conditioning in the summer and improve the quality of the air they breathe day in and out with open windows.
How many of us live in golf neighborhoods?
Resistance isn’t futile. It’s personal. When you are ready to step out of line and live in a way that you yourself find rewarding and satisfying, then you will discover you aren’t resisting. You are ignoring.
Do find a neighborhood where you can hire the contractor, build the house, and the covenants are concerned with living well instead of living the same. We sacrifice far too much quality of life in the name of belonging to the local clubs and as long as we endorse a society that makes it necessary for the man to die at his desk so his wife can be happier with the quality of her social existence, we always will. If you insist on a Golf Neighborhood, you value clean white balls more than clean water.
Once again, it’s not what you gain that determines your character. It’s what you gladly lose.
As a son of a man who kept a garden, who mulches, who refuses to go Bermuda for the look and breeds grass year by year, and only adds nitrogen, who lives among the larger plots of still farmed land in our county, the quality most lacking among my neighbors is patience.
They come to a wooded neighborhood, cut down all the trees on their lot so they won’t have to clear gutters, strip off the top soil then cover with Bermuda mats, then buy the biggest HVAC system they can to cool a home that is 2000 sq feet on average larger than they need for a semi-retired couple to occasionally house sit their grandchildren, all the time complaining about the neighbors who kept the trees to reduce the cost of air conditioning in the summer and improve the quality of the air they breathe day in and out with open windows.
How many of us live in golf neighborhoods?
Resistance isn’t futile. It’s personal. When you are ready to step out of line and live in a way that you yourself find rewarding and satisfying, then you will discover you aren’t resisting. You are ignoring.
Do find a neighborhood where you can hire the contractor, build the house, and the covenants are concerned with living well instead of living the same. We sacrifice far too much quality of life in the name of belonging to the local clubs and as long as we endorse a society that makes it necessary for the man to die at his desk so his wife can be happier with the quality of her social existence, we always will. If you insist on a Golf Neighborhood, you value clean white balls more than clean water.
Once again, it’s not what you gain that determines your character. It’s what you gladly lose.
As a son of a man who kept a garden, who mulches, who refuses to go Bermuda for the look and breeds grass year by year, and only adds nitrogen, who lives among the larger plots of still farmed land in our county, the quality most lacking among my neighbors is patience.
They come to a wooded neighborhood, cut down all the trees on their lot so they won’t have to clear gutters, strip off the top soil then cover with Bermuda mats, then buy the biggest HVAC system they can to cool a home that is 2000 sq feet on average larger than they need for a semi-retired couple to occasionally house sit their grandchildren, all the time complaining about the neighbors who kept the trees to reduce the cost of air conditioning in the summer and improve the quality of the air they breathe day in and out with open windows.
How many of us live in golf neighborhoods?
Resistance isn’t futile. It’s personal. When you are ready to step out of line and live in a way that you yourself find rewarding and satisfying, then you will discover you aren’t resisting. You are ignoring.
Do find a neighborhood where you can hire the contractor, build the house, and the covenants are concerned with living well instead of living the same. We sacrifice far too much quality of life in the name of belonging to the local clubs and as long as we endorse a society that makes it necessary for the man to die at his desk so his wife can be happier with the quality of her social existence, we always will. If you insist on a Golf Neighborhood, you value clean white balls more than clean water.
Once again, it’s not what you gain that determines your character. It’s what you gladly lose.
The last I heard, California still grew a lot of crops (like potatos and cabbage, as I recall) that do not require a California climate. But intense lobbying, always fronted by the propaganda of Protecting the Noble Sacred American Family Farm keeps the subsidies and water grants in place to make it profitable. Then we use oil to truck those crops to places where they could have been grown locally.
It’s going to be one hell of a hard cabal to break up. Considering that Obama is looking more and more like a deal-maker already, and that he faces massive problems simply keeping the economy from shutting down completely, the odds of fundamental change in our petroagribusiness are slim.
To be honest, I expect Obama to slip into the old grooves of the past 30 years, trying to keep inflation and unemployment low three months at a time. All other priorities rescinded.
The last I heard, California still grew a lot of crops (like potatos and cabbage, as I recall) that do not require a California climate. But intense lobbying, always fronted by the propaganda of Protecting the Noble Sacred American Family Farm keeps the subsidies and water grants in place to make it profitable. Then we use oil to truck those crops to places where they could have been grown locally.
It’s going to be one hell of a hard cabal to break up. Considering that Obama is looking more and more like a deal-maker already, and that he faces massive problems simply keeping the economy from shutting down completely, the odds of fundamental change in our petroagribusiness are slim.
To be honest, I expect Obama to slip into the old grooves of the past 30 years, trying to keep inflation and unemployment low three months at a time. All other priorities rescinded.
The last I heard, California still grew a lot of crops (like potatos and cabbage, as I recall) that do not require a California climate. But intense lobbying, always fronted by the propaganda of Protecting the Noble Sacred American Family Farm keeps the subsidies and water grants in place to make it profitable. Then we use oil to truck those crops to places where they could have been grown locally.
It’s going to be one hell of a hard cabal to break up. Considering that Obama is looking more and more like a deal-maker already, and that he faces massive problems simply keeping the economy from shutting down completely, the odds of fundamental change in our petroagribusiness are slim.
To be honest, I expect Obama to slip into the old grooves of the past 30 years, trying to keep inflation and unemployment low three months at a time. All other priorities rescinded.
Right Dan, they even tried to grow rice in the Imperial Valley. And, O’bama looks more like the past all the time. He’s one smart guy and too smart to upset the apple cart so to speak.
Right Dan, they even tried to grow rice in the Imperial Valley. And, O’bama looks more like the past all the time. He’s one smart guy and too smart to upset the apple cart so to speak.
Right Dan, they even tried to grow rice in the Imperial Valley. And, O’bama looks more like the past all the time. He’s one smart guy and too smart to upset the apple cart so to speak.
You aren’t going to break up agribusiness from the top down. You need to work it like splitting kindling…start with a big strong log, make a small crack, drive a wedge in, repeat. Create a market for local food by buying local (or regional) food. Lots of it. Then start working on everyone you know who tells you food is cheaper at WalMart (or any other supermarket). And keep working. Create more demand for fresh, local food and less for trucked in processed food. Do a little more every month or every year.
Policies can reward good practices, but trying to create good behavior with policies rarely works…invariably there are loopholes, unintended consequences and people who game the system.
Still, Rachel raises a good point about globalism. From an agricultural perspective, would we be doing enough for the global economy if we only bought stuff we couldn’t grow regionally (for New Mexico that’s stuff like coffee, bananas, and sugar)? I’m asking in earnest.
Finally, no one has pointed out (although I’m sure Pollan mentions it) the ripple effect of eating locally grown, seasonal food on food-related healthcare issues. And if a huge amount of people all needed a little less healthcare every year, how much energy (and disposable plastic stuff) would be conserved? (that one was rhetorical)
You aren’t going to break up agribusiness from the top down. You need to work it like splitting kindling…start with a big strong log, make a small crack, drive a wedge in, repeat. Create a market for local food by buying local (or regional) food. Lots of it. Then start working on everyone you know who tells you food is cheaper at WalMart (or any other supermarket). And keep working. Create more demand for fresh, local food and less for trucked in processed food. Do a little more every month or every year.
Policies can reward good practices, but trying to create good behavior with policies rarely works…invariably there are loopholes, unintended consequences and people who game the system.
Still, Rachel raises a good point about globalism. From an agricultural perspective, would we be doing enough for the global economy if we only bought stuff we couldn’t grow regionally (for New Mexico that’s stuff like coffee, bananas, and sugar)? I’m asking in earnest.
Finally, no one has pointed out (although I’m sure Pollan mentions it) the ripple effect of eating locally grown, seasonal food on food-related healthcare issues. And if a huge amount of people all needed a little less healthcare every year, how much energy (and disposable plastic stuff) would be conserved? (that one was rhetorical)
You aren’t going to break up agribusiness from the top down. You need to work it like splitting kindling…start with a big strong log, make a small crack, drive a wedge in, repeat. Create a market for local food by buying local (or regional) food. Lots of it. Then start working on everyone you know who tells you food is cheaper at WalMart (or any other supermarket). And keep working. Create more demand for fresh, local food and less for trucked in processed food. Do a little more every month or every year.
Policies can reward good practices, but trying to create good behavior with policies rarely works…invariably there are loopholes, unintended consequences and people who game the system.
Still, Rachel raises a good point about globalism. From an agricultural perspective, would we be doing enough for the global economy if we only bought stuff we couldn’t grow regionally (for New Mexico that’s stuff like coffee, bananas, and sugar)? I’m asking in earnest.
Finally, no one has pointed out (although I’m sure Pollan mentions it) the ripple effect of eating locally grown, seasonal food on food-related healthcare issues. And if a huge amount of people all needed a little less healthcare every year, how much energy (and disposable plastic stuff) would be conserved? (that one was rhetorical)
Golf neighborhood?
Ten years ago, I did live in a deed restricted development house, where the Yard Nazis enforced not only grass type (St. Augustine here in FL, which is a noxious weed, most places) but blade length, height of trees, height/type/distance from foundation of shrubbery. mailbox design, house color and all that.
Now I get to be a Simplicity Snob. I live on a wooden sailboat, use solar power, shop at the local farmer’s market, drive a fuel-efficient beater when necessary, have enough clothes to last the rest of my life, take Navy showers, generate minimal sewage, recycle and re-use, pick up my dog’s poop every time along with the trash others throw “away” along my walking routes, work as a nurse in a rehab office, and my wife is also a cardiac office nurse.
Wouldn’t it be nice if bragging rights were awarded to the folks who use less instead of dominating more of the landscape and available resources? Maybe not likely — consumption is infinitely seductive (see pictures of semi-naked models with “perfect” bodies and facial structures, and the “stuff” that sells to titillate our every visual and auditory and tactile pleasure center.) I don’t see the Idi Amins of the world giving up THEIR appetites, either.
But social change happens, it is a malleable phenomenon, the Ad Men and want-creators have ruled the roost for generations, and now that we all are looking at (The Wall)(The End of Life as We Know It)(your favorite apocalyptic phrase here) maybe those still, small, smug voices pitching for Less Is More and behaviors that are survivable for the species might get a better hearing. In among the clamor of all the people who still want, like John D. Rockefeller and John L. Lewis, “MORE!”
One of my favorite tales is the one about a now extinct species of crossbill, a bird that ate pine seeds extracted by a scissors-like bill. Turns out Intelligent Design rigged female crossbills to prefer males with big, ah, beaks with a great degree of “cross,” so these guys were the “successful” ones to get “reproductive access.” Kind of what happens with Rolexes and Lexuses and GQ suits and shoes. But the bills of succeeding generations got more and more unwieldy, until they wouldn’t open far enough to pick out the seeds. So in case the moral isn’t clear, what’s “good” for an individual bird (or human) often is not too hot for the survival of the species.
It was only 20-odd years ago that various future theorists were still maintaining that the main index of an advanced civilization was its geometrically greater use of energy. Whoops!
Golf neighborhood?
Ten years ago, I did live in a deed restricted development house, where the Yard Nazis enforced not only grass type (St. Augustine here in FL, which is a noxious weed, most places) but blade length, height of trees, height/type/distance from foundation of shrubbery. mailbox design, house color and all that.
Now I get to be a Simplicity Snob. I live on a wooden sailboat, use solar power, shop at the local farmer’s market, drive a fuel-efficient beater when necessary, have enough clothes to last the rest of my life, take Navy showers, generate minimal sewage, recycle and re-use, pick up my dog’s poop every time along with the trash others throw “away” along my walking routes, work as a nurse in a rehab office, and my wife is also a cardiac office nurse.
Wouldn’t it be nice if bragging rights were awarded to the folks who use less instead of dominating more of the landscape and available resources? Maybe not likely — consumption is infinitely seductive (see pictures of semi-naked models with “perfect” bodies and facial structures, and the “stuff” that sells to titillate our every visual and auditory and tactile pleasure center.) I don’t see the Idi Amins of the world giving up THEIR appetites, either.
But social change happens, it is a malleable phenomenon, the Ad Men and want-creators have ruled the roost for generations, and now that we all are looking at (The Wall)(The End of Life as We Know It)(your favorite apocalyptic phrase here) maybe those still, small, smug voices pitching for Less Is More and behaviors that are survivable for the species might get a better hearing. In among the clamor of all the people who still want, like John D. Rockefeller and John L. Lewis, “MORE!”
One of my favorite tales is the one about a now extinct species of crossbill, a bird that ate pine seeds extracted by a scissors-like bill. Turns out Intelligent Design rigged female crossbills to prefer males with big, ah, beaks with a great degree of “cross,” so these guys were the “successful” ones to get “reproductive access.” Kind of what happens with Rolexes and Lexuses and GQ suits and shoes. But the bills of succeeding generations got more and more unwieldy, until they wouldn’t open far enough to pick out the seeds. So in case the moral isn’t clear, what’s “good” for an individual bird (or human) often is not too hot for the survival of the species.
It was only 20-odd years ago that various future theorists were still maintaining that the main index of an advanced civilization was its geometrically greater use of energy. Whoops!
Golf neighborhood?
Ten years ago, I did live in a deed restricted development house, where the Yard Nazis enforced not only grass type (St. Augustine here in FL, which is a noxious weed, most places) but blade length, height of trees, height/type/distance from foundation of shrubbery. mailbox design, house color and all that.
Now I get to be a Simplicity Snob. I live on a wooden sailboat, use solar power, shop at the local farmer’s market, drive a fuel-efficient beater when necessary, have enough clothes to last the rest of my life, take Navy showers, generate minimal sewage, recycle and re-use, pick up my dog’s poop every time along with the trash others throw “away” along my walking routes, work as a nurse in a rehab office, and my wife is also a cardiac office nurse.
Wouldn’t it be nice if bragging rights were awarded to the folks who use less instead of dominating more of the landscape and available resources? Maybe not likely — consumption is infinitely seductive (see pictures of semi-naked models with “perfect” bodies and facial structures, and the “stuff” that sells to titillate our every visual and auditory and tactile pleasure center.) I don’t see the Idi Amins of the world giving up THEIR appetites, either.
But social change happens, it is a malleable phenomenon, the Ad Men and want-creators have ruled the roost for generations, and now that we all are looking at (The Wall)(The End of Life as We Know It)(your favorite apocalyptic phrase here) maybe those still, small, smug voices pitching for Less Is More and behaviors that are survivable for the species might get a better hearing. In among the clamor of all the people who still want, like John D. Rockefeller and John L. Lewis, “MORE!”
One of my favorite tales is the one about a now extinct species of crossbill, a bird that ate pine seeds extracted by a scissors-like bill. Turns out Intelligent Design rigged female crossbills to prefer males with big, ah, beaks with a great degree of “cross,” so these guys were the “successful” ones to get “reproductive access.” Kind of what happens with Rolexes and Lexuses and GQ suits and shoes. But the bills of succeeding generations got more and more unwieldy, until they wouldn’t open far enough to pick out the seeds. So in case the moral isn’t clear, what’s “good” for an individual bird (or human) often is not too hot for the survival of the species.
It was only 20-odd years ago that various future theorists were still maintaining that the main index of an advanced civilization was its geometrically greater use of energy. Whoops!
One way policies can help is to NOT let farmland be used for housing…it’s happening here in the Albuquerque area (and has been for some time) and it stinks. Literally and metaphorically it stinks. We’ve had people move to a pricey village called Corrales (just north of town) and complain about (among other things) roosters crowing at dawn, the smell of horse manure (does Corrales NOT mean something to you people), and mosquitoes (well, you are living right next to 1. a river and 2. an irrigation ditch). I understand not everyone enjoys a rural lifestyle (and the smell of horse manure) the way I do, but don’t put an expensive house on farmland and then complain about the surrounding farms. Sane development policies would help people in their ‘thinking’.
One way policies can help is to NOT let farmland be used for housing…it’s happening here in the Albuquerque area (and has been for some time) and it stinks. Literally and metaphorically it stinks. We’ve had people move to a pricey village called Corrales (just north of town) and complain about (among other things) roosters crowing at dawn, the smell of horse manure (does Corrales NOT mean something to you people), and mosquitoes (well, you are living right next to 1. a river and 2. an irrigation ditch). I understand not everyone enjoys a rural lifestyle (and the smell of horse manure) the way I do, but don’t put an expensive house on farmland and then complain about the surrounding farms. Sane development policies would help people in their ‘thinking’.
One way policies can help is to NOT let farmland be used for housing…it’s happening here in the Albuquerque area (and has been for some time) and it stinks. Literally and metaphorically it stinks. We’ve had people move to a pricey village called Corrales (just north of town) and complain about (among other things) roosters crowing at dawn, the smell of horse manure (does Corrales NOT mean something to you people), and mosquitoes (well, you are living right next to 1. a river and 2. an irrigation ditch). I understand not everyone enjoys a rural lifestyle (and the smell of horse manure) the way I do, but don’t put an expensive house on farmland and then complain about the surrounding farms. Sane development policies would help people in their ‘thinking’.
“Golf neighborhood?”
When the rage for ‘restricted living’ hit out parts, it manifested in The Coves. These are neighborhoods built on the other side of the hill (which means the Tennessee River can come right to their door if it so chooses) in areas formerly used to raise scraggly cattle because nothing grows on it.
In the sense of living on the ugly land, they did the right thing. But they insist that they have immediate cart access to a championship golf course, swimming pools, club houses and you get the picture. All of the homes have different designs and cannot repeat the same brick selection on the same street. All the other stuff, (grass height, mandatory lawn care services, noise, no cars parked outside the house, no unapproved lawn decorations, no children’s toys unless behind a pre-arpproved wooden fence), is the same.
So I moved to the other side of the county where the requirements are a certain number of feet between the street and the door, and homeowner must also own a chain saw.
They do allow the inflated christmas ornaments in season. If they are still there on December 26, Pellet Gun season opens.
“Golf neighborhood?”
When the rage for ‘restricted living’ hit out parts, it manifested in The Coves. These are neighborhoods built on the other side of the hill (which means the Tennessee River can come right to their door if it so chooses) in areas formerly used to raise scraggly cattle because nothing grows on it.
In the sense of living on the ugly land, they did the right thing. But they insist that they have immediate cart access to a championship golf course, swimming pools, club houses and you get the picture. All of the homes have different designs and cannot repeat the same brick selection on the same street. All the other stuff, (grass height, mandatory lawn care services, noise, no cars parked outside the house, no unapproved lawn decorations, no children’s toys unless behind a pre-arpproved wooden fence), is the same.
So I moved to the other side of the county where the requirements are a certain number of feet between the street and the door, and homeowner must also own a chain saw.
They do allow the inflated christmas ornaments in season. If they are still there on December 26, Pellet Gun season opens.
“Golf neighborhood?”
When the rage for ‘restricted living’ hit out parts, it manifested in The Coves. These are neighborhoods built on the other side of the hill (which means the Tennessee River can come right to their door if it so chooses) in areas formerly used to raise scraggly cattle because nothing grows on it.
In the sense of living on the ugly land, they did the right thing. But they insist that they have immediate cart access to a championship golf course, swimming pools, club houses and you get the picture. All of the homes have different designs and cannot repeat the same brick selection on the same street. All the other stuff, (grass height, mandatory lawn care services, noise, no cars parked outside the house, no unapproved lawn decorations, no children’s toys unless behind a pre-arpproved wooden fence), is the same.
So I moved to the other side of the county where the requirements are a certain number of feet between the street and the door, and homeowner must also own a chain saw.
They do allow the inflated christmas ornaments in season. If they are still there on December 26, Pellet Gun season opens.
I actually just started blogging on Pollan as well.
http://www.nowrench.com/crimson/2008/11/29/eating-globally/
So there are a couple of things here. Pollan is not accusing farmers of wanting to be monoculture bigots. He blames two things: the industrialization of our food supply and the distortion of government farm policy in the 70′s and 80′s for FORCING farmers to become monoculture.
It is the small farmers who can opt out of this system, since it is much easier to find a market for moderate amount of local produce and there isn’t a huge mortgage to pay down, requiring growing things for the agri-industrial complex.
Fixing the problem really comes down to two things. Make farm subsidies work again. The entire mainstream food system is geared towards producing as much cheap food as possible. It has numerous externalities which are ignored (groundwater poisoning, decreased soil fertility, erosion, drug-resistant bacteria, increased food contamination, hormonal imbalances in children, diabetes, etc.). In the old days, farm subsidies tried to keep food prices stable, so that farmers could make a living. Somewhat coincidentally, they also limited the amount of land being farmed and encouraged more responsible farming. When the system changed (at the behest of agri-business under Republican administrations), farm policy encouraged farmers to grow as much as possible. We grow too much food, most of it crap, in this country.
Step two is to factor in the cost of the externalities into food. Food which is sprayed with pesticides should cost more. Food which is grown with artificial fertilizer should cost more. Animals raised in feedlots should cost more. The only reason industrial farming is cheaper is that we do not factor in the true costs. Government regulation can and should accomplish that.
The issue of global trade in food is somewhat different. That is, at its heart, an energy issue. As I point out in the above linked blog post, we’ve been trading food internationally forever. Think the spice trade back in the 1400′s or the tropical fruit mentioned in the pull-quote on my post. Global trade is about energy. We clearly need to find clean ways to generate energy. Shipping/flying is just an expenditure of energy. If we can find clean ways to generate energy, there is no inherent problem in shipping food around the world. However, we need to build in the externalities here as well. Currently it is cheaper to grow food in South America and ship it ot the US. But the environmental cost of that isn’t factored into the food. If you were to factor in the cost of rainforest destruction (for crop land) and the carbon emissions of shipping the food up, it becomes much cheaper to grow the food in the US.
The problem in Africa, is that Africa is not growing food for Africa. Africa is growing food to feed the world agri-industrial complex, which Africa is too poor to consume from (since agri-industry is about taking cheap corn and soy and turning it into ‘value-added’ products which insane profit margins). If Africa was to concentrate on sustainable, local agriculture, growing native crops to feed their people, there would be less poverty and probably less conflict, even if their GNP was lower. As Eric Davidson points out, “You can’t eat GNP.”
I actually just started blogging on Pollan as well.
http://www.nowrench.com/crimson/2008/11/29/eating-globally/
So there are a couple of things here. Pollan is not accusing farmers of wanting to be monoculture bigots. He blames two things: the industrialization of our food supply and the distortion of government farm policy in the 70′s and 80′s for FORCING farmers to become monoculture.
It is the small farmers who can opt out of this system, since it is much easier to find a market for moderate amount of local produce and there isn’t a huge mortgage to pay down, requiring growing things for the agri-industrial complex.
Fixing the problem really comes down to two things. Make farm subsidies work again. The entire mainstream food system is geared towards producing as much cheap food as possible. It has numerous externalities which are ignored (groundwater poisoning, decreased soil fertility, erosion, drug-resistant bacteria, increased food contamination, hormonal imbalances in children, diabetes, etc.). In the old days, farm subsidies tried to keep food prices stable, so that farmers could make a living. Somewhat coincidentally, they also limited the amount of land being farmed and encouraged more responsible farming. When the system changed (at the behest of agri-business under Republican administrations), farm policy encouraged farmers to grow as much as possible. We grow too much food, most of it crap, in this country.
Step two is to factor in the cost of the externalities into food. Food which is sprayed with pesticides should cost more. Food which is grown with artificial fertilizer should cost more. Animals raised in feedlots should cost more. The only reason industrial farming is cheaper is that we do not factor in the true costs. Government regulation can and should accomplish that.
The issue of global trade in food is somewhat different. That is, at its heart, an energy issue. As I point out in the above linked blog post, we’ve been trading food internationally forever. Think the spice trade back in the 1400′s or the tropical fruit mentioned in the pull-quote on my post. Global trade is about energy. We clearly need to find clean ways to generate energy. Shipping/flying is just an expenditure of energy. If we can find clean ways to generate energy, there is no inherent problem in shipping food around the world. However, we need to build in the externalities here as well. Currently it is cheaper to grow food in South America and ship it ot the US. But the environmental cost of that isn’t factored into the food. If you were to factor in the cost of rainforest destruction (for crop land) and the carbon emissions of shipping the food up, it becomes much cheaper to grow the food in the US.
The problem in Africa, is that Africa is not growing food for Africa. Africa is growing food to feed the world agri-industrial complex, which Africa is too poor to consume from (since agri-industry is about taking cheap corn and soy and turning it into ‘value-added’ products which insane profit margins). If Africa was to concentrate on sustainable, local agriculture, growing native crops to feed their people, there would be less poverty and probably less conflict, even if their GNP was lower. As Eric Davidson points out, “You can’t eat GNP.”
I actually just started blogging on Pollan as well.
http://www.nowrench.com/crimson/2008/11/29/eating-globally/
So there are a couple of things here. Pollan is not accusing farmers of wanting to be monoculture bigots. He blames two things: the industrialization of our food supply and the distortion of government farm policy in the 70′s and 80′s for FORCING farmers to become monoculture.
It is the small farmers who can opt out of this system, since it is much easier to find a market for moderate amount of local produce and there isn’t a huge mortgage to pay down, requiring growing things for the agri-industrial complex.
Fixing the problem really comes down to two things. Make farm subsidies work again. The entire mainstream food system is geared towards producing as much cheap food as possible. It has numerous externalities which are ignored (groundwater poisoning, decreased soil fertility, erosion, drug-resistant bacteria, increased food contamination, hormonal imbalances in children, diabetes, etc.). In the old days, farm subsidies tried to keep food prices stable, so that farmers could make a living. Somewhat coincidentally, they also limited the amount of land being farmed and encouraged more responsible farming. When the system changed (at the behest of agri-business under Republican administrations), farm policy encouraged farmers to grow as much as possible. We grow too much food, most of it crap, in this country.
Step two is to factor in the cost of the externalities into food. Food which is sprayed with pesticides should cost more. Food which is grown with artificial fertilizer should cost more. Animals raised in feedlots should cost more. The only reason industrial farming is cheaper is that we do not factor in the true costs. Government regulation can and should accomplish that.
The issue of global trade in food is somewhat different. That is, at its heart, an energy issue. As I point out in the above linked blog post, we’ve been trading food internationally forever. Think the spice trade back in the 1400′s or the tropical fruit mentioned in the pull-quote on my post. Global trade is about energy. We clearly need to find clean ways to generate energy. Shipping/flying is just an expenditure of energy. If we can find clean ways to generate energy, there is no inherent problem in shipping food around the world. However, we need to build in the externalities here as well. Currently it is cheaper to grow food in South America and ship it ot the US. But the environmental cost of that isn’t factored into the food. If you were to factor in the cost of rainforest destruction (for crop land) and the carbon emissions of shipping the food up, it becomes much cheaper to grow the food in the US.
The problem in Africa, is that Africa is not growing food for Africa. Africa is growing food to feed the world agri-industrial complex, which Africa is too poor to consume from (since agri-industry is about taking cheap corn and soy and turning it into ‘value-added’ products which insane profit margins). If Africa was to concentrate on sustainable, local agriculture, growing native crops to feed their people, there would be less poverty and probably less conflict, even if their GNP was lower. As Eric Davidson points out, “You can’t eat GNP.”
Externalities? There are lots of them, and people get rich off pushing them off onto the other guy’s lawn.
International food trade, via “generating more energy?” More use of energy equals more heat loss to the biosphere. Even “benign” ideas like PV, which absorbs some photons to make juice but also collects and re-radiates IR (heat). That’s just straight thermodynamics.
Getting “Africa” to do anything different, especially if that involves going against immemorial tradition, is a tough sell by all I’ve read and heard from folks who tried to introduce water-conserving planting and things as simple as using hearths that don’t depend on charcoal which is made by burning most of the CO2 and heat value out of rapidly disappearing green stuff.
“Africa” is probably not too poor, it’s just becaue the kleptocrats ride them like the vampires have done here.
Externalities? There are lots of them, and people get rich off pushing them off onto the other guy’s lawn.
International food trade, via “generating more energy?” More use of energy equals more heat loss to the biosphere. Even “benign” ideas like PV, which absorbs some photons to make juice but also collects and re-radiates IR (heat). That’s just straight thermodynamics.
Getting “Africa” to do anything different, especially if that involves going against immemorial tradition, is a tough sell by all I’ve read and heard from folks who tried to introduce water-conserving planting and things as simple as using hearths that don’t depend on charcoal which is made by burning most of the CO2 and heat value out of rapidly disappearing green stuff.
“Africa” is probably not too poor, it’s just becaue the kleptocrats ride them like the vampires have done here.
Externalities? There are lots of them, and people get rich off pushing them off onto the other guy’s lawn.
International food trade, via “generating more energy?” More use of energy equals more heat loss to the biosphere. Even “benign” ideas like PV, which absorbs some photons to make juice but also collects and re-radiates IR (heat). That’s just straight thermodynamics.
Getting “Africa” to do anything different, especially if that involves going against immemorial tradition, is a tough sell by all I’ve read and heard from folks who tried to introduce water-conserving planting and things as simple as using hearths that don’t depend on charcoal which is made by burning most of the CO2 and heat value out of rapidly disappearing green stuff.
“Africa” is probably not too poor, it’s just becaue the kleptocrats ride them like the vampires have done here.
I agree that the combination of low perceived priority for reform among Administration officials, combined with formidable lobbies that will do just about anything to keep it that way is unlikely to make this a headline grabbing tent-pole for any top-down effort.
Which is a shame, since this may the one issue that can drive more positive change on more fronts than any other single concern – including health care, and even energy.
For that reason, it may make an ideal focal point for people taking control over their own lives, health, well-being, and patterns of consumption. The more of this you do, the greater your awareness becomes of the hideously corrupt, economy distorting, environment wrecking, poverty inducing, and health-crisis inducing our system of agribusiness has become.
I know Jon has got it in for the Military Industrial Complex, and the Cost of Empire (as well he should), but there’s an equally pernicious, and far more obscure form of harm inflicted by the way we eat – and a heavily vested set of interests devoted to sustaining the unsustainable by inflicting enormous hidden costs on people everywhere.
Understanding this by way of individual lifestyle choices is the best kind of awareness, as it’s derived only after people have (a) made significant evolutions in their own lives (b) seen first hand the health, community, and financial benefits, and (c) established a basic ethos that can be used to push change up the ladder. That (forgive the expression) is a recipe for real change.
A great place to start is with Alice Waters (founder of Chez Panisse), and her Slow Food movement. The website isn’t great, but their work is, and they’re still on the steep part of the development curve. As time passes, I’m sure the whole thing will sharpen considerably. What counts is that they’re starting from a very solid foundation.
I agree that the combination of low perceived priority for reform among Administration officials, combined with formidable lobbies that will do just about anything to keep it that way is unlikely to make this a headline grabbing tent-pole for any top-down effort.
Which is a shame, since this may the one issue that can drive more positive change on more fronts than any other single concern – including health care, and even energy.
For that reason, it may make an ideal focal point for people taking control over their own lives, health, well-being, and patterns of consumption. The more of this you do, the greater your awareness becomes of the hideously corrupt, economy distorting, environment wrecking, poverty inducing, and health-crisis inducing our system of agribusiness has become.
I know Jon has got it in for the Military Industrial Complex, and the Cost of Empire (as well he should), but there’s an equally pernicious, and far more obscure form of harm inflicted by the way we eat – and a heavily vested set of interests devoted to sustaining the unsustainable by inflicting enormous hidden costs on people everywhere.
Understanding this by way of individual lifestyle choices is the best kind of awareness, as it’s derived only after people have (a) made significant evolutions in their own lives (b) seen first hand the health, community, and financial benefits, and (c) established a basic ethos that can be used to push change up the ladder. That (forgive the expression) is a recipe for real change.
A great place to start is with Alice Waters (founder of Chez Panisse), and her Slow Food movement. The website isn’t great, but their work is, and they’re still on the steep part of the development curve. As time passes, I’m sure the whole thing will sharpen considerably. What counts is that they’re starting from a very solid foundation.
I agree that the combination of low perceived priority for reform among Administration officials, combined with formidable lobbies that will do just about anything to keep it that way is unlikely to make this a headline grabbing tent-pole for any top-down effort.
Which is a shame, since this may the one issue that can drive more positive change on more fronts than any other single concern – including health care, and even energy.
For that reason, it may make an ideal focal point for people taking control over their own lives, health, well-being, and patterns of consumption. The more of this you do, the greater your awareness becomes of the hideously corrupt, economy distorting, environment wrecking, poverty inducing, and health-crisis inducing our system of agribusiness has become.
I know Jon has got it in for the Military Industrial Complex, and the Cost of Empire (as well he should), but there’s an equally pernicious, and far more obscure form of harm inflicted by the way we eat – and a heavily vested set of interests devoted to sustaining the unsustainable by inflicting enormous hidden costs on people everywhere.
Understanding this by way of individual lifestyle choices is the best kind of awareness, as it’s derived only after people have (a) made significant evolutions in their own lives (b) seen first hand the health, community, and financial benefits, and (c) established a basic ethos that can be used to push change up the ladder. That (forgive the expression) is a recipe for real change.
A great place to start is with Alice Waters (founder of Chez Panisse), and her Slow Food movement. The website isn’t great, but their work is, and they’re still on the steep part of the development curve. As time passes, I’m sure the whole thing will sharpen considerably. What counts is that they’re starting from a very solid foundation.
Alex, I completely agree with you that this needs to be a bottom-up change – the forces in opposition are too strong to take on at the top.
And I agree with you that it’s as big an issue as the problems of empire.
There was a lovely article recently in the New Yorker on this subject and its application to China: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_dunlop
As for slow food, I grew up on a farm, too, and learned to cook on an Aga cooker (a not very ideologically sound wood-burning stove – although you can convert them to gas these days), which adds an extra dimension to the idea of “slow”. I still find cooking to be the most relaxing part of my day, and while I’m not the world’s greatest cook I’ve come to appreciate the maxim that you can’t get a great meal from bad ingredients. Buy fresh, buy local, never buy out of season.
For those of you in Seattle who may be fans of “slow food”, Alice Waters has devotees at the restaurant Lark, in Capitol Hill. I can highly recommend it.
Alex, I completely agree with you that this needs to be a bottom-up change – the forces in opposition are too strong to take on at the top.
And I agree with you that it’s as big an issue as the problems of empire.
There was a lovely article recently in the New Yorker on this subject and its application to China: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_dunlop
As for slow food, I grew up on a farm, too, and learned to cook on an Aga cooker (a not very ideologically sound wood-burning stove – although you can convert them to gas these days), which adds an extra dimension to the idea of “slow”. I still find cooking to be the most relaxing part of my day, and while I’m not the world’s greatest cook I’ve come to appreciate the maxim that you can’t get a great meal from bad ingredients. Buy fresh, buy local, never buy out of season.
For those of you in Seattle who may be fans of “slow food”, Alice Waters has devotees at the restaurant Lark, in Capitol Hill. I can highly recommend it.
Alex, I completely agree with you that this needs to be a bottom-up change – the forces in opposition are too strong to take on at the top.
And I agree with you that it’s as big an issue as the problems of empire.
There was a lovely article recently in the New Yorker on this subject and its application to China: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_dunlop
As for slow food, I grew up on a farm, too, and learned to cook on an Aga cooker (a not very ideologically sound wood-burning stove – although you can convert them to gas these days), which adds an extra dimension to the idea of “slow”. I still find cooking to be the most relaxing part of my day, and while I’m not the world’s greatest cook I’ve come to appreciate the maxim that you can’t get a great meal from bad ingredients. Buy fresh, buy local, never buy out of season.
For those of you in Seattle who may be fans of “slow food”, Alice Waters has devotees at the restaurant Lark, in Capitol Hill. I can highly recommend it.
Here is an interesting conundrum from one of our Indian employees looking at Mumbai. We were discussing the corruption that makes it possible to insert and keep terrorists in house, in other words, did only ten men get off those boats or did twenty and only ten went active? That was the topic but this is the comment that struck me:
He says that in India, because of poverty, crime and corruption are a bottom-up industry. In America, he says, because we are rich, crime and corruption are a top-down industry. As a result, honesty at the bottom makes it harder to commit terrorist acts here and dishonesty at the top makes it possible to steal a great deal of money there.
It makes one pause to think.
Here is an interesting conundrum from one of our Indian employees looking at Mumbai. We were discussing the corruption that makes it possible to insert and keep terrorists in house, in other words, did only ten men get off those boats or did twenty and only ten went active? That was the topic but this is the comment that struck me:
He says that in India, because of poverty, crime and corruption are a bottom-up industry. In America, he says, because we are rich, crime and corruption are a top-down industry. As a result, honesty at the bottom makes it harder to commit terrorist acts here and dishonesty at the top makes it possible to steal a great deal of money there.
It makes one pause to think.
Here is an interesting conundrum from one of our Indian employees looking at Mumbai. We were discussing the corruption that makes it possible to insert and keep terrorists in house, in other words, did only ten men get off those boats or did twenty and only ten went active? That was the topic but this is the comment that struck me:
He says that in India, because of poverty, crime and corruption are a bottom-up industry. In America, he says, because we are rich, crime and corruption are a top-down industry. As a result, honesty at the bottom makes it harder to commit terrorist acts here and dishonesty at the top makes it possible to steal a great deal of money there.
It makes one pause to think.
Leaving farmland in food production:
Vermont faced a challenge in the early ’70s. “New York” developers were taking advantage of a sudden rush of people with enough disposable income or debt space to buy exurban ski chalets and cabins in the woods. The trick I was taught in law school’s “Land Use” class (How to be a devleoper 101) was to buy a small parcel in among the yeoman farms (and there’s precious few “big farms” in rocky Vermont), build a residential palace, then sucker the local government types into lusting after all the tax revenues they were “missing out on” by not taxing farmland at that new highest-and-best-use. Presto, the farmer either sells or loses the farm at a tax sale when he gets hit with a several thousand percent increase in his tax bill. And there is the devleoper, with a pen in one hand and a deed for the farmer to sign in the other. Instant overdevelopment. Not even impact fees — the public absorbs all the infrastructure costs and other externalities like choked roads and overloaded sewer systems.
Vermont’s legislature, full of unregenerate classical-conservative Hippies and backwoods liberals, passed what was then codified as “Act 250,” which imposed a confiscatory tax on the profits from rolling farmland like that. Like 90%. It encouraged leaving the zoning maps alone, too. And the state supreme court, not really all that liberal but unhappy to lose what made Vermont attractive for them to live in, said Okey-Doke.
Imagine that happening now, and Scalia writing the federal Supremes’ lyrics for the “strict- construction” ruling that this “farm policy” would constitute a “taking without just compensation” in violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments.
I doubt there’s a federal solution to the problems of using local governments’ greed for revenue to force “conversion” of farmland to condoms and tract housing like “The Coves At Crescent Beach” or “The Villages of Brighton.” But here’s one of those think-globally, act-locally opportunites to get farmers, and the part of the polity that’s fed up with business-as-usual, to change the rules.
We hear every day from some politician or executive-with-lobbyists or senior government official caught with hands in the wrong pockets that “what they did is legal.” That’s true only because these folks have written the laws to sweep their back-room conduct right out of the mens-rea or intentional-tort category and into “perfectly ethical and legal ” by reference to the ethics rules and statutes they write to let them get away with all-that, without consequences.
And Len, I might observe that “India” is a made-up “state,” made up of macro-and micro-states, with a limited sense of national identity subject to constant threat of schism, and an ancient tradition of violence and corruption, which was very much top-down and feudal. And because of the fragmented and internally suspicious and hateful sub-units of the population, there is not an effective national police force and the military is so up-for-grabs that Indira Gandhi’s bodyguards were the ones who killed her over essentially a tribal-boundary issue.
The US has, by comparison, a relatively homogeneous, less caste-driven, mostly Judeo-Christian-consumer populace. Our top-down corruption is of the worst-of-capitalism kind, IMHO, though it obviously penetrates to local levels as well. We do have something of an effective national police force, however much it has been damaged by Homeland-Securitizing. At least the FBI grunts did their jobs in notifying their career-protective superiors that maybe Mohammed Atta was learning to fly with something like 9-11 in mind. Query whether “we” are going to sink into the kind of particularism and tribalism that is growing in so many other places in the world. The Aryan Nation and black separatists wanted (want?) their own state, and Northern California would love to secede from Southern California.
As to US honesty at the bottom, the mostcommon crime in the US (after income “understatements” on our 1040s) is doing construction on the sly, without permits and with no regard to building codes. Mother-in-law apartments, basement rec rooms and more. And have any of us ever had the chance to avoid a traffic ticket by folding a $20 or $50 up behind the license we hand to the radar cop?
Sometimes I almost want to thank those guys and gals of the NRA, who get such sensual pleasure out of the mouth of a gun, and from the oily, precise sliding in and out of the actions of automatic weapons. Jefferson’s revolutions and all that work better if one has a chance at pulling off a liberal version of “Red Dawn Rising.”
Maybe it’s just all too complicated, even for Barack Obama. Best to mind our own little space, make it nice and safe and healthy, and keep making it a litttle bigger until it overlaps with the nice safe spaces of our neighbors.
Leaving farmland in food production:
Vermont faced a challenge in the early ’70s. “New York” developers were taking advantage of a sudden rush of people with enough disposable income or debt space to buy exurban ski chalets and cabins in the woods. The trick I was taught in law school’s “Land Use” class (How to be a devleoper 101) was to buy a small parcel in among the yeoman farms (and there’s precious few “big farms” in rocky Vermont), build a residential palace, then sucker the local government types into lusting after all the tax revenues they were “missing out on” by not taxing farmland at that new highest-and-best-use. Presto, the farmer either sells or loses the farm at a tax sale when he gets hit with a several thousand percent increase in his tax bill. And there is the devleoper, with a pen in one hand and a deed for the farmer to sign in the other. Instant overdevelopment. Not even impact fees — the public absorbs all the infrastructure costs and other externalities like choked roads and overloaded sewer systems.
Vermont’s legislature, full of unregenerate classical-conservative Hippies and backwoods liberals, passed what was then codified as “Act 250,” which imposed a confiscatory tax on the profits from rolling farmland like that. Like 90%. It encouraged leaving the zoning maps alone, too. And the state supreme court, not really all that liberal but unhappy to lose what made Vermont attractive for them to live in, said Okey-Doke.
Imagine that happening now, and Scalia writing the federal Supremes’ lyrics for the “strict- construction” ruling that this “farm policy” would constitute a “taking without just compensation” in violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments.
I doubt there’s a federal solution to the problems of using local governments’ greed for revenue to force “conversion” of farmland to condoms and tract housing like “The Coves At Crescent Beach” or “The Villages of Brighton.” But here’s one of those think-globally, act-locally opportunites to get farmers, and the part of the polity that’s fed up with business-as-usual, to change the rules.
We hear every day from some politician or executive-with-lobbyists or senior government official caught with hands in the wrong pockets that “what they did is legal.” That’s true only because these folks have written the laws to sweep their back-room conduct right out of the mens-rea or intentional-tort category and into “perfectly ethical and legal ” by reference to the ethics rules and statutes they write to let them get away with all-that, without consequences.
And Len, I might observe that “India” is a made-up “state,” made up of macro-and micro-states, with a limited sense of national identity subject to constant threat of schism, and an ancient tradition of violence and corruption, which was very much top-down and feudal. And because of the fragmented and internally suspicious and hateful sub-units of the population, there is not an effective national police force and the military is so up-for-grabs that Indira Gandhi’s bodyguards were the ones who killed her over essentially a tribal-boundary issue.
The US has, by comparison, a relatively homogeneous, less caste-driven, mostly Judeo-Christian-consumer populace. Our top-down corruption is of the worst-of-capitalism kind, IMHO, though it obviously penetrates to local levels as well. We do have something of an effective national police force, however much it has been damaged by Homeland-Securitizing. At least the FBI grunts did their jobs in notifying their career-protective superiors that maybe Mohammed Atta was learning to fly with something like 9-11 in mind. Query whether “we” are going to sink into the kind of particularism and tribalism that is growing in so many other places in the world. The Aryan Nation and black separatists wanted (want?) their own state, and Northern California would love to secede from Southern California.
As to US honesty at the bottom, the mostcommon crime in the US (after income “understatements” on our 1040s) is doing construction on the sly, without permits and with no regard to building codes. Mother-in-law apartments, basement rec rooms and more. And have any of us ever had the chance to avoid a traffic ticket by folding a $20 or $50 up behind the license we hand to the radar cop?
Sometimes I almost want to thank those guys and gals of the NRA, who get such sensual pleasure out of the mouth of a gun, and from the oily, precise sliding in and out of the actions of automatic weapons. Jefferson’s revolutions and all that work better if one has a chance at pulling off a liberal version of “Red Dawn Rising.”
Maybe it’s just all too complicated, even for Barack Obama. Best to mind our own little space, make it nice and safe and healthy, and keep making it a litttle bigger until it overlaps with the nice safe spaces of our neighbors.
Leaving farmland in food production:
Vermont faced a challenge in the early ’70s. “New York” developers were taking advantage of a sudden rush of people with enough disposable income or debt space to buy exurban ski chalets and cabins in the woods. The trick I was taught in law school’s “Land Use” class (How to be a devleoper 101) was to buy a small parcel in among the yeoman farms (and there’s precious few “big farms” in rocky Vermont), build a residential palace, then sucker the local government types into lusting after all the tax revenues they were “missing out on” by not taxing farmland at that new highest-and-best-use. Presto, the farmer either sells or loses the farm at a tax sale when he gets hit with a several thousand percent increase in his tax bill. And there is the devleoper, with a pen in one hand and a deed for the farmer to sign in the other. Instant overdevelopment. Not even impact fees — the public absorbs all the infrastructure costs and other externalities like choked roads and overloaded sewer systems.
Vermont’s legislature, full of unregenerate classical-conservative Hippies and backwoods liberals, passed what was then codified as “Act 250,” which imposed a confiscatory tax on the profits from rolling farmland like that. Like 90%. It encouraged leaving the zoning maps alone, too. And the state supreme court, not really all that liberal but unhappy to lose what made Vermont attractive for them to live in, said Okey-Doke.
Imagine that happening now, and Scalia writing the federal Supremes’ lyrics for the “strict- construction” ruling that this “farm policy” would constitute a “taking without just compensation” in violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments.
I doubt there’s a federal solution to the problems of using local governments’ greed for revenue to force “conversion” of farmland to condoms and tract housing like “The Coves At Crescent Beach” or “The Villages of Brighton.” But here’s one of those think-globally, act-locally opportunites to get farmers, and the part of the polity that’s fed up with business-as-usual, to change the rules.
We hear every day from some politician or executive-with-lobbyists or senior government official caught with hands in the wrong pockets that “what they did is legal.” That’s true only because these folks have written the laws to sweep their back-room conduct right out of the mens-rea or intentional-tort category and into “perfectly ethical and legal ” by reference to the ethics rules and statutes they write to let them get away with all-that, without consequences.
And Len, I might observe that “India” is a made-up “state,” made up of macro-and micro-states, with a limited sense of national identity subject to constant threat of schism, and an ancient tradition of violence and corruption, which was very much top-down and feudal. And because of the fragmented and internally suspicious and hateful sub-units of the population, there is not an effective national police force and the military is so up-for-grabs that Indira Gandhi’s bodyguards were the ones who killed her over essentially a tribal-boundary issue.
The US has, by comparison, a relatively homogeneous, less caste-driven, mostly Judeo-Christian-consumer populace. Our top-down corruption is of the worst-of-capitalism kind, IMHO, though it obviously penetrates to local levels as well. We do have something of an effective national police force, however much it has been damaged by Homeland-Securitizing. At least the FBI grunts did their jobs in notifying their career-protective superiors that maybe Mohammed Atta was learning to fly with something like 9-11 in mind. Query whether “we” are going to sink into the kind of particularism and tribalism that is growing in so many other places in the world. The Aryan Nation and black separatists wanted (want?) their own state, and Northern California would love to secede from Southern California.
As to US honesty at the bottom, the mostcommon crime in the US (after income “understatements” on our 1040s) is doing construction on the sly, without permits and with no regard to building codes. Mother-in-law apartments, basement rec rooms and more. And have any of us ever had the chance to avoid a traffic ticket by folding a $20 or $50 up behind the license we hand to the radar cop?
Sometimes I almost want to thank those guys and gals of the NRA, who get such sensual pleasure out of the mouth of a gun, and from the oily, precise sliding in and out of the actions of automatic weapons. Jefferson’s revolutions and all that work better if one has a chance at pulling off a liberal version of “Red Dawn Rising.”
Maybe it’s just all too complicated, even for Barack Obama. Best to mind our own little space, make it nice and safe and healthy, and keep making it a litttle bigger until it overlaps with the nice safe spaces of our neighbors.
Leaving farmland in food production:
Vermont faced a challenge in the early ’70s. “New York” developers were taking advantage of a sudden rush of people with enough disposable income or debt space to buy exurban ski chalets and cabins in the woods. The trick I was taught in law school’s “Land Use” class (How to be a devleoper 101) was to buy a small parcel in among the yeoman farms (and there’s precious few “big farms” in rocky Vermont), build a residential palace, then sucker the local government types into lusting after all the tax revenues they were “missing out on” by not taxing farmland at that new highest-and-best-use. Presto, the farmer either sells or loses the farm at a tax sale when he gets hit with a several thousand percent increase in his tax bill. And there is the devleoper, with a pen in one hand and a deed for the farmer to sign in the other. Instant overdevelopment. Not even impact fees — the public absorbs all the infrastructure costs and other externalities like choked roads and overloaded sewer systems.
Vermont’s legislature, full of unregenerate classical-conservative Hippies and backwoods liberals, passed what was then codified as “Act 250,” which imposed a confiscatory tax on the profits from rolling farmland like that. Like 90%. It encouraged leaving the zoning maps alone, too. And the state supreme court, not really all that liberal but unhappy to lose what made Vermont attractive for them to live in, said Okey-Doke.
Imagine that happening now, and Scalia writing the federal Supremes’ lyrics for the “strict- construction” ruling that this “farm policy” would constitute a “taking without just compensation” in violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments.
I doubt there’s a federal solution to the problems of using local governments’ greed for revenue to force “conversion” of farmland to condoms and tract housing like “The Coves At Crescent Beach” or “The Villages of Brighton.” But here’s one of those think-globally, act-locally opportunites to get farmers, and the part of the polity that’s fed up with business-as-usual, to change the rules.
We hear every day from some politician or executive-with-lobbyists or senior government official caught with hands in the wrong pockets that “what they did is legal.” That’s true only because these folks have written the laws to sweep their back-room conduct right out of the mens-rea or intentional-tort category and into “perfectly ethical and legal ” by reference to the ethics rules and statutes they write to let them get away with all-that, without consequences.
And Len, I might observe that “India” is a made-up “state,” made up of macro-and micro-states, with a limited sense of national identity subject to constant threat of schism, and an ancient tradition of violence and corruption, which was very much top-down and feudal. And because of the fragmented and internally suspicious and hateful sub-units of the population, there is not an effective national police force and the military is so up-for-grabs that Indira Gandhi’s bodyguards were the ones who killed her over essentially a tribal-boundary issue.
The US has, by comparison, a relatively homogeneous, less caste-driven, mostly Judeo-Christian-consumer populace. Our top-down corruption is of the worst-of-capitalism kind, IMHO, though it obviously penetrates to local levels as well. We do have something of an effective national police force, however much it has been damaged by Homeland-Securitizing. At least the FBI grunts did their jobs in notifying their career-protective superiors that maybe Mohammed Atta was learning to fly with something like 9-11 in mind. Query whether “we” are going to sink into the kind of particularism and tribalism that is growing in so many other places in the world. The Aryan Nation and black separatists wanted (want?) their own state, and Northern California would love to secede from Southern California.
As to US honesty at the bottom, the mostcommon crime in the US (after income “understatements” on our 1040s) is doing construction on the sly, without permits and with no regard to building codes. Mother-in-law apartments, basement rec rooms and more. And have any of us ever had the chance to avoid a traffic ticket by folding a $20 or $50 up behind the license we hand to the radar cop?
Sometimes I almost want to thank those guys and gals of the NRA, who get such sensual pleasure out of the mouth of a gun, and from the oily, precise sliding in and out of the actions of automatic weapons. Jefferson’s revolutions and all that work better if one has a chance at pulling off a liberal version of “Red Dawn Rising.”
Maybe it’s just all too complicated, even for Barack Obama. Best to mind our own little space, make it nice and safe and healthy, and keep making it a litttle bigger until it overlaps with the nice safe spaces of our neighbors.
I agree, JT, India is a culture of cultures and like an arabesque written over so many time as to become a noisy sketch. There are definitely vestiges of caste and multi-language diaspora that hobble it. Still, at least among the pardes or desi here, there is a strong sense of national identity. Indian scholars here see themselves bringing parliamentarian government to America, but I suspect that in fact, they will be taking national identity and not just a little nationalism back to India. I think we are good for one another that way.
All fine, in fact, evolution doing it’s best to keep us from settling down. One of my Zen instructors taught me the Zen masters were enthused about Buddhism coming to America because while its core teachings remain the same, its practice takes the shape of the culture it is in. It changes and stays alive that way.
In that sense, I despair of top-down/bottom-up thinking because as a political theory, it can devolve into an excuse for locals to steal from the commons and the commons to oppress the locals. As the examples show, it can simply be yet another excuse for one power elite to crush another not-so-elite. That is why I have some problems with Jon’s New Federalism. Perhaps California with its multi-billion dollar deficit and very large illegal population is not the State we should emulate or use to set standards.
Maybe California is a Bad Example. Maybe not, but it seems the Californians have one of the most developed senses of entitlement of any state in the union and I blame that on the entertainment industry there. It has a way of trying to create self-fulfilling prophecies and convincing others to fund them.
What I would want for America is something more like Zen: at the core, a set of development concepts that remain the same but that adapt and grow to the needs of the local region’s culture(s). Our Constitution and system of Federal and State governing bodies do give us some of that, and I’m interested in hearing how we improve what isn’t broken before we build a new version.
The world ISN’T the web. Don’t let the technicians sell you that model. It’s just another way for the valley to enrich itself at the expense of the mountain.
As for Barack, he is a man who’s most noticeable achievement is his ability to get elected. Let’s see what else he has in the gig bag. One way or another, we’re about to find out. So far, I quite like his choice for Secretary of State but his choices for his technology advisors suck.
And so it goes.
I agree, JT, India is a culture of cultures and like an arabesque written over so many time as to become a noisy sketch. There are definitely vestiges of caste and multi-language diaspora that hobble it. Still, at least among the pardes or desi here, there is a strong sense of national identity. Indian scholars here see themselves bringing parliamentarian government to America, but I suspect that in fact, they will be taking national identity and not just a little nationalism back to India. I think we are good for one another that way.
All fine, in fact, evolution doing it’s best to keep us from settling down. One of my Zen instructors taught me the Zen masters were enthused about Buddhism coming to America because while its core teachings remain the same, its practice takes the shape of the culture it is in. It changes and stays alive that way.
In that sense, I despair of top-down/bottom-up thinking because as a political theory, it can devolve into an excuse for locals to steal from the commons and the commons to oppress the locals. As the examples show, it can simply be yet another excuse for one power elite to crush another not-so-elite. That is why I have some problems with Jon’s New Federalism. Perhaps California with its multi-billion dollar deficit and very large illegal population is not the State we should emulate or use to set standards.
Maybe California is a Bad Example. Maybe not, but it seems the Californians have one of the most developed senses of entitlement of any state in the union and I blame that on the entertainment industry there. It has a way of trying to create self-fulfilling prophecies and convincing others to fund them.
What I would want for America is something more like Zen: at the core, a set of development concepts that remain the same but that adapt and grow to the needs of the local region’s culture(s). Our Constitution and system of Federal and State governing bodies do give us some of that, and I’m interested in hearing how we improve what isn’t broken before we build a new version.
The world ISN’T the web. Don’t let the technicians sell you that model. It’s just another way for the valley to enrich itself at the expense of the mountain.
As for Barack, he is a man who’s most noticeable achievement is his ability to get elected. Let’s see what else he has in the gig bag. One way or another, we’re about to find out. So far, I quite like his choice for Secretary of State but his choices for his technology advisors suck.
And so it goes.
I agree, JT, India is a culture of cultures and like an arabesque written over so many time as to become a noisy sketch. There are definitely vestiges of caste and multi-language diaspora that hobble it. Still, at least among the pardes or desi here, there is a strong sense of national identity. Indian scholars here see themselves bringing parliamentarian government to America, but I suspect that in fact, they will be taking national identity and not just a little nationalism back to India. I think we are good for one another that way.
All fine, in fact, evolution doing it’s best to keep us from settling down. One of my Zen instructors taught me the Zen masters were enthused about Buddhism coming to America because while its core teachings remain the same, its practice takes the shape of the culture it is in. It changes and stays alive that way.
In that sense, I despair of top-down/bottom-up thinking because as a political theory, it can devolve into an excuse for locals to steal from the commons and the commons to oppress the locals. As the examples show, it can simply be yet another excuse for one power elite to crush another not-so-elite. That is why I have some problems with Jon’s New Federalism. Perhaps California with its multi-billion dollar deficit and very large illegal population is not the State we should emulate or use to set standards.
Maybe California is a Bad Example. Maybe not, but it seems the Californians have one of the most developed senses of entitlement of any state in the union and I blame that on the entertainment industry there. It has a way of trying to create self-fulfilling prophecies and convincing others to fund them.
What I would want for America is something more like Zen: at the core, a set of development concepts that remain the same but that adapt and grow to the needs of the local region’s culture(s). Our Constitution and system of Federal and State governing bodies do give us some of that, and I’m interested in hearing how we improve what isn’t broken before we build a new version.
The world ISN’T the web. Don’t let the technicians sell you that model. It’s just another way for the valley to enrich itself at the expense of the mountain.
As for Barack, he is a man who’s most noticeable achievement is his ability to get elected. Let’s see what else he has in the gig bag. One way or another, we’re about to find out. So far, I quite like his choice for Secretary of State but his choices for his technology advisors suck.
And so it goes.
“Maybe California is a Bad Example. Maybe not, but it seems the Californians have one of the most developed senses of entitlement of any state in the union and I blame that on the entertainment industry there.”
I blame it on squirrels.
I definitely do not blame Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Agribusiness, Big Telecoms, Big Media. They have nothing to do with manipulating the gravy train of federal money to their own benefit.
It’s those damn squirrels. Let me ask you something, before you scoff. When was the last time you saw a squirrel convicted of diverting millions of public dollars into his own bank account?
See? Clever little *******.
“Maybe California is a Bad Example. Maybe not, but it seems the Californians have one of the most developed senses of entitlement of any state in the union and I blame that on the entertainment industry there.”
I blame it on squirrels.
I definitely do not blame Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Agribusiness, Big Telecoms, Big Media. They have nothing to do with manipulating the gravy train of federal money to their own benefit.
It’s those damn squirrels. Let me ask you something, before you scoff. When was the last time you saw a squirrel convicted of diverting millions of public dollars into his own bank account?
See? Clever little *******.
I call those ‘actors’ and ‘screenwriters’. It’s the executive producers who divert the millions. If their face is on the billboard, they’re not a player; they’re a toy.
The point is California increases it’s debt load and still wants to be the elite cultivar. While there are certainly flashes of brilliance, as an overall model of society, it is the model of the past, not the future. It is the model of the shovel we used to dig the economic hole we are in, not the pick for making a ramp out.
We are dealing out trillions in bailouts. There is a line from Atlanta to Santa Barbara with their hands out. Yet just as those here demand of Big Auto and Big Banking to show them the business plan for reform, where is Big Orange’s plan?
No block grants. Not until we see the specifications and the management team.
I call those ‘actors’ and ‘screenwriters’. It’s the executive producers who divert the millions. If their face is on the billboard, they’re not a player; they’re a toy.
The point is California increases it’s debt load and still wants to be the elite cultivar. While there are certainly flashes of brilliance, as an overall model of society, it is the model of the past, not the future. It is the model of the shovel we used to dig the economic hole we are in, not the pick for making a ramp out.
We are dealing out trillions in bailouts. There is a line from Atlanta to Santa Barbara with their hands out. Yet just as those here demand of Big Auto and Big Banking to show them the business plan for reform, where is Big Orange’s plan?
No block grants. Not until we see the specifications and the management team.
Patrick-I didn’t mean to be glib. Whenever I raise the issue of the New Federalism in the academy, the questions are always cultural–based on a shared remembrance of George Wallace standing in the school house door, crying “State’s Rights”.
On the other hand the “parochial issues” you cite like water use, are real and need to be handled in the context of regional compacts. The Western States and Vancouver just reached such a deal on Carbon capture and cap and trade. The more the States start thinking of themselves as independent regional actors, the more we will see these regional pacts that the Feds have no role in.
Patrick-I didn’t mean to be glib. Whenever I raise the issue of the New Federalism in the academy, the questions are always cultural–based on a shared remembrance of George Wallace standing in the school house door, crying “State’s Rights”.
On the other hand the “parochial issues” you cite like water use, are real and need to be handled in the context of regional compacts. The Western States and Vancouver just reached such a deal on Carbon capture and cap and trade. The more the States start thinking of themselves as independent regional actors, the more we will see these regional pacts that the Feds have no role in.
Now having read the whole string, I can say it is one of the brightest conversations ever on this blog. Just amazing. Couple of thoughts. Everyone seems to concur that the bottom-up New Federalist approach would give us the ideal innovation. However, we are all so cynical that we assume the lobbyists will kill any innovation. Furthermore, I detect a sense that you think because Barack hired Hillary and Gates, he’s going to sell out to the establishment. I have a lot of friends working on the transition, and nothing could be further from the truth. If you are really going to change things, you don’t hire novices to institute your ideas.
We need to keep pushing on the New Federalism idea. I’m convinced it’s the key to recovery.
Now having read the whole string, I can say it is one of the brightest conversations ever on this blog. Just amazing. Couple of thoughts. Everyone seems to concur that the bottom-up New Federalist approach would give us the ideal innovation. However, we are all so cynical that we assume the lobbyists will kill any innovation. Furthermore, I detect a sense that you think because Barack hired Hillary and Gates, he’s going to sell out to the establishment. I have a lot of friends working on the transition, and nothing could be further from the truth. If you are really going to change things, you don’t hire novices to institute your ideas.
We need to keep pushing on the New Federalism idea. I’m convinced it’s the key to recovery.
Ha, state’s rights were dumped in 1865…back before federal income taxes, rigged rail transport rates, bloated fed bureaucracies, oil monopolies, the great robber barons, prohibition, and just basic D.C. lobbyists. Federal dictate is immune to any restrictions at all. They even vote pay raises in the middle of the night. To think the fed would roll back to a manageable size and budget is extremely pollyannish. The fed doesn’t care about us.
Ha, state’s rights were dumped in 1865…back before federal income taxes, rigged rail transport rates, bloated fed bureaucracies, oil monopolies, the great robber barons, prohibition, and just basic D.C. lobbyists. Federal dictate is immune to any restrictions at all. They even vote pay raises in the middle of the night. To think the fed would roll back to a manageable size and budget is extremely pollyannish. The fed doesn’t care about us.
Jon, some of us aren’t thinking about Wallace in the door of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. We are looking at the pay rates of California State employees, comparing those to the region and concluding that California must rein in its own appetite for lifestyle before asking the US at large to support it.
IOW, if the big auto makers are asked to bring business plans to the table and drive their own cars, then Arnold better show up with a plan to get the California budget deficit under control and I don’t think he should be driving his Hummer. Also, unless States are willing to go to its Mayors and explain in uncompromising terms that Federal laws for immigration shall be enforced, then expecting the Federal government to provide support over and above that required for basic infrastructure projects is arrogant. A State that always goes it’s own way will have to raise its own taxes.
Block grants for innovation should not be considered until deficits and other cost items are under some semblance of control.
Jon, some of us aren’t thinking about Wallace in the door of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. We are looking at the pay rates of California State employees, comparing those to the region and concluding that California must rein in its own appetite for lifestyle before asking the US at large to support it.
IOW, if the big auto makers are asked to bring business plans to the table and drive their own cars, then Arnold better show up with a plan to get the California budget deficit under control and I don’t think he should be driving his Hummer. Also, unless States are willing to go to its Mayors and explain in uncompromising terms that Federal laws for immigration shall be enforced, then expecting the Federal government to provide support over and above that required for basic infrastructure projects is arrogant. A State that always goes it’s own way will have to raise its own taxes.
Block grants for innovation should not be considered until deficits and other cost items are under some semblance of control.
len, right….a state like California turning in such a bad performance on handling illegal immigrant budget busters and rampant dollars exiting to mexico, has no right to ask others to help shoulder their inability to govern.
len, right….a state like California turning in such a bad performance on handling illegal immigrant budget busters and rampant dollars exiting to mexico, has no right to ask others to help shoulder their inability to govern.
Well, they can certainly ask. What I’m asking is that we require of them a certain introspection that as leaders in their states they have to share within their state. It’s tough to be California’s Republican governor no doubt when the legislature can keep spending and when there is such an enormous gap between the well-off and the poor and that gap is being sustained by an illegal work force. It is a sugar water lifestyle.
This is what I mean when I say each culture has unique problems and standards or solutions evolved in one may not be transplantable. The block grant idea provides maximum local control, but how does one get more than a local solution for a local problem? Both Alabama and California have an illegal immigration problem, but at a different rate and density. The Federal law has to be the same, but the means of enforcement might vary. Tough nut to crack.
Jon seems to be saying there are no strings attached if I understand him, so correct me if I am wrong. It also worries me that he is a cheerleader for his own culture but harshly stereotypical of others distant from USC. Of course, this is why we have an Internet: to open all of our eyes both by inspection and introspection to the problems and the solutions at hand and on the near horizon.
Well, they can certainly ask. What I’m asking is that we require of them a certain introspection that as leaders in their states they have to share within their state. It’s tough to be California’s Republican governor no doubt when the legislature can keep spending and when there is such an enormous gap between the well-off and the poor and that gap is being sustained by an illegal work force. It is a sugar water lifestyle.
This is what I mean when I say each culture has unique problems and standards or solutions evolved in one may not be transplantable. The block grant idea provides maximum local control, but how does one get more than a local solution for a local problem? Both Alabama and California have an illegal immigration problem, but at a different rate and density. The Federal law has to be the same, but the means of enforcement might vary. Tough nut to crack.
Jon seems to be saying there are no strings attached if I understand him, so correct me if I am wrong. It also worries me that he is a cheerleader for his own culture but harshly stereotypical of others distant from USC. Of course, this is why we have an Internet: to open all of our eyes both by inspection and introspection to the problems and the solutions at hand and on the near horizon.
Communism, Socialism, Democratic Capitalism, New Federalism, they’re all perfect systems which have the unfortunate commom element (“meme”?) that they depend on perfect behavior by humans.
One of the many tricks, that the Founding Fathers took a sort of stab at, might be building in the kinds of positive- and negative-feedback loops that on a macro social level do the same things that the homeostatic processes in our individual bodies’ physiologies accomplish.
More than another organizational chart or new dialectic, it might be fruitful to try and map out a healthy social “Krebs cycle” of the kinds of human interactions and cooperations and such that have a chance of producing some kind of sustainable meta-stability with no apparent death wish at the end of it. Easy to state the proposition, of course, but not so easy to do…
Like identifying operating units of the various sub-pieces of the dumb old Golden Rule.
Those elements might be some “memes” worth inheriting.
But hey, what do I know?
Just a thought.
Communism, Socialism, Democratic Capitalism, New Federalism, they’re all perfect systems which have the unfortunate commom element (“meme”?) that they depend on perfect behavior by humans.
One of the many tricks, that the Founding Fathers took a sort of stab at, might be building in the kinds of positive- and negative-feedback loops that on a macro social level do the same things that the homeostatic processes in our individual bodies’ physiologies accomplish.
More than another organizational chart or new dialectic, it might be fruitful to try and map out a healthy social “Krebs cycle” of the kinds of human interactions and cooperations and such that have a chance of producing some kind of sustainable meta-stability with no apparent death wish at the end of it. Easy to state the proposition, of course, but not so easy to do…
Like identifying operating units of the various sub-pieces of the dumb old Golden Rule.
Those elements might be some “memes” worth inheriting.
But hey, what do I know?
Just a thought.
Communism, Socialism, Democratic Capitalism, New Federalism, they’re all perfect systems which have the unfortunate commom element (“meme”?) that they depend on perfect behavior by humans.
One of the many tricks, that the Founding Fathers took a sort of stab at, might be building in the kinds of positive- and negative-feedback loops that on a macro social level do the same things that the homeostatic processes in our individual bodies’ physiologies accomplish.
More than another organizational chart or new dialectic, it might be fruitful to try and map out a healthy social “Krebs cycle” of the kinds of human interactions and cooperations and such that have a chance of producing some kind of sustainable meta-stability with no apparent death wish at the end of it. Easy to state the proposition, of course, but not so easy to do…
Like identifying operating units of the various sub-pieces of the dumb old Golden Rule.
Those elements might be some “memes” worth inheriting.
But hey, what do I know?
Just a thought.
The sustainable agriculture community has written a letter on this topic to President-Elect Obama.
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/foodies-make-a-pitch-to-obama/?hp
The sustainable agriculture community has written a letter on this topic to President-Elect Obama.
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/foodies-make-a-pitch-to-obama/?hp
The sustainable agriculture community has written a letter on this topic to President-Elect Obama.
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/foodies-make-a-pitch-to-obama/?hp
Len- I am not asking for “no strings attached” block grants. What I’m asking that once the Feds decide they are going to spend $X on California infrastructure, then they let the State decide where to spend it, rather than some earmarking lobbyist.
Len- I am not asking for “no strings attached” block grants. What I’m asking that once the Feds decide they are going to spend $X on California infrastructure, then they let the State decide where to spend it, rather than some earmarking lobbyist.
Len- I am not asking for “no strings attached” block grants. What I’m asking that once the Feds decide they are going to spend $X on California infrastructure, then they let the State decide where to spend it, rather than some earmarking lobbyist.
I’m good with that as long as the grants specify kinds and types of infrastructure and the state presents the plan. An earmarking lobbyist is the problem on both ends. Block grants can be redirected at the Federal level or the State level and we have to know the difference between adaptive use of the funds (locals making smart local decisions based on real needs that can be evaluated and approved by the grantee) and those that are lobbied because of a pet rock relationship. It takes very tough minded leadership in the State house and in the Beltway to see to it that the monies are spent well.
What will improve that is if Federal monies spent on improving infrastructure feedback a lessons learned, innovation accomplished, and so forth that can be adopted/adapted by any state receiving a similar grant. So for example, energy grants have to adapted to local resources (we don’t all have wind corridors) and transportation grants for Texas open spaces are slightly different than for Los Angeles. Some of this is just good engineering but some of it has to do with how to share innovation in materiel, construction techniques, etc.
As you say, your goals are not simply improving the infrastructure but rebuilding the economy based on intellectual achievements, so not only must you create the infrastructure, you have to harvest the lessons learned. All of this must be clear as a pre-condition of the grants. Those are the kinds of strings we can lift ourselves up with but the devil is in the details. For example, patentable business processes are a kind of innovation reward but a market garotte.
I’m good with that as long as the grants specify kinds and types of infrastructure and the state presents the plan. An earmarking lobbyist is the problem on both ends. Block grants can be redirected at the Federal level or the State level and we have to know the difference between adaptive use of the funds (locals making smart local decisions based on real needs that can be evaluated and approved by the grantee) and those that are lobbied because of a pet rock relationship. It takes very tough minded leadership in the State house and in the Beltway to see to it that the monies are spent well.
What will improve that is if Federal monies spent on improving infrastructure feedback a lessons learned, innovation accomplished, and so forth that can be adopted/adapted by any state receiving a similar grant. So for example, energy grants have to adapted to local resources (we don’t all have wind corridors) and transportation grants for Texas open spaces are slightly different than for Los Angeles. Some of this is just good engineering but some of it has to do with how to share innovation in materiel, construction techniques, etc.
As you say, your goals are not simply improving the infrastructure but rebuilding the economy based on intellectual achievements, so not only must you create the infrastructure, you have to harvest the lessons learned. All of this must be clear as a pre-condition of the grants. Those are the kinds of strings we can lift ourselves up with but the devil is in the details. For example, patentable business processes are a kind of innovation reward but a market garotte.
I’m good with that as long as the grants specify kinds and types of infrastructure and the state presents the plan. An earmarking lobbyist is the problem on both ends. Block grants can be redirected at the Federal level or the State level and we have to know the difference between adaptive use of the funds (locals making smart local decisions based on real needs that can be evaluated and approved by the grantee) and those that are lobbied because of a pet rock relationship. It takes very tough minded leadership in the State house and in the Beltway to see to it that the monies are spent well.
What will improve that is if Federal monies spent on improving infrastructure feedback a lessons learned, innovation accomplished, and so forth that can be adopted/adapted by any state receiving a similar grant. So for example, energy grants have to adapted to local resources (we don’t all have wind corridors) and transportation grants for Texas open spaces are slightly different than for Los Angeles. Some of this is just good engineering but some of it has to do with how to share innovation in materiel, construction techniques, etc.
As you say, your goals are not simply improving the infrastructure but rebuilding the economy based on intellectual achievements, so not only must you create the infrastructure, you have to harvest the lessons learned. All of this must be clear as a pre-condition of the grants. Those are the kinds of strings we can lift ourselves up with but the devil is in the details. For example, patentable business processes are a kind of innovation reward but a market garotte.
On all points here, why would the fed be invited to interfere….because they have the money??? That’s our money they took from us. If you want to bog down almost any project, bring in the fed. The original New Federalism of 1787 was only to sew states together as far as a common defense, such as protect national borders, and set a strong currency. They haven’t done either. The original Greek democracies were based on local politics with a senate as a forum for debate….not a trough for all the little piggies. We’ve been wrong since 1865 when the fed won the right to reject it’s own constraints. There was a great speech made by David Crockett newly elected congressman from Tennessee circa 1827…..from his “Not yours to give speech”……”sorry, but it’s not our money to spend.” Granted times have changed since Jefferson, Franklin, Crockett and the true Americans, but irresponsible federal dictates were exactly what they fought against.
On all points here, why would the fed be invited to interfere….because they have the money??? That’s our money they took from us. If you want to bog down almost any project, bring in the fed. The original New Federalism of 1787 was only to sew states together as far as a common defense, such as protect national borders, and set a strong currency. They haven’t done either. The original Greek democracies were based on local politics with a senate as a forum for debate….not a trough for all the little piggies. We’ve been wrong since 1865 when the fed won the right to reject it’s own constraints. There was a great speech made by David Crockett newly elected congressman from Tennessee circa 1827…..from his “Not yours to give speech”……”sorry, but it’s not our money to spend.” Granted times have changed since Jefferson, Franklin, Crockett and the true Americans, but irresponsible federal dictates were exactly what they fought against.
On all points here, why would the fed be invited to interfere….because they have the money??? That’s our money they took from us. If you want to bog down almost any project, bring in the fed. The original New Federalism of 1787 was only to sew states together as far as a common defense, such as protect national borders, and set a strong currency. They haven’t done either. The original Greek democracies were based on local politics with a senate as a forum for debate….not a trough for all the little piggies. We’ve been wrong since 1865 when the fed won the right to reject it’s own constraints. There was a great speech made by David Crockett newly elected congressman from Tennessee circa 1827…..from his “Not yours to give speech”……”sorry, but it’s not our money to spend.” Granted times have changed since Jefferson, Franklin, Crockett and the true Americans, but irresponsible federal dictates were exactly what they fought against.
Anybody old enough to remember when a big issue in Federalism was what were called “unfunded mandates”? Like, federal elections laws, and various “education” initiatives, and Clean Water and Air Act provisions, etc.
“An unfunded mandate is a statute or regulation that requires a state or local government to perform certain actions, yet provides no money for fulfilling the requirements. When a federal government imposes a law or regulation without necessary funding, it becomes the responsibility of the state or local government to pay for the implementation of the law. In the end, it is local taxpayers who end up footing the bill.” There’s lots more, including
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-unfunded-mandate.htm
to refresh recollection.
Are we about to dive deep into a new era of “New Federalism” that might feature what you might call “Funded Un-Mandates?”
As one poignant current example, has anybody read Sections 101 through 123 of HR 1424, the “Bailout Act?” We are barely into Act One of the Great Dispensation by Pope Paulson.
As in “dispense,” pouring out new-made “money” that is only paper (eminently SPENDABLE paper) based only on the “full fiath and credit of the United States,” mortaging the future real wealth of this nation-state for the entire foreseeable future.
As in a neat inversion of the ancient practice of granting Papal dispensations, where at least the Vatican TOOK IN cash from the malefactors seeking absolution and a shorter trip through Purgatory — here the sinners GET PAID and get forgiveness too. What a Deal!
And as one of my French teachers expostulated, the French verb for “spend” is “depenser,” which she translated as “to not think,” in a comment on Gallic parsimony.
Actually, I guess earmarks and pork are semi-”Funded Un-Mandates,” robbing a little bit from 300 million pockets to build up little piles of wealth for a few Favored Citizens. So I guess once again, there’s nothing new under the sun.
Anybody old enough to remember when a big issue in Federalism was what were called “unfunded mandates”? Like, federal elections laws, and various “education” initiatives, and Clean Water and Air Act provisions, etc.
“An unfunded mandate is a statute or regulation that requires a state or local government to perform certain actions, yet provides no money for fulfilling the requirements. When a federal government imposes a law or regulation without necessary funding, it becomes the responsibility of the state or local government to pay for the implementation of the law. In the end, it is local taxpayers who end up footing the bill.” There’s lots more, including
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-unfunded-mandate.htm
to refresh recollection.
Are we about to dive deep into a new era of “New Federalism” that might feature what you might call “Funded Un-Mandates?”
As one poignant current example, has anybody read Sections 101 through 123 of HR 1424, the “Bailout Act?” We are barely into Act One of the Great Dispensation by Pope Paulson.
As in “dispense,” pouring out new-made “money” that is only paper (eminently SPENDABLE paper) based only on the “full fiath and credit of the United States,” mortaging the future real wealth of this nation-state for the entire foreseeable future.
As in a neat inversion of the ancient practice of granting Papal dispensations, where at least the Vatican TOOK IN cash from the malefactors seeking absolution and a shorter trip through Purgatory — here the sinners GET PAID and get forgiveness too. What a Deal!
And as one of my French teachers expostulated, the French verb for “spend” is “depenser,” which she translated as “to not think,” in a comment on Gallic parsimony.
Actually, I guess earmarks and pork are semi-”Funded Un-Mandates,” robbing a little bit from 300 million pockets to build up little piles of wealth for a few Favored Citizens. So I guess once again, there’s nothing new under the sun.
Just came across something that seemed like it could find a home on this thread. It’s a piece about the third-rail that is meat consumption because of the cultural norms that continue to support what we’re now recognizing as absolutely unsustainable.
In terms of overall impact (to health, environment, carbon levels, and just about everything that’s measured in negative terms), the cultivation of meat is exponentially worse than our transportation system.
And unlike transit, which is something over which individuals have limited control (the length of your commute is not a function of the car you drive, and you’ve got no control over the fuel mix in the container ships and airplanes that are instrumental to supplying many of your needs) diet is something where you can have lasting impact from relatively minor choices, like eating one vegetarian mean per week.
This shouldn’t be a hard sell, given the economic and health benefits that go with it, but the barrier, as this article points out, is cultural.
And that, of course, is one more thing that’s hard to enforce from the top. The change really needs to emerge freely from the bottom, and press the top into going along with what a significant majority has already accepted as the smart way forward.
In other words, it’s a sales job.
Just came across something that seemed like it could find a home on this thread. It’s a piece about the third-rail that is meat consumption because of the cultural norms that continue to support what we’re now recognizing as absolutely unsustainable.
In terms of overall impact (to health, environment, carbon levels, and just about everything that’s measured in negative terms), the cultivation of meat is exponentially worse than our transportation system.
And unlike transit, which is something over which individuals have limited control (the length of your commute is not a function of the car you drive, and you’ve got no control over the fuel mix in the container ships and airplanes that are instrumental to supplying many of your needs) diet is something where you can have lasting impact from relatively minor choices, like eating one vegetarian mean per week.
This shouldn’t be a hard sell, given the economic and health benefits that go with it, but the barrier, as this article points out, is cultural.
And that, of course, is one more thing that’s hard to enforce from the top. The change really needs to emerge freely from the bottom, and press the top into going along with what a significant majority has already accepted as the smart way forward.
In other words, it’s a sales job.