Free Speech - Will It Stifle Ag?

[k-289]

Probably  due  to  winning  wars  seems   to  be  an  uphill  challenge  even as  our  troops  do  a  remarkable  job ---

Rural  Consolidation  has  been a  slow  motion  train  wreck  socially  -  where  are  the  experts  to  address  this  phenomenon  ?  ?      

[BA Deere]

Of all the wars we`ve lost, losing the cultural war (see Charlottesville) is what is going to bring the entire country down.  You get shot up with bu;llets and bombs, you eventually heal or enough do that you rebuild and move on and get strong again, but when the 50yr old cultural war is completely lost...that is all she wrote, there`s no coming back from that.

[sw363535]

289

There is no way to address that......... There is no way to devastate small communities and not the schools.  Which is better socially ----consolidation so there are kids in the class .... or keeping the doors open in a retirement community with no students...... It is all bad.

The 30 and 40 agers are just not raising families in small towns...... the way they used to.   jobs arent there..... at least not the ones they want.  And no small town in the area can afford the new school required for the consolidation......Property taxes go up as tax base drops...... 

Ag is temporarily looking to needy internationals with experience to fill voids and has been for a while..... But I keep interviewing locals and foreign temps and I am wondering if the demise of farming on small scale is possibly going to come from the fact that we aren't prepared to run a business.  Even a small one.  Even a paper route was better prep for farming than a doctorate in social media skills.

Our county seat is....... well claims to be....... 3200 population as it once was........... The new federal commanded day care center (preschool, food and checkups) took shape in a nice new building for the little future students.......

In a town that lost a lot of workforce when gas and oil automated and left the area.  The noon whistle still goes off.   We're still holding on to that.

[k-289]

I  don't  think  the  expert's  had  any  IDEA  of the  social collapse that was just around the corner or that consolidation & constipation were so similar ---

Then came phase 2 being the tsunami of gimmicks of having a local  '' jelly  & jam '' business or the like of '' bring back '' economic development pipe dreams- rocket science 101 --- 

[hardnox]

Perhaps ALEC already has new Ag Gag laws on the drawing board to combat that?

Whatever they put out there will be no shortage of legislators leaping to sponsor it and get on the wingnut welfare wagon.

[k-289]

SW  - comparing consolidation in our  area  to the  '' Buffalo  Commons '' has been substantially unsettling for folks to grasp ---

Having  mega  operations with pools of  ''unsettled '' labor, housed in  apartment life stiyle settings , wasn't the appeal ---

Times are changing - although for better or worse wasn't in the equation ---

Bringing this into the discussion with the experts - very little eye contact will be witnessed during the conversation & someone with ''outside experience '' will be groomed to inform the locals ---

[smokeyjay]

What do you mean by "culture war"? Is it a decline of the white majority? Decline of jobs? Racism on the rise?

[sw363535]

I would assume he means the use of specific segments of society as pawns to gain political power.
Like the way we celebrate freedom and unity by calling each other racists and bigots in the press.
Just a wild guess.