USDA chief: Rural America becoming less relevant

AP ^ | Dec 8, 2012 | MARY CLARE JALONICK

[KeyLargo]

USDA chief: Rural America becoming less relevant

By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has some harsh words for rural America: It's "becoming less and less relevant," he says.

A month after an election that Democrats won even as rural parts of the country voted overwhelmingly Republican, the former Democratic governor of Iowa told farm belt leaders this past week that he's frustrated with their internecine squabbles and says they need to be more strategic in picking their political fights.

[CrazyIvan]

My farm boy cousin had a college prof tell him that farmers would not be needed in the future. We would synthesize all our food out of soy beans.

[NormsRevenge]

Time to starve the beast that sits on a hill in DC? embargo their sorry arses.. amazing how they speak and nothing but ill words come forth.

[Texan5]

“synthesize all our food out of soy beans”

He must have been inspired by reading about the “totalcakes” in Ira Levin’s late 60’s novel “This Perfect Day”-they came in a couple of flavors, and the accompanying soft drinks were called “cokes”...

[factoryrat]

The leftist/socialist/fascist democrats and DC lackeys know this, which is why the vilification/marginalization/isolation of middle America will begin in earnest. The quickest way to take over agricultural, manufacturing, and energy production is to usurp the existing population with a more compliant and beholden to the government workforce. They have that workforce now, 75% of them loyal to the people handing out the freebies, and have absolutely no loyalty to the people who have employed them in the past. If the government offers them more to run your farm or ranch or business than what you’re paying them, you are as good as gone.

[ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY]

“That’s said until rural America cuts off the lights, fuel, food and so on.”

EXACTLY! Wasn't it Mao Tse Tung who said whoever controls the countryside will ultimately triumph? (For precisely the reasons you cited!)

[SWAMPSNIPER]

“The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution”.
Thomas Jefferson

[Texan5]

Just out of curiosity, where did this prof think the soybeans would come from? Was some guy named Jack going to climb the giant’s beanstalk to get them?

[thecodont]

My farm boy cousin had a college prof tell him that farmers would not be needed in the future. We would synthesize all our food out of soy beans.

An overload of phytoestrogens from soy will wreak havoc with the human body.

Also, soy requires more processing (and more this more agriculural industrial infrastructure) for those "natural" foods -- tofu, oil, "soymilk" etc.

You can get REAL milk and REAL meat from a cow -- no processing required!

[KeyLargo]

Yes...this really is Obama's Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack. Amazing.

"I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program or the food stamp program, you have to recognize that it's also an economic stimulus. Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it. All of those are jobs. It's the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times."

[KeyLargo]

“synthesize all our food out of soy beans”

[RicocheT]

It’s the Chicago way, back us and vote for us or you suffer big time. All that nice farmland you own will have to be sold when you die to pay the federal death taxes too. We have other folks who are reliable voters and need benefits to sit on their butts and smoke weed.

[ridesthemiles]

Malcolm Smith- the prior President of what was called Rhodesia—now called Zimbabwe was required to turn over his farm to the blacks in Zimbabwe this week by the government there.

President of Zimbabwe also called for complete nationalization of all businesses there which are foreign owned in any degree. “it is time for the locals and natives to run their own country without outside help”.....

They have already turned the productive farms-—which once produced enough food to export millions of tons to other African countries-—into non-productive entities and now the country IMPORTS about 80% of it’s food.

[KeyLargo]

Death tax’ a death sentence to family farms, businesses?

VIDEOS:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1985931959001/death-tax-a-death-sentence-to-family-farms-businesses/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kmrjDiCJ-k

[CrazyIvan]

Probably true. The point was the prof hadn't thought this thro far enough to consider the source of soy beans.

[thecodont]

The point was the prof hadn't thought this thro far enough to consider the source of soy beans.

Those professors don't think a lot of things through far enough.

[infowarrior]

My farm boy cousin had a college prof tell him that farmers would not be needed in the future. We would synthesize all our food out of soy beans.

At which point, it is to be hoped your cousin asked this brain dead moron "Where are these soybeans to be used in the synthesis going to come from?"

the infowarrior

[DoughtyOne]

I can think of three times per day, that rural America is very relevant.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack can’t.

[Texan5]

LMAO! I didn’t reference the soylent green because in the book I mentioned, the totalcakes were processed plant matter like soybeans, algae, etc, and only a small hidden elite class ate anything else, unless you escaped from the commie government-by boat, of course-to some islands to live-sort of like Castro’s Cuba in reverse...

[EBH]

Their idea of reverse it and your idea of reverse it are two different things.

The shrinking population is becoming less relevant. That is by design.

0bama’s ‘bitter clingers’ comment recognizes that there are already hold out against the progressive agenda.

Reversing it to a progressive means government farms as more and more ‘bitter clingers’ refuse to comply with the progressive program.

Food shortages ....?

[Greysard]

This is just the usual mathematical effect of urbanization. 75% of the population lives in cities. Why then to be surprised when the remaining 25% of rural residents have no votes to change anything?