>I doubt that we in the west can effectively develop sustainable
>agricultural systems until we, too, have allowed / enabled the
>dismantling of not only our system of subsidised (private) corporate
>concentration and centralisation, but also of the western system of
>socialism, designed to prevent *failure.*
> Until we get those distortions out of the way, at both the corporate
> and the producer level, I suspect that much of what I and others try to
> do agronomically for sustainability will frequently remain a rear-guard
> action, too often a case of pissing into a strong wind.
I would like to suggest that the biggest political issue and agenda
item on all of our plates should be the push for political finance
reform which would do away with Political Action Committees and the
other vehicles for Big Money to abscond with democracy. I'm not very
sophistocated about this topic yet, and have no doubt that there are
plenty of you out there who know much more than I, but it just seems
to me that this is the only way any of us anywhere on the political
spectrum have a chance of being heard and getting policy in place
that represents our values and concerns rather than just those of
rich and influential corporations. I think this is VERY related to
sustainable ag and whatever other brilliant life and planet-saving
ideas may be out there. The recent newsletter of the Center for
Rural Affairs in Nebraska shows a poll recently conducted at the U of
NE comparing peoples values ("preferences") as compared to their
expectation of what they want to see in the future regarding rural
America. The results show clearly that at least in Nebraska, both
rural and urban people favor vibrant rural communies, smaller farms,
smaller businesses, more variety of rural business, etc, yet their
expectations show without fail that they don't see their preferences
coming to pass. The article notes that in a truly representational
democracy, the prefrences and expectations of its constituents should
not be so large. (This may be available at the Center's website,
http://www.cfra.org)
I bring this up because it is becoming an increasing concern of mine,
I haven't seen it address here before (at least not directly), and I
know that this list reaches a lot of smart and active people. As far
as I have seen, only one of the US presidential candidates so far has
made this an item on his agenda. I would hope that people would wake
up to its importance and do our best to get it on everybodies agenda.
I never before believed in the validity of a "litmus test" political
topic, but I'm starting to think that this one makes a valid case for
such behavior.
Perhaps my political animal is coming out of hibernation...
Anita
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail