How Farmers Became Slaves to the Corporate Masters

The story below is excerpted from an obscure little book I recently purchased. It’s titled, Divided We Stand: The Crisis of a Frontierless Democracy, by Walter Prescott Webb.  Here’s a picture of the book: 

I want to make it clear that this book is obscure but the author is not. Walter Prescott Webb was a well respected history professor at the University of Texas. Divided We Stand was evidently self-published by Professor Webb in 1937, then revised in 1947. By then, Webb had distinguished himself for writing two much more well-known mainstream books, The Great Plains: A Study in Institutions and Environment and The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense.



In 1952 Walter Prescott Webb wrote a third mainstream book that is one of the most profound history books I’ve ever read. It is titled, The Great Frontier. I wrote about the book at this link: Walter Prescott Webb's Boom Hypothesis of Modern History.



Webb’s Divided We Stand was evidently the precursor to The Great Frontier. But Divided We Stand, while anchored in the same thesis of The Great Frontier, departs noticeably in it’s primary message.



Divided We Stand is an expose of the domination of the corporations in America over the people of America and, in particular, the people of the South and West. The professor presents evidence to support the idea that America is composed of three distinct regions, with differing cultures and the controlling corporate interests were primarily in the Northern Region. These interests were pulling the wealth out of the other regions.



Of course, most of the data Webb presents is way outdated, and his thesis of the Northern Region dominating the others may no longer apply, but it is an interesting perspective. The realization that corporations were (and still are) exercising domination over every area of our culture is still spot on.



Nowhere is this  more true than in the area of agriculture. Corporate agriculture is in almost total control of our food system. Farmers have traded independence for subservience to the corporate food oligopoly. How did this happen? In the chapter titled, The Song of the Machine, Webb answers that question. The following excerpt tells the story (remember, this was written in a book published in 1937 and updated in 1947):

Thus far little has been said about the farmer in this study. The farmer is usually associated with the South and the West, despite statistics to show that the North produces more agricultural dollars than the West and about the same number as the South. All the farmers of all sections have been quick to give up their horses and mules for automobiles and tractors. In doing so they have saved themselves physical labor, have produced more goods, but they have added more strands to the bonds that bind them to the industrialists of the North.
 

Of Horsepower and Feed

I read in the Country Gentleman that the average age of mules in the United States is eleven years. The age of mules may not seem to be an important historical fact, but it is a significant one. A mule lives for about twenty years, but he begins to slow up perceptibly at twelve or fifteen. The census shows that  mules increased in number almost constantly until about 1926. Then a decline began and has continued since, along with the decline in horses and brood mares. The automobile and the tractor have displaced the intelligence of the patient and sarcastic mule.

But how does the death of mules serve to tie the farmer to the northern industrial chariots? Let us take farmer John Smith as an example. He has a farm of 200 acres. Formerly he planted 80 acres. The farm was selfsufficient with two brood mares that had mule colts and there were four mules to pull the plows. In addition there was a combination saddle and buggy horse for light travel. This was the setup on John Smith’s farm twenty, or even fifteen, years ago.

John Smith, a frugal farmer, raised enough feed—corn, oats, and silage—to supply his work stock and brood mares. He never bought feed and rarely bought a horse or mule.

John Smith first bought a Ford, to take the place of his saddle horse and buggy. Next he bought a tractor, and then a trailer for use as a truck. He bought the tractor because the International Harvester Company proved to him that horses have to be fed whether they work or not. The agent showed him striking pictures of horses “eating their heads off” on rainy days when there was nothing to do. The farmer was taught to begrudge the feed for his idle horses and mules. Moreover, the tractor and its gang of plows could turn the 130 acres in half or a third or a fourth of the time that the mules could do it. The Country Gentleman published beautiful pictures of tractors at work and wrote simple articles that John Smith could understand.

John Smith finally drove out the tractor and the demonstrator showed him how to use it. John Smith was now using as much horsepower as before, but he was getting it on quite different terms. He was buying horsepower in Detroit and Chicago and mortgaging the future to pay for it. The tractor came with a thin coat of paint and several coats of protection. It was protected by a series of patents that  made it impossible for more than a few competitors to supply him. It was protected by a tariff that made it impossible for England or Germany or Canada to get into his field. Moreover, this tractor was never known to have a colt tractor, or even a “mule.” On top of this the tractor carried a series of profits extending from the steel mills right up to the gates of John Smith’s farm, and John Smith had to pay for the paint, protection, and profits.

And Horse Sense

Now, in contrast to the tractor, the mule colt stood in the meadow lot and gazed at the strange contraption in awe and astonishment. Nobody has ever argued that the tractor did not take the mule’s job. The colt represented horsepower just as the tractor did, but the colt cost practically nothing to begin with. Nobody had a patent on him and he carried no tariff. He represented nobody’s capital except John Smith’s and no wages or interest were tied up in his skinny skin. He would start paying for himself at the age of three, increase in value for six or seven years, and would continue to give good service for twelve or fifteen years and service only a little less valuable after fifteen. He was so perfectly constructed that he would never have to have a spare part, not even a spark plug. He was a self-starter and a self-quitter when quitting time came.

Both the mule and the tractor had to have fuel to go on. The mule’s fuel was corn, hay, cane, straw. John Smith raised these things, had never had to go off the farm to get fuel for his hayburning horsepower. He raised mule fuel with his own labor, or nature gave it to him from the field and meadow.

John Smith could not raise feed for the tractor. It had to have gasoline and oil, batteries and parts. All these had to be purchased in the town from the northern corporations. In short, John Smith now buys his horses in Detroit and Chicago; he buys the feed for them from John D. Rockefeller in New York. In the meantime something else has happened. The mule that cost so little has grown up, but there is no work for him to do. When John Smith offers him for sale, he finds that nobody is willing to pay a fair price for him, perfect as he is. The neighbors, too, are no longer buying mules that do not need spare parts. They are going to Chicago for mules that deteriorate rather than improve, and to New York for the feed which will never be converted into fertilizer.

Though John Smith is still raising feed, he has little use for it. The brood mares have died; the mules have been sold; there is nothing to eat the corn, cane, and grass except a few cows. When John Smith tries to sell his surplus feed, he finds that there is no buyer for it. The neighbors are not using that kind of feed. They prefer the feed that comes out of pumps. John Smith no longer raises feed. He is now planting the 130-acre farm in cotton or in wheat, thereby wearing out the soil that supports him.
 

Liberty is Not Cheap

Something fine has gone out of that farm, and that is the spirit of independence and self-sufficiency that was present when the mules were pulling the plow and the colt that had not yet felt the collar was frolicking in the meadow.

Something fine has gone out of John Smith, something of the spirit of independence. In reality, he has become a retainer, and might well don the uniform of his service. He raises wheat and cotton for a world market, unprotected by tariff or patents, in order that he may buy mechanical mules, feed, shoes, and everything that he needs in a market that has every protection of a beneficent government. Disconsolately he comes from the field, cranks up his old car, puts a few tractor parts in the back to be replaced, and drives to town to see if he can extend his notes and stand off his creditors. As he passes the meadow, where the grass is ankle-high now, the shadow spirit of a sleek mule surveys him insolently. Who can deny that the mule was the best farm friend? The mule carries no patent; the farmer gets no protection.

In the face of this situation the business interests of America have the nerve to talk to farmers of rugged individualism, democracy, freedom, and the merits of thrift. In reality there is a rugged individualism among the farmers, and it is their misfortune. They are rugged, and they are unwilling as a whole to co-operate, either in the conduct of their affairs or in politics. As individualists they stand, unorganized and practically inarticulate, against the greatest organized forces of the world. They furnish the best soil in which these organized forces can grow. They are the manure at the roots of the corporate tree.”

The Dirty Little Secret of How Corporations Became "Persons"

  

"The American Frankenstein": Inspired by Mary Shelley’s novel about a man-made monster who turned upon its creator, this cartoon depicted the railroad trampling the rights of the American people. “Agriculture, commerce, and manufacture are all in my power,” the monster roared in the cartoon’s caption. “My interest is the higher law of American politics.” Through large subsidies and land grants to railroads, the federal government helped create the nation’s first large, powerful corporations. Growing rapidly after the Civil War, these corporations and the men who ran them quickly transformed their enormous economic power into political influence, winning for themselves even more subsidies, land grants, and protection from regulation and taxation.

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I am an admirer of the Texas history professor, Walter Prescott Webb and, in particular, his book, The Great Frontier. Though written in 1952, Webb’s “frontier thesis” of history—American history in particular—is incredibly cogent and surprisingly pertinent to the problems we are seeing in the daily news here in 2010. You can read about The Great Frontier in my essay at this link: Walter Prescott Webb's Boom Hypothesis of Modern History


It turns out Professor Webb also self-published an obscure little book titled Divided We Stand: The Crisis of Frontierless Democracy. I recently acquired a copy of this book and have found it remarkably insightful. In another online essay I tell the story, from the book, of how American farmers, once independent, were brought under the domination of large corporate interests. You can read the story at this link: How Farmers Became Slaves to the Corporate Masters


Divided We Stand also tells the little-known story of how American corporations acquired the ability to rise to the position of incredible power and influence that they now have in this country. As a historian, looking at the big picture of history, Webb saw these corporations as a serious threat to the American Republic as it was originally established.  


Though published in 1937, Webb’s concerns about the usurpation of power and control by corporations in America were spot on. How could this have  happened? It happened by some very clever manipulation of the US Constitution in the late 1800s. This manipulation did not create corporations, it gave them unprecedented protections and, thus, unprecedented power; it created a monster.


The following excerpts from the book are somewhat lengthy but they are vitally important for every concerned American to understand. I’m sure that not one in a hundred Americans know the devious machinations that the corporate powers employed over 100 years ago to foster their survival and promote their domination.


What follows is a fundamental lesson in the Constitution. I suspect that Professor Webb’s students were exposed to such wonderful teaching. Now you can be too. (please note that the bold emphasis are mine)


The title of the chapter I’m excerpting here is The Rise of America’s Feudal System.

We have long understood that we live under two governments, complimentary one to the other. The nature of our constitution, providing as it does for a federal form of government, tells us clearly that we live under the jurisdiction of the state and the nation. We have not always seen that within this system a third form has arisen which threatens to become more powerful than either or both of the others. It may be noted that the legally constituted forms—federal and state—exercise a political jurisdiction while the third government confines itself primarily to an economic jurisdiction. The political government is democratic, securing its power from all the people; the economic government is not democratic, but subject to the will of a few legal entities.


This third government comprises a few individuals, whose rise has been sketched briefly in the preceding chapter, and the great corporations. In reality this third government does not consist of one government but, like the old feudal system, consists of many “governments,” each powerful in its own sphere.


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When the medieval feudal lords became sufficiently powerful, the king made a virtue of necessity and granted them immunities from central government interference... Likewise in America the central government granted an immunity to corporations—the legal rights of an individual.... By this immunity, which is in reality a charter of liberty, the corporation has been made free to do what it most wishes to do in its own fief—granted a large measure of independence and freedom from interference by the state and the nation.


=================


The sole motive of the American feudal system has been the economic one of making profits. It has had no other duty, no other purpose, no other responsibility.... And this fundamental truth should not be obscured by the altruistic tone of advertising, such as is put out by Henry Ford, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and others. Our common sense inclines us to believe that most of the talk of service is for public consumption, intended to promote goodwill and to increase the number of buyers—and the profits. the real purpose would doubtless be revealed if we could overhear the discussion that goes on in the directors’ meetings. It is difficult to believe that the men there are primarily interested in service. They render service only to gather profits, and not because they are moved by a compassion to serve humanity. A favorable balance sheet is of necessity the goal of every business lord.


==================


The instruments of ... economic control—the great corporations—rapidly expanded over the nation, gathering the natural resources of all three sections, separating society into three classes, capital, labor and agriculture. Two obstacles stood in the way of these new powers—the state governments and the federal government. As might be expected, the first salvo in the war against corporations was fired by the states, and—as might have been predicted—by western states. At the time (1870-1880) the railroads were the most powerful and the most visible enemy, and on them the guns of state legislation began to boom. The marksmanship was excellent and the shells were hitting the enemy where it hurt most. The farmers, seeing their chance to get from under the corporation paw, rallied to the fight. The Granger movement grew like a mushroom, and the farmers believed for a time that they were going to count for something in American life.


For the corporations the case was critical. The trouble was that they... were having to make their way in a democracy wherein the people had power. Under an absolute king they could have obtained a concession or royal permit, and the people would have been helpless to oppose them. But they were operating in a democracy where the people could rule, people who instinctively recognized an enemy—to them and to democracy—when they saw it. After all, the governments did belong to the people, and the state governments were courageously doing the people’s will. What the corporations needed, and needed badly, was an immunity that would protect them from the people and the people’s government...


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Feudalism’s Search For Immunity
How could a feudal lord expect to secure an immunity in a democracy with its troublesome theories of equality and popular sovereignty? The answer to that question is a revelation of the most amazing transmorgrification known to political science, most amazing because of its simplicity. the corporations had to search for something, for someone, that had such an immunity as they desired, and then have themselves defined by the supreme authority as that thing or person.


This brings us to the constitution of the United States and of the separate states, the double bulwark of democracy.


The federal constitution is a remarkably simple instrument, simply written. In the preamble, “We the People of the United States...,” it implies the democratic principles of government and serves notice that the people are going to try to govern themselves. The first three articles provide for the setting up of a central government and for the creation of the machinery of that government—legislative, executive, and judicial. The fourth establishes the relationship between the component states and the central government...


The federal constitution granted one special immunity, the greatest than any government had ever given, at the time the constitution was formed. This immunity, commonly known as the bill of rights was granted to the individual, to every free American citizen. Though the constitution granted but one broad immunity, it gave it broadly to all, as was becoming a democracy.


The meaning of the bill of rights, and of the constitution itself, becomes clear when seen in the light of the conditions under which the framers wrote the document. In order to study the constitution intelligently, we must put ourselves in the mental position of the men who made it. We must view its purpose through their eyes, from behind, and not be confused by the warping and twisting of later interpretation and amendment.


There was behind the constitution, viewed through the eyes of its makers, the specter of a great fear, a specter so visible to the makers as they worked that it controlled their purpose, guided their pens, shaped the document, and molded the government.


What was this specter? What was this great fear? It was the fear of a strong government, one that would not respect human rights. it was fear of such governments as Europe had in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, absolute or near-absolute, that actuated the framers of the constitution. Their past experiences, extended by a knowledge of history, gave them grounds for fear—not of bandits, kidnapers, or corporations, but of government and of nothing else. in this spirit of fear the revolutionaries set out to make the government responsible and weak. they provided frequent elections to make it responsible and checks and balances throughout to make it weak or to keep it—or any agent of it—from being too strong. Their whole thought was to create a government that could be neither arbitrary nor tyrannical.


For some reason the constitution makers failed to provide for the relationship between the government and the individual citizen, but when they returned to their constituencies to secure ratification they were reminded in no uncertain terms of the oversight. Some of them let it be known that the individual would be taken care of in a series of amendments—a bill of rights.


This brings us to the first ten amendments, or the bill of rights. A casual reading, or even a critical one, will reveal that the bill  of rights was made to protect the individual in a special way. The same fear that shaped the main body of the document shaped the amendments. What was it that the framers of the bill of rights feared for John Doe and Richard Roe? Against what force, what power, did they seek to protect them? The answer must be that they feared the government—weak as it was—that they had made. If fear of the government appears in the background of the main document, it stands in the foreground of the ten amendments.


In the ten amendments the fathers drew a ring around each individual or “person,” and said to the government that they had set up: Into this sacred circle you shall not go. We have done all we can to keep you from being too strong, or at all tyrannical, but we still do not trust you; here we build a second line of defense for the people, and we propose to make it impregnable to you. Behind this defense the individual shall always be safe from the government. He shall be safe from arrest or search without a warrant, from imprisonment without a trial, and by jury; safe to speak, write and believe as he desires. The government may not take his arms or quarter soldiers in his home in time of peace. it shall not compel him to testify if he committed a crime or try him twice for the same offense. Finally, and of  most importance to this discussion, the fifth amendment stated that “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
Here was a barricade which the constitution built for people—and behind it the people could always find protection from the government itself. here was the immunity under which men could be free, equal before the law, and independent. It was not the immunity of absolutism, not a concession of special privileges as in feudalism, but the general immunity of a democracy, granted in a democratic way and guaranteed to every person, or more accurately, every citizen.


Apparently this was the only immunity that the corporations could find that would protect them from the government under which they lived. How to secure its benefits for themselves was the problem before them and their lawyers. To secure this immunity, they must become “persons.”


American Feudalism’s Charter of Immunity
It was not the fifth amendment, which was general, but the fourteenth, directed specifically against the states at whose hands the corporations were suffering, that offered the lawyers their opportunity.


The ostensible purpose of the fourteenth amendment was to grant citizenship to the freed slaves and to compel the states to abide by the federal will. It took from the states the right to define citizenship. There is in this fourteenth amendment a very significant word which may indicate that the framers of the amendment knew more of what they were doing than was suspected. Immunities are mentioned here, for the first time and the only time in the constitution. Here is a specific admission that “privileges and immunities” exist in a democracy, with the further implication that they belong to “citizens” or ‘persons.” It was further specifically stated that no state could alter or change in any way these privileges and immunities. The federal government was their guardian and guarantor.


In short, the states could no longer define “persons” or “citizens”: the states could no longer take from a “person” or “citizen” the immunities which the constitution had given.


But by the same token the federal government could define “citizen” or “person”; it could extend... citizenship itself, to the mules of Missouri, the hogs of Arkansas, and the longhorn steers of Texas, and no state could have raised—or can raise— a protest. Having defined these creatures [as persons], the federal government would have been compelled to grant to them the immunities contained in the bill of rights. None of them could have been deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.


Of course, no one dreamed that this right of definition would be extended beyond the freed slaves. They were the ones who should have citizenship; they were the “persons” who should enjoy the privileges and immunities. Mules, hogs, and longhorn cattle were out of the question. But what of corporations?


No one dreamed that corporation would be defined as a person either, no one except perhaps a few shrewd men, lawyers who while framing the fourteenth amendment contrived to lay a foundation for the emancipation of corporations from state control. These men saw—or said they saw—that if they could get the courts to define a corporation as a person they would thereby confer upon corporations the immunities of persons and kill the power of the states to legislate against them. They would spike the guns of the western states forever and give American feudalism a status at law, a charter of liberty, a roving commission, a license to operate as a person among the people of all the nation.


Professor Webb goes on to explain that it took another 20 years after the ratification of the fourteenth amendment to get corporations defined as persons. When a California county levied a tax against the Southern Pacific Railroad, the railroad lawyers took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. It was there that one Roscoe Conkling, a prominent New York politician, and attorney for the railroad, gave the justices a lesson in the fourteenth amendment. It so happened that Mr. Conkling was also one of the 15-member committee that drafted the fourteenth amendment.


Conkling explained that the committee worded the amendment to to protect the Negro against the states, and to protect the property rights of corporations against state legislatures. The court disregarded Conkling’s argument, but in a similar case the following year, they changed their mind. The supreme court declared that all corporations were “persons.” This new understanding was made clear in court cases in 1886 and 1889.


Thus by definition did the Supreme Court move the corporations behind the barricade erected by the framers of the constitution for the protection of human beings. The corporations, the feudal powers of America, now took the offensive in battering down the defenses of the states. Prior to 1888 only a handful of cases, based on the fourteenth amendment, came before the Supreme Court, but between 1888 and 1918 the amendment was invoked 790 times. The first ten amendments constituted a bill of rights for the people; the fourteenth has been a bill of privileges for corporations


Immunity Becomes Privilege
When the Supreme Court defined corporations as persons, it turned a page in American history and established new relationships of momentous import...


...they gained almost complete immunity from the control of the separate states and were taken under the protecting wing of the federal government. The states could no longer get at them; they could be neither controlled nor punished by local governments.


There, in a nutshell, is an explanation of how governmental power, originally granted to the individual states, was usurped by the federal government, then used to give unheard of rights to corporations. There is much more to the story, but that was how it came about.


The way it looks to me, America would be a lot better off if the 14th Amendment was repealed. Remove the shield of federal protection and special privilege that the corporations operate under. Give power back to the states. 

The Deliberate Agrarian Update31 March 2010

March was another blur of a month for me. In the midst of so much that I am trying to get done hereabouts, I decided it was high time I dug up the clamp…..

I Dug Up The Clamp

The Clamp

Back in my October, 2009 monthly letter I told of how I made a vegetable clamp in the garden. I had read about making clamps in Mike & Nancy Bubel's classic book, Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables. I made the clamp as an experiment. I wanted to see if it would actually work. 

That was five months ago. It is now early spring here in Central New York state. For part of the winter, my clamp was exposed, or partially exposed, as the snow came and went. For the latter part of the winter, it was completely buried under snow. Then came the big thaw in this last month of March.

I could have dug up the clamp in the depth of winter. But I only made one clamp and I wanted to leave the vegetables there a good long time. Here is what I found when I dug up my clamp a couple weeks ago.

 

In the above picture you can see the amount of soil that was over the clamp, as well as the old straw and leaves that were around the vegetables. Also visible is the bundle of dry goldenrod stems that I used to make the ventilating chimney. Here is a picture of the “harvested” clamp…

Every single carrot but one looked to be as sound as when I put it in the earth five months ago. Same goes for the four big beets.

What do you do with your harvested clamp? Well, you load the bounty into your Planet Whizbang Garden Tote (Click Here for plans to make your own garden tote) so you can tote it to the kitchen…

And ten minutes later, you can have yourself  some crisp, fresh-from-the-garden carrot slices…

Unclamped carrots and lined clothes.... a sure sign of spring.
(click to see an enlarged view)

Carrot slices and clothes hanging on the line have nothing to do with each other but I really like the picture. I took it that way because Marlene suggested I take a picture of her clothesline which is once again in use after a long, cold winter. She says it’s a sure sign of spring when she can hang clothes outside again.

Garden Clamps & 
The Future of Food

Now that I’ve done it, I can tell you it is exciting to un-bury a vegetable clamp. Think of it...you grow vegetables, then pile them in a slight depression dug in the earth, cover the pile with leaves and straw, then some soil. There it stays until you need the food.

Storing vegetables in a clamp is profoundly easy to do, and it works. Not only does it work, it evidently works perfectly. No canning or freezing is required. No electricity is required. You don’t have to buy a single thing from the store to do this. You simply bury the food in the ground surrounded by straw and leaves and earth.

This is the way that generations of humans have stored food back through the ages. This is the kind of thing that we who have some inkling of what the future is bringing to our industrialized food system need to relearn and apply.

Many people are warning that the future of our food supply is precarious. Well, everything Americans have grown to depend on is precarious these days.

I recently asked a coworker if he was going to plant a garden this year, knowing that the fellow has a house with the land to do so. He laughed and told me “I get my produce from Birdseye,” meaning the grocery store frozen foods section. He said he had more important things to do than grow a garden.

My friend speaks for most of the people in this country. I smiled and told him that was no fun. But more than that, as I’ve stated here so many times in the past, it is folly to be dependent on the industrial food providers, especially in these days of impending societal collapse on so many fronts.

In my book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian, published five years ago (it is a compilation of my earliest blog essays here—now removed), I have a chapter titled “The Theology of Food Independence,” in which I speak to the Christian believer, pointing out the anti-Christ arrogance of the powerful, centralized corporate food oligopoly that controls most of the food production and distribution in the world. I underscore how fragile this system is, physically and spiritually.  Then I make this statement:  

“...I believe Christians must understand how completely dependent they are on the ungodly culture around them for their daily sustenance. And, knowing this, they should begin to work harder towards providing for themselves, apart from industrialism.”

The primary way of providing for yourself apart from industrialism is to grow your own food; to at least have a garden. But even those people who do not have the land or the ability to grow food can distance themselves from the oligopoly and prepare for the looming food crisis by establishing relationships with local, small, family-size farm producers near them. Put the time, effort, and financial resources into finding these people, going directly to their farms, buying from them, getting to know them, letting them know you appreciate them. Do this with two, three, even four, different small farmers in your area. It will enrich your life far more than buying Birdseye food at the supermarket. But more than that, in the event that the industrial food system does fail, those local food-supply relationships will be more dependable than the grocery store. They could save your life.

My Take on 
The New Health Bill
(an editorial)

(see this link for story that goes with picture)

It was a long, difficult slog for President Obama’s health care bill but it has now been signed into law. A lot of people have opinions about it. I’m no exception. But I don’t know of anyone saying what I’m thinking, and what I’m about to tell you here. And certainly no mainstream pundit, or talking head is going to suggest what I’m about to suggest as the best course of action for my fellow citizens...

Some people think this new system of government-managed health care is good. Some people think it is bad. Some don’t know what to think. One thing is for sure—America is a nation in continuing decline as the masses look more and more to the government to solve all problems by granting “human rights” that never existed before and by handing out so much money to so many people—money that has not been earned. Money that must be taken from those who do work and earn, today and for many years to come. More than a “nanny state,” we have ourselves a messiah state.

The new health care bill forces all Americans to be more dependent on government. That’s exactly what the messiah state wants and needs to perpetuate itself—a population of helpless, dependent, subservient citizens. 

I propose that our American money would be more honest if it stated “In Government We Trust.”

Even the Tea Party movement, for all its talk of the Constitution and responsible spending, is composed of people who, more than likely, if the truth were revealed, are on the government dole to some degree. In other words, they are criticizing the government for spending too much, but they are getting their piece of the government-handout pie. Which means they are part of the problem. Don’t get me wrong here—I agree with the Tea Party protests ( I attended one near me last year) and the rhetoric. But the hypocrisy is undeniable.

Pick your nation-destroying poison... Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, a government-backed home mortgage, government college loans, government grants of so many kinds, government farm support, government subsidized disability, government-supported unemployment insurance, or some sort of government employee pension plan. Or maybe its “cash for clunkers.”  Few and far between are those American citizens who do not ask, do not expect, and will not take any form of handout from the government.

To the degree that we take from government, we are dependent on government. And part of the bargain we make in our taking is to hand over our privacy, our independence, our freedom.

Thus, we are all seeing the inevitable fall of a nation that was born and rose to tremendous heights of prosperity and accomplishment in the heyday of the Frontier paradigm. Spread out before the early settlers of this continent was incredible untapped wealth in the form of vast unsettled lands filled with natural resources—all for the taking. Now that the Frontier is mostly tapped out, we are seeing the long, slow, decline from prosperity to scarcity...and with it the loss of individual freedom.

This was so well explained and foretold in Walter Prescott Webb’s 1952 book, The Great Frontier. I’ve mentioned Prescott's groundbreaking thesis before on this blog and have recently created a separate web page about his amazing book. I can not recommend The Great Frontier enough to anyone who is wondering, on the big-picture-scale, what went wrong and where America is headed as a nation. Professor Webb’s “boom hypothesis” of history was and is absolutely spot-on.

How long will it be before we see masses of government-dependent Americans protesting (or worse) in the streets of our urban centers because the messiah state can no longer provide them with the handouts they have grown to depend on; that they feel they have earned and have a right to? The handwriting is on the wall. The taking and the giving and the borrowing by government is unsustainable. We all know this. And we know the day of reckoning is coming. It may even be upon us. There is no stopping it. The best that messiah government can do is obscure the reality and delay the inevitable.

How then shall people who are cognizant of this eventuality live their lives? I say (as I’ve said here before, but I feel it needs repeating) that it behooves us to disengage as much as possible from the dependencies, ASAP.

Simplify your wants and needs. Steer clear of the bondage of debt. Provide for your needs of food, heat, and shelter as much as you can with your own hands and backbone. And, most fundamentally, turn your eyes from the false messiah state to the true Messiah. This response is as much spiritual as it is physical—at least it is for me.

What I am talking about is a return to the American pioneer spirit, characterized by a firm reliance on the God of the Bible, hard physical work, thrift, self-reliance, subsistence, and the family economy.

While it is true that the Great Frontier, with all its uninhabited land and untapped natural resources is now, for all practical purposes, gone, the land remains. And if properly husbanded, the land can still sustain pioneer families in this  new century, fraught as it is with impending shortages and instabilities.

Living on a section of land and working to make it productive will not bring wealth sufficient to satisfy the average modern American who is conditioned by our culture to spend, borrow, consume, and spend, borrow, waste. But in the days ahead, those people who have returned to the land, have equipped themselves with the tools and knowledge to make the land productive, and who are secure and content with little, these people will provide a valuable example for the helpless, discontent, and confused all around them.

I dare say, the pioneers among us today (many of their blogs are listed on my sidebar at right) are already a valuable example. If you yourself feel that “pioneer urge” in these times, don’t resist. Pioneering is totally contrarian to the spirit of this age, but it is a positive, refreshing, satisfying course of action. To my way of thinking, it is the only appropriate personal response in the midst of the crisis we find ourselves in.

The Other Greeks

Back in my December '09 monthly letter, I told you about The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization, a book by Victor Davis Hanson, that I was reading. I told you of how, according to Hanson, the early Greek Mycenaean culture was a powerful centralized government bureaucracy and technologically advanced for its time. Yet, it mysteriously and suddenly crashed, as all such civilizations in history have done.

After Mycenaea, with the central government no longer functioning, the nation reverted to decentralized agricultural communities. While agriculture prior to the collapse had been topdown directed, it went bottom-up. Which is to say that the land, once owned and operated by the government and the wealthy, was acquired and operated by individuals and families who lived and farmed their own small sections. According to Hanson, this new arrangement was the solid foundation for amazing cultural advancements.


V.D. Hanson’s book is a scholarly study, so thorough that it is, at times, ponderous, yet the underlying thesis is profoundly insightful. In short, as I understand it, the author concludes that the greatest achievements of Greek culture came about as a natural result of the widespread, equitable distribution of land, owned and worked by a large middle class of small farms. The communities and the forms of government (many aspects of which were adopted centuries later by the founders of our American Republic) were profoundly egalitarian and worthy of our understanding.


The modern mind cares nothing for this aspect of Greek culture and the lessons we can learn from it. That is because, as Hanson puts it, every culture is “chauvinistic” in that it believes it is far better than any other—that it is the historical exception. I think it is safe to also call it arrogance and pride. Or maybe "learning the hard way"...... again.


This book was long and somewhat difficult to read (delving into the tactics and differences of Greek warfare and Hoplite warriors, and so on), but Hanson's well-researched work offers clues to the future of our modern-day civilization as the historical aberration of the Great Frontier draws to its inexorable close. 

There are so many quotes from this book—little gems among so many words—that I would like to share with you but they are all long, so I will conclude this with a single sentence from the Epilogue (page 419): 

”Historically there has been a cyclical sense of agrarian rise, fall, and reawakening, as societies themselves waxed and waned.”

And right there is the main point I want to make. To borrow a technological phrase, I'm persuaded that we are headed back to the “default setting”—to the original "settings" (ways of life) established by the “Manufacturer.”  In other words, we are going back to the agrarian mandate for man that was clearly laid out in the book of Genesis.

The Agrarian Kitchen

 Affectionately known as "Boss Hog," Lee Christmas is The Agrarian Kitchen's Pig Expert

The Agrarian Kitchen is a sustainable farm-based cooking school in Tasmania. It is a fine idea that I'm sure could be done here in the states too (probably already is). The one class that interested me the most is called The Whole Hog and is described as follows:

"...we begin with a whole carcass and learn the ins and outs of cutting and utilising a pig, from nose to tail, including making sausages, slow roasted pork belly in the wood-fired oven, pigs trotter and potato pie and pig’s head terrine. Guests will take sausages, rillettes  and bacon home with them."

30% Less 
Factory Job

Last year, my employer (the state of N.Y.) offered its minions a voluntary work option. When I found out I could take a day a week off, get paid 20% less money, and still keep my job, I immediately signed up. I like to say I'm doing my part to help the state in it's time of dire fiscal crisis. But, truth be told, I looked upon this option as an opportunity to take a step away from my prison factory job, and have more time to devote to my Whizbang home business.

That work reduction option was like an answer to prayer. My hope is to one day completely leave the state job and come home to work full time here. That is the goal, the dream, the vision I've had from the first day I started the prison job. 

So it is, with that in mind, this last month I started taking a 30% work reduction (1-1/2 day a week). It amounts to another step away. Unfortunately, 30% is the maximum amount I can take. So the next step will be 100%, but I'm not sure about when that will happen. For now, I'm thankful for the 30%.

A lot of people think that if I take 1.5 days a week off from my job, I'm not working. Well, nothing could be farther from the truth. The Whizbang business is much more demanding physically and mentally than the factory job. But, and this is the important thing, it's a whole lot healthier and more satisfying.

Old Pictures…
& Old Stories

I’ve been blogging here for just shy of five years now and I’m finally getting to the “old photos stage,” wherein I post some pictures of myself from years ago. This comes as a result of recently getting a scanner. Please forgive me…..

That’s little Me in the late 1950s.  I am relatively new, healthy, happy, cute, and totally unaware of the seriousness of life before me.

There I am a little more grown. Still fairly cute. I am at my grandmother Kimball’s camp which was on Cross Lake in Northern Maine. That grill had a gear-driven blower that I loved to crank. It really got the charcoal hot. Looking at it now, I think it might have been a blacksmith’s portable forge. It certainly could have been used as one.


The sign says “Chateau Kimball.” It was made by Roger T. Hall, the good friend of my grandfather, Dr. Herrick C Kimball, M.D.F.A.C.S. I now have that sign.


When that picture was taken my parents had divorced. My mother had remarried, and we had moved to New York state. But I spent many summers of my boyhood with my grandmother Kimball (and some of that time at my mother’s parent's farm) in Aroostook County, Maine.


Those summers with my grandmother were, I now realize, instrumental in shaping my character. My grandmother Kimball influenced my life in ways I’m sure she never realized, and she did this by giving me her time and attention at an early age. The situation of divorce and remarriage created instability and insecurity for me, but my grandmother was a rock that I could depend on.


If you are a grandparent, or expect to be some day, you have a tremendous opportunity to influence and shape the lives of your grandchildren; to be a force for life-changing good in their lives. I dare say, grandparents have a responsibility to do this, and my grandmother took this responsibility very seriously. Please read my essay, What My Grandmother Did For Me (I posted it here years ago but have just added some pictures).

That’s me at my grandmother’s house with my Aunt Carolyn. She was, and still is, a stylish and vivacious woman. As you can see, I was also stylish in my little suit, but that phase was very short-lived, as this next picture will attest:

There I am a little more grown.  “Cute” as a description of myself at that time is no longer appropriate. Though not dated, I suspect the goofy-looking Me is 11 years old because fifth grade is when the adults around me figured out that I needed glasses—all the better to watch television with, and I did a lot of that. The baby is my sister.

That picture was taken in the kitchen of my family’s little ranch house in the suburban development that we lived in outside Syracuse, N.Y. It was not a good place to raise a boy-child. Sad to say, I have precious few good memories of the nine formative years of my life lived in that place.

Relax. That’s not me. I was going to post my high school senior class picture but it’s very painful to look at. So I have substituted Marlene’s class picture (now we're back to cute). She is 17 years old. I found myself attracted to that girl and, incredibly, she to me.  In due time, we were married. Now, 30 years later, I still love The Wife of My Youth.

Thankfully, my family had moved out of the seedy suburban environment when I was in 9th grade. We moved to the country, to an old drafty farm house with 25 acres of land and a barn and fields, and woods, and gullies, and streams—stretching out far and wide. Here’s a picture of the suburbia where I grew up from first grade to ninth grade...

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And here is a view of the Finger Lakes countryside we moved to....

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The only good thing about living in that housing project was the perspective it provided—I grew up with the firm belief that no child of mine would grow up as I did in such a place.

Marlene and I Have only a few pictures of us from “the old days” and they are in terrible condition. This one above is overexposed, faded, and battered but it shows how beautifully radiant Marlene was as a teenager. It was taken in our “college era” before getting married.

And while I'm at it, here is a picture of Marlene from that era that I especially like. She was lifeguard while in college.

We married when we were both 22 years old. Our wedding reception was at the Grange Hall. Not a very fancy place compared to where most of our friends had their weddings, but it was just right for us. In fact, it was perfect.  The only glitch to the whole thing was afterwards. Our college friend who took so many wedding pictures for us called a couple weeks later with the news that every picture and negative had been ruined by the developer. So we have only a few snapshots of the day.

After we were married, I plunged into my work as a carpenter and home remodeler, learning the trades, building a reputation. I worked for two different contractors in my town for ten years before going into business for myself for another ten. In the picture below, I am 29 years old. I had contact lenses and managed to grow some facial hair. My kids say I look Mexican.

 

When I look at that grainy picture of myself, I am reminded of those years when I drove myself so hard doing demanding work for long days. By then I was taking on remodeling side jobs around town, doing the work after my regular work day and on weekends. And I was trying to finish the little house Marlene and I had built. I was going in a lot of directions, expending a lot of effort. I could not work now with the sustained physical intensity that I did in those days. It would kill me. In fact, after 20 years of it, I pretty much burnt out. But I won’t go into that.

As I recount in my book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian, after Marlene and I saved enough money to buy a little piece of land, we borrowed $10,000 from her father to build our house. It took a couple of years to get it finished to the point where we could move in. We lived with her parents during that time. In the above picture, I’m using a long stick to push the button on a camera clamped to a step ladder.

 

Our original house measured 16ft wide by 24ft long and had a 10ft by 10ft section on the back. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t fancy but it was our own little home in the country. After seven years of marriage, we started having children and the house got small fast. It has undergone a couple of additions and numerous changes to accommodate our needs and we still live in it now, 25 years later.

And speaking of children, here (below) is a three-generation picture, taken in 1991 while we were visiting at my Grandmother Kimball's house. She is 83. I am 33. My oldest son (in my arms) is 3 yrs old.

And here is a picture of that little boy that was in my arms not so very long ago...

The Other Boys

My sons Robert (my grandmother is holding him above) and James continue to enjoy their four-wheeler, as these recent pictures attest:

Jax Hamlin Offers His First 

Limited Edition Original Chicken Art

I’ve been writing here for a few months telling about my desire to be a whimsical chicken artist and to market my chicken art under the pseudonymous personage of Jax Hamlin. I was going to do this beginning next year but have decided to wade into my new career starting right here and right now, with the introduction of the first Jax Hamlin Limited Edition Original:

(click to see larger image)

The above picture is the first limited edition (250 copies) Jax Hamlin Original to be offered to the public. The drawing was  commissioned by Garth Fout of Ohio. I am much obliged to Garth for his patronage and encouragement.

With all of this in mind, I have established a new web site to tell lovers of chicken art all around the globe about Jax Hamlin, and to market his Limited Original Originals. Now you too can be a patron of the chicken arts. Complete details (and online ordering buttons) can be found at www.JaxHamlin.com

Next month I hope to unveil another Jax Hamlin Original here, and it will be available for sale at the Jax Hamlin web site. Jax hasn’t decided yet for sure, but thinks he will bring out either A Dapper Dorking or Chick on a Chocolate Eclair. Stay tuned. This is chicken art that you won’t want to miss!

See You Here Next Month