Month: April 2018

Alabama Farmers Federation’s ‘Earth Day’ Tweet & Scott Pruitt, Big Luther …

The above tweet caught my eye. That’s because I remembered some similar language about how much Alfa cared about the environment and who all was doing the talking. Yup, none other than Scott Pruitt.

Beyond all the news about Scott Pruitt’s grifting back in Oklahoma and how that pattern continues as he and his boss are draining the swamp in DC, not to mention how Pruitt and Alabama’s very own ‘Big Luther’ Strange had the Republican Attorneys General Association and the Rule of Law Defense Fund acting as corporate counsel for certain interests, I can’t help but think of the gall Alfa has to saddle up with the likes of Pruitt and Strange and then drop an Earth Day tweet.

Thus a rare post. I might add a few links in as able. Or modify/expand. But here are the basics.

Instead of working toward consensus on nonpoint pollution problems with the issue left up in the air after some upper-level federal cases and Congress locked down by one party’s default opposition mode, it was apparently easier/better for the organization and their politicians to file lawsuits, scare their members to death, and stonewall. Given the above, this ‘protect the environment’ PR from Alfa seems as tawdry as one of Donald Trump’s trysts.

I’m all for farmers, especially the little man or woman and an actual family rather than a messaging version of the same, making a living. I am in their corner on much. The same goes for the forestry folks – even though I do worry about that industry’s financialization where production is sometimes an afterthought. In the category of farmers, I include cattlemen and pork/poultry growers. I’m no fan of CAFOs and can complain about vertical integration, but that’s another post for another day. How in the world young folks can hope to start and stay in farming today absent a leg up through family connections or other unique circumstances and probably a little luck is a mystery to me.

And I am hardly a ‘statist’ type. Code-compliance is something I’ll go beyond on when I play slumlord yet the contrarian in me can’t help but slightly resent pulling a permit even when everybody involved is almost always pleasant and reasonable. However, this country boy still knows water runs downhill and can’t figure out a solution to environmental issues without the state involved. Hell, there’s arguably even an international role. Wind and water don’t care about arbitrary borders and humanity’s hubris.

Again, some recent federal cases had questions out there about just how far upstream the Clean Water Act applied on certain concerns and Congress (especially you-know-who up there) was being Congress. Posting up against the black guy’s administration was just too good an opportunity I guess to let pass. And keeping those rural voters, even those not pocketing the overwhelming majority of farm subsidies and just sorta kinda farming or maybe loosely involved or just historically aligned with agriculture, stirred up is a team effort. To push out Pravdaesque claims about how WOTUS is going to put folks out of business and otherwise “hamstring our economy” might make all the difference in some tight elections.

It’s Pollyannaish perhaps but the agricultural community should be a good faith participant (as opposed to profit/power-preserving special interest group tied in with opportunistic politicians!) in getting a solution worked out. If this ‘Big Mule’ outfit and their lackeys won’t step up, then some of the youngsters who aren’t careerists and/or climbers might build a ‘wildcat’ organization or at least start pushing back. Admittedly, it’d be scary to change and giving an inch might mean you’d lose the ‘lid bills’ and other advantages.

On those advantages, I don’t necessarily get fired up about the part in Alfa’s tweet today about “so they can pass on their land to the next generation.” I’m of two (perhaps more) minds about the issue of ‘the landed aristocracy.’ When a family has worked hard and struggled, certainly over generations, I certainly think there’s a policy choice that’s defensible about allowing that estate to pass down to the heirs. And I also know the ‘death tax’ is more PR with the estate tax only applicable to a very few families with minimal planning usually enough to avoid much, if any, loss to what’s left.

Then again, there’s I think an idea going back to Locke and others about the idea of not holding more than you can personally work/use. Those winning the ‘birth lottery’ who can be somewhat idle or have advantages don’t always bother me – unless they get involved in politics telling poor folks how they ought to pull themselves up by the bootstraps they often don’t have. And even among people claiming to be conservationists, hustlers exist.

Count me among the fans of Rawl’s ‘original position’ thesis, but there may indeed be some Jeffersonian or Agrarian ideas about land which still matter. While ‘rootedness’ doesn’t always have to relate to dirt, for me, it sometimes does. (See Simone Weil for what all it might involve.) Given the hills and hollers from where I came, I ought to use rocks with some dirt surrounding. I truly think the reason I can be ‘a bit stubborn’ is that I rarely dug a posthole without having to crack through or pry out rock. That I now often landscape with rock and find rock veneer so attractive is ironic.

Admittedly, it’s easy for me to offer up advice when I don’t have a fancy spread, or even rough land, to pass on to the next generation. I still submit that we’re only passing through and that being a conservationist ought to come ahead of commodity concerns, crop insurance, etc. Sure, those real world concerns get the fuel bill paid and keep the damn bankers at bay. I get it. Again, I want to be in your corner. But it’ll be way more manageable for me and others like me, perhaps even people with at least some slight influence, to be allies when scoundrels like Scott Pruitt and … aren’t among your cronies. (See footnote # 1)

I’m winding down now. Beyond the issues of our environment, I’m also a rural sociologist, even with a paper saying such, and care about how much of rural America/Alabama is being hollowed out. Issues to worry about include farmer suicides, the opioid epidemic, ‘aging in place’ and the ‘brain drain’ of young folks, lack of broadband access, rural hospitals struggling, etc.

Feel free to let me know where I’m wrong, what could be improved, and what I might’ve missed. That said, I like to write in an informal, somewhat ‘stream of consciousness’ manner and such works for me. It’s my blog, and Mr. Hemingway and his disciples can write as they prefer.

Footnote # 1 – My old daddy told a story about when he was the High Sheriff of Randolph County. This was before I was born. His daddy Quaron Gunn was supposedly asked by a neighbor named Guy Sudduth to arrange some help, apparently some type of trustee for hire or maybe a form of convict lease by the day, for their farm. Guy kept going on about how he needed somebody that wouldn’t steal or cuss or look lustily at his wife or … until Quaron exploded, he had the Gunn temper, with, “Dammit Guy, Ralph don’t get many Christians!” So as to Alfa’s cronies, I get it that their politicians will be politicians. Still, Scott Pruitt is an especially sketchy character – even by Alabama standards. That he and Big Luther were so tight is a story that still needs exploring. With the shenanigans around that Superfund site at least somewhat known, with more many folks suspect, we’ve a rare glimpse of how raw power and brazen bigfooting gets done in this state. I’m again being naïve I suppose but this corruption seems like a cancer that’s going to have to be cut out.