lead_tag (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} lead_tag) wrote,@ 2007-05-22 07:28:00 |
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Week 23 and it appears that some of you have shaken off your malaise. That’s excellent because wallowing in self-pity isn’t going to carry you through the rest of what awaits you. While things seemed to have leveled off for now, large problems still loom on the horizon and you’ll need all of your wits about you to make a go of it.
Seems the people that brought you this crisis feel fit enough to try and make it up to you. They want a chance to try and prove to you that big centralized government is the answer, namely, FEMA camps in rural areas, using collective farming to supply the nation with food. Wait, where have I heard of this before, let me think……… Oh ya.
April 1929, Joseph Stalin ordered the first Five-Year Plan. Stalin's regime moved to force collectivization of agriculture. This was intended to increase agricultural output from large-scale mechanized farms, to bring the peasantry under more direct political control, and to make tax collection more efficient. Collectivization meant drastic social changes, on a scale not seen since the abolition of serfdom in 1861, and alienation from control of the land and its produce. For individual farmers that meant turning their land and livestock over to the state and becoming workers on giant collective farms. Collectivization also meant a drastic drop in living standards for many peasants, and it faced violent reaction among the peasantry.
Many peasants showed their displeasure to collectivization by not planting crops or by killing all of their animals. Stalin had hoped to eliminate the problem of food production, but the opposite happened. A lack of food became a major problem in the cities because of the peasant’s resistance to collectivization. Stalin was forced to send the police into the countryside to raid farms for food and ultimately, the army was used to force the peasants to work and send food to the cities. Furthermore, as a punishment for not collectivizing, the farmers were given little or no food. Mass starvation occurred during this period, with close to 30 million peasants starving to death.
Now, we don’t have peasants in America, not yet anyway, but we do have large masses of unemployed people. Why not just round them up and......or rather let them “convince themselves” that going into the camps is in their best interests and ship them off wholesale to the rural parts of our country? What could go wrong with that?
First, I’m pretty sure that once you’re in a camp you’re not getting out. So that more or less makes you a prisoner. Prison labour has never been the most reliable, something about motivation I guess. Of course no one is “forcing” anyone to go to a camp, it’s just the only option they will allow you other than starving. Never mind that they haven’t a clue about how to work the land. I’m sure a government bureaucrat or a military commander is well versed in crop management and animal husbandry and can explain exactly how to do things. There would be no need to press-gang rural inhabitants into service for their country, would there?
Let’s see, we’ve got a work force, now who’s land are they going to go to? The land worked and owned by corporate agri-business, private land seized through “eminent domain”, or perhaps National Parks, military bases and other Federal lands. Corporate agri-business has always had a “close” relationship with our governing bodies. I’m sure in exchange for a nice administrative position for them and their friends and a healthy food ration something could be worked out. Private land would have to be seized in the interest of “fairness” anyway, you can’t have that constant reminder of freedom around to give the collectivized farm workers any ideas. Military or Federal land would work as it already has some infrastructure in place to keep a “guard force” comfortable and it would put the produce right where it would be consumed.
So it’s settled, forced labour to supply “essential” personnel with what they need. Working in the camps would make you “essential” again I’m sure. It’s not like they could just go out and pull people off the........ Cancel that, the only thing essential about you would be that you do what you’re told.
Don’t get me wrong, I know the only answer is more people moving to the country and working the land in a sustainable low energy manner, but forced mass collectivization won’t work. It would take people leaving the cities of their own volition and being accepted by the residents already there to be effective. Like water from a hose, aimed at one spot it tends to erode not absorb. The masses from the cities would have to be spread out and allowed to settle into the agricultural regions.
Programs to make this possible would have to be devised with laissez faire attitude towards control and a realization that returns wouldn’t be immediate. Our corporations and its government have no tolerance or patience for either of these things. Railroads would see only lost profits if they moved people out to the rural areas for free, not future customers and suppliers. Agri-business would have the same view if told that they had to surrender or sell below market value a company asset like land. Even if they did give somewhat, I would expect it only to be in the form of “loans” with of course very good returns for them. Can anyone say “wage slave”? And the government? Which career paper pusher is going to tell another career paper pusher that he is no longer “essential”? Only the most ruthless of course, but enough of them will remain that we will still have far too many. Big government with strong central control, uses lots of energy and it will protect itself and its privilege to the end. After all, they’re “necessary”.
Things have settled down a bit, but the state still thinks it knows what’s best for us. Coming into winter you’ll have to be ready to deal with limited resources like food and fuel for heating. How you deal with them determines how our country redevelops. Your freedom and independence are based on your self reliance. Taking the handout will eventually make you a slave to the source and we need to be stronger than that. Strong people make strong nations.
So now that you’re out of your funk, go deal with it.
Make a choice.
