USDA: Rural Population Needed Not For Farming But For Cannon Fodder
September 5th, 2013Update: Quote from Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed
Joel Salatin’s telling of the story below sounded somehow familiar to me. I just remembered why. I’d read the following in, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed way back in the 1990s:
Terry was the quintessential product of Middle America. Sown like patriotic seed on the plains, his destiny was to be harvested for the nation’s use… This new “crop” of dedicated young men, for the most part born of veterans of World War II, was reaped by the government and sent on the fruitless and unsupported mission to halt the advance of communism in Southeast Asia.
Generation after generation, it’s the same scam, over and over again.
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Via: Joel Salatin:
What could the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, at the highest strategic planning sessions of our land, be challenged by other leaders to change this figure, to get more people in rural America, to encourage farming and help more farms get started? What could be the driving reason to have more farmers?
Why does he go to bed at night trying to figure out how to increase farmers? How do the President and other cabinet members view Vilsack’s role as the nation’s farming czar? What could be the most important contribution that increasing farmers could offer to the nation? Better food? Better soil development? Better care for animals? Better care for plants?
Are you ready? Here’s his answer: although rural America only has 16 percent of the population, it gives 40 percent of the personnel to the military. Say what? You mean when it’s all said and done, at the end of the day, the bottom line — you know all the cliches — the whole reason for increasing farms is to provide cannon fodder for American imperial might. He said rural kids grow up with a sense of wanting to give something back, and if we lose that value system, we’ll lose our military might.
Research Credit: noguru
Yep. For many years I’ve been referring to farm kids as FCFA (Future Cannon Fodder of America) rather than FFA.
It’s nice to see it being acknowledged by Salatin thanks to Vilsack spelling it out.