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Nice Rant on the Sanctity of Farming

Posted on: 2007-10-21

John Rogers a.k.a Kung Fu Monkey has a great rant about how the U.S. media seems to sanctify farmers and their opinions as those of 'real' Americans:

There are four times as many Americans living in urban than rural areas. There are four times as many people sucking back coffee in New York city alone than make a living farming. According to the Bureau of Labor, there are just as many people employed in Architecture and Engineering as farming, hell, 3 million people working in Computer and Mathematical jobs. But when one of these "What does America think about culture" pieces comes on, do I ever see a mid-30's software engineer onscreen bitching about having to download BitTorrents of "The IT Crowd"? Fuck and no. Four million people in the US play World of Warcraft.

...

The rural life, specifically, the agricultural industry, is a massive, important part of our nation's economic well-being. And yes, yes, I've read Kunstler's Long Emergency, and I know that one catastrophic afternoon in the near future, I will rue the day my grandfather gave up the sod to become a cop in the New World. For some people the rural life is an incredibly rewarding way of life. They should be very proud of the fact they have held on to this great tradition of commerce and, one might argue service, in the face of corporate farming. But that life is not holy, it does not bless one with special insight into the intent of the Framers of the goddam Consitution or what America "should" be like. Have I lost some sort of sacred connection with the land? Maybe. But the last time I checked, the land was dirt, same dirt as the rest of the world, and several generations of my family went broke farming other people's dirt, interrupted only when easily annoyed Englishmen would occassionally show up and burn all their shit down. Pardon me for enjoying my goddam latte.

The comments are even interesting.

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