Some (okay a lot... like 15) of my favorite quotes:
"Farming should nest gently into the landscape rather than dominating it."
"If the earth is anything, it’s a loving partner, not a subdued enemy."
"The thing you have to understand is that every time, every time, every time the government regulates something, it always, always, always hurts the small players and helps the big players."
"Why do we feel so helpless? Why must our first cry of foul send us running to a federal government bureaucrat to make all things right?"
"I pretty much stay disengaged from the farm bill because I don’t participate in it; I don’t want violence used to give me someone else’s money (try not paying your taxes and see who gets violent); all I want is to be left alone to practice consensual commerce with my own tribe."
"The people who think the government needs to participate in America’s food system need to understand that it was the government that promoted chemical fertilizers and pooh-poohed compost (no pun intended), who said that manure was not even worth hauling to the field, that developed and encouraged DDT use to cure all bugs, that subsidizes high fructose corn syrup, that promotes mandatory irradiation, that told us with the food pyramid in 1979 that the foundational pillar of a healthy diet was grain-based carbohydrates.
The food pyramid, you may recall, made no distinction between Twinkies, Cocoa-Puffs and Pop-Tarts versus fresh-sprouted quionoa bread. The government promoted feeding dead cows to cows and gave us bovine spongiform encephalopathy—mad cow. Why would anyone in their right mind want to give the government any authority in our foodscape?"
"As a result, we have a generation of bored, childish young people prowling the streets at night getting into mischief and wondering if they are worth anything. This is an epidemic, and a blight on our culture."
"To those who still can’t buy the no-regulations idea, I propose a hybrid: at least allow those of us who, as consenting adults, want to opt out of the industrial system, to be free to do so. If we’d rather live in teepees, heal with medicinal plants, and conduct meetings using talking sticks and chiefs, why does that harm the folks who prefer brick and mortar, blood-letting, and Robert’s Rules of Order? Why must the non-conformists be summarily rounded up, hunted down, and marched to reservations? How a society treats its unorthodox determines whether it is a tyranny or free society."
"You see, our culture is where it is not because of what someone else has done to us, but because of what we’ve done to ourselves. We are not victims; we’re the problem."
"...and that means waking every morning knowing our future is not up to someone else; it’s not up to a government program or paycheck..."
"Now to the veganism “saving the planet” concept. Because most vegans are on a physically degenerative trajectory, if eliminating humans is the path to saving the planet, I suppose you could make an argument that veganism does indeed save the planet since it rids the earth of humans. But I don’t think the earth was meant to exist without humans; in fact, I think humans heal the earth better than anything—they also destroy the earth better than anything. Most of the time really good stuff has a really bad counterpart—like sex and wine."
"It ultimately comes down to values and priorities. Yes, I know the Kardashians are crazily interesting, but so is what’s going to become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone in a couple of hours. Our privilege to participate is a choice we exercise. And that’s the most important exercise of all."
"These credentialed folks who wield guns via their enforcers have decided that Pop-Tarts and Cheerios are safe and should even be subsidized, but raw milk, compost grown tomatoes and Aunt Matilda’s home-canned sweet pickles are hazardous substances."
"In the cycle of history, that system made us rich, wealth corrupted us and turned us into wimps, wimps made us victims, victims made us dependent, and now we’re just a bunch of babies looking for another government nipple to nurse. Enough already."
"I don’t trust anything from Vilsack or the USDA. That outfit has been demonizing truth for decades. If they had their way, Polyface would not exist. I don’t have time to fool with their chicanery. They have an agenda that as evil for this civilization and the sooner they get neutered the better. Yes, there is a time for anger. We’ve been gentle long enough, giving the benefit of the doubt, trying to play on the team. Forget it. The team is heading the wrong way and destroying the earth, our food, and our freedoms."
Until next time,
