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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
Weekend
Edition
November 11 / 12, 2006
Let the Epic Struggles Begin
Be
Careful What You Wish For
By AL KREBS
"A little patience, and
we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve,
and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government
to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war
and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs
sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck
turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back
the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles
are at stake."
Letter from Thomas Jefferson
to a friend in 1798 following passage of the Alien and Sedition
Acts
Democrats and their supporters might
do well to pause in their euphoria over the November 7 elections
and take heed of the above advice. I for one as a populist found
myself not particularly thrilled with the way the Democrats were
gaining decided majority control in the House and a tenuous edge
in the Senate.
Watching many Democrats rush
to fill the "centrist" vacuum left by the neocon Republican
desire to please its base left me with the uncomfortable feeling
that compromise legislation in conjunction with threats of Presidential
vetoes and efforts to favorably position themselves in the 2008
elections will leave us with only token progressive legislation
during the next two years.
If there is one saving grace
concerning the recent elections relative to the Democrats it
is the fact that, assuming the current elected lineups in the
House and Senate hold, a significant handful of mostly genuine
liberal members of the party will be taking control of important
committees.
For example, Wisconsin's David
Obey will be chairing the Appropriations Committee, responsible
for funding federal programs and agencies. Obey, one-time chairman
of the committee when Democrats were in power, is an old-fashioned
labor Democrat with interests in education, health-research funding,
help for family dairy farmers rather than big agribusiness and
is expected to strongly defend the Appropriations Committee's
power from executive branch encroachment.
In the Senate, Pat Leahy of
Vermont would become the Judiciary Committee chair; Hawaii's
Dan Inouye would take the reins of the Commerce Committee; Edward
Kennedy of Massachusetts would inherit the Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee; and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico
would run the Energy and Natural Resources panel.
Relative to trade issues, Rep.
Charles Rangel from New York will asurredly be the new chairman
of the House Ways and Means Committee and will likely push for
more labor and environmental language provisions in the nation's
various trade agreements. He has, however, also indicated that
he favors extending Trade Promotion Authority, although his Democrat
colleagues will likely seek "sweeteners" from the White
House for any such extension.
All these chairmanships and,
of course, their committees will undoubtedly impact family farmers
and rural America. None, however, will have more of a profound
influence than the House and Senate Agricultural Committees.
While many of the Committee's sub-committee chairmanships remain
in doubt the chairmanship of the Committee as a whole is clear.
In the House the new Ag Committee
Chairman will be Collin Peterson from Minnesota. In the Senate,
the likely Ag Committee leader would be Sen. Tom Harkin from
Iowa.
With talk of drafting a new
Farm Bill it will be crucial to see how each of these chairman
will press for new progressive farm legislation that addresses
agriculture's two fundamental issues --- a fair price for farm
products and increasing concentration. Each committee has an
opportunity to wean themselves from the farm policies of the
past that keep making the same mistakes but are always calling
it "new policy."
Rather than buying into farm
legislation posed by corporate agribusiness and its allies like
the American Farm Bureau Federation and the traditional commodity
groups, the two ag legislative committees might seriously consider
the USDA hearing testimony from the President of the National
Family Farm Coalition --- a collation of 22 grass roots farm
organizations --- an Iowa farmer George Naylor, who emphasized
that what is desperately needed is a new farm policy proposal
to create a sustainable farm and food system.
"Our farm bill, called
the Food from Family Farms Act (FFFA), would improve the environment,
create new economic opportunities in rural America, and support
similar aspirations in every other country on our beautiful planet.
Unlike the current farm policy, provisions in the Food from Family
Farms Act, predicated on the principle of Food Sovereignty, will
build good will among our trading partners and give them a chance
for balanced sustainable economic development."
Other main features of the
Food from Family Farms Act includes a price support system, food
security reserves, and conservation set-asides with full planting
flexibility, which would work together to guarantee prices that
reflect the true cost of production.
The Food from Family Farms
Act encourages such a transition through full
implementation of the Conservation Security Program (CSP), offering
incentives on working lands for more conserving crops and practices
which fit well with diversified family farming, bio-energy and
local food production. As Naylor stresses "a balanced family
farm system will require less fossil fuel and give opportunities
for farmers to become producers of clean renewable energy.
"The goal of food, farm,
and trade policy should be a globally sustainable and adequate
supply of wholesome food at affordable prices. A family farm
system is the most effective means to provide food quality and
safety, diversity of production, equitable social and economic
opportunity, and preservation of land, water, and bio-diversity,"
he stresses.
By controlling both chambers,
the committee's will more than likely focus on conservation and
nutrition issues, farm program payment cuts, a push for a mandated
animal identification system, a focus on food safety issues,
animal welfare issues, country-of-origin labeling issues for
meat and meat products, organic food issues, and a push to extend
the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) payments, since Vermontâos
Sen. Leahy would be the second highest ranking Democrat on the
Ag panel.
Peterson recently has stressed
that a Democratic-controlled House, in exercising more oversight
of the present Administration's farm policy structure, will take
a serious look at all USDA programs. Likewise, he has decried
the committee's Republican leadership for refusing to hold hearings
on vital credit, disaster, and dairy issues. Also he has called
for inclusion of a permanent disaster program so that farmers
arenâot forced to depend on highly politically motivated
disaster programs and crop insurance programs that reap untold
insurance company profits. at everyone elseâos expense.
Despite, however, the progressiveness
of such Committee's leadership there still remains the shadow
of many of the new middle-of-the-road Democrats who, if their
past gives us any clue to their future actions, will be listening
more to the voices (and money) of their corporate paymasters
than that of their constituents.
Consequently, in the next two
years we may will witness not only an epic battle between the
White House and Capitol Hill, but also one for the soul of the
Democratic Party. A battle that can be characterized as being
one between these new "centrist" Democrats intent on
getting re-elected and those Democrats who have traditionally
believed in the Jeffersonian values that proclaim working for
the COMMON good is indeed the highest calling for a public servant.
A limited number of inscribed
copies of Krebs's book, THE CORPORATE REAPERS: The Book of Agribusiness
(Essential Books: 1992), which the late farm activist and film
actor Eddie Albert called the "bible" of American agribusiness,
are now available from the author. Checks for $25.00 (which includes
postage and handling) should be made out to A.V. Krebs and mailed
to P.O. Box 2201, Everett, Washington 98213-0201.
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