Mark Small

The small farmer largely is a myth. Farm Bureau’s PAC feeds notions of down-home, aw-shucks America farming like in the good, old-fashioned moral days (i.e., 1950s when life wasn’t all that moral, especially for the poor and minorities). 4/18

The reality: Monsanto can sue those small farmers because bees pollinate w/o regard to patents; confined livestock operations destroy quality of life down-wind and down-stream so that one understands the taciturn expressions in “American Gothic.” 5/18

Small farmers up against these forces learn: Farm Bureau might have “Farm” in its title, but its stands for “family farms” are as fictional as an African American farmer in Deep South Mayberry (i.e., “The Andy Griffith Show”). 6/18

Little Wildcat Creek ran across my parents’ farm. When I was a kid you could see bluegills’ gravel nests in the shallows along the banks. Now the agricultural effluence of fertilizers and pesticides have made the water brown. 7/18

Corporations do not want anyone to know how animals are tortured and killed in confinement operations and so try to limit - through laws brought about by lobbying efforts like Farm Bureau’s - free speech about those operations. 8/18

Farm Bureau wants “rational” environmental laws. The Republican Party was a major force that created the EPA. I think “rational” includes being able to see the bottoms of streams and not smell manure with every breath. 9/18

Groups like Farm Bureau arent “conservative”: “Predisposed to traditional attitudes, beliefs, and teachings; favoring established traditions, social stability, and gradual developments as opposed to abrupt changes.” Black’s Law Dictionary. 10/18

For most of its existence, the Republican Party has advocated for civil rights, protection of the environment, controls on large corporations, progressive income taxes and advancement of knowledge. Those are matters rooted in traditional values. 11/18