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Sunday, 28 May, 2006

MAIL BAG – MORE MAIL SOLICITATIONS

Pridger has recently received his mailing from the Sierra Club  and the Council on Foreign Relations publication, Foreign Affairs.

The Sierra Club (http://www.sierraclub.org) again solicits his membership, the primary present concern in the present mailing being the grizzly bear.

Of course, Pridger is all for saving the grizzly, but is nonetheless pretty thankful that there aren't any in his particular neck of the woods. If there were, he'd feel compelled to purchase a slightly larger armory than he now has. The old 12 gauge just wouldn't give him the feeling or degree of security he has become accustomed to.

Grizzlies don't mean any harm, of course. But, like rattlesnakes, if you happen to surprise one at an inopportune moment, they can be quite troublesome. But Pridger can handle rattlesnakes provided they don't score a surprise preemptive bull's eye somewhere on ankle or torso. The rattlesnake's striking range is conveniently limited to about half of his own length. Grizzlies are a different matter. They are big and can take many big steps in quick succession. And in, hand to hand combat, even a half grown grizzly has all the advantage.

Not only can they swat a fellow like a fly with devastating effect, if they happen to be hungry, they may pause in the vicinity long enough to feed on whatever your bones may offer up. And they aren't particularly squeamish about making a clean kill before commencing their meal.

Yet some people are ever-eager to go into grizzly country to observe these magnificent animals armed with only the knowledge that "they don't mean any harm." Those with a little foresight may arm themselves with a little can of pepper spray. They're taught that if they do happen to have a dangerous encounter with a grizzly, to "make themselves look as big as possible" to give the bear a little pause – perhaps make him think twice about pouncing and perhaps satiating his curiosity or hunger. Then back away as carefully as possible, while assuring the bear that, though you may be a very dangerous hombre for him to tackle, you don't really mean him any bodily harm. Prayer should also be employed at such times.

What considerably annoys Pridger, is that in most of the places one is most likely to encounter a grizzly, it's against federal law to be properly armed with type of artillery that might stop a scared, angered, or hungry beast in his tracks. No weapon you can conveniently hide on your person will do it. And if you do hide a weapon, or manage to sneak in with the proper caliber rifle with which to defend yourself should that frightening moment of extremis ever occur, you'd be fair game for federal prosecutors cage up in the Gulag as if you were the dangerous beast.

Things aren't a whole lot different here around Paradise Ridge. We don't have any large four-footed predators, except maybe a stray mountain lion. But we've got more than our rightful share of rattlesnakes. The local timber rattler, like the grizzly, is now on some sort of endangered or protected species list, and it's illegal under federal law to kill one. The only rattlesnake meat Pridger partakes of these days is the occasional road kill – and he's not even sure availing himself of that luxury is legal.

It seems to be true that the rattlesnake population has declined in recent years for some reason (though we still have plenty). But Pridger suspects this is because of government's own programs of re-introducing predators rather than people wantonly killing poisonous snakes.

People used to be a lot more numerous in these parts than they are now. And, to the old-timers, the only good snake was a dead snake. It was standard practice to kill any and every poisonous snake encountered. It was sort of a grass-roots public health policy. If nothing else, killing poisonous snakes around the homestead made it safer for the kids to play around in the yard.

But during the long "kill on sight" era of history, rattlesnakes always abounded. Our parents and grandparents constantly admonished us to "watch for snakes" whenever we went out into the woods. Now that there are markedly fewer people, including a few who have learned a new respect, or even love, for snakes, they've become an endangered species.

The general consensus among us non-governmental, non-scientific, local yokels is that the increase in natural predators is to blame for the decline in snakes – the coyote being suspect number one. Coyotes are back in a big way – their increasing numbers being more or less inversely proportional to the rattlesnake population.

People who don't live in constant proximity to rattlers sometimes lack common sense when it come to snakes. Once when Pridger was taking a couple of female visitors from the city for a walk in the woods, he noticed they were constantly looking around at almost everything but the path ahead. And they were dressed in shorts and sandals. "Better watch for snakes," Pridger cautioned.

The knowledgeable reply was, "Oh, I never worry about snakes. They won't hurt you if you don't bother them. And rattlesnake always give you warning."

The trouble with snakes is that if you happen to step on one, they tend to think you've bothered them. And likely as not, they'll take offense, using a strong offensive striking gesture. Getting stepped on is always a surprise to them – otherwise they would have already have gotten out of the way. And sometimes getting stepped on is a downright traumatic experience. They don't stop to consider that you might not mean any harm. They think they have been wantonly attacked for no good reason. They may even have the mistaken opinion that you acted out of malice.

Even stepping too close to a snake sometimes causes them to strike without stopping to rattle. Their motto in such cases is, "Strike first, and make all queries and scientific analyses later." Then there are the copperheads that don't even bother to carry rattles.

One of Pridger's best friends got bit for the simple offense of picking black berries right at the east wall of Pridger's humble abode. It was a big rattler that had been partaking of the cool shade under the bushes, next to the footing stones. The snake hadn't been stepped on, yet there was no considerate forewarning. The first hint of the snake's presence was when the victim felt something strange hit his ankle, and an uncomfortable pain. He looked down just in time to get a glimpse of the snake's head and neck withdraw back into the sanctuary beneath the bush.

Foreign Affairs magazine (http://www.foreignaffairs.org), is the publishing mouthpiece of the Council on Foreign Affairs, one of the big bugaboos of the political conspiracy theorist and old fashioned patriot community. Billed as the most influential publication in the nation, it's a meaty affair with many poignant, in depth, articles written by some of the most influential people in and out of government – as they modestly put it, "Writing so important it shapes foreign policy."

"The Sources of Soviet Conflict" In 1947 diplomat George F. Kennan helped kick off our Soviet containment policy and the Cold War with an essay published in Foreign Affairs.

"The Clash of Civilizations" – In the early 1990s, Samuel Huntington helped set the stage for our post-Cold War rendition and evolution of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.

"(S)ubscribers... read FOREIGN AFFAIRS to deepen their understanding of international politics and foreign policy..."

"FOREIGN AFFAIRS makes you smart – and wise in the ways of the world... it presents diverse perspectives. It is renowned for consistently crystallizing the latest thinking from different points of view."

"Find out where the world is going." The Next Pandemic; Europe's Angry Muslims; A Trade War with China?; The Outsourcing Bogeyman; Women, Islam and the New Iraq; are a few current issues being addressed.

"Intelligence for the Intelligent Only in FOREIGN AFFAIRS" 

The scholarship and editorial quality of Foreign Affairs, of course, is outstanding. Pridger has subscribed to it a couple of times, but in spite of the importance of the material, it's one of those publications that he never seems to have time to properly peruse, so he dropped it in spite of his interest.

One of the most frustrating things about reading Foreign Affairs, from Pridger's humble perspective, is that many of the articles go into such splendid, convincing, and scholarly detail to make a point based on what Pridger often recognizes as (or believes to be), a totally erroneous or fundamentally flawed basic premise. In other words, the authors often take a pre-defined "acknowledged truth," or prospective "enlightened policy goal," and run with it to the fullest lengths possible.

But that basic source "truth" is often carefully tutored "conventional wisdom," or simply an already planned policy agenda. And, from a fundamentally flawed premise, the author carefully builds a case, extensively elaborates, and meticulously justifies it with volumes of very convincing scholarly verbiage.

But what does Pridger know?

Pridger recommends Foreign Affairs as a good source from which to learn what many of the preeminent the movers and shakers behind the New World Order (and maybe beyond), are currently contemplating and what may be in store for us in future. But keep a wary eye at the premise behind their expertly presented scholarship. Don't let the authors pull the wool of fundamental (perhaps two or three levels removed) error over your eyes, thinking they can "make you smart." You still have to do your own analytical thinking. 

John Q. Pridger

Thursday, 25 May, 2006

OUR PRESENT GROWING NATIONAL ECONOMIC MALAISE SHOULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED LIKE THE PLAGUE

Pridger has often mentioned that all the errors of our present policy of national suicide and global tinkering had been fully recognized a long time ago, and that better men than he have been telling it like it is for a long time, broadcasting not only the warnings, but concisely articulating the correct path that should be followed every step of the way. But our trusty leaders always seem to be marching to other drummers.

Generally speaking, most of us, in trying to get a handle on "what has gone wrong," tend to think in terms of relatively recent history. We latch onto dates such as 1913 onward, World War II onward, or since the end of the Cold War, etc.

But the problems our government have brought upon us had been well recognized and foreseen by our founders – and they guarded against them to the extent of their ability with the Constitution and Bill of Rights they bequeathed us. But aside from those documents, they warned against foreign entanglements, free trade, excess debt, and standing armies. They initiated protective tariffs to encourage American industry and true national independence. And, with good reason, they had placed firm limits on the power of the central government, with many checks and balances to prevent, or at least forestall, the inevitable encroachment of tyranny.

Of course, the world is a different place today than it was at the dawn of the nineteenth century. It seems a lot smaller. And that conveniently furnishes our leaders with a multitude of excuses to effectively repudiate the wisdom of the founders – with the simple declaration that times have changed and that their wisdom had been so providentially focused as to become totally anachronistic. 

A smaller world makes it much easier to slip the restrictive bonds of common sense. Now that the rest of the world appears to be as near as "our own back yard," our leadership has decided to tend it as if were indeed "our" back yard.

Perhaps we do need to keep a closer eye on the rest of the world today, but that's no excuse to let our own national institutions go completely to seed while cultivating foreign crops. The main focus of our national leadership should remain on this nation, its own political and economic independence, and on national self-improvement. Forgetting our own garden, while tending to "others elsewhere" is tantamount to committing national suicide.

By now the errors of our leadership have multiplied to the point where the conventional wisdom has become, "only more poison will cure the patient." And almost nobody stops to examine and separate the poisonous concoction of drugs our leaders have been administering as the cure for all ills. We got hooked on these deadly drugs one at a time, over a period of over a century and a half.

The Civil War was a major turning point, and it had been the result of a serious national birth defect. Rather than finding a safe and effective cure for that serious malady, we plunged ourselves into the poison of fratricidal warfare to cure the patient. Six hundred thousand Americans died of that poison. Yet the symptoms of the original birth defect, and the effects of the poison intended to cure it are still bothering us today.

Among other things, the Civil War era was one of great national transition from limited government to increasingly powerful central government, along with the rise of powerful business corporations. Yet, during that period of both tragedy and triumph, we did get some things right. Abe Lincoln's greenback dollar – the nation's first truly "national" circulating currency – was one of those things we (at least temporarily), got right. And a reinforcement of the benefits of our national policy of trade protection was another.

Both of these common sense national policies (an "honest" national currency, and trade protectionism), have since been abandoned, as our government has taken on the role of global commercial empire builder, rather than the careful stewardship of the nation it was instituted to serve.

Below, Pridger presents something of a "random example" of enlightened nineteenth century thought on some of these very matters that trouble us today. Of course, our very founders had covered most of the same territory a century before the following texts were penned.

Without getting sidetracked into lengthy explanations and references as to just who these parties were, Pridger will allow the text to speak for itself from a somewhat distant era of American history. (Then he'll add his own two or three cents.)

The time was during the first decade following the Civil War, when the results of wartime policy in the north had been fully digested, and the nation once more geared up for peace. While the war had brought many less than desirable changes in the north, it also had brought prosperity to the north's farms and cities. And, unfortunately, like our post World War II prosperity, it was too good to last – the money men were dissatisfied, and something had to be done about the specter of broad-based prosperity. Pridger has eliminated some distracting verbiage, added a few paragraph breaks and adding emphasis to certain particularly poignant passages: 

A  M E M O I R
OF STEPHEN COLWELL :
Read Before the American Philosophical Society, Friday, November 17, 1871 : by Henry C. Carey.

It would be difficult for me fully and completely to express the strength of the humanitarian sympathies exhibited in Mr. Colwell’s plea for justice to the victims of our reckless competition and our voracity in the pursuit of material wealth... (T)o show the bearing of his complaint I cite another passage... as follows: 

“The doctrine that property, real and personal, must under all circumstances remain inviolate, always under the ever-watchful vigilance of the law, and its invaders subject to the severest penalties of dungeon and damages, may be very essential to the maintenance of our present social system, but it totally disregards the consideration that Labor, the poor man’s capital, his only property, should, as his only means of securing a comfortable subsistence, be also under the special care and safeguard of the law.

The doctrine that trade should be entirely free—that is, that merchants should be perfectly at liberty, throughout the world, to manage their business in that way which best promotes their interests—may suit very well for merchants, making them masters of the industry of the world; but it will be giving a small body of men a power over the bones and sinews of their fellow men, which it would be contrary to all our knowledge of human nature if they do not fatally abuse, because they are interested to reduce the avails of labor to the lowest attainable point, as the best means of enlarging their business and increasing their gains.

That philosophy,” he continues, “which teaches that men should always be left to the care of themselves—that labor is a merely marketable commodity which should be left, like others, to find its own market value without reference to the welfare of the man, may appear plausible to those who forget the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men, but is utterly at variance with the precepts of Him who taught that those who stood idle in the market-place because no man had hired them, and were sent to work at the eleventh hour, should receive the same as those who had borne the burden and heat of the day.”

The "reckless competition" and voracious pursuit of material wealth, circa 1871, could hardly stay in the same room with that of a century later. But just as in the 1870s, the post war era of prosperity (for "workers" of the 1970s), was threatened, and slatted to gradually come to an end.

To the gurus of high finance, broad-based prosperity was a threat to their ability to control things. And, thanks to the lessons and leadership they were to impart, corporate capital became much less satisfied to share prosperity with a thriving and productive middle class – it wanted more for itself and less for the worker. Like the "merchants," American capitalists came to see the world as their promised land – because, if national policy could be changed in accord with the proposed "new international economic order," they could hire Mexicans, Koreans, Bangladeshis, and Chinese in place of Americans, and their profits would be considerably higher. In such case, American industrialists would no longer need the trade protection policies they had previously demanded and enjoyed, as a gift of government. Under the proposed new dispensation, they gladly joined the merchant and trader classes in demanding a free rein in international markets. And free market economists were telling all of us that free international markets could do for the world what domestic free markets had done for the nation. Together with the humanitarian (save mankind), model of the Global Village, the stage was set to turn the world upside down in a manner that would be spectacularly profitable to all capital interests that looked to global horizons.

"The doctrine that trade should be entirely free" – and that corporate interests (no longer just "simple merchants"), should be unleashed, and given unfettered freedom on a global scale, naturally suited those self-same corporate interests. What they wanted was to to exploit labor, natural resources, and markets – wherever the most advantage conditions to their goals might be found – for their own exclusive gain. And, of course, their present "license" to do so is making them the de facto masters of the world. Shed of it's superficial humanitarian rhetorical trappings, this describes the very cold, cruel, and destructive doctrine behind today's policies of globalism.

The doctrine of globalism totally disregards the democratic and egalitarian imperatives that Labor (representing the vast majority of the population in every nation, whose only capital is the ability to perform work), should also be the beneficiaries of protection and safeguards commensurate with (if not superior too), those enjoyed by heartless, soulless, nation-less, capital interests.

That protectionism also protected working men and women (their jobs, wages, and living standards), has consistently been absent from the debates over protectionist trade policy and the advisability of "going global." The debates (or sales pitches), have always centered around such things as: the unfair advantage protectionist policy gave to internationally 'uncompetitive' American businesses; that protectionism unfairly deprived American consumers of the full range of choices available in the international market place without paying an import premium; that 'American' policy that in any way subsidized, or even in the least favored, American business over foreign business was either diabolical  corporate welfare or just downright unfair and undemocratic; That protecting our our own domestic marketplace was anti-free market and ultimately anti-American.

And the list of justifying excuses for the active betrayal of American workers, facilitated by their own government, goes on and on. Of course, everybody but "the people" themselves knew that the American worker would pay the price. But that was passed over as mere a temporary inconvenience, which the laws of the free marketplace itself would eventually correct. The important thing was the tremendous business profits that would accrue to bolster Wall Street and the gross national product.

But when the gross national product, and the stellar levels reached by the stock market, are no longer largely the product of American labor, their value as bellwethers of national prosperity become as void as they are deceptive. The new real bellwethers with which to measure the success of our economic policies can be seen in the mushrooming national debt, balance of payments deficit, and trade deficit, not to mention a negative national savings rate and increase in personal debt and bankruptcies.

The safeguards for American labor are now pretty much limited to such things as unemployment insurance and Social Security. 

Any real safeguards for labor are only possible through enlightened economic national policy – the main bastion of which was trade protectionism. Something we had once enjoyed, but now get the benefit of being without.

In fact safeguards and protection for workaday Americans (and also those fortunate enough not to require work), is what our particular form of government was supposed to have been all about in the first place – to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," and provide the "We The People" (here in the United States of America, not the rest of the world), with the conditions conductive to the enjoyment of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Globalism (corporate globalism), very demonstrably gives a small (un-elected and unaccountable), body of men power over the lives of their fellow men. They are the true beneficiaries of the New World Order, and they are doing very well. And, of course, it would be contrary to human nature if these rich and powerful men did not sorely abuse their power – for it is very much in their interests to reduce the costs of labor (whether at home or abroad), to the lowest possible levels, as the best, and "most natural and businesslike," means to expand their business and increase their power and profits.

The following are some more contemporarily poignant extracts from the work of Carey – this dated three years earlier, in 1868 – dealing again with what ails us today, some 138 years after the common sense of the matter had been recognized articulately communicated to the appropriate people.  

From Finance Ministry, the Currency, and the Public Debt, by Henry Charles Carey, 1868

Of the many lessons taught us by the (Civil) war the most important was that from which we learned that the national strength had grown, and must continue to grow, with the growth of self-dependence. Mining our own coal, smelting our own ores, and making, wearing, or using our own iron and cloth, swords and guns, ships and engines, but little difficulty was experienced in meeting the large demands of the government for labor and its products of any and every kind, accepting, in return, its promises to pay in money at a future day; doing all this too not only without the aid of British capitalists, but in direct defiance of their predictions that the debt thus being contracted neither could nor would ever be discharged. For the first time in our history we found ourselves released from all dependence on foreign banks and bankers.

Throughout the war the societary circulation [of greenbacks] had been rapid to a degree never before known in any country or the world. Labor had, therefore, been so productive as to have enabled thousands and tens of thousands of working men and women to accumulate little capitals [savings]; and so absolute was their faith in the public promises of future payment that they gladly placed their little earnings in the treasury, to be used for prosecution of the war. Confidence of the people in their government so far begot confidence in each other that throughout the whole range of the loyal States it made itself manifest in the great fact, that in the rate of interest paid by poor and rich, by the weak and the strong, the owner of the little workshop and the proprietors of the great railroad, the man of the East and his correspondent in the West, there was a nearer approach to equality than bad here ever before been known.

But this prosperity was not according to a certain conventional wisdom in the financial sector. The money power, and their agents in government, were neither satisfied nor pleased. The Carey's remarks continue in a more ironic tone:

With return of peace and the accession to power of the present Secretary it came, however, to be discovered that, however well-intentioned might have been his predecessors, their whole movement [that had produced a broad-based prosperity] had been grievously erroneous and must be at once retraced. Machinery of exchange had been too abundant, and the supply thereof must be contracted. The community had become too largely indebted to its individual members, and the debt must at the earliest moment be diminished, preparatory to being, and at an early date, entirely discharged. Lenders had been placed at a disadvantage as compared with borrowers, and needed now to have their grievances redressed. That all this might be done—and done, too, at a time when States, counties, cities, and individuals were yet struggling under heavy burthens resulting from voluntary contributions to the extent of hundreds of millions—it was needed that prices should be everywhere diminished, taxes meanwhile being maintained at their greatest height; the Secretary thus demanding that the people’s candle should be burned at both ends, with a view, perhaps, to determination of the important question as to how long, under such circumstances, it could be made at all to last. So it has been burnt until mines, mills, and workshops have to so great an extent been closed that hundreds of thousands of working-men, their wives and children, have been deprived of bread; their owners, meantime, having been wholly deprived of revenue.

So it has been burnt until the domestic consumption of cotton has been to so great an extent diminished as to force upon the country that, increase of dependence on foreign markets which has reduced its price to, less than the cost at which it could be reproduced.

So it has been burnt until confidence has so nearly disappeared that working-men, the really useful portions of society, find themselves compelled to pay thrice, even when not quadruple, the rate of interest.

So it has been burnt until long loans on individual credit have almost entirely given place to loans “on call,” on the security of government bonds. So it has been burnt until our dependence on foreign banks and bankers has become more complete than at any former period.

So it has been burnt until the Secretary has become entirely dependent on imports resulting from the sale of bonds abroad for means with which to pay the daily growing interest on the public debt.

So it has been burnt until from almost the whole interior comes advice of entire inability to meet the just demands of city merchants.

The imperatives of wartime financial prompted the Lincoln administration to give "...to the people of this Republic the greatest blessing they ever had – their own paper to pay their own debts." This, of course, was the greenback dollar, and it greased the wheels of domestic industries and commerce as no other expedient could have done.

And the people, having accepted the greenback, found that they had something they could depend upon to reward their own productive labor. But having given their utmost during the war, with these bankable rewards to justify their patriotism, they were soon to find the rug pulled out from beneath them.

To the money power, the greenback was a heresy and abomination. They could not control it nor profit to the fullest extend desired from the commercial and economic activity it facilitated. So, as soon as the war was over and Lincoln safely in his grave, they set to work banishing it from circulation.

The result of withdrawal of significant numbers of greenbacks from circulation was widespread financial distress, and the collapse of many businesses that might have thrived on but for the unavailability of a sufficient medium of exchange.

With the greenback at large in the economy, people and communities had had the ability to profitably market their labor, conduct trade, make and repay loans, and generally engage in commerce to the full extent their productive abilities entitled them. But when the currency they depended upon (to carry on their businesses and repay their loans), began to dry up at the source, hardship followed.

The excuse, in part, was that this unconscionable prosperity for the people had inflated prices. The surest way to bring prices down is to make money scarce. The bankers, with their agents in Congress, knew just how to do this. And the first step was to remove a significant portion of the money supply. Curtailing issue of the greenback, and retiring existing ones as quickly as possible, was the first order of the day.

The result was depression. It was considered a very unfortunate price for the public to pay, but would at least restore prices and re-enthrone those who really know how to run an economy.

The great, and long-sustained, monetary contraction following the stock market crash of 1929 produced the Great Depression many of our parents and grandparents experienced. Yet, contraction of the money supply was a key ingredient of the "solution" the bankers had devised on behalf of the nation. Prices collapsed, but even the cheap prices prices delivered were too high for people without money.

It may seem a little surprising, but the greenback dollar was still around during the depression years, and survived until given its final death blow in about 1969. But it had survived in such a small way, that it had not been a significant economic factor for a century. Had the Franklin D. Roosevelt brain trust been as smart as it was supposed to have been, the greenback would have been unleashed again in its full glory, and millions would have been spared much suffering and pain.

Rather than printing and circulating greenbacks, the administration funded its still woefully inadequate recovery package entirely on taxes and bank credit, indebting the nation to the banking establishment.

John Q. Pridger

For an interesting article on the greenback and monetary policy see:
Lincoln, Greenback, Kennedy, Edmund D. Taylor, and Conspiracy Theory

Tuesday, 16 May, 2006

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS - "YANKEE GO HOME! —TO EUROPE!"
WHAT HAS CHANGED?

There have been many times in the history of Mexico and other Latin American countries, when Yankees were not exactly universally loved, and the cry of "Yanqui go Home!" was all too common. Our relationships with our southern neighbors have always been hot and cold, love-hate affairs. The United States has always been viewed as the rich, arrogant, overbearing, neighbor to the north. And sometimes "monster" was substituted for the word "neighbor." 

Fortunately, the Yankee dollar has seemed able to overcome most resentment against Gringos in the end, and good relations with Mexico have been fairly consistent for quite some time.

The idea that we Yankees ought to go home to Europe, and leave the whole of the North American continent to the "rightful Mexican" (or Mestizo), owners (at least as far as Pridger knows), is a somewhat new phenomena.

Such an idea, of course, had been a rather fond dream of many Native American tribes from whom the continent was actually taken. But for Mexicans to harbor such dreams (regardless of Indian blood), leaves most of us incredulous. Yet these sentiments are being articulated within our own borders, by illegal aliens who are here exactly because of what our forefathers had built here. They are here because their own government and system has somehow failed them. It doesn't make any real sense at all. And they do little good for their cause by admitting their ambitions, waving the Mexican flag, and shouting it in the streets.

Hopefully, those who want our southwest to revert to Mexico are only a small minority of our Mexican immigrant population, but they have been heard loud and clear.

All this said, we might take a moment to note that the primary thing that is supposed to have set them off was the prospect of illegal aliens being made "felons" (rather than recognizing them, say, as unsung heroes deserving amnesty), by the House of Representatives version of the immigration bill.

Our government has already become far too adept at making felons of non-violent, relatively harmless, people – whether citizens, legal immigrants, or illegal aliens. This, in itself, is a serious symptom of "tyranny creep," and Congress should cure itself of it as quickly as is humanly possible.

We've already got over 2 million people in our jails and prisons (a large percentage of them guilty of no real serious "crime" at all), and we don't need any more. Prison construction can't keep up with the current level of recruits as it is.

Illegal aliens should be denied all the benefits of legal residence, and (most of all), be denied employment. (Employers of illegal aliens should perhaps be the ones declared felons.) And the children of illegal aliens should not automatically become citizens. 

When caught the first time, illegal aliens should simply be sent home with the appropriate application forms for "way back-of-the-line" legal immigration. But, most importantly, give them very clear warning that if they are caught north of the border again, without proper walking papers, they will face the choice of fifty lashes of the cane (or fifty hours of loud, big screen, acid rock music video), and another trip home, or (if they consider the cane or acid rock cruel and unusual punishment to tolerate), a year of unpaid involuntary servitude rebuilding Iraq or Afghanistan, followed by an all expense paid trip home.

The warning should be delivered clearly in their own language, and backed up by written notice, also in their own language. And a copy of the notice duly forwarded to their own government, with other copies sent to their parents and the mayor of their home village.

On their second trip home they should be made to understand that they have permanently forfeited any chance of being admitted to the United States, and warned what will happen if they are caught a third time.

Upon a third breach of the border they should be officially designated a terrorist suspect (or, if found to have a fingernail file or pock-knife, an "enemy combatant"), and sent to Guantanamo (or some other offshore Gulag), and forgotten. 

We have entered a period of history where things are becoming a little strange. Relationships – cultural and economic – have changed dramatically, and we find ourselves sitting on a multi-faceted powder keg.

In its broadest context, all of this can be charged to one overall, intentionally fabricated socio-economic cause – the new national and international order of things that our own leadership (elected and un-elected), has been busily creating. The "order" part of the proposition is obviously already beginning to come unglued, and revealed for what it really is – a monumental and ghastly mistake.

Our present illegal alien problem is but one symptom of a much greater problem. And that problem was itself was supposed to have been the universal cure for everything that ailed a troubled world.

Naturally, much like doctors who treat symptoms and fail to try to get the whole body back into healthy balance, we confront these symptoms one at a time, as if they are isolated incidents or infections, unconnected to the larger body-politic. Mass demonstrations by illegal aliens and their supporters, is merely a symptom of a much larger, long festering, systemic set of mega-problems.

There is another tragically ironic thing evident here. The One World visionaries and corporate movers and shakers were treating what they considered the whole body – in the form of "the whole world" – and treating it with massive doses of new, radical, untried, medications. But what public body gave anybody the moral and political license to practice this kind of global medicine?

The United Nations, of course, is the creation of that unlicensed practitioner – the "democratic figurehead" of world governance – but the United States is the head physician practicing without a valid license. Those officially representing the people of the United States are licensed only to administer to the welfare of only one nation – and that administration is (is supposed to be), limited by the United States Constitution.

The world is made up of many political and economic bodies – patients called nation states. Some of them were perfectly healthy and others sick to varying degrees. But the cure is making the formerly healthy sick, making the sick sicker, and literally killing others by carefully calculated degrees. The so-called global cure has helped many individuals and corporations make a lot of money, of course, but even they have been building their grand castles on unstable and shifting sands.

The world may be considered a "Global Village" (by really stretching the imagination), but even a village only has so many people in the hospital at any given time. And those in the hospital suffer from distinctly differing maladies, requiring different treatments. But the New World Order physicians have been giving everybody the same radical treatment, whether or not they were in the hospital or in the least bit symptomatic.

So now we seek a sub-cure for a serious and troubling localized symptom, as if it were not attached to a larger systemic disease – a disease that had, itself, been invented and administered as the cure for all ills. Snake oil!    

In the face of a long ongoing, well-known, problem, it has taken massive demonstrations in the streets to nudge President Bush into something like a serious gesture aimed at control of our southern border.

While sending a few thousand national guard troops to the border may help slow the flow of illegal immigrants somewhat, the Trojan Horse has clearly already disgorged itself within the gates. That was made abundantly clear by those same demonstrations, and the numbers were staggering.

With perhaps 10 to 12 million undocumented Mexican "workers" already here, the situation seems so hopeless that somehow "legalizing" at least most of them seems to be the only realistic course of action – that and making motions toward closing the barn door at least a generation late.

Mass arrests and deportations are the last thing we want. To begin rigorously enforcing our immigration laws against resident illegal aliens (many of whom have married and raised children to maturity here), would in some cases amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Additionally, whole industries would collapse if they were suddenly deprived of their illegal migrant labor force. The whole economy (which is already a pretty shaky house of cards), might collapse.

Not only that, it would certainly provoke more mass demonstrations and protests, and they might not be all that peaceful next time around. They may even lead to the Revolution of the Reconquista. Relations with Mexico would go from amiably sour to openly hostile in a hurry.

Such things would be embarrassing, to say the least, and generate a lot of negative media attention. We certainly don't need any more bad international publicity, just when we're on the verge of bringing peace and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan, and trying to put the finishing touches on the New World Order.

The Mexican government certainly isn't prepared to deal with 12 million returned citizens. It might figure it would be cheaper to arm them and send them right back across the border than to feed them. Their marching orders might be to keep going until they reach the Canadian border.

So, naturally, to the more progressive humanitarians in government, the only sane alternative is to gracefully legalize those 12 million illegal aliens with some sort of a guest worker program. Yet, everybody who knows anything about immigration patterns (both legal and illegal), also know that legalizing 12 million illegal immigrants is an "encouragement ticket" and facilitator for at least 60 million more to follow – and 300 million after that.

But the numbers are already scary enough for our trusty politicians. The great fear in Washington is that those 12 million undocumented aliens have about 36 million sympathetic friends, grown children, and other relatives, who already have full voting rights to participate in the next election.

This puts many politicians between the Devil and the deep. The demonstrations were viewed on TV by millions of "ordinary" voting Americans – and, to many, it was quite a wake-up call. In spite of all the alarm bells that have been going off for at least a generation, the problem suddenly appears very "real" – and much bigger, and more threatening, than most people ever dreamed. And they are demanding and expecting action.

Not only were the numbers of demonstrators troubling in and of themselves, but the mentioned hint of reconquista was clearly in the air at some of the gatherings – and it embodied a direct challenge to our laws, national sovereignty, and the American people themselves. Many Americans learned for the first time that many Mexicans consider then "Gringo interlopers" – that some Mexicans actually believe they have a prior claim to the whole darned continent.

We haven't seen mass rallies like these since the days of the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War protests, if then. In fact, the numbers amassed in downtown Los Angeles reminded Pridger of the sort of crowds one sees in old news clips, of followers rallying around Hitler or Stalin – and that gives a hint to the seriousness of the situation. Some mass movements are unhealthy harbingers of things to come.

And often enough, when such masses begin coalescing and demonstrating around a cause, and begin to gain a head of steam (realizing their political power), it is the harbinger of the imminent collapse of a government, a nation, or a "system.".

The Trojan Horse didn't leap the border and disgorge itself just yesterday. It has been coming piecemeal, but steadily, for decades. The Pied Piper leading them on is obviously still very active today, as the number of migrants coming northward is beginning to resemble an Exodus of biblical proportions. In fact it actually surpassed biblical proportions some time ago while our government slept.

Part of the lullaby was in the form of an incessant chant and drumbeat that said, "Never mind, we're a nation of immigrants, anyway", "We need those illegal aliens to fill the jobs that Americans don't want," and "These are good people, too, just trying to better their lot in life." All true, of course, thus we have never really addressed the problem in a meaningful way – so the sore continued to fester and now threatens to break.

It took privately organized citizen "Minutemen" to begin to start drawing serious attention to the problem, and mass demonstrations to get the president to make a serious show the least serious effort at controlling the border.

Some important things began happening in the early 60s, to draw more and more immigrants across the border. Our government was seeing a pressing need to exceed its constitutional authority – or at least begin interpreting it much more "liberally."

So, actually, our government hasn't been asleep at all – it has actually been very proactive in creating the very conditions that not only made all this possible, but inevitable. The problem has been, and continues to be, nothing short of our own leaders' vision for the nation and the world. The results of the policies undertaken to fulfill those visions – "fulfilling the universal aspirations of mankind," here and everywhere – were, and continue to be, very predicable. But that really didn't matter to the New World Order engineers. In any case, the real goals were simply not those glowingly highlighted in the political sales pitches.

In terms of our own specific national policies, our immigration woes were actually created by our own national brain trust over relatively short period of time. In part, those woes constitute the unintended consequences of well-intended domestic social programs aimed (supposedly), at achieving "social justice" – not only at home, but abroad too. But it is also very much the result of companion "means to an end" policies aimed at achieving corporate globalism through "free trade" policy – effectively harnessing universal human weaknesses, and turning them to the gain for a special elite few (though even their numbers would expand substantially, giving the illusion that the prosperity was at least somewhat democratic).

In other words, the taproot of the problem is the very brand of "New World Order" our so-called "national" leaders have been foisting on America and the peoples of the world for a whole generation. The great nations of western Europe and Asia have also caught the disease. (But the Asians have been a little more selective as to the degree to which they would degrade their own cultures.)

As might be imagined, ill-conceived policy always comes with its rightful share of unintended consequences. And unintended consequences seem subject to the same attribute of compounding interest endemic to our Federal Reserve currency system. With something as grandiose as a whole "new international economic order," those unintended consequences can be overwhelming when the chickens finally start coming home to roost. And the chickens are beginning to come home to roost in alarming numbers.

Of course, we're not talking strictly about a Mexican immigrant problem. Legal and illegal immigrants are flowing in from almost every half-way impoverished, and/or war-torn, nation in the world (and we – as a peace loving nation – conduct more than our rightful share of those wars). Mexico just happens to be a very poor country that shares a porous 2,000 mile stretch of border with the United States.

In addition to sending its own desperate citizens north, Mexico has become a functioning conduit for migrants from other points south, in Central and South America. Naturally, from time to time, a few Islamic terrorists probably worm their way into the mix, too.

Major human migrations of the present magnitude don't just happen by accident. They are made to happen, whether intentionally or as the result of bad policy planning at one or both ends of the sojourn. They are always the effect of a definite, definable, cause.

Though our friends to the south didn't coin the "Great Satan" label, there is no doubt that Satan, in the abstract, is reputed to be a very seductive and attractive force. And America is obviously the new "Promised Land." And the New World Order is about tearing down borders and eliminating barriers to trade and the free movement of labor.

The land of milk and honey, in spite all the alleged evils it engenders to an increasing number of the world's people, is an attractive immigrant destination, and our leaders have effectively, though perhaps "thoughtlessly" and unwitting, "donated the United States of America to the world." And they never thought to ask the American people's opinion on the matter. 

Pridger has often quoted the old saying that, "good fences make for good neighbors." This, usually in reference to trade protection policies, and the continued need for definite and firm economic boundaries between nations – most especially between nations that are economically grossly out of balance with one another.

The saying is demonstrably true down on the farm, where the it originated. But, not all the time even there. For instance, it's true that good fences make for good neighbors when the pastures and crops on either side of the fence are as green and prolific as on the other side, and both farmers are equally industrious.

But if one of the farmers is very prosperous and overfed, while the other is poor, hungry, and desperate (whether or not through any fault of his own), there is no fence (no matter how high or elaborate), that is going to make them good neighbors or the prosperous farmer and his assets "safe and secure."

In a previous post Pridger spoke of farm parity and national economic balance. The same principles apply, in a slightly different way, to diverse nations. If nations are not on an economic par with one another, and the socio-economic barriers are removed from between them, gross imbalances lead either to conflict or various other dislocations, such as disruptive import and/or immigration invasion.

Whether talking about neighboring farmers, or neighboring nations of marked economic contrast, the boundary between them becomes a contentious focal point. It becomes a major "security" problem for the prosperous one, and an ever-present opportunity and temptation for the poor and hungry one.

And that is exactly the status of the U.S.-Mexican border today. The solution is not a high fence or wall resembling the Berlin Wall. Nor is the solution troops to defend the border. Such things may temporarily stem the flow, but they also accentuate, and in other ways exacerbate, the real problem. A wall will confirmation of the "forbidden fruit" principle, prompting a proliferation of new airline companies to accommodate the necessary air-lift. And tunneling and ladder companies, too, of course.

But borders should nonetheless be firmly established and protected. The national goal on the prosperous side of the border ought to be abundantly clear – preserve that which has made that prosperity possible. The higher goal might be making those secrets of success known and available to poorer national neighbors – but never, EVER, simply drop the border and allow an unsupervised equalization to take its own head. Doing so merely results in what we are seeing today – American wealth flowing out in increasing volumes (not just to Mexico, but to China and several other nations as well), while impoverished immigrants flow in to try to capture some of it at its source before it all leaks out.

The details of the problem are multi-faceted, and have been long on-going – and the overall problem is firmly founded in policy errors and mal-adjustments both north and south of the border. But, in a nutshell, it is still a matter of socio-economic imbalance between neighbors. And the biggest errors have, without a doubt, originated in policy errors north of it – in the prosperous, busy-body, nation that has been industriously remaking the world.

The economic problems south of the border largely owe their genesis to the cultural and political machinery that has evolved, or survived, from Spanish colonial times onward. Simply put, though its nation is rich in natural resources, the Mexican government, like many other Latin American governments, has never been able to deliver the goods to its people – at least not in the same tempting profusion the American system has successfully delivered to its people.

North of the border, where the people have historically prospered because of a combination of cultural factors, including superior government, the problem is the result of government fumbling the ball and running off into left field with it, while proclaiming it center field – throwing a once orderly and controlled game into total disarray. And the American government has done this with its eyes wide open – as a matter of carefully planned and executed national policy, supposedly aimed at remaking the world in its own increasingly tarnished and falling image.

Unfortunately, the "superior government" we once had developed a serious superiority complex, which it had erroneously assumed gave it the right and duty to remake the world in its own image. And it's misbegotten globalization campaign is proving its own undoing, though the leadership have yet to awaken to reality. Thanks to that leadership, our superior government isn't nearly as superior as it once was. In attempting to serve and govern the world, it has failed to serve its own people, and fallen from the moral high ground, if not legitimacy itself.

Yet most Americans (most of whom still desperately want to trust their government), are apt to mistakenly place most of the blame on "others elsewhere," such as south of the border – with the Mexican government, or on migrants themselves.

The fact is, the economic (and cultural), imbalance that exists between the two nations is as old as the nations themselves. Yet relatively amiable coexistence has been the rule, rather than the exception, since border issues were finally settled militarily, or otherwise, well over a century and a half ago. The problem of serious numbers of illegal immigrants entering our country has developed only during the last generation.

Obviously, something has radically changed. While increasing poverty has obviously caused increasing migrant "pressure" south of the border, a supposedly inexplicable vacuum has also developed north of the border.

The word has been out for a long time – America needs workers, and U.S. immigration laws are being ignored in order to get them. Many American employers couldn't care less about undocumented status. Only a relative few illegal immigrants are likely to get caught at the border. But if migrants make it past the border area, they can go anywhere and work with impunity – and work is plentiful. And there are many other benefits that go with being poor in America – it really is a land of milk and honey. And all children born in America are automatically U.S. citizens. Illegal immigrants who do get caught have no reason to be unduly discouraged when they are sent back – they can try and try again, until they succeed. There is nothing to loose, and a lot to gain.

What more encouragement would you want?

Thus, getting migrants from South and Central America, and all points within Mexico, north and across the border, has become big business in Mexico. And why not? Migrants are willing to risk all for the opportunity. And Mexicans already living in the United States provide a massive support system for illegal immigrants. New immigrants can almost feel right at home upon arrival, without immediately partaking of government programs. And Mexican immigrants in the U.S. provide Mexico with a major source of foreign exchange.

To explain what has chanced, we've got to go back into history a generation or so, to get a handle on the whys and wherefores.

So why do we have a "widely acknowledged need" for foreign workers? The major initial contributing factor was the (supposedly), well intended Civil Rights and War on Poverty programs.

The fact is (though few enough have thought to mentioned), as the result of domestic social programs, for over three decades the United States has been "involuntarily" (but with passive acquiescence), importing a whole new working underclass. And Mexico and points south (east, and west), are simply eagerly supplying an obvious demand.

With the advent of the American welfare state, large numbers of the American working poor (white and black), began dropping out of the menial work force. Welfare checks arriving regularly through the mail meant increasing numbers of people no longer had to take just any old job they could find, or strive to make their own jobs. Jobs as field hands, domestic servants, and low-paid jobs in general, increasingly began to go begging.

Had it not been for the ready availability of Mexican migrant workers, those jobs would have simply demanded higher wages – wages Americans might have been able to live with. But there was no need to pay an American living wage because there were plenty of Mexicans ready, willing, and able, to fill them at almost any rate of pay. The only criteria was that the pay be higher than the going rates in Mexico.

Naturally, this provided a clear opportunity for increasing numbers of new immigrants, and eventually led to an increasing flow of illegal immigrants ever-eager to take advantage of always increasing opportunities – filling the jobs that poor Americans no longer needed.

Of course, Americans would have wanted those jobs had the pay been right. "Right" would have meant, appreciably higher than the combined benefits of welfare, assistance for women with dependent children, food stamps, and low-income housing subsidies, etc.

This combination of monetary welfare benefits not only approximated or exceeded minimum wage rates, but free health care was also thrown in as the clincher. Nobody would give up free medical benefits for a par wage, or even a slightly above par wage in the present climate of health care costs in America.

In effect, a large percentage of the American underclass was placed on permanent paid vacation status, with a full range of benefits. This was a class of people who once had to find some way to make a living, or actually go homeless or hungry. They no longer had to work, thus America experienced an increasing need for migrant workers.

For many who somehow slipped between the cracks, were bored, or were a little too successful in finding alternative good paying employment, a burgeoning prison system satisfied a growing need, providing all the bodily necessities, including free health care.

Because of this, and the availability of immigrant labor, employers had no incentive to offer good wages or benefits. 

Then, as the result of habitually employing low wage workers, the pricing structure of goods and services produced by them naturally reflected, and depended upon, the low cost of immigrant labor. This, of course, produced a self-perpetuating problem – preventing even the possibility of paying normal American scale wages in certain jobs and industries.

Many of the industries that employ migrant workers and undocumented aliens developed with cheap immigrant labor in mind in the first place. As a result, almost all employers of undocumented aliens can quite legitimately claim that without immigrant workers, they simply couldn't deliver the goods at going market prices. 

The welfare state, of course, was (at least in good part), a result (or companion), of the Civil Rights movement. And, as naturally as day follows night, with Civil Rights, came a major transformation in how politicians themselves did business. On the correct assumption that newly enfranchised minorities tend to be "block voters" on certain important issues, minority votes came to really count.

Literally over night, it was no longer politically correct to view racial homogeneity as a positive national attribute, and the idea of racial and cultural diversity became political currency. America, as a multi-cultural, multi-racial, melting pot, increasingly became a national social goal.

Concurrently, of course, fundamental changes in the nation's immigration laws were passed, with a more diverse, multi-racial, and multi-cultural nation, specifically in mind. The new laws made it easier for a lot more poor, Third World, immigrants to enter the country legally. Due to the proximity, and an already large Mexican community, the lion's share were contributed by Mexico.

The main social thrust of the Civil Rights movement was to force integration of the black minority into the white majority, in spite of the fact that segregation was actually a perfectly natural phenomenon for racial and cultural minority groups. Most minority groups, whether "native born" or recent immigrants, by choice, desired to be among their own kind – and this was true of most European immigrant groups too (though most of these chose to [and easily could] fully assimilate within a generation or two). But when laws that unjustly discriminated against racial minorities were finally (and quite properly), overturned, equally unjust laws were passed, along with contemporary concepts of "political correctness," to aggressively rectify patterns of segregation and "ethnic community," and effectively extract a pound or two of flesh, from the living majority to atone for several centuries of discrimination.

The results for the nation, of course, have been disastrous, though it is extraordinarily politically incorrect to mention it. But the point Pridger would make here is that national policy regarding minorities in general, under the "new melting pot" theory, started out as integration, dispersion, and amalgamization, and (in the case of new immigrants), swift and total assimilation. But, being contrary to human nature, the melting pot plan yielded unintended consequences of its own. Swift and total assimilation was contrary to human nature.

The forced integration of blacks into white society failed miserably. African Americans (having been convinced that integration was the answer to their fondest dreams), bought the deal hook, line, and sinker. They integrated willfully with a wholesale acceptance of the proposition that there was nothing they'd theretofore possessed that was worth preserving – save, perhaps, music. They literally abandoned, and ultimately totally lost, the viable, working, communities, the distinctive cultural institutions, and businesses, and the family culture they had once developed. All for the sake of getting what "whitey" had been holding back from them. Integration was hailed a resounding success, and everybody was happy – except for a lot of whites, and then, once again, a lot of blacks.

Most whites merely re-segregated elsewhere, leaving once thriving central cities to decay – and a new kind of corporate suburbia evolved to serve new needs. And, along a lot of unnecessary urban sprawl, gated communities (communities with walls around them, and entry checkpoints and guards), became increasingly popular.

In the end, forced integration merely led to new patterns of black and white segregation, which has proven much more destructive, both culturally and economically, than the original kind. Integration was dead, though still proclaimed a great triumph of justice.

Things began to change following the arrival of a couple hundred thousand Vietnam War refugees in 1975, and a constantly increasing flow of Asian immigrants after that. After dispersion throughout the nation, "Little Saigons" began to appear and thrive in our major cities. After some time, all previous serious attempts at the cultural and (hoped for blood), assimilation of minorities throughout the country effectively collapsed. The melting pot idea was effectively abandoned. In large measure, these new waves of immigrants (mostly Mexican and Asian), by choice, tended to form and settle in their own communities, largely retaining their own culture.

And, Pridger is sorry to have to report, their communities tend to be much more vibrant, cohesive, and more culturally and commercially active, than the new McDonaldized communities of mainline America. And this is as true of the Mexican communities as it is with the Asian communities.

These large new minorities often occupied and revived large burned and cratered inner city areas – displacing many older minorities (who, by this time, were moving on up once again to newer, more fashionable, public housing projects – the older ones having already been rendered unlivable for one reason or another).

Because of the availability of large numbers of poor Mexicans, ready and willing to come across the border, they constitute the primary group furnishing the nation with it's new, imported, working underclass. They are a breed of willing and hard workers, and now they are able to find work all over the country in almost every field. As employers nation-wide discover them (and other nationalities too), wages in many industries beside agriculture, restaurant help, and domestic service, are being tailored to the immigrant invasion – slaughterhouses and other food processing, surviving small factories, and construction, to mention only a few.

The idea of multi-culturalism took yet another turn – turning the nation away from the goal of a unified natural culture. "American culture," in fact, was being totally redefined. It was becoming little more than one based on "American style affluence and abundance for all" (though that affluence still manages to allude many).

Minority ethnicity was "in." It was "cool" – and, all official discrimination having been long reversed – cultural and ethnic minorities were not only assisted in realizing the American dream while maintaining their own cultural identity, but often put to the head of the line through already long-standing Affirmative Action programs and aggressively promoted and enforced ideas of political correctness – all under the convenient umbrella of (effectively), making the majority pay up, both socially and monetarily, for past discrimination and injustice.

Most of the newer minorities took these advantages and ran with them until they no longer needed them, and they generally became self-sufficient, if not prosperous in their own right. Others (including many poor whites who embraced welfare, but didn't have the benefits of Affirmative Action), merely accepted the advantages as a permanent birthright and leaned back on them – declaring their on-going necessity for mere survival.

As for the undocumented Mexicans and other aliens, literally all of them are either working or seriously seeking work. There are few enough free handouts for them, until they bring American born children (or just children), into the equation. They must work to survive, and many have families back home to support.

Another result of mass immigration from nations of very different cultures, has been the development of a growing new sub-class of immigrants who have absolutely no intention of ever becoming "Americans." They fully intended to remain 100% Mexican, Vietnamese, or Yemeni, while building their fortune or nest egg in this country.

If documented and legal, they usually become American citizens, (in order to fully partake of its benefits), but their citizenship oath is about as sincere as that of most politicians laying a hand on the Bible and pledging undying support for the Constitution. They generally work hard, are model "citizens," and send as much of their earnings as possible to the "home" they intend to return to – once they qualify for a pension and/or Social Security benefits.

And why not? After all, home is where the heart is – and isn't America itself just another side street in the Global Village? 

One of the natural results of these new policies, and the huge influx of new immigrants they encouraged, was that it became increasingly difficult to manage the ever-growing problem of illegal immigration. "Foreigners" of different appearance to the previous "traditional" national norm became common-place nation-wide – and "spotting" potential undocumented aliens became all but impossible under lax policing standards endemic to a large nation always aspiring to "freedom and justice for all."  The increasing illegal immigrant problem thus became progressively more difficult to effectively address. So it was largely ignored until long after it had begun to metastasize.

Historically (at least since the "new enlightenment" of political correctness), if anybody complained about the growing number of immigrants, immigration policies, or even illegal immigration, they were accused of xenophobia or racism, and had to stand down if they knew what was good for them. And now we awaken to find that we have some 12 million undocumented aliens living among us, and some of them want to "retake" all of the former Spanish southwest (if not the whole continent), for Mexico.

Then, as if this were not enough, after opening the immigration flood gates, and totally reshuffling the social deck, came more revolutionary change to thicken the broth – change extraordinarily suited to the exacerbation of all socio-economic problems everywhere – in the guise of solving them. This, of course, was globalism, and "a new international economic order."

Ironically, the New World Order is supposedly about dropping borders and eliminating national socio-economic distinctions through global economic and cultural amalgamation – even as the cult of multi-culturalism and diversity has been instituted (to honor and accentuate racial and cultural differences), at least in "E-Plurbus Unum" land (and western Europe).

Unfortunately, what the program is really supposed to be about, and what it is actually about, are two distinctly different things. And they mean different things to the different interested movers and shakers behind it.

The one common thread that has binds the various factions behind the Global Village initiative (and commercial mechanisms to achieve success), is a total lack of American patriotism. The very word and concept of "nationalism" has been given a very negative connotation by the forces at work to remake the world according to their own visions. The "nation state system" itself has been pronounced dead – somewhat prematurely, it turns out.

There is the international cadre of academic humanitarians and One World visionaries, with nothing but good intentions at heart, who provided the initial Utopian motive and overall social plan, and the (perhaps unwitting) "cover" for the main beneficiaries of globalism.

And then, there are the main beneficiaries – the cadre of international corporate interests that are actually in effective control, and have been skillfully moving things forward, post haste, with the full support of Washington policy makers. Their motive, of course (disregarding their expertly presented high goals – i.e., that the main beneficiaries would be none other than the whole people of the world), is both profit and global security and protection for their own world-wide assets and financial interests.

The means to the Utopian end was articulated in the seductive words such as (among others), "deregulation", "free market economics", and global "free trade." All "freedoms" that sounded pretty good to an unwary American public steeped in the demonstrable benefits that free market principles had historically facilitated in their own nation.

Unfortunately, the American public gave the propositions very little careful analytical thought, and left all the thinking to their wiser representatives. Their representatives, in turn, pretty well left the thinking and planning in the hands of "others" presumed to be better connected and more intellectually endowed than themselves. These paragons of freedom and justice dutifully put their stamp of approval, sometimes through "fast track," on almost everything that had the words "free", "open", or "new" attached to it.

And here we are. It's May, 2006, and we have awakened to a serious illegal alien problem. Forget about the war on terror and in Iraq and Afghanistan for a while. Those Crusades are just side-shows (albeit, with high costs and plenty of explosive potential), compared to the big picture of what is most affecting our lives as Americans. Not even the War on Terror is as important.

There's a lot of history that Pridger can't get into here. The progression of ideas behind the creation of the United Nations (and the League of Nations before that), GATT, and on to the WTO, etc. – free trade treaties in ever-increasing profusion, looking to one big happy Global Village without borders.

Without borders? Hummmm... This is a little embarrassing. Something is obviously fundamentally wrong with the plan, if we are now not only forced to be fixated on our "porous and vulnerable borders," but sending troops to defend them while contemplating a literal brick and mortar wall around the nation.

President Reagan dealt with an illegal Mexican immigration problem, about 3 or 4 million strong, with an amnesty program. And he instituted the Mexican border Maquiadora project, which was the precursor of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

And, of course, it was President Reagan who introduced Americans to the wonderful prospect that their nation was swiftly ascending into a "post-industrial" era and becoming a "service" economy – and that "a new international economic order" was about to blossom forth into the most wonderful thing since the American Revolutionary War was won.

Believe it or not, Pridger is a Reagan admirer. He said just a whole lot of the right things, and Pridger believes his heart was in the right place. His great oratory managed to give the nation new hope and a degree of self-esteem it hadn't known since before the Vietnam War turned into an Iraqi-like quagmire. And he was instrumental (at least to all appearances), in bringing down both the international communist threat and the Berlin Wall.

But, unfortunately, he delivered something else too – something he probably didn't fully understand at the time, or was impotent to control (at least Pridger gives him that much "credit"). The big plan had already been formulated and was far advanced when Reagan took office. And the powers that were behind it (and helped get him elected), needed to give it the necessary conservative endorsement to make it really finds its wings in a nation where the liberal agenda, and its "overkill," had recently lost much public support.

A lot of other conservatives were taken in by the seductive allure of words like "free" and "new" too. And not everybody was fooled for long. Some, like Pridger, were never fooled in the first place. Pridger was admittedly somewhat puzzled for a while, however, and it was the results delivered by the Reagan administration that began to bring the whole picture into much clearer focus to him.

Later, presidential hopeful Ross Perot warned that NAFTA would result in a "great sucking sound" of American jobs going to south to Mexico. He was correct, of course, but there was a lot more to it than just that.

Clinton (the Democratic backlash to "Read my lips. No new taxes," and "New World Order" rhetoric), had "serious reservations" about NAFTA, then rammed the full unadulterated package down our throats immediately upon taking office.

The figurative great sucking sound is a sound that might be associated with the imbalance of pressure between two adjoining spaces with a common restrictive neck connecting them. If one side happens to have a buildup of pressure, and the other a vacuum, the resultant sound of air (or whatever), seeking an equilibrium of pressure, is as inevitable as a dropped cannon ball answering to the demands of gravity.

The sound was there (and it was loud and clear), but the brain trust assured us that it was merely the jet engine of progress revving up. The "Wonderful New World" was coming!

NAFTA – A BACKWARD WAY TO SEEK EQUILIBRIUM

Of course, the purpose of NAFTA was not about seeking an economic equilibrium between Mexico and the United States. It was about the opportunity for American companies (and a few well-placed Mexicans), to profit on the economic imbalance that existed between the two nations – at the expense of American and Mexican workers – and do it in places where restrictive environmental laws would not impede "progress."

Environmentalists did their share for NAFTA and globalism too. Industry was a dirty polluting business, and should be rigorously discouraged, at least in their own backyard. So helping "others elsewhere" to industrialize had their effective, though unarticulated, support. Let the Mexicans and Chinese cope with the pollution and repeat our own environmental mistakes. This would help save "our own" environment. Of course, we had become "too" industrialized, and no other nation should have been encouraged to over-do as we had done. In Pridger's opinion, it was our job (and duty), to clean up our own industry  without destroying it, (including develop clean, renewable, energy systems), before gifting the underdeveloped world with the wherewithal to industrialize in our image. 

Of course, "traditional" American multi-national corporations had been milking global imbalances for a long time. But the field was being opened to any new comers willing to "internationalize." "Help your neighbor! Send your factory south of the border, and reap the benefits!" was the idea. And the government would pave the way and help them do it.

We can look at NAFTA as sort of a localized microcosmic example of the whole globalism agenda. And it illustrates the core deceptive fallacies of the present overall One World program.

What NAFTA actually was, and is, is a commercial arrangement – in so-called "treaty" form – by which America turns Mexico into one of it's production plants, paying Mexican low wages for the production that had until then been largely accomplished by Americans at American wage scales.

Another common analogy calls the the New World Order the "global plantation." And this is a very apt description. The old system of colonial exploitation, which had transcended into a system of exploitation by modern multi-national corporations (the classic Yankee imperialism), was merely modernizing once again. The old plantation model was being supplemented or supplanted by an industrial, high tech, model. It would not only exploit Third World coffee, tea, and banana pickers, but Third world industrial labor as well, by building "this nation's" industrial production plants where none had been before.

The traditional old order relationship we had with Mexico was basically, Mexico for the Mexicans, and the United States for Americans. Mexico, as a sovereign nation, could look after its own interests, and we'd look after ours. It worked fine, though the economic imbalance between the two nations tended to increase, due to the political culture south of the border and overheated nature of American capital to the north.

The new relationship is to turn the economic imbalance between the two nations into a profitable proposition for savvy American businesses – and those overheated capital interests. The sales pitch was that the Mexicans would benefit from additional work opportunities, and American "consumers" would benefit from the low prices of an increasing profusion of Mexican imports.

After enjoying those benefits, of course, American workers would supposedly eventually reap a great Bonanza in the form of a frenzy of Mexican buying of just about everything they could produce. Few thought to question the economics involved or likelihood of such a development.

Of course, many Mexicans did get new jobs. But their low national wages were a key ingredient of the plan, and carefully kept down, by the workings of the "treaty" itself, to Mexican economic standards – so as not to unduly disrupt the Mexican economy – and, most of all, not to infringe on the profit potential of companies eager to cash in on those low wages. And, naturally, as many Americans lost their jobs, while being told that the final results would be considerably more attractive than the temporarily inconvenience of job loss, Mexico's buying frenzy of the products of American workers, never developed.

It turned out that we were just exporting the things that Mexican workers needed to make the things for American companies to sell to Americans. We have been exporting factories, jobs, and some parts needed in their production (for re-import to the United States in value-added form), and little else.

Mexico, and Mexican businesses, also got the benefit of more American money flowing into their country. Right off the bat, they got McDonalds and WalMart, etc., so American companies could begin to siphon some money back out of Mexico. That was part of the bargain.

The whole thing came somewhat unglued pretty quickly, and a massive U.S. taxpayer funded bailout of the Mexican economy (and American financial institutions), was required. This pumped more dollars into the Mexican money supply than had until then existed, and a companion peso devaluation effectively cut the purchasing power of Mexican wages by about 50%!

So, naturally, NAFTA was proclaimed a great success after all – calling for more of the same, in the form of the future CAFTA, and (hopefully), a deal taking in all of South America (Free trade zone of the Americas).

But there was another major hook for Mexico and Mexicans, in addition to effective wage cuts. Eventually Mexico would be forced by the treaty to totally open its markets to American imports, to allow for the great future Bonanza for Americans.

Naturally, that didn't sound too threatening. The export Bonanza was part of the allure, as far as American workers were concerned. But, other than "Made in Mexico" Big Macs, and "Made in China" Wal-Mart products, what would Mexicans likely buy from American businesses? There certainly wasn't anything "Made in America" that Mexicans could likely afford, .

But there are still a few important things that America can produce and sell at bargain basement prices – such as basic food commodities, like wheat, corn, and soybeans. When Mexico is finally obliged to honor its commitment to buy whatever America can produce cheaper than its own producers can deliver, their national agricultural infrastructure will be threatened, and millions of small farmers destroyed. Then they, too, will be given incentive to join the Exodus headed toward the border.

But Mexico will be in no position to back out of the bargain when it really comes to start biting them where it hurts. For one thing, we are already buying plenty of foodstuffs from Mexico, and nobody south of the border is going to have an economic incentive to wish to see that trade endangered. The "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" principle will rule.

While the Maquiadora program and NAFTA planted many American factories in border areas, the production was for "others elsewhere," not Mexicans. And there still was not nearly enough jobs to satisfy the numbers that came north seeking work. These programs helped bring the border to the attention of many who might have stayed at home in other parts of the country. So, unable to find work in the border towns, the whole land of milk and honey was only a few feet further north. And the inevitable has been happening ever since the first American factory failed to hire a hopeful prospective worker.

"Interdependence" is one of the major goals of the new international economic order. And interdependence spells "dependence" – even in those economic areas where a nation was once, to any degree, independent and self-reliant. And unnecessary dependence, actively sought through interdependence, is a deadly trap – the goal being total dependence on corporate production and supply chains, that depend on economic imbalance and marked wage differentials for their profits.

If NAFTA had been anything about bringing parity between the Mexican and American economy and standard of living, it's focus would not have been on hiring Mexican workers to produce for the American consumer market or for surviving American industries. It's purpose would have focused on building an industrial capacity in Mexico, and disbursing that effort throughout the country, rather than concentrating it just below the border. Its aim should have been to raise wages in Mexico, so that Mexicans would be producing for themselves, consuming their own production, and enjoying a rising standard of living. Mexico's farmers wouldn't be threatened. Rather, they'd be challenged and encouraged to make Mexico, food self-sufficient, and raising the living standards of Mexican farmers.

Instead, the parity that has been engineered is a race to the floor for both Mexicans and Americans – particularly for Americans. Mexico will remain a poor and mal-ruled nation while America continues a decline toward parity with a poorer counterpart.

Until that parity is reached, or American political and economic independence re-established (and a will to preserve America for existing Americans), the illegal immigrant problem (which is an economic refugee problem), will not go away.

Patches – like brick and mortar walls, and troops on the frontier – will continue to be as band-aids on the finger of a terminally ill cancer patient.

John Q. Pridger

Friday, 12 May, 2006

SPEAKING OF JUNK MAIL

Speaking of junk mail and solicitations for memberships and donations, just since Monday Pridger has heard from the ACLU, NRDC, and CofCC. For those who don't know, the ACLU is the "American Civil Liberties" Union, and the NRDC is the "Natural Resources Defense Council." Both are left-leaning liberal organizations. The CofCC is the "Council of Conservative Citizens," which might be considered a right-wing antithesis of organizations like the ACLU.

None of the three are exactly in George W. Bush's corner, though the CofCC is a "grass roots" conservative organization. Their brand of conservatism is not to be confused, however, with either the old Rockefeller variety of Republican conservatism, or the so-called conservatism of today's neo-conservative brain trust.

All three are desirous of availing themselves of Pridger's superior backwoods wisdom and monetary support. They want him to become one of their most valued members, and Pridger is duly flattered.

Membership in the NRDC only requires a "gift" of $10.00 (or more) – a bargain that comes with a nice Polar Bear, "Keep the Arctic Wild & Free," tote bag. The ACLU would prefer contributions of $35, $75, $150, "or more," to help carry on their worthy struggle.

Of the three, only the CofCC (http://www.cofcc.org) enjoys a modest degree of Pridger's support. As a longtime subscriber to the their quarterly paper, The Citizens' Informer – he's probably also considered a member (though he never intended to officially join), and thus would be condemned to all the fires of Hell in the eyes of the ACLU – if it only knew. Their predominate focus in the last issue of The Citizens' Informer, among other things, was the challenge illegal immigrants pose to "our" national survival.

ACLU WORRIES & WOES

On behalf or the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org), Pridger was honored by executive director, Anthony D. Romero, who wrote at length, listing a litany of Republican and Bush administration sins. He kindly included a chronological list of "101 Landmark ACLU Cases" (1925-2004), which Pridger is glad to have as a quick reference guide to the moral and cultural decline and fall of the United States of America.

The ACLU's big concern of the moment continues to be the great fear that (Heaven forbid!), religion may once again play a significant role in shaping our nation's identity profile, character, and national destiny. (They deny, of course, that it ever did.)

They present the specter of a "frightening vision" of Christian extremists' "Faith-based initiatives that aim at nothing less than a fundamental redefinition of America that would undermine the very principles that have defined our country for more than 225 years," and is upon us and is about to force the nation back, beyond the time of our founding fathers, into Neanderthal status.

Did they say, Undermine and fundamentally refined the principles that have defined our country for more than 225 years? Pardon Pridger's lack of observation skills, but he thought it was the ACLU that, for well over half a century, had been busily undermining and fundamentally redefining the principle that had served the nation well for a almost two centuries.

The whole concept and foundation of the nation, and the systems that grew from them, were largely the results "faith based" initiatives. Just to start out, it took a great deal of faith in "Devine Providence" to take on the mantle of "enemy combatants" fighting for independence and self-determination against Ye Olde mother country – the world's greatest superpower of the day.

And the faith that made it all possible, and lent itself to the subsequent principles and identity of the nation – the "American Creed," so to speak – (if Pridger has it right), is pretty much what the ACLU has dedicated itself to stomping out. And has almost stomped it out in our lifetime. But now they see more faith based problems popping up like popcorn out of a pan – more than they can handily shake a stick at and enumerate in a single mailing.

For starters, faith based initiatives might interfere with women's reproductive rights; deny proper and early sex education, prophylactics, and abortion, to the kids; cause young people to be taught that abstinence is the most effective prophylactic; cause children to be exposed to prayer and the Ten Commandments, or "lectured" about religion; cause the idea of "Intelligent Design" to be given parity with (or even priority over), luck-of-the-draw and evolutionary science; invite Big Brother back into our bedroom; and deprive homosexuals of the "right" to state-sanctioned same-sex "unions" they insist on calling "marriage" or "holy matrimony."

The way Pridger sees it, the ACLU appears to be deathly afraid that the majority (in what they consistently insist is a "democratic" system), might once again gain the ability to make some of the rules – before it becomes the minority in a few more short years. A minority that, in due course, is highly likely to come to learn the full unadulterated meaning of "oppression by the majority" – and one that will probably put to shame anything that has manifested itself here since Reconstruction.

Of course, Pridger has given these very matters a considerable amount of thought, and has quite a bit to say about them. In fact, he's already covered most of them pretty thoroughly in the blog at one time or another. But the reader may be pleased to learn that this is intended to be a somewhat brief post. So you will be spared the details for the time being.

He'll make only a couple of observations with regard to the ACLU. First, during its fairly long history, the ACLU has taken on, and won, many battles in which Pridger is in full agreement as to both goals and and outcomes. One is their effort, "to expose and end U.S. government policies that undermine fundamental human rights principles and facilitate the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody."

And, to be perfectly truthful, Pridger shares some of the ACLU's concerns over the peculiar brand of "Christian" the Bush administration has marshaled in support his Middle East Crusades. Even Pridger takes a dim view of "Faith based initiatives" when they advocate and lead to something as "un-Christian" as unnecessary, "preemptive," warfare against hapless alien peoples. But!... 

Pridger's other observation is to question how America might have gained or possessed any principles with which to define itself for more than 225 years – that is, any that could possibly merit the approval of the ACLU?

The ACLU didn't come on the scene to start setting things right until somewhere around 1925 or so – and it really didn't get its act together, and start moving mountains, until much later.

During the first 149 years of our nation's history there had been no ACLU initiated law suites at all – and a much greater percentage of the nation than now was made up of professing, church-going, Christians. For a long time there was prayer (and even Bible reading) in public schools, public buildings, and on public property – even in many universities. The population was overwhelmingly white, Anglo Saxon, and Protestant, and all politicians had to profess Christian faith in order to hope to be elected. Even Honest Abe did it. 

The nation and its various divisions of government were literally "Faith based" institutions from the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence until long after the ACLU came along and began litigating to us to death – moving us toward its own brand of secular enlightenment, and lecturing us on how things actually were, are, and ought to be – despite the clear historical record, the "Separation Clause," and lack of an "official religion" or church.

Yet, curiously, the ACLU effectively admits it is just trying to get us (or something), back to where we were (or it was), before the ACLU itself evolved – from what was apparently already a pretty advanced specie. This tends to throw at least a shadow of a doubt on their own perfection, infallibility, and particular brand of (shall we say?), faith based Intelligent Design. Or is Pridger himself just a little mixed up?

For example, the ACLU came along after 149 years of a perfectly satisfactorily working concept of the "separation between church and state" (instituted by our founders), and told us we'd had it all wrong – that the "wall" actually had to be considerably more substantial; made of reinforced concrete, so many cubits thick, and so many cubits high and long that, in total mass, it would put the Wall of China to pitiful shame.

The ACLU told us that the only way to religious tolerance is through total intolerance of the Christian message. Yet, until then, that message had managed to give the faith based majority (which then also included most minorities), a more or less unified, and unifying, national culture. But to the ACLU the key to real unification (and perhaps a hope for reconciliation), is to prevent any such message from leaking into, or influencing, "official" national policy.

It continues to evangelize and successfully convert the nation according to its own brand of "faith based" initiatives – laying down the law (i.e., in the guise of telling us, through litigation, what our own laws actually mean). And, for instance, that the Ten Commandments, or any religious expression at all in the "government domain" constitute a negative, discriminatory, and offensive influence on society (particularly children) – and are a literal menace to freedom and democracy as we had mysterious come to know them before ACLU's time.

Yet, as "Thou Shalt Not kill, steal, covet," etc., were being struck down as dangerous and offensive religious rhetoric, the ACLU decreed that all nature of obscenity and pornography in public prints and entertainment media (or on White House lawn, for that matter), are merely a healthy manifestation of freedom of expression. Never mind that the majority was righteously outraged. 

The majority may not like every little thing that comes down the pike that "freedom of expression" permits or encourages, but (never mind), the ACLU knows what was best for it.

According to the ACLU, obscenity and pornography rights need to be more jealously protected than any presumed right the majority may imagine it has to live in its own concept of a "decent" society.

In the view of the ACLU, this is undoubtedly what the founders had in mind in the first place, when they penned the First Amendment; and perhaps ought to have been specifically mentioned and enshrined, both textually and graphically, in the Bill of Rights, in order to have familiarized the American public from the beginning just what the meaning of freedom of expression actually is.

Public decency laws were thus overturned nation-wide. And, though the majority didn't like it, what could they do? The ACLU had spoken.

Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, this nation actually wasn't such a bad place before the ACLU came to fix it. We did have a few serious lingering hang-ups, of course, but America was still the envy of the world, and the most highly coveted immigration destination of all. Not even the poorest, or most oppressed, classes in America knew of any place where they could find greener pastures than they had right here. Few of the freed slaves clamored to join their compatriots in the independent republic of Liberia, and not one in a thousand modern African Americans would trade their "coveted" oppressed status here for Liberian (or any other African), citizenship. Oppressed status here is far and away recognized as superior to "freedom" in most African nations.

But things have changed radically since the ACLU came on the scene. Perhaps the lynching rates have withered away, but the murder, rape, suicide, execution, incarceration, drug addiction, gang violence, abortion, obscenity, divorce, and "illegal" immigration rates, have all gone up markedly since those bad old days before the ACLU started throwing its weight around. And, being willing to give credit where credit is due, Pridger gives the ACLU just a whole lot of credit for helping to make it all possible.

Illegal immigration rates were much lower before the ACLU played a role in reforming our immigration law – opening the nation's borders to Third World immigrants while tightening requirements for those coming from traditional immigrant countries – this, circa 1965. It's a little strange that the ACLU omitted any mention of their role from their list of 101 Landmark ACLU Cases. (Maybe the present is not the most opportune time to brag about it.)

Curiously, by the ACLU's own admission, the "Faith based" threat is a contemporary phenomenon – particularly specific to today's Congress, Judiciary, and presidential administration. That would almost appear to be the whole darned government! We must really be in trouble! One wonders who might have elected them? Could the majority possibly have been capable of, or responsible for, such a thing in this ACLU enlightened age?

Pridger suspects that the ACLU itself had a whole lot to do with the monumental problem and task it is now confronting. Had it not been so all-fired eager to convert, and "fundamentally redefine" the nation to its own faith – and been so confounded effective in changing the very laws of the land to reflect their own vision of what America ought to be (while the frustrated majority was increasingly outraged) – the current "Faith based" backlash would probably never have developed.

Well, Pridger may be in sympathy with maybe as high as 15% of the ACLU's legacy, but he figures the backlash now worrying it is good enough for it – and very long over due. In the end, spoilers inherit their own due share of spoiled goods. One might even say that, in the end, God tends to be just.

A score of 15 out of a 101 Landmark litigations, (with 85% of them leaning more or less on the "spoiler" side, in the face of the majority), is insufficient grounds to merit or gain Pridger's support.

Pridger himself may not be all that much in tune with the will of the majority, but he does support the concept of majority rule when it comes to government. That's what "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" is supposed to be about.

Once again Pridger respectfully declines membership in the ACLU.

CONSERVATIVE CONSERVATION

More or less to get Pridger's attention, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in his capacity as their Senior Attorney, wrote on behalf of the NRDC (http://www.nrdcwildplaces.org). A longer letter, written by NRDC president, Frances Beinecke, went into more detail about their grievances against the Bush administration. The major issue of the moment is that "the President's budget calls for massive oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

As for the NRDC solicitation, here again Pridger respectfully declines membership, though it has Pridger's sympathy.

Though Pridger is all for saving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well other natural areas (not to mention the earth's overall environment for future generations of both humans and wildlife to enjoy – or at least survive on), there are plenty financially well-healed, guilt-ridden, conspicuously consumptive, eager-beavers to carry the torch forward without Pridger's ten dollars. Call it selfishness if you will, but Pridger already has his hands full just trying to save our cultural and political institutions and the country. And he is also rather deeply engaged in conservation work on his own little piece of Paradise.

While not exactly what would be called a tree hugger, conservation of all good things is part of Pridger's fundamental conservative makeup. Pridger likes plenty of trees, lots of woods, and an abundance of wildlife. Even ticks, chiggers, and mosquitoes have a sacred right to a place under the sun – though Pridger wouldn't mind encountering fewer of them in his own little patch of sunlight, or on his own sacred person.

But, besides being an advocate for the preservation of wildlife, forests, and other ample natural spaces, Pridger is also an amateur lumberjack, sawyer, woodworker, and part-time carnivore.

Still, Pridger does try to do his rightful share. Though he cuts trees, he's careful not to leave the forest looking ravaged or even appreciably thinned. He always  feels a slight tinge of remorse when a tree falls, asks forgiveness, and gives appropriate thanks. And Pridger makes a conscious attempt to "do more with less" and avoid the vices of conspicuous consumption and waste.

He grows a few vegetables, chickens, and cows, and eats a few. While taking advantage of many of the contrivances and conveniences of modernity, at age 64 he's still only on his second pickup truck. The "new" one is vintage 1985.  It's still the automotive baby of the family, having been purchased when it was just a seven year old (previously wrecked), vehicle with a shiny new paint job. The faithful old Farmall "B" tractor, is a 1950 model (purchased when it was still a spirited 20 year old.

There have been a few cars in the lineup, of course, but all of them were old as dirt when Pridger got his hands on them – and he drove them until either the wheels fell off or the engine dropped out, and they had to be parked out in the field until junk prices were right. And, of course, he scavenges usable parts and materials from them – such as leaf springs to use as tire tools and make such things as Bowie knife blades, and various other pieces of good steel from the rest of the running gear for other projects. Such things as steering columns, tie-rods, axels, differential, and Drive shaft, also come in handy around the farm welding and blacksmith shop. While perhaps less a welder-blacksmith than a woodworker, Pridger does do all of that kind of work required around the place.

As for preserving the area's forests beyond the property line, Pridger once unofficially joined hands with a radical local environmentalist group. This was when the Forest Service started clear-cutting patches of the forest here several years back. They were building logging roads through the forest, largely on behalf of rich out-of-state timber companies. The logging roads resembled pictures Pridger has seen of the roads slicing through virgin Brazilian rain forests. Those roads, and the clear cuts that followed, literally took his breath away.

The trusty stewards of our public forest lands were selling the timber real cheap so out-of-state timber companies could come in with their big state-of-the-arts equipment and mow the woods down completely, leaving an incredible degree of devastation and more than just a healthy supply of waste in their wake. General Sherman, himself, would have been made proud.

Then those timber merchants could turn around and sell the timber abroad to foreign woodworkers at a healthy mark-up (but still at bargain basement international market prices), so cheap foreign-crafted hardwood furniture could be made abundantly available to us – thereby relieving American workers of such un-glamorous production jobs.

For a while it looked like they were going to clear-cut right up to the property line and ruin the view as seen from Paradise Ridge looking south. That got Pridger pretty hot, and he wrote some lengthy letters to the editors of a couple of local papers.

The Forest Service sent a ranger to talk to Pridger a bit. The meeting was a little tense at first. But Pridger could hardly believe his ears when he was offered a job (something that is a scarce as hen's teeth in this part of the state) – if he'd just agree to get over on their side, work with them, and help them sort things out. But Pridger declined the offer and held firm.

Unfortunately, Pridger had not yet discovered the negative economics involved in the timber sales, and had to base his arguments simply on his love of perpetual standing forests, rather than totally leveled wastelands. Had he known that the Forest Service was losing money on their effort to help balance the federal budget, Pridger's own patriotism might have prompted him to take the job just to help them out with their math.

Now the Forest Service is no longer permitting clear-cutting in this particular national forest. Fortunately, it was halted before the cut topped the far side of the nearest ridge facing Pridger's back yard, and the view was saved. But the once pristine and primitively enchanting, "Hidden Valley," on the other side of the ridge looked like it had just been through a boot camp barber shop!

Of course, it wasn't just the view from Paradise Ridge that Pridger was concerned about. It was the whole forest itself. It's just that this particular clear-cut got his undivided attention, and very personally disturbed his peace of mind. In other words, it woke him up to the fact that the Forest Service was not the benevolent custodian-protector of the forest that Pridger had previously imagined. It had effectively become a facilitator for, and subsidizing agent to, big timber interests.

Pridger lives in the forest because he likes forests, and the further they stretch (natural, mature, and unbroken), in every direction, the better he likes it. The forest also serves as a form of insulation between Pridger and the rest of the world (regardless of what "Order" may be in vogue out there beyond the ridges). It provides a comfortable feeling of isolation, and contributes considerably to Pridger's warm, cozy, feeling of "being at home." But that feeling of isolation was proven illusionary when the cold, cruel, world of industrial destruction threatened the very gates of his private domain.

The Forest Service had somehow arrived at the idea that the forest should actually be a large industrial type "tree plantation" rather than a natural, perpetually mature, forest. "Even-aged" silviculture, they call it – where you prompt even-aged forest growth by cutting the forest down and starting over about every 70 years. Like harvesting a crop of wheat, only on a much longer harvest cycle.

Since the Forest Service is under the Department of Agriculture, it isn't difficult to figure out how the idea came about.

Of course, the nation was beginning to have serious spending deficit problems back then. It was President Reagan in the White House at the time. He'd made a campaign promise that he was going to balance the budget and lower taxes. We could do it, he figured, by cutting the government down to size, while getting a little more businesslike.

One business proposition was to start selling off some of the nation's natural resource assets – a bit more timber from our national forest lands, for instance. Clear-cutting was determined to be the way to go – and lots of it – and the USDA was ready and more than willing to formulate and execute the plan.

Free trade was increasingly part of the solution, too, and there was apparently a very ready and ripe international market for eastern hardwoods – oak, hickory, ash, poplar, maple, black walnut, etc.

It sounded like a good, businesslike, idea to him at the time – and it wasn't going to effect the view from the Reagan ranch. (Who knows, though? Some farmers and ranchers don't like trees any more than they like foxes or prairie dogs, except for maybe a little shade around the yard.)

Of course, the brain trust probably neglected to tell Mr. Reagan that the high costs of all the road building and site preparation were going to exceed the sales return receipts on the timber. But that's Washington for you – always ready, willing, and able, to cram more problems into already unworkable solutions. 

So, thanks in part to Pridger, not only was the local forest saved (at least temporarily), but the Reagan administration was obliged to curtail, or postpone, an expensive mistake.

Unfortunately, that didn't solve the budget problem. While some forest cutting was stopped, the overblown federal government remained impervious to cuts as a petrified tree slipped into a carrot cutting contest.

And Pridger's efforts at civic activism had some other unintended consequences. The radical environmentalists weren't satisfied to stop just the clear-cutting. They went a few more extra miles with their tree hugging and litigation, and successfully shut down all timber harvesting in the national forest, putting many small local lumberjacks and sawyers out of business.

Pridger wouldn't have gone quite that far. He was for continued selective harvests in much of the national forest, and for small local timber men, sawmill operations, and for the development of local small woodworking and furniture making proprietorships. But, of course, radical environmentalists don't concern themselves such things. To them, a tree (any tree), is worth more than a thousand jobs.

As a result of end of all timber harvests, and Pridger's high profile role in protesting clear-cutting – for some time there were several areas of the forest where it was no longer safe for him to tread without wearing a convincing disguise.

And that isn't the only negative impact Pridger has felt from environmentalist overkill. They aren't satisfied with just having a "regular natural" forest. They want special "wilderness" and "natural" areas within the forest.

Of course, Pridger has nothing against either wilderness or natural areas. In fact he would like for the whole forest to be pretty natural, and at least seem as much like a wilderness as possible – that, after all, is a large part of what forests are all about in Pridger's book. But the natural and wilderness areas the environmentalists want come with some very unnatural strings attached – of the type one would tend to associate more closely with City Park.

For one thing, they don't want horses snapping twigs or tramping on last year's leaves in wilderness and natural areas. Of course, Pridger can understand not wanting whole herds of horses, or armies of riders habitually wearing down the terrain, or making erosion paths up every square foot of each hill, and down every hollow slope.

He can understand excluding four wheelers and other ATVs from crashing through "natural" or "wilderness" areas. Undoubtedly they are a lot of fun, but are noisy, pretty destructive (especially under the herdsman-ship of groupies), and hardly what could be termed natural at all.

But horses are relatively quiet, and (ignoring saddle and rider), perfectly natural, as well as relatively non-destructive – arguably, not even as destructive as a half grown buffalo. To flat-out ban horses and riders on broad swaths of public land is an oppressive and unnatural thing to do, effectively depriving horse riders of the traditional, age-old, "right of innocent passage" through their own public lands.

To appease the pesky and persistent environmentalists, there are now several wilderness and natural areas scattered throughout the forest. Perhaps as a reward or punishment for his role in the anti-clear-cutting battle, the Forest Service has placed one just a short way beyond Pridger's back pasture. The so-called natural area extends in a broad band, separating Pridger's woods from the particularly nasty hidden clear-cut he had revealed to the world during the big environmental showdown.

The only way you can recognize a natural area is the very unnatural boundary of green and yellow painted aluminum signs on bright yellow plastic posts, strung out in a nearly fence-like manner through the woods. The signs face away from the natural area, of course, and may come as a surprise to anyone who thought he was already in a natural forest. Tree trunks have been used as boundary markers, too, with yellow spray paint oak leaf shapes. (Or maybe these are just to show naturalists which trees are oak trees.) The signs read "Foot access only! No ATVs! No horses! No bicycles!"

But for those signs, it would be impossible to tell that there was any unnatural area anywhere short of Pridger's more or less natural looking pasture. The woods appear just as natural on Pridger's side of the signs as on the "official natural" side.

Another thing about those offending signs. It is as if they were placed there specifically to mock Pridger's love for the natural, untarnished, beauty of the forest.

But it's even worse than just that! The darned natural area shuts off the shortest trail to the store! The one Pridger would prefer to use should his old truck finally join the cars parked out in the field awaiting a more favorable junk market. 

To remain a law abiding citizen, Pridger would either have to leave his horse at home and walk the five mile round trip, coming back with heavy bags of food and feed over his aging shoulders, or take a much longer route with no trail to follow at all.

As for following along the narrow state highway to get to the store, that's out of the question. Not even deer are nimble enough to avoid the deadly traffic. In fact the "hard road" keeps Pridger and many others in the area stocked up with fresh road kill venison throughout the year. Pridger would sure hate to see Old Dumplin' sprawled out in the right-of-way somewhere – especially with yours truly on his back, or under him, or plastered up against a nearby tree.

And what about the hapless rider simply traveling from point A to point B through the forest – or simply lost and trying to find his way out? What is he supposed to do when he comes to such a wall of signs? Perhaps get off and walk through the natural area, sending his trusty steed around to meet him on the other side.

Pridger knows what he'd do (regardless of his desire to be a law abiding citizen) – especially since Old Dumplin' isn't all that well trained. (The lovable old nag would simply be off for the barn the minute Pridger was out of sight.)

Pridger would simply spur Dumplin' on, and ride right on through the holy ground, as if it really were an natural area – as natural good common horse sense would clearly dictate.

John Q. Pridger 

Junk mail! Everybody gets it, whether in the traditional old mail box or the email inbox. Thank goodness that spam filters detain most junk email these days. But you still have to check just in case something important has been filtered out, such as a long lost relative with a peculiar name like Pridger or Jones.

But the old snail mailbox still has no filter. Pridger doesn't mind too much, though. In fact, mail time is one of the more exciting points of each day here in the quiet countryside. In addition to the few magazines and newspapers he can afford, Pridger enjoys receiving most of the free mail order catalogs that continually find their way to his mailbox.

You never know what you might get. In addition to a lot of good fire starting paper (particularly handy in the off and on fire times of Fall and early Spring, not to mention the cook-out season), a considerable number of interesting catalogs, and other advertisements turn up – and some of it is good "idea" material. Things to ponder and think about before burning or filing. Who knows? The idea for Pridger's next million dollar invention might be sparked by something that shows up in the next "Things You Never Knew Existed," or "Edmund's Scientific," catalog. Sometimes there's even something that prompts a blog post.

Of course, it's also interesting to see just how the big junk-mailing list brokers have you pegged in the way of interests, buying habits, and political leanings. In the latter category, it seems Pridger is known to be a staunch conservative Republican as well as a liberal supporter of the Democratic Party. The ACLU thinks he's a member of the secular wing of the "saving remnant" and solicits his membership from time to time – as, of course, does the AARP. Oddly enough, Publisher's Clearing House (and their promises of $10 million bonanza), ceased showing up a few years back, as did solicitations from the National Rifle Association (an organization Pridger supports, but apparently not enough to justify postage for any further solicitations).

Mail order is a convenient way to shop, and Pridger used to do quite a lot of it – until a wickedly barbed sales tax hook was put into it by the insatiable state. He's pretty much quit buying through the mail now, unless it's from within the state, or the company happens to charge Illinois state sales tax.

The wet blanket descended on the mail order business when states (always pinched for money in spite of their monumental, multi-faceted, taxing authority), realized that most mail order customers were not paying sales tax on their out-of-state purchases.

It isn't really a "sales" tax at all, of course. The way Pridger reads the situation, states can't legally tax out-of-state sales as such. That would clearly have constitutional implications which would lead to legal complications. Such a tax would effectively amount to an "import duty" on goods coming into the state from other states – something effectively prohibited by the federal Constitution.

So, rather than taxing the "sales" that occur in another state's jurisdiction, they have sneakily categorized the tax as a "use tax" – taxing the citizen for making first use of any product he purchases, no matter the source, once the product is physically within the state's jurisdiction. That gives the out-of-state "sales tax" an arguable constitutional legitimacy.

Protested by the mail order industry and various consumer advocacy groups, the tax has been referred to as a "mail order tax." It has been correctly argued that such taxes place an unfair burden on mail order businesses that, traditionally, have not had to collect out-of-state sales taxes unless there was some sort of reciprocal agreement with state of the customer. Obviously, such agreements between all 50 states, would really complicate the bookwork and state related tax payments required of mail order companies. Each one would have to deal separately with all 50 state taxing authorities on a regular basis.

Additionally, consumer advocacy groups have pointed out that such a tax would tend to discourage mail order business in general, since the sales tax, when added to shipping costs, would unfairly increase the cost of purchasing by mail order out-of-state.

The net effect of the overall situation is, indeed, to discourage out-of-state mail order purchases, and Pridger's mail order habits have come to reflect this discouragement.

Since there is no all-encompassing nation-wide sales tax system, this leaves the individual mail order customer liable for going the extra mile – having to meticulously record and report all his out-of-state purchases to the state revenuers, and go another extra mile or two to fill out forms and send the tax himself – a burden (Pridger suspects), most people simply choose to ignore. But, of course, they do so at their own peril, for this is like a trap set to spring on unsuspecting citizens at some indeterminate time in the future.

Nobody is likely to become a mail order customer simply to avoid sales taxes. Shipping and handling costs are almost invariably much higher than state sales tax rates, bargain prices notwithstanding. The the real allure of mail order is simply consumer convenience. The sales tax problem, with it's record-keeping and check mailing inconveniences, not only totally negate that convenience, but (if neglected), add the specter of customer criminal liability for noncompliance.

Naturally, out-of-state mail order activity is a significant slice of the nation's interstate commerce. Discouraging it doesn't really make a lot of economic sense.

When all is said and done, the most significant bottom line, is that this situation becomes another case of state government oppression – over a relatively minor issue – effectively requiring citizens to jump through hoops in order to legally continue doing something they are long accustomed to doing.

This is a matter that should either be overlooked entirely (as in the past, and as most people undoubtedly still do), or remedied on a uniform national basis that would not place an onerous burden on the mail order industry, or a compliance burden on out-of-state customers.

Here's an example, of how it discourages interstate commerce, from Pridger's own personal experience:

Illinois is not a tobacco growing state, so bulk tobacco leaf has to be ordered from elsewhere. Pridger (being a smoker, but having neglected to become a tobacco grower), used to purchase his tobacco by mail from a place in Tennessee. In fact, when he received his tobacco liability suit windfall check, that's where he spent it (dutifully, of course, where it would do the most good).

Then, one fine day, after filling out a tobacco order, Pridger noticed the following quaint little message on the form:

"Customers residing outside the State of Tennessee are responsible for the payment of any applicable state and local taxes to the appropriate tax collection agency."

This warning was a very responsible gesture on the part of the company, of course, but it had the immediate effect of cooling Pridger's enthusiasm to complete the order. He'd been aware of the tax liability threat for some time, and was already feeling a little guilty as he was filling out the order blank.

The notice served to bring Pridger to his senses, and the mail order tobacco seller lost a sale, through no real fault of his own.

Now Pridger drives over to Kentucky to get his tobacco. He pays Kentucky sales tax, of course, but (aside from the pleasant 60 mile round trip), he doesn't have any legal obligation to jump through any other red-taped hoops.

Fortunately, gas is usually much cheaper in Kentucky than in Illinois, so when on a tobacco buying expedition, Pridger puts about a dozen five gallon gas cans in the pickup to make the trip more more economically palatable. As an added bonus, he can also buy good sorghum molasses and other wholesome foodstuffs from the Amish community over there.

Only the brave, foolhardy, or slavishly compliant, continue to purchase from out-of-state mail order houses. (Of course, there are always many who are never very wide awake, and simply don't get the word.) States (certainly Illinois), are beginning to take serious measures to milk the last possible penny out of their residents.

In the case of Illinois, the state Department of Revenue expects people to fill out an annual form to declare all out-of-state purchases during the year, and pay sales tax on them. Just how successful the campaign has been thus far, Pridger doesn't know.

A quick survey of friends and family indicates that ignorance is still bliss. But where the Almighty law is concerned, ignorance is no excuse. It's dangerous.

As in the case of the State income tax, which was initially troubled with a significant non-compliance problem, Illinois conducted a use tax "amnesty program" two or three years ago, aimed at getting non-compliers to "get right with Springfield" and voluntarily pay up without penalties. Since then, penalties have been compounding at usurious interest rates (which has become the norm of government agencies at all levels these days).

The implication now is, of course, that the Illinois Department of Revenue (at great cost to the taxpayer), has employed an army of investigators who are even now busily canvassing the nation's mail order purchase lists, and credit card records, taking down names, and getting ready to start surprising tens of thousands (maybe millions), of Illinois residents with tax notices when the time is ripe. It's a monumental task that could not have been seriously undertaken before the age of computerized record-keeping. Undoubtedly, they are in great hopes of eventually gaining a huge revenue windfall.

The great hope for continuing non-compliers, of course, is that, combined with the mushrooming numbers of pesky on-line mail order buyers, the numbers of non-compliers will literally overwhelm and frustrate all attempts to get a a meaningful handle on the problem. But there are no guarantees, and Pridger isn't counting on in.

In spite of Pridger's already long on-going abstinence from the old mail order habit, the out-of-state catalogs just keep on coming. And, as in the case of tobacco, there is some pretty tempting merchandise in some of them.

But Pridger will confess that (at least on one other occasion in recent memory – one not yet protected by any possible statute of limitations), he spotted a book he simply couldn't resist. His resolve to abstain temporarily wilted in his eagerness to own and read it – and he daringly took a chance at the wheel (hoping his number wouldn't come up), and made the out-of-state order.

Having weakened and taken the chance, however, he is naturally filled with guilt, self-loathing, remorse, and a serious hint of frustrated anger. After all, Pridger does have a strong natural desire to consider himself a law-abiding citizen. Though once fairly easy, the progressive inconveniences of remaining consistently on the right side of the law is becoming an increasingly difficult and oppressive proposition.

There are simply too many laws for the average non-lawyer to keep up with, much less effectively cope with. And too many hoops for even the liveliest gymnast to consistently negotiate – not to mention not the, snares, and traps attached to many of them. In fact, perhaps most Americans have already effectively become petty outlaws to one degree or another – and are only a "discovery," and two or three procedures, away from the Gulag.

These facts bother some of us more than others, and Pridger (being a rather sensitive and neurotic specimen), falls into one of the more bothered groups. He realizes he really ought to seek professional help – something to make him stop doing such irrational and dangerous things as buying non-taxed out-of-state merchandise. Counseling, supervision, drug therapy, or some sort of classes in slavish compliance with ridiculous or pettily oppressive laws are probably called for. No doubt there is an abundant selection of such drugs and services available – after all, this is 2006, U.S.A.

But Pridger hasn't gone to seek help yet, and probably won't. For one thing, he doesn't like to leave the safety of the farm any more than absolutely necessary – and that's also the main reason he got hooked on mail order buying in the first place. Another thing would be the added costs, significant inconvenience, and demands on his time involved – and the desire for convenience was the initial weakness that got him hooked.

Of course, being an American patriot, constitutionalist, and a conspiracy theorist to boot – Pridger, in addition to being neurotic, is naturally as paranoid as an illegal alien serving cocktails at an INS convention, or beer at a Minuteman border patrol squad barbecue.

So, each time he takes a chance that might conceivably foreclose on his ability to enjoy his "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he goes to fretting about how long it might be before they come after him.

This, among other things, has caused Pridger a considerable amount of hair loss, not to mention an increasing number of tarnished silver strands in the remaining patches around his cranium and chin.

He wonders how long will it be before he gets a notice from the Illinois Department of Revenue demanding payment of $3.25 in alleged unpaid sales taxes – along with perhaps several thousand dollars in accumulated penalty and interest fees.

Or, maybe the summons will come in the a more dramatic form than a notice in the mail – such as the dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night. Or worse (in contemporary American law enforcement fashion), with a battering ram followed by a dozen black-clad peace officers bursting into the living room some dark and stormy night.

Woe unto the hapless homeowner who, upon awakening from a deep sleep and pleasant dreams, fails to take time out to carefully assess the situation and (trusting to primal self-defensive instincts), unwittingly grabs the shotgun before confronting the intruders!

A bit of friendly advice. Should a large group of intruders break into your home in the middle of the night, always assume it's just a legitimate band of civil servants looking out for the public welfare. Likely it's only a SWAT team.
     But, beware! Though only peace officers, and your own public servants, they always make their calls armed to the teeth – and they are much more dangerous than a barrel full of rattlesnakes dumped between the sheets of your bed.
     They don't mean any harm, of course, but have one hell of a bite if there's any hint of fight in you.
     Don't panic, and (whatever else you do), DON'T grab the shotgun! And don't jump to any worrisome conclusions and try to escape. Chances are, they have the wrong address.
      If you run, you may be shot or prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for trying to avoid questioning (if they can't think of a multiplicity of other charges) – even if there was an unfortunate mix-up in the address. Or, even if it was the right address – called in by an envious neighbor, estranged wife, bitter business associate, or as a harmless prank by one of your drinking buddies.
      There are certain things to be particularly attentive to. While government agents may sneak up quietly, so as not to needlessly interfere with your rest while making preparations to smash the front door – they usually make lot of noise as soon as they've gained entry.
     The tip-off usually comes with such key words as, "Police!" Freeze! NOW!" and, "Come out (of the bedroom), with your hands behind your head! NOW!" or "Get face-down on the floor and put your hands behind your back! DO IT NOW!"
     They may also use some rather colorful language once considered obscene or abusive, but this is now quite acceptable procedure. They are merely used as psychological components of the standard "shock and awe" tactics calculated to get your immediate undivided attention.
     Listen carefully. If you hear such words, you can breath a sigh of relief, and have little doubt that you are dealing with peace officers or some other government agency rather than bad guys.
      These kindly intended admonitions are usually articulated loudly and distinctly, and are for your own good – so, if you value your life, comply immediately . 
     Another thing. If there is any light at all, you will immediately be able to recognize law enforcement agents by their black garments and sophisticated armaments.
     So, generally speaking, if there is an unusually large number of well armed intruders, that break in all at once, and make a lot of noise, be reassured that you are perfectly safe – as long as you don't make any mistakes, false moves, or happen to forget (due to shock and awe), to drop your shotgun in time.
     On the other hand, be advised that most intruders that do mean harm (the real bad guys), come either alone or only with one or two buddies – and they usually remain as quiet as possible even after entering your home. Usually, if they just want your TV and VCR (and if you don't bother them), they'll let you sleep on while pilfering your valuables, and leave as quietly as they came. Be sure to listen and count before grabbing the shotgun!
     Another handy thing to remember. Very few bad guys bother to dress all in black or yell "Police! Freeze! DO IT NOW!" etc. – except, perhaps, in the highly unlikely event that you happen to be the target of sophisticated professional assassins.
     Chances are, if they are in black, they're either there to help you, arrest you, or otherwise perform a public service.

Then there is always the chance that the crime could escalate into a federal matter – after all, out-of-state mail order is subject to the "Interstate Commerce Clause."

Perhaps the worst case scenario for a guy like Pridger, who lives on an isolated country estate, and is known to be both a shotgun owning hunter and old-school patriot (and thus, "armed and dangerous"), would be half a dozen or so tanks and armored personnel carriers pulling off the hard road – overflowing with State troopers, Interstate Commerce Commission agents, FBI and ATF agents, military advisors, etc. (sometimes fondly known as a "Multi-jurisdictional Task Force").

Pridger can picture them rumbling up the hill – busting through the outer parameter and compound barricades – knocking down young trees, stampeding cattle and horses, killing the guard dogs, scattering chickens, and scaring the daylights out of the hogs and wildlife, as they come.

Likely, they'd come right into the yard, flattening the weathered picket fence, wrecking the lawn, and making a mess of the wife's treasured flower beds. Chances are, along with the fence and flowerbeds they crush Pridger's newly completed woodpecker whirly-gig, situated just inside the gate – and punch right on through the front wall of the venerated old home place.

No doubt they'd have CS gas and flame throwers belching out a sufficiently impressive array of inducements – calculated to "soften up" the target abode –  to somewhat intimidate the intended quarry. Helicopters would be hovering overhead, of course, with suspended gasoline-laden bladder-bags – just in case the ground forces require some additional fire-power. (Others may have water-filled bladder bags to quench the fire before all evidence is destroyed.)

While this is going on, of course, they may pause momentarily for a little kindly persuasion or some brief negotiations, urging Pridger to come out peacefully before being burned alive to a crisp (and perhaps charred to a mere tenth of his normal healthy body weight).

Provided the fire doesn't get too far out of hand, Pridger can imagine them knocking down the outhouse to see what might be hidden beneath, ransacking both rooms of the old home place, and confiscating everything that looks like it might have been purchased by mail order from out-of-state.

Having learned at Ruby Ridge and Waco that such operations must be pulled off with sufficient dispatch to get the job completely done before the media and neighbors arrive, the whole thing (including all protracted negotiations), could be over in a matter of half an hour to forty-five minutes. Lengthy stand-offs are no longer operationally acceptable.

And – assuming this old blogger hadn't met with a serious case of lead poisoning, or made it to the woods in time (to initiate a new life as a hunted fugitive) – the task force would cart him off in chains or plastic wrist bands to the concentration camps in the Gulag. Which, of course, is sufficiently near at hand that travel arrangements will present very little in the way of inconvenience.

Little wonder that Pridger continues striving to remain a law abiding citizen who lives by the letter of the law.

He'd sure hate to see the old homestead subjected to shock and awe, and the home of his youth made to resemble an ashen guinea's nest with a pile of tumbled-down chimney-stone eggs in the middle – and that neat little wind-driven woodpecker crushed to the ground. Not to mention the specter of Pridger's beloved wife (or widow), having to move into the new chicken house (even if it is varmint proof), and having to pay sales tax interest and penalties out of her meager Social Security and survivor's benefits for the rest of her life.

Wednesday, 3 May, 2006

FARM PARITY AND ECONOMICS OF BALANCE

There aren't many Americans with a whole lot of interest in farm parity. To some – perhaps many – the very idea of "farm" sounds antiquated, if not downright foreign. Yet agriculture remains not only the biggest, but most important, business in the land. It's much bigger, and certainly more critical to our survival, than WalMart.

In fact, in terms of size, agriculture eclipses all other businesses, large and small, combined. It literally stretches from sea to shining sea, and from border to border. There are only a few somewhat large desert or mountainous areas where farms and ranches do not literally cover most of that landscape not yet gobbled up by urban sprawl. Though few people think of it, and almost all of us take it for granted, we all depend on it for our daily nourishment.

Yet, in spite of the length, breadth, and productive efficiency of the production plant, and its critical importance to our physical well being and the national economy, farm earnings fall far short in relation to the rest of the economy – and only about 2% of the population is seriously engaged in the work that feeds the nation. This points to a serious fundamental imbalance in the way the country and its economy are being managed.

Of course, this imbalance doesn't worry very many of us. The supermarket shelves are always well stocked, fast food restaurants abound, and most of us remain over-fed and over weight. But there is abundant cause for concern.

In short, imbalance is not conductive to long-term stability, and can generally be considered unsustainable, whether we are talking about tops or national economic structures. Gross imbalance in large systems is downright dangerous – all the more so when they are also grossly top-heavy.

There needs to be a natural equilibrium for a large national economy to be stable and self-sustaining over the long haul – and we departed from anything approaching that requirement a long time ago. We have been in a state of gross economic imbalance for several decades, and official policy continues to increase it rather than decrease it.

For example, there should be a "happy medium" in the numbers of people who reside in rural and urban areas – between those who farm our vast agricultural lands, and those in cities and small towns who own and operate retail businesses and work in our factories and many service industries. The ratio of 2 to 98. between food raw material producers and non-food producing food consumers, does not reflect a happy medium by any stretch of the imagination.

In an industrialized society, the ratio should perhaps reasonably be more like 25 to 75. Even a 10 to 90 ratio would probably be workable – certainly much more so than 2 to 98.

The adequate size of our agricultural industry, along with its efficiency, cannot be questioned. But what is sorely lacking are adequate numbers of self-motivated people to insure that we don't have too many mouths to feed and too few farmers to the farm chores should critical trade and supply-line "systems" ever begin to break down. Only many largely self-sustaining family farms can provide the country with the food insurance policy that it needs.

Sustainability – a "natural" self-motivated sustainability – with a satisfactory degree of efficiency, not to mention food quality, should be the goal. The goal should not be to see how many people can be fed by the fewest numbers of warm hands, using every trick in the book of modern technology to squeeze every ounce of production from every field every year.

The family farm, made up of happy, self-motivated, people – farming their own land on a scale tailored to, and limited by, their own personal aspirations and capabilities, with modest sized equipment requirements, is actually the most efficient agricultural production unit of all. This because of its self-motivating nature (as a factor of human self-interest), the relative self-reliance of the productive unit itself (due to natural human desire rather than a coercive economic imperative).

At the family farm level, conservation of the soil and other resources, as well as protection of the environment, while striving for the best possible production mix and profitability, are natural factors of self-interest. The family farm as a production unit, is an example of self-interest being put to the very best possible use.

Sustainable agricultural production, with the numbers of farming families commensurate with the size of the industry – is the best national food insurance policy that we could have. And that is the most important insurance policy of all.

In order for there to be enough people attracted to farming, and induced to remain in farming, its rewards should be comparable to the rewards of a decent eight hour job in a metropolitan area. And in an attempt to devise national farm policy that would facilitate and accomplish this, to a large extent, what farm parity was all about.

The concept of parity is pretty difficult to explain to the average citizen who, in any case, could care less. Probably few enough farmers have a firm grasp on it in this day and age. It has sort of become one of those anachronisms, like the Constitution and Honest Abe's greenback dollar. Yet the basic concept is very simple, and the mechanics of parity remain as important to understanding basic economics, and economy-wide balance, as the Bill of Rights is to our continued hope for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" – and what an honest dollar might do for those prospects.

More than just a farm bill, parity's original purpose was about balancing the economy as a whole, and delivering national income in sufficient amounts to produce a broad-based prosperity both on the farm and in the cities. Today, when we speak parity to most people, however, corporate welfare for a few wealthy farmers is likely to come to mind – and the "original intents" have been largely forgotten even by economists. To them, parity is an antiquated price support system that farmers no longer need, and wouldn't even want if they would be honorable members of the agribusiness establishment.

The only reason agricultural economists are likely to think about parity today is because it is still on the books as permanent farm policy, and threatens to rise up from the ashes of a bygone era should Congress ever fail to pass a new farm bill each time the previous one expires.

In a recent (May 1, 2006), FarmWeek article, entitled, "Ag policy options: parity instead of farm bill?" Author, Daniel Grant, explained the need for Congress to pass another farm before the current one expires next year, in order to stave off parity.

If parity were to reemerge, he wrote, "Corn, based on March figures from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, would be $7.65 per bushel, soybeans would be $16.90 per bushel, wheat would be $10.90 per bushel, hogs would be $115 per hundredweight, and cattle would be $190 per hundredweight."

The only problem with those potential prices that Pridger can see is that farmers would be assured of making a money and being able to stay in business!

Why wouldn't "farmers" want that? Well, farmers certainly would want it. It's the great agribusiness combine, and big international commodity traders, that don't. It would throw a wrench into the nicely oiled running gear of their export trade apple-cart. And, if the traders couldn't sell the production into the international market at those prices, presumably the taxpayer would be called upon to make up the difference.

According to Grant, "...parity served a purpose more than 70 years ago," (but) Barry Flinchbaugh, agricultural economist at Kansas State University (for one) "does not believe mandating parity pricing is a sound economic model for future farm programs.

Quoting Mr. Flinchbaugh:

"The problem with any index is it compares the price paid to the price received, but it totally ignores the efficiencies gained in U.S. agriculture since 1910-1914" (the parity base period) ... "It's great rhetoric, but there are no economics behind it."...

"We don't need a price, we need income... What good is price if you don't have anything to sell?"

"In Kansas it seems we're happier with 30-bushel wheat and $4 prices ($120 per acre) than we are about $2 wheat and 70 bushels per acre ($140 per acre)... So parity, from my standpoint as an economist, is absolutely worthless."

That's the opinion of a professional agricultural economist, folks. It's perplexing rhetoric, to say the least – and Pridger doesn't detect any real economics behind it at all!

"Comparing the price paid to the price received" a problem? What merchant would neglect to compare his wholesale costs to his retail prices?

Pridger is still scratching his head a little. Maybe he just doesn't understand things.

"We don't need a price, we need income," Flinchbaugh says. What kind of economics does that imply?

The last time Pridger checked, farmers still came by their income by selling their production into the market. Prices were what makes it both possible and, hopefully, profitable! Price is the farmer's only hope for an income, and (as in literally every other business), costs – the "prices" others charge him – are one of his ever-present problems.

Without price, the farmer might just as well leave the crops in the ground and go off to the Bahamas. And if it doesn't cover his production costs, the price he was obliged to sell for is too low.

Pridger agrees that price isn't worth a tenth of a wet cow pie "if you don't have anything to sell." But he'd say that the farmer who didn't have anything to sell probably hadn't been farming at all. Once he does have a crop (or even an old tractor), to sell, price is everything.

The farmer who has nothing to sell is just like a supermarket with empty shelves. Price doesn't count for much until something is delivered. 

Certainly Mr. Flinchbaugh is not speaking for himself (or his professional training), when he says, "it seems we're happier with 30-bushel wheat and $4 prices ($120 per acre)... than we are about $2 wheat and 70 bushels per acre ($140 per acre)," Flinchbaugh must be speaking for Kansas farmers rather than himself. You can bet he'd take the $140 and run. 

But if Kansas farmers would prefer $4 prices and only 30 bushel per acre yields, you can bet they have a good reason for it. Maybe they consider forcing 70 bushels per acre with gobs of toxic chemicals is bad land husbandry, and expensive enough to want to forego the extra trouble.

To the savvy farmer, $120 per acre with $50 input costs ($70.00 net), is better than $140 per acre with $75 input cost ($65.00 net). But professional economists apparently don't see things in this light.

Not only that. From the farmers' point of view, it's a lot easier on the soil, the equipment, and the farmer himself, to to harvest and haul 30 bushels per acre than it is to harvest and haul 70 bushels per acre.

Some farmers might even be maverick enough to want to grow "natural," open pollinated crops, and forego the added costs of buying expensive hybrids or genetically engineered seeds. And almost all farmers would like to conserve their soil in order to farm some more later.

If truth be known, contrary to the reasoning at the institutional level, most farmers would probably actually prefer a price of $10 per bushel than $4 or $2 per bushel. They'd probably like to push the technological envelope a little less and "earn" a decent living by practicing sustainability. But try to explain that to an institutional economist!

FARM PARITY EXPLAINED (MORE OR LESS)

Back when farm families were still a sizable and healthy numeric minority in the nation, and the government still considered the institution of the family farm a valuable national asset (as opposed to simply a factor of "agricultural production"), it made a considerable effort to seek ways and means to fairly balance the agricultural sector of the economy with the industrial and service sectors. They were particularly called to action during the Great Depression when farmers represented a large percentage of the distressed population. The concept of parity pricing on major storable agricultural commodities thus came into play.

Pridger's little American Heritage dictionary defines the word "parity" as: (1) Equality, as amount, status, or value. ... (3) A level for farm product prices maintained by government support.

Basically, parity farm prices were established to allowed farmers and their families a chance to enjoy roughly the same living standards as their industrial counterparts in the city. Parity is a calculation based on the current ratio of farm prices to non-farm prices compared to the ratio of farm and non-farm prices between 1910-1914.

The period from 1910 to 1914 was what might be considered a golden age for agriculture. And, at the same time, the industrial powerhouse was booming as well. On average, both farmers and city-dwellers were prospering. So that period was officially taken to be the "parity base period" – an era when the economy as a whole was deemed to be in proper balance. (There have been other such periods, but this is the one currently in official use.) 

Prosperity lasted through World War I and beyond. The post war industrial boom tended toward imbalances as the financial and speculative sectors of the economy began a literal feeding frenzy that ended with the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression was at hand.

The state of emergency caused by the crash and nation-wide collapse of credit and circulating medium constituted a national emergency that prompted the government to embark on several radical experiments.

Through no fault of their own, farmers had been broad-sided with a major price collapse that threatened both their survival and the nation's agricultural foundation – and, among other things, the government sought ways and means to save the farmers and bring balance back into the economy.

Parity prices, based on the 1910-1914 base period, were approved in the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act. While some good came of it, the major problem of an insufficient credit and purchasing power economy-wide was never effectively addressed, and the Great Depression dragged on until the opportunity for another major war presented itself.

With the war production economy booming, and money flowing again, farmers experienced a another period of prosperity along with the rest of the economy, and parity pricing for the farming sector proved its worth. This success survived the war, and parity pricing for agriculture officially became a permanent part of U.S. farm policy in 1949.

Unfortunately, this success was too good to last very long. There was an economic sea-change in the offing, as national policy-makers began to don the spectacles of One World rather than focusing on "one national," economic balance, and sustaining and already proven "success." The day of parity for farmers and the nation were short-lived.

Since then, a succession of Farm Bills, tailored to the visions and needs of corporate big boys with an eye toward a new international economic order have increasingly, to one degree or another, made a mocker of the parity balance mechanism. It was tinkered with a little from time to time, but mostly abandoned.

Though parity and national economic balance are now history, an understanding of the principles of parity continue to be important to an understanding of how a balanced economy worked, and how it might work again should sanity ever regain a toe-hold in the appropriate policy-making circles.

HOW PARITY WORKED

The system was engineered not only to provide the farmer parity prices in relation to the industrial, or urban, sector, but to provide a modicum of stability in a critical business subject to the disconcerting bumps and gyrations caused by the combined uncontrollable vagaries of weather and more predictable market cycles.

Relative stability and control in farm prices is possible because most of the major basic farm commodities are storable commodities, and the market forces known as "supply and demand" can be scientifically calculated at least a year in advance – making adequate allowances, of course, for weather related bad crop years and other contingencies, such as various national or international emergencies (maintaining a stored cushion of emergency food supplies, etc.). International trade factors were also part of the mix, of course.

Demand for food, of course, is relatively stable, and can be accurately calculated as a factor of population numbers and known international trade factors. Supply can be regulated through an individual farm allotment target system, with the purpose of discouraging farmers from producing more of the various crops than the market can absorb at the supported price. Correlating all of this, along with implementation policies, was one of the main purposes of the Department of Agriculture.

An ideal national farm policy provides the farmer with guidelines and targets for his production, rather than either an operational straight-jack or any form of subsidized income. The aim is an adequate and dependable national food supply coupled with stability and sustainability, and the provision of a fair price for the farmer. And parity aims at maintaining a harmonious and sustainable working balance between the rural and urban components of the economy.

Protective tariffs on food commodities were also necessary in maintaining parity farm prices. It would do little good to support domestic prices at parity levels, if the international traders could collapse domestic market prices by importation of the same commodities from abroad.

To break the farm parity concept down to the simplest terms (assuming only two factors), the correlation between, say, the price of a bushel of wheat leaving the farm, and the hourly industrial wage, represent a ratio between the two, representing country and city living standards at any given time.

Of course, parity is based on a whole list of commodity prices (with each calculated and applied separately), and the urban standard of living is also based on several economic factors rather than just wages. But for this example we'll talk in terms of a bushel of wheat and an hour of factory labor.

If wheat was selling for $1.00 a bushel during the parity base period, and the average industrial wage was $.50 an hour, that 2 to 1 ratio should be maintained during future economic changes, such as wage and price inflation. This "parity" would be maintained and the economy kept in balance.

For example, if,  the average industrial worker came to receive $1.00 per hour, due to increased industrial efficiency or monetary inflation, the parity price for wheat would be supported at a $2.00 a bushel level, and the farmer and industrial worker would maintain the same living standards relative to one another.

THE PARITY CONCEPT WAS TOO GOOD TO LAST

The actual price of wheat during the base period was $.884, and the parity price today, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, would be $10.30 per bushel. Yet the wheat price is now actually in the neighborhood of only $3.00 per bushel – roughly the 1960 parity level.

Not long after the post World War II successes of the parity system were apparent (the national economy being in balance and booming), major policy changes were in store that would increasingly make a mockery of the farm parity concept.

The USDA, in conjunction with a few forward looking big commodity trading companies, agricultural academics funded by those same forward lookers, and national leadership circles with an eye toward One World, decided that the consolidation, collectivization, and industrialization of agriculture should be the model and wave of the future – allegedly to feed a hungry world.

With large efficient factory farms in mind, the USDA effectively began a war against traditional diversified, natural organic, farming practices, and the family farm system itself. The enlightened word came down from on high, admonishing the farmer to, "Get big or get out!"

A few big farms would make the USDA's management tasks a lot easier, and those larger farm units could be made much more efficient and productive. "Organic," when connected to farming, became a dirty word to up-to-date farmers. "Progressive" farmers were to use hybrid seeds and and the latest chemical fertilizers and pesticides, like DDT. (Then came herbicides, and now genetic engineering and biotech.) The so-called green revolution was on.

While the purpose of the USDA, and all farm bills, have always been cloaked in the robes of "helping American farmers," their actual effects have demonstrably been to help most of them out of the business entirely.

The corporate industrial imperative, of course, is the efficiency of production by whatever means are available according to the current state of technology. Hand in hand with this go speed and the economies of scale. The perfect factory or warehousing operation, for example, would be a huge automated complex operated by one man with a computer console, mouse, and joy stick.

The perfect farm would envision something very similar, with a single person operating thousands of acres with electronically controlled machinery from a computer console. This would be the ultimately efficient ag-machine.

Lack of efficiency in food production had never been a concern, however, and wasn't really the issue at all. The American farmer, using traditional (yet always improving), diversified practices, had always been eager, willing, and quite capable of producing more than the market demanded – had, in fact, often been "accused of" overproduction.

The issues really being addressed were One World and the profits to be made by the corporate hierarchies that were coming together to control the multi-faceted mechanisms of production and trade channels that would feed (and control), that world. 

Corporate-style efficiency would provide the basis whereby farm commodity prices could be kept down to "attractive" levels the big trading companies could peddle abroad – into poorer markets than the home market – to initiate the globalization processes with regard to global food supplies. Parity pricing would not do in a globalized marketplace, and the once honored and numerous family farming class became the first sacrificial lamb placed on the altar of globalism.

During the hay day of parity pricing, a hard-working mid-western farm family could make a decent living on a modest 80 acre spread. A poor family might make do with the proverbial 40 acres and a mule. Now several hundred, to two or three thousand acres, (with yields chemically or genetically coaxed from two to four times those of simpler times [but now declining again!]), might provide a single farm family with a living commensurate with middle-class urban standards.

But it hasn't been easy even for those who have managed to make the successful transition to bigness. Most farmers are perennially in debt, with the homestead and land perpetually mortgaged or subject rent payments, with ongoing payments on $100,000.00 tractors and other massive implements, along with other annually rising input costs – always governed, of course, by very up-to-date costs of credit, machinery, seed, and chemicals, while farm commodity prices hover around 1960 parity levels. 

The successful modern farmer, now numbering only about 2% of the working population, is forced to literally mine the top soil while applying ever-increasing amounts of chemical nutrients to maintain it productivity. New insecticides, herbicides, and seed-strains are introduced on a regular basis to make the his monumental task easier – yet he is literally forces to spend his capital to keep his head above water.

For many, the great hope is to stave off foreclosure until after successful retirement or the time when the undertaker has solved all of his problems. In the mean time, the great hope for "better prices" is usually pegged to the export market rather than local or national markets – the very market mechanisms that insure his prices will usually fall just a little short of production costs in most years. Independent in name only, the American farmer is working for an international corporate combine that will buy at "their" current market prices as long as he manages to hang on.

This is not to say that there are no farmers doing well. A few are doing very well – but far too few – and the pricing structure, along with government subsidies, has developed some gross market distortions. For example, the rich vegetable growers of California's central valley would suffer a catastrophic economic crises without the ready availability of cheap labor imported from Mexico upon which it has come to depend. (This market pricing distortion, of course, is perhaps the major contributing factor to our current illegal immigration woes.)

The problem California farmers have, of course, is that prices do not correlate to American labor costs – and this problem extends far beyond the labor intensive vegetable fields of California. It applies nation-wide with been extended far beyond agricultural prices. 

Unfortunately, the requirements for modern "successful farming" go far beyond what most "old-time" farmers would consider farming. Though farmers have traditionally been pretty sharp in conducting their business affairs, a very good farmer is not necessarily a great agribusiness man. Successful big farmers today must also be "scientific" businessmen. And, as if that isn't enough, the ability to play the commodities futures markets is supposed to be one means knowledgeable farmers have to augment their farm incomes.

Speaking of commodity futures and farm incomes, Hillary Clinton's cattle futures market windfall (while not necessarily typical), provides an interesting illustration of both the imbalanced nature of our market system and the misallocation of rewards. Cattle are raised and sold into the markets by farmers and ranchers, but the lion's share of the rewards obviously goes to others.

The word was that Hillary invested $10,000.00 in cattle futures contracts and walked away about a year later with somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000.00 – an incredible 900% gain. That's a pretty good return in anybody's book!

Regardless of the accuracy of the figures, and other details of the matter, it shows that the primary profits in cattle somehow totally bypass the primary producer.

When you stop to consider that Hillary's bonanza came on top of all the other profits that must have been made by other interested parties (both active and passive), one cannot help but wonder at the system that can produces such results for passive investors. Certainly the others in the physical post-farm market chain must have gained at least a modest profit too. The chain ends, of course, with final retail purchase of meat at the consumer level, where all accounts are finally balanced and funded.

Could it possibly be that perhaps the farmer or rancher deserved a little larger slice of the pie, and even Hillary might have considered a more modest return perfectly acceptable?

It makes one wonder how an extra $90,000.00 "cost" can be squeezed into an initial $10,000.00 food commodities trip through market channels and a "cheap food" policy come out unscathed. 

The farmer, of course, has experienced the full impact of the whole array of pricing increases economy wide. But the price he gets for his per unit production has lagged at least fifty or sixty years behind his input costs. Thus, if he didn't get big, efficient, and compliant with the accepted agricultural practices being promoted by the powers that be, he had little choice but to get out and seek a good paying job in industrial America.

As mentioned, the new USDA policy was in the name of efficiency and the desire to unleash the full potentialities of new techniques and technologies coming on line in the field of agriculture. The idea was that each farm should be a corporate sized "factory farm," each producing the cash crops deemed most suited in its locality, with yields stimulated and boosted by chemical fertilizers.

Beside the proposition of feeding a hungry world, the sales pitch to the general non-farming public was that this increased efficiency facilitated a national "cheap food" policy, from which everybody would benefit.

It is no coincidence, of course, that the above sales pitch was strikingly similar to the more recent, universally titillating, carrot-on-the-stick of "cheap imports" since so generously extended to the general consuming public. The public, of course (instinctively voting with it pocketbook), has gobbled it up.

And thus began the processes of de-industrialization of the nation, making the prosperous American industrial working class the second major sacrificial lamb on the altar of globalism.

Naturally, those were just a significant beginning. There are many more sacrificial lambs being ushered up to the altar now that electronic outsourcing has finally come of age.

Globalism is much more about the "freedom" of multinational corporations to control and exploit international markets, than the freedom or welfare of any people within those markets. The people's share of the free international market pie consists solely of the "freedom to choose" the "cheapest prices" globe-straddling corporations can deliver while still making a significant profit for their shareholders.

Parity for the farmer, like paying American workers an American industrial wage for producing (say, televisions, farm machinery, or ships), is free market heresy – thus we no longer produce any televisions, not very much machinery, and very few ships.

When parity for the farmer disappeared from the national landscape, so did all pretense at maintaining national economic balance, and balance has disappeared from every sector of the economy. The full impact of this imbalance, of course, is cleverly masked by the massive availability of corporate credit lines and the accumulation of public and private debt.

Corporate globalism thrives on both imbalance and a continuing and increasing level of dependence on the fruits of that imbalance. As this steamroller moves over the landscape, the appearances of prosperity – a false prosperity – are miraculously maintained (thus far – and at increasing cost to this and future generations).

Individuals are often prosecuted for initiating profitable Ponzi and pyramid schemes that bilk honest men and women of their earnings. But when such a scheme is established by an essentially faceless, and officially sanctioned, principle and "system," there is nobody to call to account – other than in generalized terms Pridger is fond of using, such our "mis-representatives" in Washington, or the unofficial "national brain trust" (including academia, think tanks, One World visionaries, and international corporate hierarchies), that have no public accountability at all.

A prime example of economic imbalance on the global stage (as opposed to just the American economy), is more than just evident in the present relationship between China and the United States and their respective wage and living standards (or between the U.S. and Mexico). This provides the conditions necessary for global corporations to play the wage differential game to their fullest benefit on an exceedingly large scale.

Due to China's shear size – and the indomitable Chinese entrepreneurial spirit, combined with the native intelligence and energy of its people (not to mention the apparent lack of mental acuity in Washington policy circles) – this particular instance of gross  bi-lateral imbalance (which has been taken full advantage of by global capital), is producing some very disturbing, undreamed of, economic consequences.

These economic consequences were supposedly unforeseen by the great national brain trust, yet Pridger managed to get a focus on them years before they became critical. Among other things, those consequences threaten to totally upset the apple cart of carefully laid plans of the One World controllers.

For the first time in American history, our nation is becoming dangerously dependent, and strategically vulnerable, to a single trading partner – and one that possesses the world's largest army (yet is still considered a "developing nation") – one that is well on the way to taking us to the economic cleaners. And one that has ample historic motive and political ideological root propensities to wish to see us eat a little humble pie.

A ten dollar parity price for a bushel of wheat may sound pretty high, but (just as in the case with three dollar wheat), a bushel will still make over sixty (60) loaves of bread. At the present "cheap food" price of about $2.50 per loaf, the bushel of wheat roughly produces $150.00 at the supermarket counter. The farmer, of course, now gets only $3.00 a bushel – his share of the bread dollar being about five cents. Pridger would wager that Saudi princes, and petroleum industry itself, get a larger share of the bread dollar than the farmer.

Several million farmers haven been destroyed over a period of a few short decades, while the rest, having striven to get bigger, continue to strive to become even more efficient in order to survive.

Parity would have saved the farmer and produced a serious degree of equilibrium in the economy, but the corporate One Worlders could not tolerate an independent farming class – a whole class of people who might be able to survive comfortably without driving to the corporate supermarket a couple of times a week – and they will not tolerate it anywhere in the world. Cheap American grains are (and have been for a long time), busily flooding the world markets with the goal of destroying independent agriculture wherever it may still be found.

As the big boys destroy local subsistence farming and independent agriculture in nation after nation, the giant agricultural firms step in and show the locals just how to farm on the plantation scale – for them and the international markets. 

Conveniently, this increasingly provides our corporate benefactors with additional ammunition with which to destabilize and micro-manage the U.S. domestic food market. For example, if American agricultural commodity prices begin to rise (and threaten to make small and intermediate farming profitable again), the increasing availability of imports from elsewhere can easily be made to pressure prices downward again to the desired levels.

The "for publication" justification for all of this, naturally, is to "conquer global hunger in our time." But there are more hungry people in the world today than there were when globalism first reared its ugly head – and there well probably be a lot more – eventually, maybe even here in the land of plenty.

THE FORGOTTEN ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES BEHIND PARITY

The principles that led to the parity concept were macro-economic. The architects of parity understood that, "The process of creating wealth starts with the production of raw materials – the products of the ground. Manufacturing, transportation, and other functions of business and capital represent only services which could not be performed at all if the raw materials were not first produced... " (Charles Walters, Jr., Unforgiven)

And they had made a further significant discovery – the 1:7 economic "multiplier effect" or "national trade turn" of agricultural income. More from Walter's Unforgiven, quoting Carl H. Wilken, one of the major architects of the parity proposition:

"The amount of real wealth brought into existence is measured by the number of units of raw materials produced. Society has invented measures of weight, length, and volume which never fluctuate and remain constant year after year, but our measure of value resembles a modern jitterbug...

"Since the gross agricultural income represents roughly 80% of all new wealth income and largely gauges the industrial demand for other products of new wealth, the relationship of agricultural income to national income becomes the governing factor in our economy."

"The relationship of agricultural income to factory payrolls (the best index to the state of industry) and national income averages for all practical purposes 1-1-7 meaning that each $1 of gross farm income creates $1 of factory payrolls and $7 of national income for business in the United States.

"That formula or relationship is the most important discovery since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the Constitution of the United States, because it is the key to an economic democracy..."

(Unfortunately – referring to the cause of the Great Depression, but still very relevant today) "With that definite relationship holding true it makes it possible for a few men who control the speculative markets of the world to bring depression upon a nation of 130 million people and force them to exist by borrowing from their savings and by placing a mortgage on their future income, and in addition to that, take away their equity in their homes and other real estate...

"On the other hand, the formula means that whenever this nation will use its good common sense and stabilize farm prices in direct proportion to the national income needed for prosperity our depression will be over. And it also means that the farm problem and the question of a price for raw materials is the number 1 problem of every farmer, laborer, and businessman in the United States.

"We had the wealth, but allowed someone else to fix the price of that wealth..."

"It seems that we have even been able to get the facts to our brain trusters. On November 3, 1938, Dr. Louis H. Bean, economic adviser to the Department of Agriculture, in a speech at Lexington, Kentucky, pointed out to an audience that the gross farm income is approximately 14% of the national income rather than 1 to 7. But 7 times 14 almost equals 100%, so we must admit that Dr. Bean is catching on..."

Lamentably, what Dr. Bean was catching onto back in 1938, has since been fumbled, and lost once again to our new generation of "brain trusters." This, in spite of the successful implementation of parity shortly after Dr. Bean's enlightenment – success that saw us through World War II, and well into the prosperous post war years.

Since then, our national fortunes have taken a nose-dive – even as the DOW pushed over 11,000 and most of us have managed to continue to live in the manner to which we have become accustomed. We went from being the world's biggest creditor nation to the world's biggest debtor nation in the twinkling of an eye. We have gone from long-standing trade surpluses to obscene trade deficits. We are going from the world's greatest industrial producing nation into a "post-industrial" era where we purchase the production of others, elsewhere, at "cheap prices" (our government borrowing the means by which it can made to continue and expand).

Where we were once a nation of producers that raised our own consumption and comfort levels on earned income. We are now a nation of consumers increasingly living beyond our productive means and national income – straining the nation's very credit creation-purchasing-coaxing-coercing capacities toward the breaking point.

But for our legislators' power to raise the debt ceiling, we'd have to do business a little differently. But even nations have credit limits when it comes to spending other people's money – even if it is to facilitate the purchase of their trade goods. Yet our leaders continue to glorify in these developments and proclaim them evidence of continued prosperity, and the sign of much better things to come.

Our agricultural wealth production machine continues to produce the goods, but they are priced by the agents of avarice to sell into international trade channels at a net loss – as is naturally the case with most of our exports as well.

And "more exports" are supposed to constitute the bright golden parachute at the end of the rainbow's tunnel – the ways and means by which to dig ourselves out of the economic grave our leadership has been energetically digging to serve as our lasting national legacy under the much ballyhooed new international economic order. 

The seven to one trade turn means that for every dollar in farm prices, seven dollars of national income are facilitated. Conversely, for every dollar agricultural production is shorted (whether to accommodate the international traders, or produce a national "cheap food" policy), the national economy is deprived of seven dollars of genuine earned income.

Such a shortfall, of course, tends to add up. In time, it begs radical remedial action. Assuming failure to connect the dots (something our leaders seem incapable of doing), all of their solutions to the world's problems generally tend to exacerbate the problems they seek to solve. 

Since parity pricing has been abandoned, and "others" have been allowed to fix the price of our real wealth production, debt has stepped in (or has been forced in), to fill the resultant shortfall in national income like water soaking into a dry sponge. The result is a false sense of prosperity, as the economy is literally flooded with debt dollars with the stability characteristics of "jitterbugs."

The economy is booming today, they say. Yet most of us have a nagging, uneasy, feeling – that something big is about to come down. Maybe something like the sky falling.

PARITY IN A NATION GROSSLY OUT OF BALANCE

When parity was initiated as national farm policy, about 40% of the population was still down on the farm – most of it happily so. Today that percentage is more like 2%. Average crop yields on many major crops have increased two to four fold. For example, the average acre produced 27.8 bushels of corn in 1923. In 2005 the average corn yield was 147.9 bushels per acre. (But this is not typical. Average overall yields have not even doubled, and many are now again in decline.) We're literally in a different world today, but it isn't all good by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how snug and secure you may now personally feel about the situation.

Chemical use is up to dangerous levels, polluting soil, watersheds, rivers, and river delta areas. What was once one of the most healthy professions has become one of the most dangerous and unhealthy. Higher and higher yields, dependent on more and more chemical inputs, has put nutritional quality of the food supply is in sustained decline, not to mention the possible dangers of chemical residues and unknown long-term effects of genetically altered food supplies entering the food chain on a massive scale (without the informed consent of the consumers).

Factory sized meat, dairy, and poultry operations have brought our dairy and meat supplies into similar circumstances, with drug-induced growth and production; antibiotics to prevent sickness or premature death; unnatural feed, taint the meat food supply, and unnatural housing conditions for food animals amount to inhuman treatment.

A higher percentage of the "working" population is unemployed today than the total number doing the farm chores and feeding the nation, and soon even the prison and jail population may surpass the number of active farmers.

The agricultural industry is largely petroleum driven, so it is dependent on massive imports of energy from foreign sources. The collectivization of agriculture into specialty regions has resulted in long costly farm to market supply line systems that are also petroleum dependent.

And the very idea that 100% of the American population (as well as perhaps many million others around the world), are dependent on a mere 2% of the American population to deliver the goods is, or ought to be, downright scary.

If we returned to farm parity cold-turkey today, the shock would be comparable to the shock of $3.00 gasoline. Besides higher food prices, it would result in a huge economic windfall to the two 2% of the population that now produces most of our major food commodities, and the international commodities trade would be in a dither.

Those are the down sides. But even they have a silver lining. It would still be much better than our present situation, and would lead to significant meaningful change. At least farmers would be getting well compensated for their labor, and they would spend that money mainly in their "earned income staved" local communities.

Hobby farmers would have an incentive to become professional farmers. Many farmers would choose to down-size, pay their bills, and take some of the worry, stress, and danger out of their lives. Those who decided to remain big, at least would be able to afford to hire considerably more help, and pay them better, creating more rural work opportunities.

Parity pricing in the south and southwest would go a long way toward alleviating the present need for immigrant farm labor. It might even eventually solve the problem entirely. Even most non-immigrant Americans will work (and work hard), for good wages and benefits.

Lord knows we sorely need a rebirth of productive, well-paid, occupations for the growing numbers of the so-called "unemployable" class – occupations that don't require computer skills, PhDs, or even highschool diplomas or GEDs. Neither over-qualification nor under-achievement should be a barrier to employment in a fully functional, properly balanced, industrial society.

Since farming would be profitable again, there would be a lot of people interested in getting into agricultural production, prompted by the profit motive, as well as a desire for productive country living. This would make the next "back to the land" movement meet with considerably more success than the one back in the '70s. Many of the big farms would begin to be sold off in 80 and 160 acre parcels, giving potential new farmers a chance to try the life they heard their parents and grandparents tell of.

A sizable family farm population would eventually re-emerge. And if that happened, locally earned income would once again begin circulate, and many small towns would come back to life, and Main Street might be repopulated. A kinder and gentler, non-toxic, sustainable, agriculture might again develop toward the norm.

Parity prices don't necessarily have to be written in stone. The system could, and should, be adapted to the current "state of the arts." But the state of the arts should not be the corporate model, but rather a model geared to people and production activities on a comfortably human scale – involving as many people in basic food production, and all other areas of the economy, as possible.

Large numbers of farmers throughout the nation's agricultural lands, in secure, sustainable production are the best food insurance policy that we can have. And food is something we all need.

THE MIRACLE SPECIE

Just think of all the things that men and women can do that literally no other specie is capable of without considerable prompting, actual training, and/or manipulation – filing income tax forms, for example, or things as simple as tying a shoe or reading a book.

Think of all the things mankind has accomplished, and/or destroyed, during the last 25,000 years or so.

The most sophisticated and cunning pack of wolves or hyenas is incapable fielding even the most rudimentary armored division – much less building a navy armed with nuclear missiles. Not even the higher apes can come close. Pridger can't even do it – and if he could, and really wanted to, he'd probably spend the rest of his life trying to devise means by which to avoid all the heavy work.

Man is the only specie of animal to either establish or rob a bank – and he's probably the only one to imagine God.

Naturally, the list goes on and on. Little wonder that, having stumbled onto the concept of God, mankind has imagined himself the centerpiece of His Creation.

Perhaps he is, at least in our minuscule sector of this particular Galaxy. Beyond that, our continuing imaginative and intellectual limitations begin to show. Some find that a little embarrassing. Yet mankind continues to stand in awed ignorance of the larger picture.

Just getting things right here in our own bally-whack – and within our own society – seems challenging enough.

Oddly enough, belief in God, or some facsimile thereof, was almost universal among men until a small cadre of them, having gained a considerable degree of scientific knowledge, and a presumed higher degree of enlightenment, began to have serious doubts. Confident in the knowledge that science, and the creative abilities of man himself, are probably the literal epitome of creative thought, accomplishment, and potential – many have come to imagine mankind, as well as all Creation itself, was a mere accident, or coincidence, of nature, with no ultimate cause or purpose other than those such men have themselves devised.

As ignorant as Pridger is, and as fixed in his worldly ways, he still clings tenaciously to a both a belief and faith in God. Not as a scientific cop-out, but as a concept expressing a collective abstraction indicative of the combination of all we know (or think we know), together with all that we do not yet know – perhaps most of which may yet prove to be humanly unknowable – those indescribable "things," within or without, that defy even human imagination, much less comprehension.

As for the laws of nature that scientific man places a great deal of faith in – such as the laws of physics – Pridger tends to believe they (insofar as they prove to be valid), are but minor footnotes in the Universal volumes of God's law.

As for faith, Pridger has enough of it to confidently start work on a new chicken house – avian flu and the pending animal/bird registration scheme notwithstanding. (If nothing else, the chicken house can be used as a library). And Pridger has little doubt that tax time will roll around on schedule again next year.

Still, Pridger makes some mental allowances – such as the realization that this might be his last moment of life, or that tomorrow the sun (or even just the earth), might hiccup. But this doesn't shake his faith very much. God's plan may take unexpected turns, and who is Pridger to question His motives and agenda?

Whether the Creator is receptive or not, Pridger prays to God for all good things, including the salvation of mankind from the clutches of its own agents of avarice.

Not that Pridger observes much formality in prayer. He seriously doubts his personal ability to rivet God's undivided attention at a moment's notice at any time of day or night – refraining from the belief that God always happens to be at his beck and call. Still, Pridger is "thankful for his food" – and all the good luck he has thus far enjoyed, proving that you don't have to ask for every little thing (though sometimes you do have to get out and do a little work).

Generally speaking, except perhaps in passing moments of serious personal peril (which prompt him to get serious and address God in more formal, albeit urgent, terms), prayer is something that amounts to a nearly continuous waking dream – a wish list. Not for things like a new hammer or tractor, but mostly for cures for mankind's multi-faceted, usually self-created, problems.

To say that God works his wonders in mysterious ways, is the mother of all understatements. Pondering the whys and wherefores of pain, suffering, and untimely death, do not lessen Pridger's faith that God is good. God is literally All that we ultimately have, and that "All" encompasses everything that we perceive as good, bad, ugly, or indifferent.

The very privilege of life itself, for most of us (in what can only be taken overall as a beautiful, wonderfully diverse, and bountiful, paradise), is sufficient to prove we have been blessed with the opportunity for happiness, along with some accompanying pain and sorrow.

Of all the other species on earth, mankind alone has been given the ability to think of such wonders – or do simple things like tying baby's shoes, falling in love with a puppy, or reading about the latest casualties in Iraq.

SUB-ECONOMICS

About the only escape from the full manifestations and repercussions of the New World Order, for the few who would like to preserve a modicum of independence and freedom, is in the world of what Pridger calls "sub-economics." The world may come under the iron-fisted control of corporate super-ruler-providers, but individuals still retain a certain latitude of action that is very difficult to foreclose upon. Free will may be conquered at the macro level, but it is pretty difficult to stomp out entirely at the micro, personal, level.

The main difference between sub-economics and the traditional "under-ground economy" is that not all activities that would constitute sub-economics are inherently or statutorily illegal. Most of things we can do to become more individually self-reliant are still legal! Of course, much of what is referred to as the under-ground economy can be considered a division of sub-economics.

Just as in the case of the underground economy, sub-economics have been practiced for ages. Amish communities are a prime example. The "back to the land" movement of the seventies was a rather broad-based attempt at sub-economics. Communes, like "The Farm," were sub-economic experiments. 

There have been many such experiments throughout history, usually as the result of some form of oppression, often religious in nature, with varying degrees of success. Sub-economics flourished under the feudal system – in fact it was a semi-official, or openly tolerated, part of the system. As long as the master of the estate received his due share, the people were usually somewhat free to interact according to their own social and economic needs.

Today's regional community farming initiatives, in the realm of more traditional organic farming methods, combining production and direct marketing, are a relatively new phenomenon which appears to be meeting with an increasing degree of success.

In short, the idea of sub-economics is to rebuild a human-scale economic substructure, beneath the belly of the beast – at ground level, on an individual, family, and community (or broader "network"), basis – with the full array of commercial activities commensurate with human society.

In a sense, sub-economics embodies the concept, and belief, that serious numbers of "common people," with the desire to be masters of their own destiny, as well as secure in their chosen life-style, are capable of hunkering down between the rails as the train rumbles by overhead. The train, though it be a long one, will eventually pass – and whether it sweeps all before it and crashes around the next bend, or just keeps going like the battery bunny, a broad and vibrant sub-economy should be firmly in place to provide the basis for the next order of things, without missing any meals in the mean time.

All the necessary survivals skills survive in the species. Ironically, besides such active and ongoing agricultural communities as the Amish and many other more or less "traditional" farmers, almost all traditional basic craft and industrial skills are being preserved by a literal army of hobbyists. Those hobbies are only a degree of motivation or economic necessity away from being real trades and cottage industries. While the preferred mode of transportation may be the family SUV or pickup, there are tens of thousands who know how to raise, train, work, or ride horses.

But the development of a sub-economic system doesn't imply the necessity of everybody returning to an agrarian existence. What it does mean is a return of a genuine, functional, human activities infrastructure.

John Q. Pridger
  May 3, 2006