| OCTOBER 1, 2026 -- We are one month away from the mid-term elections. “The times are a changing.” This reminds me of the Steward’s part in the First Degree. “Take advice from one whose experience is blissful, and tarry with me. The promises of progress and improvement are delusive. the road you have traveled is familiar and easy, but the one you are now entering is full of obstacles, rough and uneven, environed with dangers, and leads, you know not where. With me you can find ease and comfort. while others are racking the mind and body in seeking something new and better, we can secure enjoyment without mental or physical exertion. Moreover, you are blind and cannot see. Come tarry with me!” “Heed him not, but persevere!” “My friends, the person who has been speaking to you is that worst of enemies to progress- Ignorance, attended by his companions, Sloth and Superstition. Give them no heed if you hope to advance.”
I always thought this part was the very truth of the Grange. Never take the words of others, always seek the facts and truth on your own journey. The truth will always find you, you just have to believe in your gut. The truth will always come out in the end.
Our farmers are in trouble, they have been used in a trade battle. Since the great depression, the farmer has been subsidized by the Federal government. The goal was to provide the American people good, safe locally grown food, at a fair rate for farmers to grow and for consumers to buy. The program has worked and proves that working together it’s a win, win situation. But when big business buys up family farms to make great corporate farms, the food chain has changed. Corporations bought processing plants, slaughter houses, and placed their thumbs on the scales so the local farmers are always pressured to take less and less through the years forcing many of our farmers to sell out and reduce the family farms. Minority farmers have been treated the same or worse. Many farms have been sold, and the farmers become tenant farmers for those large corporate farms. Trade deals have always undermined the small farmers. Speculators buying and selling have always had bad history for farmers because the trade of commodities always favors the speculators as they work the loopholes to squeeze the system.
It’s time for our government to fight for family farms by breaking up the monopolies in corporate processing plants and slaughter houses so pricing is not pre-set by corporations.
In 2020, many oil companies told us they were buying into the Green Deal. Rather than using the government’s money to reduce energy costs through ethanol, soybeans to bio diesel and jet fuel, and expansion of solar farms, they put the money in their pockets. Due to this and the war in Iran, we suffer with oil at $100 a barrel. Time to wake up and find the truth. It will set us free! Get out and VOTE!
|
