Day Twelve of Our Lincoln Highway Road Trip

Today up at 06:00 at our hotel in Mansfield, Ohio and we were greeted by rain. It began raining during the night and by the time we finished breakfast, checked our maps and loaded the car it was still raining. Ugh! I think we are in for some rain the next few days. Oh, well we will just have tough it.

As we drove through Mansfield, not a pretty town, we passed the abandoned Westinghouse appliance factory, a plant that once employed 7,000 people. Now the plant is being torn down and all of the jobs are gone, probably to China or Korea. So much for all of those union jobs.

After we got out of Mansfield we picked up the Lincoln Highway and began rolling though Ohio farm country. The Ohio DOT has done a good job of marking the highway. Around 10:00 am the rain quit and it began to clear. This was good.

I forgot how pretty the central and western Ohio farm country is. The farms are neat and the fields are well manicured. The smell of freshly cut hay and grass was terrific. These farmers are prosperous and conservative. I can remember hearing about the reactionary, conservative farmers in southern Ohio when I lived in Cleveland. I did not realize then how correct these farmers and citizens of the small towns are. They are patriotic as demonstrated by the American flags on their houses and the monuments in the town squares. The town of Delphos on the old Lincoln Highway had an impressive memorial to the fallen heroes of the town dating to the Civil War. There was also a terrific mural painted on the wall of a Firestone garage depicting the Lincoln Highway of bygone days.

We had to make a quick stop at a Rite Aid in Ontario, Ohio pick up some supplies for the trip. We needed ice, paper towel, crackers and a few other items. The store was neat and clean and the checkout clerk was friendly and helpful. Of course Kathy had to tell her all the details of the trip as she does everyone she meets.

We found several of the historic markers for the highway along with some great fall colors along the way. It almost makes me want to move back to Ohio where there are sensible people who believe in America. You just have to stay away from Cleveland and Toledo.

Around lunch time we crossed into Indiana where the Lincoln Highway is not marked as well as Ohio. We had lunch at a truck stop at the junction of Route 30 and I-69 on the outskirts of Fort Wayne, Indiana. We bypassed Fort Wayne as here was not much of the historical Lincoln Highway to see there and we wanted to make some time to get to our send destination of Joliet, Illinois and the Texas Road House for a great steak dinner.

We discovered the cheapest gas prices in Ohio at $3.19 per gallon. I don’t know why gas is so cheap. Another thing we like to do is stop at a McDonalds for a coffee and a pit stop.

When I went to use the restroom at the restaurant there was a black guy hanging about and he asked me for some money to buy a sandwich as his “comp” check had not come in. I ignored him and walked out. It’s a good thing he did not have a knife or some other weapon.

We had a good lunch and then were back on the road again. Now the sun was out and the farm lands of Indiana were as nice as those of Ohio. There were not many points of interest related to the Lincoln Highway in this part of Indiana so we jumped on the expressway and Interstate 94 for Chicago and Joliet.

We arrived at our Super-8 motel in Joliet very near the Hampton Inn where we stayed the first night of our Route 66 road trip. This is the location where the Lincoln Highway crosses historic Route 66. The Texas Road House where we had a great steak is the same restaurant we ate at the first night of our Route 66 trip.

Tomorrow is supposed to be partly sunny with a chance of showers as we make our way across Illinois and on to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I hope the showers hold and the sun is predominant. I think we will see many historic points and some more lush farm lands.

You can see all of my pictures by clicking here. Don’t forget to click the “Slideshow” button at the upper right to view the largest image.

Till Thursday night.

Elimination of the Department of Agriculture

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State." — James Madison

Not many people know what the Department of Agriculture does with its $152 billion dollar budget and 98,000 employees. They think that the USDA is their mainly to help farmers and pass out farm subsidies. While the part about passing out subsidies is true the part about helping famers is not. The USDA does much more than hand out billions in farm subsidies.

The Department of Agriculture provides an array of subsidy programs for farmers and imposes extensive regulations on agricultural markets. It operates food assistance programs, such as the food stamp and school lunch programs, and it administers many subsidy programs for rural parts of the nation. The Forest Service also forms part of the Department of Agriculture.

The department will spend $152 billion in 2011 or more than $1,200 for every U.S. household. It operates about 235 subsidy programs and employs 105,000 workers in about 7,000 offices across the country

In 1862 The U.S. Department of Agriculture was established by President Abraham Lincoln who called it the "people's department." That same year Congress passed the Morrill Act that provided grants of federal land to the states. The states were to use the proceeds of land sales to create colleges focused on agricultural studies (that’s how many colleges got the initials A&M tagged to their name).

In 1900 There were 11 million Americans employed on farms and 2,900 employed by the USDA. A century later there were 3 million employed on farms and 105,000 employed by the USDA. The following are a few of the more significant events on the timeline of the USDA:

The timeline for the USDA is quite detailed in a report by the CATO Institute and can be viewed by clicking here. I reading the timeline you will see how the USDA morphed from a governmental department that had a defined mission of assisting farmers into a massive bureaucracy that issues subsides, insurance, regulates farm lands, provides school lunches and distributes food stamps to 49 million Americans. The food stamp program is no doubt one of the larger wealth redistribution scams in the United States.

According to the CATO Institute:

“The largest portion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget consists of food subsidies, not farm subsidies. Food subsidies will cost taxpayers $79 billion in fiscal 2009 and account for about two-thirds of USDA’s budget. The largest food subsidy programs are food stamps; the school breakfast and lunch programs; and the women, infants, and children (WIC) program. The federal government as a whole has about 26 food and nutrition programs operated by six different agencies.

The USDA’s food subsidy programs developed out of the need to dispose of farm production deemed surplus under commodity price support programs. Today, food subsidy programs are supported by farm interests, anti-poverty groups, and organizations of state and local program administrators. Farm and food subsidy programs provide both rural and urban legislators reasons to vote for increased USDA funding.

Farm and food subsidies make political sense, but they don’t make economic sense. Farm policies that increase commodity prices harm the lower-income families that food subsidy programs are supposed to help. For example, federal dairy policies raise the price of milk, which works against the goals of the school lunch and food stamp programs. The solution is to repeal both farm and food subsidies, and allow open market competition to cut food prices for all families.

Food subsidy programs were designed to aid lower-income families, but the situation of those families has changed dramatically since the programs were instituted. The problem of insufficient calories for children in past decades has been replaced by growing obesity problems.2 Also, as the U.S. economy has grown, the incidence of poverty and hunger has declined. Despite those trends, food subsidy programs are serving more recipients and continue to increase in cost.”

The USDA is responsible for five egregious programs; Agricultural Subsides, Regulations and Trade Barriers, Rural Subsides, Food Subsides and The Forest Service. Each of these programs is detailed in the CATO Institute report.

All agricultural and rural subsidies in the Department of Agriculture’s budget should be abolished to save taxpayers more than $30 billion annually. In addition, agricultural trade barriers should be repealed. Current agricultural and rural policies are economically and environmentally damaging, and they create unfair transfers of wealth.

The department's food subsidy activities—food stamps, school lunches, and WIC—are properly local and private functions. They should be devolved to the states, with each state determining appropriate policies for its own residents. Such reforms would save federal taxpayers about $98 billion annually. Some states may decide to fund food subsidies on their own, but competition between the states would likely result in smaller, more innovative programs.

Forest Service subsidies to state governments and private businesses should be ended. Congress should also explore options to transfer the national forests to the states or to new independent trusts that would be self-funded from forest-related receipts.

According to the CATO Institute these reforms would eliminate more than 90 percent of the USDA’s budget, saving federal taxpayers $131 billion annually, or about $1,100 per U.S. household. Under the proposal, the USDA would retain responsibility for animal and plant health inspections, food safety, grain and packing inspections, and conservation activities. Any responsibility retained by the federal government for conservation and forest management and protection not transferred to the states should be moved to the Department of the Interior. The activities related to food safety and packaging could be transferred to the Department of Commerce.

The savings from eliminating the Department of Education and USDA would amount to 238 billion and eliminate 109,400 federal jobs with their unfunded liabilities for pensions and health care.

The Alinsky Tomato

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." — Adam Smith

Did you ever wonder why you can’t get a good old fashioned ripe tomato at your local super market? Well, it’s because most tomatoes sold in super markets are grown in hot houses or in Mexico. Many times they are picked when they are not quite ripe and then pit in trucks and driven to the regional wholesaler while they ripen in the back of the truck.

So if you want a good tomato you have to go to a roadside stand, where hopefully the tomatoes are grown and picked when ripe, or a specialty store like Trader Joe’s. But wait a minute, the progressive lefties don’t like Trader Joes anymore because they blame poor old Trader Joe’s for the plight of the farm worker — many of them probably illegal immigrants. They want the Trader to raise the price of their tomatoes so the farm workers will make more money. In this way the consumer can subsidize the farm workers.

So with this in mind young wild eyed Alinsky radicals with the stingy hair, unkempt beards and wire frame glasses decided to pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it, just as good ole Saul advised them to do in book “Rules for Radicals”, Obama’s Bible. The target they picked was Trader Joes in Florida.

The topic of the protest is itself of little interest — something about forcing retailers to raise food prices in order to subsidize a wage hike for farmworkers in Florida.

Nor is it a significant news event; just another random protest on a random day on a random issue.

No, what makes it interesting is that it illustrates, in a perfect, encapsulated miniature way, the bullying and public-shaming tactics advocated by Saul Alinsky in his book Rules for Radicals. It’s obvious these young radicals have read their Alinsky well.

Let’s just say (I know this is a stretch — just stay with me on this for the sake of argument) that you were deeply upset that farmworkers in Florida voluntarily choose to work picking tomatoes for wages that you think are awfully low. For purely altruistic reasons, you’d like them all to get a raise. You complain to the growers, but they say that the income they get from selling tomatoes at low wholesale prices, plus high shipping costs and so forth, make it completely unfeasible to pay farmworkers higher

So: What do you do? How to solve the perceived problem?

Well, according to Alinsky, what you do is find a visible target, especially one that is sensitive about its reputation, and then savagely attack them in public, bullying them and shaming them so that they cave in to your demands just to make you go away.

If you can’t attack the people or group directly responsible for the problem, then attack a secondary target anyway, so that the secondary target will out of fear solve your problem for you — again, just to make you shut up and go away.

So, in this case, the altruistic Alinskyites came up with a solution: Go to produce retailers, and demand that they raise their tomato prices, so that they could then take that extra money from the customers and use it to voluntarily pay more per pound to the tomato growers, who would then take that extra money and give it to the farmworkers.

Which is an interesting approach: instead of just focusing on one aspect of the problem, follow the chain of money all the way back to the consumer, and try to micromanage the economic flow so that money is taken out of consumers’ pockets and eventually through several intervening steps is put into the farmworkers’ pockets. Sort of the opposite of free-market capitalism, but in miniature: let’s just call it boutique redistribution.

But how to make all the parties involved comply with your demands? Well, that’s where Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals comes in: Public humiliation.

The protesters in this case decided to target Trader Joe’s, the natural-foods supermarket chain. (Try to ignore the inconvenient fact that very few of Trader Joe’s tomatoes even come from Florida; the altruists didn’t do their homework on this particular aspect, but we can forgive them, because their hearts are in the right place.) Having decided on a target, the goal would be to then threaten Trader Joe’s public image until they cave in, to save face.

In this instance, the protesters’ strategy was to set up a picket line outside a Trader Joe’s in San Francisco on Sunday, and accuse the company of basically enslaving abused farmworkers to boost corporate profits. “End Sweatshops in the Fields!” say the signs. “We Demand Food Justice!” “Modern Day Slavery.” You know the drill.

The theory goes that Trader Joe’s will cave in to the demands (however bizarre and irrelevant they may be) because having a picket line in front of your store is bad for business, and bad for public relations. It costs less for the company to just pay extra for a couple of damn tomatoes than they would lose by allowing a picket line to drive away customers.

If you think this strategy could never work, think again: The same tactic already worked against Whole Foods Market, another natural food supermarket chain that is hypersensitive about its reputation for “social justice.” After earlier and similar protests, Whole Foods caved in and voluntarily paid extra for their wholesale tomatoes (and undoubtedly raised retail prices to make up the difference, which is one reason why Whole Foods has such expensive produce).

Now we move on to Stage Two of the Trader Joe’s protest, a sophisticated elaboration of Alinskyite tactics that even Alinsky himself didn’t envision. Since this protest is not a naturally occurring public uprising, but rather a planned maneuver by a clique of activists, one must generate one’s own media coverage, since it’s unlikely that any news outlet will deem your stunt worth covering.

So as part of the protest, you bring along your own photographer to immortalize Trader Joe’s public humiliation. But how to make it seem “important,” a historically significant protest that will be remembered for generations? Simple! Just switch the digital camera to “black-and-white” mode, so the images look like historical artifacts from the protest glory days of the ’60s and ’70s! Ah, those old black-and-white pictures of Cesar Chavez trying to unionize the farmworkers, these images are imprinted indelibly on the public consciousness. So we can replicate that importance and glory by making the pictures of our protest also be black-and-white. Instant gravitas!

Study question: Should we dismiss these Alinskyites as sanctimonious irrelevant buffoons, or are they successfully eroding the economy one penny-per-pound at a time, so that eventually a million micromanaged economic transactions will reach the tipping point into a completely controlled economy (which, after all, is their real goal)? Or perhaps we need to grow our own tomatoes.

Sadly retailers like Whole foods and Trader Joes are getting a taste of their own medicine. Let’s face it there are problems in the world, yes, but we are in pretty good shape, especially compared to the rest of the world and their problems. However, progressive activists need enemies, they need to protest, and it’s like a drug to them. In the face of no real ‘oppression’ they will create it, turn on their own and cannibalize them in order to fulfill the need. That’s the problem with ‘social justice’ over equal justice. There can be (and is fully explained in Marx and Alinsky) only 2 flavors, the oppressed and the oppressor, or as Bastiat said; the plunder and the plundered.

The free market will dictate how much people will pay for tomatoes, apples, oranges, TV sets, cars and iPads. When, in the name of social justice or union protectionism, producers will simply grow their tomatoes and make their cars somewhere else and the consumer will not be able to get a red, ripe beefsteak tomato.

This Day in History–May 11, 1934

On this day in 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.

At the time the Great Plains were settled in the mid-1800s, the land was covered by prairie grass, which held moisture in the earth and kept most of the soil from blowing away even during dry spells. By the early 20th century, however, farmers had plowed under much of the grass to create fields. The U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 caused a great need for wheat, and farms began to push their fields to the limit, plowing under more and more grassland with the newly invented tractor. The plowing continued after the war, when the introduction of even more powerful gasoline tractors sped up the process. During the 1920s, wheat production increased by 300 percent, causing a glut in the market by 1931.

That year, a severe drought spread across the region. As crops died, wind began to carry dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed lands. The number of dust storms reported jumped from 14 in 1932 to 28 in 1933. The following year, the storms decreased in frequency but increased in intensity, culminating in the most severe storm yet in May 1934. Over a period of two days, high-level winds caught and carried some 350 million tons of silt all the way from the northern Great Plains to the eastern seaboard. According to The New York Times, dust "lodged itself in the eyes and throats of weeping and coughing New Yorkers," and even ships some 300 miles offshore saw dust collect on their decks.

The dust storms forced thousands of families from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico to uproot and migrate to California, where they were derisively known as "Okies"--no matter which state they were from. These transplants found life out West not much easier than what they had left, as work was scarce and pay meager during the worst years of the Great Depression.

Another massive storm on April 15, 1935--known as "Black Sunday"--brought even more attention to the desperate situation in the Great Plains region, which reporter Robert Geiger called the "Dust Bowl." That year, as part of its New Deal program, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration began to enforce federal regulation of farming methods, including crop rotation, grass-seeding and new plowing methods. This worked to a point, reducing dust storms by up to 65 percent, but only the end of the drought in the fall of 1939 would truly bring relief.

You can read more by clicking here