Lobby Day in Missouri

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Today was “lobby day” for the Missouri Rural Crisis Center. The capitol was packed with citizens working for one issue or another. Lots of farmers came with our group and another group of dairy farm supporters appeared. There were also a good number of folks from the faith community working on Medicaid expansion, a larger-than-usual contingent of motorcycle riders, but I don’t know what they were working on. Our farmers seemed to have good luck talking to the Senate. As I listened to the reports from the various little teams, I heard more optimism than usual. Senators and staff were all ready to talk, and they understood how bad the bills—especially HJR 7 and 11—were. We were joking—but it’s not really funny—that if HJR 7 &11 passes, a corporation could put a Confined Animal Feeding Operation with hogs or turkeys in the middle of St. Louis. Or, funnier still, in the neighborhoods like Clayton and Ladue where the big Monsanto execs live. There’s a big dead zone in St. Louis where the auto plants have moved out and the sites leveled, a big brown zone, and it would be perfect for a bunch of stinky hogs. Talk about your urban agriculture! Anyway, it was a good day and we’ll see what happens. March 12, 2013.

Dairy: the most fragile agriculture of all

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Sad news today. Another dairy processor, in Monett, has announced they’re shutting down. They can’t get enough milk to keep the plant going, because farmers have stopped keeping cows. I had a talk with Dave Drennon, Missouri’s dairy industry scorekeeper, and he says our state was #2 in the nation in numbers of cows back in the late 1970s. The city of Springfield was nicknamed “little Madison” after the Wisconsin capital. Our location was perfect for dairy—lots of grain in the north part of the state and pasture in the south. Now the grain is going to make ethanol for cars instead of milk for people. We’re #25 and falling. We “import” 60% of the milk we use in the state. We’ve laid off hundreds of thousands of workers in the dairy business, from farmers to processors to veterinarians to builders and fixers of equipment. All of those workers did business in their local communities, so every layoff has a ripple effect. Tomorrow at noon, the University is to make a report to the legislature on the economic impact of losing dairy farms. I hope they pay attention. That’s enough for today. March 11, 2013.

Kurt Schaefer's legacy

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: In the last week, Columbia’s representative Kurt Schaefer has met with several constituents from his district. Folks from the environmental community, health community, rural life and faith communities have all had the same experience: Kurt has been well, curt. Meaning abrupt, brisk, brusque, rude. Some folks have called him “belligerent” and “confrontational.” One friends told me, “I’m so glad you weren’t there, Margot.” Although I’ve been in lawmaker offices where the rep or sen was out-of-control, the descriptions I’m hearing, and not just about Kurt, are truly appalling. It indicates the level of pressure these guys are under. The pressure between what they’ve promised their funders, like the Farm Bureau, Monsanto, Cargill and other corporations and their own personal own moral codes about what is right for the future. After all, these lawmakers have families and friends who will be affected forever. When these political gangs dismantle environmental regulations and allow more pollution to affect our burdened waterways and air, their families will pay with increased amounts of water-borne diseases, asthma, and other unpleasantness. If they disallow the health initiatives like Medicaid that would create a healthier future for our children, their families will pay with higher costs, more health problems and mental health problems. We will soon see, because of past policies, epidemics that no one can cure. And these guys know how to fix the problems by building policies to take us into the future. They know that they’re standing in the way of solutions. They know that their corporate funders are putting dirty money into campaigns by manipulating tax codes. They know that if government puts resources into creating energy-saving devices and alternative energy sources, they can build a safe future and turn back some of the problems we’re seeing. It is sad to see lawmakers under so much stress. That’s all for today. Happy Daylight Savings!!

Chillicothe--more than sliced bread

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Something amazing has happened! On Sunday, the New York Times Magazine ran an article that actually mentioned Missouri. Chillicothe, Missouri, the home of sliced bread. This mention is amazing on so many levels I hardly know where to start. Well, for one thing, it was about Missouri. And, for another thing, it never mentioned Mark Twain or Harry Truman. See, the Midwest never gets attention from what we might call the coastal media. When we do, it’s the snarky kind, like about cow tipping or guys named Bubba. So, hey, we’ll take any sliced-bread mention when we can get it. The article says that Catherine Stortz Ripley is working on a local-history book about Chillicothe and stumbled on the sliced bread story. Good work, Catherine! I hope she also stumbles on the 1986 farmers strike that brought attention to Chillicothe and changed the laws on foreclosure against farmers. I wrote about it a lot in 2011, the 25th anniversary of the event. Here’s a little from my interview with Roger Allison: “Roger explained that, in the 1980s, farmers were trying to understand how they could be working so hard and still going broke. Groups were springing up all over the Midwest, including right-wing groups that spread a message of violence and hate. With the economy breaking down, families losing their farms, bad weather and prices out of their control, farmers were looking for someone to blame. “The first target was the banking system. After all, everyone knew that bankers were tied to the commodity market and the commodity market sets prices. And prices were the problem. When prices for farm goods are low, a farmer’s income doesn’t pay for the cost of planting. That means the farmer can’t pay the loan he got for his business. That means he carries the debt to the next year. A few years of carrying debt means a debt that can’t be paid off. Foreclosure. “Targeting the banking system was dangerously close to targeting urban folks, especially urban Jews. There are, you see, very few Jewish people in the countryside. Indeed, neo-Nazi groups had sprung up in rural America, complete with uniforms, guns and marches. People were getting magazines from them, addressed “occupant,” and spreading a message of hate. Yet the Chillicothe farmers, although they might not have said it in just this way, were focused on a mission of peaceful resistance. There were even Jewish leaders from Kansas City that joined the fight.” It’s a pretty great story, and there’s a lot about it in my book, Farming Food and Politics in the Heartland, available from Amazon and as an e-book. Well, that’s enough for today. March 5, 2013.

Missouri HJR 7 & 11

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: When I talk to my friends that study social movements, we agree that it takes about 3 generations to make positive change. The first generation identifies the social stupidity (like keeping certain groups from voting, or like allowing pollution to kill entire species, or keeping certain groups from enjoying privileges) and then it takes a generation to ignore what the first generation is saying and then it takes a generation to fix the problem. So we eventually get universal suffrage or DDT bans or gay marriage. The problem is that some stupidity can’t be fixed in any easy way after it takes hold. That’s the problem with factory farms and biotech seeds. Centuries of knowledge, wiped out in a generation. Reclaiming it is hard. And especially, in today’s consumer society, if it’s masked in the cloaks of convenience and technology. Today we’re fighting truly horrible Missouri resolutions that would erase decades of progress. HJR 7 & 11 has passed the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate. If it passes, it would strip local control from Missouri counties and elected officials so that they could not keep corporate agriculture out of their counties. No county could create biotech-free zones or keep CAFOs at a distance. It would make a constitutional amendment that would keep DNR from enforcing pollution controls. HJR 7&11 states: “No state law shall be enacted which abridges the right of farmers and ranchers to employ agricultural technology and modern livestock production and ranching practices, unless enacted by the General Assembly.” That’s enough for today. March 4, 2013.

A suffragist anniversary

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: March 3, 2013. Today, let it be noted, is the 100th anniversary of the biggest suffrage march in Washington D.C. Organized by Harriott Blatch, who was back from England where suffrage protests had become violent, our suffragists were orderly, polite, but focused and firm. At the head of the parade, which was like a pageant, rode Inez Mulholland, a beautiful debutant from New York. It’s hard to tell from the photos whether Inez rode astride or side saddle. At the time, riding astride was coming into fashion for defiant women, but Inez would probably have been accomplished enough to ride either way. Joan of Arc was in vogue, with stories about her by Mark Twain and others in print. She, in armor, would have ridden astride. Nobody is celebrating this anniversary, but I’m attaching a photo of Inez so you can think about it. She looks like an art nouveau drawing, whether she’s astride or side saddle. She died at a young age because there were heavy metals in the makeup she was using. A sad irony.

Sequestration and solitary confinement

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: This is the big documentary film festival weekend in Columbia, the True/False festival and the thermometer is stubbornly staying at 32 degrees so that when I put my Ford 150 in gear all that happens is the wheels spin. Yesterday, the temperature rose a little so I rode with Marshall to town and I got to see the grandkids, in from sunny California for the festival. James and I built a hospital ship out of leggos, his cousin’s leggos as he reminded me frequently. So we were very careful not to lose any. We got the ship built and rescued three sick Leggo people—one with malaria, one with what James called “infinity diarrhea” and one with hypertension. Since we were out of people, having only three, we had to build a robot doctor. Fortunately, we had barrels of medicines on the ship and cured the malaria quickly. The diarrhea case was a little more tricky, since the medication made him cough. Not a good outcome for someone with diarrhea. We were lucky, though, and found the right pills to get it under control. The Leggo guy with hypertension was also in handcuffs. Did you know they make handcuffs for leggo characters? Do you find that outrageous? Since I’ve spent much of the snowstorm in my cozy bedroom working on an essay about women in the prison system, to accompany the memoir of a prison superintendent, I find it insane that our society will buy for plastic handcuffs for child play. Should we next begin telling them to build isolation cells from Leggos for plastic dolls in solitary confinement? It ain’t normal, folks. Solitary confinement, which visiting experts found in a Missouri reform school, was deemed inhumane in the 1920s and had a resurgence in the 1930s. Again, the experts discouraged it but even enlightened superintendents and wardens have used it all along, even though there are barrels of medicine available that supposedly control people. With this year’s budget “sequestration,” which sounds sort of like putting money in solitary confinement, we’re going to hear a lot about isolation, confinement, shackles on our most cantankerous folks. With no money for education, medications or any kind of reward system for good behavior, it will not be surprising if officials are driven to medieval systems of treatment. Budget cuts for federal employees? Let’s start with Congress and the President. Judges, too. One of my dairy friends, living on credit cards, figured out that if milk prices had risen like government salaries, milk would cost $25 a gallon.