That is, as I see it, the real question. I've argued in past posts that it is best for more people to own land, but how exactly do we get that? Whose rights come first -- my right to own five acres, or my great-grandparents' right to sell away the family farm? (Hypothetically. I don't know when the last time was that anyone in my family owned land. Even in the old country (England) they ran a drugstore.)
The average American thinks of property rights as a very simple matter. You get a job, save up enough money to buy land, and once you've done so, it's yours. If the seller wants to sell and the buyer wants to buy, the property changes hands and everyone is happy. Once you own it, you can do what you want with it.
However, other traditions have different understandings of property rights. In some places -- and in America before the colonists showed up -- it was not considered possible to own land. You simply used it, and cultural standards dictated what you could and couldn't use it for. There are regions in Africa where three different tribes share the same spot of land: farmers during the growing season, pastoralists in the dry season, and fishermen in the flood season. There are ancient agreements about who uses it when and how to make sure it's not spoiled for the other users.
Of course there are problems when these two worldviews collide. The colonists to America "bought" tracts of land from the Indians -- who thought it was funny that these silly white people gave them all these beads just for the right to hunt on their land. When the colonists cut down the trees, laid fences, and started plowing, the Indians were understandably annoyed. The same happens today when pastoralists find themselves fenced out of their traditional grazing land because the government gave that land to farmers.
So, despite what anarcho-capitalists say, I don't think property rights are a matter of simple fairness. If you try to govern everything by the non-aggression principle (no one may aggress against another's person or property) you have to define "property," and there is no simple answer. Is it my property if I own it, but don't use it? Is it my property if I have farmed it for fifty years but I don't own a deed? Is it my property if I bought it from someone who didn't know they were selling it? Is it my property if my ancestors had it stolen from them by your ancestors?
Even the word "fair" has different definitions to different people. A liberal will generally agree that it is unfair for Bob to have ten dollars and Joe to have ten million dollars. If Bob is starving and Joe can help, it's unfair for him not to. (And the Catholic Church would agree with that.) A conservative will say that if Joe has ten million dollars which he has earned legally, it is unfair to take a red cent of it and give it to Bob. (Oddly, I think there is a Catholic argument for this too.)
Perhaps they both are right. Perhaps your opinion on fairness just comes down to whether or not you were forced to "share" at playgroup when you were two. (That could be a whole different conversation!)
But rather than think of what is fair, perhaps we could ask, what would have the best results? How can we ensure that all people have access to the goods the earth provides -- food, water, raw materials? Because without this access, we don't have the ability to work for our own living. To work, you have to have something to work on. Being reliant on a corporation's willingness to give you something to work on and pay you fairly leaves you vulnerable.
I keep tossing around ideas in my mind. What if we had a law that land couldn't be sold, only rented? Each person had their own plot and if they didn't want to farm it, someone else would have to pay them to farm it .... and they could get it back whenever they wanted? But what happens when they die ... could they still will it away? Would it have to be to their sons, or could they will it to someone else? Could they will it to ConAgra, in return for a cozy retirement? Hmmm. Anyway, is it fair to restrict what someone can do with their own land?
Or what if there was a law that no one could own more than, say, 100 acres? Or 1000 acres? The sort of land it was, and what they were growing, would make a big difference here. But this way people could have the right to own land or not own land, but corporations would still have to rent land if they wanted to go big ... thus putting small owners at an advantage.
And yet both of these two solutions raise another problem: we are not starting from zero. We are not starting with x number of people, y number of acres, let's divvy it up. We are starting with land owned by a vast number of people and corporations, some of which was unjustly taken from the people who had it before. Wouldn't it be just to give it all back to the Indians?
And yet the world's population has grown much too big by this point to be sustained by hunter-gatherer lifestyles or by pastoralism. We rely on farming to live. It seems unfair to let hunter-gatherers have 10,000 acres apiece (which they would need to sustain themselves), while farmers could make much more food with less. But on the other hand, it is also unfair to take land from pastoralists or hunters who are using it and have used it for generations and hand it to farmers.
If I were the queen of my own little island, and all the land were mine, I'd let people have plots of it to farm and I would make laws that helped individuals own the plots rather than allow megacorporations to gobble all of it up -- even by buying it at the market price. That's how you can tell I'm not really a true believer in the free market.
However, in a country like ours, where already so much of the land is owned by so few, the sort of land revolution that splits up the land more equitably seems unjust. Isn't it just stealing from the rich to give to the poor? And in every country that has done this, sooner or later the land gets concentrated in the hands of the few all over again.
I think we have to accept that those who currently have land, have the right to keep it. That does not mean they have the right to laws that make it easy for them. I believe the law should favor the individual over the corporation, and put the poor on at least an even footing with the rich. Why else do we have law, but to keep the weak from being overpowered by the strong?
In another post, I'll talk about some laws that favor individuals, and some laws which we have today which cripple individuals so that corporations can flourish. It does seem clear to me that there is no such thing as an ideal system; you can never make a system so perfect that there will be no need for individuals to choose to do the right thing. There is also no system that everyone will agree is completely fair. But I do think there are laws that can help -- and quite a few that can hurt.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Agrarianism is for the poor
Awhile ago, I read on a Catholic blog the comment that "luxuries" like Catholic agrarianism are the province of the rich.
At first it boggled my mind. The whole point of agrarianism, as I see it, is that you shouldn't have to be rich. Then I remembered the sort of agrarians and distributists I knew at Christendom. They were aware of Catholic social teaching stating that property ownership ought to be as broad as possible, but there was quite a bit of fuzziness as to why. I joined the Distributist Club for a bit, but we mostly muddled about trying to define property. People seemed rather hazy as to what we were aiming for at all. I don't remember the poor ever being mentioned. And the more agrarian professors seemed mainly to be Luddites, griping over wristwatches and email, but it seemed clear enough to me that if they were in the employ of a college for their livelihood, they did not "own the means of production" in any of the senses we were talking about.
I recently read The Church and the Land, by Fr. Vincent McNabb. It's a fine bunch of diatribes, though not very specific on social programs. (Belloc is better for that.) The introduction was written by a favorite professor of mine, who taught me Latin and had the most acerbic wit I think I've ever encountered. For all I loved his class, I felt his introduction focused on all the wrong things. He points out that things have changed a lot since the early 20th century when McNabb wrote, and that some say distributism isn't needed anymore.
It is, he says, but not for the reasons I think of. He talks about modern ease, comfort, commercialism, microwave dinners, and points out the loss of women's crafts, men's opportunity for physical toil, and family dinners.
Sure. Fine. I hate Wal-Mart too. But I don't feel that women and men have to be bound into gender-specific jobs in order to be agrarian, and I don't think you have to be agrarian to have dinner together as a family.
The central tenet of distributism is this: as many people as possible should be able to own property -- defined usually as a farm or business. Not that we should shun technology. Not that women should cook and men should chop wood. Not that families should have dinner together. These things may be good or bad, but they have no real bearing on distributism as such.
And it seems to me talking about air-conditioning and SUV's and microwave dinners is ignoring the real problems of our world today -- the fact that many still are poor. Poor not only in the sense of not having enough to eat or wear, but also in the sense of having very little control over their lives. Knowing that a single pink slip stands between your family and ruin. Knowing that if you are poor enough, you will have to go on welfare to feed your family. Knowing that once you do, the government has you on a string just like your employer used to.
And that's only in this country. The professor does mention, to his credit, that American prosperity is predicated on the exploitation of other countries. We no longer have smoke-belching, unsafe factories, not because we have made the factories safe, but because we have moved them elsewhere. All the poverty of England in the 19th century exists in Asia or Africa in the 21st. Capitalism has generated wealth, but it has not eliminated poverty. Neither have communism or socialism been able to do the same.
That poverty is inescapable without property ownership is clear from one example: the minimum wage. The liberal view is this: A man can't live on $7 an hour at McDonalds. We have to raise the minimum wage to $10. To which the conservative responds: If we raised the minimum wage to $10, McDonalds still wouldn't pay the man $10. It will fire him and buy an automatic burger-flipping machine.
The same in the third world. The liberal cries, "This factory is cruel, it forces women and children to work in unsafe conditions for two dollars a day!" The conservative responds, "But if you close the factory, they will be even worse off. They wouldn't be working there if they didn't desperately need that two dollars a day."
They're both right, absolutely right, and that's the trouble. When a man has nothing to live off of but a hope that a corporation will find him "worth" an amount large enough to pay for food and shelter, he is perpetually at risk for exploitation. And if he refuses to work for the amount offered, he can't bargain the price up -- some other person more desperate will take the wages. It's happening all over the market right now. If you aren't willing to do work you're overqualified for, and put in extra hours for free, and accept a smaller paycheck and fewer benefits than you used to have -- well, there are people who are willing to do it, and they will have a job and you will have none. No one has any bargaining power, because they all need to live.
But we are in this weak position because we are landless. We cannot live without employment -- without convincing someone else we are "worth" a certain amount. If we all had land, if we had a choice to live off that land or get a job in town, companies would have to offer a living wage if they wanted any workers at all.
A lot of capitalists are adamantly pro-business. If the businesses prosper, we all will prosper. Give businesses as many advantages as we can. They don't seem to realize that if large corporations hold all the land, all the natural resources, all the capital, and all the machines, everyone else -- "the 99%," or the peasantry, as I like to call us -- have very little clout when it comes to opposing them.
Want proof? Since 2008, what we call the recovery really only happened to the owners in society. The income of the top 1% rebounded by 30% -- up to pre-recession levels. The income of the rest of us rebounded by 1% -- less than inflation. Of course there are many reasons for this, corporate bailouts being one. But I also wonder if the recession wasn't just a convenient way to cut pay. Since unemployment is high, people will work harder for less, and there was no reason to pass on the extra money to employees, so long as all the other employers were paying less too. Certainly that has happened with John's job -- unless you have a competing job offer in hand (and here in the boonies, you're not likely to), you aren't going to get a raise.
Since the seventies, workers have produced 80% more in the same amount of time -- but wages have only risen 10%. If minimum wage increased with higher productivity, it would be $21.72! In other words, workers are working hard, producing lots of profit for their employers, but they are not sharing in the rewards. In fact, it seems unlikely to me that they ever would share in the rewards, since workers don't set their salaries. Those are worked out through supply and demand, so if you're unlucky enough to have a common skillset, your wages will be low no matter how hard you work. It's only when you own your own business or farm that your increased productivity will result in a direct advantage to yourself.
Now, not everyone wants to work for themselves. Some people would rather punch a clock and go home at the end of the day. I don't think everyone needs to own property. But the important thing is that property ownership (or, by extension, self-employment) should be within reach. Prosperity can't be built on a shaky foundation of unstable agricultural policy -- and economic freedom doesn't exist where all the land is owned by a few.
This raises an even harder question: what to do when the land is owned by a few and property ownership is so difficult to obtain. If I knew the answer to this, we'd own some already! But my next post will give some thought to that topic.
At first it boggled my mind. The whole point of agrarianism, as I see it, is that you shouldn't have to be rich. Then I remembered the sort of agrarians and distributists I knew at Christendom. They were aware of Catholic social teaching stating that property ownership ought to be as broad as possible, but there was quite a bit of fuzziness as to why. I joined the Distributist Club for a bit, but we mostly muddled about trying to define property. People seemed rather hazy as to what we were aiming for at all. I don't remember the poor ever being mentioned. And the more agrarian professors seemed mainly to be Luddites, griping over wristwatches and email, but it seemed clear enough to me that if they were in the employ of a college for their livelihood, they did not "own the means of production" in any of the senses we were talking about.
I recently read The Church and the Land, by Fr. Vincent McNabb. It's a fine bunch of diatribes, though not very specific on social programs. (Belloc is better for that.) The introduction was written by a favorite professor of mine, who taught me Latin and had the most acerbic wit I think I've ever encountered. For all I loved his class, I felt his introduction focused on all the wrong things. He points out that things have changed a lot since the early 20th century when McNabb wrote, and that some say distributism isn't needed anymore.
It is, he says, but not for the reasons I think of. He talks about modern ease, comfort, commercialism, microwave dinners, and points out the loss of women's crafts, men's opportunity for physical toil, and family dinners.
Sure. Fine. I hate Wal-Mart too. But I don't feel that women and men have to be bound into gender-specific jobs in order to be agrarian, and I don't think you have to be agrarian to have dinner together as a family.
The central tenet of distributism is this: as many people as possible should be able to own property -- defined usually as a farm or business. Not that we should shun technology. Not that women should cook and men should chop wood. Not that families should have dinner together. These things may be good or bad, but they have no real bearing on distributism as such.
And it seems to me talking about air-conditioning and SUV's and microwave dinners is ignoring the real problems of our world today -- the fact that many still are poor. Poor not only in the sense of not having enough to eat or wear, but also in the sense of having very little control over their lives. Knowing that a single pink slip stands between your family and ruin. Knowing that if you are poor enough, you will have to go on welfare to feed your family. Knowing that once you do, the government has you on a string just like your employer used to.
And that's only in this country. The professor does mention, to his credit, that American prosperity is predicated on the exploitation of other countries. We no longer have smoke-belching, unsafe factories, not because we have made the factories safe, but because we have moved them elsewhere. All the poverty of England in the 19th century exists in Asia or Africa in the 21st. Capitalism has generated wealth, but it has not eliminated poverty. Neither have communism or socialism been able to do the same.
That poverty is inescapable without property ownership is clear from one example: the minimum wage. The liberal view is this: A man can't live on $7 an hour at McDonalds. We have to raise the minimum wage to $10. To which the conservative responds: If we raised the minimum wage to $10, McDonalds still wouldn't pay the man $10. It will fire him and buy an automatic burger-flipping machine.
The same in the third world. The liberal cries, "This factory is cruel, it forces women and children to work in unsafe conditions for two dollars a day!" The conservative responds, "But if you close the factory, they will be even worse off. They wouldn't be working there if they didn't desperately need that two dollars a day."
They're both right, absolutely right, and that's the trouble. When a man has nothing to live off of but a hope that a corporation will find him "worth" an amount large enough to pay for food and shelter, he is perpetually at risk for exploitation. And if he refuses to work for the amount offered, he can't bargain the price up -- some other person more desperate will take the wages. It's happening all over the market right now. If you aren't willing to do work you're overqualified for, and put in extra hours for free, and accept a smaller paycheck and fewer benefits than you used to have -- well, there are people who are willing to do it, and they will have a job and you will have none. No one has any bargaining power, because they all need to live.
But we are in this weak position because we are landless. We cannot live without employment -- without convincing someone else we are "worth" a certain amount. If we all had land, if we had a choice to live off that land or get a job in town, companies would have to offer a living wage if they wanted any workers at all.
A lot of capitalists are adamantly pro-business. If the businesses prosper, we all will prosper. Give businesses as many advantages as we can. They don't seem to realize that if large corporations hold all the land, all the natural resources, all the capital, and all the machines, everyone else -- "the 99%," or the peasantry, as I like to call us -- have very little clout when it comes to opposing them.
Want proof? Since 2008, what we call the recovery really only happened to the owners in society. The income of the top 1% rebounded by 30% -- up to pre-recession levels. The income of the rest of us rebounded by 1% -- less than inflation. Of course there are many reasons for this, corporate bailouts being one. But I also wonder if the recession wasn't just a convenient way to cut pay. Since unemployment is high, people will work harder for less, and there was no reason to pass on the extra money to employees, so long as all the other employers were paying less too. Certainly that has happened with John's job -- unless you have a competing job offer in hand (and here in the boonies, you're not likely to), you aren't going to get a raise.
Since the seventies, workers have produced 80% more in the same amount of time -- but wages have only risen 10%. If minimum wage increased with higher productivity, it would be $21.72! In other words, workers are working hard, producing lots of profit for their employers, but they are not sharing in the rewards. In fact, it seems unlikely to me that they ever would share in the rewards, since workers don't set their salaries. Those are worked out through supply and demand, so if you're unlucky enough to have a common skillset, your wages will be low no matter how hard you work. It's only when you own your own business or farm that your increased productivity will result in a direct advantage to yourself.
Now, not everyone wants to work for themselves. Some people would rather punch a clock and go home at the end of the day. I don't think everyone needs to own property. But the important thing is that property ownership (or, by extension, self-employment) should be within reach. Prosperity can't be built on a shaky foundation of unstable agricultural policy -- and economic freedom doesn't exist where all the land is owned by a few.
This raises an even harder question: what to do when the land is owned by a few and property ownership is so difficult to obtain. If I knew the answer to this, we'd own some already! But my next post will give some thought to that topic.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Seven quick excuses
Excuses for why I never blog, that is ...
Normally I think it's a little presumptuous to apologize for not blogging. I mean, is it really such a suffering to be deprived of my writing for a few weeks? Maybe no one noticed. And if you've subscribed in a reader, you'll get my posts as I write them, so the old hassle of refreshing again and again for new content should be a thing of the past.
However. I started this post four Fridays ago. So perhaps excuses are in order.
The first excuse is that I'm feeling like a Luddite lately. So tired of the internet. The way it breeds debate without discussion, short attention spans, news selected for shock value, the echo chamber of only choosing to be friends with people we agree with, and of course the physical laziness of loafing around on the computer all day. There is so much beauty and love and excitement on my own street, why am I searching for it online?
Then that famous Louis CK clip about cellphones and this short story
pretty much finished the job. No more internetz for me!
Nah, I didn't give it up or anything. But I've been spending a lot less time online lately, and that is great for me. Not so great for this blog. Of course if I cut out the random poking around and replaced it with blogging, I wouldn't be behind, but content creation is work, while content consumption is play.
I've been replacing internet time with spinning time and OH MY GOODNESS I am so in love with spinning. It's absorbing without taking all my attention (I don't have the attention span to knit, I always lose count), it's done standing up so I feel more active and energetic, it's easy to catch the spindle while I run to get Michael off the kitchen counter, and wool is just so .... woolly .... mmmmm.
I think anyone who is into any kind of fiber craft will understand the addiction. How people buy yarn with no purpose in mind just because it's nice. How you might end up with bags full of roving or a million crochet projects on the hook at any given time. It's a sickness.
I think it's the fluffiness.
Anyway I got 12 ounces of Cormo (Corriedale/Merino cross) at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival last month and I have been going to town on it. It's so sooooooooft.
So then after that I discovered dyeing and WOW THE AWESOMENESS. Turns out you can do wool (not other fibers) with food coloring. I did some handpainting of yarn I'd spun this month and it was so fun. Marko helped, and we learned about how primary colors mix into secondary colors. He got a little lumpy ball of rainbow color, and I did the rest -- 150 yards of fingering weight, which is my month's work -- in sunset colors, inspired by the painted maple across the street from me.
Then I tried dyeing some wool blue and green, but the blue never took so it's mostly pale green and white with darker green streaks. Reminds me of green marble.
When I say 150 yards was a month's work, I don't mean I was spinning for hours a day. I teased the fleece by hand for about half an hour a day (I don't have carders, and it was rather sticky and matted too) and then spun for about 20 minutes before running out of teased locks.
Still, I have to up my pace, I think, if I ever want to make enough to do anything with. 150 yards is not a lot, at least not for knitting. Knitting uses bulkier yarn and more of it than weaving does -- which is why knitting got popular after the spinning wheel was invented. A spindle is great for making fine thread for weaving, but it is (usually) slower going.
You see where I'm going with this, right? I need a loom, obviously!
Meanwhile, I think I will have to start selling handspun on Etsy in order to fund my habit. I know there are people who read this blog who'd be interested in that.
This also appears to me one of those winters where we get ALL THE COLDS. Since September we have never all been well at once. Marko wakes himself coughing at night. Michael seems happy enough but he's a snot faucet. I've had sore throats and sore ears and general misery, and of course there are no sick days for mothers. (Though one day John was home early and made dinner; I would have kissed his feet if I could have crawled off the couch.)
I worry this is all my fault for not feeding my kids more nourishing food. But between our ever-tightening budget and their pickiness, I don't know what I can do about that.
Also, something I forget every year and remember on the first real blustery fall day, is that fall is migraine season for me. This is a shame for me because I love autumn. I love the weather, the colors, the briskness. I didn't mind that week of steady rain we had. But when the wind comes out of the north -- as it spends all fall and winter doing around here -- and everything is clear and cold, I get horrible, horrible headaches.
The pain centers behind my right eye. Then it travels down the side of my head, down my neck, and ends behind my right shoulder blade. I have no idea why that is. Going outside, standing up, sudden movements, and breathing hard all make it worse. Heat, rest, and avoiding sugar seem to help. Nothing puts an end to it, though, except a weather change.
This makes me rather useless for awhile. I loaf around and try to distract myself and watch the mess accumulate. I leap up from time to time and extricate the kids from trouble, and then I grab my head in agony because I had to get up. Or I sit on my butt and yell at them, and they ignore me because they know I don't care enough to get up.
Sigh. Today is overcast and moist and I feel fine. But I live in fear that the wind will turn and I'll be back to misery.
Also, I am worried sick about Obamacare. I haven't really been stressing about it until now; my feeling was that we'd just have to see how it affected us, but aren't we too poor to see much of a rate hike?
Eh, no such luck. As it is now, John and the kids are on his work plan, for about $500 a month. To add me on it would be another $500 a month, so I'm on my own very minimal plan for about $100 a month.
Well, of course, if you can afford your plan, you can't keep your plan, so that plan is being canceled and the only "replacement" offered is on the exchange, which we can't log into. But the estimates we can find offer to cover the whole family for $700 a month or so. That wouldn't be so terrible -- only $100 a month we don't have, to try to stretch our already threadbare budget to cover -- except the deductible is so high that we have to pray not to get sick just as hard as we would if we had no insurance at all. $4500 per person. That means, basically, every baby I had would cost $4500, if I was lucky enough to fit the whole pregnancy into one calendar year. Oh, and 35% after that. So, basically, we can't afford to have more kids. That's the only way I can figure it.
The one bright side I can find is that we are probably exempt from a tax penalty if we don't buy insurance. At least that's what the Kaiser website says:
Say a prayer, will ya? We've looked into a lot of options and none of them our good, but the best "out" I can find would be for John to get a job in his field at last, one that pays him a reasonable salary and/or provides decent health insurance.
Otherwise I might end up picking up a part time job. Because I'm afraid selling lotion and handspun yarn isn't going to cut it.
That's about it -- more quick takes here.
1
Normally I think it's a little presumptuous to apologize for not blogging. I mean, is it really such a suffering to be deprived of my writing for a few weeks? Maybe no one noticed. And if you've subscribed in a reader, you'll get my posts as I write them, so the old hassle of refreshing again and again for new content should be a thing of the past.
However. I started this post four Fridays ago. So perhaps excuses are in order.
2
The first excuse is that I'm feeling like a Luddite lately. So tired of the internet. The way it breeds debate without discussion, short attention spans, news selected for shock value, the echo chamber of only choosing to be friends with people we agree with, and of course the physical laziness of loafing around on the computer all day. There is so much beauty and love and excitement on my own street, why am I searching for it online?
Then that famous Louis CK clip about cellphones and this short story
pretty much finished the job. No more internetz for me!
Nah, I didn't give it up or anything. But I've been spending a lot less time online lately, and that is great for me. Not so great for this blog. Of course if I cut out the random poking around and replaced it with blogging, I wouldn't be behind, but content creation is work, while content consumption is play.
3
I've been replacing internet time with spinning time and OH MY GOODNESS I am so in love with spinning. It's absorbing without taking all my attention (I don't have the attention span to knit, I always lose count), it's done standing up so I feel more active and energetic, it's easy to catch the spindle while I run to get Michael off the kitchen counter, and wool is just so .... woolly .... mmmmm.
I think anyone who is into any kind of fiber craft will understand the addiction. How people buy yarn with no purpose in mind just because it's nice. How you might end up with bags full of roving or a million crochet projects on the hook at any given time. It's a sickness.
I think it's the fluffiness.
Anyway I got 12 ounces of Cormo (Corriedale/Merino cross) at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival last month and I have been going to town on it. It's so sooooooooft.
Marko needed a spindle too...
4
4
So then after that I discovered dyeing and WOW THE AWESOMENESS. Turns out you can do wool (not other fibers) with food coloring. I did some handpainting of yarn I'd spun this month and it was so fun. Marko helped, and we learned about how primary colors mix into secondary colors. He got a little lumpy ball of rainbow color, and I did the rest -- 150 yards of fingering weight, which is my month's work -- in sunset colors, inspired by the painted maple across the street from me.
Yes, it turned out super bright ... I'm okay with that.
Then I tried dyeing some wool blue and green, but the blue never took so it's mostly pale green and white with darker green streaks. Reminds me of green marble.
When I say 150 yards was a month's work, I don't mean I was spinning for hours a day. I teased the fleece by hand for about half an hour a day (I don't have carders, and it was rather sticky and matted too) and then spun for about 20 minutes before running out of teased locks.
Still, I have to up my pace, I think, if I ever want to make enough to do anything with. 150 yards is not a lot, at least not for knitting. Knitting uses bulkier yarn and more of it than weaving does -- which is why knitting got popular after the spinning wheel was invented. A spindle is great for making fine thread for weaving, but it is (usually) slower going.
You see where I'm going with this, right? I need a loom, obviously!
Meanwhile, I think I will have to start selling handspun on Etsy in order to fund my habit. I know there are people who read this blog who'd be interested in that.
5
This also appears to me one of those winters where we get ALL THE COLDS. Since September we have never all been well at once. Marko wakes himself coughing at night. Michael seems happy enough but he's a snot faucet. I've had sore throats and sore ears and general misery, and of course there are no sick days for mothers. (Though one day John was home early and made dinner; I would have kissed his feet if I could have crawled off the couch.)
I worry this is all my fault for not feeding my kids more nourishing food. But between our ever-tightening budget and their pickiness, I don't know what I can do about that.
6
Also, something I forget every year and remember on the first real blustery fall day, is that fall is migraine season for me. This is a shame for me because I love autumn. I love the weather, the colors, the briskness. I didn't mind that week of steady rain we had. But when the wind comes out of the north -- as it spends all fall and winter doing around here -- and everything is clear and cold, I get horrible, horrible headaches.
The pain centers behind my right eye. Then it travels down the side of my head, down my neck, and ends behind my right shoulder blade. I have no idea why that is. Going outside, standing up, sudden movements, and breathing hard all make it worse. Heat, rest, and avoiding sugar seem to help. Nothing puts an end to it, though, except a weather change.
This makes me rather useless for awhile. I loaf around and try to distract myself and watch the mess accumulate. I leap up from time to time and extricate the kids from trouble, and then I grab my head in agony because I had to get up. Or I sit on my butt and yell at them, and they ignore me because they know I don't care enough to get up.
They seem unfazed.
Sigh. Today is overcast and moist and I feel fine. But I live in fear that the wind will turn and I'll be back to misery.
7
Also, I am worried sick about Obamacare. I haven't really been stressing about it until now; my feeling was that we'd just have to see how it affected us, but aren't we too poor to see much of a rate hike?
Eh, no such luck. As it is now, John and the kids are on his work plan, for about $500 a month. To add me on it would be another $500 a month, so I'm on my own very minimal plan for about $100 a month.
Well, of course, if you can afford your plan, you can't keep your plan, so that plan is being canceled and the only "replacement" offered is on the exchange, which we can't log into. But the estimates we can find offer to cover the whole family for $700 a month or so. That wouldn't be so terrible -- only $100 a month we don't have, to try to stretch our already threadbare budget to cover -- except the deductible is so high that we have to pray not to get sick just as hard as we would if we had no insurance at all. $4500 per person. That means, basically, every baby I had would cost $4500, if I was lucky enough to fit the whole pregnancy into one calendar year. Oh, and 35% after that. So, basically, we can't afford to have more kids. That's the only way I can figure it.
The one bright side I can find is that we are probably exempt from a tax penalty if we don't buy insurance. At least that's what the Kaiser website says:
Well, ain't that lovely. We are free to take risks with our health and budget. I suppose that is something.
"Q: My employer offers health benefits to me and my family. The company pays the entire cost of my coverage but contributes nothing toward the cost of covering my family. We can’t afford to enroll my wife and kids. Can they get coverage and subsidies in the Marketplace instead?
A: You can always shop for health coverage in the Marketplace. However, your employer-provided coverage is considered “affordable.” That’s because the affordability of employer sponsored coverage is only measured with respect to self-only coverage. Because your employer pays the entire cost of the employee-only coverage, you are technically considered to have affordable coverage (even though practically speaking, it was unaffordable to you.) As a result, neither you nor your wife and children are eligible to apply for premium tax credits in the Marketplace.
There are a few other things you should know. First, depending on your family income, your children might qualify for the Children’s Health Insurance Program in your state. Check with your state Marketplace to find out if your children may be eligible for CHIP.
Second, because the amount you would have had to pay to actually cover your spouse and kids was more than 8% of your family income, they won’t be penalized for not having health coverage."
Say a prayer, will ya? We've looked into a lot of options and none of them our good, but the best "out" I can find would be for John to get a job in his field at last, one that pays him a reasonable salary and/or provides decent health insurance.
Otherwise I might end up picking up a part time job. Because I'm afraid selling lotion and handspun yarn isn't going to cut it.
That's about it -- more quick takes here.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
A better kind of lawn
There are about 40 million acres of lawns in America -- a number which grows every year. We use 800 million gallons of gas mowing those lawns, including the amount we accidentally slosh on the ground while filling our mowers: 17 million gallons, more than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez. The average American sprinkles 238 gallons of water on his lawn every year. About 71 million pounds of active ingredients of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and other chemicals are dumped on U.S. lawns each year, or about 7 percent of all pesticides used in the U.S. Homeowners use more pesticides than farmers -- in fact, ten times as many. Many of these pesticides are potentially toxic to humans, and pretty much all of them are harmful to the environment. We spend $30 billion every year maintaining our lawns; I have no idea how many hours, but it's a lot.
In America, we slaughter 33 million beef cattle every year. Some is exported, but most is consumed here, to the tune of $262 a year per capita. Though beef cows and their calves are raised on large ranches, 75% of beef cattle is fattened on feedlots before slaughter. Feedlots receive a lot of criticism for being inhumane (the cattle weren't meant to eat that much grain, to stand on bare ground instead of grass, or to have so little space to exercise) and for harming the environment with massive manure ponds.
If very carefully managed, one beef steer needs about an acre of irrigated pasture if it doesn't receive any supplemental grain. (Or so Gene Logsdon says in his books.) In addition, the same acre can be stocked with chickens which eat bugs out of the cow manure along with a provided grain ration.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
It seems to me you could fit those 33 million cattle on those 40 million acres of lawn with room to spare. The grass is already very intensively managed. People could continue watering, but skip out on mowing, weeding, and fertilizing. No chemicals at all will be needed in this scheme, and no petroleum.
I have knocked around a number of schemes in my head for this, considering that most families don't own enough land for one steer, and don't have the time or knowledge to be cattle wrangling either. What makes the most sense to me is for there to be a neighborhood cattle farmer who cares for a small herd and rotates them each day, or even twice a day, into a new yard. Frequent rotating through new pasture is the very best thing for the cattle and the pasture anyway.
Every couple of weeks you'd have your yard full of cattle for one day. Then a couple of days later the farmer would bring a mobile chicken coop through. The chickens would flip over and spread the cowpies, eat any parasites or fly larvae, and move on. The rest of the time you'd have an excellent yard for your barbecues and games of catch, with no mowing or fertilizing necessary.
I can't figure out -- since this system is so mutually beneficial -- who should pay whom. Should the farmer hire out his cattle as a lawnmowing service, or should he rent people's yards? Some fencing will also be required as a startup cost, and who pays for it? Well, you'd just have to let people try it and see. You could even run it as a co-op -- everyone pays for their own fencing and shares the purchase price of the calves, and everyone gets a cut of the beef at the end, in proportion to the size of their yard. The farmer gets an extra-big cut which he can sell for his own wage. The chickens are pure bonus -- you could do meat birds or laying hens, whatever you want, so there would be shares of chicken and eggs as well.
That's the sort of small-scale solution that wouldn't need to be done all at once. People who wanted to, could participate, and every person who did would be saving oil, money, erosion-prone farmland that's currently planted to corn for cattle feed, and the environment around where the feedlot used to be. Meanwhile you'd be getting pastured beef and free-range chicken, which we know are better for you, for far less cost in money and resources than what you could buy at the store. It's efficient in a way you never could practice on a large scale.
This wouldn't hamper anyone from having a fruit tree or two -- those would just provide shade for the cattle. The chickens would pick up any fruit rotting on the ground, so you wouldn't have to worry about that like I do with my plum tree. You could do your back yard in cattle and your front yard in vegetables. If you didn't want to deal with the farmer, you could have a couple pigs in your backyard all on your own, and ask your neighbors for their food scraps for them. There are any number of absolutely local, sustainable solutions for food production on land that is currently wasted.
And why are we not doing this?
Two reasons only. The first is cultural, though that's beginning to change. Some people just don't want cows in their backyard. (What is wrong with them, I wonder! I emphatically DO want cows in my backyard!) And the perfect manicured lawn is something of a status symbol.
The second reason is the government. First, they zone you residential, and then the next thing you know it's against the law to grow tomatoes instead of rhododendrons. Why the overreach? Pesky neighbors who think they have a right to decide what's in other people's yards based on appearance, and perhaps a little bit of fear of what can't be controlled. Our food system, after all, is a major industry which employs a lot of people and turns over billions of dollars a year. They have powerful lobbies and they care about beef a great deal more than you do.
However, the law isn't the same in all places, and I've heard of people renting out goats to mow people's lawns. For real. I hope this is a growing trend!
N.B. In the "everything I want to do is illegal" category, look at this gorgeous earth home. Then read how the government is ordering the family to bulldoze it. It makes me want to cry.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Are we at war?
I've been wanting to write this post for awhile. Every time I read another post about how we Catholics are At War With the World, I want to give an answer to that. But lately Pope Francis has made my response for me -- and been met with anger.
Here's what he said that got everyone so offended:
And no matter how you explain it, and parse it, and put it in context, that message shows a clear conflict with the attitude of conservative Catholics. Most conservative Catholics do see it as a battle. They are not interested in dialogue, or that worried about converting people. The battle isn't between God and the devil, it's between the "religious right" and the "gay lobby" and/or the culture of death. So they cheerily post article after article and meme after meme, many of which are extremely offensive to some people. (In particular, aborted baby photos. I'm as pro-life as anyone and I find those HIGHLY offensive.) And then when they get themselves unfriended, they say, "See, it really is a battle. There is no tolerance for my views. But I have to keep at it, even if it means martyrdom."
But there's a big difference between being unfriended and being martyred. The word martyr means witness -- by accepting death rather than deny Jesus, you witness to just how important He is. But if you're unfriended, the only thing that happens is that this person now lacks your positive witness in his life. If every time you open your mouth you drive people away, you are not evangelizing anyone. You'll soon be preaching to the choir with a sense of contentment at how fearless you are, how unafraid of offending anyone. This will make you feel good, but do no one any good.
I believe in every aspect of the Church's infallible moral teaching. However, I don't believe, as some do, that people can figure pretty much all of it out without reference to God, and so we can convince people of it simply by talking about the natural law. If you claim everyone secretly knows the truth in their conscience, you can justify demanding compliance out of everyone, but I have never known of one single person who gave up a life of sin and embraced one of moral rectitude without converting to some religion or other. Specifically, I've never heard of a homosexual who broke up with their partner and lived in celibacy for the rest of their life simply because a Catholic told them it was the natural law.
If it was all so simple, why has no one figured it out? Why did no one ever figure it out before Christ? Why is the Old Testament full of God giving commands and people getting into worse and worse trouble? We can't know the best way to live without reference to the one who made us. In fact, the best way to live has to include a relationship with the one who made us. Our lives will be lacking without that.
If we really love unbelievers, we'll want to bring them into the fullness of the joy that we have, which comes from a relationship with Christ. We follow the moral law out of our trust we have in God, knowing that he loves us and wouldn't ask us these things to make us unhappy, but rather for our benefit. Imposing the same rules on other people without bothering to introduce them to the reason is senseless. The only reason I can think of for it is the desire to avoid having to deal with things we disagree with. That's hardly a spiritual motive.
And how do we introduce people to Christ? Is it by lectures, sarcastic memes, and self-righteous rants? That approach isn't working; it's never worked. It has to be with kindness, with love, with openness. It has to come with listening to another person's stories and sharing our own. The Pope is right -- you can't lead with "you're a sinner." You have to lead with, "There is such a thing as goodness."
People say "the problem with the world today is that we have lost the sense of sin." I don't believe it. We have lost more than that -- the sense that there is any answer at all, that there is any universal standard, anything to which one could appeal. How do you give someone a sense of sin when they don't know there's anyone they have offended? You have to lead with God.
Because the fact is, everyone knows the Church is against abortion and birth control and homosexual acts. What they don't know is that we're not all a load of judgmental jerks who ONLY care about those three issues and no others. What kind of a conversation is it when you only focus on those issues on which you disagree? It makes more sense to talk first about common ground: about how Catholics, like other decent people, are opposed to slavery and poverty and injustice and unkindness. We could talk about how our moral code is based on profound respect for the human individual, that we don't exclude anyone from that respect, regardless of age or ability or color.
Overall I think this conversation is best had one on one; but insofar as Catholics-as-a-group are in dialogue with non-Catholics-as-a-group, the dialogue is going badly. All you need are to read any of the comments on an article about the Catholic Church in any secular paper. The Catholics shriek about being persecuted, misunderstood, etc., while condemning everyone else .... and the non-Catholics say that they would like to see Catholicism banned and wiped out entirely because the only things it stands for are judgment, domination, and sex abuse. This is not a dialogue. Does it have to be like this?
I read that famous gay-marriage article by Joseph Bottom -- yes, the whole thing, though this post is a good summary -- and I agree absolutely. Our "this is war, make no compromise" attitude has polarized the conversation to the point where conversation can barely happen at all. We won't stand for even civil unions because the second we do, it'll be a slippery slope and the next thing you know, the Gay Lobby will be hauling us off to prison for saying in church that we think homosexual activities are sinful. But they won't let us refuse to bake a cake with two grooms on it, because they know perfectly well that if they let Those Intolerant Christians have their way, next think they know we'll criminalize sodomy again and they'll all be hauled off to prison. There's no room for discussion in an atmosphere like that.
The narrative inside the Church is that Catholics, having the truth, will be good and those outside won't be as good. They like to compare, say, Padre Pio with Miley Cyrus and say, "See? Life in the Church -- Good. Life outside the Church -- Bad." But how does that leave room for the others .... that priest who seemed so holy and had such a following and molested all the altar boys? Or that lesbian couple with six foster children who would give you their last nickel? There's evidence all over the place that no matter how much you know, you can still act badly, while people with none of the advantages we see ourselves to have are still living out pretty good lives all the same.
But our way of explaining things leaves no room for virtuous atheists. We imagine we're speaking to an evil world that wants to wipe us out. How would we speak if we thought we were talking to individuals, individuals who also thought Miley Cyrus' performance was disgusting, who also give money to the poor, who believe in love and truth and goodness and human rights? Wouldn't we start with our common ground?
I think maybe we should listen very carefully to what Pope Francis is saying. He isn't saying we should never mention our moral teaching, or try to conceal from new converts what they will have to give up if they are baptized. He's saying we should be a little less loud and strident about the "difficult issues" and maybe try to meet people where they are a little bit. And it seems to me that he's been working for the Church for most of his life; he has some wisdom we could benefit from.
But what has been the response? Loud declamations from Catholics online, or awkward excuses. When they can't explain it away, they denounce the Pope as "naive" or "misguided" or (my favorite) "crazy Uncle Bergie." Then, having put the Pope soundly in his place, they turn to gloating about Nancy Pelosi having been excommunicated (she wasn't). Way to miss the teaching moment!
Maybe it's impossible for the Catholic Church, a religion of unchanging teachings and a strict moral code, to get along even politely with a world that runs on such a different standard. And yet, if we don't try, we'll never know. Somehow the early Christians managed to get along all right with pagan Rome, just by being noticeably more loving than anybody else. That was the main thing anyone noticed about them. The Romans exposed their infants, but the Christians didn't. It impressed people that the Christians didn't. And yet where are the documents of early Christians lambasting the Romans for that? How many times is abortion mentioned in the New Testament? They knew these were big problems, but they also knew the only way to address them was to bring people to Christ .... which they did, dramatically. Maybe we could take a page from their book.
All I know is, as long as we treat this dialogue as a war, we ensure no dialogue will ever take place. We ensure that people of good will will avoid us like the plague because we do not appear to be open to anyone. And that, quite simply, seems not at all to be what God would want.
To hear similar things said, but much more eloquently, try a few of these excellent posts:
A Contemporary Reflection on the Becket Controversy
This one's old, but I loved it. "If we are to die for our faith, let us make sure that it is the Truth of Jesus Christ and his Gospel that is the price of our blood."
Seek God in Every Human Life - Barefoot and Pregnant
"“Speaking the truth in love” does not, I think, mean that speaking the truth is love. Just speaking the truth, that’s not enough. It has to be in love. In a state of love. In an environment of love.... The truth part has to spring out of the love part, or we’re using Christ as a sword."
The Love Comes First - House Unseen
"Do you think it's possible to repent if one doesn't love God and love oneself? I mean, what harm does sin really do if we don't matter and neither does God?"
Five Reasons to Think Differently About Pope Francis - Catholic Culture
"We have gradually drifted into secularism in ways we do not recognize, and one of those ways is to believe that all significant change is political. One consequence is our fear that if we cannot engage in political battles, on the accepted political terms, then we have failed to do anything at all."
Here's what he said that got everyone so offended:
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.
“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.
“I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.”
He said lots more, but those three paragraphs were the main ones that got people up in arms.
There were lots of reasons for this. Some people said they'd never heard these homilies about moral imperatives, that all they ever got were touchy-feely Jesus-loves-you sermons (because apparently hearing that Jesus loves you is a bad thing) and they would just love to hear one about abortion once in awhile. (To which I say, move to the diocese of Arlington -- we almost never get one completely without either abortion, gay marriage, or birth control. Sometimes we get some where Jesus is barely mentioned, though.)
Some people were angry that the Pope was addressing orthodox Catholics at all. With two-thirds of Catholics being blatant heretics and apostates (not sure where they came by that figure), wouldn't it be more appropriate to lecture them? After all, we are the ones working for the Church! We're the ones who follow the Pope! We're the embattled minority! This just gives fuel for outsiders to criticize us and say, "Hey, cool it about abortion, even your own Pope said you've beaten that topic to death." (My answer to this is, he addresses everybody and has criticized others in the past -- why should any group be left out? Especially the group that is his real audience, because they actually read what the Pope says. Christmas-and-Easter Catholics mainly don't.)
Some said it couldn't possibly be directed toward them, because they aren't obsessed with a few moral rules and they always oppose the main evils of the day in context. (However, this line disturbed me: "Pope Francis is right that in some contexts proclaiming the Gospel is a powerful aid to conversion to moral goodness." I think they've got it backwards. Moral goodness, without the Gospel, is a gong clanging in the wilderness. Not to mention that Catholic moral teaching comes from God and can't be convincingly taught without reference to Him. To think of using the Gospel as a way to get people to do what we want -- when there isn't another convenient way to do it -- rather sickens me.) But after all the long disclaimers of how they aren't the group the Pope is talking about and how they don't need that message, they still get offended. If the shoe doesn't fit, why get upset? It's not your shoe.
But most took issue with his real message. The message, as they boil it down -- and as I feel it can be fairly boiled down -- comes to this: "Don't just push your moral view on everybody. Don't treat this as a battle. Bring people to the truth because you love them. And start with Jesus. He is the source of all truth, and all your other efforts will be meaningless if you don't start there."
And no matter how you explain it, and parse it, and put it in context, that message shows a clear conflict with the attitude of conservative Catholics. Most conservative Catholics do see it as a battle. They are not interested in dialogue, or that worried about converting people. The battle isn't between God and the devil, it's between the "religious right" and the "gay lobby" and/or the culture of death. So they cheerily post article after article and meme after meme, many of which are extremely offensive to some people. (In particular, aborted baby photos. I'm as pro-life as anyone and I find those HIGHLY offensive.) And then when they get themselves unfriended, they say, "See, it really is a battle. There is no tolerance for my views. But I have to keep at it, even if it means martyrdom."
But there's a big difference between being unfriended and being martyred. The word martyr means witness -- by accepting death rather than deny Jesus, you witness to just how important He is. But if you're unfriended, the only thing that happens is that this person now lacks your positive witness in his life. If every time you open your mouth you drive people away, you are not evangelizing anyone. You'll soon be preaching to the choir with a sense of contentment at how fearless you are, how unafraid of offending anyone. This will make you feel good, but do no one any good.
I believe in every aspect of the Church's infallible moral teaching. However, I don't believe, as some do, that people can figure pretty much all of it out without reference to God, and so we can convince people of it simply by talking about the natural law. If you claim everyone secretly knows the truth in their conscience, you can justify demanding compliance out of everyone, but I have never known of one single person who gave up a life of sin and embraced one of moral rectitude without converting to some religion or other. Specifically, I've never heard of a homosexual who broke up with their partner and lived in celibacy for the rest of their life simply because a Catholic told them it was the natural law.
If it was all so simple, why has no one figured it out? Why did no one ever figure it out before Christ? Why is the Old Testament full of God giving commands and people getting into worse and worse trouble? We can't know the best way to live without reference to the one who made us. In fact, the best way to live has to include a relationship with the one who made us. Our lives will be lacking without that.
If we really love unbelievers, we'll want to bring them into the fullness of the joy that we have, which comes from a relationship with Christ. We follow the moral law out of our trust we have in God, knowing that he loves us and wouldn't ask us these things to make us unhappy, but rather for our benefit. Imposing the same rules on other people without bothering to introduce them to the reason is senseless. The only reason I can think of for it is the desire to avoid having to deal with things we disagree with. That's hardly a spiritual motive.
And how do we introduce people to Christ? Is it by lectures, sarcastic memes, and self-righteous rants? That approach isn't working; it's never worked. It has to be with kindness, with love, with openness. It has to come with listening to another person's stories and sharing our own. The Pope is right -- you can't lead with "you're a sinner." You have to lead with, "There is such a thing as goodness."
People say "the problem with the world today is that we have lost the sense of sin." I don't believe it. We have lost more than that -- the sense that there is any answer at all, that there is any universal standard, anything to which one could appeal. How do you give someone a sense of sin when they don't know there's anyone they have offended? You have to lead with God.
Because the fact is, everyone knows the Church is against abortion and birth control and homosexual acts. What they don't know is that we're not all a load of judgmental jerks who ONLY care about those three issues and no others. What kind of a conversation is it when you only focus on those issues on which you disagree? It makes more sense to talk first about common ground: about how Catholics, like other decent people, are opposed to slavery and poverty and injustice and unkindness. We could talk about how our moral code is based on profound respect for the human individual, that we don't exclude anyone from that respect, regardless of age or ability or color.
Overall I think this conversation is best had one on one; but insofar as Catholics-as-a-group are in dialogue with non-Catholics-as-a-group, the dialogue is going badly. All you need are to read any of the comments on an article about the Catholic Church in any secular paper. The Catholics shriek about being persecuted, misunderstood, etc., while condemning everyone else .... and the non-Catholics say that they would like to see Catholicism banned and wiped out entirely because the only things it stands for are judgment, domination, and sex abuse. This is not a dialogue. Does it have to be like this?
I read that famous gay-marriage article by Joseph Bottom -- yes, the whole thing, though this post is a good summary -- and I agree absolutely. Our "this is war, make no compromise" attitude has polarized the conversation to the point where conversation can barely happen at all. We won't stand for even civil unions because the second we do, it'll be a slippery slope and the next thing you know, the Gay Lobby will be hauling us off to prison for saying in church that we think homosexual activities are sinful. But they won't let us refuse to bake a cake with two grooms on it, because they know perfectly well that if they let Those Intolerant Christians have their way, next think they know we'll criminalize sodomy again and they'll all be hauled off to prison. There's no room for discussion in an atmosphere like that.
The narrative inside the Church is that Catholics, having the truth, will be good and those outside won't be as good. They like to compare, say, Padre Pio with Miley Cyrus and say, "See? Life in the Church -- Good. Life outside the Church -- Bad." But how does that leave room for the others .... that priest who seemed so holy and had such a following and molested all the altar boys? Or that lesbian couple with six foster children who would give you their last nickel? There's evidence all over the place that no matter how much you know, you can still act badly, while people with none of the advantages we see ourselves to have are still living out pretty good lives all the same.
But our way of explaining things leaves no room for virtuous atheists. We imagine we're speaking to an evil world that wants to wipe us out. How would we speak if we thought we were talking to individuals, individuals who also thought Miley Cyrus' performance was disgusting, who also give money to the poor, who believe in love and truth and goodness and human rights? Wouldn't we start with our common ground?
I think maybe we should listen very carefully to what Pope Francis is saying. He isn't saying we should never mention our moral teaching, or try to conceal from new converts what they will have to give up if they are baptized. He's saying we should be a little less loud and strident about the "difficult issues" and maybe try to meet people where they are a little bit. And it seems to me that he's been working for the Church for most of his life; he has some wisdom we could benefit from.
But what has been the response? Loud declamations from Catholics online, or awkward excuses. When they can't explain it away, they denounce the Pope as "naive" or "misguided" or (my favorite) "crazy Uncle Bergie." Then, having put the Pope soundly in his place, they turn to gloating about Nancy Pelosi having been excommunicated (she wasn't). Way to miss the teaching moment!
Maybe it's impossible for the Catholic Church, a religion of unchanging teachings and a strict moral code, to get along even politely with a world that runs on such a different standard. And yet, if we don't try, we'll never know. Somehow the early Christians managed to get along all right with pagan Rome, just by being noticeably more loving than anybody else. That was the main thing anyone noticed about them. The Romans exposed their infants, but the Christians didn't. It impressed people that the Christians didn't. And yet where are the documents of early Christians lambasting the Romans for that? How many times is abortion mentioned in the New Testament? They knew these were big problems, but they also knew the only way to address them was to bring people to Christ .... which they did, dramatically. Maybe we could take a page from their book.
All I know is, as long as we treat this dialogue as a war, we ensure no dialogue will ever take place. We ensure that people of good will will avoid us like the plague because we do not appear to be open to anyone. And that, quite simply, seems not at all to be what God would want.
To hear similar things said, but much more eloquently, try a few of these excellent posts:
A Contemporary Reflection on the Becket Controversy
This one's old, but I loved it. "If we are to die for our faith, let us make sure that it is the Truth of Jesus Christ and his Gospel that is the price of our blood."
Seek God in Every Human Life - Barefoot and Pregnant
"“Speaking the truth in love” does not, I think, mean that speaking the truth is love. Just speaking the truth, that’s not enough. It has to be in love. In a state of love. In an environment of love.... The truth part has to spring out of the love part, or we’re using Christ as a sword."
The Love Comes First - House Unseen
"Do you think it's possible to repent if one doesn't love God and love oneself? I mean, what harm does sin really do if we don't matter and neither does God?"
Five Reasons to Think Differently About Pope Francis - Catholic Culture
"We have gradually drifted into secularism in ways we do not recognize, and one of those ways is to believe that all significant change is political. One consequence is our fear that if we cannot engage in political battles, on the accepted political terms, then we have failed to do anything at all."
Friday, September 20, 2013
Seven quick rants
Yeah, I know, Friday is supposed to be for pleasant randomness. But what can I say? I've been reading a lot of things lately that upset me/worry me/tick me off.
"Creditors were increasingly fed up with North Korea's failure to repay loans that had amounted to an estimated $10 billion by the early 1990s. Moscow decided that North Korea would have to pay prevailing world prices for Soviet imports rather than the lower 'friendship' prices charged Communist allies. In the past, the Chinese, who provided three quarters of North Korea's fuel and two thirds of its food imports, used to say they were close as 'lips and teeth' to North Korea; now they wanted cash up front.
"Soon the country was sucked into a vicious death spiral. Without cheap fuel oil and raw material, it couldn't keep the factories running, which meant it had nothing to export. With no exports, there was no hard currency, and without hard currency, fuel imports fell even further and the electricity stopped The coal mines couldn't operate witout electricity because they required electric pumps to siphon the water. The shortage of coal worsened the electricty shortage. The electricity shortage further lowered agricultural output. . . . It had never been easy to eke out enough harvest from North Korea's hardscrabble terrain for a population of 23 million, and the agricultural techniques developed to boost output relied on electrically powered artificial irrigation systems and on chemical fertilizers and pesticides produced at factories that were now closed for lack of fuel and raw materials. North Korea started running out of food."
Can you think of another country that runs a huge debt and trade deficit? Perhaps one whose currency is becoming less and less valuable--a currency that is not, in fact, backed by anything? One whose agricultural system requires vast quantities of oil, both for production and transportation?
Ding ding ding! That would be us.
I looked up the page and imagined a world where oil was harder to get -- even, say, twice or three times the price it is now. Do you know how much oil goes into every bite you eat? I wanted to rush out to the yard and plant stuff that very moment.
Do they not know humans used to be hunter-gatherers, and that some still are? It is in fact possible for a human being (not all human beings anymore; there are too many of us) to live entirely on wild food. Very few plants are toxic. A larger percentage just aren't nutritious to us, because our stomachs can't handle cellulose. But most fruit, a wide variety of fungi, most seeds, most nuts, many kinds of tubers and roots, are perfectly suited for a human diet.
I suppose you all know that, but it was post it here or post it on the New York Times, and I try to stay well out of comment wars on news sites. That level of stupidity really burns my cookies.
Turns out grades and soccer scores are both pretty meaningless and don't appear to be good for anyone, but have no fear, baby boomers! Turns out that whole no-grades no-scores thing is something of an urban legend; I don't know anyone my age who experienced this. And as a teacher, same thing. Parents nowadays won't stand for no grades; they need something to use to compare their kids with other kids.
No point in trying to answer that dumb article, because it's already been done better than I could: this one gives the stats for what is really bothering Millennials (hint: unemployment, underemployment, debt) and this one is more poetic. The comments on the latter article are very much worth reading, including the subthreads. People have been posting their life stories, making me feel very lucky indeed. We are homeowners at 27, we have kids, and we live on one income. Apparently lots of people our age only dream of that kind of success.
And now, of course, America's farmland is eroding more slowly, and into drainage ditches instead of in huge dustclouds, so no one notices. But topsoil is one precious resource that we literally cannot live without. Why do we give it so little thought?
No complaints there. But instantly everyone jumped all over it. I'm not talking about the secular media; I didn't read any of that. I mean the Catholics. They felt angry, betrayed, like the Pope had handed a victory to the enemy. Because apparently saying that you don't talk much about abortion or homosexuality is tantamount to stabbing all conservative Catholics in the back at once. I spent a lot of time trying to answer these people on Facebook and I'm only just now trying to step away. It isn't worth it. It isn't worth more division. Lord knows the Catholic Church in America has enough of that as it is.
On the other hand, when one kid gets tough, sometimes the other gets easy. Marko's bedtime routine is this: we read a book or two. Then I tuck him into bed, give him a kiss, and ... leave. That's it. He goes to sleep. Then he sleeps all night, and if he wakes up before me, he quietly comes out of his room and sits in my rocking chair until I get up.
And what's most encouraging of all is that he slept worse than Michael when he was that age. He was up till 11 pm sometimes, and if he woke at night he screamed bloody murder. And here he is at three and a half taking care of everything himself -- which he has for months now. So maybe, just maybe, two years from now Michael will be doing the same.
Sniff.
What would you like to rant about today?
This week's linky is here.
-1-
I've been reading a book about North Korea called Nothing to Envy. It's pretty good, if a book about a communist dystopia that still exists in real life can be considered "good." The famine parts are the hardest for me to read; I have a visceral fear of famine. These two paragraphs about made my hair stand on end:"Creditors were increasingly fed up with North Korea's failure to repay loans that had amounted to an estimated $10 billion by the early 1990s. Moscow decided that North Korea would have to pay prevailing world prices for Soviet imports rather than the lower 'friendship' prices charged Communist allies. In the past, the Chinese, who provided three quarters of North Korea's fuel and two thirds of its food imports, used to say they were close as 'lips and teeth' to North Korea; now they wanted cash up front.
"Soon the country was sucked into a vicious death spiral. Without cheap fuel oil and raw material, it couldn't keep the factories running, which meant it had nothing to export. With no exports, there was no hard currency, and without hard currency, fuel imports fell even further and the electricity stopped The coal mines couldn't operate witout electricity because they required electric pumps to siphon the water. The shortage of coal worsened the electricty shortage. The electricity shortage further lowered agricultural output. . . . It had never been easy to eke out enough harvest from North Korea's hardscrabble terrain for a population of 23 million, and the agricultural techniques developed to boost output relied on electrically powered artificial irrigation systems and on chemical fertilizers and pesticides produced at factories that were now closed for lack of fuel and raw materials. North Korea started running out of food."
Can you think of another country that runs a huge debt and trade deficit? Perhaps one whose currency is becoming less and less valuable--a currency that is not, in fact, backed by anything? One whose agricultural system requires vast quantities of oil, both for production and transportation?
Ding ding ding! That would be us.
I looked up the page and imagined a world where oil was harder to get -- even, say, twice or three times the price it is now. Do you know how much oil goes into every bite you eat? I wanted to rush out to the yard and plant stuff that very moment.
-2-
The comment, on an article about genetic modification, which announced authoritatively that "the vast majority of plant life on this planet is toxic in its wild form; only careful breeding has made it possible for us to eat it."Do they not know humans used to be hunter-gatherers, and that some still are? It is in fact possible for a human being (not all human beings anymore; there are too many of us) to live entirely on wild food. Very few plants are toxic. A larger percentage just aren't nutritious to us, because our stomachs can't handle cellulose. But most fruit, a wide variety of fungi, most seeds, most nuts, many kinds of tubers and roots, are perfectly suited for a human diet.
I suppose you all know that, but it was post it here or post it on the New York Times, and I try to stay well out of comment wars on news sites. That level of stupidity really burns my cookies.
-3-
This article on HuffPo: Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy. I'll save you the trouble of reading it: Millennials are unhappy because we think we're special snowflakes and were so disappointed to find out that the adult world contained actual work and we couldn't all start our dream jobs at 22. Must be all those ungraded tests and unscored soccer games that taught us that everybody's a winner.Turns out grades and soccer scores are both pretty meaningless and don't appear to be good for anyone, but have no fear, baby boomers! Turns out that whole no-grades no-scores thing is something of an urban legend; I don't know anyone my age who experienced this. And as a teacher, same thing. Parents nowadays won't stand for no grades; they need something to use to compare their kids with other kids.
No point in trying to answer that dumb article, because it's already been done better than I could: this one gives the stats for what is really bothering Millennials (hint: unemployment, underemployment, debt) and this one is more poetic. The comments on the latter article are very much worth reading, including the subthreads. People have been posting their life stories, making me feel very lucky indeed. We are homeowners at 27, we have kids, and we live on one income. Apparently lots of people our age only dream of that kind of success.
-4-
The Dust Bowl. Yeah, I know, it's okay to laugh at me. It happened almost a century ago now and I shouldn't still be upset. But I'm watching a documentary about it and this was so avoidable! People knew the southern plains weren't suitable for cultivation. But dadgum if they didn't go and cultivate them anyway. Speculators told people the climate was magically becoming moister, that plowing the grassland up would somehow bring rain clouds, and that there was no better farmland anywhere for growing wheat. So they plowed up everything they could, and when wheat prices crashed after the Depression they plowed up even more, because that's the only way a farmer has for dealing with low prices. Then all it took was a few dry years, and there wasn't a patch of prairie anywhere to hold the dirt down. It all blew away, and the farmers lost everything.And now, of course, America's farmland is eroding more slowly, and into drainage ditches instead of in huge dustclouds, so no one notices. But topsoil is one precious resource that we literally cannot live without. Why do we give it so little thought?
-5-
So the Pope gave this interview, right? I thought it was wonderful and really very comforting. It felt like he has been sitting next to be in the pew, Sunday after Sunday, while our priest rants on politics and barely mentions Jesus. He knew how I felt. And he knew that focusing less on politics and more on Jesus doesn't mean dissenting from a single Church teaching or backing away from the responsibility to evangelize -- it means speaking the truth in love.No complaints there. But instantly everyone jumped all over it. I'm not talking about the secular media; I didn't read any of that. I mean the Catholics. They felt angry, betrayed, like the Pope had handed a victory to the enemy. Because apparently saying that you don't talk much about abortion or homosexuality is tantamount to stabbing all conservative Catholics in the back at once. I spent a lot of time trying to answer these people on Facebook and I'm only just now trying to step away. It isn't worth it. It isn't worth more division. Lord knows the Catholic Church in America has enough of that as it is.
-6-
Michael is at that stage where he can't make it through the day without a nap, but he always takes it too late in the day and ends up staying up till nine or ten every night. I hate that. The one thing of most value for keeping my sanity is having no-kids time from seven to ten pm. And it's not like Michael is quietly sitting on my lap all that time -- he's tearing the house apart (which I like to tidy up before dinner so I can wake up to a clean house in the morning) and making a ton of noise and being super demanding. Argh.On the other hand, when one kid gets tough, sometimes the other gets easy. Marko's bedtime routine is this: we read a book or two. Then I tuck him into bed, give him a kiss, and ... leave. That's it. He goes to sleep. Then he sleeps all night, and if he wakes up before me, he quietly comes out of his room and sits in my rocking chair until I get up.
And what's most encouraging of all is that he slept worse than Michael when he was that age. He was up till 11 pm sometimes, and if he woke at night he screamed bloody murder. And here he is at three and a half taking care of everything himself -- which he has for months now. So maybe, just maybe, two years from now Michael will be doing the same.
-7-
John's had a lot of trips lately. I won't say when, because I'm afraid of being burgled (hey burglars! you ought to know our dog is very nervous and hates strangers! just keep that in mind k?), but it has been a lot. I've been keeping up with the home front just fine, really, but when he's gone, I just miss the guy. When I feel like North Korea, the Dust Bowl, the Huffington Post, and Facebook are all out to get me, it's nice knowing he is on my team. He gets all this stuff I'm upset about, gets why I'm upset, and for the most part agrees with me. I'm a pretty opinionated person, and it means so much to me to have one person I don't have to argue this stuff with.Sniff.
What would you like to rant about today?
This week's linky is here.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
More reasons to be agrarian
Last time I tried to answer the question, "Why be agrarian?" I only managed to give one reason -- that land provides a measure of security that nothing else does, because land offers direct access to the goods of creation. But there are a great many more reasons, so let's talk about a few of those.
First, I should define agrarian. An agrarian is someone who values the small farm, and who believes in widespread land ownership to make farming possible for more people.
If you run a diversified small farm, you may be agrarian.
If you live on an acre or two and try to produce a little of your own food or other needs in your spare time, you're probably agrarian.
If you bypass the grocery store and buy your food from a local small farmer, that also counts as agrarian.
If you support legislation that supports small farms and encourages wider land ownership, you're agrarian -- whether you are looking for less regulation, like this law which I support, or more.
And if you deliberately avoid big-box stores and seek out small, local businesses, by analogy, I would still call you agrarian. (I think the proper term here would be distributist, but I tend not to use that term because I am too free-market for most distributists.)
So why be agrarian?
*Because you want to be a producer, not a consumer. If you desire to create things yourself instead of buying them, thus ending up with goods that have uniqueness and meaning instead of mass-produced articles, be agrarian.
*Because you don't want to be a wage slave. I think it's funny that anarcho-capitalists think that having to pull over when a cop car flashes its lights is slavery, but having to wear a tie or lose your livelihood is simply employment. When you have no property, you don't have a choice whether to work or not, and so you have to kiss up to the people you work for. Some people don't mind that. For some of us, it gets awfully old.
*Because you don't like the industrial food system and want to opt out. The more you learn about it, the less you want to participate in it. (I just finished The Omnivore's Dilemma and highly recommend it -- that is, if you want to never go to McDonalds again. I'm afraid it will spoil your appetite for some kinds of food.) There's the corn additives in almost everything we eat. There's the cruelty to animals that takes place in feedlots and egg factories. The quality of the food is also very low -- in fact, the industrial system ensures that it will remain low. When an apple is sold without any reference to how it was produced, all apples, high and low quality, will sell for the same price. Therefore there is zero incentive to grow a high-quality apple.
Last week, I bought a chicken from Aldi, as I always do, for 85 cents a pound. This is an amazingly cheap price, but you get what you pay for. When I unwrapped the chicken, I saw it had a massive bruise on one wing. What happened to this poor chicken? I'll never know, but it made me feel ill and not at all like eating any. I want the chickens I eat to run around happily eating bugs to the very end -- not battered by rough treatment or its cage mates.
When you grow your own chicken, or you buy a chicken from someone you know and trust, you don't wonder about this stuff.
*Because industrialism is a Ring of Gyges. In The Republic, Plato tells the story of a shepherd who finds a ring that makes him invisible. Naturally he immediately forsakes all morality: since he has no fear of being caught, he murders and steals with abandon.
Some people would be good even if no one was watching them. But it's a fact that many people behave much worse when no one is watching them. You can read up a bit on colonialism, and see how those considered good citizens and family men at home in Europe were capable of committing horrible crimes in Africa or India. The same thing happens when the supply chain for a product stretches halfway around the globe and money changes hands in complex and non-public ways. In a small village, if the grocer added sand to the sugar, it wouldn't take long for the villagers to wise up and go to his competitor instead. Nowadays, most people have no idea what goes into their food, so they keep buying it. It's come out recently that most of what is sold as honey is adulterated with some other sweetener or contains no honey at all. Many expensive kinds of fish turn out to be other, cheaper fish. Olive oil also tends to be cut with cheaper oils.
To turn more serious, some products we buy from around the world come with a connection to exploitation and injustice. I've been reading an eye-opening book called The Land Grabbers which details human-rights abuses around the world. The most blatant I've read about so far has been the outright theft of land from Cambodian peasants to plant sugarcane plantations. The owners of the plantations are making vast amounts of money selling the sugar to developed nations. I want no part in this. But I can't seem to find out if the sugar I buy is from Cambodia or not. It sure as heck isn't printed on the label.
I am a strong believer in the power of the boycott to stop injustice in the market. However, it can be awfully hard to keep track of all the boycotts. Was this shirt I want to buy made in that sweatshop in Bangladesh that had that fire where so many died? How can I know? Why not make my own shirt?
(As a side note, John told me about a solution to this problem described in The End is Near, and it's Going to Be Awesome: a credit card that keeps track of all your boycotts for you. It does the research, lets you select what sorts of things you want to boycott (environmental degradation, human-rights abuses, abortion supporters, whatever you want) and then declines your purchases if you try to buy something you're boycotting. Then it automatically sends an email to the producer of the item saying, "One of our customers wanted to buy X, but they won't because they are upset about how your company did Y." After a few hundred letters like this, a company would start to change its ways. This is an awesome idea and I only wish it were available in reality.)
*Because you care about the earth. I believe that we are stewards of the earth, not owners. That means we have to tend it so that it is still useable for future generations. Industrial farming doesn't do that, because of the intense drive to increase profits now. We can't leave a little land fallow for a year, because we need to produce more. We can't add organic matter to the soil, because it's quicker to spray ammonia. Margins are slim and they have to squeeze every penny. Many farmers are on rented land; there is no profit in giving anything back to land you don't own. A small farmer who hopes to hand down his land to his children has a vested interest in caring for his land.
*Because you care about animal cruelty. The only reason Americans eat so much meat is because they don't know much about where it comes from. A common reaction on seeing a feedlot is to become a vegetarian for life. Industrial animals are fed corn, because that's what we have a lot of. (Oh, how I loathe thee, subsidies.) Cows aren't intended to eat corn, and they become terribly sick on it. Chickens and pigs are better off, but they're crammed into disgustingly tight quarters where they don't thrive.
However, there's a world of difference between eating meat that comes from a lifetime of misery and eating meat that comes from an animal that lived a happy life doing what it should do. Not everyone considers the happiness of animals to be important -- but if you do, you should be agrarian.
*Because you care about your health. Of course we know that industrial food isn't good for you; it's not produced with health in mind, and it is full of additives which may be harmful. If you make it yourself, you know what's in it. My latest shift has been baking my own bread exclusively. We eat less bread, and better bread -- and I know that it is made from flour, water, and salt, not corn syrup and soy lecithin. That matters to me.
*Because the industrial world is lacking in so many things. We sit in chairs in front of computer screens all day -- but we all know that sitting in a chair all day will kill you. We lack deep connections to others, and some people seem to fall through the cracks and lack connections to anyone. Depression, anxiety, tension are all more common than colds; and total breakdowns, suicide, mass shootings happen frighteningly often. We know what is good for a human being, but we can't seem to make it happen. It's good for kids to have two involved parents, but many have one overworked parent. It's good for them to play outside, but there's nowhere safe to play. It's good for families to eat a homecooked dinner together every night, but there's just too much work and too many activities for anyone to have time for that.
It's madness to me to say it's a good thing that we have developed so far away from drudgery that we can work with our minds instead of our hands -- and then have to spend another hour after work, and some of our hard-earned money, to go work out. What a racket -- they've gotten us to pay for the privilege of lifting heavy things and running! Someday, some smart person will stick generators in the exercise bikes and make a killing.
*Because you want to create a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul. Why do we slave, day in and day out, to do things that we don't enjoy, while there are things we do enjoy that might make us a living instead? If you want to make crafts and sell them, what does it matter if you never make a fortune and your friends ask you when you're getting a real job? If you find a way to make ends meet doing something you love, you should do that thing.
Those are the reasons I can come up with off the top of my head. Can you think of any more?
First, I should define agrarian. An agrarian is someone who values the small farm, and who believes in widespread land ownership to make farming possible for more people.
If you run a diversified small farm, you may be agrarian.
If you live on an acre or two and try to produce a little of your own food or other needs in your spare time, you're probably agrarian.
If you bypass the grocery store and buy your food from a local small farmer, that also counts as agrarian.
If you support legislation that supports small farms and encourages wider land ownership, you're agrarian -- whether you are looking for less regulation, like this law which I support, or more.
And if you deliberately avoid big-box stores and seek out small, local businesses, by analogy, I would still call you agrarian. (I think the proper term here would be distributist, but I tend not to use that term because I am too free-market for most distributists.)
So why be agrarian?
*Because you want to be a producer, not a consumer. If you desire to create things yourself instead of buying them, thus ending up with goods that have uniqueness and meaning instead of mass-produced articles, be agrarian.
*Because you don't want to be a wage slave. I think it's funny that anarcho-capitalists think that having to pull over when a cop car flashes its lights is slavery, but having to wear a tie or lose your livelihood is simply employment. When you have no property, you don't have a choice whether to work or not, and so you have to kiss up to the people you work for. Some people don't mind that. For some of us, it gets awfully old.
*Because you don't like the industrial food system and want to opt out. The more you learn about it, the less you want to participate in it. (I just finished The Omnivore's Dilemma and highly recommend it -- that is, if you want to never go to McDonalds again. I'm afraid it will spoil your appetite for some kinds of food.) There's the corn additives in almost everything we eat. There's the cruelty to animals that takes place in feedlots and egg factories. The quality of the food is also very low -- in fact, the industrial system ensures that it will remain low. When an apple is sold without any reference to how it was produced, all apples, high and low quality, will sell for the same price. Therefore there is zero incentive to grow a high-quality apple.
Last week, I bought a chicken from Aldi, as I always do, for 85 cents a pound. This is an amazingly cheap price, but you get what you pay for. When I unwrapped the chicken, I saw it had a massive bruise on one wing. What happened to this poor chicken? I'll never know, but it made me feel ill and not at all like eating any. I want the chickens I eat to run around happily eating bugs to the very end -- not battered by rough treatment or its cage mates.
When you grow your own chicken, or you buy a chicken from someone you know and trust, you don't wonder about this stuff.
*Because industrialism is a Ring of Gyges. In The Republic, Plato tells the story of a shepherd who finds a ring that makes him invisible. Naturally he immediately forsakes all morality: since he has no fear of being caught, he murders and steals with abandon.
Some people would be good even if no one was watching them. But it's a fact that many people behave much worse when no one is watching them. You can read up a bit on colonialism, and see how those considered good citizens and family men at home in Europe were capable of committing horrible crimes in Africa or India. The same thing happens when the supply chain for a product stretches halfway around the globe and money changes hands in complex and non-public ways. In a small village, if the grocer added sand to the sugar, it wouldn't take long for the villagers to wise up and go to his competitor instead. Nowadays, most people have no idea what goes into their food, so they keep buying it. It's come out recently that most of what is sold as honey is adulterated with some other sweetener or contains no honey at all. Many expensive kinds of fish turn out to be other, cheaper fish. Olive oil also tends to be cut with cheaper oils.
To turn more serious, some products we buy from around the world come with a connection to exploitation and injustice. I've been reading an eye-opening book called The Land Grabbers which details human-rights abuses around the world. The most blatant I've read about so far has been the outright theft of land from Cambodian peasants to plant sugarcane plantations. The owners of the plantations are making vast amounts of money selling the sugar to developed nations. I want no part in this. But I can't seem to find out if the sugar I buy is from Cambodia or not. It sure as heck isn't printed on the label.
I am a strong believer in the power of the boycott to stop injustice in the market. However, it can be awfully hard to keep track of all the boycotts. Was this shirt I want to buy made in that sweatshop in Bangladesh that had that fire where so many died? How can I know? Why not make my own shirt?
(As a side note, John told me about a solution to this problem described in The End is Near, and it's Going to Be Awesome: a credit card that keeps track of all your boycotts for you. It does the research, lets you select what sorts of things you want to boycott (environmental degradation, human-rights abuses, abortion supporters, whatever you want) and then declines your purchases if you try to buy something you're boycotting. Then it automatically sends an email to the producer of the item saying, "One of our customers wanted to buy X, but they won't because they are upset about how your company did Y." After a few hundred letters like this, a company would start to change its ways. This is an awesome idea and I only wish it were available in reality.)
*Because you care about the earth. I believe that we are stewards of the earth, not owners. That means we have to tend it so that it is still useable for future generations. Industrial farming doesn't do that, because of the intense drive to increase profits now. We can't leave a little land fallow for a year, because we need to produce more. We can't add organic matter to the soil, because it's quicker to spray ammonia. Margins are slim and they have to squeeze every penny. Many farmers are on rented land; there is no profit in giving anything back to land you don't own. A small farmer who hopes to hand down his land to his children has a vested interest in caring for his land.
*Because you care about animal cruelty. The only reason Americans eat so much meat is because they don't know much about where it comes from. A common reaction on seeing a feedlot is to become a vegetarian for life. Industrial animals are fed corn, because that's what we have a lot of. (Oh, how I loathe thee, subsidies.) Cows aren't intended to eat corn, and they become terribly sick on it. Chickens and pigs are better off, but they're crammed into disgustingly tight quarters where they don't thrive.
However, there's a world of difference between eating meat that comes from a lifetime of misery and eating meat that comes from an animal that lived a happy life doing what it should do. Not everyone considers the happiness of animals to be important -- but if you do, you should be agrarian.
*Because you care about your health. Of course we know that industrial food isn't good for you; it's not produced with health in mind, and it is full of additives which may be harmful. If you make it yourself, you know what's in it. My latest shift has been baking my own bread exclusively. We eat less bread, and better bread -- and I know that it is made from flour, water, and salt, not corn syrup and soy lecithin. That matters to me.
*Because the industrial world is lacking in so many things. We sit in chairs in front of computer screens all day -- but we all know that sitting in a chair all day will kill you. We lack deep connections to others, and some people seem to fall through the cracks and lack connections to anyone. Depression, anxiety, tension are all more common than colds; and total breakdowns, suicide, mass shootings happen frighteningly often. We know what is good for a human being, but we can't seem to make it happen. It's good for kids to have two involved parents, but many have one overworked parent. It's good for them to play outside, but there's nowhere safe to play. It's good for families to eat a homecooked dinner together every night, but there's just too much work and too many activities for anyone to have time for that.
It's madness to me to say it's a good thing that we have developed so far away from drudgery that we can work with our minds instead of our hands -- and then have to spend another hour after work, and some of our hard-earned money, to go work out. What a racket -- they've gotten us to pay for the privilege of lifting heavy things and running! Someday, some smart person will stick generators in the exercise bikes and make a killing.
*Because you want to create a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul. Why do we slave, day in and day out, to do things that we don't enjoy, while there are things we do enjoy that might make us a living instead? If you want to make crafts and sell them, what does it matter if you never make a fortune and your friends ask you when you're getting a real job? If you find a way to make ends meet doing something you love, you should do that thing.
Those are the reasons I can come up with off the top of my head. Can you think of any more?
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