From the Wanderer:
In "The Church and Farming" (1953), Fr. (Dennis) Fahey quoted extensively from Sir Albert Howard's "An Agricultural Testament"...and this passage is particularly striking:"The invasion of economics into agricultural research naturally followed the quantitative methods. It was an imitation of the successful application of costings to the operations of the factory...Farming has come to be looked at as if it were a factory. Agriculture is regarded as a commercial enterprise; far too much emphasis has been laid on profit. But the purpose of agriculture is far different than that of a factory. It has to provide food in order that the race may flourish and persist. The best results are obtained if the food is fresh and the soil is fertile. Quality is more important than weight...The nation's food in the nature of things must always take the first place. The financial system, after all, is but a second matter. Economics, therefore, in failing to insist on these elementary truths, has been guilty of a grave error of judgment...."It was a grave mistake. Fr. Fahey quotes another pioneer in the organic farming movement, Oxford-educated Jorian Jenks (1899-1963), as saying that food production could endlessly increase through the use of industrial methods at the expense of "soil fertility, but also forests, mineral deposits, and oil-fields...The West has allowed this terrific food problem to creep upon it almost unaware, because its whole economic outlook for several generations has been based on the assumption that food would always be cheap and plentiful. Such an assumption could of course only be made by populations out of touch with the soils that feed them."
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Corporation Farming
(Taken from the April 16th edition of The Wanderer:
"In 1940, Msgr. Luigi Ligutti and Fr. John Rawe, SJ, warned Americans in their book "Rural Roads to Security: America's Third Struggle for Freedom," that perhaps the greatest internal enemies of the American people were the giant corporations that were taking ownership of all the farmland in this country and were producing "food' that was not only bereft of nutritional value but was positively harmful.
'Corporation farming,' they warned,'will in time destroy itself with its mechanical methods in a field essentially biological, but before this stupidity will reap its empty harvest, our American families will be finally and completely uprooted from the soil...This last Octopus of Wall Street will drive the remaining families from the land.' And Pope Pius XII lamented in an address to Italian farmers, "Finance capital hastens to take over the deserted countryside, and the land then becomes not an object of loving concern but of cold, calculating exploitation...it no longer produces except for speculation.'"
Serious words to ponder in these days when most of us are so dependent on the goodwill of giant corporations and big government to be able to feed our families!
"In 1940, Msgr. Luigi Ligutti and Fr. John Rawe, SJ, warned Americans in their book "Rural Roads to Security: America's Third Struggle for Freedom," that perhaps the greatest internal enemies of the American people were the giant corporations that were taking ownership of all the farmland in this country and were producing "food' that was not only bereft of nutritional value but was positively harmful.
'Corporation farming,' they warned,'will in time destroy itself with its mechanical methods in a field essentially biological, but before this stupidity will reap its empty harvest, our American families will be finally and completely uprooted from the soil...This last Octopus of Wall Street will drive the remaining families from the land.' And Pope Pius XII lamented in an address to Italian farmers, "Finance capital hastens to take over the deserted countryside, and the land then becomes not an object of loving concern but of cold, calculating exploitation...it no longer produces except for speculation.'"
Serious words to ponder in these days when most of us are so dependent on the goodwill of giant corporations and big government to be able to feed our families!
Friday, April 10, 2009
Higher Education
This morning I was reading a letter from a man about sending children to college.
He was writing in response to an article called "Is College Worth It?" Here are a few sentences:
"Thanks for the article on 'Is College Worth It?' I have four children, with two who have graduated. All four have loans. Your article does not mention those students who try to earn a college degree, and fail. My son attended an out-of-state school for about two years. He owes $65,000 without the degree. Something like buying a yacht and sinking it without insurance. Another daughter received a well-earned engineering degree from Virginia Tech. She has worked for two firms; both have closed the facility where she worked. Her current job prospects are bleak...Her loans must still be paid. Another daughter has earned a master's in occupational therapy. Her future is bright but she will need to start a private practice to truly free herself from student loans. The last daughter still owes me a little money from a Dad loan.
"The reason for these stories is to point out that the ROI (Return On Investment) for a college degree is variable and risky. I suspect many institutes of higher learning would close if we instituted a mandatory ROI calculation for students. College is worth it--for the tenured professors....Further compounding is the lack of culpability by the colleges. They offer no guarantees for jobs after graduation...We have sold our youth a perception that college is the golden path without teaching them the true cost to achieve that goal."
I think he makes some good points. Another point I would like to make is that I do not understand why parents would spend that kind of money to send their grown child to a place where their faith and values are constantly under attack. Why support such an institution?
He was writing in response to an article called "Is College Worth It?" Here are a few sentences:
"Thanks for the article on 'Is College Worth It?' I have four children, with two who have graduated. All four have loans. Your article does not mention those students who try to earn a college degree, and fail. My son attended an out-of-state school for about two years. He owes $65,000 without the degree. Something like buying a yacht and sinking it without insurance. Another daughter received a well-earned engineering degree from Virginia Tech. She has worked for two firms; both have closed the facility where she worked. Her current job prospects are bleak...Her loans must still be paid. Another daughter has earned a master's in occupational therapy. Her future is bright but she will need to start a private practice to truly free herself from student loans. The last daughter still owes me a little money from a Dad loan.
"The reason for these stories is to point out that the ROI (Return On Investment) for a college degree is variable and risky. I suspect many institutes of higher learning would close if we instituted a mandatory ROI calculation for students. College is worth it--for the tenured professors....Further compounding is the lack of culpability by the colleges. They offer no guarantees for jobs after graduation...We have sold our youth a perception that college is the golden path without teaching them the true cost to achieve that goal."
I think he makes some good points. Another point I would like to make is that I do not understand why parents would spend that kind of money to send their grown child to a place where their faith and values are constantly under attack. Why support such an institution?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina Current mood:thoughtful
There has been a lot of hullaballoo about some bishop somewhere (Germany?) who made a statement that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for sin, or something to that effect. Of course people were up in arms--how dare this man have an opinion! Especially in America (the only country I know of that actually voted in their dictator, rather than making him put together a military coup) the cries of outrage went up.Now I do not believe people in New Orleans are any guiltier of sin than, say, people in Seattle or Boise. Rejecting God's laws is popular all across the good ol' US of A! And as my mom used to say, "The innocent suffer along with the guilty." (I have changed that to "the innocent usually suffer a lot more than the guilty," but that's just me.)I am of the mindset that ANY natural disaster, or even unnatural disaster, is a call to repentance for EVERYONE, regardless of whether one was affected or not.
There has been a lot of hullaballoo about some bishop somewhere (Germany?) who made a statement that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for sin, or something to that effect. Of course people were up in arms--how dare this man have an opinion! Especially in America (the only country I know of that actually voted in their dictator, rather than making him put together a military coup) the cries of outrage went up.Now I do not believe people in New Orleans are any guiltier of sin than, say, people in Seattle or Boise. Rejecting God's laws is popular all across the good ol' US of A! And as my mom used to say, "The innocent suffer along with the guilty." (I have changed that to "the innocent usually suffer a lot more than the guilty," but that's just me.)I am of the mindset that ANY natural disaster, or even unnatural disaster, is a call to repentance for EVERYONE, regardless of whether one was affected or not.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Lord's Prayer and greed
From a talk on the Lord's Prayer by Father Reginald Martin, O.P.:
"If we consider what we ask of God when we beg for our daily bread, we realize we are asking for very little. We are not asking God to supply all our wants, which can be infinite; we are asking Him to supply our needs, which are far more modest.
"St. John Chrysostom continually preached against the excesses he witnessed at the Byzantine court. In these words of the Lord's Prayer he took the opportunity to warn his listeners, once again, about the hazards of wealth. In a sermon on the gospel of Matthew he preached, '...it is neither for riches, nor for delicate living, nor for costly raiment, nor for any other such thing, but for bread only that He commanded us to make our prayer.'
"The Lord's Prayer, thus, encourages us to seek simplicity in our lives, and the virtue of Fortitude helps us trust that this simplicity will be sufficient for our needs. In this way, Fortitude enables us to avoid the sins that arise from too great a desire for temporal goods."
"If we consider what we ask of God when we beg for our daily bread, we realize we are asking for very little. We are not asking God to supply all our wants, which can be infinite; we are asking Him to supply our needs, which are far more modest.
"St. John Chrysostom continually preached against the excesses he witnessed at the Byzantine court. In these words of the Lord's Prayer he took the opportunity to warn his listeners, once again, about the hazards of wealth. In a sermon on the gospel of Matthew he preached, '...it is neither for riches, nor for delicate living, nor for costly raiment, nor for any other such thing, but for bread only that He commanded us to make our prayer.'
"The Lord's Prayer, thus, encourages us to seek simplicity in our lives, and the virtue of Fortitude helps us trust that this simplicity will be sufficient for our needs. In this way, Fortitude enables us to avoid the sins that arise from too great a desire for temporal goods."
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Problems to Fix at Home
From a speech delivered by Fr. John A. O'Brien, professor of the philosophy of religion in the graduate school at Notre Dame, published in the May 12, 1941 issue of Social Justice.
"The richest one-tenth of one percent of American families, according to the Brookings Institute, received in 1929, as large a share of the products of industry as the poorest 42%. This means that 36,000 families at the top of the income scale obtained as much as 11,650,000 families at the bottom. Is this the kind of democracy we are being asked to bring, as a gift from Mt. Olympus, to the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia?
"How can we talk about democracy, the moral order, social justice and the supremacy of human rights, when in our midst are millions of (Americans) who do not have even a nodding acquaintance with those ideals? How can we impose them at a point of a bayonet upon other peoples when we have not been able to secure them for the majority of our own?
"War is a false path to that freedom. We do no supply [political freedom] by engaging in a gigantic campaign of destruction, by plowing under every fourth American, and by setting our own house on fire."
"The richest one-tenth of one percent of American families, according to the Brookings Institute, received in 1929, as large a share of the products of industry as the poorest 42%. This means that 36,000 families at the top of the income scale obtained as much as 11,650,000 families at the bottom. Is this the kind of democracy we are being asked to bring, as a gift from Mt. Olympus, to the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia?
"How can we talk about democracy, the moral order, social justice and the supremacy of human rights, when in our midst are millions of (Americans) who do not have even a nodding acquaintance with those ideals? How can we impose them at a point of a bayonet upon other peoples when we have not been able to secure them for the majority of our own?
"War is a false path to that freedom. We do no supply [political freedom] by engaging in a gigantic campaign of destruction, by plowing under every fourth American, and by setting our own house on fire."
Friday, February 20, 2009
American economy
Here are a few quotes from an article in the Wanderer, which was quoting an article by Darrell Castle, entitled, "What should we do to save the American economy?" He says, "Yes, there are many things that we could do which collectively would bring economic recovery very quickly.
1) End the Fed. Monetary reform and economic recovery are not possible unless Congress is able to recover its constitutional authority over our monetary system. The growth of debt must be stopped and reversed, and the debt-based system of monetary creation through interest-bearing bank credit must be reversed if we are to recover. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 should be rescinded and the Fed banks liquidated and their assets truned over to the U.S. Treasury...Once Congress regains its constitutional aughority over money, it could issue money based on the full faith and credit of the United States or said another way, based on the labor and productive capacity of the American people. This money and credit would keep the economy functioning and prevent depression while we transitioned from our present debt-based system to the gold standard....
2)Withdraw from both wars immediately. Our nation has never been able to pay for these wars except through massive debt or massive inflation. Immediate withdrawal would save at least a trillion dollars."
1) End the Fed. Monetary reform and economic recovery are not possible unless Congress is able to recover its constitutional authority over our monetary system. The growth of debt must be stopped and reversed, and the debt-based system of monetary creation through interest-bearing bank credit must be reversed if we are to recover. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 should be rescinded and the Fed banks liquidated and their assets truned over to the U.S. Treasury...Once Congress regains its constitutional aughority over money, it could issue money based on the full faith and credit of the United States or said another way, based on the labor and productive capacity of the American people. This money and credit would keep the economy functioning and prevent depression while we transitioned from our present debt-based system to the gold standard....
2)Withdraw from both wars immediately. Our nation has never been able to pay for these wars except through massive debt or massive inflation. Immediate withdrawal would save at least a trillion dollars."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)