-Caveat Lector-
Thank You for finding these
there is a link to failed savings and loans somewhere too
as well as psychology taking care of pedophiles - which
as the potential of allowing people from other beliefs
(that think pedifilia and slavery is natural) to target children
** expressly when the offices of those shrinks house the
school shrink - that hand out the Ritalin **
so - include the
Home School Legal Defense Fund
and
CHADD - Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder
the other part of this article could imply a link with Coors beer
and through them Bohemian Groove - Goor, Dole, Pat Robinson.
The Pied Piper
Alamaine Ratliff wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> >From http://www.defenders.org/fbp02.html
>
> {{<Begin>}}
> Farm Bureau vs. Nature
> by Vicki Monks
> Fall 1998
>
> Part 2
>
> Vicki Monks, a freelance writer in Santa Fe, New Mexico, reports
> frequently on wildlife and environmental issues.
>
> Ask any Farm Bureau official at the county, state or national level how
> many actual farmers belong to the organization and it is likely you will not
> get a straight answer. "We feel like we represent eight out of ten American
> farmers," says Dick Newpher, executive director of AFBF's Washington, D.C.,
> office. But in fact, Newpher says he has no idea whether that statement is true
> because AFBF does not keep a central membership list that identifies who is a
> farmer and who is not. AFBF bylaws clearly spell out two categories of
> membership, however: voting members who are actively engaged in agriculture or
> retired from farming and associate members who are not farmers. Newpher says
> county and state farm bureaus keep separate records for the two member classes,
> but queries to several state farm bureaus did not produce answers, either.
> Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gene Hall says TXFB membership records make no
> distinction.
>
> Because AFBF is a nonprofit organization (although some state affiliates
> have set up for-profit companies) it pays no taxes on income from
> membership dues. In 1993, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that dues
> from nonfarming associate members - the customers of Farm Bureau insurance
> companies and other businesses - should be taxed as business income. An
> IRS survey of these associate members had found that only five percent
> joined AFBF because of an interest in agriculture. The IRS ruling could
> have cost AFBF an estimated $32 million in taxes each year. But a group of
> members of Congress led by Representative David Camp (R-Michigan) came to
> the rescue. Legislation reversing the IRS decision won approval in 1996 as
> part of the tax-relief package under House Speaker Newt Gingrich's
> "Contract With America." During 1995 and 1996, political action committees
> affiliated with state farm bureaus contributed $109,824 to many of the 126
> sponsors and cosponsors of the Tax Fairness for Agriculture Act -
> including $16,480 to Camp. In recent years, AFBF and its state affiliates
> have developed cozy alliances with other conservative political groups,
> including many of the so-called wise- use organizations. AFBF works
> closely with more than a dozen of these groups, including several
> coalitions that are seeking to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act, roll
> back wetlands protections, lower clean air and water standards and thwart
> efforts to reduce global warming.
>
> Although these issues may have some bearing on agriculture, AFBF also uses
> its considerable clout to push policies that have no apparent connection
> to farming. For example, the Montana Farm Bureau (MTFB) lobbied to require
> that schools teach creationism on an equal basis with evolution. MTFB also
> wanted the state to ship convicted criminals to Mexico and promoted a
> resolution urging the United States to withdraw from the United Nations.
> AFBF's 1998 policy book calls for repeal of the nation's basic civil
> rights law, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and restoration of provisions
> in the 1872 Mining Act "that guarantee the rights and freedom of
> prospectors and miners." This law has allowed multinational corporations
> to extract billions of dollars in precious metals from public lands
> without paying royalties to the U.S. government. It contains no
> requirements for land reclamation and elevates mining above all other
> interests on public land, including wildlife habitat and clean water.
> Newpher paints a far more benign picture of the Farm Bureau's agenda. "We
> are probably the least selfish occupational group that there is in
> America," he boasts. "I don't see us taking strong legislative positions
> where we set out to be of harm to other parts of our society. I don't
> think we take extreme positions that hurt other people. We try not to."
>
> The Texas Farm Bureau apparently is not with the program. TXFB pushed for
> repeal of the federal minimum wage and wanted the government to cut food
> stamps for poor families whose children also got free lunches at school.
> When the Texas Agriculture Department adopted regulations to prevent
> growers from spraying pesticides while farm workers were in the fields,
> TXFB nearly succeeded in getting the state legislature to revoke those
> rules. "The new regs weren't anything major that would be a substantial
> disruption or expense to employers, but you should have heard the
> screaming and howling. You would have thought somebody had burned their
> barns and run off their stock," says Texas Rural Legal Aid attorney David
> Hall, who has represented farm workers injured by pesticides. Both TXFB
> and AFBF advocate eliminating the Legal Services Corporation, a federally
> funded organization that provides legal-aid attorneys like Hall for
> low-income clients.
>
> In North Carolina in 1983, the Farm Bureau opposed a proposal for
> increased penalties against individuals who hold workers in involuntary
> servitude - in other words, people who keep slaves. Ten people had been
> convicted on slavery charges in North Carolina during the previous three
> years. And in Ohio, the Farm Bureau worked to retain a National Labor
> Relations Act exemption for large corporate farms. Because of this
> exemption, workers at egg farms with millions of laying hens have no
> protection from firing or harassment by their bosses if they try to
> organize labor unions.
>
> It should come as no surprise that the Farm Bureau defends big
> agribusiness. The Farm Bureau itself is in big agribusiness. Growmark, a
> Farm Bureau- controlled grain-marketing cooperative, chalked up $1.57
> billion in sales last year. In 1985, Growmark merged its grain terminal
> operations with agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). ADM took
> over management of the terminals, and Growmark received ADM stock in
> exchange. Other Farm Bureau companies own stock in big agribusiness. And
> if those big agribusinesses prosper, Farm Bureau affiliate stock
> portfolios stand to reap some of the benefits.
>
> The Farm Bureau also uses its lobbying clout to take care of its other
> financial partners. Seemingly odd policy positions are easier to
> understand in the light of the Farm Bureau's insurance and other business
> interests. For instance, AFBF lobbied against important health-care
> legislation, including a bill guaranteeing minimum hospital stays for new
> mothers. State farm bureaus have lobbied hard for limits on medical
> malpractice damage awards, and AFBF is pushing for privatization of Social
> Security. It is a far stretch to relate those issues to agriculture, but
> they certainly affect Farm Bureau financial interests.
>
> Another example: AFBF is a member of the Coalition for Vehicle Choice, a
> group that helped defeat legislation that would have raised
> fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles. FBL Financial Group, which
> controls Farm Bureau insurance affiliates in 12 states, also owns stock in
> Ford Motor Company, Texaco and other oil and gas producers, according to
> FBL financial reports. The Iowa Farm Bureau owns 63 percent of FBL.
>
> "If these people lose their prestige as the spokesmen for agriculture,
> they're just another insurance lobby, and insurance lobbies are a dime a
> dozen," Missouri farmer Scott Dye says. "That's why they don't like to
> talk about how many of those members are actually farmers." Dye's family
> has farmed in Missouri for 118 years. He has never belonged to the Farm
> Bureau and says he never will. "They've sold me up the river as far as I'm
> concerned," he says. Two Missouri controversies illustrate how out of step
> the Farm Bureau can be with family farmers. Dye and other small farmers in
> a three-county area in northern Missouri have been locked in what is so
> far a losing battle over the presence of concentrated animal feeding
> operations. These megafarms house as many as 140,000 animals. Rolf
> Cristen's 600-acre farm is sandwiched between two of these operations. "It
> stinks at our house continuously," he says. People who have worked around
> livestock all their lives say they sometimes wake up in the middle of the
> night and vomit because the stench is so bad.
>
> In the 1980s, Missouri's Air Conservation Commission exempted farms from
> laws that require other businesses to keep smells under control. Missouri
> Attorney General Jay Nixon has petitioned the commission to revoke the
> odor exemption for the largest livestock producers. Fewer than a dozen
> huge corporate farms would be affected. The exemption for family farmers
> would not change. Nevertheless, the Missouri Farm Bureau has attacked the
> proposal, arguing that the odor regulations were not based on sound
> science and would trample private property rights. Missouri Farm Bureau
> spokesman Estil Fretwell says the bureau worries that if regulations are
> imposed on the biggest farmers, they will soon trickle down to family
> farms. "I think we've been very clearly on the side of concerns of the
> average farmer in the state," he says.
>
> AFBF has made property rights a national priority. The federation wants
> the federal government to compensate farmers or others who lose money or
> have to spend it in order to comply with environmental regulations. "When
> society makes such demands, it is only fair that society share in the
> cost," reads an AFBF release. At first blush, that policy may sound
> entirely reasonable, but that is not how the property-rights issue played
> out in Lincoln Township, Missouri. Before Premium Standard Foods built an
> 80,000-hog farm outside the town, community leaders tried to keep the
> corporate farm away by adopting new zoning ordinances. Premium Standard
> sued Lincoln Township for $7.9 million, alleging violations of property
> rights. The property-rights issue was never settled - a state court ruled
> that the township had no zoning authority to begin with, so the hogs moved
> in.
>
> Environmentalists fear that this kind of thing will occur more often if
> Farm Bureau-sponsored policies become law. "The hog issue is a perfect
> example of how this ideology can cause obvious and direct damage to rural
> residents, including Farm Bureau members," says Ken Cook of the
> Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy group based in
> Washington, D.C. "Does the Farm Bureau seriously mean that communities
> should pay corporations when towns adopt regulations to protect
> themselves?" he asks. "Property rights stop at your fence line," Scott Dye
> adds. "Just because you call yourself a farmer doesn't give you any right
> to fog out your neighbor with the stink of hog manure and doesn't give you
> any right to pollute the water. Believe me, you get a snout full of 80,000
> hogs and it will clarify your thought processes real quick."
>
> AFBF President Dean Kleckner owns a hog farm himself, and at the national
> level AFBF is fighting EPA's current initiative to tighten Clean Water Act
> regulations on large animal-feeding operations. The Maryland and Virginia
> farm bureaus have worked to defeat manure-control legislation even though
> scientists suspect that manure drainage into streams may be contributing
> to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, a highly toxic microbe that can kill
> fish and sicken people. Although AFBF says it is trying to protect small
> farmers from burdensome regulations, Dye says his experience suggests that
> farmers really have nothing to fear. "There's never been a farmer put out
> of business by environmental laws," he declares. "They're put out of
> business by factory farms that skew markets and deflate prices. We've lost
> 5,000 independent swine producers in Missouri in the last five years -
> family farms - and they're gone forever. The Farm Bureau has stood on the
> sidelines and let that happen."
>
> {{<End>}}
>
> A<>E<>R
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960)
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
> new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said
> it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your
> own reason and your common sense." --Buddha
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
> prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
> information and ideas through any media and regardless
> of frontiers." Universal Declaration of Human Rights
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
> teach you to keep your mouth shut." Ernest Hemingway
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
> is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
> expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
> for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
>
> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
> ==========
> CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
> screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
> and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
> frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
> spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
> gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
> be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
> nazi's need not apply.
>
> Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
> ========================================================================
> Archives Available at:
> http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
>
> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
> ========================================================================
> To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
> SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
> SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Om
--
Any person can stand adversity,
The true test is to give a person power.
If you treat a relationship as if you are the only one in it, eventually you will
be.
Atrocities happen when the people about you - start considering you surplus.
"I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of
others to differ from me in opinion"
---- Thomas Jefferson
My Grandfather told me there are two kinds of people:
those who do the work and
those who take the credit.
He told me to be in the first group -
there is less competition there. -
Indira Gandhi
http://freeweb.digiweb.com/science_fiction/ThePiedPiper/~index.htm
ICQ 14484977
NEW
http://freeweb.digiweb.com/science_fiction/ThePiedPiper/site_map.htm
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
