You're Next! The Assault On Traditional Rural Lifestyles

Recent news from Nevada, Texas and, other parts of the king's realm led me to believe a book I've been working on, or rather, off and on, for two plus years needs to be finished.  Based on an article I wrote for Acres Magazine a couple of years ago, the book examines the tensions between rural America and urban activists we've seen highlighted in recent months.
So, the book will be finished and available at Amazon and on Kindle by about July of this year.

Here's a potential illustration:

 
 Here's a few sentences from the book's forward:
  

It’s Not Paranoia If They Really Are Out To End Your Lifestyle Choices

It is ironic that in America, at a time when more and more people want to trade in the treadmill of urban life to return to the nation’s rural roots, the right to choose to live a traditional rural lifestyle is under assault by powerful political forces dedicated to ending traditional rural lifestyles in favor of the purported benefits of life in the high rise city.

Not so long ago a Super Bowl commercial extolling the virtues of “the farmer” touched the emotions of Americans.  Today words like “local food,” “sustainability,” “food security” and “buy local” permeate the conversations of the very people working hard to end the very lifestyle they profess admiration for; a cadre of people passionately committed to the end of significant use of rural lands in traditional ways.

The assault comes on many fronts, not all of them as visible as recent Bureau of Land Management attempts to expand its already huge empire.  In fact, the most effective attacks on traditional uses of the land are hidden, often deliberately, from public view.  Those militantly demanding the land be cleared of residents work to restrict the use of water, work to consolidate small acreages into “factory farm” sized parcels, oppose allowing small acreages to be made available to families desiring to live the traditional rural lifestyle, seek to end the ability to own and operate rural businesses capable of serving rural residents and, in a hundred other ways, swarm onto the landscape looking for ways to end meaningful use of the nation’s farm and forest lands as a way to achieve a long term goal of pushing landowners off the land and into the city.

Posing as supporters, those opposed to the living of traditional rural lifestyles speak in glowing terms about farmland preservation, sustainability, food security and, environmental protections while actually bringing forward an agenda aimed at eliminating small scale farming by passing legislation designed to crush rural businesses, removing or denying water rights necessary to grow crops, and seizing control of huge acreages under the guise of preserving the land for “future generations,” or the promise of environmental enhancement.

Well, now I've gone and said I'd do it... guess I'd better get to it!