Sometimes Work Just Gets In The Way!

Well, I thought You're Next! The Assault On Traditional Rural Lifestyles would be ready in July... 
Whoops!  Someone commissioned a book on another topic (more about that one soon) so... I'm hoping the 1'st of October.

So here, just for fun, is the expanded temporary, draft, preliminary, etc. introduction to You're Next.  A shorter version of this was contained in the last post.

This photo or something similar will have the large red circle with a slash through it representing the wishes of the urban centrics that this kind of farm be restricted or eliminated

INTRODUCTION

It’s Not Paranoia When 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 the Southwestern United States.  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 they seek 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.

This book is about a national assault on traditional rural lifestyles and productive natural resource lands being played out in hundreds of communities in all 50 of these disunited states.   Whatcom County, a sparsely populated county located at the northwest corner of the continental United States is pointed to as indicative of those hundreds of communities because the on-going assault seen throughout the country began in Whatcom County decades ago.  The county is seen as a leader by many in the anti-rural movement; as a template transferrable to other regions, for techniques designed to take away the choice millions of Americans have made, or hope to make someday, to experience a traditional rural lifestyle in America.   

In Whatcom County the assault on traditional rural lifestyles is led by a small cadre of “Urban Centric” activists with close connections to state and national activist groups.  The group has had the assistance of one of America’s top legal firms at their beck and call.  The public story put forward is that the assistance is provided at no cost.  The activists have a firm grip on the local political system and work hard to “repel all boarders” when threatened with political change.  The anti-rural clique is firmly entrenched in well-funded local groups purporting to support local farms and farmers but putting forward regulatory changes harmful to those same local farms and farmers.

In short, Whatcom County is racing down the same roads hundreds of other jurisdictions in America are exploring but, because anti rural activists have been at work in the county for so long and because they are better organized than their kindred souls elsewhere, the county can be looked to as an example of how and why the anti-rural movement is having growing success across the landscape of America.

The message to the rest of America being broadcast by those seeking to end traditional rural lifestyles from sea to shining sea is:

YOU’RE NEXT!