The Scott County Record • Page 6 • Thursday, July 18, 2013
Kochs trying to sell their vision of a better America Rich people often run for office or become sports owners or well-known spokesmen for their businesses. It’s also comWestern mon for them to Skyline back candidates to by Bob Campbell influence legislation affecting their finances, but few put beaucoup bucks into promoting their political philosophies and trying to reshape society to conform to their peculiar notions. Kansas’ multi-billionaire Koch Brothers, Charles and David, are among those few, vilified by the left, lionized by the right and puzzling to much of the middle. Conventional thought is that these true libertarian believers are merely boosting their profits at Koch Industries, but you don’t have to spend like they do to buy a gaggle of honking politicians. Charles is in the news with a $200,000 ad buy to gauge support for his radical conservatism in Wichita, which he and his advisors are using as a test market for a possible national media campaign. The elder Koch, 77, told the Wichita Eagle on July 9 that “to do a better job of raising up the disadvantaged and the poorest in this country, we need to analyze all these additional policies, these subsidies, this cronyism, this avalanche of regulations, all the things that are creating a culture of dependency.” One needed change, he said, is to eliminate the minimum wage. Libertarianism is an idealistic philosophy with a callous heart, holding, among other things, that there should also be no Social Security or Medicare and that, like novelist Ayn Rand’s self-interested protagonists, the richest and most talented people are the most heroic. The Kochs are blowing millions on extreme right wing groups like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, and I suspect that those whose livelihoods they’re enriching have perfected their ideological sales pitches to the brothers, who seem dismayed that having generally avoided the spotlight has not kept them from becoming controversial. Their politicians could have told them that consultants and ad agencies see guys like them coming and that there is no end to campaigns to solve the problems created by prior activities. Mitt Romney learned there is a threshhold to what you can do with TV ads, and the Kochs may one day see, after the ad men and political consultants get done taking them for a ride, that mainstream America has no use for their ideas. Bob Campbell is a reporter and columnist for The Scott County Record. He can be reached at kansasnewz@att.net
Deadly
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He’s right. We increased wind and solar energy from less than one percent of our energy in 2007 to less than two percent in 2011. (Meanwhile, our reliance on natural gas crept up from 28 percent to 30 percent of total energy consumption, and our total use of energy overall rose in those four years by 9.4 percent - with most of the increase coming from dirty sources.) Fracking might be profitable, but whether it’s good for anything else is doubtful. Emissions during the fracking process outweigh any benefits of reduced emissions when the fuel obtained is burned. Besides, how does fracking American land make sense if it’s poisoning our food and water supply with chemicals that give us cancer? Let’s solve our energy problems by increasing efficiency and by turning to truly clean sources of energy: renewable options like solar, wind, and geothermal power. Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It
Keystone
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If pressure will mount against the tar sands crude being transported via rail to the Canadian coast for export, and if there will be no pipeline through West Canada, then the Keystone XL is the main line to markets in Asia and Europe for the cheap tar sands crude. That means Americans will bear the risk of the pipeline and not see any reward. Why would the President of the United States of America want that? Tom Steyer is an American asset manager, philanthropist and environmentalist Have questions about the Scott Community Foundation? Call 872-3790 or e-mail: scottcf@wbsnet.org
Florida considers eliminating all laws by Andy Borowitz
Arguing that its current system of laws is out of step with life in today’s Florida, a growing chorus of lawmakers in the state are arguing for a measure that would eliminate laws altogether. “Florida is rife with laws that say ‘Do this,
don’t do that,’ ” said Gov. Rick Scott, a supporter of the measure. “Speaking as a Floridian, I have found it exhausting pretending to obey them.” There is broad support in the state for abolishing laws, according to a poll commissioned by the political action committee Citizens For a Lawless
Florida. According to that poll, a majority of Floridians favor ridding the state of laws, while a sizable number did not know that the state had any. “We’ve been trying to remove laws piecemeal for the past few decades, but this measure seems like the most efficient way
to take care of the whole problem,” Gov. Scott said. For those who fear that eradicating Florida’s laws would wreak havoc on life in the state, Gov. Scott offered this reassurance: “Honestly, I don’t think you’ll notice a difference.” Andy Borowitz is a comedian and author
Modern agriculture taking over China by John Schrock
“One Kansas farmer feeds 128 people and you,” reads a common Kansas road sign. In China, that sign would read: “One Chinese peasant feeds you,” because the rural population constitutes nearly half of China. However, that proportion was much higher a half century ago, and the number of farmers is plummeting each year. As I traveled the superhighway from the Xi’an airport to Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University for the seventh time since 2001, the countryside alongside the highway has changed. It was a patchwork of small family plots 12 years ago. Today most of those plots are gone. Graders have removed the pathway ridges between plots. Now, monocultures allow larger tractors and combines to run some distance. Where three generations used to work side-by-side after school, now no studentage children can be seen. They come home from school and are sent inside to study the rest of the day. Escape from the peasant life via hard study, passing the gao kao test, and going to university is their one-way route off of the farm. Intensive farming of small plots has shifted to the older generation who will someday retire and
small plot farming will disappear. China could command an instant move to industrialized farming tomorrow, but that would leave many folks out of work. China is moving at about the pace that the rural population is retiring and human dignity can be preserved. But sometimes faster. I stood on the second story balcony of a brand new vacation-hotel-restaurant complex not yet open to the public. About a quarter mile away was an old village. “That village will be gone next year,” my host explained. “What will happen to the people living there?” I asked. “The young couples all left for the city long ago,” he explained. “All that are left are old farmers. They would make about 2000 yuan a year, so the government will give them that as a pension and they will live at the new housing you saw down the road, simple but modern.” “What happens to their land?” I asked. “The government owns it. When we built these hotels and restaurant, we pay rent,” was his reply. “That is a lot more than what the farmer was producing. That is how the government here is financed.” This is the American concept of “imminent
Socialism who may not be in business if not for crop insurance assistance and other benefits in past farm bills. Abandoned farmsteads and vacant Main Street storefronts in many rural communities are testimony to the not-so-pleasant changes in American agriculture and the exodus of farm families. If crop and insurance
help small businesses or help Americans throughout the country,” Kind said. “And that’s the real tragedy with these type of hearings.” Replied Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) “Do we want to repeal this? You bet your life. Caught redhanded.” Roskam rejected
insult. “Nengmin” translates as “peasant” and in this word you begin to sense the derogatory nature of the term, like “hillbilly” or “hick.” And sadly, some countryside folks believe they are inferior because they have little education and lack city manners. It is not without basis. Several weeks ago as I was waiting at a bus stop, a rural man urinated on a lamp post about six feet away. China is a spectrum, from 1930’s Depressionera Appalachia without electricity or plumbing, to the most modern cities in the world, where this would never have been tolerated. Back in the college classroom, a student from the countryside told her story. Her rural parents left the farm to work hard in the city so that she could go to a better city school. In her case, a Chinese high school teacher detected her country accent and railed at her that she did not deserve a city school and belonged back in the countryside. This made the student very angry and resentful and she committed herself to studying even harder. “And I am here at the university. I showed her!” she triumphantly tells her classmates, with tears in her eyes. John Schrock trains biology teachers and lives in Emporia
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subsidies are needed in order to keep large, industrial farm operations from swallowing up smaller farmers, that’s a price we’re willing to pay. But please, don’t say you don’t need government. As a member of the Kansas Congressional delegation, or as a farmer, you can’t claim to stand
Mission
domain” with Chinese characteristics. And that is what makes this system work. It is an irony that in a country founded on a peasant revolt against landlords and indentured servitude, the government is now the big landlord. It pays the retired farmers and then generates far more land tax revenue. Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich advocated constraining all building within current cities and suburbs, and I grieve to see so much rich Kansas farmland turned into housing. Our zoning laws are a farce. China is far better at “building up, not out.” They constrain their housing development - usually. I was standing on one such development that occupied good soil. But usually, good effort is being made to save the rich farmland. “So this is how county and state governments are funded across China?” I asked. “No,” was the answer. “Only where the agricultural soil is good. Many regions have to find other sources. And sometimes the government officials at local level do not run this program fairly and that causes trouble.” I am careful when I speak the Chinese words for “countryside” (nengchuan) or “farmer” (nengmin). Some uses can be an
for free markets and fiscal responsibility while also waiting for your subsidy check to arrive in the mail any more than you can claim to hate socialism while cashing your Social Security check. The farm bill isn’t perfect. For every dollar directed to those farmers most in need, there are countless others, includ-
ing some of the largest ag corporations in America, who also reap the benefits. Congressmen on either side of the aisle aren’t going to change that. It’s socialism at its best - or worst. To say otherwise is to deny the obvious. Rod Haxton can be reached at editor@screcord.com
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the idea “that somehow a desire to see something fail is somehow unjust.” But Republicans don’t have much of a viable alternative. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor touted a bill this spring to help people with preexisting health problems get insurance, but
conservative opposition forced him to pull the bill from the floor. In the case of the “employer mandate,” even a number of liberals agree that it’s a bad policy. Republicans could probably find support for repealing that provision, if they weren’t hellbent on
repealing the whole law. But it’s so much more cathartic to call a hearing, assume a posture of umbrage, and use words such as “calamity” and “fiscal time bomb,” and “socialism” and “dictatorship.” Dana Milbank is a Washington Post staff writer and author