S O U N D   O F F

August 20, 2010

I ask friends, acquaintances, strangers, "Please help me remove the rotten apples from this cart?"
"Oh my gosh no! I can't!" They answer.
"Why?" I ask.
“I’ll offend the rotten apples. I want the money they promised me for a coliseum with my name on it, big pension, tenure, food stamps, grants, baby recants and hair transplants!"
In real life we remove every rotten thing...except politicians.
We allow them to sit on the shelf beyond their "Use or freeze before" expiration date.
Recently I peeked in on a meet of cattle industry folks, Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
My take? It was another federal placebo.
Saying lovely things, Holder smoothly anesthetized the audience to make the bitters go down.
Holder serves an administration that, not unlike previous administrations, wants to control us.
While federalizing industries, healthcare and education, they take land and water out of private ownership; all...perfect ways to control us.
Theirs is a psychological warfare that teaches America’s urban populace to believe ag producers who own land and water should gladly gift it to groups like the Nature Conservancy.
So out in the open bold, blatant in your face, grand sweeping serious while executing their plan, they ruin any delectable fun we could have supposing them in a cigared czars smok’n conspiracy.
An example: Bureau of Land Management gifts National Academy of Sciences $1.5 million to study why feral burro and horse numbers are increasing on federal and private lands.
Apparently everyone except BLM knows the birds and bees story.
For about fifty cents, I could fax that story to BLM. The savings of one million, four hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars and fifty cents could be used towards the reimbursement to ag producers, whose care of said critters cost them fifty times that.
But they won’t do that.
Federal employees - like the global executor of our private estates DOI Secretary Ken Salazar - need feral burros and horses; for they’re one of many tools they use to take deeded land and water usage rights.
Secretary Vilsack appeared sincere in wanting to serve us; but quandaried as to who pays his salary and will spank him if he strays.
Another guy with the Justice Dept. asked the cattlemen and women if they accessed or used electronics...“like computers.”
What I heard? “Do you dumb hicks know how to read?”
What I pictured? Him asking Vera Wang the same question.
Why Vera Wang?
Well, the cattle industry is similar to the garment industry.
How?
Consider Vera as that cow-calf producer who draws up a design (genetics), finds the best fabric (bulls and cows) and factory (land and water), hires the best seamstresses (managers), and puts together an outfit she can get a terrific price on.
The differences? USDA and packers merge cow-calf producer designs with cheap imports.
As price receivers, cow-calf producers are paid whatever USDA and packers decide.
Cow-calf producers also loose money each time they have to stop work and travel to meetings.
Contrarily, USDA employees are paid to generate meetings and compensated travel.

An accurate illustration of the U.S. Cattle Industry.

Agricultural producers spend more of their personal time and money than any other industry, protecting their livelihoods, land and water.
Why then, do they subject themselves to such abuse? Love of country, nature and providing good products to consumers.
All they ask for is “fair treatment.” Something rotten apples don’t know how to give.
Rotten apples aren’t for fearing. They’re for removing.
If you won’t help remove them, then please don’t vote.

Roni Bell Sylvester
www.LandAndWaterUSA.com