December 2022 – Page 2 – Rural Tompkins County

“The World According to Doctrine” — Agricultural Regulations?

Agricultural interests always talk about regulations; because they never want to talk about the results. Agricultural regulations legitimize polluting by creating worthless standards that legally shield the polluters.

The TDML [Total Daily Maximum Load] paradigm sets the maximum level of pollution possible before environmental disaster – and then requires polluters to “try” to meet it.

Decades of Voluntary Guidelines and Nutrient Plans have proven worthless to curb Agriculture’s destruction of the environment – and the health of the rural communities they politically dominate.

The Agricultural sector is the only sector in the US that is still increasing its polluting; and increasing it across the board – from use of fossil fuels, to methane emissions, to nutrient pollution of our water: they are the fuse for global destruction.

The next time you see one of those “green” farm promotions; realize — it’s the polluting that you don’t see that will kill you.

“The World According to Doctrine” — Feet of manure

The foundation of modern animal agriculture is a lot of manure: in both the literal and metaphorical sense.

Industrial farming practices have same relation to traditional manure spreading as the BP oil spill to a grease spot.

Modern farming is a destructive and greedy giant: leaving a toxic print on the rural landscape – a bully trying to sell the image of a much abused victim while getting more perks and privileges than any other interest group.

Take a good look at the feet that our agricultural “progress” is standing on — a shitload of money.

“The World According to Doctrine” — “It is the duty of children . . .”

The problem with Proverbs of Wisdom is that they are “broad spectrum” – and those who want to use one are in danger of being undone by another; or by many others.

Today’s Doctrine forsakes the breadth of wisdom – and extracts and codifies the most useful parts of proverbs from around the world as societal regulations: a way of leveraging taxes and obligations – always taking instead of giving.

There is nothing more foreign to the Doctrine of Entitlement; than the concept of “duty” to anyone but yourself — unless it’s “waiting on elders.”

It may take a village to have a village idiot — but you can’t teach sense to a fool.

“The World According to Doctrine” — modifying ABSOLUTES

In the 60s: Liberals would judge everything by an Absolute measuring stick – “Absolutely this” and “Absolutely that” – until I began calling it the “Litany of Absolutes.”

Today’s Progressives however; never met an absolute that couldn’t be trimmed, shaped, or forced into accommodating anything they wanted.

Channeling Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mao — becoming Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mao.

A power that forces our ends — Absolutely.

“The World According to Doctrine” — Tompkins County: Corruption isn’t denounced

When the County Highway Director proclaimed a blatant untruth to block a through-truck regulation – and it was proven to be untrue – he never changed or retracted his statement — and not one member of the County Ethics Committee, the County Transportation Committee, or any Town or County official at any level would even mention it. There was just a wall of silence.

And not one of them would speak on the reason for their silence.

Why won’t any of them respond?

Sometimes not saying – is the same as lying.

“The World According to Doctrine” — Making connections

There’s nothing easier than making connections – and the closer to our being; the easier they are to make – that’s why we can make faces out of so many random elements.
But with so many connections: what are the connections that ring the truest – that have practicality at their core?
Yes, there is tremendous amount of gold in sea water: but Gold + Sea water + Investment is not a connection I would recommend to anybody.
Our politicians want to choose what connections we make: and People + Laws = Political Power is the connection they see in every issue.
What if chose our own connections? What a frightening and glorious thought:
People + People = Community – how’s that for a connection.

“The World According to Doctrine” — Salmon Creek Drug Sanctuary

Like the “Landfill Park” in The Mask – the public is always the recipient of that which is unsuitable for “people of influence and obligation” – a bureaucratic wrapping up of garbage for those “gift giving” publicity photos. So what does local government do with a dark and polluted bit of rural woods at the bottom of a steep valley? Make a gesture.

It’s a gesture that rural people are familiar with.

“The World According to Doctrine” — Agricultural Law

A picture may be worth a thousand words – but there are some pictures that the public doesn’t see.

Farmers are sometimes just referred to as the “rich people” in the poor rural communities. One dental technician told me that she knew the farmer crying for subsidies on television: he has a 40-ft yacht.

“Farm Friendly” doesn’t begin to describe the deliberately biased and un-equitable treatment that exists in the rich farmer – poor unrepresented and disposable “non-farmer” rural communities.

Agricultural Law protects farming; like beheadings protect a tyrant.

“The World According to Doctrine” — You won’t save the Titanic by bailing

A few years ago: it would have made me cry – but now, I just shake my head and laugh: electric cars. Electric cars will make no meaningful difference. Electric cars are what you do along with meaningful changes — not instead of.

Did you know that the Agricultural Sector in New York State and elsewhere is allowed any amount of open burning, and the unlimited use of smudge pots? And not only is Agriculture a significant user of fossil fuels – in states like New York: they are Fuel Tax Exempt – undercutting any regulatory attempts to curb their fossil fuel usage.

Methane emissions are driving Climate Change – and the Agricultural Sector is the largest producer of methane in the US – and the only sector where emissions are still increasing. And the farming methods being promoted by the USDA and Land Grant Colleges are the largest emitters of methane of all farming methods.

All the biggest producers are transitioning – from claiming Climate Change doesn’t exist: to claiming they’re doing something about it.

Climate Change is here to stay – and it’s already too big to get out the door. Drive happy!

“The World According to Doctrine” — Ithaca: the place where everybody wants to live

Ithaca is the place where everybody wants to live: because it’s the only place in the county where people have individual worth.

While Ithaca rules the county – it never leads by example. Their plan to blanket rural Lansing with CAFOs is balanced by their own petition to the New York State Supreme Court: enumerating serious concerns about lack of CAFO and Agricultural regulation and oversight, lack of disclosure, and the possible effects of modern farming practices on their own residents and the their own town’s environment. Lansing’s puppet government has expressed no concerns at all.

Ithaca is Camelot: A castle community where people dump their slop on the unprotected commoners outside the walls – without a second thought.

Where would you want to live?