HR 875 -- Operation Garden Kill

Picture a guy named "Skip" out on the golf course. He's a tired looking corporate executive. The guy next to him is a congressman. He looks tired too. He carries around the weight of an old family surname -- Sandborne. That's not his only problem. He's facing an election against someone who has a reputation of telling it like it is. He's going to need a very hefty campaign war chest to make his own brand of falsehood seem something like the truth.

At the end of the last hole, Skip says: "I need a favor."

Sandborne: "Shoot."

"We sell more grain and produce than anybody in America."

"Right," Sandborne says.

"We're getting tired of doing it the honest way. These farmers markets are picking up steam around the country and we want them snuffed. Terminated. Diced and juiced with extreme prejudice. You understand?"

"How we gonna do that?"

"Make them apply for a federal permit and an inspection."

"C'mon now, Skip. They ain't ever gonna do that."

"Regulate Organic completely out of existence."

"Organic? Skip. My niece is like an organic nut."

"Who butters your bread, Sandy baby?"

"Dont' get touchy. I'm just sayin--"

"I don't care what you're saying. I want these backyard tomato turks shut down before they grab share. What's good for Ag-Dax is good for Sandborne Paxton of the seventh congressional. You get me?"

Of course it doesn't happen that way in practice. Now we have congress people who are very much in touch with their feminine side, and you don't really have to use bald force anymore because the policy people don't think. A corporate goon from a huge agricultural conglomerate can call it something like the "Food Safety Act," and everybody gets weepy-eyed about protecting the public.

Believe it or not, there is a bill being considered in Congress that would make it very difficult for any small farm to take their produce to market. Here on Riley's Farm, our ox is not being gored. We sell everything we grow right here, but agriculture is good for communities and anyone who wants to throttle it--on behalf of corporate oligarchies-- doesn't really have the best interest of America at heart.

The bill should be killed--and anyone who even considers it, sponsors it, or gives it more than 30 seconds worth of thought should be remembered as the treasonous, anti-American scum they have so manifestly proven themselves to be.

..and that's my measured opinion.