The Steadiness on the Farm

As I read this morning of the pending default of Greece to pay its debts and the world economy faltering with the United States borrowed to the hilt, I think how lucky a person here is to have a garden and a few steers or lambs and the rock steadiness this life represents to us in the face of world economic depression. When things comes down to the wire, the family with land can always survive while those without this God given blessing can not. Land well tended will sustain its owner for limitless generations.

Martin, when the economic collapse comes, those millions of people (good and bad) in the cities will leave the cities to look for food and shelter. You may not be as secure as you think.
There will come a time when it will be as dangerous to have as to not have.

Excellent idea to resolve the fracking problem:

I read this morning that WVU is paying students $20 not to wear vulgar T-Shirts. And I know the U.S. gov pays people not to grow certain crops. So why not pay people not to lease their gas. I don't see how anyone would oppose being paid not to drill. The money: Our Farmland Protection Board already pays out thousands per acre that the only thing people can do is farm it. Maybe they would start paying other people not to lease their gas. After all, most people just what to push back the inevitable drilling by a couple years until the tech can catch up. I would be willing to enter a lease for a couple years while we are waiting. I figure we ought to get at least the same as a farmer who rents grazing land. We raise hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly through tourism. This way tourism could pay for itself and help the poor farmer live.

What do you think?

I haven't leased "yet." I am waiting to get my best price.
Isn't that what they do with the Farmland Protection Program
or when you do a contract for the cleaning of the ORU. Go
for the best price!!

Aren't there values in our lives that simply are not for sale, that we prize enough not to sell at any price? Love, beauty, serenity, trees, animals, children, community, health, friends, regard for others, water, responsibility for the well-being of others, the quiet character of our countryside - I don't think there are any passages in anyone's Bible that support avarice.

What is afoot if the pleas fail?What is the contingency plan? If the drillers cannot be kept away from Morgantowns water supply,who can keep them away from Pocahontas? Realistically,the destruction is on its way;why not do what Alaska did? They give all residents a monthly or yearly check from the profits of oil and gas.Pocahontas should do likewise.

John Adams, in A Defense of the American Constitutions, wrote “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If Thou shalt not covet and Thou shalt not steal were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”

The mountaintop removal was bravely fought often by non West Virginians, Remember that the destructive practice was approved by the Supreme Court. Pardon my realism, but I look for that to happen also in Marcellus. Mr. Saffer, if words written and spoken against the drillers were to be measured in time, how many hours or days have been used? and what has happened?The jobs are almost shovel ready.We can blog and blog, write haiku about our matchless rhododendron,pen odes to our Garden of Eden, glorify our one of a kind bucolic lifestyle,but in a capitalist country,capital will win. Here is hoping I am wrong, but just in case,follow the example of Alaska.Start by getting it on the ballot as they did.

I look for "progress" to come from education and the development of the human spirit and a healthy community not from exploitation of the earth that sustains us. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg? Norman, your positions are rhetorical I assume because they speak of such exaggerated steps leading to nowhere. The notion that we would be "rich" without water and our beautiful paradise of a county is absurd!

I would doubt that any one would agree with the goose laying a "golden egg". There is very limited opportunity for a good paying job in Pocahontas Co.
I think you will have a hard time selling the education side to someone who graduates with a degree and thousands of dollars of debt to go to work Wal-Mart or for a mc-job and that is even if they can find employment at those places.
It is my opinion that your views and those that agree come from a group that has already got it made.