HOW NOT WHY

[Raven]

Does anyone agree that its time to look at HOW to get marketing choice, rather than WHY? Arguing with Flaman is a diversionary waste of time.

Is there any reason why being granted export licences, which is all that eastern farmers have ever had, is not good enough for prairie farmers?

[TOM4CWB]

Raven,

This is about SLAVERY.

Those who are the MASTERS... would tell the world... it is better to be a slave than to be free.

If it puts bread on the table, and macaroni in the pot... the world being selfish will not object.

Abraham Lincoln dealt with this issue well. A few words of his wisdom lights this subject... with infinite wisdom!

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel."

"This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
--April 6, 1859 Letter to Henry Pierce"

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
--December 1, 1862 Message to Congress
HONESTY
In very truth he was, the noblest work of God -- an honest man.
--February 8, 1842 Eulogy of Benjamin Ferguson
I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.
--August 11, 1846 Letter to Allen N. Ford"

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature -- opposition to it is in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow....
-- repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart, that slavery... is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.
--October 16, 1854 Speech at Peoria

The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
--August 15, 1855 Letter to George Robertson"

"The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes.
--August 24, 1855 Letter to Joshua Speed"

"Now what is Judge Douglas' Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object.
--September 16, 1859 Speech in Columbus, Ohio"

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.
--March 4, 1865 Inaugural Address

WORK

We know, Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us ... Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.
--ca. September 17, 1859 Fragment on Free Labor

By the "mud-sill" theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be -- all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all.
--September 30, 1859 Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society"



Vader... What a slippery slope we cleave... when we practice to deceive...

[TOM4CWB]

Now, let us try this again:

Vader posted Jan 26, 2008 10:20
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talked to a farmer yesterday whose durum went 70 bushels per acre. On 2000 acres the gross revenue is $1,750,000.00.

I have heard similar stories around Kindersley and Swift Current of durum that went 50 bushels per acre. Now that is only $650,000 for a thousand acres but in that case the lentils and canola took him well into the millions as well.

I hear all the time here on angryville the time people like Saskfarmer bitching about the CWB because he can't get $17.00 for his durum and he blames this on the CWB.

In the case of a few rich farmers who can sit on all of their grain while the raging masses sell out early perhaps Saskfarmer has a legitimate argument. Perhaps we did cost him $5.00 per bushel on his durum. Perhaps it ran 50 bushels per acre and perhaps he had a thousand acres. And perhaps he could have earned an additional quarter of a million dollars.

I could argue that this is a zero sum game and that on the flip side there is another farmer that could have had the same 50 bushel crop on the same acreage base of 1000 acres and he could have sold his durum for $7.00 per bushel and for that farmer we made him an extra quarter million dollars. I could argue that for the health of the community it is better that the second farmer is able to pay down his debt and remain a constructive player in the industry and the community while poor Saskfarmer was prevented from expanding his farm by another section. The section that farmer number two may have sold after making his decision to sell his durum at 7.00.

But it is not a zero sum game. In fact we know that the CWB is asking $22.00 per bushel for durum today when the US elevator price reported here on Agri-vill is only $17.00. Now those elevators will sell your durum for $22.00 if they can get their hands on it.

So we see that for starters the CWB is keeping about $5.00 per bushel out of the handling companies pockets and putting it in farmers pockets right now.

Further we know that the average weighted selling price of durum in the US according to the North Dakota Wheat commission is about $10.00. This is further proof of the value of the CWB. The CWB has added to the bottom line of Canadian farmers on a 3 million tonne program an extra $73.00 per tonne or $220,000.00.

So yes the downside is that we kept Saskfarmer from buying another section of land where he might next year make enough extra money to buy out another suffering neighbor who had to sell a section to Saskfarmer.

The upside is that the Ag industry in Canada made an extra almost quarter of a BILLION DOLLARS.

And that is just on Durum.

Wait till you see my analysis on Spring Wheat and Malt Barley.

Rod Flaman
CWB Director - District 8
306-771-2823
rodflaman@imagewireless.ca

Oh and by the way. The CWB Rocks."

Is it clearer now Raven?

[Raven]

I agree Tom, slavery is terrible. And so is the CWB monopoly, so is there a way to get the beast off the backs of western farmers?

I guess one way is to try to appeal to the conscience of those holding the power such as Flaman and beg for freedom.
I just think its time to think outside the designated area box. Why should we accept that the same national legislation that applies equally to all Canada captures only western farmers? How have eastern farmers escaped? How did Creston-Wynndel farmers get out?