makin' it work

[silverback]

Sorry Tower, I am pretty sure that there will never be more farmers out here than there are now. It has been happening this way for a hundred years and it is not going to stop just to satisfy your dream.

If you can also show us where exactly the large grain companies really want to be the primary producers, then I will start being as fearful as you about their future goals.

You also seem to fit in a lot of comments about climate change and the breakdown of our environment. I don't know where you claim to farm, but we could sure use some global warming caused by my combine right about now. If you want to talk pollution - great, but increasing temps might help a lot of areas of the northern prairies.

The cwb is a forced collective as you should know by now. What part of freedom of choice do you not like? If you like it so much you keep it and make it stronger, just please explain how it is ok to force the rest of us to belong to your club.

[tower]

chaffmeister, show me an institution, private or public that does not have weaknesses. I've gone to the quorum site four times four different ways and still haven't found the information you say is relevant.

[tower]

silverback, If the loss of a cwb choice resulted from the attempts by some to break the cwb, we would end up with an enforced uncollective. the question is then who is being more short-sighted.

Since the multinational agribusiness corps are into every other level of food production, processing, handling, secondary industry, and inputs to farming, one can only assume the reason they haven't gotten nto primary production yet is that there hasn't been enough cash in it for them. It's easier to extract the primary production cash flow out with control over other facets.

Where peak oil, water shortages, and global warming enter into the equation is that it could mean that the person onsite at the farm will be the one able to capitalize on grain shortages resultant. Rather than lose the kind of control the multinationals have at this point I can see them trying hard to figure a way that would allow them to grab the primary share as well.

[Fransisco]

An "enforced uncollective"? What kind of intellectual gobbledygook is that?

No one has ever suggested putting tower and his friends in jail if they want to get together and market their grain.

Allowing myself and others to market their own grain in no way what-so-ever disallows you from acting cooperatively with your neighbors and fellow farmers.

We are not talking about opposite sides of the same coin here. Stop pretending that we are.

[AdamSmith]

tower, you asked

"I'm curious about how the elections could be run without such a twisted system."

I think the whole idea of farmer directors to the current monopoly cwb is naive and foolhardy.

Giving my neighbor the power to lord over me without my consent is immoral.
As I have no other alternative other than to accept the prices, policies and direction this group chooses for me.

Elected farmer directors of a VOLUNTARY organization is proper and reasonable. I will participate if I see it as in my best interest or I can opt out, no hard feelings, no lawsuits, just an amicable parting of ways.

But with cwb elections and from a business perspective, the rules are absurd and are an insult to farmers.

The district boundaries were deliberately structured to favor the cwb single desk supporters. I farm in SW MB, the day to day farming issues I face are very similar to those in S Central MB and the Red River Valley. Yet I'm grouped in with farmers from the Swan River Valley who's way of farming and the issues that matter most to them, are many times at odds with those of a farmer from the SW.

A logical drawing of districts would have been two MB districts, one north and one south. Yet for reasons of pure political advantage the districts were drawn in order to have the northern friends of the cwb offset the southern supporters of a choice system in both districts.

Also they are a one permit book - one vote election. We all know that many non farmers vote under this system and that too in my opinion was deliberate in order to give the single deskers advantage.

The cwb on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, claim to be no different than the Multis, they are merely a corporate entity competing in the global marketplace. Strictly business. So shouldn't the voting for director be done with corporate rules as well?
Based on Shares or in this case bushels? So when old Mr. quit farming in 1987 and 300 of his fellow residence of the old folks home get their ballots, their vote won't really control the balance of the election like it can today.

And how many times at your all candidates meetings you've attended has personal experience and qualification and knowledge of the grain business been discussed?

In every election the main, if not the only issue has been the monopoly and in my opinion the guys who are there are nothing more than third rate politicians, some of them even speak just like you, about the threat of multi-national control of everything farming.

So I believe decisions are being made or being approved of based on conspiracy theories instead of sound judgment that comes from years of experience in the grain business.

And this has all come about because of Ralph Goodale's shortsighted blind faith in the cwb and his refusal to acknowledge it's shortcomings.

[Fransisco]

Okay now that we have established that you tower are in favour of putting farmer's who sell their own grain in jail the next question is what do you think is an 'appropriate punishment' for selling ones own grain?

A few weeks, months, years? And in what kind of facility?

I'm also curious if you think there are any other restrictions that would help your plan? Such as limiting the amount of negative commentary about the CWB and all of the price comparisons
that are going on.

[highwayman]

Maybe puttin us in jail will keep us from out producing ourselves. Unbelievalbe jibberish Tower.

[chaffmeister]

Tower - you don't really need to go to the Quorum website - just the latest annual report they have published - I gave you the direct link.
I also gave you the exact page and information on that page that you should consider. If you still don't think what I have shown you is relevant, then I really am at a loss. I don't know what else to tell you or show you - what I have shown you IS the relevant facts.

Why don't you think these costs are relevant?

[tower]

AdamSmith, not really big on democracy at all are you. Time to figure out that your neighbours affect you no matter where you are or what you do. They are elected on a rural municipality basis, district basis, urban, provincial and national. where you going to hide?

The logic that as used to establish our board district boundaries might be good logic from what I can gather, it just isn't your logic and therefore it is faulty.

I gather you're not to sure of the rules governing who gets a vote in the cwb elections. Perhaps it's the same sort of thing concerning your view of what is discussed at candidate forums. you hear only what you want to hear.

What gets discussed is what is questioned by the farmers in attendance.

[tower]

Fransisco and highwayman, why don't you go back and read the post in which I discussed your options to going to jail and let us know what you see there this time.

[Fransisco]

I read your response again and still find it nonsensical.

The idea that I have to win an election which gives me the ability to sell all of my neighbors crops before I would have the right to sell my own is a perverted one.

[Fransisco]

I'm not big on your definition of -democracy- either tower.

Yours is a democracy of unlimited majority rule, the kind history has taught us to rise above. Remember a guy named Socrates? He was put to death legally, because although he had initiated no force and had violated no one's rights, the majority simply didn't like what he was saying.

Your form of democracy, in short, is a form of collectivism, which denies individual rights: the majority can do whatever it wants with no restrictions. It is a totalitarian manifestation not a form of freedom.

What you need to learn tower is that you are an individual not a group. You have individual rights that are inalienable and that these same rights are held, individually, by every man, by all men, at all times. And therefore, the rights of one man cannot and must not violate the rights of another.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.

Any alleged right of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.

Tower you need to learn that there is no such thing as a 'democratic right' to vote away the rights of others.

You are substituting numbers for morality. Rights are not a matter of numbers—and there can and should be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a group or a mob. The only power a mob has against an individual, is greater muscular strength— plain, brute physical force.

Trying to solve social problems by means of physical force is exactly what a civilized society is established to prevent.

The fact that you are in favour of throwing your fellow farmers in jail for the 'crime' of selling their own grain shows that you have abandoned reason in favour of a Thugocracy.

[Fransisco]

And I just cannot believe this exchange between chaff and you tower.

<blockquote>chaffmeister posted Sep 14, 2007 1:18
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sacred - as in revered, valued, honoured, venerated.

Please don't take this the wrong way but your posts clearly demonstrate a high regard for the institution (such as "we're a lot better off with the CWB...") So the use of the word "sacred" refers to the unwavering devotion to the CWB demonstrated by some - even when faced with facts that clearly demonstrate some of its weaknesses. It is not "posturing".

So my question can be rephrased: "Why? Why do you support the CWB and seem to turn a blind eye to the facts?"

Concerning grain company revenues from handling grain:

Go to:

http://www.quorumcorp.net/Downloads/AnnualReports/AnnualReport200506DataTablesEnglish.pdf

Look at page 184 re wheat:

total average export "basis" in 05/06 was $61.81 per tonne

Average primary elevation was $11.76
Cleaning was $4.43
Average trucking premiums paid out was $4.56
Average CWB cost savings through tendering and terminal agreements was $1.32
All these items are to the account of the grain handlers - the first two are revenues, the second two are reductions to revenue. So on CWB business they averaged $10.31 per tonne revenue.

Add to that the export terminal elevations of about $10.

Those that don't have a terminal still get a "diversion fee" from the terminals that handle their grain - negotiated privately in the area of about $2.00 to $5.00 per tonne handled.

So you could say that the fully integrated firms make about $20 per tonne before blending gains; non-integrated firms make about $15 per tonne before blending gains.

Now go to page 186 for canola.

The total export "basis" is $41.51 per tonne.

The net difference between the street price (farm price) and the export price in Vancouver is reported to be an average of about $34.20. Considering the average freight rate is about $37 (look at the wheat page P.184), grain companies are showing a loss of $2.80 per tonne before blending and terminal elevations. I don't think I need to do the rest of the math to show that it's much more lucrative to handle CWB grains. </blockquote>

Tower's breathtaking response;
<blockquote>
tower posted Sep 14, 2007 9:49
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
chaffmeister, show me an institution, private or public that does not have weaknesses. I've gone to the quorum site four times four different ways and still haven't found the information you say is relevant. </blockquote>

tower you have really got the blinders on. I mean come on, he even gave you the page numbers of where to look and did the math for you. The weaknesses chaffmeister is pointing out are real and are what you think are strengths.

[Fransisco]

Here are some other examples of the wonders of democracy to go with the Socrates one.

Hitler was elected.

Slavery was developed to satisfy the demands of the white majority in America.

An important example comes from the French Revolution known to history as the "Reign of Terror"--i.e., the period of Jacobin dictatorial rule from June 2, 1793, to June 27, 1794.


There's a line from the movie "The Patriot" that hits the nail on the head. As colonists were debating whether to impose a tax to raise a militia and fight the British, Mel Gibson's character says,

"Why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man's rights as easily as a King can."

And here is a great quote from H.L. Mencken: <b>"Democracy is a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."</b>

[Fransisco]

There is also a great movie I saw the other day "Sophie Scholl: The Last Days" about a courageous young German girl who stood up to the Nazi's and paid a terrible price for daring to go against the will of the majority.

http://www.sophieschollmovie.com/

tower you remind me of the judge in the movie.