Nice to see your post, Derrick.
Each generation has their share of people who pursue a goal of being on the dole of the government or freeload off parents.
I've never been married, but I have tutored successfully children and adults. Anyone who was lazy, I told them that although they have the potential, I cannot tutor them because their laziness frustrates me. One young lady laughed me off and she lost a college scholarship to an institution in Boston. Those who went through my demands have turned out very successful in chosen fields.
I have two brothers who are neighbors. One was always interested in my gardens. I gave him eggplant in the past; he created a great tasting Eggplant Parmigiana. I advised him upon high school graduation to immediately become a chef, skip culinary school because they might ruin his style, and he now works in a top restaurant in New York City. He makes a few trips a year to Massachusetts. My garden is opened to him; if I'm not around, he can use the herbs for cooking. He goes from garden to garden to test taste the herbs, "Eddie, these are all restaurant quality." The chef has a brother who seems not to be able to keep a job; direct opposites.
My view of our society takes on a different view.
DIRECTION OF THE U.S.
“It has been a slow burn since 1945, when most of our food was grown on small farms and gardens [and I can vividly remember those gardens.]
Over the ensuing 10 years, the older gardeners began dying off and/or discontinued gardening because of the convenience of big box grocery stores and the movement of food by plane from California, Texas, and Florida.
Then in 1956 the Federal Aid Highway Act was passed thus adding new highways and widening existing highways; consequently more trucks began moving food to big box grocery stores.
Farms, large and small near large cities, began disappearing replaced by housing developments for a huge post World War II population expansion plus a flight from cities to the suburbs. Earliest was the first Levittown in 1947 on 1200 acres of potato fields on Long Island.
With many of these housing developments, the pesticides market no longer needed on disappearing farms was switched to the crazy notion that every new house needed a green lawn. Some kept making gardens, but it was my experience that the children did not often follow suit; growing food was no longer the “in thing.”
Also, along came the big box consumer stores located in large malls to be accessed with more roads and more cars. More farms succumbed to the “urgent need” to supply Americans a place to fulfill their consumerism supported by higher wages.
I recall the late 1950s and 1960s the period of when "Progress Began Regress" for the U.S. as it developed its foundation for further regress through excessive consumerism.
The 1970s included: Peak Oil on the continental U.S. 1970; abandoning the Gold Exchanged Standard in 1971 [due to costly guns and butter policies of the 1960s]; in 1973 Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, advised farmers to "get big or get out … adapt or die," believing that bigger farms were more productive; plus Petrol Dollar recycling went into action in 1974 allowing the U.S. to expand its debt capacity aided by all oil contracts being made in U.S. dollars.
We now look back at a large societal destructive mess. Four percent of Americans now feed the other ninety-six percent, a dangerous situation. The U.S. nation debt exceeds $22 trillion and there is massive debt on all other fronts for unfunded liabilities, plus local, municipal, and state debts in most governmental units. PLUS our high and once mighty industrial system has been greatly transferred outside our borders, a national disgrace.
We on converging on many fronts of a collapse: we will again reach Peak Oil after the fracking fields dwindle out; we have Peak Water; Peak Soil; Colony Collapse Bee Disorder; Peak Infrastructure; and more." ES
SOLTION: RETURN TO OUR AGRARIAN PAST
“We had it way too easy. Abundant land, access to abundant energy, too much emphasis on petrol-chemical fertilizers, a mono-crop approach, great transportation from coast to coast, abundant water supplies, and more. Now we have to pay the piper for our excesses and wrong decisions of the past. A nation that strays too far away from its agrarian past becomes a vulnerable nation, in my opinion. A vast array and network of home gardens and small farms will cut transportation costs, grow better food, and mixed gardens and small farms are better for the bees, butterflies, and birds.” ES
OUTLINE OF FUTURE FOOD PRODUCTION IN THE U.S.
Places selling coffee and establishments with food scraps will save for pickup their "waste" to put into large composting areas that will feed the new gardens. People on the dole, will be assigned to this compost setup to pick up the food/coffee disposals and eventually become food producers, bee keepers, or stay in composting for their on-the-dole payments.
Local food supplies would eventually cut down on truck food deliveries, thus reducing trucking and plane deliveries. No more Caesar salads from California producers for eating in Boston.
There would be an increase in food producers higher than the current 4% supplying food to the other 96% of the U.S. population. Gardens will be perceived as food insurance!
The freshness of the produce would increase with foods grown locally and harvested just before consumption, as soil is nature's refrigerator thus assuring the aforementioned freshness.
The food would be grown more in raised beds that will be yearly refreshed with aged compost. Plowing the land destroys the natural microbes of healthy soil.
It will be learned over time that food is as cheap as dirt and more will be produced for all with by using the above approach.
AMERICAN SOCIETY 12 22 2018
[part of what follows describes my family]
“You just described my maternal Grandpa, who lost his contracting business due to the Great Depression. He self-taught himself engineering, drafting, designed a water district after securing a job in the water department. Eventually a bond issue was issued and a water tower was built; he became water commissioner. Luckily my Grandma was raised on a farm; she hacked out a large garden for survival. Grandpa's fishing and Grandma's gardening kept them alive. My Mom worked on a friend's father's dairy and chicken farm; she and her girlfriend, after chores and before school, gave away milk and eggs to the elders of the village.
I never lived a Leave it to Beaver boyhood because of the work ethic of my parents. They worked regular and extra jobs to save for my college education. I could have attended Yale and spend the college fund, but I told my parents to keep the money as I did want something so expensive that I did not earn. My Mom, however, would send me $10 a week for food and essentials. I had saved a lot by working during my boyhood. I went to a college with a work-study program; it took extra time, but I had a resume upon graduation.
College education is too expensive nowadays and many young people rush into meaningless degrees, an albatross to be paid off for two decades or more.
I sense that the education system philosophy over the decades has been diminished by administrators, many of whom never worked outside of schools. Auto and electrical high school emphasis and home economics has practically been eliminated. The move toward emphasizing mostly college preparation has short changed our society of people who should have gone into sectors of better job opportunities not needing college preparation. As I look back at alumni stories of 50 years ago, many people with the non-college prep in high school had established businesses; they started low and finished high. They went through apprentice type preparation.
As I look to the future, the U.S. and world's population continues to increase and the world's resources decline. This trend is not sustainable. It will determine where people will be needed more in the future. For example, a national emphasis should be directed to the small farm sector. There should be more agricultural high schools and through my gardening hobby, I have learned it can be quite challenging and rewarding.
As a nation, there should be no taxation of profits from small diverse farms plus no inheritance taxes when the primary farm owner passes, so long as a child or substitute farm takes over the farm management. This plan is basically a subsidy for a critical national purpose of producing quality food and preserving the soil and environment.
Recently I have seen a new organization called Fleet Farming, comprised of mostly young people in warm areas of the U.S., which contract to grow food in their newly constructed raised beds over lawns of homeowners. I see this organization as a logical and constructive approach to supplying food to our society plus providing jobs to young people. I know that focused young people can secure good careers, if they set objectives and sacrifice.
SHORT-TERM REACTION VERSUS LONG-TERM PREPARATION CONCLUSION
Living in New England with its winter rite of snow, whenever a large snow storm is predicted, people will react and empty food store shelves. This is an impulsive short-term reaction to avoid going hungry for a few days.
Most people are myopic, short-sighted, use to a seemingly assured existence, and finally too lazy to start a long-term preparation program of survival. The latter group will either starve or will attack those who do plan and have survival items. It seems best that small communities of like-minded people can possibly defend themselves, if located away from cities.
sumi
Thanks for reading my disjointed essay
AI
