Flat Earth Farmers
The Joh Birch Society has produced a bumper crop of wild bullshit about agriculture and the environment.
I try to not put much stock in anything the John Birch Society says. The group is notorious for blaming communism for everything from mind-control fluoride to Dylan going electric. Deeply paranoid, Birchers have an ugly, racist past. The far right incubator is also credited with our current state of election denial and democracy-threatening conspiracy theories.
But in a recent issue of their house organ their intent is clear.
The September 12th issue of the New American kicks off with "Biden's War on Farmers." Author William F. Jasper spills a thousand words lamenting the globalist/EU/UN/MCU cabal before ever mentioning agriculture:
In June, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency released its “green” Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requirements, mandating the largest-ever amount of ethanol and biodiesel the nation’s refiners must blend into the American fuel supply.
Jasper wants his readers to believe dastardly greens are pushing hippie gas at the expense of god's own Texas Tea. The reality is far-right standard bearers like Kristi Noem, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul all support ethanol.
Most environmentalists loathe corn ethanol for its devastating impact on wildlife habitat and water quality. Al Gore even famously stuck a pitchfork in the fuel back in 2011.
Contrary to Jasper’s point, American production agriculture is united behind the RFS because the government mandate forces market demand for the country's massive corn crop. Even the Bircher aligned American Farm Bureau Federation fights to keep the ethanol law.
Jasper follows his ethanol rake step with this take on efforts to curb dangerous particulate matter from industrial livestock operations:
Biden and the Democrats are using all the same tools in their basket to destroy American farmers, who overwhelmingly vote Republican, support Trump, and detest the liberal leftism of the “progressive” coastal elites.
It's true that production agriculture skews GOP and was really into Soviet-style Trump Bucks. It's also true that industrial agriculture is woefully unregulated. So unregulated, that farm pollution shutdown the drinking water for a major US city. And the Biden administration is totally cool with it.
Plus, if Democratic presidents really intended to destroy American agriculture, how come the last two peaks of record farm income came during Obama and Biden's terms? Under Trump's tenure, he started a disastrous trade war that lead to the highest farm subsidies ever.
Once again, Jasper helms the Bircher manure spreader while talking about European fertilizer restrictions.
Likewise, the Biden/EU/WEF/UN fixation on nitrogen oxide is another ludicrous example of “climate science” serving a totalitarian agenda swaddled in alleged environmental concerns. As mentioned in our article "No Farmers, No Food," it is the EU’s nitrogen oxide restrictions that threaten to destroy Europe’s farmers and have brought tens of thousands of them out with their tractors to block roads in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Poland, Scotland, and Ireland.
First, nitrous oxide from applied nitrogen fertilizer is 300 times more potent in the atmosphere than CO2. Second, nitrogen’s intensive overuse has lead to severe water quality issues across farm country. An infant died from nitrate poisoning in Wisconsin. Reducing nitrate fertilizer use is critical for both clean water and a cooler atmosphere. Third, despite an increase in costs, farmers keep buying more nitrate fertilizer. Fourth, the Biden Administration is subsidizing more fertilizer production. Fifth, as Michael Grunwald wrote recently, "Only half the world’s nitrogen fertilizers actually end up fertilizing crops. The rest escape into the environment."
To sum up, Birchers back the liberal overuse of chemical fertilizer while environmentalists take a more conservative approach.
Things get downright cartoonish in Tom DeWeese's Fighting Carbon-capture Pipelines: Stopping Environmental Idiocracy.
I have just returned from barnstorming the state of Iowa. I was there to rally the citizens and warn them that their property rights are in jeopardy.
In Iowa, along with North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska, the push is on to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) and bury it in the ground. The excuse is to protect the Earth from climate change!
In my years of fighting the lies and insane policies of the radical environmental movement, this is undoubtedly their dumbest plan. It’s also one of the most dangerous that we have ever faced.
The drive to build these destructive, useless pipelines is ludicrous. Private companies would have no reason to build them if not for the big bucks they’re getting from Biden’s $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill in support of his “Build Back Better” agenda.
I must tell you, the response from my audiences was powerful. As I write this, they are now working to build the effective organization I recommended.
Tom may have been too busy storming barns to learn the major backers of these pipelines is Iowa GOP Kingmaker Brad Rastettler and South Dakota Republican Party Chair Dan Lederman. Though, he is right on one count. Tom’s "conservative" brethren are in it for the socialism.
The intense local opposition to CO2 pipelines comes not from Tom's delusions of grandeur but instead from a coalition of concerned farmers and environmentalists.
Birchers are intent on stoking US farmers' emotions ahead of the midterm elections. Whether they're too high on their globalist agenda supply to notice how wrong they are — or just disingenuous liars — the issues they raise have been gestating in right wing media all summer.
FoxNews: Dutch farmer revolt against harsh climate law just the beginning, experts say: 'There will be unrest all over'
The Federalist: Pay Attention To The Dutch Farmer Protests Because America Is Next
A late-October tractor parade in front of the White House makes for dramatic ad-supported Fox News content. But there’s scant evidence American farmers are motivated to do more than enjoy high commodity prices and lax regulations.
What I imagine Birchers hope to harvest is a constant media churn on the issue. Trump and the Farm Bureau showed lying about Obama’s Waters of the US rule (WOTUS) was effective at generating coverage. That’s the likely goal of this latest bumper crop of wild bullshit from the John Birch Society.