Obama Policy: Rural

2008 Presidential Candidate Platform Discussion

"We are at that critical and urgent moment. If Washington continues policies that work against America's family farmers, our rural communities will fall further behind - and so will America. But if we reject the politics that has shut ordinary folks out, we can create a new story for rural America ... The dreams of rural Americans are familiar to all Americans - to make a good living, to raise a healthy and secure family, and to leave our children a future of opportunity. It's time for real leadership for rural America to extend that American dream. That's the dream of opportunity that I've spent my life fighting for. And that's what our rural agenda will do." - Barack Obama, Speech in Fairfax, IA, October 16, 2007

www.barackobama.com...


Presented for critical discussion and analysis by ATS members under the spirit of the new guidelines announced in This Thread.

Political speak always bothers me. It's always just as empty as "Somebody else is hurting you" in this case unnamed, generic Washington policies followed by "I will help you" with no more detail.

I know a few things that are hurting my farming relatives and friends and I know a few things that are making them rich but making fools out of taxpayers. One farmer finds some rare algae or a annoying bird on a list and suddenly the government takes their land away from them. Anyone familiar with this should know the phrase "shoot and shovel." The phrase refers to a farmer finding an odd plant or animal that may or may not be on some nutjobs endangered or protected list. When said farmer finds something like this it is to be destroyed, buried and never spoken of lest the government come and take away that farmers livelihood and property.

What is making them rich and making fools of taxpayers are arbitrary incentives to either grow or not grow a thing dependent on what the powers that be want. It's a form of economic manipulation that always backfires and destroys everything around it.

So, please Mr. Obama. A point by point discussion of what exactly Washington is doing to hurt the rural folks and exactly what you would do differently.

i wish he would actualy comment on something that harms the rural farmers, i live in a small town in upstate newyork surrounded by farms, and the thing you hear being complained about are terminator seeds and geniticly modified crops. according to people in this area normal seeds are geeting harder to find and much more expensive to purchase.

If Obama wins the rual parts of the country will not give a crap. They will pretty much ignore him and his new laws....Like we do now.

He said an amazing amount of absolutely nothing in that statement.

I am impressed, he really does make the air vibrate nicely.

But he knows not a single issue that affects Rual Americans

I think this new side by side issue comparison that ATS is doing is a great idea and at the same time a big step forward in curtailing trolling and propaganda posting.

That being said, I'm not too pleased with how it's turned out.

Everyone of the issue threads I've looked at under Obama have been just like this one, empty talk that doesn't discuss the issues, possible solutions, the problems being faces, statistics, precedence, future plans, or anything at all SUBSTANTIAL.

This is not Obama's policy on rural america. This is Obama acknowledging that rural america has problems and absolutely nothing else.

Where's his plan? What legislation is he going to push for? Where's he going to get the money to deal with these problems?

Obama and Rual is like fire and water. They hate him, and I am sure he just loves the rual redneck folks like me.