OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS FROM AMERICAN AGRICULTURE MOVEMENT PRESIDENT

Text of Letter:

I’ve read of an officer at the Pentagon commenting about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and then agreeing that the U.S. has made a “grave mistake in allowing business interests to drew us into a dependency on markets and resources abroad.”

American farmers who’ve paid attention to public policy have had about a 50 year lesson in globalization, because through that period of time (ever since the mid-1950’s), we have had what’s called an “export-oriented” pricing policy.  Thus, we’re quite dismayed that some of our fellow opponents to the Thomas Fast Track sent a letter to speaker Hasert suggesting that they oppose that bill not because globalization is flawed, but because this particular bill is “partisan and divisive.”

Just as those who profit from loss of family farms hide behind a confusion over what exactly a family farm is, those who profit from globalization hide behind confusion about what globalization means.

Before a vote on Fast Track occurs—or before the speaker “shelves” the Thomas measure as the noted letter requests—we hope and pray that there will be at least one leader in Congress who, perhaps moved as much by the terrorist war as that Pentagon officer, will state the following (or something close to it) on the House floor:

Globalization both increases our dependency on markets and resources abroad and increases the dependency of less wealthy nations on us and other wealthy nations.  Interdependency suggests there is a balance in this, but there is not.  There is an imbalance (lack of parity) that leaves poor nations uncomfortably—and dangerously—vulnerable to the shims and perceived needs of wealthier nations.  What we all need (for both  prosperity and peace is less such dependency, not more.”

AAM opposes fast track not just because it is divisive, but because globalization if flawed.

Sincerely,

Buddy Vance, President

American Agriculture Movement