Wars, and rumors of wars. Some folks say we are at war with Venezuela. Did you know Thailand is at war with Cambodia?
Will Rogers wrote, “They are pretty bad, these big wars over Commerce. They kill more people. But one over religion is really the most bitter.” (WA #350, Sept. 8, 1929)
The biggest and longest war over religion is one that President Thomas Jefferson entered in 1801 against radical Muslims in the Mediterranean Sea. Attacks by radical Muslims continued through the years. The deadliest for us was on September 11, 2001. Israel was attacked on October 7, 2023. In a relatively minor attack, we lost two soldiers in Syria last week. Then yesterday in Australia, on the first day of Hanukkah, a pair of Islamic radicals killed at least 16 Jews and injured 40 others.
Radical Muslims have been in a religious war against Jews, Christians and everybody else for more than two hundred years. The hatred against Jews was allowed to expand here on college campuses and a few cities after the Oct. 7 murders. You may criticize President Trump, but he put an end to those campus takeovers. The FBI and Homeland Security are searching out potential Islamic murderers who either entered illegally or were welcomed as refugees from Afghanistan, Somalia and other countries.
In Australia, the government was warned for two years about radical Islamic influence but did nothing to stop it.
Unfortunately, the civilized world may be harassed by radical Muslims for another 200 years.
You probably heard that farmers will receive $12 Billion from USDA. And you may be wondering why. Well, the cost of the inputs a farmer needs to raise a crop (seed, fertilizer, diesel fuel, pesticides) has increased a lot over the last 5 or 6 years while the price received for those crops has been stagnant. Tariffs against China get part of the blame.
China has been a major buyer of our crops, especially soybeans. When President Trump started using tariffs as a way to balance trade, the Communist leader, Xi Jinping, decided to stop buying our soybeans to get even with Trump.
Our farmers are so productive that we depend on exports, especially for soybeans, corn, wheat and cotton, to use up our crops.
Ninety years ago, the plan was to reduce production. As Will Rogers said on radio, April 21, 1935, “Somebody had a plan to plow under every third acre of wheat…We wanted to raise commodity prices, and (Secretary of Agriculture) Henry Wallace, naturally wanted to give the farmer a profit.” For the last fifty years, the policy reversed: grow all we can grow, find non-food uses (ethanol from corn), and “feed the world.” But the world found other places they can get their food from, often at a cheaper price.
This is far from a complete explanation of why or how, or even which, farmers will receive their share of the money. The funds will come from tariffs already collected.
Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“This Tariff, it’s what started Politics… It split Washington and Jefferson… (President) Hoover pulled a bad one when he ever let them kid him into promising to monkey with that thing. It was before election and he was trying to please everybody. All he had to promise to do was to get some sort of legislation to assist the Farmer. If there is one deed in Mr. Hoover’s life he would like to live over and have another crack at, it’s this same opening up that Tariff debate. For twenty men can enter a room as friends and someone can bring up the Tariff and you will find nineteen bodies on the floor with only one living that escaped. There is only one answer to it. ‘I want everything protected that I make, or raise, and I want everything to come in free that I have to buy.’ So as no two raise, make, eat and wear exactly the same things, there is no two that would ever agree 100 percent.” (WA #350, Sept. 8, 1929)