Kernel:

I really don't want to pick on you but part of sustainable agriculture is to provide the farmer with remuneration necessary and predictable enough to maintain a decent living.
Should some sacrifices be made in all of our lifestyles? Probably but this has very little to do with farming.

What we are trying to do is to reduce the middlemen who siphon off farm profits, provide a better environment for farm families to live and provide better nutrition and healthier foods. Some of the money is also saved by reducing the transportation costs due to local sourcing, reducing packaging costs and replacing the overly "processed" foods with locally or regionally lightly processed foods that do not include 80% corn byproducts.

"most farmers work hard to raise food that is needed by everyone..." a good phrase but alas, this is not true. Most farmers produce not food but commodities such as corn and soybeans that become food additives but supply very little nutritional output in comparison to the energy input. A fact Kernel.

"It must be great sport to consstantly complain about farmers unless they are doing slave labor for little return"

No Kernel, many farmers fail to build relationships that provide consumers with a glimpse into the real magic of farming. Instead our factory farms provide them with the stink of thousands of swine or cattle held in confinement and being fed in ways that nature never intended. Industrial farming fouls the water, ruins the soil, spoils the air and people believe farmers are being subsidized (collecting what amounts to welfare) from the government to continue these unsustainable practices. We know Kernel that the subsidies go mostly to very rich farmers to help them become richer and most subsidies that find their way into middle-class farms go to pay off the debts held by lenders.

What I have tried to point out to you is that consumers increasingly want to know where their food comes from. They want to purchase healthy food, they want to know that farmers are being good stewards of the land. They want to know they can take their kids for a ride in the country and not have to explain that the smell coming from that giant metal building is the stench of thousands of swine being treated as industrial outputs rather than animals that need to be appreciated and respected for the intelligent life they are. Some farmers would say that it's the smell of money but the real fact is, it's the smell of mismanagement.

Sustainable agriculture is about sustainability of every aspect of agriculture - the soil, the water, the air, the animals, the plants, the grasses, even the weeds and the insects in the proper moderation and also the farmer and his family. This both can be done, is being done and will be done increasingly in the future.

I fear that unless you wake up, you'll find yourself along with the other uneeded junk in the landfill.

"Cotton production costs 73 cents per pound in the United States" and 86 percent is subsidized (for the large farmers) so the real cost goes down to 10 cents per pound. This amounts to unfair trade practice if US farmers are competing with the African farmers mentioned in this article.

Reforming the farm bill would be just another way of deferring what really needs to be done. Everyone involved in agriculture is aware why the largest producers get the subsidies and to pretend that it is to help American agriculture is to deny the ongoing scheme of the criminal enterprise which is the U.S.A. to have a stranglehold on food resources. That goal is as important to the U.S. government mafia as is the control of energy. What is needed is land reform so that no landholder can own more than a thousand acres, or some such restricted amount.

If federal subsidies of any kind were restricted to individual citizens operating as sole proprietorships and denied to any incorporated entities whatsoever, I think the farm subsidy problem might be mostly solved.

Oddly enough, I think this approach would do a lot for healthcare too.

Corporations are running the country. Liberals (aka Democrats) in charge will help roll it back a bit --to the extent it can be rolled back at all. Republicans, of course, won't even try. If anything even remotely progressive happens to the Farm Bill, watch what happens with filibuster threat or veto.

And, as we know, this is all fixable in November, 2008.

Darn it DD:

Every time you say something reasonable you then go back to the same old "fixable in Nov. 2008" bull.

Legitimizing the present political process IS the problem. I don't believe calling a Republican in the White House, or the Congress, or on the bench a problem to be solved. It is a systemic failure of this so-called Democracy.

To believe that by electing Democrats anything will change, is to believe in "truthiness". To really make a difference we need to illegitimize the political process. A political system cannot function when the citizens fail to cooperate. Cooperating in a failed system such as we have now is merely cooperating in your own destruction.

Withold your vote - and let them know why - work outside the system to circumvent it, frustrate it, and make it ineffective. Take action locally, regionally and nationally to be the change you want to see. The politicians know where their money comes from and are eager to keep the status quo intact. Seriously, can you really imagine Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama making a dimes worth of difference?

Oh well, our goals I'm sure are similar - If working within the system is your specialty - Here's to ya pal. Someone's got to play ball if only to provide cover on the bases while the rest of us work to tear down the locker room and turn off the lights on the field.

Jimmy, I wasn't particularly impressed with your presidency in 1977-81, but I think you deserve another shot at it. If Grover Cleveland can skip presidential terms, so can you. Carter in '08!

Here in Mexico subsidies of US agricultural products have destroyed our agricultural sector. Under NAFTA, those subsidized products are dumped here--in quantities thousands of times greater than we actually stipulated in NAFTA.

The result: Our food sovereignty destroyed, and half a million undocumented workers crossing the border at risk of life and limb to compete with each other cleaning toilets in Burbank.

Next year will be the final bullet in the neck, as quotas n basics of our agricuyltural and food supply such as corn and beans will be eliminated cmpletely.

I have a hundred acres of land. Eighty percent is hardwoods, and the balance is in pasture and utilized by cattle. Given the changing environmental needs regarding air quality, global warming, and species depletion, I have been considering limiting my logging efforts severely, and changing my pasture from grass to prairie restoration with emphasis on plants indigenous to my State. I would be happy to do this if the funds were available to adequately maintain the property, to pay my taxes and insurance, and to pay the costs of establishing the prairie. Since this property is not the kind of property that one can make a living from as a farmer, I do not gain the majority of my income from the property, therefore under the current farm subsidy bill I would be excluded. Yet, I would be willing to set aside the property for good public purpose if adequate funds were provided, not excessive funds but adequate funds. I doubt seriously if the Farm Bill will allow for such purposes by persons like myself. Instead it goes to cotton growers and others who do not need it. Also, if you have ever been through cotton country, once the cotton is picked the plants are burned and the sky is dark with pollution. It is done on a massive scale and often the flames run for untold miles. Driving along a road adjacent to these fields is like a scene from hell, a never ending hell.

beyondempire,

Yes, I'm still naive enough to believe that Hillary or Barack can make a "dimes worth of difference." Maybe not millions or billions of difference, but at least some. With a Democratic Congress, too, if that's possible, then we might be astounded.

It's just my way of hoping the "lights don't go out."

And people wonder why our tax dollars can no longer go towards actually helping people who need it. In all instances, big corporations and corporate "persons" have taken advantage of government policies to line their pockets with once-good programs.

Carter is right on target! But it's not just the US that is doing this dumping dance. Europe does the same thing with the same results. The Doha round of the WTO failed because the third world countries got together and said that ALL government subsidies in ALL countries needed to stop or they wouldn't open their markets to the WTO countries.

This has been going on for a very long time. Remember all the farmers that are committing suicide worldwide? Well, the only reason that the US is even considering limiting subsidies now is because the chicken has come home to roost. Meaning, these subsidies are now driving American farmers off the land. Small American farmers cannot compete with big ag. And part of this is our own damn fault as consumers. We wanted cheap food. The cheaper the better.

So, yes, make a lot of noise with your congress critters to fix the Farm Bill. But, more importantly, change your purchasing habits. Buy local as much as possible. Support your local cooperative grocery stores. If you don't have one, start one. Or a buying club. Support your local farmers by buying directly through CSA's and farmers markets. You and your communities are only going to survive the fuel crisis and peak oil if you have local and sustainable food available. The infrastructure of farming communities has been in decline for decades. So you better get moving NOW to rebuild it.

And for heaven sake, never set foot in a WalMart store ever again!!!

Touche' DD - I do wish you luck

Everything in the US is in favor of giant corporations...across the board and to the detriment of every working American...free trade-killing livable wage jobs for Americans...massive trade deficits that are unsustainable....manufacturing leaving the US in droves to slave labor markets only to export junk back here.

The top it off, not a shred of decent government for the people, by the people to be found in the House (maybe 10 people), Senate (?) or whitehouse. That's the facts.

I recently read a story about the people that received the most money from farm subsidies lived on the East Side of New York City. You know the roof top gardens they tend.

Can we say more.

And Revolution was in the air.....

"It is embarrassing to note that, from 1995 to 2005, the richest 10 percent of cotton growers received more than 80 percent of total subsidies."

This goes beyond embarrassing, President Carter; it's criminal!!!

Greater than 80 percent subsidy?

So when I eat that bowl of corn flakes and wipe my chin on a cotton napkin I have already paid more than four times before I even buy them.
I can hardly wait for the Drug Lords and the Insurance Sharks to require everyone to buy their 'health' care insurance. American citizens had better hurry up and die because we sure can't afford to live in this Fascist Paradise.

Jimmy Carter is a decent man even though he had a rather unfortunate presidency, though compared to Bush`s disaster, it was a slam dunk. One problem with his article is that it is focused on cotton production, while the situation for corn, wheat, and soybeans would be somewhat different. One thing most of us can agree on is that the total payments to one entity should be capped at much less than is the case now. Obviously, if the present prices hold for a considerable time, supports would not be needed, except for the loss of a crop. We need to realize the days of farmers working a small acreage of land with minumum machinery and inputs are gone for good, along with Mom and Pop groceries and hardware stores. On the other hand, we need to support a farm program that keeps the medium sized farms operating as that will insure an affordable supply of food and fiber for the country. Once the large corporations take complete control of farming, they will be setting prices, not taking the best available, as is the case now.

Carter was a good president and could have been better if the right wing nuts had not been on the rise. Think of the big issues - energy, environment, peace he was infinitely better than his opponents.

moonraven December 12th, 2007 1:51 pm

Free Trade is just a license to steal.

Many of us have seen the misery this would inflict on the world. I have written and called to my elected officials thousand of times about this and other American atrocities. To no avail, either they have no hearts or they keep them locked in a crypt, hidden where the sun never shines.

Perhaps you can convince the government of Mexico to withdraw from NAFTA. As I recall the government of Mexico ceded California to the Americans - at the point of a bayonet. I know you're slowly taking it back one nene at a time - good lick.
I see the GOP and Evangelicals driving every new face out of the country and I am reminded of how the Roman Empire, under Church domenation, drove all but Catholics out of the empire. This was a gigantic boost for Asia and it led Europe into the Dark Ages. I expect the same Neo-Dark-Age for the New American Century. Alas.

Jimmy Carter was indeed a terrific president on energy, environment, peace, and continues to be a moral leader on peace and justice. He was/is denigrated because he didn't have the manly-man-cowboy image that we prefer in our warmongering, corporate controlled fascistic leaders. He was on the right track with energy policy and conservation 30 years ago and we're still in need of that leadership and vision.

Carter doesn't tell the whole story behind the subsidies. Mechanized industrial agriculture benefits a whole network of capitalists from petro-chemical capitalists to heavy machinery capitalists to genetic engineering intellectual property lawyers, not to mention the bankers. All those plus the farmers too are cogs in the capitalist machine, which has to be perpetuated at the expense of everything else.

There are alternatives to enslavement of societies to capitalist machines. They involve mass participation in the organization of the economy. Common sense collective decisions made by the people filter out the capitalist corruption, so most of the squandering, plundering and misallocation goes away with the capitalist to an early retirement. The people get more for less, there is better value in the markets, and the economy and the society operate in a more efficient, sensible, and sustainable way.

As long as our government subsidizes any industry in any way, (yes, I include the home-mortgage tax deduction subsidy to the housing industry and all other tax manipulations), it is just legislating problems worse than those allegedly being attended to by the subsidy.

I'm sorry if it offends anyone, but I knowingly include small family farmers in that. People of all kinds run businesses (or attempt to). A family farm is a small business which must rise or fall on its own merits, not upon nostalgia for a halcyon time/state of affairs which never existed.

I note that Pres. Carter (of whom I'm an admirer) has no trouble saying protection (subsidies) for his own particular branch of agriculture are okay. It is very hard not to have blind spots, even with a Nobel prize on your shelf.

It is obvious that the people who believe that the family farm is a thing of the past do not understand farming. The food produced on agri-business farms is, in relative terms, a disgusting quality of food. The rich people don't eat feed-lot beef or warehouse pork. They eat prime food which is produced on splendid ranches.

Family farms are the future. The naysayers, the propagandists and the apologists might as well get used to that, because the revolutionary future is not as far off as they might think.

jmcneil__I suppose you must be one of those who understand farming with no doubt, much experience. My farming knowledge is limited to just 50+ years of starting with a dryland operation before hybrid seeds, chemicals, fertilizers, and large machinery. Now we have all of those things plus irrigation which require large inputs to service the operation. You evidently forsee many city people giving up their living standards and heading for the country in the same way the country people gave up and headed for the good life in the city. I am sure those folks are going to be a great sucess on their small plot of land scratching away at their farmers garden and raising free range pigs, chickens, and cattle. It all sounds very romantic, but doing it is a very different story. Running a hoe, spade, and manure fork is not as much fun as it looks. Harvesting all that prime food with small machinery or by hand can cause a backache in a hurry, as I have learned by doing it for decades. That was a good life in it`s time but it is impossible to go back unless our country goes belly up and starvation is a factor.

hamster December 13th, 2007 1:21 am

"Jimmy Carter was indeed a terrific president on energy, environment, peace, and continues to be a moral leader on peace and justice. He was/is denigrated because he didn't have the manly-man-cowboy image that we prefer in our warmongering, corporate controlled fascistic leaders."

Real men don't bully!

Yes, I do understand farming. And the kind of quality life associated with working on the land. And I find it amusing that anyone who knows the difference between life on the land and the flabby existence available in a city would doubt that there would be sufficient family bodies to populate the required number of farms, if you do doubt that. If it's the scope of change that is coming which you doubt, then you can be one of the observers.

All of the trappings of agro-industry scale operations are not necessary for family farms. For an understanding of that, if it is lacking, study Cuban agriculture and see the overwhelming success of that, even in the face of more than four decades of an illegal blockade by the U.S.

jmcneil__ I very much doubt that there is much comparison between the customs and living standards of the US and Cuba. The Cubans went through a revolution and are accustomed to hardship while Americans have enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle. I have sold some of that small machinery we used years ago to Mexican buyers but it is obsolete in our country. I love family farms and hate to see their demise, but have to believe we will continue to lose the smaller ones except for a few that can survive by using a special niche market which will always be limited as most cannot afford the expensive gourmet food. I do believe our best bet is with the medium sized commercial farms which can use technology and modern equipment to stay in business. Itr pains me to hear people lump all farmers in the same basket with the super large corporate operations that we do not need more of.

Hey, Kids, wanna have some fun? Go to the Environmental working Group's website www.ewg.org. Choose "farming" then "farm subsidies." They list farm subsidy payments, county by county. You can read the names of your neighbors and see how much they are getting from the current system. Cool,huh?

The really interesting thing for me is to see how many farmers I know are taking these payments while complaining about "welfare mothers."

Whatfools:

A witer from the US--who now lives here in Mexico--Morris Berman, has published a book about the CURRENT Dark Age in the US.

I have ordered it but won't read it until next month when I am going to be briefly in the US, so can't say if it's good or not.

Well, coronal, you are certainly expressing a strange attitude for someone who supposedly farmed for half a century. And you are certainly correct in one thing, which is the quality of life in the U.S. is in no way favorable to that of the quality of life in Cuba, unless, of course, you are referring only to the people who live behind thick concrete and who employ immigrant slaves to wash their dirty underwear and to cook their grain fed food.

And if you don't think we can, or are, going to get rid of those industrial farms, well, then you can be assured that we will hang those recalcitrant landowners if they don't conform, just as the U.S. proxies hung Saddam Hussein. Only, we won't be worrying about anyone revealing information, just in getting rid of a blight on society.

"I have ordered it but won't read it until next month when I am going to be briefly in the US, so can't say if it's good or not."
_________________________________________________

I can, moonraven: Morris Berman's "Dark Ages America" is excellent!

Unless you really need to have a happy ending, that is. ;)

Interesting discussion. A couple of other points to be looked at:

The impact of rising fuel prices on the cost of mechanized food production and distribution networks.

The impact of food-for-fuel on the use of farmland for food.

The impact of climate change on agriculture.

The impact of an economic collapse (depression) on the ability of Americans to feed itself.

Peak oil and the resource wars that have been and will continue to suck up life and resources.

The Cuban example is excellent. They had to convert to small, organic food production because the USSR could no longer provide petroleum products to them. See a connection between what Cuba had to deal with and what America faces today? Just askin'......

The peak oil and resource wars are a chimera. The technology for solar power has existed for more than six decades but has been suppressed because if the populace converts to solar power then they can't be so easily controlled by the corporate government. It is inevitable that ideology and moral associations will vanquish the evil scum which currently operates industrial societies. And that process is in active progress and will be coming to a neigborhood near you in the near future.

Kernel:

I have to wonder what your agenda is? You constantly preach the inevitability of change in the face of corporate takeover. I know of and am one of the many farmers who are making a change. I agree it is hard work, but it is also good work and for a good reason. To continue to support the university taught and corporate sponsored industrial agri-terrorist model is flat out wrong!

Once again, I urge you to read about Joel Salatin do some research on sustainable agriculture, tap into resources provided by the Leopold Center of ISU, find a way to make a difference.

Instead of criticizing jmacneil, you above all should understand that agriculture and rural economies have no future without small and mid-size family farms and soil is not just something to hold the roots down while you provide the NPK to undernourish your manufactured outputs. Please don't have the audacity to call youself a "farmer" if you don't have the will to be a steward of the land.

Mono-cropping, GM Seeds, the use of chemical herbicides and insecticides and industrial scale animal production is a serious problem and support for those very unhealthy practices is leading to a crisis in the farm economies as well as the health of our children and families.

You, with 50+ years of farming experience should have learned that by now, but perhaps you weren't willing to learn. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but perhaps there is hope for you if you are wise enough to open your mind.

I invite you to look at the statistics. Real growth in farming is not taking place in commodities. Sales among consumers show overwhelming growth in the organic, and local sector. Resistence to the overuse of corn products in processed food, the use of antibiotics, hormones, and GM inputs in the food chain is facing increased resistence both at home and abroad. Those are had facts my friend. Ignore them at your peril. You're probably too old for it to matter - but the real truth is those who put their eggs in the industrial basket will soon be forced to eat them themselves because they will no longer find a market for them.

People will discover that paying slightly more for their food is a much better investment than the lack of nutrition, health, damage to the environment and economic collapse that the industrial food model brings with it.

Face it 50+, you're a dinosaur and your kind will become extinct. Sign on with those who have a vision for the future and dump your chemicals and GM poisons before it's too late.

Beyond Empire: You're good! Well said.

It makes a lot of sense that agriculture should go back to methods we used years ago when it was only a means existing instead of a way to make a decent living. Are all of you folks ready to take the rest of our economy back to that place also? Lets ground those airliners, park the SUVs in every 3 car garage, go back to horse and buggy health services, shut up all those fancy corner offices full of computers and expensive equipment, take the Computer games away from the kids as well as the Ipods and cell phones that take pictures, throw out the microwaves and enormous TV sets,etc. Most farmers work hard to raise food that is needed by everyone while much of what is purchased in the superestores is unneeded junk that ends up in landfills. It must be great sport to constantly complain about farmers unless they are doing slave labor for little return. If we want to go back in time, lets all do it instead of just expecting agriculture to.

beyondempire__You should feel better now after calling me a dinosaur and junk for the landfill. I do not believe you ever stated your relation to agriculture except that you think it should be turned upside down, which is impossible even if it was desirable. You are pretending to know all the answers to every problem such as using the transportation system,so lets just stop the trains and trucks tomorrow. That will go over well with UP and Burlington. I live within one mile of a large feedyard and six from a hog confinement system, so I have some knowledge of those problems. As for conservation and humane animal treatment, you will not find a man that treated his livestock better than I have. We have practiced conservation practices for many years also. I think it is fine for anyone that wants to farm organically to do it, but do not expect to change practices that have been developed over decades and people have their entire lives invested in to be thrown out, which would break most medium sizes operators and whole areas of the country. I believe you should wake up, as you are dreaming.

If anything is subsidized, it should be the foods that the FDA has determined that folks should eat that folks are currently not eating. This would primarily include VEGETABLES!

To think that a country would decline it's living standard by converting to a moral model is not a defensible argument. Again, take the case of Cuba. Currently, and for the last several years, the Cuban economy is growing at a rate above 10%, and that is in spite of the U.S. blockade which is so harsh that the U.S. government confiscates ships that travel to Cuba and then stop in the U.S. and the U.S. also fines companies in other nations for doing business with Cuba. The Cubans do not have industrial farms like in the U.S., yet they feed 11 million people from an island which hardly has as much landmass as Florida.

I like what rtdrury said, but would add this:

If you go the other way (and want to use farm subsidies as a tool for building a US corporate/economic/military empire), you subsidize US crops, dump them on the world markets so that it's hard for farmers in less developed countries to make enough to justify planting crops (or to live from day to day). You get Monsanto involved so that farmers can only buy and use crops for which they'll have to buy new seed every year.

And you get Mexicans and Central Americans at your border, trying to come in to the Land of Oz. But you build a wall to keep 'em out, because it's better to have your corporations make a killing off of cheap labor down there than it is to have them come into the Land of Oz itself, where they might pull back the curtain and see Dick Cheney and pals, turning the cranks and pulling the levers.

(Then again, he doesn't need to turn cranks and pull levers. A geisha knows what to do, as Chalmers Johnson says. You don't have to turn a crank like a puppet-master to tell them--the faithful Neocon underlings--what to do.)

And of course, you don't want them to come in here and then have them or one of their kids BECOME Dick Cheney one day....

It doesn't take a sudden shock (a la Naomi Klein) to the economies of other countries to wreck them and then swoop in with big corporations willing to exploit cheap labor (and in some cases child labor, as the recent story about GAP shows). You can starve them slowly till they need the jobs and economic stimulus.

In this way, the US becomes the pimp and slavemaster to the smaller economies of the world. We get them to make what we want, we turn around and sell it for a profit, we bring some of the profits home to the American Empire, and we sit back and watch as we bake ourselves to a slow death by global warming. The rest of the profits we stash away in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland.

It's a sweet arrangement. Y'don't wanna have to pay taxes when you don't have to. That's for bleeding-heart liberals and their idealistic rhetoric. Only the suckers and socialists buy into that communitarian stuff.

It may be nearing the end, and the path down may be bumpy, but if you're filthy rich, wasn't it a memorable ride to the top? If Rome is gonna burn in the foreseeable future, why worry today (especially if you're rich)?

Let the fire department worry. Those heros of 9-11. They got all the glory while Bush and Cheney, with all their plans for world empire, were securing oil so that we could keep driving our SUV's (and doing some nice war profiteering on the side, simultaneously--this amazing multi-tasking that keeps most citizens from focusing on the scandal because there are just TOO MANY of them...).

All of Cheney and Bush's hard work on behalf of our way of life, our economy, our business interests, (mostly business interests) has gone mostly unappreciated.

And somewhere the voice of Jacob Marley cries,
"Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

The road toward the common welfare, at this point, may lead through a baptism of fire, drought, warfare and famine. And as the Holocaust showed, many of those who are richest in "charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence" may be the first to go.

Well?

Let's do it. I'm in. Anybody with me?

I found the discussion between mcneil and kernel very interesting.

It would be tough to turn back the clock on agriculture I think. I have an old sicklebar mower, a square baler, and an old siderake, and about 45HP. I am not a full-time farmer, just an amateur.

I have a friend on the praires that uses a few hundred horsepower and can hay a square mile in short order.
Ironically, with a new fuel efficent tractor, I think he probably momre efficent than I am.
However, there is a guy in my area that does it the real old way (stacks his hay) and even cuts some with a scythe.
However, most technology development in farming seems to be oriented to the big farms.

A lot more people would have to want to be farmers, and live a simple life, with minimal profit and food would get pretty expensive if we wanted higher quality food in the big city supermarket.

Does anyone know any of these organic, small scale farmers etc... Do they make a decent living?
Most people where I live have jobs or pensions, and just farm for a hobby.

Good post PF-Flyer

US agri subsidies basically set the world price for food, and because that price is lower than what it takes a typical small farmer anywhere in the world to turn a profit - you have a capitive market. The "you" of course means Monsanto etc....
Nice, tight little system.

As for Europe, I personally think their subsidy system is motivated by keeping quality very high. They are very quality sensitive (unlike Big MAc suzzling North Americans).

It's just hard to believe there are that many farms in Tunica Mississippi. Really, if we leased Mississippi, Texas, and Arizona to a friendly European country we could actually save money.

Isn't it funny that the NSA stooges always come out to defend their CIA stooges whenever Cuba is mentioned as an example in any discussion? They think they are employing psychological tools by reinforcing the stupid and illogical utterances of their confederates, but they are themselves so intellectually insipid that they don't realize that Sigmund Freud was an intellectual pedophile whose particular penchant was for 3 ½ to 5 year old boys, to whom he attributed an overt sexuality that was impossible for them to exhibit until puberty. And how easy it is to outthink and to manipulate those type of simpleminded morons who are deluded into thinking that they possess the secrets to the non-existant "science" of psychology to help them manipulate the dumber members of society.

Just saying, Freud was a psychoanalysist not a psychologist...big difference there.

ooops, psychoanalyst...

There is no such thing as a "psychoanalyst" or "psychologist", unless the person so designated can actually physically interact with someone else's mind's emanations. In lieu of such ability, all there can be is "behaviorists", such as was Jane Goodall among the apes. And anyone who otherwise pretends to possess such "psychological" abilities is a freud, ...er...I mean a "fraud".

Well there are behavioral psychologists such a Skinner (the think outside the box guy).

Historically, during Skinner's time they were still putting people in boxes.