One giant cause for U.S. agriculture began with one small cut when a Missouri farmer pulled a knife. As government gunmen hovered on rooftops and baton-wielding police closed ranks with tear gas, Jessie Small, alongside his son, Joe Small, darted between the cab and trailer of a U.S.-bound produce truck and sliced through the air lines, locking the vehicle’s brakes and turning a giant hissing into the sound of defiance.
Backed by 250 fellow farmers, Small exposed a government narrative and lit the fuse on one of the most significant, yet forgotten, episodes of modern U.S. agriculture record.
A protest march by a small band of farming brothers careened into a buck-wild physical melee and mass arrest, followed by thousands of incensed growers from across the U.S. descending on the border town of McAllen, Texas, threatening to tear down a county prison with tractors and trigger a breakout with a break-in. As the clock rolled on three surreal days of incarceration in 1978, farmers Jericho-marched around the facility as violence waited in the wings...more
****************************************************************************
I got caught up in this myself, although just at the tail end of the movement. I had stayed away thinking it was just a group of radicals, but a friend dropped by who was part of the movement and brought some documents, one of which showed that each of the states had waived their sovereignty to the feds on all things to do with ag production. That got me interested. What did the states really waive, is this still in effect and why did they have to do this?
My friend passes away and the movement slowly withered. I moved on and never got my answers.
No comments:
Post a Comment