Re: Alturas Park

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

> a can of soup!     [Visionaries note: I'm replying to Steed's comment on my 
post remark that we have abandoned  our political ballot box for a 
commercial one where we now exercise our "choice" of how we want to be 
governed.]
 
Yeah, but there are 100's of millions of cans out there, pilgrim!. 
Seriously, I have seen the same phenomenon we are observing here in many, 
many other urban-rural settings,both here and abroad. Some years ago I 
worked in small rural French communities addressing their trauma of 
facing increasing (often foreign) pressures to buy up their land for 
other commercial ventures. For ex., the international Libby Corp. was 
expanding its tomato production in Europe and offering tidy sums of money 
to buy out French farms to go agribiz. These villagers did not know what 
to do, esp. when one here, one there, caved in to the tantalizing 
pressures to sell out. They had no future, no skills, no place to go. 
They decided to band together for reeducation, refocusing, rearming 
themselves as it were to face the bulldozer style development forces 
aimed at them. It is, will be, the same around here as more and more 
farmers yield to external forces and decide to give up.
   Meanwhile, our urban commercial outlets go more and more 
corporate,whose procurement as well as marketing arrangements bypass 
local producers-retailers. These are ultimately wiped out, along with the 
community frameworks that gave them livelihoods. I've seen this same 
pattern in New Mexico over a ten-year period -- in some communties theree 
isn't a single local merchant or producer left -- it's all gone to the 
corporates and the trucking industry,  some of whom do not give a damn 
about local institutions, culture, what have you. That's the issue behind 
the can of soup you may prefer to buy at Walmart instead of Rosauer's or 
the Co-op., as I see it. Yeah, you have a good basis of choice -- still.  
Thanks. Ken 


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William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com