Remember the "Farm Crisis"?
(Page 5 of 8)
November/December 1996
By Joel Dyer, Boulder Weekly (www.boulderweekly.com)
"Like some deaths, the loss may have been preventable. If a farmer blames himself, the reaction is guilt. Guilt can stem from a violation of family trust. By failing to keep the farm in the family, he loses what others had sacrificed for. The loss of the farm also affects the loss of the opportunity to pass on the farm to a child. Guilt can also arise from failing to anticipate the conditions that eventually placed farm at risk: government policy, trade policies, world economy, price, weather.
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"On the other hand, if the loss is perceived to have been caused by the actions and negligence of others, then the farmer is racked with feelings of anger, bitterness, and betrayal. This feeling extends to lenders, the government, the urban public, or the specific actions of a particular individual or institution."
Failing farmers often experience grief years before the actual loss occurs, says Farmer, and at the same time they're trying to stop the threatened loss from taking place. "The stress intensifies with each new setback: failure of cash flow, inability to meet obligations, loan refusal, foreclosure notices, court appearances, and farm auctions." Farmer concludes that these people "grasp at straws--anything to stave off the inevitable."
The anti-government message is one such straw, says Wallace: "When you reach the point where you're willing to kill yourself, anything sounds good. When these groups come along and tell farmers that it's not their fault, it's the government's fault or the bank's fault, they're more than ready to listen. These groups are preying on sick individuals."
It's no wonder that groups like the Freemen, We the People, and Christian Identity have found such enthusiastic support: They preach a message of hope for desperate men and women.
The Freemen offer their converts a chance to save the farm through a quagmire of constitutional loopholes and their complicated interpretations of the Uniform Commercial Code. Their legal voodoo may seem nuts to a suburban dweller, but to desperate farmers they offer a last hope to hang on to the land their grandparents homesteaded, a trust they intended to pass on to their children.
Farmer and Wallace agree that, as a rule, farmers have an extremely strong--perhaps even unhealthy--ethical sense when it comes to paying their bills. They suffer from deep humiliation and shame when they can't fulfill their financial obligations. "It's only natural that they would embrace an ideology that comes along and says they are not only not bad for failing to pay their debts but rather are morally and politically correct to not pay their debts," says Wallace. "It's a message that provides instant relief from the guilt that's making them sick."
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