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Wyatt Emmerich is wrong to insinuate that the American farmer is lazy, has a poor work ethic, and is responsible for "The Great Recession!" Although Emmerich has owned the Northside Sun in Jackson, Mississippi, for over 20 years and is directly responsible for the editorial page, his portrayal of American cotton farmers in "This recession a wake-up call to all Americans" is deplorable and insulting! This editorial rings more of gossip, rumor and prejudice than the truth. Please, Mr. Emmerich, if you are going to write an editorial about cotton farming and the textile industry as it relates to the recession, take the time to investigate the matter first; don't rely on the happenstance office gossip of associates of employees wondering into your office and pass hearsay along like it is the Gospel.
The old adage that "Cotton is King" remains true for America if what we are talking about is cotton exports. As of 2009 the United States still sits upon the throne as being the leading exporter of raw cotton in the entire world! With sales of $4.9 billion, the United States leads the world in cotton export, followed by Africa, with sales of $2.1 billion. Total international trade in cotton is some $12 billion, meaning that after the United States and Africa weigh in at $7 billion in raw cotton sales, the whole rest of the world has only $5 billion in raw cotton sales.
What this means is that it is NOT countries like China and India that are leading the way in cotton exports. True, the People's Republic of China, aka Communist Red China, leads the world in cotton production at 25.3 million bales followed by India at 20.5 million bales and the USA at 19.2 million bales. But China and India do NOT lead the world in the export of cotton because they have such large populations compared to the United States which they must cloth; despite what some ignorant morons may think about the Chinese and Indians, they do NOT go walking around naked in the streets, nor do their children. More than likely those children in schools in China and India are wearing clothes made in the same Bangladesh factories that your children are wearing. If you want proof, just look at the labels on those school uniforms you had to purchase for your kids: More than likely it says, "Made in Bangladesh!"
Where China and India are beating the United States is in the manufacturing end of the textile industry which has relocated from the United States to these and other third world nations given the low cost of labor. It is NOT the farmers in China and India which are a threat to US cotton farmers; rather, it is the fact that we are our own worst enemy in permitting industry to relocate to developing nations and so deprive our own great county of a healthy and viable textile industry. This is by and large the result of greed, greed and more greed by those who owned the textile factories and decided relocate overseas rather that have to pay decent and higher wages to Americans which were forming unions to guarantee good jobs and wages for Americans. Shame, shame, shame on those corporate giants which betrayed our great nation and so hurt the masses of Americans who depended upon the textile industry to provide for themselves and their families!
It is utterly disgusting and despicable to pick up the Clarke County Tribune and read a yarn by Wyatt Emmerich, where he blames American cotton farmers for the perils in the textile industry. I repeat, the US remains the leading exporter of cotton in the world! Where we do NOT lead China or India is in the manufacturing of textiles for export, NOT because of any laziness of American farmers, but because of greed and corruption of those who owned the textile factories who betrayed our great nation and relocated overseas!
What has gone wrong with the textile industry has nothing to do with the work ethic of the American farmer! Mr. Emmerich has failed once again to research his material and/or is just spinning so much fanciful yarn that it makes one who knows the truth want to cry! Please do your homework Mr. Emmerich! Read a book or article about cotton, cotton farming, and international trade; at the very least Google "cotton" and learn the facts before you try to bamboozle your readers into buying the lie that the American farmer is lazy and has a poor work ethic compared to Chinese farmers. This simply is NOT true and if I were a farmer of cotton, rather than a spinner of yarn, I'd be driving over with my tractor and picketing your newspaper office until you printed a retraction and apologized to the American farmer!
American farmers are the most energetic, innovative, industrious and successful farmers in the world! This is especially true of cotton farmers. The American farmer has nothing to fear from farmers in China or India, what the American farmer has to fear is those rich and greedy owners of textile factories who relocated off shore so they could put more money in their own pockets at the expense of the American farmer and their families!
How can I speak so confidently about the good character of American farmers? I am not speculating. As it happens my uncle, Wilson Carnes, was the editor of Future Farmers of America magazine for over 20 years. I had the opportunity to visit and tour the FFA home office in Alexandria, Virginia, when I was 18 years old. My uncle gave me a tour of the publishing facility and a brief lesson in how FFA served as an organization to inspire and give guidance to a nations future farmers. I continued to read the Future Farmers of America magazines which was mailed to my home for many years; I read the FFA magazine from cover to cover often amazed at the advances being made in farming and the achievement of young FFA members. I can honestly say that there is nothing lazy or lacking in today's American farmers who are the vary ones who were the future farmers of America that I grew up reading about for so many, many years.
It is simply a pack of lies, lies and more lies that the American farmer is lazy and can not compete with China or India because their farmers have a better work ethic! The reason we can not compete is because rich factor owners located off shore in developing countries which virtually destroyed the textile industry in many states, including right here in Clarke Co., Mississippi. This was not something that the Chinese did; it was done by corrupt and greedy rich people who did not want to pay their own fellow Americans what their labor was worth!
One does not have to look far to see how American corporations have abandoned Americans to invest in textile industries over seas. Just look at Dunavant Enterprises, based in Memphis, Tennessee. According to "Out of Africa: Cotton and Cash" by Usain Bolt, published in the New York Times, 14 June, 2007, "Dunavant is the leading cotton broker in Africa with hundreds of purchasing agents. Dunavant operates cotton gins in Uganda, Mozambique, and Zambia. In Zambia it often offers loans for seed and expenses to the 180,000 small farmers who grow cotton for it, as well as advice on farming methods."
Such betrayal of the American farmer demonstrates the fantasy and the farce that Mr. Emmerich would have his readers believe. The problem is not that American farmers lack a good work ethic; the problem is the ethics of big textile industries investing NOT in America, but in off shore industry so that they can reap and harvest greater profits through paying what amounts to slave labor wages.
I am of the personal opinion that this type of exploitation of workers can be traced directly back to slavery in America. It use to be that the cotton was grown in the deep south by slaves. After Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation and Proclamation ending slavery in America, things began to change. Yet here it is 2009, and there are still those rich and wealthy cotton industrialist which do not want to pay human beings a just wage for growing cotton or producing cotton products!
What is wrong with America in NOT the work ethic of the American farmer, it is the lies people tell to hide the truth and secure the wealth of greedy and corrupt corporate exploiters who will go to any length they can to secure their own wealth. What is wrong with America is that in 2009 we still do not have in place laws that stop the exploitation of worker regardless of where in the world they live, their national or ethnic origins. We do not have laws which prohibit the relocation of industries to third world nations to the detriment of America and its work force. We have, rather, a free enterprise system, or so it is called. But if you are a worker in Africa, India, China or some other third world nation, and are paid slave labor wages to grow cotton or make textiles exported to the United States and Europe, there is nothing free and equitable about the enterprise. It is an industry motivated by profit and greed, controlled to a large degree by corrupt corporate executives who want only to fill their coffers to the brim with the blood, sweat and tears of the men, women and children they exploit around the world.
If you are a farmer in America, or you have worked in the textile industry and have lost your job in the past, do NOT believe it when someone tells you that you are lazy, that you do not have a good work ethic, that somehow farmers in India or China are better that you! The American farmer is the best farmer in the world. Unfortunately the American farmer and those working in the textile industry are still often looked down upon and/or treated like slaves by those very people in power and control in the textile industry who exported their jobs overseas just so they could get richer and richer and not have to pay their fellow Americans what they were worth, be they black or white, yellow or red.
It is NOT the American farmer who is to blame for the recession and the terrible situation which exist with respect to the world's economy. It is the greed and corruption of those who have power and control and who do not want to give the rest of humanity a fair share and a just wage. It is NOT, as Mr. Emmerich has implied, the American farmer or the American worker who is to blame for "The Great Recession;" rather, it is greed and corruption as well at the lies and deceit of those who have defrauded, defamed, and exploited the American farmer and the America worker who are to blame for the mess we are in.
I say we should take a hard look at those laws which are upon the books, and reform everything from our patent and trade mark laws to our state Constitutions, that it is illegal to permit foreign ownership English Language word trademarks (this practice gives consumers the impression they are buying products made in America when they are really made in third world nations); that it is illegal to permit majority foreign ownership of American corporations; that it is illegal to relocate factories and industries to third world nations to benefit from slave labor wages or child labor; and that it illegal to operate any factor or industry in America that does NOT permit profit sharing or ownership by employees. Such reformation of our legal system in all fifty states would do much to fix what has gone wrong with the economy as a result of unfair competition enabled and empowered by that cotton King mentality that thinks of workers as slaves, who have no work ethics and are good for nothing but picking cotton! It is horrible that some people still think this way and try to blame what is wrong with America upon those who work the hardest to provide a good life for themselves, their families and their children!
Please, Mr. Emmerick, open a book before you open your mouth! Stop kicking the American farmer or worker when they are down and saying they lack a good work ethic! Stop trying to bully and blame what is wrong with the economy upon the American farmer and worker. It is the American farmer and worker who are going to be the ones who fix the economy, and do so by kicking the ass of everyone who gets in their way, including pompous ass publishers who probably have never picked a bushel or bale of cotton in their lives!
ADDENDUM: I went on line and took a look at the Aug. 27, 2009 edition of the Northside Star. I was quite impressed with the quality of the publication posted as a .PDF Adobe document. I enjoyed reading Mr. Emmerich's most recent editorial "From Vietnam to Ridgeland Alterations." This is the story of an immigrant, June Nguyen, from Vietnam who came to America and made a new life for herself. It relates the trials and tribulations of a woman struggling to survive in America. After a quick read I concluded that Mr. Emmerick is just doing what I am doing, looking for a good yarn to tell. Some are better than others; some are precious and some are garbage. His yarn dumping on the character of American farmers was exactly that, garbage. But his tale about June Nguyen reflected that warmth of the human spirit which comes from struggling to survive and winning against all odds. I hope June Nguyen spins a good web and catches that husband she hopes will one day stumble into her life!
You can read "From Vietnam to Ridgeland Alterations" on page 4 of the Aug. 27, 2009 edition of the Northside Star
The editor of the Northside Sun is Jimmye Sweat who works for Wyatt Emmerich. I am forwarding copy of the above editorial letter to both gentlemen just to see if they will publish it in their newspaper or make a reply.
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