So God Made A Farmer

This Super Bowl ad was enjoyable, although it was ridiculously nostalgic for days which are long gone from the farm:


I didn't realize that Paul Harvey gave this speech at the 1978 FFA Convention. Listening to what he said from the next room over, I thought is was some preacher from the 1940s. I don't think there were almost any non-Amish farmers in 1978 shoeing horses with part of a tire (or just plain shoeing horses.  Those days ended right after WWII). The days of farms with milk cows and pigs and lambs and chickens and horses were pretty well gone by then. And today, it is almost unheard of. Where Paul mentions a farmer working 40 hours by Tuesday, and 72 more after that, we could get almost all of our spring planting done in that amount of time.  And when did school board meetings ever run past midnight?  I would guess that those were the meetings when those dairy farmers he's talking about (along with all the other farmers) were in bitching about their property taxes in spite of the giant CAUV exemptions they got that none of the non-farmers received.

The piece reminds me of how back in my days of nostalgia for the past, I loved to listen to Paul Harvey. However, I ended up losing a lot of respect for him when he denied that one of his major sponsors, Archer Daniels Midland (the supermarket to the world) fixed the price of lysine (and citirc acid) with their "competitors." ADM was ripping off the very farmers Harvey lionized in this piece. When the informant who recorded the actual price fixing meetings was charged with embezzlement, he claimed that this proved that ADM had never engaged in price fixing. This was entirely untrue. Paul would often feature stories of stupid criminals who filled out job applications with their actual names, and then came right back in and robbed the place for a few hundred bucks. However, he didn't think that guys who lined his pockets were guilty of fraudulently taking tens of millions of dollars from middle class Americans, even when there was tape recorded evidence. Eventually, I found his reactionary commentary to be too out of touch and even silly. I remember him railing on about how terrible the Dixie Chicks song "Sin Wagon" was, with its reference to "mattress dancing." I also remember how he unloaded on the same group when the lead singer had the temerity to criticize George W. Bush for his push for war in Iraq. Who was on the right side of history there?'

I the past couple of years, Chrysler has fallen back on the old Republican plan of flattering everyday Americans. I've got to admit, it makes for some enjoyable little speeches. However, playing toward peoples' pride and vanity is really just a tried and true form of manipulation. It may be comforting to hear how great we all are, but it just isn't as true as we'd like to think