I think that would be an excellent idea. What do you think Jesse?<br /> <br /> <br /> If we build it, will you come, Rural?<br />

   

[QUOTE BY= Dr Caleb] I think that would be an excellent idea. What do you think Jesse?<br /> <br /> <br /> If we build it, will you come, Rural?<br /> [/QUOTE]<br /> The tyranny of the majority issues look similar IMHO to the ones experienced by FHQs and First Nations. Remote regions (including North) is another case. Having too many of these forums can be hard to track but at least put a first stake in the ground, certainly if there are no other forum on this yet elsewhere. From my personal experience, I suspect that having own independant forum (&media) is necessary and there are perhaps some already. The Vive frontpage will often disconnect minorities that feel left out. RSS feeds from these various minorities are actually a good way to coexist on the Net without this centralized Ottawa-like control.<br /> Pushing the paradigm...

   

This is an excellent idea.<br /> <br /> We need to focus on the Canada we want, which as Rural has pointed out is far more dependent on the rural than those in 'major' economic situations may realize.<br /> <br />

   

Yes Dr C, I will come. Not often perhaps, but you can be sure I will have my kick at the cat! The question is will others, both rural & urban jump in, if nothing else it would be a place for farmers and other county folk to have a good rant, and who knows some of us, both rural and urban may learn something.<br /> If you find a slot for these issues I will at least have a rant about factory farms to get things started. This may at first glance not seem to have much to do with the Canadian identity which this site promotes, particularly to the majority of Canadians who are “non rural”. Consider this however………These operations produce effluent in volumes approaching that of a small city, this liquid slurry is then spread (often on a very limited area) untreated on the fields where it has a high potential for runoff into streams or percolation into the water table. This is the water supply for us all.<br /> The establishment of, and production in, these (perhaps necessary) food factories is largely controlled (although not necessarily owned) by one or two large corporations thus your food supply is increasing in the hands of fewer and fewer suppliers. There are many other issues in this debate but this is just to illustrate how important some of these “rural issues” are, and how they affect all of us.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

   

Well, we actually do cover rural issues. Case in point, see <a href="http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20041014075937923">Hog Wash</a> by Reverend Blair. I think your idea is good and I think we should have a rural issues section.

   

I'm with you on this issue big time! May I suggest you (Rural) post an article with your views on this subject and we can expand it to a forum for discussion. See what feedback we get...I would be encouraged to hear from the rural community that is not for corporate owned food supply...too many farmers, do not seem to be able to connect the dots as yet. I live in a rural area, and know first hand about the capacity to produce manure and if it is not managed properly the end result. I also can see the Canadian food supply ending up totally controlled by multi-national corporations that care not one bit for the land or the quality of the food. Think GM for one, also the head of the United Farm Union, wrote extensively on this subject, as he has seen other countries where the local farmer owns no land, works for the corporation, and rents back a very small parcel of land to grow personal crops to feed his family, the acres of farm land are gated, sprayed regularly, (with crop dusters), with pesticides etc even while the labourers are in the field. Small family farms are becoming unaffordable, as the corporations buy up land and can afford the expensive machinery to do it faster, better? The BSE situation where we had all our Canadian eggs in one basket, made us so reliant on one market and also has contributed to many farmers going under, and who can afford to buy the land at this point? Not another family farm, but corporations have deep pockets. <br /> <br /> We won't be able to control what we are eating, but don't worry too much, we won't be able to afford to eat much of it!

   

We need to start a union of poor people (upp), then we need to get all the poor people to join upp. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/biggrin.gif' alt='Big Grin'> We could buy as much as possible from union members, start our own economic improvement organization.

   

I just saw a show on what I think was Saskatchewan learning network that talked with a woman that banded together with others and purchased farmland so it would remain farmland, someone farms it for them and in turn supplies them with their own farmed food. I thought that was a great idea. It makes a good investment for people who have some money but don't want to invest in big business so they invest in the future of the farmer and the presevation of farmlands. That would interest me for sure.

   

There seems to be some consensus on this so the question becomes……….<br /> If I come, where do I post it?<br /> I have 2 or 3 subjects in mind to get things started and presume that these would be best posted as separate subjects so that the resulting strings (under Rural Issues?) are easer to follow.<br /> <br /> On an unrelated issue it was not until I went searching for my first post to see if there was any response that I realized that the sections list at the top left of the home page did not take one to the forum but was (I presume) just highlights of past comments in that category. It also took me a while to find the “latest postings” waay down on the right and to use the top tab (which was off the right hand side of the page when I had my "favorites" still up!)to get to the forum. I know this old codger takes a while to learn new stuff, but perhaps a link at the top of the home page to “new postings” and a link at the top of the “section highlights” page to the actual forum would help new readers find their way around.<br /> <br /> Us rural types with slooow dial up do not spend a lot of time exploring as pages take a while to come up. I congratulate the webmaster on keeping the pages simple with no fancy icons or pics, It drives me crazy when I see “item 56 downloading” and the main content of the page is still not up. Most time I just give up, I guess that another rural issue, eh?<br />

   

Well rural, in that case, I've created a new forum called "Rural Issues" under the main "Canadian Soverenty" heading.<br /> <br /> People don't realize just how things that affect the common farmer affect people in the city just the same as the stock market affects the farmer.<br /> <br /> I look foreward to your articles!<br />

   

Very nice Dr. Caleb and very efficient, we already have a post under that heading...this could be interesting. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/biggrin.gif' alt='Big Grin'>

   

Thanks Dr C, My first "rant" is also posted, more to come when I get P'd off about somthing topical!