Now tell me why they hate the dirty fucking hippies again? Goats, chickens, making your own soap... sounds like Jen is getting back to the garden.
Living off the land is only good when its enforced? Or something.
O my Gods/Goddesses...I've heard some crazy scary shit come out of Malkin's piehole in my time but, seriously, WTF? Granted, my family started out as north Alabama dirt-farmers 200+ years ago, but as far as I know the idea was to NOT have to do that for a living forever. My ancestors will sure be pissed when they find out all their hard work only managed to ensure a life of back-breaking, lo-tech, ecologically sound labor...Up yours, industrial revolution!
On the bright side, low productivity means that until the kids grow up and need spouses and children of their own they are pretty well set on their little plot of land. They might want to ask the Amish how well large families, low productivity, and expensive farmland go together long term.
aimai
Until I see Michelle Malkin up to her armpit in horse rectum or at least up to her elbow in cow vagina, I'm calling this what it is: bullshit for the wingnut rubes.
one day i will give thanks when malkin is living on a NYC subway platform with rats nibbling at her skin
Interestingly my christianist women all are of the same mind. This comes up whenever they discuss the g-d given necessity of having lots of children which they propose to do in a g-dly fashion by scrimping, saving, and depending entirely on their husbands. They excoriate those who have lots of children in a frivolous and ung-d centered way or who resort to "government handouts" or "welfare" but deep in their discussion of just how expensive it is to have hospital births it turns out that most of them are on some kind of public dole like medicaid to pay for their six or seven kids births. But somehow it doesn't occur to them that this is no more virtuous, or less virtuous, than some welfare mother on welfare.
its a classic wingnut blindspot.
aimai
Never underestimate the power of anecdotal evidence (manufactured or not) to rise above the stifling constraints of reality. Remember Reagan's "Welfare Queen" (see "...manufactured or not...", above)?
Gee, while this isn't for everyone, it seems like a respectable and valuable way of life to me. Ms. Malkin is an irrelevant idiot, but just because she coopts this woman's story doesn't mean it is worthless.
Romanticize the story all you like, Acorvid. I personally find it a brutish and unsustainable lifestyle choice. But the bottom line of my post is that, contrary to the claims of "self-reliant" Jen (who presumably got out of her house before the market crashed) and Michelle Malkin, this lifestlye choice has got next to nothing to do with the current financial crisis -- except as its potentially apocalyptic result.
It's certainly not a model that Malkin will be following any time soon.
Well, but acorvid, the story isn't "one woman's story of a respectable and valuable way of life." When it got co-opted, and presumably when it was forwarded to Ms. Malkin, it was constructed to serve one and only one purpose--to delegitimize the struggles of other families, no less worthy or virtuous, with health care bills, school dues, children and etc... in this disasterous economy. The woman tells her story, and Malkin retells it, as a way of denying other people rightful access to, variously, insurance payouts, good jobs, health care security, child labor laws, and a host of other things. The proof, we are told without evidence, is in the pudding. What this woman was forced to do we can all do so shut up and start shoveling the sheep shit, kiddos, when daddy loses his hand in an industrial accident, or his company goes bankrupt and the boss flees with a golden parachute. G-d forbid that we, collectively, as a country, choose to take some of our tax money and try to regulate or to prevent disasters from crashing down on other families. Mrs. low tax, child labor user proves that nothing need be done. Those aren't admirable conservative values of thrift, etc... those are the passive values of former serfs who will take any amount of punishment so long as they don't disturb their masters.
aimai
Yes, a country of 300+ million can always go back to subsistence farming. While I admire this woman's personal choice and dedication to it, it's no solution for the whole society. How do you get money to buy the farm, pay taxes on it, fund basic purchases like tools, seed, and animals? What happens in a bad year when crops fail?
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